Kremlin reportedly ordered state media to tone down Trump coverage

The Kremlin on Thursday ordered state media to tone down its rosy coverage of President Trump as concerns about Russia’s future relationship with the new administration grow, a report said.
The crackdown on favorable Trump coverage comes at a time when U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies conduct several investigations to determine the extent of contacts Trump’s aides had with Russia during and after the 2016 election campaign, Bloomberg reported.
A person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Russian President Putin’s staffers feel viewers no longer find the coverage of Trump’s transition into power interesting.
Some of the more popular segments on Russian TV invovle Trump's pledge to "drain the swamp."
Trump’s election was hailed in Russia as a possible new beginning between Washington and Moscow.
However, the intensive coverage of Trump on Russia TV went above the level of what the Kremlin wanted, Bloomberg reported. Trump received more mentions on TV than Putin did in January – the first time Putin did not hold the title since 2012, according to Interfax.
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation played a role in Trump’s coverage in Russia. Flynn was reportedly covered as a “sympathetic voice” in Washington for Russia.
Trump’s tweet on Crimea also raised the eyebrows of the Kremlin. Trump on Wednesday accused Putin of seizing the region from Ukraine in a series of tweets.

CIA Director Pompeo denies agency hides intelligence from Trump

CIA Director Mike Pompeo

 

CIA Director Mike Pompeo on Thursday denied allegations that the agency was hiding intelligence from President Trump.
Pompeo called reports that the agency was keeping intelligence from Trump “dead wrong.” He added that the reports damage the “integrity of thousands of professional intelligence officers.”
"The CIA does not, has not, and will never hide intelligence from the president, period. We are not aware of any instance when that has occurred," Pompeo said in a statement Thursday in an attempt to dispute reports that the spy community is withholding information from the commander in chief.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that in some cases officials opted not to tell the president how they collected information. The paper, citing both former and current officials, said the decision to hold back information underscored the mistrust between the Executive Branch and spies.
Additionally, a government official told Fox News that Trump has in fact been receiving what’s known as the President’s Daily Brief, noting that it does not routinely include raw data or discussion of sources and methods.
The Journal report points out that, historically, intelligence officials have held back information about how spies gather information, but in those cases, the information was not held back due to concerns over the president’s trustworthiness.
Pompeo’s statement came on the same day that a senior White House official told the Associated Press the administration had asked billionaire Stephen Feinberg to lead a review of the U.S. intelligence community. Feinberg is the co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm.
Feinberg has been asked to make recommendations on improvements to efficiency and coordination between the various intelligence agencies, the official said. His position was not to become official until he completed an ethics review, said the official, who wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
However, Trump later appeared to back off the idea, saying somebody else might not be needed because it could be handled by Pompeo, FBI Director James Comey and Dan Coats, the president's nominee to be director of national intelligence who has not yet been confirmed.
"They're in position so I hope that we'll be able to straighten that out without using anybody else," Trump said at a news conference.
He said Feinberg was a "very talented man, very successful man" who has offered his services to the administration. "You know, it's something we may take advantage of. But I don't think we're (going to) need that at all because of the fact that you know, I think that we are gonna be able to straighten it out very easily on its own.”

liberal professor cartoons

Chaffetz asks Justice Department watchdog to probe Flynn leaks

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz told Fox News' "The First 100 Days" Wednesday night that he would ask the Justice Department's inspector general to investigate leaks of classified information that led to the resignation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The Utah Republican told host Martha MacCallum that "no matter where you are on the political spectrum, you cannot have classified information migrating out into a non-classified setting."

TRUMP, GOP LAWMAKERS EYE 'ILLEGAL LEAKS' IN WAKE OF FLYNN RESIGNATION
Chaffetz's letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz, which was also signed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., described "serious concerns about the potential inadequate protection of classified information" and requested "that your office begin an immediate investigation into whether classified information was mishandled" in the Flynn case.
Flynn resigned Monday night after a series of media reports purportedly detailed his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. about sanctions levied against Moscow by the Obama administration. The reports indicated Flynn had given Vice President Mike Pence "incomplete information" about the calls, leading Pence to deny discussion of sanctions took place.
Earlier this week, Chaffetz sent a letter to the White House questioning security protocols at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after the president and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe discussed North Korea's recent ballistic missile test in a public setting.
CHAFFETZ INVESTIGATING SECURITY PROTOCOLS AT TRUMP'S MAR-A-LAGO RESORT
"I think the standard is still the same," said Chaffetz, who helped lead a congressional investigation into the Benghazi terror attack that led to the disclosure of Hillary Clinton's classified email system. "You have a duty and an obligation, because by its very nature, if that classified information gets out there, it can harm somebody. It can kill somebody."
"Same with Hillary Clinton, same with Donald Trump, and same with those in the intelligence world or at the Department of Justice who get to see this information," he added. "They just can’t hand it out like candy and favors to those in the news media. Can't do it."

College student who filmed professor’s anti-Trump rant fights suspension

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ2V1LBOYLo

Professor Olga Perez Stable Cox (TRASHY)

A California college student who was suspended for recording a professor ranting about President Trump's election victory and how it amounted to an "act of terrorism" filed an appeal Wednesday to fight the suspension.
Caleb O’Neil, a student at Orange Coast College, was suspended for a full semester and the summer term for filming the video.
The college said the 19-year-old violated its policy by “recording any person on District Property or at any District function without that person’s knowledge or consent.”
He was also ordered to write a “three-page double spaced essay” regarding the incident, Campus Reform reported.
O’Neil videotaped his professor Olga Perez Stable Cox in December talking about Trump's election win. She called his election “an act of terrorism.”
Cox also said in the video that, “our nation is divided as clearly as it was in civil war times.”
O’Neil, who shared the video with college Republicans, wore pro-Trump clothing in class and said he felt threatened due to his teacher’s comments.
"I pulled my phone out, because I was honestly scared that I would have repercussions with my grades because she knew I was a Trump supporter," he said, according to The Orange County Register.
His suspension has caused mixed reactions among students at the campus.
“It’s unfair for the teacher to be secretly recorded. The student should have talked to the professor and voiced his opinions, then the fallout would’ve been avoidable,” one student told the Los Angeles Times.
The Los Angeles Times reported that a small group of people supported O’Neil, with one yelling, “You’re a hero, Caleb!”
Cox told the Washington Post in December that she was being virtually attacked by emails and Facebook messages saying, “I feel like I’ve been attacked by a mob of people all across the country.”

ObamaCare in 'death spiral,' Aetna CEO says

The leader of one of the U.S.’s largest health insurance agencies—who has been saying for months that ObamaCare is on the ropes-- said Wednesday that statistics indicate that the law has now entered a “death spiral.”
Aetna’s CEO Mark Bertolini told The Wall Street Journal that the health law’s market is nearing failure because healthier people have dropped out while premiums continue to climb.
Health insurer Humana announced it is leaving the law’s public insurance exchanges for next year as it regroups after ending its proposed combination with rival insurer Aetna. Humana Inc. covers about 150,000 people on exchanges in 11 states.
The Trump administration took steps Wednesday intended to help calm jittery insurance companies and make tax compliance with former President Obama’s health law less burdensome for some. The administration's actions signal a change in direction.
For consumers, the proposed rules mean tighter scrutiny of anyone trying to sign up for coverage outside of open enrollment by claiming a "special enrollment period" due to a change in life circumstances such as the birth of a child, marriage, or the loss of job-based insurance. Also, sign-up season will be 45 days, down from the current three months.
For insurers, the curbs on special enrollment periods are a big item. The industry claimed that some consumers were abusing special enrollment by signing up when they needed expensive treatments, only to drop out later.
Aetna is considering reducing its presence in the markets set up by ObamaCare, Bloomberg reported. The insurer already reduced its footprint in four states after losing $450 million last year.
Insurers also would gain more flexibility to design low-cost coverage tailored to younger people. In another move aimed at consumers who move in and out of coverage, insurers would be able to collect back premiums from customers who had stopped paying, then tried to sign up again for another year.
Separately, the IRS is backing off from a tighter approach to enforcement that was in the works for this tax-filing season.
Under the law, people are required to have health coverage or risk fines from the IRS -- a penalty usually deducted from a taxpayer's refund. That underlying requirement remains on the books, and taxpayers are still legally obligated to comply, the IRS said.
But the agency is changing its approach to enforcement. Originally, the IRS had planned to start rejecting returns this year if a taxpayer failed to indicate whether he or she had coverage. Now the IRS says it will keep processing such returns, as it has in the past.
Many of the law's supporters consider the coverage requirement essential for nudging younger, healthy people into the insurance pool to keep premiums in check.
Hours after his inauguration President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to look for ways to ease requirements of the 2010 health care law.
The IRS said in a statement that it is following through, but "taxpayers remain required to follow the law and pay what they may owe."

US spies reportedly keeping intelligence from Trump

Sensitive intelligence is being withheld from President Trump by U.S. intelligence officials because they are reportedly concerned that the information could be compromised.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that in some cases officials opted not to show the president how it collected the information. The paper, citing both former and current officials, said the decision to hold back information underscores the mistrust between the Executive Branch and spies.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he has heard about these concerns in the past.
“I’ve talked with people in the intelligence community that do have concerns about the White House, about the president, and I think those concerns take a number of forms,” he said, according to the paper. “What the intelligence community considers their most sacred obligation is to protect the very best intelligence and to protect the people that are producing it.”
VIDEO: NUNES ON INTELLIGENCE LEAKS:  NO DOUBT  A CRIME WAS COMMITTED
The report points out that, historically, intelligence officials have held back information about how spies gather information, but in those cases, the information was not held back due to concerns over the president’s trustworthiness.
In January, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, took on Trump over his criticism of the intelligence service.
"Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you," Schumer told MSNBC. “So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence denied the accusation late Wednesday that intelligence officials were withholding information from Trump.
"Any suggestion that the U.S. intelligence community is withholding information and not providing the best possible intelligence to the president and his national security team is not true."
The Week magazine published an article Tuesday about how America’s spies "took down Michael Flynn," Trump’s former national security adviser.
Damon Linker, a senior correspondent, wrote, “These leaks are an enormous problem. And in a less polarized context, they would be recognized immediately for what they clearly are: an effort to manipulate public opinion for the sake of achieving a desired political outcome. It's weaponized spin.”
Flynn's ouster was a blow to a White House struggling to find its footing in Trump's first weeks in office.
The questions about Russia only deepened late Tuesday when The New York Times reported that U.S. agencies had intercepted phone calls last year between Russian intelligence officials and members of Trump's 2016 campaign team.
Current and former U.S. officials who spoke to the Times anonymously said they found no evidence that the Trump campaign was working with the Russians on hacking or other efforts to influence the election.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News on Wednesday that he had sent a letter to the Justice Department's inspector general urging it to investigate the leaks that led to Flynn's removal.
Flynn maintained for weeks that he had not discussed U.S. sanctions in his conversations with Russia's ambassador. He later conceded that the topic may have come up.
Still, reports that there is a divide between Trump and his spies is concerning.
A White House official told The Journal that there is no information “that leads us to believe that this is an accurate account of what is actually happening.”
The Week linked to a report in Bloomberg that said, “Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do.”

White Privilege Cartoons

Pennsylvania college group wants pins to start conversation on 'white privilege'

College students wear pins to identify white privilege

 

A political group at a Pennsylvania liberal arts college launched a project Saturday to raise awareness about what it means to live with “white privilege.”
Elizabethtown College Democrats are asking students to wear a white puzzle piece pin every day to encourage people to give further thought about how racial identity affects their lives, Lancaster Online reported.
Aileen Ida, president of the College Democrats, told Local 21 News that she noticed a Wisconsin pastor wearing the pin and wanted to help spread the message.
She said the conversation on white privilege is necessary in central Pennsylvania because of the demographics.  According to the latest census, Lancaster County is 83 percent white, 10 percent Hispanic, 4 percent black and 2 percent Asian.
Ida said she’s excited to see how the project could spark a discussion about racial identity.
“This project will encourage people to have conversations about race and how their inherent white privilege has a part in the systematic oppression of minorities — whether or not they purposefully participate in the system,” she told Lancaster Online.
Sawa Alabsi, a student at the school, told local media that she is concerned her classmates would join the campaign to simply fit in.
“I feel like a lot of people don’t necessarily know or do any research into certain issues,” she said. “And they’re kind of like, ‘Oh, my friends have this side, so I’m going to pick that side.’”
Ida hopes prospective participants can commit to wearing the pin for at least one month.
Her fellow students supported the idea in conversations with Local 21 News. One student told the station that he would wear a pin if it was given to him.
"Elizabethtown is a majority white campus, so I think white Privilege is a great place to start,” he said.
Ida said the idea wasn’t meant to call out white people, but remind students that racial identity is an important conversation to have. She hopes to have 100 people wearing the pin by Friday.

Paul reportedly leaves meeting with House Republicans on Obamacare

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Tuesday reportedly left a meeting with fellow Senate Republicans as House Speaker Paul Ryan worked to reassure skeptical colleagues about the next steps in taking on Obamacare.
Politico reported that Paul was unhappy with the meeting and the prospect of keeping health law’s Medicaid expansion. He called creating tax credits a “new entitlement program.”
“I hear things that are unacceptable to me,” Paul told the website. “If they don’t seem to care what conservatives think about complete repeal of Obamacare, they’re going to be shocked when they count the votes.”
Attendees reportedly said Ryan laid out a timeline that would start the repeal process by the end of February and pass it by the end of March.
President Trump, according to some in the party, has been fueling the confusion by not being specific about how he plans to take on the six-and-a-half-year-old Obamacare. He has said, during his candidacy that he would “repeal and replace” the law with “something far better.”
VIDEO: DEMOCRATS PLAN TO RALLY SUPPORT BEHIND OBAMACARE
Trump has been edging away from the promise to quickly eliminate the entire law. Still, annulling its taxes would be a partial victory and is irresistible for many GOP lawmakers and the conservative voters at the core of their support.
"We should do full repeal," said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a leading House conservative. "And full repeal means not taking the taxes" from people.
Yet voiding those levies erases a mammoth war chest Republicans would love to have - and may well need - as they try replacing Obama's law. It's a major rift GOP leaders face as they try crafting a health care package that can pass Congress.
“Right now, I would say it’s not that easy to repeal it,” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told Politico. “I don’t know where the White House is. The president has said he’s not going to be kicking people off the program, off the rolls. He’s not going to do that.”
If the taxes are repealed and Republicans need money for their replacement plan, do they pay for it with higher federal deficits? Do they deeply cut Medicaid, which provides health care for low-income people, or carve savings from Medicare, which serves the elderly? Might they raise other taxes, something that's been anathema to the GOP for decades?
Paul came up with his own plan, which contains what he calls “conservative reforms.” His plan includes opening up the insurance market and allowing individuals to pool their insurance with others to secure the lowest premium.
“There’s not one item in the plan that we think a Republican would object to,” he told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
"There's going to be a temptation for policymakers to take the easy way out" and simply let deficits rise, said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She said for Republicans promising for decades to improve the nation's fiscal health, that choice "is going to look hypocritical."