Category Archives: Obama

American Credibility Erosion

american credibility

President Obama accused President Trump of eroding American credibility by pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. But his views on eroding credibility must have evolved.

American Credibility

In 2009 Obama wanted to reset relations with Russia. So he pulled out of Bush’s missile defense deal with Poland and the Czech Republic.

Stormy White House

stormy

The WSJ says, President Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid $130,000 to porn star Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels. Stormy says the payment was part of an agreement to keep quiet about an “encounter” between the two in 2006.

Better Offer for Stormy?

But now she wants out of the deal because she says Trump never signed it.

The Washington Post reported Hillary Clinton’s campaign hid payments through a lawyer too. The campaign’s law firm Perkins Coi paid Fusion GPS to make noise by digging dirt on Trump before the election. Fusion GPS in turn hired the British spy Christopher Steel who produced the “salacious” dossier used to gain FISA court permission to spy on Trump associates.

According to a new book, Russian Roulette, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hillary was following in big footsteps. The Obama campaign had hired the same firm to dig dirt on Mitt Romney.

 

North Korean Reset

reset

President Trump Hits Global Reset Button from Paris to Pyongyang. At least that’s the way a headline in The Hill sees it.

The article is by former Trump Staffer Sebastian Gorka. He claims that if you want to understand The Donald you have to read Art of the Deal. And once you’ve done that you’ll know it’s all about the objective:

The negotiations themselves, or maintaining the established way of doing business, are never the objectives. The real objective is defined by realizing your interests, which may not be possible if the status quo is maintained.

Russian Overcharge

For example, Hillary’s reset (or overcharge) with Russia didn’t achieve an objective.

President Obama sent Hillary Clinton to present a mislabeled “reset button” to the Kremlin. In reality, there was no reset. The Obama administration did not effectively address the expansionist and destabilizing behavior of former KGB colonel Vladimir Putin, not even after he invaded Ukraine.

But Gorka has way more faith in a Trump reset with North Korea:

It is a reset that included tough talk with China and North Korea, talk followed up by actions that have led to a response on behalf of Pyongyang, which may take us to the cusp of bringing peace and stability to the region after 65 years of potential war.

But whatever you do with Dear Leader, don’t go all Madeline Albright.

The whole thing seemed more upset than reset with Secretary of State Tillerson. He was traveling in Africa when he learned of the dotard’s decision to meet the rocket man.

So he called in sick.

By The Book

by the book

Susan Rice didn’t let the door hit her on the way out of the White House. Instead she sent herself an email.

It was time stamped 12:15 pm January 21 – the day of President Trump’s inauguration. And her self-message recapped a January 5 meeting President Obama held with top staffers.

By the Book

In that meeting Obama instructed his staff on the transfer of information to the new administration. Or the non-transfer of information as National Review’s Andrew McCarthy suspects.

At any rate, Susan Rice let the record show that President Obama insisted it be done “by the book.”

Adam Schiff Leaks

adam schiff

Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has prepared a four page memo. The memo is a summary of thousands of pages of information the FBI refused to turn over to the committee until it was threatened with contempt of Congress. The committee is responsible for oversight of the FBI.

Nunes says the public has a right know about the information in the memo. But the FBI is fighting its release.

The summary is said to reveal the quality of evidence the Justice Department presented to a FISA court. The FISA court has the power to authorize spying on Americans, including members of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign.

Adam Schiff

Adam Schiff is the ranking Democrat on the committee. He says Nunes is trying to distract from Special Counsel Mueller’s Russian collusion investigation by releasing classified information. And he now claims Nunes altered information in the memo.

Trey Gowdy says the memo will be an embarrassment to Schiff.

Until now Schiff has shown little interest in obtaining information about FBI efforts to spy on Americans. Except when it suites his purposes.

Then he leaked the information.