We Are Not Amused
White House tells British government it won’t repeat ‘ridiculous’ wiretapping claims:
On Thursday, the White House stood by Trump’s unproven accusations that his predecessor wiretapped his New York skyscraper, despite growing bipartisan agreement that there’s no evidence to back up the claim and mounting pressure to retract the statement.
Angrily defending the president’s statement, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Trump “stands by” the four tweets that sparked a firestorm that has threatened Trump’s credibility with lawmakers. Spicer denounced reporters for taking the president’s words too literally and suggested lawmakers were basing their assessments on incomplete information. He also cited an unsubstantiated report that Britain’s spy agency, GCHQ, helped then President Barack Obama eavesdrop on Trump during the election campaign.
Theresa May, the Prime Minister of the UK has a rather full plate at the moment – dealing with BREXIT, the demand of Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon for an independence referendum for Scotland, soaring energy prices, etc. What she didn’t need was someone accusing the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) of ‘spying’ on a candidate in the US election. The boffins (specialists) over at the ‘doughnut’ (GCHQ building, think circular Pentagon) took great umbrage at the accusation and strongly worded notes were dispatched.
If you are worried about leaks it doesn’t do to annoy an organization that is quite capable of putting your life on the Internet. I would suggest that the antique Android phone he uses should be accidentally placed in a microwave under the popcorn. If there’s a battery in it, he is tapping himself.
19 comments
If GCHQ isn’t tapping Trump’s phones they’re idiots, but such things aren’t supposed to be mentioned amongst gentlemen.
The claim was they were tapping him for Obama. That they would never do because Obama was a short-timer. There are a lot of ‘targets’ in Trump Tower, and a lot of ‘targets’ around Trump. Given the tenants in Trump Tower there is a zero probability that there is no eavesdropping in that building.
There was a tweet from NYC Mayor that Trump is cutting funding to NYC Police & especially Anti-terrorism units.
I replied that if it were me, I’d be looking at whether Trump properties in NYC had any major insurance increases. Not that anyone in the USA/NYC would ever want to make a profit from a Terrorist attack!
NYPD Says President Trump’s Budget Cuts Leave New York Vulnerable to Terror
New York police chief pans Trump’s budget blueprint
So, it’s OK to be wasting$1mill/day for FLOTUS to stay in NYC. Maybe NYC should send the bill to the WHouse & use the money for the Police. Not to mention the $3mill weekend POTUS golf trips.
Hmmm… Maybe FLOTUS has a tough prenup & POTUS wants a new wife? 🙄
Washington is not the Mrs. Trump’s idea of a real city. It doesn’t have the night life or atmosphere of New York, LA, London, Paris. Everything revolves around the government and it really is a rather dull place. During the week the population tops a million, but there are less than 700,000 permanent residents. It is a Southern town.
That said, the job is in Washington and housing is provided, so it is an extravagant waste of tax dollars to cover New York and Palm Beach in addition to the White House. The hundreds of millions going towards those expenses could cover a lot programs that help Americans. It would be cheaper to provide a data link to that kid’s school, than to try to protect Trump Tower and the school. Those weekends have cost Palm Beach around $2 million they didn’t budget for, and serveral small businesses are going broke because of all of the restrictions when SCROTUS is at his ‘castle’.
I don’t see why the taxpayers should be forking out $1mill/day (or thereabouts) just so FLOTUS can shop & party! Paying for her to stay at WHouse, fine. Otherwise, should come out of their pocket!
WHat a stupid system! Especially since they are cutting all social programs.
People are so stupid.
So, it seems Trumpet is really pissed Merkel made him feel small & insignificant! LMAO
Donald Trump says Germany owes US and Nato ‘vast sums of money’ for defence
The way this idiot is going, the USA will be at war with the entire World! Of course, the other fools in his Cabinet are helping destroy whatever credibility the USA has left. *shrug*
The ‘kids’ also get protection, i.e. Ivanka, Tiffany, and the boys have Secret Service details that aren’t cheap. This guy is costing tazpayers an arm and a leg and no one is saying anything. The House can limit the money spent on his protection, but they don’t have the guts to do anything.
They’ll cut Medicaid but pay for him to fly to Florida every weekend, and her to go to Broadway shows. Merkel will return to Europe and tell other leaders that he really is an obnoxious jerk.
Merkel will be telling nobody anything they didn’t already know. But one advantage of Trump’s disastrous presidency is that it’s certainly taken the sheen off of the xenophobic ultra-right in Europe. One reason Geert Wilders was crushed in the Netherlands is that he was successfully painted as just a Dutch Donald Trump, a brand that has become toxic world-wide. We’ll see if La Pen gets tarred with the same brush next…
It’s one thing to see it on TV, sitting next to him and trying to talk about serious matters, and then have him be such a jerk about shaking hands – that was the cherry on top. He’s a real estate agent and ‘reality’ TV personality and she is one of, if not the most powerful people in the EU. People have figured out he’s a schmuck, but the leaders of governments are hoping that it is just a PR persona. The people are ahead of their leaders – look at the million signatures on the petition in the UK to withdraw Theresa May’s invitation for a state visit. [I wonder how many people named Windsor, Wales, or Mountbatten signed that petition]
People get it. The Le Pen election is a mess because the guy who would have been the leading candidate is being investigated for multiple corruption charges.
Devil’s Advocate Alert
I’m curious: How far off the beam was Kellyanne Conway’s comment about microwaves being used as eavesdropping devices?
I recall reading about microwaves (very short, electromagnetic waves) being used to listen in remotely by bouncing the waves off glass windows and interpreting the return waves as sound.
Conway, of course, wouldn’t have a clue about the differences between EM microwaves and popcorn popping microwaves, but what if that were what she had in mind? Such a rig wouldn’t be cheap, but it wouldn’t need someone to go in and install devices, and one could easily listen in on anyone in the building with glass windows….
Мы сделаем, но ты не слышел об этом здесь. As long as you found an open source for that, it can be done, but it is short range, line of sight, and expensive. Now, if someone bought a microwave oven that had a IoT [Internet of Things] controller in it so you could control with an app, then you are talking about an open mike and being part of denial of service attacks while heating your burrito. If you don’t buy ‘smart’ appliances, you don’t have to worry. Drapes, for which he has a fondness are effective against reading window vibrations.
Or dual-glazing with a vacuum between. 🙂
Only way for a MW oven to take pic’s is if someone installs a camera! None I know have a camera by default. Why would it?! Insane!
Seems Ukraine has had enough of Trumper also.
Trump aide hid payments from Ukraine party with Moscow ties, new documents say
I seriously doubt that Trump has “smart appliances”. He doesn’t operate his appliances, he has people for that.
In other news, Former UK PM David Cameron has an actual sense of humor. He says the two advantages of being an ex-PM are that he no longer has to listen to Donald Trump via Donald’s microwave and no longer has to fend off requests from Putin to go hunting with Putin — “I like to ride a horse, but I don’t look good shirtless”. LOL.
Yep, the rise in double and triple glazing has pretty much eliminated the effectiveness of using microwaves any more, and the fact that the windows in high-rises don’t open makes positioning equipment problematical, not that I was ever involved in that sort of thing … school exercise you understand.
It is unlikely that Trump knows where the kitchen is at most of his ‘homes’ – he’s a room service kind of guy. Anyone who orders steaks well done and puts catsup on them is well advised to avoid kitchens and cooks.
Cameron is certainly grateful that he doesn’t have to deal with BREXIT.
“Given the tenants in Trump Tower there is a zero probability that there is no eavesdropping in that building.”
How prescient. According to NY Daily News today, a Russian gambling, extortion, and money laundering ring was headquarted in Trump Tower a couple of floors below the Trumps, and the FBI had a wiretapping warrant from 2011 to 2013 to listen in on them.
Nice tenants Trump has in his tower.
Real estate is a good way of laundering large amounts of cash and The City is a good place to do it. Trump has a lot of real estate leased to Russian oligarchs, so it stands to reason they would attract the interest of various law enforcement and regulatory agencies.
Talking about money laundering, apparently Trump campaign director Paul Manafort was involved in money laundering, laundering money from a pro-Russian party in Ukraine. Manafort didn’t stay on as campaign director for long because his Russian connections were too blatantly obvious, but still. More Russian money laundering related to Trump and the Trump campaign.
I dream of opening my browser one morning and not saying “holy cr*p!” about something the Trump campaign or administration has done, but thus far, the Trumpistas have a 100% success rate at that all-important morning bowel movement. Between corruption, fomenting trade wars (and worse), and just general jerk-headedness, man.
It is nearly impossible to be in New York/New Jersey real estate development and not have mob ties, and lately the mob has been Russian. Everyone Trump knows or deals with is going to be linked directly or indirectly to the Russians.