FREEDOM EDEN: Trump and Merkel and Wiretapping

Friday, March 17, 2017

Trump and Merkel and Wiretapping

President Trump jokes about wiretapping to Merkel: ‘At least we have something in common’ https://t.co/7VHH5IqtXW
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 17, 2017

From the Wall Street Journal:

President Donald Trump on Friday dug in on his unsubstantiated claim that his phones were tapped by his predecessor and brushed off the controversy ignited by the White House’s citation of a news report alleging British intelligence was involved.

Mr. Trump, asked about the citation in a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, quipped: “As far as wiretapping by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps.” It was a reference to the National Security Agency’s surveillance of Ms. Merkel’s phone, which was disclosed in 2013.

Funny.

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----------------------------

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"They're sitting on the money, they're using it for their own -- they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this -- we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it. I think we need to go back to taxing these people at the proper rates."

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"Why don't we just raise the taxes and let these folks have their collective bargaining, have their union representation and go back to their jobs? Raise the taxes on the wealthy."

--DAVID LETTERMAN

"In 1933, [Hitler] abolished unions and that's what our Governor [Scott Walker] is doing today."

--LENA TAYLOR, Democrat State Senator

"So I would urge my Republican colleagues, no matter how strongly they feel -- you know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a president. And all three of us are going to have to come together and give some, but it is playing with fire to risk the shutting down of the government."

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"Actually, I did not take part in [the assassination of Sarah Palin]. I led it."

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"[The repeal of ObamaCare is] a kind of creeping genocide."

--JESSE JACKSON

"[Obama] has to realize that Mitch McConnell has virtually said so that politically he wants to cut out his heart and throw his liver to the dogs."

--DAN RATHER

"And the instructions are not to improvise a comedy sketch, but to elect a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the '30s, or backward to hanging union organizers, or backward to the trusts and the robber barons.

"Result: the Tea Party. Vote backward, vote Tea Party. And if you are somehow indifferent to what is planned for next Tuesday, it is nothing short of an attempted use of democracy to end this democracy."

--KEITH "Reagan's dead and he was a lousy President" OLBERMANN

"I gotta wonder when people are gonna start wearing uniforms. I mean they've got an army out there in Alaska of militia people. You've got these guys going around acting like street thugs. I mean it isn't far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform."

--CHRIS MATTHEWS

"[Sharron Angle] is a moron on top of being evil... I'd like to see her do this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, bitch. Come to New York and do it. I'm not praying for her. She's going to hell. She's going to hell, this bitch."

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"So people have been hurting and I understand that. And it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we'd be in a worldwide depression."

--HARRY REID

"And to play Dick Cheney, all I had to do was find my Dick Cheney. And you can find all the villainy in the world in your own heart, and that's what an actor's job is. I always say to kids, inside you is Hitler and Jesus. And you got to find the appropriate person and bring them out."

--RICHARD DREYFUSS

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--BOB WOODWARD

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"The Democrats may have moved into the center, but the Republicans have moved into a mental institution."

--AARON SORKIN

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--HARRY BELAFONTE

"[Christine O'Donnell is] a witch who doesn't masturbate."

--JOY BEHAR

"Ah, the Tea Party, the nativist bed-wetters who somehow control our national dialogue. Yes, I call them the Pee Party, Jay, because they're always peeing in their pants about something. They're just, they're afraid of a mosque being built in New York. They're afraid of guns. You know, they think Obama, who like every other pussy Democrat has never said a single word about gun control, but they are very sure that he and his Negro army are coming after their guns. You know what? If you think that he's coming after your guns, you need to get out of your chat room and have your house tested for lead. He's not coming after your guns or your Bible or your fishing pole or your chewing tobacco."

--BILL MAHER

"That's a trade-off society is making because of very, very high medical costs, and a lack of willingness to say, you know, is spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient, would it be better not to lay off those ten teachers and to make that trade-off in medical costs. But that;s called the 'Death Panel' and you're not supposed to have that discussion."

--BILL GATES

"NOT the 'whiteman's bitch'"

--IESHUH GRIFFIN

"[If Rush Limbaugh suffered a heart attack in my presence, I would] laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out. I never knew I had this much hate in me. But he deserves it."

--SARAH SPITZ

"You want freedom, you going to have to kill some crackers. You going to have to kill some of their babies."

--KING SAMIR SHABAZZ

"If this was Texas, which is the state that, that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this, saying that they had a major issue with, you know, with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would say I would have to look twice at this. "But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border. And, um, it just, it doesn't make sense to me that when you google this subject, if you put in 'Arizona S.B. 1070,' that you see a picture of the governor of Arizona meeting with President Obama in May of 2010. If you have direct linkage to the president, there are already National Guard troops on the border in Arizona."

--PEGGY WEST

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--HELEN THOMAS

"After the last eight years, it's good to have a president that knows what a library is."

--PAUL McCARTNEY

"By the way, I just want to point out I'm wearing my splash shield because I was told I was going to be in the splash zone (during Harry Smith's colonoscopy on live TV)."

--KATIE COURIC

"And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word."

----------------------------

"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk, but not job loss because of a child with asthma or someone in the family is bipolar—you name it, any condition — is job-locking."

--NANCY PELOSI

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--TOM HANKS

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--LOUIS FARRAKHAN

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--JOE BIDEN

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--ROLAND MARTIN

"Martha Coakley is running to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy's term, and her opponent is a far-right tea-bagger Republican."

--CHUCK SCHUMER

"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts, I'd try to vote ten times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to. Yeah, that's right, I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."

--ED SCHULTZ

"We also see how revved up the tea baggers are at the thought of hijacking health care reform and every chance we have at making progress in Washington."

--JOHN KERRY

"A few years ago, this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee."

--BILL CLINTON

"I didn't realize I had written a column defending Roman Polanski and minimized his crime - are you sure it was me? I mean, I? There is, apparently, more to this crime than it would seem, and it may sound like a hollow defense, but in Hollywood I am not sure a 13-year-old is really a 13-year-old."

--TOM SHALES

"Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"

--MAUREEN DOWD

"One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game... During the 7th inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."

--DAVID LETTERMAN

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--SONIA SOTOMAYOR

"We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature."

--REMBERT WEAKLAND, Archbishop of Milwaukee 1977- 2002

"You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight."

"Rush Limbaugh -- 'I hope the country fails.' I hope his kidneys fail."

----------------------------

"[Obama] told me I did a great job. The first lady said the same thing. I got a 'well done' from the president, I'm on cloud nine."

--WANDA SYKES

"Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."

--COLIN POWELL

"[Tea Party goers are] just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who don't love their country."

--PAUL BEGALA

"I wouldn't want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court."

--BARNEY FRANK

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--JIM DOYLE, Liar

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--JOY BEHAR

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--JON STEWART

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--WHOOPI GOLDBERG

"I also believe that America is the greatest sin against God."

--FR. MICHAEL PFLEGER

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--MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD

"We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals."

--TED TURNER

"Look, [Mitt] Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'"

--LAWRENCE O'DONNELL

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--FELIPE CALDERON

"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant."

--AL GORE

"Don't fear the terrorists. They're mothers and fathers."

--ROSIE O'DONNELL

"Is America ready for a black president? Well, I say we just had a retarded one. When did being black become a bigger deterrent than being retarded?"

--CHRIS ROCK

"Shut the f--- up! Shut up if you can't take a joke [about President Bush]!"

--BARBRA STREISAND

"Right, oh, yeah, Happy 9/11! Celebrate the day, right?"

--JAMES BROLIN, Mr. Barbra Streisand

"I think President Bush very well may have signed an authorization for the 9/11 attacks."

--KEVIN BARRETT, UW-MADISON Lecturer

"I said what I said. I am not guilty."

--SADDAM HUSSEIN

"Terri will not be starved to death. Her nutrition and hydration will be taken away."

--MICHAEL SCHIAVO

"On the eve of the election last month my wife Judith and I were driving home late in the afternoon and turned on the radio for the traffic and weather. What we instantly got was a freak show of political pornography: lies, distortions, and half-truths -- half-truths being perhaps the blackest of all lies. "

--BILL MOYERS

"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."

--HOWARD DEAN

"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."

--MICHAEL MOORE

"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs."

--JOHN KERRY

"F---ing retarded."

"[Republicans] can go f--- themselves!"

--RAHM EMANUEL

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."

--HILLARY CLINTON

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

--BILL CLINTON

"And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."

--MICHELLE OBAMA

"If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor, makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor."

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"If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill."

----------------------------

"[F]or most of my lifetime, the United States was such a dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now, because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the United States remains the largest economic and the largest market but there’s real competition out there. And that's potentially healthy. It makes -- Michelle was saying earlier I like tough questions because it keeps me on my toes. Well, this will keep America on its toes."

----------------------------

"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna PUNISH OUR ENEMIES and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."

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"We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but THEY GOTTA SIT IN BACK."

----------------------------

"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger."

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"We're buying shrimp, guys."

----------------------------

"We are the ones we've been waiting for."

----------------------------

"We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick."

----------------------------

"We're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or you're providing good service. We don't want people to stop fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow the economy."

----------------------------

"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

----------------------------

"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."

----------------------------

"But I -- I think that the most important thing for the public to understand is, we're not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11."

----------------------------

"One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy CORPSE-MAN Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: 'Where do you come from? What country? After my operation,' she said, 'I will pray for that country.' And in Creole, CORPSE-MAN Brossard responded, 'Etazini.' The United States of America."

----------------------------

"I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you."

----------------------------

"We are God's partners in matters of life and death."

----------------------------

"[T]he Cambridge police acted stupidly."

----------------------------

"I am going to teach [my daughters] first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

----------------------------

"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and INEFFICIENCIES to our health care system."

----------------------------

"Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

--BARACK OBAMA

NOTEWORTHY QUOTATIONS

"In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good.... [A] democracy without values can lose its very soul."

--POPE BENEDICT XVI

"When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society."

--POPE JOHN PAUL II

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."

--MOTHER TERESA

"To promote choice for its own sake is more akin to self-indulgence than self-determination. It is the philosophy of a pre-schooler in a candy shop."

--BRIAN POLLARD, M.D.

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."

--MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."

--RONALD REAGAN

"Liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid."

--MARK LEVIN

"We are Warriors forever."

--BO ELLIS

"I know how much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich, you know."

--WARREN ZEVON

FREEDOM EDEN

Friday, March 17, 2017

Trump and Merkel and Wiretapping

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