[Bloomberg] White House lawyers last month learned that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The pattern of Rice's requests was discovered in a National Security Council review of the government's policy on "unmasking" the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally. Normally those names are redacted from summaries of monitored conversations and appear in reports as something like "U.S. Person One."
The National Security Council's senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was conducting the review, according to two U.S. officials who spoke with Bloomberg View on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. In February Cohen-Watnick discovered Rice's multiple requests to unmask U.S. persons in intelligence reports that related to Trump transition activities. He brought this to the attention of the White House General Counsel's office, who reviewed more of Rice's requests and instructed him to end his own research into the unmasking policy.
It’s been a couple of weeks since NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick entered the free agency market and, as of today, he remains gainfully unemployed. Despite his long running battle with the league over his demonstrations of protest before kickoff time, refusing to stand respectfully for the National Anthem, it had been widely assumed that he might land a job somewhere. So what gives? At the Washington Post, Kevin B. Blackistone assures us that the league has secretly decided to “blackball” Kaepernick because of his bold stand in support of social justice or something. Blackistone begins his column by comparing Kaepernick to NBA All-Star Craig Hodges, who once famously wore some African themed attire to the White House and gave a letter to then President Bush calling for more assistance to people of color. But let me bring up another famous (or infamous) NFL figure for you.
Does anyone remember Plaxico Burress? While playing for the Giants (and even after) he racked up a number of collisions with the law over failure to pay taxes and some, shall we say… creative interpretations of personal medication regimens. But all of that paled in comparison to the time he literally shot himself in the thigh at a bar with a handgun for which he had no valid permit to carry in the city. The Giants eventually dismissed him, but he wound up with a starting spot with… the Jets. (For we Jets fans that was no surprise. It was just another day at the front office for us.)
But why did Burress have a job at all? Because even though he was every bit as much of a walking public relations disaster as Kaepernick, he was also one of the hottest receivers in the NFL at the time. The league is simply too competitive to leave that sort of talent out on the street if it can be avoided. Conversely, you can be the most clean cut, law abiding do gooder imaginable, but if you stink up the place when it’s game time you’ll be out of a job. Despite having come within inches of perforating his own tender bits with a hot lead injection, Burress was at the top of his game.
Colin Kaepernick falls somewhere in between. As quarterbacks go, his more recent performance was somewhere between dismal and mediocre. His passer rating was easily thirty points below the guys who made it to the final dance. But even for all that, he wasn’t that bad. Even the bottom quarter of ranked NFL passers are still light years ahead of the hundreds of hopefuls coming out of college every year. So at least one part of Blackistone’s theory is true. His antics definitely affected the outcome, but that’s because we’re talking about a sliding scale here. Allow me to offer a quick rule of thumb when it comes to profession sports as perceived by one of the fans:
The amount of embarrassment your team is willing to put up with is directly proportional to your measured value in terms of how likely you are to get them into the Superbowl.
In those terms, Kaepernick was okay, but not stellar enough for anyone (so far) to take on all that public relations baggage in exchange for what he offers on the field. Maybe somebody will be desperate enough for this condition to change in the coming weeks. (Note to the Jets… please don’t do this to us again.) Perhaps nobody will. But the NFL is a business just as much as it’s a national fixation. Kaepernick could have gotten away with protesting a lot more with a shiny new conference championship ring on his finger, believe me.
#6
A) the QB is the face of the franchise so the embarrassment factor is an order of magnitude over that of a WR.
B) He never showed serious pro caliber QB skills in the pocket which is where you have to do it. One season of success when you were a sort of freak show doesn't always continue.
C) The draft is yet to happen. There is plenty of time for some desperate team to pick him up.
D) Blackstone is a race baiting whiner, a face of the new ESPN.
#7
Yep - bottom line is Kap is a terrible quarterback. He has no leadership skills, can't read defenses, passing skills are mediocre at best and he's completely whipped by his activist girl friend. None of those attributes belong on the gridiron.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
04/03/2017 9:19 Comments ||
Top||
#8
They don't need to. He is a crap quarterback with shitty leadership skills, toxic personality and lots of baggage.
#10
Two points:
(1) He was on the way out anyway before he started the brew-ha-ha that made him a household name.
(2) He has an epic fro that makes me smile whenever I see it and wonder how it can crush down inside his helmet.
#11
I always thought he had the physical skills. IIRC he had one pretty good season. But even before his protest it was clear he was something of a head case.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/03/2017 11:22 Comments ||
Top||
#20
So, red ink has bearded poor Kaepernick,
Who's snoozing, sub rosa, like Frederick.
Will bed-headed hep child,
Unwoke, get his hair styled
To match his less barbarous leonine rhetoric?
[An Nahar] With his popularity battered by food shortages, economic chaos and rampant crime, it is hard to understand how Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has clung to power.
What is keeping the socialist leader in place as his country teeters on the brink of collapse? And when, if ever, will Venezuela reach the tipping point?
Here is a look at the levers of power in Venezuela, and how Maduro retains his grip on them.
- Military -
Maduro's opponents urged the military to take a stand for democracy this week after the latest twist in the crisis, when the Supreme Court seized legislative power from congress.
But Maduro is a master at keeping the army on his side.
The power of the Venezuelan Armed Forces -- already vast under late president Hugo Chavez, a former officer -- has only grown under his protege Maduro.
Eleven of Maduro's 32 ministers are current or retired officers. The military controls food production and distribution, plus a string of state-run companies in oil, television, banking and other powerful industries.
Maduro "has bought their loyalty," said political analyst Benigno Alarcon.
The government allegedly cares little what the generals do with their power.
"There are reports that various (officers) have close ties to drug trafficking and other criminal enterprises," said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue research institute.
- Institutions -
Since Chavez came to power in 1999 and declared a socialist "revolution," his movement has taken over nearly all the country's institutions.
"Chavistas" dominate the courts, the media and state oil company PDVSA.
When Maduro's party lost legislative elections in 2015 -- forcing it to share power for the first time -- the outgoing legislature named 13 new judges to the 32-member Supreme Court.
The "Chavistas" have virtually taken over the broadcast media, buying up independent TV networks.
"Maduro does his utmost to silence independent media outlets," watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said last year.
Maduro also wields control over the world's largest oil reserves through PDVSA -- where he is reportedly about to name an even stauncher loyalist as chief executive, Oil Minister Nelson Martinez.
- Divided, locked away Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! opposition -
Maduro also benefits from opposition infighting.
The main opposition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), is an unwieldy coalition of some 30 parties. They tend to the center-right, but span the entire political spectrum.
They have struggled to settle on a strategy.
And when they rise up in protest, the authorities often throw them in jail.
One notable example is hardline Maduro opponent Leopoldo Lopez, who is serving a 14-year sentence on charges of inciting unrest at protests in 2014.
- Hunger and fear -
The opposition has meanwhile struggled to get Venezuelans to take to the streets.
Seven in 10 Venezuelans disapprove of Maduro, according to pollster Venebarometro, but often they are too busy standing in line to buy scarce food.
There is also residual fear from violent protests of the past. In 2014, 43 people died in festivities.
Heavily armed police, troops and pro-Chavez holy warriors are regularly present at protests.
For some Venezuelans, especially the poor, there is lingering loyalty to "Chavismo" for spreading the wealth in the oil boom years.
Others no longer have the energy to care.
"I don't support either side," Yandry Diaz, 18, who works in a shoe shop, told AFP.
"What they want is to have us in the street, fighting and killing each other so that they can hold power."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11131 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
#1
Whoever replaces Maduro will have to fix the mess. Who wants that job?
#4
How about a swap? We'll send one of our free stuff brigade to VZ in exchange for one of their opposition. A politician of ours is worth two of their oppo.
#5
In a Bolivarian world, a neighboring larger well organized country would invade, set up shop on the oil and replace the government with competent puppets to run the place.
[Business Insider] Conservative internet news mogul Matt Drudge said he thinks the Trump administration is in a crisis "on many fronts" in its early days, partly due to deliberate obstruction from the Republican-controlled Congress.
"I suspect there is a sabotage," he said on conservative commentator Michael Savage's radio show on Friday. "Do you know Obama had the stimulus package on his desk before Inauguration Day? What did this Congress give this great man? Nothing."
Posted by: Jan ||
04/03/2017 0:49 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Hint: The've been doing it since it started looking like he might get the Nomination.
Hillary had the fawning media, big business, unions, the Democratic leadership and the Republican Leadership behind her and she still lost.
#5
There are some Pubs who got their feathers ruffled during the primaries--Trump made it a bare-knuckles primary. DC has not been accustomed to such a primary in my memory. Trump also went after Hildabeest hard during the election. He has a lot of enemies in DC. He has threatened the cozy little Beltway Party arrangement cartel; they don't like that.
[PJ Media] Once you wave away all the smoke created by our dishonest media, the story of this past week was pretty simple. The Trump-Russia-Conspiracy narrative is falling apart. The Obama-Spied-on-his-Political-Opposition narrative is coming together. The media has given credence to Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff's hysterical charges about how the Republican chair of the committee, Devin Nunes, made his latest discoveries. But Schiff is a dishonest McCarthyite, spewing insinuations and accusations without any proof to back them up. Nunes, on the other hand, has obviously gotten hold of solid intel showing that Obama spied on Trump and his people, pretty much as the president tweeted back on March 4. The willing Democrat executioners of truth -- i.e. the news staffs at ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the New York Times -- give equal weight to the statements of both men, making it seem like the House Intelligence Committee has simply descended into partisan bickering. But that's a lie. Nunes has found something. Schiff is smearing him and the president. Those two actions do not deserve the same sort of coverage.
An intelligence whistle blower has apparently shown Nunes documents containing intelligence gathered on members of Trump's transition team. Though this intelligence may have been gathered legally -- i.e. as part of a wiretap on foreigners -- at least two of the names of Americans, including the name of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, were illegally revealed and shared widely. Other names were made obvious even though they remained concealed. None of the investigations seems to have had anything to do with Russia.
You can tell that Nunes has got this stuff solid because after he saw the documents he first informed the media, then informed the president, then informed the media that he had informed the president. The White House has since invited members of both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to view certain documents which may or may not be the ones Nunes saw. That's a lot different than Schiff making McCarthyite noise about there being "more than circumstantial evidence" that Trump works for SMERSH. Schiff and other Democrats have tried to confuse the issue with cries that Nunes isn't playing fair and demands that he recuse himself.
#1
Schiff is a dishonest McCarthyite, spewing insinuations and accusations without any proof to back them up. Nunes, on the other hand, has obviously gotten hold of solid intel showing that Obama spied on Trump and his people, pretty much as the president tweeted back on March 4.
Since Schiff viewed the same intelligence as Nunes, Schiff has been fairly quiet. Most likely, the info is damaging to Obama's previous administration. It was an official high up according to Nunes. I'm betting on the former CIA head.
Jeebus, I recall the Valerie Plame affair in the Bush days. The Donks carried on for a very long time with their faux self-righteous indignation. Didn't it turn out that a leftie outed her and not a Pub?
#4
Susan Rice of fake Benghazi memes. I'd bet she is not alone in the current spying on Trump mess. Obama going to stay in French Polynesia awhile longer trying to create his fictional account of his presidency?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Bloomberg] White House lawyers last month learned that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
[Business Insider] Conservative internet news mogul Matt Drudge said he thinks the Trump administration is in a crisis "on many fronts" in its early days, partly due to deliberate obstruction from the Republican-controlled Congress.
