Questions Unasked and Unanswered (updated 28mar17)

[This is the appended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 22 March 2017.]

George Rebane

This week FBI Director James Comey testified before Congress about ongoing investigations concerning Russia influencing last year’s election, and the alleged ‘wiretapping’ of Trump’s campaign.  There were a lot of questions to ask about what happened, and almost all questions focused on who did what when.  Most of these questions missed the mark because they presupposed activities involving a surveillance system whose overall complexity and operating parameters were not established.  Were these known, then they would have given rise to more cogent and revealing questions about who could have done what when.  Here’s what I would have asked first.

1. Do you understand how the term ‘wiretapped’ was used by the President? Please explain.
2. Do we all agree that US intelligence assets can access modern communication channels in and outside the cloud from multiple points here and abroad?
3. Does anyone – individuals or agencies – have the comprehensive catalog of all US government accessible communications data?
4. In the same vein, does anyone know or can identify all our country’s repositories of surveilled data?
5. And again, does anyone have an inventory of the contents of the various repositories, along with their collection policies?
6. Does anyone or you claim to know all that your agency does in its communication surveillance activities – specifically, all the automated data recording and storing, which data is decrypted, algorithmically scanned, monitored, which is done by in-house vs contract personnel, and so on?
7. Does anyone know which captured communications are or have been monitored – that is selectively identified, decrypted, and their contents heard or read – by a machine or by a human?
8. When you say that ‘I have no evidence’, or ‘I don’t know of any evidence’, or ‘I have received no evidence’ regarding a given matter, does that also mean that your agency has no such evidence? If not, then from your testimony, how are we to assess the existence of such evidence?
9. Given your personal knowledge of your organization, is it possible to reliably state that certain specific communications data do NOT exist in known repositories or to which your agency has access?
10. If such records are known to exist, are there operational means in place that log the accesses to the stored data?
11. Within your current surveillance systems is it possible for lower level operators to access, on their own volition, virtually any communication channel that originates and/or terminates in the US, its territories, and its foreign-based operations (e.g. the military)?
12. We routinely exchange intelligence data with our friends and allies. To your knowledge do any of these exchanges include revealed identities of US citizens?
13. Since your agency’s security has been demonstrably compromised (e.g. the General Flynn affair), and you have yet to determine the source(s) of the leak, and the size of the breach, what assurances can you give to Americans and our allies that our intelligence data is properly secured?
14. In your investigation of the impact of Russia’s confirmed hacking of America’s political institutions, have you identified any plausible means by which Russian activities could have influenced our election’s outcome? If so, please outline some of the more obvious ones that you have considered or are still working on.
15. Finally, since we know that damaging classified information has been criminally compromised without yet confirming whether or not it was a commissioned release, can you conceive of any way that a politically powerful person in our government, outside the intelligence community, could surreptitiously request and receive information from your data stores or from ongoing surveillance operations? Please elaborate.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the addended transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

[Addendum] The following expansions refer to their correspondingly numbered questions above.

1. ‘Wiretapped’ today is broadly understood by the educated to denote any surreptitious means of capturing or ‘intercepting’ communications by a party unknown to the communicants. Restricting to physical wire taps today is a cynical interpretation designed to serve other agendas.
2. Today there are literally uncounted points along a multi-hop communication channel which may serve as the loci for capturing a given communications data stream.
3. The clear answer to this question is an unqualified NO. Given how large bureaucracies work, there is no central or unified collection point or ‘clearing house’ for such a massive surveillance job as carried out by our intelligence community and law enforcement agencies.
4. Same as point #3 above. It is highly doubtful that all the repositories are known by any single agent or intelligence unit.  Consider the what happened on 9/11 and the inter-agency exchange/sharing failures that have occurred since then.
5. Same as points #3 and #4 above.
6. Again, such information is at best known in a distributed fashion across our intelligence community, and when known it usually has a large ‘time late’ component impressed by inter-departmental transmission protocols and just plain politics.
7. Do we really believe that any outfit such as the FBI or the NSA knows what communications data it has squirreled away in its bowels and what is the actual post-capture workflow status of each piece of data?
8. An agency head’s personal knowledge is immaterial to the congressional inquiry which is interested in the agency’s data inventory and processing workflows.
9. It is inconceivable that any head of a large surveillance agency can make a believable claim as to what specific data it does NOT have somewhere in its stores – see also #2 and #7. The claim of non-existence is at best a specious and/or hubristic one.
10. An important answer that bears on the credibility and the verity of all the other questions.
11. A NO answer to this question would boggle a reasonable mind even casually familiar with the workings of an intercepting work station.
12. Again, an important answer that bears on the level of data exchanges in which international parties participate.
13. A most interesting answer indeed, especially if it is given without guile.
14. If such plausible means don’t exist or cannot be identified, then how can such an investigation be directed? The effort would then needs be compared to a blind hen pecking for seeds on barren soil.
15. If the agency head claims that in the US government there exist no such paths to corruption, then he is either dissembling or we are blessed with a government selectively pure beyond any known historical norm, since we do know of many other practiced paths to corruption in our federal and state governments.

[23mar17 update]  Chairman Nunes’ revelation that 1) broad based ‘incidental’ surveillance sweeps do indeed occur as Judge Napolitano reported, 2) Team Trump was indeed surveilled – either incidentally or targeted - and the big one, 3) for some reason these recorded communications were transcripted and the transcripts delivered to the White House.  Why this is not causing a bigger stir across the country is a puzzle to me, for then who in the administration ordered that such surveilled communications be transcripted and delivered to 1600 Pennsylvania?

[26mar17 update]  Some readers, especially of the progressive bent, have been confused by what to them is an impenetrable logic behind some of the above questions, particularly #8 repeated below.

When you say that ‘I have no evidence’, or ‘I don’t know of any evidence’, or ‘I have received no evidence’ regarding a given matter, does that also mean that your agency has no such evidence? If not, then from your testimony, how are we to assess the existence of such evidence?

For one commenter it was “clear” that “if there is no evidence there is no reason to assume that the event (‘wiretapping’ Team Trump) happened.”, which he also formulated as “the absence of evidence that something does not exist is not evidence that it does exist”.  Without trying to untangle the tortured logic that attempts to connect these two awkward propositions, let’s just go back to the larger case at hand here that involves the FBI and Director Comey.

It has been long known and recently confirmed that our intelligence agencies have done and continue to do communications intercepts with and without FISA permissions.  It is known as well that such communications are also gathered automatically by multifarious means at uncounted points in the vast and complex cloud-based communications channels.  Sometimes these collected communications data are labeled as “incidental” to denote or deny that there was purpose behind the activity.  That happens to be the real world – we do it and so do other countries.

Since such unlawful ‘wiretaps’ occur and are leaked from our Deep State – e.g. witness Clapper’s lie to Congress and the criminal release of Gen Flynn’s name – it is imperative to have the Director confirm the reality of this hidden world in which the right hand knows not what the left hand does, and moreover, perfectly logical to presume the existence of precursor processes which ultimately result in such lies/denials and information releases.

In the technical sense the causal chain leading up to ‘wiretapping’ Trump and (as subsequently revealed by Chairman Nunes) delivering transcripts of such communications to the White House has a high probability of existing, therefore Comey’s response to #8 is material to assessing such a probability in the Bayesian sense.  This sequence of logical enquiry is one of the routine processes in the work of science, and a recent article by physicist Frank Wilczek (25mar17 WSJ) nicely illustrates this in his discussion of the discovery of new heavy particles motivated by the structure of supersymmetry.

Evidence was moot on the existence or non-existence of certain heavy particles.  But the search for evidence to establish that such particles could exist was called for by a proposition even further down the resulting causal chain – namely the supposed existence of dark matter to explain the structure and behavior of galaxies in our universe.  In short, the evidence was presumed to be there and should be verifiable if a more powerful collider could be brought to bear on the matter.  And this was one of the ‘supportable logics’ that gave rise to the construction of CERN’s super-collider near Geneva and the resulting confirmation of the large hadron’s existence, which served to complete the standard model of sub-atomic particles, which then increased the verity that dark matter exists.  Had the type of thinking machinery evinced by our erstwhile commenters been dominant, we would still be sitting on our thumbs wondering how to proceed.

Quite often in science and other affairs of man one must undertake a logical/causal jump to establish the existence of something new that is not possible to see if we expanded only from something that is already known.  In short, the large continent of human knowledge surrounded by an ocean of unknowns is expanded not only by extending existing beaches seaward, but by also risking the building of offshore islands and then building causeways back to the mainland.  For the technically read, string theory today is such an island and there is a mighty effort to join it to the rest of science.  In any case, logic is hard and logics are many.  Were it easy, everyone would sound sane.

[28mar17 update]  This morning the National Review online published ‘The Russian Farce’ by Victor Davis Hanson.  Hanson gives us a needed concise history of the Dems’ and Obama administration’s relations with Russia, and then goes on to corroborate in chapter and verse the points made in these pages over the years regarding which of America’s ideological cohorts is the true friend of Russia and collectivist autocracy required to impose globalism.  In his dissertation, Hanson’s analysis corroborates every point in this commentary, and takes us to the next level of questions which the House Intelligence Committee should ask after the above groundwork has been laid.

Comments

[Don Bessee]

Where is the fakenewsman? He is fond of questions, short on answers but big on questions in teams of 3. ;-)

[stevenfrisch]

"When you say that ‘I have no evidence’, or ‘I don’t know of any evidence’, or ‘I have received no evidence’ regarding a given matter, does that also mean that your agency has no such evidence? If not, then from your testimony, how are we to assess the existence of such evidence?"

Seriously I am perpetually amazed at the ability of people to turn a blind eye to logical fallacies that support their preconceived notions or ideologically driven desire to believe something and the reality on the ground.

The logical fallacy here is the request from you to prove a negative. That is not the issue. The issue is that there should be transparency and sober investigation to ensure we know the truth.

Here is my question to you George (and to Russ through this page): as individuals who spent a portion of your lives in the defense of this country against aggression from the communist eastern block in Europe, and as people who spent at least some of your time within US intelligence agencies, how can you continue to turn a blind eye to the strong and growing evidence that Russia engaged in a long term, planned cyber attack on the United States with the intent to compromise the Presidential election?

How can you turn a blind eye to the growing circumstantial evidence:

1. Close ties between members of the Presidents campaign and his entourage and key figures in both Russian intelligence and the pro-Putin business community.

2. Growing evidence purported to show that at least some embers of the Trump campaign actively communicated with key Russian officials at the same time they were engaged in their interference in the elections.

3. The timing of statements by key Trump aides or historic allies including Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Carter Paige and Flynn and releases of information from Guccifer2.0 and Wikileaks.

4. Repeated reports that Trump himself borrowed huge sums from Russian banks at the same time his company has outstanding loans of at least $713 million and partnership loans of over $2 billion.

Granted, investigation is needed, more of the facts need to come out, but you each claim to have spent your lives defending this country and standing for its values--how can you roll over to what is increasing evident was a Russian plot to compromise our political system and electoral process?

Your position should be that we are all Americans with an equal stake in knowing the truth and that the only way to get to that is full vigorous and bipartisan investigation, and if necessary criminal prosecutions to get to the facts.

[Todd Juvinall]

Looks like Trump was right.

[ScenesFromTheApocalypse]

16. How do you avoid the temptation of using the architecture of a universal surveillance system to rule the country behind the scenes.

A. You don't.

[George Rebane]

stevenfrisch 803am - How do you draw any of those conclusions from my posted commentary which is ideologically neutral and intended to lay the basis for subsequent detailed questioning involving specific events? Is it another case of 'I know what he was really thinking'?

[stevenfrisch]

You're right George, there is huge divide between real and perceived in this country, if you see your comments as ideologically neutral. You entire line of questioning is apologia.

You deleted a comment I made a few weeks ago that may have been crude but was precise---I will restate it--when did conservative Americans become the modern equivalents of Alger Hiss?

Plus you did not respond to the logical fallacy issue--the absence of evidence that something does not exist is not evidence that it does exist.

[Todd Juvinall]

Trump is right again. Looks like the libs have egg on face.

[Todd Juvinall]

More to follow.

Chucky Schumer is screaming out he will filibuster Gorsuch. We all get to see the brownshirt lockstep of democrats. Not one crossing the aisle to vote for a good man. The democrats/liberals are showing the country their inability to compromise. So if there is blame for how broken DC is, look at Schumer and Pelosi and their sheeple followers.

[Gregory]

The plural of rumor is not evidence, Steven, and that's all we have at the moment despite Democratic Party functionaries trying to turn their rumors into facts since before they lost the election.

[George Rebane]

stevenfrisch 1023am - "when did conservative Americans become the modern equivalents of Alger Hiss?" Now there's a logical train wreck; posit out of whole cloth that 'conservative Americans are the modern equivalent of Alger Hiss', and then ask when did that come about? That question maps one-to-one with 'Are you still beating your wife?' Marvelous.

And then where do you ascribe your second logical fallacy to me? To which of my points do your refer?

[Barry Pruett]

Steve: Let's presuppose that Russia interfered in the election. What does that exactly mean? They did not touch votes (impossible as voting machines are not connected to the internet and are stand alone). That leaves us with what they seemed to have done which was was get truthful information out about Hillary Clinton that potentially damaged her and hurt her chances of winning. Mexico urged immigrants to vote against Trump. Where is the outrage from the left? How dare Mexico seek to influence our elections?

A democrat congressman the other day stated that Russia's actions were an act of war and we need to sanction Russia "in order to hurt Putin's local popularity." Besides the fact that the congressman is an idiot because sanctions will make Putin more popular among his citizenry (us against the world), isn't the congressman suggesting we try to influence Russian elections? Didn't Obama give an anti-Netanyahu group American tax dollars to oppose Netanyahu? We have taken over whole countries and put in our own people. It happens and certainly needs to be addressed. The level of hypocrisy is outstanding right now.

Further, there is no evidence at all that anyone in the Trump campaign coordinated anything. This "circumstantial evidence" idea offered by Adam Schiff, and now you, is nothing but a witch hunt. As the Democrats fiddle about "circumstantial evidence" in an effort to score political points, the house is burning as Putin (a former KGB agent) successfully manipulated our politicians. Democrats are screaming it is an act of war like we are supposed to nuke Moscow or something.

Honestly we can boil this down to one simple salient point. Liberals have lost over a thousand elections in the last eight years. They lost the local elections, House, Senate, and presidency, but it was not their fault...the Russians did it.

My personal opinion is that this is all a red-herring to distract from our own government conducting surveillance on its own citizens and leaked it to the press in order to influence an election. Russia is going to do what Russia is going to do. They are a sovereign nation. If they did what is alleged, they should be dealt with accordingly on the international stage. In the same vein, somebody from the Obama administration needs to go to jail. We have a Constitution, and we are a country that values the rule of law. What they did is unforgiveable.

[Gregory]

This was linked from the Taranto column in the WSJ... without further comment:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/22/susan-rice-lectures-trump-about-making-false-statements/

[Walt]

And just "who" was doing the surveilling of U.S. citizens over the past decade? LIBS....
Now they are just pissed because they got caught.
The list is long of the subversions done by our own government. All in the name of control and Constitution shredding.

[Gregory]

Barry P 1:08

I can't help but speculate that Trump's brain trust in the back room figured it was time to fight fire with fire.

The surveillance state is here. For an interesting thought experiment, were sending information back in time a reality, how would one explain to the likes of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin that, for safety's sake, the Federal government of the early 21st century figured out how to vacuum up practically every communication between Americans and others, requiring the POTUS to get a secret court to approve before they're allowed to read transcripts, but British intelligence is allowed direct access.

[George Rebane]

Apparently this comment of mine in the last sandbox got no traction - perhaps it is more apropos here.

"So it seems that the Dems openly colluding with Mexico to promote Hillary's election were not committing treason. And none of these high-minded leftists took umbrage at Mexico's influence on the election when they appealed to our Hispanics both directly and through their American front organizations La Raza and MALDEF."

[ScenesFromTheApocalypse]

as requested:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/23/potential-smoking-gun-showing-obama-administration-spied-on-trump-team-source-says.html

[ScenesFromTheApocalypse]

re: GR@3:38PM

The degree that the Mexican government has attempted to swing US politics is fairly breathtaking compared to any Russian influence.

The whole situation makes you want to shake your head vigorously.

https://ricochet.com/406634/mexican-governments-guide-for-the-mexican-migrant/

[Walt]

Dr.R... Our LIBs won't touch that like it was three day old roadkill in the middle of July.
THEY won't say it but I will. It's "OK" when it's their side doing it.(by any means necessary.) The plan was supposed to work! Kinda like that N.Korea missile that just blew-up on takeoff yesterday. But who cares now? Gotta stick it to Trump.

I need to get back on the ball. That Apocalypse dude is beating me to punch lately.
The NSA is playing ball with relevant info, but the FBI is still thinking they work for "O". So maybe the cornholes who are spilling info to LIB news are FBI worms.

[Walt]

Scenes.. It will be fun to see just who was at the heart of this. Valerie J? No way in hell will this get tied to "O". We could never get that lucky, and that crew wasn't stupid.

Right now, in some meeting room in D.C. straws are being pulled to see who goes down.
Who falls on the sward to save the rest.

[Bill Tozer]

Mexico trying to influence our elections? That worked out at well as Obama flying to London to publicly encourage in no uncertain terms a 'No' vote on Brexit and worked out about as well how as all that money and operatives on the ground we poured into Israel to kick Bebe to the curb.

Look, Wikileaks all in all did not lay a hand on Hillary. It may have been embarrassing to Donna Brazile and Broomstick Debbie over at the DNC.....and left Podesta looking like he was trying to plug several leaks in the life raft as best he could with only his two thumbs, but Hillary was not the focus of Wikileaks and sailed through unscathed. The Bernie Boys got their pound of flesh, but to everybody else it was more about the collusion with the Podesta people and Alt-Left Media, aka MSM.........and our local news director from the Berkeley version of Mayberry, RFD....or Lost In Space with that Russian on board. Wikileaks was like reading the daily comics, but leaving it at that.

Wikileaks?
https://www.facebook.com/UncleSamsMisguidedChildren.Net/photos/a.169953786533962.1073741830.169676909894983/653297848199551/?type=3&theater

[Russ]

Ooops, time for some deafening silence from the lefty crickets

Potential 'smoking gun' showing Obama administration spied on Trump team, source says

Republican congressional investigators expect a potential “smoking gun” establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee this week, a source told Fox News.

Classified intelligence showing incidental collection of Trump team communications, purportedly seen by committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and described by him in vague terms at a bombshell Wednesday afternoon news conference, came from multiple sources, Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The intelligence corroborated information about surveillance of the Trump team that was known to Nunes, sources said, even before President Trump accused his predecessor of having wiretappedhim in a series of now-infamous tweets posted on March 4.

The intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump, according to sources.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/23/potential-smoking-gun-showing-obama-administration-spied-on-trump-team-source-says.html

[Bill Tozer]

Potential smoking gun? My, my. Everything the Democrat Socialists do blows up in their faces. Wile E. Coyote has nothing on that bunch. Mercy.

https://www.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343.55586.217926015008110/1050963738370996/?type=3&theater

[George Rebane]

Hmmm ... no one acknowledged the 23mar17 update.

[Bill Tozer]

Ok. Update: Who, Dr. Rebane asks? Who carried the goods over to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave? If I did not know better, I think Putin was spying on Trump and giving the transcripts to his bromance buddy, Barack. Am I getting warmer? :)

[Bill Tozer]

You just can't make this stuff up. Now the "Dems" are crying crocodile tears and carrying on about the NSA has become just a puppet of Trump. Special Prosecutor, then impeach him!

Wait.... you can't make this stuff up, but they sure can and do. Did you hear about that hotel Trump built in Turkey? Oh my, it's a huge story......HUGE.....forget the Prosecutor, impeach him before they drop the nuke option on SCOTUS. Hurry! Time is of the essence. :)

[Don Bessee]

Those transcripts of team Trump were delivered to the white house for Sasha and Maleas entertainment. ;-)

[Bill Tozer]

Oh goodie! They have smoke......but no fire. PE will be in hog's heaven reading this. They got the Orange One by the gonads this time!

http://www.gq.com/story/russia-donald-trump-cnn-report/amp?ref=yfp

Like watching toothless dogs trying to gum off the hind leg of an elk. Did you hear about that hotel he built in Pakistan? Big story. Big, big story. It's all in Trump's secret tax returns, by golly.

[stevenfrisch]

Posted by: George Rebane | 23 March 2017 at 11:17 AM

You still did not respond to the logical fallacy inherent in your question.

The logical fallacy is that heads of US security agencies are saying "we have no evidence" of the charge. Your response is to ask, "if you have no evidence how are we to assess the absence of evidence." It seems pretty clear to me that if there is no evidence there is no reason to assume that the event happened.

Your position is the functional equivalent of saying, "I know we have no evidence that the moon is made of green cheese, and we sent a man to the moon to find out, but they only found out that the part of the moon they landed on is not comprised of green cheese."

It is logically fallacious.

[stevenfrisch]

Posted by: Barry Pruett | 23 March 2017 at 01:08 PM

"Steve: Let's presuppose that Russia interfered in the election. What does that exactly mean? They did not touch votes (impossible as voting machines are not connected to the internet and are stand alone). That leaves us with what they seemed to have done which was was get truthful information out about Hillary Clinton that potentially damaged her and hurt her chances of winning. Mexico urged immigrants to vote against Trump. Where is the outrage from the left? How dare Mexico seek to influence our elections?"
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barry, I would think that as an attorney you would recognize the difference between urging people to vote a particular way, which is what the government of Mexico did, and illegally stealing information that is private parties (which is what hacking is) and selectively releasing it timed to affect media coverage of an election and manipulate public opinion, and potentially doing so in collusion with Trump campaign officials to affect media coverage and messaging for that election. The use of illegally stolen materials and coordination between Russian intelligence agencies and their cut outs and Trump campaign officials would comprise an illegal criminal conspiracy.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"A democrat congressman the other day stated that Russia's actions were an act of war and we need to sanction Russia "in order to hurt Putin's local popularity." Besides the fact that the congressman is an idiot because sanctions will make Putin more popular among his citizenry (us against the world), isn't the congressman suggesting we try to influence Russian elections? Didn't Obama give an anti-Netanyahu group American tax dollars to oppose Netanyahu? We have taken over whole countries and put in our own people. It happens and certainly needs to be addressed. The level of hypocrisy is outstanding right now."
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I am not sure how you can make the case that sanctions would make the Putin government stronger in the long run, and if you are I am assuming then that you also against sanctions as a tool of foreign policy against Iran and North Korea, since those sanctions would make their governments stronger by creating an "us against the world" dynamic. The whole theory behind sanctions is that by weakening the economy of the target state and denying certain people within that state the ability to move money out of the country, by cutting off investment, one weakens the state by making it incapable of responding to or satisfying the needs of its people.

Your question "Didn't Obama give an anti-Netanyahu group American tax dollars to oppose Netanyahu..." is classic deception. The fact are the US State Department provided a $350K grant to the Israeli group One Voice to support public policy outreach around Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but One Voice used a portion of that funding to build a database of voters and supporters that, subsequent to the end of the grant, they used to support an opposition candidate. You contention is fallacious in several ways, the most important of which is that the official policy of the US was a two state solution at the time, and the grant went to support furtherance of that goal, if the US wants to have a different policy so be it, but its not unethical to provide a grant to support official US policy.

Finally, your statement, "We have taken over whole countries and put in our own people." Are you seriously making the moral equivalency argument? If there were no moral or positive aspect of American foreign policy, if we were not the nation that seeks to spread freedom, democracy, individual and human rights, and economic opportunity, if we were a fascist police state bent on oligarchic control of the masses for personal enrichment, I might agree with you...but we are not morally equivalent even though we occasionally make mistakes...we are morally preferable to our opponents, which really gets to the core of the question; when did conservatives become moral relativists when did comes to foreign policy? I suspect it was when they hitched their star to a morally relative President who is in the pocket of Russian oligarchs, which is precisely the anti-American behavior I am calling out here.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Further, there is no evidence at all that anyone in the Trump campaign coordinated anything. This "circumstantial evidence" idea offered by Adam Schiff, and now you, is nothing but a witch hunt. As the Democrats fiddle about "circumstantial evidence" in an effort to score political points, the house is burning as Putin (a former KGB agent) successfully manipulated our politicians. Democrats are screaming it is an act of war like we are supposed to nuke Moscow or something.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You might note that in my comment I did not allege that there was collusion, nor do I in my comment here, I said that there is more than enough evidence for a full, complete, impartial investigation, free of the taint of partisanship being displayed by Republican leaders, and that we should all support that investigation, and the independence of that investigation. Which is a position that Republicans are clearly not ready to take..which is why my Alger Hiss comment....if you were so instant on protecting America from communist infiltration in past eras, and in George and Russ's case actively worked on those efforts, why are Republicans willing ti turn a blind eye today when the aggressor is a fascist dictator from Russia?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Honestly we can boil this down to one simple salient point. Liberals have lost over a thousand elections in the last eight years. They lost the local elections, House, Senate, and presidency, but it was not their fault...the Russians did it.

My personal opinion is that this is all a red-herring to distract from our own government conducting surveillance on its own citizens and leaked it to the press in order to influence an election. Russia is going to do what Russia is going to do. They are a sovereign nation. If they did what is alleged, they should be dealt with accordingly on the international stage. In the same vein, somebody from the Obama administration needs to go to jail. We have a Constitution, and we are a country that values the rule of law. What they did is unforgivable.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Well that is the difference between me and you Barry, as an attorney you are willing to say someone should go to jail; as a citizens who actually lives under the rule of law, I say that if you have a case and can prosecute it, then do so, and if a trial by jury find that they should go to jail, then by all means....but since there has been no criminal act that has been tried saying someone should go to jail is premature.

And this gets to my main point...when did you guys lose your souls for a huckster from Manhattan? You are accepting things from this President that in any other cases would be ample reason for you to reject them as a political leader. To think that anyone outside the core group who reads these pages sees that anything but rank hypocrisy would be ridiculous.

[stevenfrisch]

Posted by: Russ | 23 March 2017 at 05:23 PM

I think you know what "incidental contact"means Russ...it means that based on a FISA warrant security agencies were listening in on people they had probable cause to believe were bad guys or connected to bad guys, and those bad guys talked to American citizens, and information was thus incidentally collected.

Why this doesn't lead you guys to ask why so many people close to Trump (or perhaps Trump himself) were talking to bad guys is beyond my comprehension.

[ScenesFromTheApocalypse]

re: SF@6:38AM

tl;dr Somebody who knows Trump might have contacted some unknown person in Russia (or not). Someone in Russia might have broken into a DNC server and broadcast nefarious doings (or not). Therefore, Trump is a Russian agent of Putin's.

Got it.

In other news, the Nunes fuss is cranking up a bit this fine morning.

[stevenfrisch]

Posted by: ScenesFromTheApocalypse | 24 March 2017 at 07:46 AM

You may have a different point of view than many of the posters here but your/re logic and projections of my conclusions are just as flawed.

Yes, many of these things could be circumstantial, but there is ample evidence for a full, impartial, and independent investigation which is all I have called for.

[stevenfrisch]

Posted by: ScenesFromTheApocalypse | 24 March 2017 at 07:46 AM

A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e. "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition

[fish]

Posted by: stevenfrisch | 24 March 2017 at 07:59 AM

Yes, many of these things could be circumstantial, but there is ample evidence for a full, impartial, and independent investigation which is all I have called for.

While I think impartiality in these matters is likely impossible I think you're correct to ask to "pull the string" and see what falls out!

[Todd Juvinall]

There is no proof that Trump or his campaign people colluded. All of that is made up BS y his opponents. And this "investigation" has been ongoing since last July according to Comey. When Trump said Obama was "bugging" his phone the intelligence people were on it within days to say it was not true. We see it is now according to Nunes. So if Comey etal have been giving Trump a anal exam for 10 months and nothing how can they say in a couple of weeks Trump's claims are bogus? Very suspicious.

[Todd Juvinall]

Just tweeted the Freedom Caucus to compromise and vote on the first phase. Healthcare bill.

[ScenesFromTheApocalypse]

"All of that is made up BS by his opponents."

...or not. My assumption is that it's business as usual. If you really knew what went on in a Trump back office, Clinton Foundation shake-down, Harry Reid deal, Bill Clinton (or LBJ or JFK) sexual predation, everybody would go to jail.

The modern difference is a combination of mass produced recording devices and methods for pushing the recording to the public, poor personal privacy habits, and a national security state which is keyhole peeping on steroids. There will be teething issues as we either adapt our expectations or everyone becomes more careful. The strong possibility of a permanent surveillance-based dictatorship is quite high, and the number of apologists for it astounds me.

In any case, as long as people argue about Pussygate, Donna Brazile, birth certificates, Russiagate, etc. we get what we deserve. I admit that it's a lot more difficult to think about health policy (both the ACA and Trumpcare are a dog's breakfast), borrowing levels, or whether national borders matter, so it's best to ignore that sort of thing.

[Walt]

From what I see and read, it was Hillary and cronies that were cozy with the Russians. NOT Trump.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/23/exclusive-john-podesta-may-have-been-target-of-russian-influence-campaign/
But since it was Progs getting greased by the Ruskys,, "nothing to see here,, go bug Trump".
The Ruskys got what they wanted from Hillary. A good portion of OUR Uranium.

[George Rebane]

stevenfrisch 600am - Steve, since you refused to clarify, I assume you are referring question #8. It appears that is from where you have cobbled together your misquotes of what you think I said and meant (use full quotes if it’s something that I actually said or wrote, use semi-quotes if you are paraphrasing or referring to a communication that might have been, etc). And #8 along with the other questions are not limited to Trump’s wiretapping charge.

Our history of successful communications is not good, so my motivation for answering is not necessarily to convince you, but present a line of reasoning that some others might accept who approached this post with similar concerns. I will expand on this in an update to this post.

In any case, an overarching concern here is that you seem to ignore (confuse?) that assertions and propositions are made in declarative statements, and not offered as interrogatives. Another is your tacit positing of my (and others') opposition to conducting "full vigorous and bipartisan investigation(s)" of all these matters. That is not the case; however, it appears that you must need to erect such a strawman to bolster your otherwise dubious line of reasoning.

BTW, because scientists and engineers understand the complexities of potential causal chains that beget a given observable (event/phenomenon), they have made some of the world's greatest discoveries by eschewing your simplistic "if there is no evidence there is no reason to assume that the event happened".

[Walt]

The LIBS are getting scared. "How dare you cut off our handout monies!"
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article140414868.html
"Sacramento is one of 34 “sanctuary cities” around the country joining a lawsuit filed last month by Santa Clara County. Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Oakland, Berkeley, Santa Ana and Denver are among the other cities named in the brief filed Wednesday.

In the brief written by the San Francisco law firm Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, the local governments argue Trump’s executive order targeting sanctuary cities violates due process, seizes authority from local governments in violation of the 10th Amendment and is “unconstitutionally vague” by not providing specific actions that will subject cities and counties to penalty."

And just what was one of the LIBS here saying about flouting FED laws? (maybe he forgot what he said.. Some help.. " Just WHAT FED laws is Ca. breaking?")

So Confederate townships and cities think they can give the finger to FED laws they just don't like? Maybe citizens should try that too. Just pick and choose what laws we care to follow. Yup, that would go over well.

[Walt]

A taste of thine own medicine...Priceless.
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/03/24/town-hall-becerra-trump-supporters-disrupt-california-attorney-general/
"Becerra, who dared the Trump administration to “come at us” in December, and predicted a “legal war” with Trump in January, found himself on the receiving end of the left’s own tactics on Thursday."
Yup, payback is a bi*ch.

[Paul Emery]

George

You've got to admit that alleged colluding with Mexico is a different level than alleged colluding with our mortal enemy Russia. I mean Trump had a paid lobbyist for the Russians as his campaign chief just last summer.

[Barry Pruett]

Oh lord Steve. When I come up to Truckee, we'll get a beer or five and have a grand discussion! Too much to put in a blog comment! I see what you are saying, but there just seems to be too much hyperbole and speculation to arrive at your conclusions. I think that I will be up there next weekend in connection with work. I'll give you a call.

[stevenfrisch]

Posted by: George Rebane | 24 March 2017 at 10:19 AM

With all due respect George, I started my original comment with a direct quote in full quotation marks
of question # 8.

I din't refuse to clarify.

"In any case, an overarching concern here is that you seem to ignore (confuse?) that assertions and propositions are made in declarative statements, and not offered as interrogatives."

I think that statement (note quotation marks above) is rich considering the fact that your entire post was a series of questions, or interrogatives..

[stevenfrisch]

Posted by: Barry Pruett | 24 March 2017 at 12:07 PM

You are always welcome to give me a call Barry. I'm out of town on Monday otherwise in Truckee all week.

[Gregory]

I'm old enough to remember when the lack of any evidence whatsoever was a reason not to appoint a Special Persecutor.

[Bill Tozer]

https://www.facebook.com/lastamericapatriots/photos/a.235087906641439.1073741826.235086849974878/818643494952541/?type=3&theater

[George Rebane]

stevenfrisch 1237pm - Ah yes, when you present a list of of two or more questions, then they become declared and arbitrarily defined propositions. Didn't know that feature of progressive thought. But I do want to point out to the other readers that my question list is intended to show what I would have asked first were I a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

[Russ]

12 Pieces Of Proof: The MSM Knew Obama Spied On Trump and LIED To Cover It Up.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/14756/12-pieces-proof-msm-knew-obama-spied-trump-and-john-nolte#

Here is the Summary:

Way back in January, Heat Street, The Guardian, The BBC, and McClatchy all confirmed that he Obama administration sought and/or received surveillance warrants aimed at Team Trump.

Way back in January, The New York Times reported that the Obama White House was looking at wiretap intelligence related to Trump.

Way back in February, The Washington Post, CNN, the Associated Press, NBC News, CBS News, and ABC News all gleefully reported on private telephone calls that were surveilled by the Obama administration and then illegally made public to the media.

Then, In March, just weeks after all of this reporting on the awesomeness of Obama-era surveillance warrants and intercepted phone calls …

Despite their own knowledge, despite their own reporting, despite the words they publicly printed and the words they publicly spoke, every single one of these news outlets declared Trump a liar for the sin of what …?

For the sin of believing the same people now smearing him as a liar.

According to Comey the White House has access to the unmasked intercept transcripts:

Comey said he could not comment about Flynn. But in general, he acknowledged, several top officials would have access to the information or could request it. That includes top Obama appointees at the Justice Department, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and others. Adm. Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, testified that 20 people in his agency have the authority to “unmask” a U.S. citizen whose identity normally would be disguised.

[Russ]

12 Pieces Of Proof: The MSM Knew Obama Spied On Trump and LIED To Cover It Up.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/14756/12-pieces-proof-msm-knew-obama-spied-trump-and-john-nolte#

Here is the Summary:

Way back in January, Heat Street, The Guardian, The BBC, and McClatchy all confirmed that he Obama administration sought and/or received surveillance warrants aimed at Team Trump.

Way back in January, The New York Times reported that the Obama White House was looking at wiretap intelligence related to Trump.

Way back in February, The Washington Post, CNN, the Associated Press, NBC News, CBS News, and ABC News all gleefully reported on private telephone calls that were surveilled by the Obama administration and then illegally made public to the media.

Then, In March, just weeks after all of this reporting on the awesomeness of Obama-era surveillance warrants and intercepted phone calls …

Despite their own knowledge, despite their own reporting, despite the words they publicly printed and the words they publicly spoke, every single one of these news outlets declared Trump a liar for the sin of what …?

For the sin of believing the same people now smearing him as a liar.

According to Comey the White House has access to the unmasked intercept transcripts:

Comey said he could not comment about Flynn. But in general, he acknowledged, several top officials would have access to the information or could request it. That includes top Obama appointees at the Justice Department, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and others. Adm. Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, testified that 20 people in his agency have the authority to “unmask” a U.S. citizen whose identity normally would be disguised.

[George Rebane]

PaulE - Sorry for the response delay, your comment re Russian vs Mexican involvement was fished out of the spam folder.

Mexico's influence on the 2016 election was orders of magnitude more obvious (public!!), focused, purposive, and effective than of what the Russians could ever dream. To argue otherwise is beyond cynical or stupid. Since you are not stupid, your attempt to be hyper-cynical is duly noted. Nevertheless, I think that no one beyond the likes of Steve Frisch would be swayed by your conclusion.

[Russ]

Good summary of the The Russian Farce as Victor Davis Hanson titles his latest insight into the fraud and abuse in Washington DC.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446148/russian-farce-trump-collusion-hysteria-diverts-attention-surveillance-scandal

[George Rebane]

Russ 728am - Good pick-up Russ; please also see the 28mar17 update above.

[Bill Tozer]

One step closer to unmasking criminal activity.

http://circa.com/politics/barack-obama-changed-how-nsa-intercepts-of-americans-like-donald-trump-could-be-shared

[George Rebane]

BillT 933am - Mr Tozer, kudos for that important pick-up. It is further corroboration of this post's recommended line of questioning agency heads in the process of the ongoing House investigations.

I personally believe that Obama and his collection of reprobates are guilty as hell of such violations and that the evidence will emerge to sustain that belief. However, it's not clear once the evidence surfaces, that the Deep State machinery (a la Director Comey's performance) will not abrogate the weight of the evidence and the guilt it would properly bestow.

[Russ]

An Obama official acknowledged efforts to gather intel about Trump before the inauguration

http://circa.com/politics/government/deputy-assistant-secretary-of-defense-evelyn-farkas-appeared-on-msnbc

A former top Obama administration official acknowledged efforts by her colleagues to gather intelligence about possible Trump team ties to Russia before he took office, MSNBC reported.

Deputy assistant secretary of defense Evelyn Farkas said she urged people on the Hill to get "as much information as you can ... before President Obama leaves the administration."

“Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama] people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy ... that the Trump folks -- if they found out how we knew what we knew about their ... the Trump staff dealing with Russians -- that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence,” she said.

Check out the video, and ask yourself how did this low-level staff person, who was at the time of the interview working for the Hillary campaign, know about this intelligence collection and that it was being shared with "the hill". Who on "the hill" is the question? Who are the staff members reading all of Trump's conversations during the campaign? Why was the person being interviewed concerned that Trump would find out about the methods used?

Recommend you bookmark this site, as they are on top of this political intelligence collection and unmasking issues.

http://circa.com/politics/government/deputy-assistant-secretary-of-defense-evelyn-farkas-appeared-on-msnbc

[Don Bessee]

Loretta Lynch for Jail 2017, and every other 0 team member who's finger prints are on the obamagate files. This should make all the libertarian middle real happy with the Dems. ;-)

[Russ]

Apology for the duplication as I did not see BillT post.

[Don Bessee]

The more voices telling the truth the better Russ! ;-)

[George Rebane]

Gentlemen - re the circa.com report, why don't we see banner headlines about this revelation and the redirection of the congressional investigations to focus on where there is some plausible evidence of wrongdoing? Isn't there a Pulitzer Prize in there somewhere for some intrepid reporter or news organization? Most strange.

[Russ]

Hillary Clinton Had Astonishing Access to Top Secret Documents After She Left State Department. “And it wasn’t just Clinton who kept the power of top secret access. It was six of her former staffers, who went by the tag of ‘research assistants.'”

http://tennesseestar.com/2017/04/01/hillary-clinton-had-astonishing-access-to-top-secret-documents-after-she-left-state-department/

When I left Government Service, I was debriefed, reminded of my responsibility to maintain security and my clearance was suspended. I guess if you are a Clintonista the rules do not apply, allowing the campaign to have access to the incidental intelligence on the Trump team. And she still did not win, no smoking guns found,