John R. Houk
© March 13, 2017
I saw on Fox News that Senator John McCain is
publicly telling President Trump to put-up or apologize to the treasonous
President Obama pertaining to the accusation of wiretapping during the
2016-election cycle. I don’t have the Fox News clip but here’s the CNN
clip that Fox was referring to:
Posted by CNN
Published on Mar 12, 2017
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that
President Trump should provide evidence for his unsubstantiated claim that
former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower or retract the accusation.
My God! McCain might as well stop being a RINO and out right
join the Deep State Democratic Party and become an overt Obama minion. No
wonder McCain lost to the Marxist oriented Obama in 2008.
McCain is making all kinds of noise that more news will come
out connecting President Trump yet keeping silent (copying MSM) on mounting
evidence of Russian links to Crooked Hillary and family marking political
favors for God only knows what nefarious purposes.
Check this out from Angry Patriot:
While the liberals are trying their
hardest to set up the Republicans in questionable ties with Russia, it seems as
though it is being used as a distraction to hide the Democrats’ own connection
with Russia.
Hillary Clinton’s election
campaign manager, John Podesta, was on the board of a small energy company,
Joule Unlimited, when it was given $35 million from a Russian government fund
which has ties to Putin. (via Breitbart)
This information was discovered in
a 56-page report titled, “From Russia with Money: Hillary Clinton, the Russian
Reset, and Cronyism.” Podesta did not disclose this, although he is required to
do so by law.
This was written by a non-partisan
government watchdog group, the Government Accountability Institute (GAI).
Stephen Bannon, the Executive Chairman of Breitbart and the
Chief Strategist in the Trump Administration, is also the Executive Chairman of
GAI.
During the “Russian reset,” then
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the flag bearer of U.S. involvement in
Russia’s technology initiative, called Skolkovo, which is intended to be
the Slavic version of Silicon Valley.
This “innovation city” was to be
located outside of Moscow and employ 30,000 people. Their technologically
advanced facilities would be under the strict control of the Russian
government. In 2013, the building was described, by Slate, as
reminiscent of the Soviet “utopia” building projects.
The GAI report revealed that the
Department of State, under Hillary Clinton, recruited companies like Intel,
Cisco, and Google to participate in Russia’s project. Of the 28 companies that
participated in Skolkovo, 17 were donors to the Clinton Foundation or
had paid Bill Clinton to speak.
As Clinton’s involvement increased
in the project, so did the chance that this technological investment was
actually a way to spy on American military technology. In 2014, the FBI gave
out an “extraordinary warning” to the companies participating in Skolkovo.
Podesta failed to mention that he
had memberships to the board of this company, even while knowing that Russian
investment in it may have been an attempt to steal our military technology. It
all seems a bit suspicious. Why was Clinton, the U.S. State Department, and
John Podesta tied up in this affair?
It would appear that they are the
ones that need investigating into Russian ties rather than anyone in the Trump
administration. (BREAKING: Hillary Connected to $35
MILLION Russian Bribe. Is This Treason? Angry Patriot;
March 2017)
I can understand the Leftist MSM not picking up connections
between Crooked Hillary and the Russians, but what Senator McCain goes after
Trump for proof NOW when even the MSM has suggested improper violations of
Obama Administration of wiretapping is just nuts. McCain would
serve American Patriotism and the GOP better if he called out Obama to prove
President Trump is incorrect.
Here are some news tidbits that implicate Obama wiretapping
much more than President Trump angrily tweeting villainous Obama wiretapped the
Trump campaign in a moment of emotional display.
*****************
DC Secrets and Lies
March 12, 2017
A quick look at Obama’s
history reveals he has always had the inclination, motivation, and opportunity
to snoop on and disseminate information about his political opponents. It’s how
he made his political career: getting his opponents' private
divorce records unsealed and leaked with the help of the
Chicago Tribune.
He and his administration
continued this pattern and practice of skirting laws throughout his eight years
in office, As Matthew Vadum reminds readers:
“Obama
used the IRS to target conservative and Tea Party nonprofits, along with
Catholic, Jewish, and pro-Israel organizations. He brazenly lied about it, too.
His Justice Department surreptitiously obtained telephone records for more than
100 reporters."
Wikileaks revealed that under
Obama, the NSA intercepted conversations of numerous foreign officials,
including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Angela Merkel, Benjamin Netanyahu,
Silvio Berlusconi, and Nicolas Sarkozy.
So it is rather astonishing
that so many disregard Trump’s claim that Obama and his aides spied upon
him and his staff. There were several means at his disposal for him to do so,
and it is increasingly likely that they did so. He apparently sought
-- twice -- to get the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court
to approve tapping Trump communications, and was turned down once, in June of
last year -- a rare occurrence as in 10,000 applications in a six-year period
only two were rejected. Reportedly the Obama administration tried again, using
a slightly modified request and received permission. Heat Street reported this on
November 7.
This week, investigative
journalists Sara Carter and John Solomon confirmed that
the FISA court warrant was granted in October.
"What
we don't know is who was connected to that FISA," Carter said on Sean
Hannity's show Wednesday night. "What was that FISA looking at? That is
very highly classified. Nobody wants to talk about that particular FISA, right
now. They said it did have to do with the Russian hacking on a very broad
level, but it didn't hone in directly on Trump is what I was told," she
said.
In
addition to the FISA warrant in October, the FBI obtained a separate warrant
that same month to look into a computer server tied to then-candidate Donald
Trump's businesses in Trump Towers (but not located in Trump Towers). According
to the report, the feds used traditional investigative techniques
to examine allegations of computer activity tied to two Russian banks
and there had been no intercepts of Trump’s phone or emails.
The
FBI quickly concluded, "the computer activity in question involved no
nefarious contacts, bank transactions or encrypted communications with the
Russians."
The
months-long FBI counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to
influence the 2016 presidential campaign briefly investigated a computer server
tied to Donald Trump's businesses near the end of the election but has not
gathered evidence of election tampering to date that would warrant criminal
charges against any of the president’s associates, Circa has learned.
But a FISA warrant is not the
only way to surveil communications. Under Chapter 36 of Title 50 of the US
Code, and pursuant to Executive Order 12333, the president can authorize electronic
surveillance without a court order, and we don’t know if Obama utilized one of
these means as well. Nor can we ascertain who’s leaking, as on his way out of
office –-17 days before his term was up -- Obama allowed the National Security
Agency to circulate such intercepted messages among 16 other intelligence
agencies without following longstanding protocols designed to insure privacy of
those involved in the communications, in effect inviting selective leaking by
partisans in those agencies.
This week former NSA official
Bill Binney confirmed
the veracity of Trump’s claim that his conversations had been
tapped and monitored and claimed it was done outside the courts.
Binney
told Fox the laws that fall under the FISA court's jurisdiction are
"simply out there for show" and "trying to show that the
government is following the law, and being looked at and overseen by the Senate
and House intelligence committees and the courts."
"That's
not the main collection program for NSA," Binney said.
In any event, both the former
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the head of the FBI James
Comey have stated without equivocation that there was no evidence found of
coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.
On the other hand, there is
increasing evidence of Russian ties to Hillary Clinton and those closely
connected to her.
Jerome Corsi connects a Russian billionaire to
Putin with close ties. He provides documentary “evidence of the
circuitous path the Russian government has been using since Hillary Clinton was
secretary of state to make large financial payments to John Podesta and to the
Clinton Foundation.”
These transfers were made at
the same time Hillary Clinton was transferring “U.S. advanced technology to
Russia.”
John Podesta is not the only
family member enriched by the Russians. His brother Tony also rode the Russian gravy train.
Russia's
largest bank, Sberbank, has confirmed that it hired the consultancy of Tony
Podesta, the elder brother of John Podesta who chaired Hillary Clinton's
presidential campaign, for lobbying its interests in the United States and
proactively seeking the removal of various Obama-era sanctions, the press
service of the Russian institution told TASS on Thursday.
[snip]
Previously,
The Daily Caller reported that Tony Podesta was proactively lobbying for
cancellation of a range of anti-Russian sanctions against the banking sector.
In particular, he represented interests of Sberbank and was paid $170,000 for
his efforts over a six-month period last year to seek to end one of the Obama
administration’s economic sanctions against that country. Podesta, founder
and chairman of the Podesta Group, is listed as a key lobbyist on behalf of
Sberbank, according to Senate lobbying disclosure forms. His firm received more
than $24 million in fees in 2016, much of it coming from foreign governments,
according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Former
President Barack Obama imposed the Russian sanctions following the break out in
violence in east Ukraine in 2014.
Podesta’s
efforts were a key part of under-the-radar lobbying during the 2016 U.S.
presidential campaign led mainly by veteran Democratic strategists to remove
sanctions against Sberbank and VTB Capital, Russia’s second largest bank.
[snip]
The
lobbying campaign targeted Congress and the executive branch, with Podesta and
other lobbyists arranging at least two meetings between Sberbank officers and
Department of State officials, according to Elena Teplitskaya, Sberbank’s board
chairman, who spoke to House aides in August.
[snip]
The
Podesta Group represented Sberbank and its subsidiaries, Troika Dialog Group in
the Cayman Islands, SBGB Cyprus Ltd in Nicosia, Cyprus, and SB International in
Luxembourg. Troika Dialog also was related to Klein, Ltd., a Cayman Island
organization that once funneled tens of millions of dollars to environmental
groups to oppose low-cost fracking in the U.S., which was hurting the Russian
oil industry.
[snip]
Sberbank
was the lead financial institution in the Russian deal to purchase Uranium One,
owned by one of Bill Clinton’s closest friends, Frank Giustra. Giustra and Bill
Clinton lead the Clinton-Giustra Enterprise Partnership, an integral part of
the Clinton Foundation. Giustra has additionally donated $25 million to the
Clinton Foundation.
Giustra
sought to sell his stake in uranium reserves that included ore deposits in the
Western United States, and Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state, approved
the sale. And in one felled swoop, 20 percent of America’s uranium ore was sold
to the Russian state atomic agency.
During
the pending sale, the Podesta Group represented Giustra’s company and tried to
advance the transaction.
So there probably was
surveillance on Trump and his associates, although no connection with
Russia was established with them. Instead, all the connections to Russia were
with Clinton and her closest associates.
What we also know was that,
like Hillary Clinton, the Congressional Democrats repeatedly demonstrate a
shocking disregard for national security. The Daily Caller has
documented what the mainstream media is largely ignoring: the fact that dozens
of Democratic congressmen, including the former head of the DNC, engaged three
brothers from Pakistan and two of their wives at salaries multiple times over
those similarly situated (over $4 million), gave them passwords, and allowed
them access to sensitive computer files, even though it is impossible to fathom
how people with their record of financial troubles got security clearances.
These brothers are presently under criminal investigation accused of stealing
House computer equipment and transferring information from Congressional files
to a personal server. They owe $100,000 to an Iraqi businessman believed to
have with ties to Hezb’allah who is a fugitive from U.S. authorities.
This week, to cap it off, the brothers are under investigation for kidnapping
and holding prisoner their
stepmother to prevent her from seeing her dying husband in
Pakistan.
Politico reports that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former
head of the DNC, refuses to fire one of the brothers even though he is banned
from the House network. She’s keeping him on as an “adviser.”
Really, it’s impossible to
parody Democrats these days. It would be too unbelievable.
+++
SUPERSTAR REPORTER GOES
PUBLIC WITH OBAMA'S CREEPY SPYING ON HER
Shares bizarre details
about hacked computer as she investigated scandals
By GARTH
KANT
March 12, 2017
“It
was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about
when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.” –
George Orwell, “1984”
WASHINGTON – The woman who is
perhaps the nation’s top investigative journalist is fighting back against Big
Brother.
Sharyl Attkisson shared with
WND a detailed and harrowing description of what it was like to experience a
reality straight out of Orwell: The reporter claims she was spied on by the
Obama administration while investigating its scandals.
What tipped her off?
Imagine what it must be like
to watch your computer turn itself on and off.
“That’s one visible sign I
noticed over many months,” Attkisson told WND in an email interview.
“At the time, I suspected it
was some sort of phishing program seeking my passwords and contacts, and was
confident my computer had sufficient protections. I never suspected it was
connected to an intrusion of my systems until sources and forensics told me
that it was.”
She also watched a different
computer that she used delete files by itself.
After Attkisson released a
video showing that as it was happening, Vox’s Max Fisher claimed it was more
likely that she had a stuck backspace key.
WND asked, as an Emmy-award
winning investigative journalist and now the anchor of her own Sunday morning
national TV news program, “Full Measure,” did she find
Fisher’s claim that she was confused by a keyboard plausible?
“It was just a silly attempt
by a noted propagandist blog that had no firsthand information to deflect from
the surveillance,” she replied dismissively.
“The ‘expert’ didn’t even
know enough to understand there is no ‘backspace’ key on the computer shown,
and — in any event — that holding down such a key cannot duplicate the super
fast deletions demonstrated at the beginning of that particular video clip.”
The five-time Emmy Award
winner and recipient of the Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting
announced in January she is suing the Justice Department and seeking $35
million in damages for illegally hacking her computers and monitoring her work
between 2011 and 2013.
Three separate computer
forensic exams of her computers revealed what appears to be stunning evidence
pointing straight to the Obama administration.
“The most important and
irrefutable finding is: forensic evidence of a government-owned I.P. (internet
protocol) address accessing my computer,” Attkisson told WND.
She said she was told that
was “better evidence than the U.S. had when it accused China of various acts of
hacking into our government, which the government accepts as proven.”
Her computers were examined
by three independent forensics examiners including: a confidential source, an
examiner hired by CBS News, and an examiner hired by her attorney.
What they found is just
stunning.
Attkisson provided an
itemized overview of some of their findings, and described what
a confidential source and examiner hired by her attorney found:
§
“A government-owned I.P. address
was used to access my computer.”
§
“We are able to see
instances of exact date and time that the intruders entered my computers, and
the methods they used to do so.”
§
“They used commercial,
non-attributable software proprietary to the CIA, FBI, NSA or DIA.”
§
“The malware was constantly
running on my computers. It included a feature that logged my keystrokes,
accessed all my emails and collected my passwords.”
§
“Skype was surreptitiously
used to listen in on audio.”
§
“My smartphone was also
infected.”
§
“Three classified documents
had been put on my computer.”
§
“Once sources notified me
that I was likely being surveilled, and I discussed this in emails, the
intruders took steps to erase evidence of their presence. However, the
deletions themselves create a record of evidence.”
CBS and its analyst found:
§
“Attkisson’s computer was
accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in
late 2012.”
§
“Evidence suggests this
party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts.”
§
“An intruder had executed
commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.”
§
“This party also used
sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized
activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.”
§
“[Attkisson’s] systems were
indeed subject to non-standard interactions between June 2012 and January
2013.”
§
“Definitive evidence that
shows commands were run from Sharyl’s user account that she did not personally
authorize.”
§
“This history has been
deliberately removed from Sharyl’s hard drive.”
§
The intruders conducted an
inordinate number of internal computer clock “time stamp” changes, likely to
try to confuse any forensics that might be conducted.
Why her?
WND asked the former CBS Washington bureau investigative
correspondent, did she think the administration considered her a foe? And acted
to stop her out of purely political concerns?
“I have no idea, the perpetrators would have to answer that
question and they certainly aren’t stepping forward,” she replied.
“But,” she continued, “my computer intrusions occurred in
context of the Obama administration’s crackdown on whistleblowers and a lot of
my work deals with whistleblowers.”
“Additionally, we know the administration was aggressively
trying to control the narrative on a number of stories it saw as damaging,
especially as the re-election year of 2012 shaped up.”
Attkisson detailed her experience under surveillance in 2014
in her highly acclaimed New York Times bestseller, “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against
the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.”
Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, records previously
obtained by the government watchdog group Judicial Watch indicate
Attkisson was targeted by the Obama administration because of critical
reporting.
In 2014, Judicial Watch said it “obtained an October 4,
2011, email to White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz, Attorney
General Eric Holder’s top press aide, (in which) Tracy Schmaler, described
Attkisson as ‘out of control.’
“Schmaler added ominously, ‘I’m also calling Sharryl’s [sic]
editor and reaching out to Scheiffer’ (an apparent reference to CBS’ Chief
Washington Correspondent and Face the Nation moderator Bob Scheiffer). Schultz
responded, ‘Good. Her piece was really bad for the AG’ (attorney general.)”
Given that Obama’s Justice Department had labeled her as
“out of control” and tried to get the reporter’s employer to rein her in, WND
asked Attkisson: What did she make of an administration that seeks to
control reporters?
“I expect it,” was the sober response. “But it’s our job to
resist it and we aren’t doing a very good job of that as an industry.”
(Attkisson described problems endemic in the news media,
including the genesis of fake news, in an interview with WND in December
previewing her new book titled “The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives
Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote,” due
to be published on May 22, 2017.)
Did she think her experience and that of the Associated
Press and Fox News reporter James Rosen (both spied on by the Obama administration) were
part of a pattern?
“Yes. I was informed about my case prior to us knowing about
any of the other cases, just before the Snowden revelations, and prior to
former DNI (Director of National Intelligence James) Clapper falsely telling
Congress that the government was not collecting data of millions of Americans…but all of these events
occurred in the same general time frame.”
So, was it the administration that was “out of control?”
“You decide!” she replied, echoing a famous news slogan.
Investigating the truth about her own story, the
award-winning reporter has faced what she called a Catch-22 dilemma.
“To find out who accessed my computer, we need the
government’s cooperation, but the government isn’t cooperating.”
“In my lawsuit, we seek to learn who had access to the I.P.
address that was used to infiltrate my computer,” she continued. “To date, the
Department of Justice has taken multiple steps to block us from finding this answer.”
However, her persistence has revealed some compelling
results.
“Finally, at my request, the DOJ (Department of Justice)
Inspector General’s office sent investigators to look at a separate computer,
my personal home computer.”
Attkisson said that although the Justice Department’s
inspector general’s office will not release their notes and records, “and have
improperly failed to respond to my Freedom of Information Act request for the
information,” their forensics investigators reported to her that they found the
following on her personal computer:
§
“Evidence of suspicious
deletions of files that could not have been done by me.
§
“Use of my computer in
‘advanced mode’ (which was not done by me).”
§
“‘Someone’ installed
software onto my desktop and executed it and overwrote some important logs
effectively covering their tracks and erasing much evidence of their actions.”
§
“As with my CBS computer,
they found a lot of unusual time and date setting changes on my personal
computer as well (15 times in four days).”
§
“They executed data
recovery, recovering previously deleted logs.”
Attkisson said the forensics examiners working for the
Justice Department’s inspector general “told me they believed the intruder(s)
were actually working in my house at the computer conducting these acts, rather
than conducting them remotely, but, in fact, the acts were conducted remotely,
as with the work computers referenced above.”
“Furthermore,” she continued, “the examiners indicated that
prior to their supervisors signing off on their findings, ‘somebody’ narrowed
their mission to only reporting on any ‘remote’ intrusions (i.e. not addressing
the suspicious forensics they found by someone they believed was actually in my
house working at the computer.)”
And that’s when the investigation hit a wall.
“At this point, as their report was sent to higher-ups for
approval, they dialed back their communications with me and would not deliver
the promised final report or the notes that went with it.”
Attkisson said she filed a FOIA to obtain them but it was
ignored. Many months went by.
“When Congress pressed the issue, the DOJ IG issued only a
summary and emphasized there was no evidence of ‘remote’ intrusion in that
computer and left out the suspicious forensics they discovered,” explained the
investigative super-sleuth. “To this day, the DOJ IG has failed to properly
respond to my FOIA requests seeking the full information and report.”
As a result, “Many in the media misreported that this DOJ IG
report was somehow conclusive evidence that my computers had not been
infiltrated.”
“In fact,” she clarified, “the DOJ IG didn’t even examine
the primary computers in question — referenced in the other exams above—
because CBS would not allow them to look at the computers.”
Did she think the problem was specific to the previous
administration, or was it due the growth of the surveillance community, its
powers and lack of oversight?
“I think this is an outgrowth of technology that makes such
surveillance possible, politicians and corporate interests who are willing to
use it for improper purposes, and a weak and conflicted news media that has
done little to stop it.”
Finally, WND said it would be remiss if it did not ask the
ace reporter if her experience had given her any insight into President Trump’s
accusations that his campaign had been spied on by the Obama administration.
However, Attkisson said she has not looked at, or reported,
on those allegations.
__________________
BOTH RINOs & Leftists
Malign Trump Tweets
John R. Houk
© March 13, 2017
________________
DC Secrets and Lies
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SUPERSTAR REPORTER GOES
PUBLIC WITH OBAMA'S CREEPY SPYING ON HER
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