Donald Trump Accuses President Obama of Wire-Tapping

On February 28, when the US president addressed Congress, in an unusual departure since the inauguration, he did not rant, insult anybody, rabble rouse, whip up fear, or blather on about himself and his vast [self alleged] achievements. Mike Pence and Paul Ryan stood behind him looking like schmaltzy proud parents.

A portion of the media world went nuts with emotional pronouncements of Trump finally behaving like a president, hailing the speech as a game-changing pivot. Even CNN lost the plot for a bit. There was a touch of hysteria to it, reminiscent of a bi-polar high. Perhaps relief. Was the end of the madness in sight? For the record, Jake Tapper distanced himself from the momentary CNN aberration.

He and the more realistic among us saw the behavior for what it was: Trump reading from the teleprompter, sticking word for word to a speech that somebody else had written and that contradicted every action he's taken as president. Words are cheap and those that come out of Donald Trump's mouth wouldn't fetch enough to buy a 2c lollipop. Trevor Noah of The Daily Show also pointed out that in a pre-election rally Trump actually boasted about how easy it was for him to behave "presidentially" (see video above).

He even gave his fans a sneak preview. The act was eerily similar to his address. Bearing that in mind, the subtext to his entire speech was "You're all a bunch of gullible idiots and I'll ride this horse as far as I can."

Despite that the predicted boost to Trump's disastrous popularity ratings didn't happen, Trump floated on a cloud, basking in the glory of what he saw as the American People's love and adulation. Until the next scandal involving his administration erupted with it did on March 2. Again over the Russian connection issue, this time around Trump's good friend and ever-loyal supporter Attorney General Jeff Sessions. After a day of bluster and denials, Sessions was pressured to recuse himself from the investigations into possible links between Russia and the Trump camp.

The next thing the world knew was that Trump had tweet-accused President Barack Obama of wire-tapping his phones at Mar-a-Lago.

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

Predictably, no evidence accompanied the wild accusations. Because Trump got his "information" from those fountains of wisdom and truth Breitbart News and conservative radio host Mark Levin.

According to Breitbart, with zero evidence, Levin accused the Obama administration of "police state" tactics and getting authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign, then continuing to monitor it even when there was no evidence of wrongdoing. Then the administration relaxed the NSA rules so that evidence [which hadn't been found] could be shared widely within the government.  

Trump tweeted a few more times on the subject before losing interest and diverting his twitty attention to another pressing state matter of tremendous importance.

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to great show

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

This is the president of the United States. Six weeks into the presidency, with the same kind of asinine behavior being exhibited every day and on every front, and still it's hard to believe. The president of the United States!

The reason for Donald Trump's invective against Obama is not hard to trace. It has subsequently been leaked that when Sessions recused himself, the president exploded at Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus—who were with him in Florida—for not defending Sessions enough.

In a fit of rage he refused to allow them on the plane when he flew back to Washington. He already had President Obama on the brain. With his own administration in chaos and under increasing scrutiny over Russian connections, Trump recently said Russia was not the problem in the 2016 election, darkly accusing Obama of being the one who meddled by fomenting the anti-Trump protests and being behind the leaks that Sean Spicer is frantically trying to identify, to no avail.

It's all backfired spectacularly on the president. Because while he, Levin and Breitbart News couldn't provide evidence, it can be found to prove that they're all lying through their teeth. First Mike Flynn, then Jeff Sessions, now the president's strong-man and the president himself. Is anybody surprised that at some point Trump would paint himself into a corner? 

Filmmaker Rob Reiner, a powerful opponent of Trump who is very vocal on Twitter, put it perfectly:

If DT is telling truth for first time in his life and, per FBI, he was tapped, it sure feels like the dam is about to burst #TrumpRussia

— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) March 4, 2017

Unfortunately, there appears to be no truth to the accusation at all. Keven Lewis, spokesperson for the only adult in the room, issued a simple denial, saying that "neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any US citizen," and that "a cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice." He didn't, however, comment on whether or not a judicial investigation was under way.

James Clapper, director of national intelligence at the time of the US election, said that he would know if a court order had been granted for wire-tapping Donald Trump. When asked point blank, he stated categorically that none had been. There are two types of wiretaps; criminal and national security (FISA). They can only be ordered by a federal judge on application by the Justice Department. A president cannot order them.

But it's caused a firestorm. Republicans are calling for "investigations" into whether President Obama illegally gave the command to wiretap Donald Trump. On the strength of a conservative Radio Host's speculation without a sniff of evidence! The media is taking it seriously too, though, unearthing the truth. And Democrats are pushing back strongly. Charles Blow, NYT columnist, also very vocal and popular as a columnist and on Twitter for his outspoken condemnation of Trump, suggested that there might be a case for suing him for libel. 

According to the New York Times, senior American officials stated that FBI Director James Comey called on the Justice Department on Sunday to publicly acknowledge that the president's heat-of-the-moment claim is false. So far there has been no response. 

The Capitol Hill and FBI investigations into the Russian connection continue apace and Democrats are increasingly calling for an independent investigation as circumstantial evidence at least piles up. This latest outburst of the president's seems to go directly back to his rage that Jeff Sessions, Trump's most loyal supporter, had to recuse himself.  Without a friend in the Justice Department, the president is perhaps feeling quite exposed now.

Even Paul Ryan, who was interviewed by Fox News on Friday, said he didn't think the Obama Administration had been surveilling members of the Trump campaign. Mike Pence has been silent, as have Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway. They've all gone to ground, as has the president. Not Saturday Night Live, though.

French Petition Calls for Obama to Run for President

"Oui on peut!" Yes we can! Recently four Parisian guys in their thirties, working in creative industries, met after work for a drink and talked about the state of affairs in French politics and the upcoming elections. One of them spoke on condition of anonymity to NPR.

"We were thinking about French politics and saying that we were fed up with the fact that we all the time had to vote against someone," he said, "and how it would be cool to be able to vote for someone we admire. We came up with Obama. I think the whole world would love to have him as president." Ain't that the truth. America is still in mourning, or it would be if there were time, amid the chaos and din created by the Trump administration. Many Democrats don't even think of Donald Trump as a president of any kind, legitimate or not.

The four French friends, who don't want to see a repeat of Brexit or the US election, or the alt-right hijacking the government, did what they do best; they got creative and started a petition calling on Obama to put himself forward as a candidate in the French elections in May. They aim to have garnered a million signatures by March 15.

"The French are ready to make radical choices. That is good because we have a radical idea to propose to them.

After a phantom quinquennium and faced with the announced failure of the next presidential election, we think it is time to move to the 6th Republic to get France out of its lethargy.

To launch this 6th Republic, we wish to strike a blow by electing a foreign President at the head of our beautiful country. Barack Obama has completed his second term as President of the United States on January 21, why not hire him as President for France?"

The petition is tongue-in-cheek. "It's definitely a joke," said the guy who spoke to NPR, insisting that he and his friends aren't politicians and the petition isn't meant to be a real political call to Obama. They just wanted to wake people up, make them think "a little bit about what we could do differently in French politics..."

After all, as probably the majority of people around the world would agree, Obama is the most qualified man on the planet for the job. And now as France stands on the brink of voting the extreme right into power, the four intrepid creatives wanted to remind us all about what democracy really is; that dire circumstances call for thinking out of the box. And the truth is that it would be legal in France to elect a foreigner.  

Obama could only run, however, if he became a French citizen, and that's not likely to happen since, God knows, his own country needs him so desperately.

But the petition's message is serious. And it's just one more real time illustration of how much we in the west do appreciate and recognize integrity, and long for it in government. And we do not want our world to go to the dogs.

Trump WH Dislikes Freedom of Info, Blocks NYT, CNN, BBC, Politico, Buzzfeed from Gaggle

Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press chose not to attend in protest of the White House’s actions https://t.co/0kixlsnzVu

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 25, 2017

"We have great respect for the press when it comes to government. That is something you can't ban an entity from – Conservative, Liberal or otherwise. I think that's what makes a Democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship." Sean Spicer December 16 2016

On Feb 24 2017 the White House held a press gaggle  instead of its daily press briefing and barred NYT, Politico, CNN, LA Times, Buzzfeed, BBC, the Guardian and Daily Mail from attending. Allowed to attend were Breitbart News, Hearst, McClatchy, Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, One American News Network, AP, Time, and TV networks CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC. 

AP and Time heard in advance and boycotted the gaggle. Alarmingly, when some journalists gathered outside in frustration, they were removed by Secret Service, on the order of the White House.

It's not unusual to hold in camera press gaggles, but it is unusual to cherry-pick who can attend. Gaggles with the press secretary usually limit the pool of reporters when they conflict with the president's travel arrangements, in which case they often happen on Air Force One.  

This gaggle, however, simply replaced the daily press briefing. The motive was ludicrously transparent. They wanted to avoid uncomfortable questions about the FBI's refusal to accommodate the White House demand that coverage of possible relationships between Trump staff and Russia be censored. They also wanted to minimize damage done by Donald Trump's manic, rambling, non-sequitur-packed, contradictory, nonsensical  tirade against the media at CPAC, where he revved up the crowd of adoring fans into virtual hysteria.

Much like Mitch McConnell's attempt to muzzle Elizabeth Warren in Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing, and as all the Trump Administration moves have done so far, this one backfired on the White House. Interest in the Russian connection has ballooned and liberal outlets have gotten good publicity already over this gaggle. Public outrage has flared up again, and legitimate media are expressing their disdain. 

Wall Street Journal issued a statement saying that it had attended not knowing about the exclusions and "had we known at the time, we would have participated, and we will not participate in such closed briefings in the future." Executive editor of  McClatchy Washington said the same.

Marty Baron, Executive Editor of The Post  called it appalling and added "This is an undemocratic path that the administration is travelling… We are currently evaluating what our response will be if this sort of thing happens again."

The Committee to Protect Journalists and the National Press Club condemned the move and  White House Correspondents Association president Jeff Mason said, "We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff."  New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker wrote to the WH press corps email list, "Congratulations to Time and AP for not attending today's gaggle in protest."

Ben Wizner, Director of the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union said that this is "Another disturbing example of the Trump administration’s contempt for the vital role a free press plays in our democracy."

Is there a sector of western democracy that the Trump Administration has not assaulted in some way in the  past month? Each one is worse than the last as Bannon gains power and Trump believes more and more that he can get away with anything.

It's clear that they and their close team are trying to replicate Vladimir Putin's assault on freedom of the press. But they're missing a couple of important factors, the first one of which explains why they're missing them. Putin is a nasty and dangerous man but he's really intelligent, insightful and strategic, which none of the Trump camp are. Secondly, Putin does love to boast, but not about his underhanded moves. Trump and Bannon can't stop themselves. Thirdly, Putin never exposes himself in writing—i.e. in tweets.

Again, Trump can't stop himself. Fourthly, most Americans aren't as brain-washable as Russians seem to be. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, in The Gulag Archipelago, “In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” 

That appears to be happening again in Russia, as Putin's popularity increases for no reason that has any sense or moral good to it, but it will never happen in America.

Bannon, Trump, Priebus, Conway, Spicer can all rant and rave about the corrupt press as much as they want. But they're only reaching a negligible number of Americans in comparison to the huge number they are inspiring to take a stand. Most of America, and the whole world, can see the truth. An enormous amount of pro-democracy activity is happening at every level, people of all ages, including the youth, getting involved in politics beyond just voting, going to town hall meetings, voicing their protest, joining and/or volunteering for pro-democracy organizations. Democratic politicians are stepping up in response to demands from their electorate that they fight.

Hillary Clinton has resurfaced, as have the Obamas. And of course the FBI is continuing with its investigation into the Russian Connection.

The stupidity, the lies, the constant denials are intensely frustrating. Trump's attempt to disenfranchise the press as part of a larger strategy to disenfranchise every non-white and every poor and middle-class white in America is terrifying. But it's feeble in the face of the sleeping giant that his dictator-type tactics have awoken. To quote Representative John Lewis:

We must work together to make a way out of no way. #goodtrouble pic.twitter.com/LPk18qCoIS

— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) January 30, 2017

Carrying the Torch for Integrity Against the Intolerance of Donald Trump

Has it only been two weeks since sanity, coherence, joy, optimism, good leadership and dignity vanished from the White House? It feels like years.

The four months since the New York Times took an unequivocal stand for Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump feel like decades. Remember the Democratic National Convention, when Hillary Clinton broke a glass ceiling, when the world felt like a safe place because hope and optimism for the future of America as a tolerant nation where everybody was equal, were at an all-time high? It was only six months ago, but it feels like a lifetime. 

And who could forget former First Lady Michelle Obama's impassioned denouncement of sexual abuse and plea to New Hampshire voters? We'll never forget, but it feels like another era.

It's impossible to read about, let alone to process everything that Trump and his Administration are doing to create carnage nationally and internationally, elevate intolerance, exploit fear and distort truth. Shock and horror prevail and ripple out from the epicenter into the world every day. 

But if anybody thought that the majority of Americans were as easily brainwashed as the average Russian has been by Vladimir Putin, or that the free world would let itself be led into a dark age of intolerance, they'll have to think again. If anybody was ever afraid that the majority of Americans would let Donald Trump's bigotry, racism, flagrant ignorance, sexism become the new normal, or that the Trump brand would make a fortune out of the presidency before Trump bankrupted the country and walked away scott-free, they can set that fear aside. 

In two mind-numbing weeks Trump has united people across America and round the world. Adults, women and men, kids, schools, universities, communities, organizations, politicians, judges, former presidents, the media are speaking out, shouting out, protesting peacefully, organizing, taking action. Not on our watch.

We will not let hate win. And, another reason to carry hand sanitizer. pic.twitter.com/bgrAJf7SCv

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) February 5, 2017