Putin Makes A Point

Russia's President Vladimir Putin offered to provide a transcript of his Foreign Minister's visit to the White House in order to settle the recent fake news controversy regarding the release of classified intelligence by President Trump.

SOCHI, Russia, May 17 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump had not passed any secrets onto Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting in Washington last week and that he could prove it.

Speaking at a news conference alongside Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Putin quipped that Lavrov had not passed what he said were the non-existent secrets onto him either.

Putin said Russia was ready to hand a transcript of Trump's meeting with Lavrov over to U.S. lawmakers if that would help reassure them.

Two U.S. officials said on Monday that Trump had disclosed highly classified information to Lavrov about a planned Islamic State operation, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump's short tenure in office.

Putin later remarked that the two American officials were "full of shitsky" and that, in Mother Russia, "Leakers" could only be a mispronunciation of a California basketball team.

Source

UPDATE

Zero Hedge quotes Putin as saying:

"We are seeing in the US a developing political schizophrenia," Putin said quoted by RT. "There is no other way I can explain the accusations against the acting US president that he gave away some secrets to Lavrov" and added that "it's hard to imagine what else can these people who generate such nonsense and rubbish can dream up next," said Putin.

"What surprises me is that they are shaking up the domestic political situation using anti-Russian slogans. Either they don't understand the damage they're doing to their own country, in which case they are simply stupid, or they understand everything, in which case they are dangerous and corrupt."

"Anyway, this is a US matter, and we don't want and don't plan to interfere," the Russian president said.

Bingo

Settle This Once And For All

How much more of this "they did, they didn't," do we have to put up with? Is this some kind of political strategery to make all of America sick to death of fake news?

It's like slowly pulling a scab from a half-healed wound.
Come on, give it a good yank, take it off and let the blood indictments flow..

Republican congressional investigators expect a potential “smoking gun” establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee this week, a source told Fox News.

Classified intelligence showing incidental collection of Trump team communications, purportedly seen by committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and described by him in vague terms at a bombshell Wednesday afternoon news conference, came from multiple sources, Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The intelligence corroborated information about surveillance of the Trump team that was known to Nunes, sources said, even before President Trump accused his predecessor of having wiretappedhim in a series of now-infamous tweets posted on March 4.

The intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump, according to sources.

More scab pulling here.

Now Please Shut Up

H/T DC Whispers

No Fear

One reporter takes a step back and provides a good summary of President Trump's treatment of the media at the last press conference.

It seems most politicians fear the media, or at the very least they are afraid of offending their sensibilities resulting in negative coverage. Not so with Trump, who spoke his mind, refused to let the reporters gain any kind of control or authority and limited their questions when he felt they had said enough.

I still think that CNN's Acosta went over the line and should have been spanked more harshly than he was. But the President was very patient and handled him courteously. Acosta is an arrogant fool and his WH press credentials should be revoked. The transcript of this exchange can be read here.

More here.

Trump Spanks The Media

President Trump held a press conference this afternoon and used this opportunity to slap the media around. You can listen to it here or read Rush Limbaugh's transcript of the presser here.

Trump excoriated the press and their "very fake news" in a way that no other President has done. It was like a terrier shaking a rat. But he does it in such a non-threatening way; no shouting or vilifying or name calling. Trump has a way of dealing with unpleasant subjects that makes it hard to get offended - as long as you're not a loon. Loons are different: difficult, unpleasant people. Lefty loons are even worse. Yeah, if you're a loon there is nothing that you can't take offense at.

Legal Insurrection has an article that relates how the media continues to have a royal snit over their education under Teacher Trump's tutelage.

"The journalists at ABC on Wednesday erupted in “open hostility” to Donald Trump, accusing the President of “shutting down part of the First Amendment” by not calling on network reporters at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Jon Karl, Cecilia Vega and Matt Dowd repeatedly whined about the “conservative” questioners who were chosen, lamenting that the preferred narrative of the liberal media wasn’t highlighted.

In the post-press conference coverage, Vega ranted, “I want to tell you about the open hostility right here in this room. You know, I’m sitting right here kind of in the middle of the pack of a number of journalists, mainstream reporters, if you will, and there is open anger in here about the fact the President did not take any real questions about the issue of the day.”

Angry liberal tears are best served chilled, shaken not stirred, with a shot of derision.