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Re: US Politics Thread
I think its a bit of a distortion to say the Democratic Party is doomed and they're struggling. They are, to an extent. However on the flip side it was some wackjob who smoked thru the Republican primaries and dwindled it down to him & Ted Cruz in wacko mode. He cakewalked thru it & led an odd campaign where he said anything to rally a crowd and now has 180d on EVERY major campaign hot button issue (Hire a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary, Build a Wall and make Mexico pay for it, Repeal Obamacare in his first act as President). Alot of Senators opposed him yet rode his coattails for the win. It really was a bizarre election cycle. Anyway, now that his in office it's beginning to collapse around him, and will GOP now again alienate away from him. They're still waiting this out before going all in either way. So I don't really think the GOP is a very strong party themselves, especially if this thing backfires.
Trumps family is finding out fast politics is hard. Whole different ballgame from entertainment. Reports are now that Kushner hosted a Russian ambassador at Trump Tower with Flynn. It's just becoming a mess. That story might take off tomorrow but now the Indianapolis Star is reporting Pence sent state dealings thru an AOL account which was hacked last summer?!
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/poli … /98604904/
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/poli … /85257700/
Story will blow up tomorrow.
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: US Politics Thread
It's amusing. Trump, with ZERO experience in this realm, picked this fight with the CIA/FBI and the media. Now he's crying foul.
Today was a big day. Tomorrow will just be a storm. Trumps gonna do one of two things, either stay silent & rise above, or go into crazy mode again.
- Smoking Guns
- Rep: 330
Re: US Politics Thread
Smoking Guns wrote:This will blow over.
Every day there is something new and almost always connected to Russia. But it could very well get buried under something else.
The thing is eventhough I not like Sessions, and even though he fucked up his answer to Frankenstein, I don't think they will find anything on him.
Re: US Politics Thread
misterID wrote:Smoking Guns wrote:This will blow over.
Every day there is something new and almost always connected to Russia. But it could very well get buried under something else.
The thing is eventhough I not like Sessions, and even though he fucked up his answer to Frankenstein, I don't think they will find anything on him.
I think the whole fuckin campaigns going down. They've got them. Won't be tomorrow or next week, but I think the intel has it on them, calls, transcripts, emails, texts, snapchatts, overseas wiretaps. I say it's there, and the CIA staffers who are hearing about it word of mouth are relaying it onto their reporter colleagues they know. Woodward & Bernstein in All The PResidents Men style.
Conspiracy theory sure, but as someone else said everytime there's been a tidbit of a news story, it's blown up into something bigger, and true. Remember the dossier folks, don't focus on the pee tapes. There was also a 35 page dossier from a foreign spy. Think about that. Why would there be such a thing if they weren't being followed/tapped. I bet Trump was made aware of it too, hence his hostile attitude towards it, the intel community, the media, and the leaks. He's knows they have it on him. And he knows there were phone calls and meetings. I bet he did ask Russia to hack into the DNC, he knows he did, and I bet the CIA has it on him too. Watch.
Re: US Politics Thread
Keep in mind 2 things.
1. Remember a few weeks ago Russia offered Ed Snowden back? The story didn't last long, but Russia made the offer. Odd. http://www.businessinsider.com/edward-s … tin-2017-2
2. This story lasted about one morning, but Trump was going to hire a billionaire ally of his to 'oversee' (ie. gut) the intelligence agencies. Coincidentally this news broke the morning of the day Trump later went on that epic presser tirade for an hour and twenty rant filled minutes. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/p … nberg.html
Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.
and keep in mind, it's not just Obama who has contacts and leftovers in the intel community. W probably has a shit ton after 9/11 and the war that he'd hired in his time, and those higher up he could give the thumbs up to have them do a favor or two for him. I see him out on some PR tour on Ellen talking about how he & Michelle were pretty good friends. All the while the "Republican" President is drowning in his own mess. Their family has some close ties to the CIA, father was the director for a short time, and Jeb sure wasn't a fan of Trump. They could've been the ones to give the green light on this all to make his life a living hell.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: US Politics Thread
What are you suggesting about Snowden? In what way would Snowden coming back help Trump? He's going to do exactly what Obama wanted, and prosecute. But the left will rile up half the country on whether Snowden is a hero. More chaos that only benefits the far left and divides the country further. Snowden remaining in exhile is much more beneficial to whomever is in power in both the US and Russia. The US's most famous traitor is in exhile, under Russian surveillance. And Russia has the man who revealed the corruption and invasion of US surveillance making them a hypocrite at some of Russians actions.
So the intelligence companies are in revolt? That's positive? The agencies who fucked up on 9/11? The agencies who fucked up on WMDs? The agencies who missed ISIS? Libya, Egypt? Hamas being elected in Palestine? The agencies that have missed so much, but have tremendous power and have been caught violating the 4th amendment are in open revolt against the man who is threatening to cut their bureaucracy? You think this is anything shirt if the most historic undermining of Presidential authority in history. You can't find a situation this severe than Jackson and the other branches in the 1820s.
None of your proposed conspiracies pass the basic logic test. None of these outcomes in anyway benefit Trump, so why would he enact them?
Re: US Politics Thread
More...
Exclusive: Two other Trump advisers also spoke with Russian envoy during GOP convention
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is not the only member of President Trump’s campaign who spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at a diplomacy conference connected to the Republican National Convention in July. At least two more members of the Trump campaign’s national security officials also spoke with Kislyak at the event, and several more Trump national security advisers were in attendance.
It's unknown what the Trump campaign officials who spoke with the ambassador – J.D. Gordon and Carter Page – discussed with him. Those who took part in the events in Cleveland said it is not unusual for presidential campaign teams to interact with diplomats.
However, the newly-revealed communications further contradict months of repeated denials by Trump officials that his campaign had contact with officials representing the Russian government.
The Justice Department’s acknowledgement Wednesday that Sessions spoke with Kislyak twice in 2016 has led to calls for him to recuse himself from investigations into the Trump team’s contact with Russia. By Thursday afternoon, Sessions said he would recuse himself.
Multiple attendees at the Global Partners in Diplomacy event in Cleveland said the contacts between diplomats and political officials are not unusual. The program schedule and social media photographs shows ambassadors from dozens of countries attended, alongside many of the original national security advisors to Trump’s campaign.
Gordon, who managed the advisory committee as the Trump campaign’s director of national security, said that while he also spoke with Kislyak in Cleveland, it is not unusual for a presidential campaign to interact with diplomats.
“I’d consider it an informal conversation just like my interactions with dozens of other ambassadors and senior diplomats in Cleveland,” Gordon said.
Page, another member of the Trump campaign’s national security advisory committee who also spoke with Kislyak in Cleveland, cited “confidentiality rules” in declining to say what he discussed with the ambassador.
“I had no substantive discussions with him,” said Page, who left the campaign later in the summer amid controversy over a speech he gave in Moscow in early July criticizing American foreign policy and sanctions against Russia.
Hossein Khorram, an RNC delegate from Washington State who wasn’t part of Trump’s campaign, attended the diplomacy event and said it provided a forum for diplomats to share their concerns with GOP officials. After formal panel discussions, the attendees broke off into informal conversations.
“Basically the ambassadors — including the Russian ambassador — they were expressing their, mainly, fears about the war on terror and collaborating with the United States,” he said. “There was no promises made on behalf of the Trump administration.”
Sessions, Gordon, and Trump campaign national security advisory committee member Walid Phares all spoke on stage at the Global Partners in Diplomacy program on July 20 in an auditorium at Case Western Reserve University, according to the program schedule and pictures posted on social media. Current Deputy National Security Advisor KT McFarland was also present at the day’s sessions.
Phares did not respond to email and phone requests for comment. Another member of the national security advisory committee who was at the Cleveland event, Joseph Schmitz, referred questions about his interactions with Russian officials to Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks.
Hicks has categorically denied any communication between the campaign and the Russian government. “The campaign had no contact with Russian officials,” she said in November.
The contacts came at a time when the U.S. intelligence community has concluded the Russia government was trying to influence the presidential election. The Democratic National Committee’s computers had been hacked weeks before – in an intrusion U.S. investigators have said was orchestrated by the Russian intelligence services – and the first batch of emails from that hack were published by Wikileaks on July 22.
Since then, Russia’s alleged interference in the election and contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials have been at the center of ongoing investigations by multiple federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies and by the House and Senate intelligence committees.
In February, Michael Flynn resigned as Trump’s national security advisor following revelations of his failure to provide complete information to administration officials about his contacts with Kislyak in December 2016. Flynn had originally said he didn’t talk with the ambassador about sanctions, but later revealed that he had.
The White House on Thursday did not answer questions from USA TODAY regarding the nature of the conversations between campaign officials and Kislyak, whether there were other contacts between the campaign and Russian government, and why statements have been made denying contacts.
"This was a widely attended 4-day event with dozens of ambassadors and hundreds of attendees," the White House said in a written statement from its communications office. "No interaction was substantive, and to insinuate otherwise is deeply dishonest."
Although an event similar to Global Partners in Diplomacy was held at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, it is not clear Kislyak attended that program or spoke with Clinton campaign officials. The Russian Embassy did not respond to questions on Thursday about his attendance at the RNC and DNC events.
Jerry Hartz, spokesman for the National Democratic Institute, which organized the DNC event, said the group could not release the list of attendees due to security concerns, but could find no indication Kislyak attended. “No one remembers seeing him there,” Hartz said.
