Category Archives: Privacy

Obstructionism

Posted on by
Reply

…for the sake of obstructionism.  And now the Progressive-Democrats in the Senate are getting blatant about it.  They don’t want to help reform the health care coverage disaster of the last eight years, so to block Republican and Conservative efforts at reform, these Progressive-Democrats have decided to block everything in the Senate.  Here’s Senator Chris Murphy (D, CT) o the overall attitude:

What more could we do—hold Republican Senators by the arms to stop them from getting to the chamber?  I think we’ll use every tool at our disposal.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) even arranged to force cancelation of all committee meetings last Monday, regardless of the subject or purpose of those meetings.  No business was allowed to be conducted—all to block health care coverage reform.

Meanwhile, these Progressive-Democrats are ignoring the millions of Americans who are about to lose all coverage as coverage provider after coverage provider leave the Obamacare markets and withdraw from the ObamaMarts in the States.  Iowa, for instance, is about to lose all providers of individual plans—every single one of them—and no Iowa citizen will have access to market coverage.

This blanket obstructionism while the health coverage industry burns stinks, it’s damaging to Americans who need or want health care insurance, and it’s destructive of our democracy.

Incidental Unmasking

Posted on by
Reply

Now we know that then-National Security Advisor to then-President Barack Obama (D) Susan Rice asked several times for American names to be unmasked that had been masked since their presence in communications of foreign nationals that were being legitimately monitored was entirely incidental to the communications and the reasons for which those communications were being monitored.

Rice’s requests were strictly legal; the NSA incumbent is one of the Executive Branch officials with the legal authority to ask for, and to receive, the names to be unmasked without having first to go through a court, even the secretive Star Chamber FISA court.

There are a couple of questions, though, that aren’t being answered.  One is why she asked for these unmaskings.  NSA could have entirely legitimate reasons for that, but the names for which she asked seem centered on then-President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign and transition team members.

The other question concerns how long such unmasking, whether by Rice or by others of Obama’s administration, had been going on.

Distractions

Posted on by
Reply

Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA), Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, wants them.  He’s so anxious to have them that he’s insisting that Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R, CA) to stop being Chairman.

Mr Nunes should step aside from any congressional investigation pertaining to Russia or to the “incidental” collection of intelligence information, like what Mr Nunes said occurred to Mr Trump’s transition team.

Mr Schiff said in a statement it was “not a recommendation I make lightly…. I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president’s campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman.”

Never mind that his latest call was triggered by Nunes’ meeting with an official in a secure facility to review classified information regarding just that “incidental” collection against the Trump transition team by the Obama administration.

Never mind that Nunes has said through his spokesman, Jack Langer, that he

met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source.

And that Langer also said,

The chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of US citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped.

Why does Schiff keep trying to shift the subject away from that unmasking—and who authorized it, who did it, who leaked it—which unmasking is a felony, to focus solely on the method used to look at some information?

Why does Schiff want so badly to bury those questions and their answers?

Inadvertent Tapping and Leaks

Posted on by
Reply

As House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R, CA) revealed the other day enroute to the White House, intelligence community personnel, in the course of surveilling the communications and other activities of foreign nationals (vis., Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak), also surveilled incidentally members of then-President-Elect Donald Trump’s campaign and transition teams, and perhaps Trump himself.  Wire tapping, indeed, if loosely and metaphorically.

Of larger import, though, is this, also from Nunes.

…the intelligence “ended up in reporting channels and was widely disseminated.”

It was previously reported that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was “unmasked” in this way; however, Nunes said “additional names” were unmasked as well.

Why was this classified material leaked to the press, and who leaked it?

Of nearly as large importance, too, is this: why is the NLMSM focusing on the admittedly unusual procedure of briefing the press, the President, and then the Intelligence Committee, in that order, instead of focusing on this cynical leak of classified information?

The Party of No Refugees

Posted on by
Reply

…doesn’t turn out to be Republicans, or even President Donald Trump.

Recall the Vietnam War, and our collapse in it, including the abandonment of South Vietnam by the Democrats then controlling the Congress when North Vietnam began its final invasion and that Democratic Congress refused to allow the US to try to rescue the South.

Recall the vasty numbers of refugees trying to escape the North’s takeover and to come to the US.

The Democrats said, “No!”

…a chorus of big name Democrats…refused to accept any Vietnamese refugees when millions were trying to escape South Vietnam as it fell to the communists.

They even opposed orphans.

These Democrats included

California’s then and now Governor Jerry Brown
Delaware’s Democratic Senator and lately Vice President Joe Biden
former presidential “peace candidate” George McGovern
New York Democratic Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman

Brown even went so far as to try to prevent refugee-laden aircraft from landing at the Federal government’s Air Force Base, Travis.  The Democrats’ excuse, epitomized by Brown?

We can’t be looking 5,000 miles away and at the same time neglecting people who live here.

And

They said they had too many Hispanics, too many people on welfare, they didn’t want these people.

And this:

McGovern said he thought 90% of the Vietnamese arrivals “would be better off going back to their own land,” according to the Library of Congress.

Three of those are still around, and two of them remain active in Progressive-Democratic Party politics.

Refugees, to this Party, to the individual men and women of this Party, are not human beings in desperate straits.  Not at all.  Refugees are merely tools for scoring political points for personal political gain.

Oh, and let’s not forget that Progressive-Democratic Party heroic icon, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who locked up hundreds of thousands of Americans who were already here just because they happened to have Japanese, Italian, or German heritage.