Volunteers Of America

So now one of Donald Trump's protege's has been demoted to "coffee boy", or perhaps, "covfefe boy"! Yep; George Popadopoulos, former foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign, has entered a guilty plea to charges in the proceedings stemming from Bob Mueller's investigation of Donald Trump. It seems that Popadopoulos initially made false statements under oath. Imagine that! The nation should also be extremely interested in the indictments of Paul Manafort and Richard Gates.

Back to George Popadopoulos; Trump now claims that his guilty plea means nothing because he was a "volunteer" for the campaign, in fact, a mere "coffee boy"! That's an interesting perspective: testimony and guilt or innocence do not matter unless the defendant or witness was paid while engaged in crime! The fact is, all types of organizations utilize volunteers, and a volunteer who commits a crime while volunteering does not automatically acquire a "get out of jail free" card. No one should be fooled by Donald Trump's lame departures from the truth. As it happens, Popadopoulos wore a wire while having quite a few conversations with folks connected to Trump. That should reassure everyone.

 

Here's How It Differs From Watergate

Yes, Donald Trump's phones and computers were investigated by remote. He was, in fact, "wiretapped". A server at Trump Tower had a lot of communication with Alfa Bank, in Russia, and with Vladimir Putin during the summer and fall of 2016. Since nothing we do online is anonymous, the FBI noticed, and got a warrant to investigate. It was that simple. If Donald Trump thinks that any president would say no to such an investigation, he is delusional.

This differs from Watergate primarily because it was an actual investigation, complete with a warrant issued by the court for a wiretap. Watergate was spying and invasion of privacy. Nixon and et els were attempting to manipulate the success of a campaign and the outcome of a future election by criminal means. That's not what happened at Trump Tower. Due process was followed in the wiretapping of Trump Tower. No court gave Nixon permission to eavesdrop on the Democrats, but the court gave the FBI permission to investigate Donald Trump.

Another difference is that the investigation of the server at Trump Tower involves a foreign power. Had a Russian bank, with which Trump claimed he has no commerce, not been flagged, again and again, on his server, nothing would have seemed suspect. As it happens, Alfa Bank is also connected to Vladimir Putin. It would be negligent for the FBI to ignore such communiques. Nothing about this investigation compares to Watergate.

Trump Cries About Wiretaps

In case there is someone out there in Internetland who has not heard, Donald Trump has dominated Twitter, yet again, with yet another petty complaint. This time, it is an accusation against Barack Obama; specifically, that he had the phones at Trump Tower wiretapped during the election. Here's what he said, among other things:

While it is tempting to simply write this off as another stupid sounding complaint by an unqualified and ill-elected president, it is important to note the reaction of Kevin Lewis, Obama's spokesman, prior to passing judgement.  "A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false, " Lewis stated.

This is interesting. A president cannot order the wiretapping of any American citizen's phone, or any unconstitutional invasion of privacy. If Donald Trump does not know this, and must reach out to his Twitter audience for an answer, he is too stupid for the oval office. Another very telling aspect of Lewis's remark is what he said about DOJ investigations. As it happens, there actually WAS a warrant, which was not obtained by the White House, but by the FBI, to investigate communications at Trump Tower. It centered on a server which was found to be communicating with Russia's Alfa Bank, which has strong ties to Vladimir Putin. It seems that Mr. Trump just found out about the FBI investigation yesterday.

As long as an investigation is ongoing, the FBI is usually not inclined to comment or speak publicly about it. Had Donald Trump just resisted the urge to tweet, many, many Americans would not be aware, today, that the FBI has been investigating his computer and email activities, in connection to his relationship with entities in Russia. It seems plausible that we will hear more about this in the future.

Trump Learned Nothing From Watergate

In addition to his lack of empathy toward parents whose son died in 2004, while fighting in Iraq, Donald Trump has gone for the international jugular vein and invited hackers in Russia to commit espionage by hacking email accounts owned by government officials, most notably Hillary Clinton. Standing before a live microphone, he actually asked them to hack and reveal sensitive information. It's almost as if he thought that sort of thing was legal, and without any risks!

Hacking and wiretapping with the intention of influencing an election is hardly original. Trump apparently has forgotten 1972, when Nixon unlawfully recorded conversations of his political opponents. Of course, an obvious difference between Nixon and Trump is that Nixon was intelligent enough to understand that such actions are against the law, and attempted to hide his involvement when the news broke. Trump, it seems, either does not remember Watergate, or failed to learn from it.

While Clinton could have handled her email correspondence more safely while she served as Secretary of State, invoking the criminal element of another country, particularly one that is not one of our allies, is dangerous. It is also something that is no laughing matter, so if Trump is jesting, he should learn self control. Why would a presidential candidate laughingly request that others make a crime victim out of his opponent?

Message From Anonymous To The Ukraine

We really don't need another war. No one really cares about the Ukrainian people. The Ukraine simply happens to be in a strategic position, and Russia, the United States, and the European Union are all vying for influence. It's time to step away and simply respect the Ukraine's autonomy as a nation, if anyone can do that.

Turnabout's Fair Play?

It seems that instead of making progress, since the Civil Rights Movement, America has been losing it's grip on it's understanding of the Constitution. Not only do we deliberately fail to teach children about the Constitution in school, (no joke, Kansas; the principal of the school in Frankfort, Kansas told yours truly that he purposefully did NOT teach, or allow the teachers to teach, any student about first or fourth amendment rights) we pay law enforcement to bully innocent citizens, we allow unnecessary surveillance, and now our judicial community uses the lag between the average person's understanding of the digital world and the analog world as an excuse to make examples of information "leakers", such as Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, accusing them of treason, and attempting to punish them with sanctions that are not even imposed on serial killers. Did we threaten Nixon and et els with decades in prison, or cancel his passport? Revealing information that is contractually held in confidence is breach of contract, but generally not high treason, yet John McCain is fuming because Russia has granted a year's asylum to Edward Snowden. Has McCain forgotten how many Russians either defected, or attempted to defect, to the United States? Not that they did not have reasons for this, but McCain seems to almost deliberately overlook Snowden's perspective, Putin's possible perspective, and Russia's perspective.

If all of the increased surveillance had put a dent in human trafficking, or had actually stopped a terrorist or a school shooting, it might seem like a worthy sacrifice of Americans' rights, but instead; violence has only increased with the amplified spying. Rather than jump to punish the young people who spilled the information about NSA and Prism into collective awareness, have Americans stopped to ponder exactly with whom NSA and Prism intended to share the collected data?
 

The Best Team Players

This is footage of some recent flooding in Russia, and of a man in a wheelchair getting assistance from his dog! Dogs are really the best team players we have. Below is a pic of my favorite team player, when she was a puppy.

 

 

 

More Hits From Russia

I threw out a question a couple of days ago asking why I was getting more hits than usual from Russia, or from proxy servers, and two or three days elasped with no visits to this blog from Russia. This morning, however; there were a few, focused on the same posts about Kyron Horman upon which the others from Russia were focused. One difference..........about a week ago, I posted about the importance of inspecting birth certificates and court and custody orders at schools, daycares, and clinics for new juvenile students, clients, and patients. It's common sense, (seems to be in short supply) and it may be the only way a very young kidnapped child can be discovered and returned home. It is probably my only post, to date, that mentions the term "birth certificate". And it has been a heavy focus today, of those using either a server from Russia, or a proxy server from Russia.

Hits From Russia

Would anyone out in cyberland care to tell me why I am suddenly getting such a large number of hits from Russia, focusing on my posts about Kyron Horman?