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Neil A. Carousso produces NewsNation original “Kurt’s Country” – a celebration of country music and a slice of Americana with host Kurt Bardella.
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Detailing Trump’s First 100 Days in Office
By Neil A. Carousso
President Donald J. Trump’s 100th day in The White House came on Saturday, April 29. While highly scrutinized in a politically divided time in American history, facing much Democratic “resistance,” President Trump has energized his base, fulfilling many campaign promises, although, no major legislation has been passed through Congress.
Mr. Trump has demonstrated a stark contrast to the past 8 years under 44th President Barack Obama in terms of both domestic and foreign policy. The 45th President has committed to an “America First” agenda to restore blue collar American jobs in the manufacturing sector that have left from the rust belt, renegotiate trade policies to benefit the American worker, cut job-killing regulations and enforce immigration laws, deporting thousands of criminal illegal aliens.
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
Beginning in the first hours of his presidency, Mr. Trump began cutting regulations imposed by the Obama Administration. President Trump’s philosophy, rooted in traditional conservative ideology, is to pull back on restraints on businesses, especially small businesses, that would allow them to dedicate more time to create outputs and hire more workers.
Under Trump’s pro-business policies, for every new regulation created, two regulations must be repealed.
The former business mogul also signed a House Joint Resolution to help the coal industry recover after strenuous Environmental Protection Agency regulations were imposed. Eight thousand mining jobs were created in February.
About 49,000 manufacturing jobs have been created since new year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with 12,392,000 U.S. manufacturing employees in the labor force. That is the greatest number of people employed in manufacturing in the United States since January 2009, the month that former-President Obama was inaugurated, when there were 12,561,000 people employed in manufacturing.
Donald Trump in May 2016, as the presumptive GOP nominee. (Associated Press Photo) In February 2009, manufacturing employment dropped to 12,380,000, a number it did not exceed until February of this year, when it reached 12,381,000.
Construction jobs have also increased in the Trump Administration with 58,000 brick and mortar jobs created in February and another 6,000 in March.
At the same time, according to BLS, the number of people employed in government increased by 9,000 in March, climbing from 22,309,000 in February to 22,318,000.
Since December 2016, the U.S. has gained 49,000 manufacturing jobs and 19,000 government jobs.
In an effort to reduce the Washington bureaucratic machine, President Trump signed an executive order to place a hiring freeze on federal workers, excluding the military and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Chief Executive also placed a 5-year lobbying ban on government employees and a lifetime ban for members of a presidential administration to lobby on behalf of a foreign government.
President Trump signed off on the construction of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines with the provision to use American-made piping while moving towards energy independence from nations like Saudi Arabia that sponsors terrorism and lives under the oppressive Sharia Law.
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump took steps to undo the Dodd-Frank financial regulations that have slowed bank loans and put pressure on the financial industry at the expense of small financial brokers.
The President with the encouragement of First Daughter Ivanka Trump launched a council for the advancement of women entrepreneurs and has continued to meet with American business tycoons to encourage private sector initiatives to promote women leadership in the workforce.
Since President Trump’s inauguration on January 20, the stock market has grown 12 percent with the Consumer Confidence Index at the highest mark since December 2000. The stock market incline has slowed since House Speaker Paul Ryan, at the direction of the Chief Executive, pulled the American Health Care Act from a House vote on March 24.
Big League Jobs
Since Mr. Trump was elected on November 8, 2016, a number of American companies have made major job announcements to create and save American jobs from leaving the U.S., many after personal pleadings by phone or in meetings with the incoming President. Roughly $110.2 billion in U.S. investments has been pledged with approximately 1,883,830 U.S. jobs being created that can be credited to President Trump’s pro-growth, pro-business policies.
- Carrier: Keeping 1,100 American jobs instead of sending to Mexico
2. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son: Investing $50 billion to create 50,000 American jobs
3. Sprint: Bringing back 5,000 jobs to the U.S. that were sent overseas
4. OneWeb (new company): Creating 3,000 jobs in the U.S. (associated with Son’s guarantee)
5. Ford: Cancels $1.6 billion plant in Mexico, saving 3,500 American jobs. Creating new innovative center as an expansion of its Flat Rock, MI plant by investing $700 million in the U.S. and creating 700 American jobs
6. Qualcomm and Apple will invest in SoftBank’s new technology fund, SoftBank Vision Fund that is being used to create 50,000 American jobs.
7. Fiat Chrysler announces it would spend $1 billion on U.S. manufacturing, including modernizing plants in Michigan and Ohio, adding 2,000 new American jobs.
8. Toyota will spend $10 billion in U.S. capital investments and will expand its U.S. plants over the next five years.
9. Alibaba Chief Executive Jack Ma met with Trump to discuss the creation of 1 million American jobs, specifically focusing on small business growth.
10. Amazon will create 100,000 jobs in the first year and a half of the Trump Presidency.
11. Wal-Mart will create 10,000 jobs in the U.S. this year.
12. General Motors will invest $1 billion in its U.S. factories this year, moving some parts of production from Mexico to the United States that was previously handled by a supplier.
13. Toyota will add 400 American jobs to build more SUVs at an Indiana assembly plant.
14. Amgen will add 1,600 jobs.
15. Intel will invest $7 billion in innovation in an Arizona factory, creating 3,000 specialist positions and 10,000 support jobs.
16. Delta announces it will hire 25,000 jobs over the next 5 years.
17. Lockheed Martin will create 1,800 new jobs.
18. Exxon Mobil will invest $20 billion to create 35,000 temporary construction jobs and 12,000 high-wage permanent jobs.
19. Charter Communications will invest $25 billion in broadband infrastructure over the next four years to create 20,000 high-paying, highly beneficial American jobs.
20. Ford will invest $1.2 billion in Michigan, securing 3,700 American jobs and creating 130 jobs.
21. Toyota will invest $1.3 billion to revamp its Kentucky factory, saving 8,200 American jobs.
President Trump visited Wisconsin to sign the Buy American, Hire American executive order on April 18 (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) On day 89 of Trump’s presidency, the first businessman to occupy the Oval Office visited Wisconsin, where he was the first Republican since Ronald Reagan’s re-election to win over the Democrat Party nominee. President Trump announced an executive order, “Buy American, Hire American,” a campaign pledge to mandate American companies use American products and higher American workers before high-skilled foreign workers.
The order targets the H1-B visa program, which permits American companies to employ foreign workers in IT, engineering, mathematics and science industries. Mr. Trump, fulfilling a campaign promise, seeks to end the H1-B lottery system and replace it with a merit-bases system enforcing that foreign workers, hired by U.S. companies, are highly skilled with Americans given priority for jobs.
Since 2009, 95 million Americans left the labor force, the lowest labor participation rate since the 1970s. Thirteen million more Americans are on food stamps with about 43 million Americans living in poverty at the conclusion of the Obama Administration-era.
Peace Through Strength
President Trump plans to seek what he’s calling a “historic” $54 billion increase in defense spending, while pursuing cuts elsewhere in the federal government, as part of his upcoming budget plan. The military has been under a “sequestration,” under the Budget Control Act of 2011, with spending cuts and regulations imposed on the U.S. Armed Forces.
President Trump calls for the largest defense spending budget on March 2 on the deck of the USS Gerald R. Ford in Newport News, Virginia — a brand new carrier that is expected to be commissioned this summer. (Associated Press Photo) President Trump seeks to rebuild the military and the dilapidated military equipment to promote “peace through strength,” an ode to former-President Reagan who had the idea of beefing up the military to discourage other nations from waging war on the U.S.
Across the Armed Forces, the U.S. military equipment has been overused and in many cases part of our fleets and jets have been docked and grounded indefinitely.
Out of 276 F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters in the Marine Corps inventory, only about 30% are ready to fly, according to statistics provided by the Corps. Similarly, only 42 of 147 heavy-lift CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters are airworthy.
U.S. military spending has dropped from $691 billion in 2010 to $560 billion in 2015. The cuts came just as the planes were returning from 15 years of war, suffering from overuse and extreme wear and tear. Many highly trained mechanics in the aviation depots left for jobs in the private sector.
Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornets are supposed to have a shelf life of 6,000 hours, but they are being refurbished to extend the life to 8,000. There is talk that some aircraft might be pushed to 10,000 hours while the Marine Corps waits for the 5th-generation Joint Strike Fighter, which is slated to replace the F-18, but has been plagued by cost overruns.
President Trump has vowed to invest in American ingenuity to strengthen our military in a time of increased terror threats from radical Islamic terror groups. In terms of the budget, the Commander-In-Chief has been personally negotiating for lower prices of the F-35 fighter jets as well as Air Force One, the presidential plane.
Eradicating ISIS from the Face of the Earth
Within weeks of President Trump’s inauguration, he ordered his Defense team including Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis, and his National Security Council to draw up a plan for defeating the Islamic State that has inspired all-too-frequent terrorist attacks in our country while persecuting and beheading Christians, Jews and journalists overseas and using videos as recruitment propaganda.
Under the guide of the Islamic faith, ISIS militants seek to destroy freedom and the American way of life.
On April 13, the U.S. dropped the “Mother of All Bombs,” a 21,000-pound GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast on Islamic State fighters in an area that has been an ISIS stronghold since 2015. According to Afghan officials, the largest non-nuclear bomb with a 1-mile killing radius killed 94 Islamic State militants. While literally destroying ISIS in the region, it sent a message to our adversaries like North Korea that the U.S., under President Trump, will stand-up for American values and will not sit idly by as murderous regimes and extremists murder innocent people.
Shift in Foreign Policy
After campaigning on the idea that America shouldn’t be interfering in other countries’ conflicts, like the Syrian civil war, President Trump had an apparent change of heart after Syrian Dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical weapons attack on his own civilians on April 4.
President Trump announced the Syrian airstrike on March 4 at Mar-A-Lago in Florida. (YouTube/White House) “My attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed,” said President Trump at a press conference at The White House Rose Garden alongside King Abdullah II of Jordan. Mr. Trump has spent time on the phone or has met with over 30 foreign leaders, making defeating radical Islamic terror a focal point of all foreign policy meetings.
Trump said, as the leader of the free world, it is imperative for him to remain “flexible” to changing world events.
About 63 hours after Syria heinously attacked its own people, President Trump ordered 59 Tomahawk missiles to be launched, in unison, on an airstrike on the Shayrat airfield in Western Syria, signaling that America will not be isolationists as Assad and his ally in Russia promote and attempt to conceal a vicious attack on civilians.
Chemical weapons have been used in Syria approximately 10 times since 2013, with the Syrian regime responsible for at least half of the attacks.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry and former-President Obama, himself, claimed “100 percent” of chemical weapons were removed from Syria. Since 2013, there have been 10 chemical weapons attacks on Syrian civilians with the Syrian government responsible for at least half of the heinous attacks. Obama infamously drew an unenforced “red line” that would be the Syrian government using chemical weapons.
Helping Our Heroes
On day 89, President Trump signed the “Veterans Choice Program Extension and Improvement Act,” an extension, allowing our U.S. veterans to receive private sector health care, paid by the government.
This will resolve the problematic and outrageous wait times and bureaucracy at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs with too many veterans committing suicide while waiting on line. The suicide rate among veterans has surged 35 percent since 2001, driven in part by sharp increases among those who have served since 2001, according to the largest study of such suicides. Of particular concern is the suicide rate among women, which has increased 85 percent in that time.
The veterans choice program was enacted amid the 2014 wait-time scandal. As a result, veterans can seek private health care if they live within 40 miles from a VA site. 1.5 million veterans have made 7 million appointments.
President Trump has promised to reduce the alarming veterans statistics, as an estimated 39,471 veterans are homeless on a given night, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Mr. Trump vowed to allow vets to seek private health care anywhere in the country for full coverage by the federal government.
Last week, Mr. Trump ordered the opening of a new accountability office of the VA, providing whistleblower protection for Veterans Affairs employees who sound the alarm on inefficiencies and poor treatment of U.S. veterans.
Law and Order
President Trump made immigration a core issue of his campaign for president, proposing a physical wall on the southern border to include increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, video surveillance, face recognition and other technological deterrents and border control measures.
The Trump Administration is receiving hundreds of proposals from American construction companies that are applying to build the wall.
The Trump Administration is hiring of 5,000 border patrol agents and 10,000 ICE officers. Plus, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced the addition of 125 immigration judges to be able to process and arraign criminal illegal aliens with due process, ending the “catch-and-release” and sanctuary city policies that have enabled the harboring of criminal illegal aliens in minority communities. Sessions has also repeatedly threatened to withdraw funding from cities and states that do not enforce federal immigration law.
Since President Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Justice has published weekly reports of illegal immigrant crime, including detainer requests and deportations that have occurred. The reports reveal that MS-13 gang members from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and other countries, who economically thrive on the sale of opioids across the border, have been detained and deported. Murderers, rapists, drug dealers and other violent criminals with convictions have also been targeted, detained and deported from the U.S., as the President created a task force to reduce crime.
President Trump signed an executive order to target drug cartels while there is a violent drug epidemic in the country. Attorney General Sessions has ordered U.S. attorneys to prosecute criminal illegal aliens and drug cartel members to the fullest extent of the law.
In a shift of rhetoric and a signed order, law enforcement officers are being supported and protected. Some states have even followed with “Blue Lives Matter” legislation, increasing penalties for assaulting police officers that has become a cornerstone of the violent anti-Trump and anti-police riots that have swept the nation. The past administration embraced the radical “Black Lives Matter” movement, even protesters to The White House.
President Trump signed two travel suspension orders from radical Islamic terror riddled nations – Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, Iran and Iraq. Iraq was left off the revised order that was a “watered down version” of the first executive order, according to Trump at a post-inauguration rally in Melbourne, FL. Both have been tied up in the courts as activist judges instituted holds based on Trump’s campaign comment about a “Muslim ban.” These orders, though, did not include the most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, or other Muslim-majority nations. These six countries fail to communicate about traveler to the U.S. and have been recent hotbeds of terror.
Other Successes
The November 8 exit polls revealed that the Supreme Court vacancy, left by Justice Antonin Scalia when he passed away last February, was a top issue. Of the nearly 700 counties that voted for Obama twice, one-third states flipped to support Trump. The Republican also won 194 of the 207 counties that voted for Obama either in 2008 or 2012.
Justice Neil Gorsuch is sworn in as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States at The White House Rose Garden (Associated Press Photo) On April 10, Justice Neil Gorsuch was sworn in as the 113th Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States with his first day on the Court 8 days later.
Gorsuch is a respected judge who has ruled on a number of religious liberty cases, but not abortion. He is seen as a moderate conservative justice who has ruled under the common Constitutional, originalist philosophy. Justice Gorsuch, 49, is the youngest sitting justice and the youngest to be confirmed since Clarence Thomas at 1991 at the age of 43.
President Trump has also signed executive orders to reduce business and ObamaCare regulations while cutting burdensome EPA regulations on businesses and reducing government bureaucracy.
Mr. Trump is also working across party lines, trying to engage with Democrats where appropriate. Trump has met with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and pharmaceutical company CEOs in an effort to lower prescription drug prices.
Mr. Trump is meeting with inner-city leaders, working to implement school choice policies, allowing families to decide where to send their student children to receive an education. The President continues to meet with Congressional Black Caucus members and African American leaders to clean up inner cities after a year of record gang violence and inner-city crime.
Chicago saw 163 murders in 2016 with 786 shooting incidents in the Windy City. The sanctuary city has already seen numbers inch towards the 2016 levels in the fourth month of the 2017 calendar.
A show of patriotism, President Trump signed an order investing in NASA’s space exploration programs.
Challenges and Arguable Shortcomings
Failure to send the American Health Care Act to a House vote was embarrassing for Republicans who have campaigned on “repeal and replace” of ObamaCare for over 7 years. The GOP and President Trump set an artificial deadline to get a 3-pronged approach repeal and replacement plan through legislation, but conservative members of the Freedom Caucus were not in unison with moderate Republicans who seem to be more generous on benefits that would not reduce premiums and deductibles enough to be a major change from Obama’s signature legislation.
At first, President Trump suggested that he would move on to tax reform as the first piece of Congressional legislation to tackle, but the Affordable Health Care Act contains taxes that would ideally be cut before true tax reform can be addressed.
The MacArthur Amendment to the American Health Care Act (“The Neil A. Carousso Show”) The MacArthur Amendment, proposed last Wednesday, to the American Health Care Act maintains many provisions in the original bill, but it would allow states to request waivers of pre-existing conditions, known as community rating. The amended ObamaCare replacement bill allows states to opt-out of the essential health benefits while protecting people with “continuous coverage.” States may waive a 30 percent surcharge in a bill for people who have a gap in coverage. The House Freedom Caucus, the conservative wing of the Republican Party that refused to endorse the AHCA, because it would not lower premium and deductible costs by large enough margins, has endorsed the MacArthur Amendment.
President Trump’s tax reform proposal (“The Neil A. Carousso Show”) There has not been comprehensive tax reform since former-President Reagan’s 1986 tax cuts. Mr. Trump has proposed simplifying the 4 million-word tax code, reducing personal tax brackets to 3 and cutting taxes across-the-board. Trump also aims to reduce the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent, the highest among developed nations, and offer incentives for companies to repatriate trillions of dollars stored and invested overseas to invest and create jobs in the U.S. The White House has also proposed a doubling to the standard deductions for middle class individuals and families and elimination of tax deductions except mortgage interest and charitable contributions. The Trump Administration is also seeking to end the estate tax, also known as the “death tax,” repeal the alternative minimum tax and ObamaCare taxes.
Congress, which was only in session 8 days in April, has set an August timetable to have healthcare and/or tax reform passed, but that is looking unlikely at this time, a blow to the ambitious Trump Agenda that requires a fast-moving legislative branch to match Mr. Trump’s unrivaled work ethic.
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Moving forward, President Trump has about 1,360 days remaining in his first term. While many steps have been made to create change in Washington and implement his ambitious agenda, it will be incumbent upon the Chief Executive to pass legislation through Congress. The President will be ultimately judged on economic results for the market and American workers, keeping the country safe from terror, defeating our enemies, including radical Islam and criminal illegal aliens, and respectably leading the United States in terms of its standing in the world, energy independence, prosperity and peace.
Featured Image Courtesy of Reuters photographer Carlos Barria.
- Carrier: Keeping 1,100 American jobs instead of sending to Mexico
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Supporting Our Troops: Adopt-A-Battalion of Long Island Mail Tons of Care Packages to U.S. Soldiers Serving Overseas
By Neil A. Carousso
Volunteers for Adopt-A-Battalion gather weekly at the Knights of Columbus in Massapequa Park, NY to arrange care packages for U.S. military members who are currently serving in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Col. Timothy M. Parker is the Commanding Officer of the Weapons Training Battalion at the U.S. Marines Training Command in Quantico, VA. Parker served as the inspiration for Adopt-A-Battalion for which his brother is the vice president. (Photo: United States Marine Corps) It was founded in 2004 after now-Col. Timothy Parker wrote home to his parents for basic necessities such as clean underwear when he was serving his first tour in Iraq. Parker’s cohorts asked for similar packages and the Parker family began shipping goods to individual U.S. soldiers who share with their battalions.
Adopt-A-Battalion has shipped over 40 tons of goods, directly to service men and women over 13 years. Last year, it sent 1,972 boxes to troops stationed overseas. Their goal is to surpass 2,000 boxes in 2017.
One can donate goods, money or one’s time to Adopt-A-Battalion. Log on to AdoptABattalion.com to learn more about how this grassroots, community organization directly makes a difference by helping those who serve to protect our freedom, American values and our nation’s sovereignty.
Featured Image: Adopt-A-Battalion President and U.S. Navy Vietnam Veteran Richard Olson poses next to the care packages that volunteers prepared on Saturday, April 22. The goods will be shipped to U.S. military members serving in Afghanistan.
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America is Back: President Trump Puts America’s Interests First to Political Praise, Showing the Commander-In-Chief has Heart
By Neil A. Carousso
As radical Islamic terrorism ravages through the Middle East, persecuting minority Christians in the region, President Donald J. Trump’s foreign policy is shifting in order to increase America’s standing in the world after the previous Obama Administration was”all talk, no action,” drawing a red line in Syria in August 2012 but refusing to act militarily when Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad launched a chemical weapons attack on its citizens. Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who is being called to testify under oath by Senate Republicans for allegedly unmasking Trump transition team members names for political purposes while intelligence agencies surveiled Mr. Trump’s campaign, even claimed that the Obama Administration “actually removed the chemical weapons that were known from Syria.”
The recent chemical weapons attack in Syria killed more than 80 civilians including children and babies. (AP Photo) Former Secretary of State John Kerry and former President Barack Obama, himself, claimed “100 percent” of chemical weapons were removed from Syria. Since 2013, there have been 10 chemical weapons attacks on Syrian civilians with the Syrian government responsible for at least half of the heinous attacks.
Last Tuesday, Syria and its dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical weapons attack on its people. President Trump responded with a 59 Tomahawk missile strike 63 hours later, sending the message to Syria and the world that the United States will not tolerate human rights violations.
Watch the “Carousso’s Comments” monologue from Sunday’s “The Neil A. Carousso Show”, below, that led with breaking news after a terror attack in Egypt that killed 44 at two Churches on Palm Sunday. Plus, the heinous Syria terror attack and President Donald Trump’s airstrike response in the context of the Commander-In-Chief’s foreign policy challenges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAmmh8Dbw4E
Few politicians from both sides of the aisle have criticized the strike. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are among those critical. Rep. Gabbard has received blowback from fellow Democrats for her lack of support for the Syria airstrike. Sen. Warren has claimed that President Trump should welcome Syrian refugees after the deadly sarin gas attack that killed upwards of 80 people including innocent children.
If @realDonaldTrump truly wants to help Syrians fleeing murderers, he should drop his effort to ban their children from America immediately.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) April 8, 2017
Ironically, a father of 9-month-old twins killed in the Syrian chemical attack told ABC News that he wants more airstrikes on Syria, asking, “Why did President Trump stop the strikes?”
CNN and Fox News both interviewed Kassem Eid, a refugee who is thankful for Mr. Trump’s airstrike order and is optimistic that the Commander-in-Chief’s policies will bring down Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in favor of American values and democracy that will permit him to return to his home country safely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZsQN74ftCo
On “The Real Deal with Neil” segment, Neil discusses President Trump’s change in heart after the Syrian attack. Plus, Harvard University students interviewed by Campus Reform believe Mr. Trump is more dangerous than ISIS, which does not add value to our country that needs to come together in order to defeat radical ideologies that seek to destroy American values.
“The Neil A. Carousso Show” airs live on Sundays at 12 Noon ET/9 AM PT on YouTube and NeilACarousso.com.
Featured Image: U.S. Department of Defense.
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Connecting the Dots: Obama Administration Surveilled President Trump
By Neil A. Carousso
It is well documented that surveillance of President Donald J. Trump and his aides was conducted as revealed by mounting ongoing illegal intelligence leaks, a felony, of “unmasked” American names in intelligence reporting which is not standard practice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGbyPGUrdW0
Updated: Political Motivation for Surveillance
New groundbreaking revelations, further proving President Trump’s surveillance allegations against the Obama Administration has emerged.
Susan Rice, former national security adviser under then-President Barack Hussein Obama, “requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials” who were incidentally collected through intelligence gathering of foreign nationals, according to Fox News Journalist Adam Housley and Bloomberg View Columnist Eli Lake’s sources on Monday, April 3.
In an interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, Rice denied unmasking Trump team names for political purposes, but said it is “not unusual” for top administration officials to request the identities of Americans caught in surveillance, adding that she engaged in this activity as NSA advisor for national security reasons. The National Security Agency is required to report the number of unmasked American identities to Congress which oversees U.S. intelligence agencies; therefore, there is a paper trail of those Rice requested to unmask that could reveal documented Obama Administration surveillance activities of Mr. Trump and his aides. Only 20 people at the NSA can “unmask” Americans picked up by “incidental collection.”
“There were occasions when I would receive a report in which a U.S. person was referred to, name not provided, just a U.S. person, and sometimes in that context in order to understand the importance of that report, and assess its significance, it was necessary to find out or request the information as to who that U.S. official was,” said Rice.
On March 22, the day House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) briefed the press about the intelligence he saw at The White House, the former NSA advisor claimed she knew “nothing about this” when asked on PBS Newshour about Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s name being unmasked in intelligence reports and illegally leaked to the media.
“I leaked nothing to nobody.” – Former NSA Advisor Susan Rice on MSNBC on Tuesday, March 4, 2017
The Daily Caller reported that Ms. Rice ordered U.S. spy agencies to produce “detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls involving Donald Trump and his aides when he was running for president, according to former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova.” On MSNBC, Rice denied she “prepared” spreadsheets of surveilled telephone calls involving Mr. Trump and his aides.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice appeared on all five Sunday news shows on September 16, 2012 pushing the Obama Administration’s lie about the Benghazi attack. (ABC News) Rice, then the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., pushed the false narrative that the September 11, 2012 attacks on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya was triggered by an anti-Islam Internet video and was simply a protest. We now know that the administration, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, repeatedly lied to the American people and to the victims’ families while they knew that evening that the Benghazi attack was an act of terrorism. Four Americans died in the 2012 Benghazi attack – U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and two CIA operatives and former Navy SEALs, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
Ms. Rice also told ABC News that Army Sgt. Bow Bergdahl “served the United States with honor and distinction” and that he “wasn’t simply a hostage; he was an American prisoner of war captured on the battlefield. Bergdahl is currently facing court-martial on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for allegedly leaving his post in Afghanistan.
The House Intelligence Committee and several House and Senate Republicans are calling for Rice to testify under oath about what she knew about unmasking of names and surveillance of Mr. Trump.
The unmasked names are of people associated with Donald Trump, including family members, and later, transition team members. The names were gathered in incidental surveillance of a political adversary for up to a year before Mr. Trump took office. Those names were sent to top officials including National Security Council personnel, some staffers at the Defense Department, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan, according to Fox News.
Unmasking and leaking of American names in intelligence reporting, especially Americans who come under “incidental collection” by U.S. Government surveillance, is a federal crime that violates the Espionage Act of 1917, confirmed by FBI Director James Comey in a March 20 public hearing under oath. Intelligence officials refer to Americans as “American number 1, American number 2″ and so forth to protect the American citizens who appear in intelligence reports.
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects American citizens against “unreasonable search and seizure,” but a May 7, 2015 appeals court ruling permitted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to issue warrants to surveil Americans for “national security” reasons that is determined by the Justice Department. This appeals court ruling, which references the 2001 USA Patriot Act, enacted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, makes it easier for an administration to order surveillance of an American under the national security standard. Lower courts must have “probable cause” in order to be issued a search warrant.
“FISA is very easy to get with very little probable cause,” said a former FBI agent to this reporter on the condition of anonymity. The ex-FBI agent said that receiving a warrant from lower courts for intelligence gathering including wiretapping and surveillance could take upwards of 6 months. FISA warrants are “granted pretty easy,” according to the former agent.
Bloomberg’s Lake further reports on a pattern of dozens of occasions when Rice requested the identities of U.S. citizens who were incidentally collected in raw intelligence reports, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
White House lawyers learned of this activity last month in a National Security Council review of the government’s policy on unmasking the identities of American citizens who are communicating with foreign nationals who are being surveilled by U.S. intelligence agencies.
“One U.S. official familiar with the reports said they contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the income administration,” wrote Lake, regarding the Obama Administration’s alleged political motive.
Fox News journalist Adam Housley reported on the afternoon of March 31 about the political motive for smearing Mr. Trump through intelligence gathering of his campaign for president.“Congressional investigators know the name of at least one person who was unmasking names,” Housley reported, citing sources not affiliated with The White House or President Trump’s team, Housely has reported that the surveillance that led to unmasking was conducted by “very well known, very high up, very senior, in the intelligence world and is not in the FBI” in political effort against Mr. Trump that occurred before Trump was the Republican nominee.
Congressional investigators know the name of at least one person who was unmasking names…and they know who
— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) March 31, 2017
Our sources: This surveillance that led to the unmasking of private names of American citizens started before Trump was the GOP nominee.
— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) March 31, 2017
Our sources:The person who did the unmasking is "very well known, very high up, very senior, in the intelligence world & is not in the FBI
— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) March 31, 2017
Our sources: Unmasking the names and then spreading the names was for political purposes that have nothing to do with national security
— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) March 31, 2017
Our sources: "It had everything to do with hurting and embarrassing Trump and his team"
— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) March 31, 2017
Criminal: Unmasking and Leaking of American Names without Proper Authorization
On Monday, March 20, 2017, FBI Director James Comey testifies in front of Congress (Credit: Associated Press) “Leaks of classified information are serious, serious federal crimes for a reason. [Those behind the leaks] “should be investigated, and where possible, prosecuted in a way that reflects that seriousness so that people understand it simply cannot be tolerated.” – FBI Director James Comey in his opening statement under oath on Monday, March 20
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was unmasked in intelligence reports, a felony, for preparing for the national security advisor position from which he ultimately resigned after lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his communications with Russia. (Credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s name was unmasked in February when the leaked conversation between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak was revealed in the media. The Flynn/Kislyak conversation was legal and customary for a preparing national security advisor to have with ambassadors of other nations. Americans are supposed to be protected even when “incidental” surveillance of Americans occur when a foreigner is on-the-phone with an American citizen, even high profile or well-known American citizens.
“We don’t actually know yet officially what happened to General Flynn,” Nunes said of how communications from his confidential calls were leaked to the press. “We just know that his name leaked out but we don’t know how it was picked up yet. That was one of the things that we asked for in the March 15th letter, was for the NSA, CIA, and FBI to get us all the unmasking that was done.”
Flynn has agreed to testify on his communications with Russia with the caveat of immunity. President Trump, in a tweet, expressed his support for asking for immunity in light of the political nature of this investigation, targeting Trump aides.
Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 31, 2017
To unmask a name is rare….never for politics
— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) March 31, 2017
Through Housley’s reporting, it is evident that American names associated with Mr. Trump, like Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn whose name was leaked to the media, were illegally unmasked in intelligence reports for political reasons.
Further Connecting the Dots
The reported connections of surveillance include a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) warrant granted in October to surveil a computer server in Trump Tower suspected of links to Russian banks. The FBI found no connection or collusion between Trump and Russia. FISA warrants are legally supposed to be covert requests and orders, not public knowledge.
Journalist Sara Carter of Circa News broke the story that Indiana University professor and computer scientist L. Jean Camp is behind the surfaced allegations of the Trump Organization and a Russian bank, Alfa Bank, which is now warning against potential legal action. Camp is a Hillary Clinton supporter and donor who pushed the narrative of a connection between Mr. Trump and Russia.
The Obama Administration performed several 11th hour moves in an attempt to undermine the incoming Trump Administration. They rushed to “preserve intelligence,” according to The New York Times, leaving a “clear trail” of classified intelligence information about alleged Russian meddling into the 2016 U.S. presidential election for investigators in order to avoid stifling of the probe by President Trump; this intelligence trail had the consequence of classified materials being illegally leaked to the media.
“I was urging my former colleagues, and frankly speaking, the people on the Hill, it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, ‘get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration.'” – Evelyn Farkas, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Obama Administration on March 2, 2017 on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhb3XfvqrCg
In October of 2016, Evelyn Farkas, deputy assistant secretary of defense under former-President Obama, said that if Donald Trump were to be elected, he would be removed from office “quickly.”
“We have a lot of presidential historians who have put forward very coherent the argument – they have given us examples of all of our horrible presidents in the past and the fact that we have endured. And we do have a strong system of checks and balances. And actually, if Donald Trump were elected I believe he would be impeached pretty quickly or somebody else would have to take over government. And I am not even joking.” – Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas on October 26, 2016 at the annual Warsaw Security Forum panel at a global leadership conference.
Farkas endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and urged people to vote for the first female presidential candidate.
The New York Times reported on January 20 that Trump aides were wiretapped. In March, they write Trump has citied “no evidence.” In his final days in office, President Obama expanded the power of the National Security Agency allowing it to share “globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies,” The New York Times reported in January. These new rules eased limits on the NSA’s surveillance gathering operations that are largely unregulated by U.S. wiretapping laws.
Circa News reports that on a number of occasions in 2016, intelligence reports identified Americans who were directly intercepted in conversations with foreign sources or the subject of foreign sources’ conversations.
“Sometimes the Americans’ names were officially unmasked; other times they were so specifically described in the reports that their identities were readily discernible. Among those cleared to request and consume unmasked NSA-based intelligence reports about U.S. citizens were Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice, his CIA Director John Brennan and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch,” writes journalists John Solomon and Sara Carter.
Furthermore, the baseless “dossier” that Buzzfeed reported on in January was presented to President-elect Trump by the FBI Director in a classified intelligence briefing attended by top U.S. intelligence officials Comey, NSA Director Rogers, former CIA Director Brennan and President Obama’s DNI Clapper. It is suspected that one of the attendees leaked the dossier to the media. The dossier could not be proven or substantiated which is why no mainstream media outlet covered it except in the context of Buzzfeed’s irresponsible publication.
The dossier was written by former British spy Christopher Steele that originated as opposition research that the GOP compiled during the Republican primaries. It became the Clinton campaign opposition research, along with other baseless politically-charged, salacious claims that could be used to smear candidate Trump and ruin his chances of winning the November election.
The Wall Street Journal reported in February that top intelligence officials “have withheld” sensitive and classified information from President Trump.
On “The Neil A. Carousso Show Podcast” and on “The Neil A. Carousso Show” on April 2, this host discusses the facts, in a comprehensive manner, that support President Trump’s surveillance accusations despite the convoluted reporting and various investigations that have distracted from the central issues of U.S. Government surveillance overreach on American citizens and illegal leaks from career Washington, D.C. bureaucrats with intentions to damage and undermine the 45th President.
House Intelligence Committee Investigation
House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) briefed the press on March 22, informing the public that he has seen intelligence reports that lead him to believe it is plausible that Mr. Trump was surveilled by the Obama Administration.
“I recently confirmed that on numerous occasions, the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition,” said Rep. Nunes. “Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little or apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) (Getty Images) Rep. Nunes has faced backlash for debriefing the press and the President before informing his Democratic House Intelligence Committee colleagues of the new revelations. Nunes confirmed on March 27 that he was on White House grounds the day before last week’s announcement where he could privately and securely view the classified documents in the White House SCIF – a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility where top secret information may be viewed for oversight and intelligence gathering. This is customary and has happened before despite politicians’ claims that Nunes overstepped his bounds.
Democrats have been calling for Nunes to recuse himself from any investigation into Trump and Russia, a special prosecutor for the case and a third party oversight despite the committee’s role and Congress members’ elected duty to supervise U.S. intelligence agencies.
Ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) viewed the same intelligence documents Nunes read at the White House Friday, March 31. Schiff is now calling for the reports to be shared with the House Intelligence Committee to address President Trump’s concerns about the Obama Administration’s overreach.
“We, I think, suffered really two serious blows to the integrity of the investigation this week,” Rep. Schiff said, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation on March 26.” “I think the chairman has to make a decision, whether to act as a surrogate of the White House as he did during the campaign and the transition, or to lead an independent and credible investigation. I hope he chooses the latter.”
“Without further ado, Speaker Ryan should replace Chairman Nunes,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said from the House floor on March 27. “If Speaker Ryan wants the House to have a credible investigation, he needs to replace Chairman Nunes.”
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) defended Nunes by looking to the substance of the investigation.
“I wish Senator Schumer and some of the other Democrats would be interested in the authenticity and reliability of the underlying data [rather than] the means by which it was acquired,” Gowdy said on Fox News’ “First 100 Days” program hosted by Martha MacCallum.
Nunes is holding his ground while Democrats seek his recusal, asking reporters on March 28, “Why would I?”
“We go to the executive branch at least once or twice a week,” Rep. Devin Nunes told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on “The O’Reilly Factor.” “This is not unusual, because there are intelligence products that we don’t have access to in the House of Representatives, although we do have the clearances to see them.”
“I have confirmed that additional names of Trump transition team members were unmasked. I want to be clear: None of this surveillance was related to Russia or the investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team.” – Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) briefing the press on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, March 22.
“And I’ll tell you, NSA is being cooperative,” Nunes continued. “But so far the FBI has not told us whether or not they’re going to respond to our March 15th letter, which is now a couple of weeks old.”
Nunes told the press that FBI director Comey and NSA Director Admiral Michael S. Rogers will appear in closed committee session after last week’s public hearing. The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, has been postponed. On Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Nunes said he has invited Comey to testify again before investigators. Former CIA Director Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence Clapper and former Attorney General Sally Yates were also expected to attend the canceled House Intelligence Committee hearing.
When asked if the House Intel Committee is meeting with Comey and Rogers because they weren’t forthcoming in the public hearing, Nunes said there were questions he “probably couldn’t answer in public session.”
“It’s clear that I would be concerned if I was the president, and that’s why I wanted him to know. I felt like I had a duty and obligation to tell him, because, as you know, he’s taking a lot of heat in the news media, and I think to some degree there are some things he should look at to see whether, in fact, he thinks the collection was proper or not.” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) in a Thursday interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity”
President Trump says he feels “somewhat” vindicated by Rep. Nunes’ new intelligence revelations regarding spying on Trump and his transition team. (Credit: Associated Press) The White House called for an open Congressional investigation and one would assume the President has the highest security clearance that would allow him to have all secret government information at his fingertips.
Timeline of Devin Nunes’ Intel Gathering Activities Related to Alleged Surveillance of Trump
Rep. Devin Nunes briefs the press on new intelligence revealing details about Trump’s surveillance charges on the Obama Administration (Credit: Getty Images) - Tues. 3/21: Nunes takes a phone call while sharing an Uber ride with a staffer, according to The Washington Post. After the call, Nunes switches cars without telling his team where he’s going, in order to protect classified information. A Nunes spokesperson confirmed to CNN that he went to the White House where he learned of the incidental collection of Trump aides and potentially Trump, himself.
- Wed. 3/22: Nunes holds a press conference in the Capitol building outlining “incidental collection” of Trump and his associates, as well as the criminal “unmasking” of names such as Lt. Gen. Flynn in intelligence reports. Nunes says the reports came from FISA surveillance, which means that foreign nationals who the intelligence community has eyes on either talked to or about the president-elect and his transition team at some point. There’s nothing either incriminating or surprising about this as the President-elect and his administration were preparing for their new government jobs and intended to start running on January 20. Nunes later visits The White House to brief President Trump on the new intelligence reports. The House Intelligence Committee Chair held another press conference on The White House lawn.
- Thurs. 3/23: After coming under fire from House Intelligence Commitee Democrats for briefing the press and the President before consulting them on the new intelligence, Nunes apologizes.
- Fri. 3/24: Nunes cancels a planned open Intelligence Commitee hearing to be attended by former DNI Clapper, former CIA Director Brennan and Former Deputy AG Yates. (A closed committee hearing planned for Tuesday was later postponed.)
- Mon. 3/27: A Nunes spokesperson clarifies that the House Intelligence Committee Chair met his source at The White House last week “in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source.” That’s apparently referring to a SCIF, a protected room used to share classified materials. But the need for a SCIF doesn’t explain the use of the White House; the Capitol building houses several of them and sits just 15 minutes away by car. The spokesperson emphasizes that “because of classification rules, the source could not simply put the documents in a backpack and walk them over to the House Intelligence Committee space.”
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
On March 4, President Trump alleged the former administration surveilled him, which has set off political criticism. Details outlined in this article have emerged revealing Mr. Trump is correct to sound the alarm on potentially illegal surveillance activity.
Watch: Neil A. Carousso in the “Real Deal with Neil” segment on “The Neil A. Carousso” on April 2 connect the dots of Obama Administration surveillance of Donald Trump.
Featured Image: Trump Tower New York
The original story was published Tuesday, March 28. This story has been updated since with new revelations. Last edited: Monday, April 10 at 9:30 AM ET.
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“Real Deal with Neil:” Connecting the Dots of Obama Administration Surveillance of Donald Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqI2EgY7Fgo&feature=youtu.be
On Sunday’s “The Neil A. Carousso Show,” Neil connected the dots of how President Barack Obama’s administration surveilled a political adversary in Donald Trump. Watch “The Real Deal with Neil” segment above.
“The Real Deal with Neil” is the final segment on the weekly live streaming program where Neil picks a topic and expounds upon it with insight and well-informed, bold analysis in a straight-forward, “tell it the way it is” manner.
“The Neil A. Carousso Show” airs live on Sundays at 12 Noon ET/9 AM PT on YouTube and NeilACarousso.com.
