The New Face of the Democratic Party

The New Face of the Democratic Party

This guy will prove a big hit outside the New York area, especially with people who are enchanted by slime.

Why so Serious?

Schumer spent many years on the Judiciary Committee.  You would think he could pass a 6^th grade civics test.  He may have trouible with it.  Apparently he believes the Judiciary “makes laws.”  Roberts had refused to answer some of Schumer's questions in committee, which the senator said forced him to vote against Roberts. "Now that he is nominated for a position where he can overturn precedent and make law, it is even more important that he fully answers a very broad range of questions."   He would also get the question about the three branches of government wrong.  "So I would urge my Republican colleagues, no matter how strong they feel — you know, we have three branches of government: we have a House, the Senate, we have a President, and all three of us are going to have to come together and give some. But it is playing with fire to risk the shutting down of the government, just as it is playing with fire to risk not paying the debt ceiling."

Wiretapping Donald Trump

On March 4 President Trump tweeted that former President Obama had tapped his phone during the election:  “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process.  This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”   The New York Times’ skeptical headline reads, “Trump, Offering No Evidence, Says Obama Tapped His Phones.”  A spokesman for the former president stated, “Neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."  Could this be another example of Trump “fake news?”

Former President Obama did not need to micromanage his minions.  It is unlikely that he had to give a direct order to wiretap Donald Trump’ phone.  So it is probably true that he did not order the surveillance.  However, was Trump wiretapped under the Obama administration?  The answer appears to be yes.  Even the New York Times has reported this: “One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House.”  The apparent justification for this conclusion is based on reports of a FISA warrant that was first requested in June 2016.  FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  The warrant request is based on the belief that the target of the surveillance has acted as an agent of a foreign power.  This original warrant was denied by the court so it was reissued in October.  This October warrant was approved.  According to Andrew McCarthy, “The Obama Justice Department and the FBI spent at least eight months searching for Trump–Russia ties. They found nothing criminal, and clearly nothing connecting Trump to Russian hacking.”

However, the government did not need a FISA warrant to wiretap Donald Trump.  The National Security Agency more than likely possesses all of that information.  The NSA Director James Clapper testified before congress in 2013 that the agency did not collect "any type of data at all" on millions of Americans.   Three months later documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that Clapper had lied.  It would be reasonable to believe that after this revelation Congress would have increased its oversight of NSA.  It would also be reasonable to believe that James Clapped would have been indicted for perjury.  One of the major problems with press coverage of these events is that much of the information provided is provided by criminals.  These reliable anonymous sources are by definition criminals.

This wiretap incident is all part of a larger unconstitutional government intrusion into the lives of its citizens.  There is a long history of illegal government  surveillance.  It goes back before the J. Edgar Hoover sex tapes of Martin Luther King.  Congresswoman Maxine Waters commented on this database in 2013.  She claimed,  “The president has put in place an organization that contains a kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life.  That’s going to be very, very powerful.”  This is not simply a database developed by a political party to keep track of its donors.  As Water says, “that database will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it’s never been done before.”

The federal government conducts millions of background investigations.  Most of these are fairly routine.  However, in certain cases a more thorough investigation may be required.  Some of these investigations may even require creating compromising situations.  Highly respected politicians may be subject to pressure because of their past behavior.  Dennis Hastert and Larry Craig  have demonstrated that prominent politicians are vulnerable.  When President Obama left the White House he took this database with him.  This will be a “very, very powerful” tool.

Movie Review - Land of Mine (Under Sandet)

         Following World War II Hollywood has produced countless films dealing with Nazi Germany.  Entire libraries can be filled with the books written about this period.  Hollywood has shown an almost total lack of interest in the mass murder record holder of the Soviet Union and mainland China.  There is even less interest in the postwar events that bring into question the virtues of the western allies.  The movie Land of Mine (Under Sandet) is a rare event.  The film deals with a Danish sergeant commanding a troop of former German soldiers as they clear land mines.  It is based on the use of over 2,000 German soldier to clear mines on the Danish coast.

         This in the Atlantic article and the comments associated with it reveal how effective the wartime and postwar propaganda have been. The author claims Denmark, “may have violated the Geneva Convention of 1929.”  She states, “the country committed what could be considered a war crime.”  There is no question that the Geneva Convention was violated and that it was a war crime.  However, Denmark was not responsible.  Certain Danish, British, and American officials were.  ‪Jean Mailer commented, “‬there is nothing wrong using the people that planted the mines to remove the mines.”  Jean may have a point.  However, these boys were not the one who planted them.  Joe Forest suspects, “few of the German soldiers were injured doing this work.”  Joe, you might do some research before you opine.  (Anne Thompson in her review in Indiewire estimated 300 fatalities)  Charles A Smith claims, “they got payback,” and “guilty Nazis and other Germans got away with their crimes.”  Unfortunately Charles is half correct.  The guilty often escaped and the innocent got the payback. Norman Feinberg might want to research how many American and British POWs returned after the war compared with the Germans.  Greg Thompson (“rape their bitches “) would have made a great Bolshevik.  The Morgenthau Plan and the Yalta Agreement authorized the use of slave labor.  There will be more groundbreaking movies.  Their creators will be accused of being Nazi sympathizers.  The accusers are certain that if they were alive at the time they would have behaved like Sophie Scholl who died because of her anti-Nazi activities.  More likely they would have behaved like George Soros.