Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton’s Incredible Offer

        On Monday, September 10^th, National Security Advisor John Bolton made a speech where he said the US would do everything "to protect our citizens" and threatened sanctions against the International Criminal Court if it goes ahead with prosecutions against Americans. Founded in 2002, the International Criminal Court investigates and brings to justice people responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, intervening when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute. The US is among several nations that have not joined the court.

          In the speech given in Washington, Bolton said: "If the court comes after us, we will not sit quietly." And that the ICC “is dead to us.” ICC judges and prosecutors would be barred from entering the US and their funds in the US would be sanctioned. No one is going to mess with any US citizen.

          Couldn’t be clearer how he feels.

          So how does Trump’s self-abasing praise for Putin’s offer at the Helsinki summit last July square with Bolton’s claim that the US would do everything "to protect our citizens?"

           At the summit, Putin proposed what President Trump described as an “incredible offer,” Russia would be allowed to question certain U.S. officials it suspects of interfering in Russian affairs, like former Ambassador Michael McFaul and Bill Browder (who was mostly responsible for the Maginsky Act), whom Trump considered turning over to Putin’s FSB. Trump even seemed excited about the prospect, calling it an "interesting idea."  

"The President's going to meet with his team and we'll let you know when we have an announcement on that," White House Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

        In speeches, interviews and op-eds, John Bolton has called Vladimir Putin a liar who aligns himself with America’s enemies, and whose country is a long-term strategic threat to the United States. So what was Bolton’s reaction to Trump finding Putin's offer "incredible" last July?

(Crickets)

        It was left to Sarah Sanders to respond. “It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it," Sanders said in a statement. It took Trump four days until he finally "disagreed with it." How do we even know Trump disagrees with this proposal, especially since it was made to him in sincerity and he originally said it was an incredible offer? Trump should tell us what was incredible about it. Of course, Trump didn’t bother to verbally disavow it himself, nor would Sanders. Trump didn’t say, do, or tweet jacksh*t. Sanders just issued a statement. When that didn’t put out the raging firestorm it caused, the State Department sent out spokeswoman-apologist Heather Nauert to try to undo the damage by telling a reporter that Russia’s request is “absolutely absurd.” That shows how tough Bolton and the Trump administration can be.
BOLTON...
SAID...
NOTHING

        Bolton will defend U.S. citizens even against the world…as long as Trump isn’t trying to sell them out.

        This is why Bob Woodward’s observations about Trump are so critical. Trump is a very real threat to the safety and well-being of every American.

A Farewell to the American Experiment - How it was lost

After listening to the testimony, or more accurately, the lack thereof, from Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Assistant AG Rod Rosenstein, NSA Director Mike Rogers and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats on Wednesday, June 7^th, there is an unwitting, unprecedented, and unnerving thread implied from their non-answers. And that is; they don’t have to account for anything. They don’t have to explain anything. Even though there is no “executive privilege” that prevents them from answering the oversight committee’s questions, they tacitly told the American people “Go screw yourselves. We don’t work for you. We work for the guy in the White House, and anything to do with Russia is none of your damned business." So they give the impression they owe no allegiance to anyone…except for Trump. They must protect Trump at all costs. Why?

From now on, it's Trump first.

At this point, with a lack of any concrete information or even any useful tidbits, one must extrapolate the reason for those refusals from what we do know. Here is the rundown on Trump and his associates’ inexplicable actions, false statements involving the Russians, and Russian efforts to subvert our election:

·        Mike Flynn is fired after lying about his discussions with Sergey Kislyak about sanctions against Russia. He also was paid $43,000 by Russia Today TV in spring 2016 for a speaking engagement in Moscow and is seated right next to Putin, even leading the standing ovation for Putin. He conveniently forgot to mention that when vetted. Trump still defends him.

·        Jeff Sessions lied to Congress during his Senate confirmation hearings to become Attorney General about his two, and now possibly three, unreported meetings with Kislyak before the election. He just forgot about those meetings.

·        Jared Kushner fails to mention a dozen secret meetings with Kislyak on his high-security clearance SF86 form, as well as with sanctioned Russian bank president and KGB college graduate Sergey Gorkov in November and December 2016. Kushner's lawyers claim he just forgot. He even went to extraordinary lengths in December to establish a secret line of communication between the Trump administration and Russia, using secure facilities at the Russian Embassy.

·        Roger Stone, who admits contacting Guccifer 2.0, identified by US and European intelligence agencies as the go-between to the Russian military’s GRU and WikiLeaks, and aided in the release of the DNC hacked emails. He says there's nothing wrong with that.

·        Carter Page, identified by Trump as a key member of his foreign policy team who was discovered in transcripts between Russian intelligence agents as an unwitting dupe for them, admits on MSNBC that he met with Kislyak during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Trump claims he barely knows Page.

·        Paul Manafort, who made millions helping pro-Russian Ukrainian officials for almost 10 years, and who was instrumental in having the only item changed in the Republican platform at the Convention - denying aid to Ukrainian forces fighting the Russians - is made Trump's campaign chairman and appears with him on stage at many rallies. Trump later claims he hardly knows him.

·        Rex Tillerson, former head of Exxon/Mobil who personally received the Russian's highest civilian award, the Order of Friendship medal from Vladimir Putin, and who was working on a $500 billion oil deal in the Arctic above Siberia until the Obama sanctions against Russia for taking Crimea away from Ukraine stops it, is made Secretary of State by Trump. Until December 6, 2016, Trump had never met or talked with Tillerson at all. Why did he choose Tillerson?

·        The Congressional investigation into Russian meddling in the election has expanded to include Michael Cohen, personal attorney and close confidant to Trump. Cohen told ABC News that House and Senate investigators have requested “information and testimony” about any contacts he had with Russians officials.

·        When Trump held his very first foreign policy speech April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington DC, unbidden, he went up to Sergey Kislyak and greeted him warmly, indicating he had met him previously. He greeted no other ambassador in that manner. Also in attendance, Jeff Sessions.

In just the last month alone, there are these additional Russia-related items:

May 9, 2017, Trump fires FBI Director James Comey. Trump goes on TV later that week and tells Lester Holt of NBC News that he fired him because of “this Russia thing.” It is then revealed he brags to Ambassador Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who meet with him in the Oval Office that Comey is “a real nut job” and “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
             May 18, 2017, it is revealed by former CIA Director John Brennan that Trump’s advisers, including Michael Flynn, contacted Russian officials at least 18 times in phone calls and emails between April and November 2016.

May 22, 2017, it is reported that Trump called Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Director Michael Rogers to request that they deny in public any evidence of collusion between his campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election.

May 31, 2017, President Vladimir Putin acknowledges that some “patriotic” Russian individuals may have engaged in hacking but insisted Russia as a country has never done it.

June 1, 2017, the Wall Street Journal reports that from the earliest days of the Trump administration, they attempted to have the State Dept. lift sanctions against Russia. These are the very sanctions put in place from Russian tampering with our election. The White House does not deny it.

June 5, 2017, an NSA report, dated May 5, is leaked to Intercept, an online news site, by Reality Winner, an NSA contractor in Georgia, who is then arrested by the FBI. The report provides details of a 2016 Russian military intelligence cyberattack on a US voting software supplier. A US official confirmed to CNN that The Intercept's document is a genuine, classified NSA document. The FBI does not arrest people for releasing fake documents, only real ones.

June 9, 2017, the Trump administration says they are considering easing some punishments the Obama administration levied against Russia for election interference abuses, even returning two compounds that were closed in December because they were being used by Russian intelligence. The Trump administration asks for nothing in return.

You notice these instances never involve the Brazilians, the North Koreans, or the ambassador from Sri Lanka. It is always the Russians. Always. But hey, maybe they are ALL just coincidences.

It appears the Russians hold some kind of sway or power over Trump, something so damaging, that our highest intelligence and law enforcement officials; Rogers, Coats, Rosenstein, and McCabe, are willing to cover up for and protect Trump. They refused to answer any questions in any way, even so far as refusing to just answer yes or no to simple procedural questions about the investigation or what Trump asked of them. These are our TOP INTELLIGENCE PEOPLE. The people who were overseeing our security and matters related to intelligence gathering for the US. Yet on their watch, our election was hacked…even Trump admitted it at his first post-election press conference on December 11th.

Two of our most incompetent "intelligence" officers - McCabe (L) and Rogers (R)

McCabe and Rogers failed at their one and only job at the time. They failed to prevent Russian hacking of US computers - and that most likely aided Trump. Trump publicly asked the Russians to do it so why does he still insist the whole Russian hacking story is fake news? It is more and more likely that the Christopher Steele dossier is valid and fully factual. What must the Russians have on Trump that our intelligence and justice officials are willing to risk their integrity, their public perception and their loyalty to this country? How harmful must this information be? It appears if this information was revealed, it would be so damaging that our Constitutional Republic would be brought to an end. Is it the alleged hookers and pee tape? Is it the billions of dollars Trump owes to Russian-controlled banks? So much money that it could cause massive damage to the US economy now that Trump is president? Are there illegal deals the Russians can prove that Trump is involved in, like money laundering through the Bank of Cyprus, where our new Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Jr. was Vice President?  

The subterfuge and “shiny metal object” distractions Trump’s surrogates throw up is reminiscent to what was palmed off on Americans immediately after the assassination of JFK. What had happened in Dallas was initially considered so potentially detrimental that a lie had to be created to prevent the US from launching a war against the Soviet Union - a war that would leave at least 100 million people (40 million of which would have been American) dead from a nuclear exchange. This is what Lyndon Johnson used as leverage against Earl Warren to force him to form the committee to gather information on the assassination but find Oswald guilty at all costs. Americans must be deflected from thinking the Soviets were in any way involved. So it seemed strange that the Dallas Police immediately began saying Oswald was a communist. (He wasn’t, he was a Marxist.) And the FBI revealed they knew of his ties to Russia as he had just returned from defecting to the Soviet Union. But the Warren Commission whitewashed everything down to claiming that while Oswald was a communist sympathizer, he was a lone nut who just wanted his place in the sun, so he killed Kennedy but wouldn’t admit to it. Two days later Jack Ruby just happened to be in the right place at the right time to silence him. See, it’s all just coincidence.

One further point that needs to be made. Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz was the lead attorney for the Russian state-owned bank sanctioned by the US - and that same bank’s CEO is the one who met with Jared Kushner during and after the campaign that Jared failed to disclose on his security clearance application. Defending Russia's illegal activities and Trump and his family's treasonous actions seem to be Kasowitz’ only business.

Throughout all this, Trump has downplayed Russian tampering while exhibiting diminished mental acuity, moral ineptitude, complete fabrications, vicious acrimony, and a disdain for common decency. Yet his supporters and intelligence officers like McCabe and Rogers don’t give a damn about it. Russia can meddle anytime they like. Our highest ranking intelligence people condone the interference and give Trump a pass on it. This is now just the way the presidency works. It's the end of our Constitutional Republic.

If this goes on unchecked, then we are no longer a free people. We are now pawns of a hostile foreign power, and Trump, Mike Flynn, Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, J.D. Gordon, Mike Rogers, Dan Coats, Rod Rosenstein and Daniel McCabe are all traitors to this nation.
        It’s hard not to come to that conclusion.

WikiLeaks, Trump, and the Deep State

I’ll state at the very beginning of this post that I am neither a fan of Julian Assange nor a cheerleader for WikiLeaks. I understand what they’re doing, I know why they are motived to do it, but I am concerned about the cavalier approach they take in publishing what they hack and the timing of its release, their attitude that there is no “right or wrong” in what they do, not to mention that many times it appears WikiLeaks is a tool of Russian intelligence. It is meant to harm others in ways they never faced harm before. There are no checks and balances. Once the hacked information is exposed, there is no going back. We are all at the mercy of WikiLeaks which has the ability to smear anyone with selective leaking (as they did to Hillary Clinton last year) or call into question the very legitimacy of any organization they target.

But with that said, I can’t help but growl “How do YOU like it?” at the CIA and the American spying apparatus that has turned its attention and its microscope on the very people it is supposed to serve and protect.

With WikiLeaks publishing of thousands of documents this week that it says came from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and according to CIA insiders who’ve seen the released information it does appear to be legitimate, it represents yet another catastrophic breach for U.S. intelligence. So much for the agency's cyber professionalism. They've not only had their zipper pulled down, they've been de-pantsed. 

Now they know how the rest of us feel.

If someone hacks the CIA’s computer, it’s bad. If the CIA hacks someone else’s computer, that’s good because it’s the trade-off you have to have to feel secure in 21^st Century America. The CIA, NSA, FBI and other intelligence agencies are part of the Deep State - a shadowy conglomerate of industrialists, high-ranking military men, spies, legislators, and wealthy investors - and has been a threat to this nation and every president since Eisenhower. But they’ve successfully deflected any serious attention as to who and what they are by pushing the idea to compliant writers and reporters that such an organization is just a (wink-wink, nod-nod) conspiracy theory. Eisenhower didn’t have enough fear to cower in their presence but noted their existence in his farewell speech as he left office in 1961. John Kennedy wouldn’t cower either….we know how that ended. Richard Nixon made the mistake of thinking he could use them to his advantage and when he couldn’t; he tried to do an end run around them during his second term…and paid for it by being forced to resign from office for his stupidity. At least he can be thankful he wasn’t assassinated. Every other president since then has understood the ‘game’ and fallen into lock step with them. There would be no challenges to the Deep State operatives.

And then along came Trump who the Deep State didn’t take seriously. Thanks to Russian interference Trump became president. The Deep State knew of his staff’s involvement with the Russians, figuring Trump and his cast of characters would then be easy to manipulate but found out it is like trying to control a swarm of locust. And that’s exactly what the Trump administration is, a swarm of locust. They will pick the U.S. economy clean and afterward if they have enough momentum, a good portion of the rest of the world - if it’s okay with Putin. The Deep State was caught off guard by how inept the Trump people really are, which is why there is now a scramble going on behind the scenes as they try to understand the bizarre antics of the Trump team. The Deep State’s intelligence agencies are finding they have to play a weird game of ‘Whack-A-Mole’ every day with some new idiocy unleashed by Trump.

So when you read or hear about Trump and his minions complain that they are fighting the Deep State, they are correct. It appears at this point, the Deep State isn’t overly concerned because all they’ve seen is a thoroughly incompetent administration with massive ties to Russia and a bungling apparatus that can’t even keep their lies straight. The Deep State may forgive a lot that a new administration does, but they are not going to jeopardize current economics in the nation - which is based on crony capitalism, not free-market capitalism - for the kleptocratic totalitarian style of economics practiced in Russia. When the Trump administration begins to allow Russia the world dominance they seek, then the Deep State will retaliate forcefully.

Unfortunately, Americans will lose no matter which side wins. I do not trust any of our intelligence agencies. They lost that trust long ago due to their illegal activities. There may be good, decent, honest, and honorable Americans working for them, but they are vastly outnumbered by those who see the rest of us as annoying ‘soft targets’ and unwashed rabble. What WikiLeaks hacking of the CIA has exposed clearly shows how little regard they have for U.S. citizens or for the Constitution. So I now have no regard for them, But the alternative is the Trump clique wins. We can already see what kind of seismic damage they are doing to the country under the misleading cry of “Make America Great Again.” If the Trump bunch defeats the Deep State cesspool, America will not become "great again"...things are only going to get worse for us. Yes, the upper 1% will benefit no matter which side wins. The rest of us? Neither the Deep State nor Trump gives a damn.

The intelligence agencies operating in coordination with the Deep State military-industrial-legislative complex are now engaged in a mild but escalating death match with the Trump team. I want to see Trump and his ilk not just forced out of office, but completely pummeled, with torn out patches of hair, broken bones, black eyes, deep gouges in their skin, blood running from their ears, nose and mouth, teeth missing, and tossed in an unkempt pile at the base of the Washington Monument never to rise or threaten the U.S. again.

But that will leave the Deep State in complete charge and they do not care about America's interests. They are only interested in helping themselves and enriching their bank accounts at our expense…much like the Trump administration…only they’re slightly more competent, far more sinister, and have over 50 years experience of unelected "governing" as the shadow U.S. government.

There is no upside regarding who wins the fight. I have no doubt it will be the Deep State simply because the amateurs of the Trump administration have no idea what they are up against, or how to fight it. They are approaching it like a petulant eight-year-old. They will be spanked like one, too.

                Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have convinced themselves they are a force for good. Hacking the computers of the CIA amounted to a game to see if they could do it, and they succeeded. The consequences of that action are something I don’t think they considered very long or very deeply. We are all going to pay for it. And we will not like that bill.

One Nation, Under Surveillance

A CNN headline in late November 2015 announced that the National Security Agency, or NSA, would cease collecting telephone data and storing that information for the foreseeable future. While some may hail this as proof that it’s the citizens of the United States who have the power - not government agencies - I would caution everyone not to jump to the conclusion that the program has been terminated. What it really means is that the NSA will stopped TELLING us that it is collecting the data. If you are naïve enough to believe that they will willingly discontinue something they have been doing illegally for years (and getting away with it), then you don’t know how our secret agencies work.

In June, President Obama signed a reform measure that took away the NSA's authority to collect phone record bulk data of Americans. So in June the measure was signed, and now at the end of November, the NSA claims they are finally going to comply, although they requested continued limited access to the data until February 29, 2016. But that’s just a formality meant to assure us they would obey…grudgingly. Since when has the presidency been any threat to our intelligence agencies, especially after JFK was murdered? The report went on to state that “the government will move to a more "focused and targeted" approach in gathering intelligence”, which is how the Office of the Director of National Intelligence white-washed it. The change in intelligence gathering comes after over two years of agency lying, misrepresenting, stone-walling, and making threats after details about the program were leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The NSA knows no one will actually challenge them on it. Americans are good at making a lot of noise but not stopping illegal activity within our own borders.

Former CIA director Richard Helms     Former CIA Counterintelligence Chief Angleton

Domestic spying should come as no surprise to anyone; it is nothing new in our country. A program called Operation CHAOS was set up by CIA director Richard Helms and run by James Angleton of the CIA’s counterintelligence staff starting in the mid 1960s to keep tabs on Americans, not our enemies or hostile foreign governments, but U.S. citizens. These were people that Helms and Angleton deemed a great danger. Nothing has changed. It’s only gotten bigger, sneakier, more compartmentalized, and more adept at spying on us. No one sums it better than Richard Helms who wrote this in his memoir, “In the secret operations canon, it is axiomatic that the probability of leaks escalates exponentially each time a classified document is exposed to another person – be it an agency employee, a member of Congress, a senior official, a typist, or a file clerk. Effective compartmentalization is fundamental to all secret activity. The potential for leaks, deliberate or accidental, is vast.” Or to put it more simply, we can keep it under wraps if fewer people are privy to the program. They’ll still do it but the data collecting will henceforth just be “unreported.” What we don’t know won’t hurt us…is how the NSA sees it. Don’t expect to ever enjoy the freedoms of the Fourth Amendment again. 

The NSA considers itself and what it does as above the law…any law. Self-preservation of the agency and the operation it is involved with, is its only prime directive. Adherence to the Constitution and obedience to the American people through its elected officials is a gnat flying around the NSA’s head. They pay just enough attention to shoo it away now and then. This ending of the bulk data collection is the most recent “shoo”. March all you want, protest all you want, demand accountability all you want. The NSA only hears when and what it wants to hear.

We know what's going on; we just can't seemingly stop it.

Some within the government have tried to maintain NSA stood for No Such Agency and that if, even if it existed, it was no threat to U.S. citizens, while the rest of us understand it means Now Spying on Americans.

Something the NSA routinely scoffs at is that the purpose of the United States Constitution is to limit the power of the federal government and its agencies, not the American people. Rest in peace Fourth Amendment.