Opening scene, Putin’s Kiss, 2012 documentary.
Think back a little bit.
Hicks also asked other superiors why Susan Rice, US ambassador to the UN, had said the attack might have been a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islamic video. That video was a “non-event” in Libya, Hicks said, adding that it seemed clear from the first that the assault was a terrorist attack.
“The sense I got was I needed to stop the line of questioning,” Hicks told the House panel.
Related more recently by former diplomat Gregory Hicks:
When asked about security at Benghazi on Sept. 11, Mrs. Clinton has repeatedly asserted her lack of responsibility. Initially, she said that she never read any of the reporting on security conditions or any of the requests for additional security, claiming that “she delegated security to the professionals.” More recently, she stated that “[I]t was not my ball to carry.” But the law says otherwise. Sound familiar?
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/09/11/what-benghazi-attack-taught-me-about-hillary-clinton.html – 9/11/2016.
The Benghazi attack and Hillary Clinton’s explanations — it was a video that did it, but no it wasn’t; security was left to the experts, she reportedly said, but the buck had been by law made to stop at her own desk . . . and she delegated downward and away from herself — became strong talking points for conservatives.
Now there comes a full suite of talking points for liberals questioning President Donald J. Trump’s (” . . . you grab ’em by the pussy”) character and the weight of complex business and political relationships involving “Moscow”, the metonym here for the “Russian State” as headed by Vladimir Putin.
Posted by mtvnations February 13, 2017.
Putin’s Kiss is available for viewing via Amazon by purchase or by subscription to Amazon Prime.
BackChannels assumes, or presumes, that readers wish not to live in President (Forever) Putin’s “Nashti” proto-fascist state (for further reference, enjoy in the World Affairs Journal Malik Kalyan’s “Mysterious Circumstances Surrounding Russian Murders, Deaths” (March 3, 2017).
Well then . . . .
Are you making the allegation that President Obama conducted electronic surveillance of Trump Tower in your capacity as President of the United States based on intelligence or law enforcement information available to you in that capacity?
If so—that is, if you have executive branch information validating that either a FISA wiretap or a Title III wiretap took place—have you reviewed the applications for the surveillance and have you or your lawyers concluded that they lack merit?
https://www.lawfareblog.com/ten-questions-president-trump – 3/4/2017.
In Benjamin Wittes’ piece, eight additional question follow for President Trump as regards alleged wiretapping by former President Obama.
Let’s move on with moving back in memory.
There’s the Steele report —
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/01/17/address-christopher-steeles-2016-report-involving-president-elect-donald-j-trump/ – 1/17/2017 & https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/01/14/trump-vs-steele-an-emerging-credibility-gap/ – 1/14/2017
Add to the above, the continuing FBI investigation of Trump-associated relationships with “Moscow” (3/4/2017).
Add: The Flynn resignation.
Add: The Sessions recusal.
Trust me?
When an obscure blogger asks that question, it’s time to roll out the ROTFLMAO!
However, please do note this blog’s — this blogger’s — providing ample reference to many (most) of the most reliable sources in journalism and the think-tanks.
When an American President asks / demands trust, that’s something else.
Posted by The Guardian, March 3, 2017.
David Remnick’s most powerful bona fide: the Pulitzer Prize winning Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire (1993).
Posted by CNN, February 28, 2017.
The complete quotation having to do with absolute power and corruption: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
Published February 8, 2017 in The Chicago Tribune (by Steve Chapman):
Asked about Melissa McCarthy’s portrayal of him on “Saturday Night Live,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer had some advice for the actress: “Dial it back.” May I suggest the president adopt that phrase as his administration motto?
So far, Donald Trump has made it a practice to obliterate every known limit and pump up every grievance. Harvard law professor and former Reagan administration official Charles Fried, marveling at the president’s Twitter volleys at federal judges, said, “There are no lines for him. There is no notion of, this is inappropriate, this is indecent, this is unpresidential.”
Perhaps the word order in this post’s title needs to be changed from the alphabetical “credibility, integrity, trust” to what comes first and last:
Integrity –> Credibility –> Trust
Although this piece would seem to end with Trump, it may be thought to go back some decades to Carter and Reagan (remember “Iran-Contra”?), to Mr. Clinton (how would you define what is and what is not sex) and forward to Obama and Clinton and the New Guy, but it’s that last with whose grandiose posturing and promises and tweets the nation awakes or falls to sleep.
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BackChannels 