I went out to an adult Halloween costume party last night, so I didn’t spend a lot of time on the open post this week. This one’s going to be fairly bare-bones. What did I go as, you may ask? Ash Williams, of course. Again. I did it last year too. Pretty easy costume to put together.
The biggest news this week was the backlash against Special Counsel Bob Mueller over Uranium One and the revelations that the Fusion GPS/Steele Dossier was paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board has called for Mueller to step down over his perceived conflict-of-interest in previously covering up Clinton scandals. Mueller responded to this devastating week by totally-not-coincidentally letting it slip out that someone is going to be arrested on Monday. That this information even leaked is a felony, but nobody cares. That indictments are finally coming down probably isn’t any sort of sinister timing on Mueller’s part though. Trump’s lawyer stated back in August that he expected Mueller’s investigation to wrap up before Thanksgiving.
We get to spend the entire weekend wondering who is being indicted and for what. Based on my social media crowdsourcing techniques, the conventional wisdom is going with “Paul Manafort, for Money Laundering, in the Study, with the Rope.” Manafort’s lawyer says he’s not being indicted, but then, how would he know for sure?
A question I have is whether or not the indictments will represent the end of Mueller’s investigation or whether this is just one area that’s being closed. It’s clear to me that Trump isn’t going to fire Mueller or Rosenstein. At least, I’m not seeing any signals that indicate it right now. It’s going to be allowed to play out, win or lose. Either way, it’s bound to be a week filled with outrage and bitter arguments. Good fun!
That’s all I’ve really been paying attention to, besides Stranger Things 2. Anybody watch it yet? I’m only two episodes in, so no spoilers please.
What shall we talk about? I’ll jump in when the ibuprofen takes effect.
67 comments
might start my StrangerThings Marathon today..
As for Muller, he will stay,many attempt to fire him would cause HUGE backlash. Tot eh left it would e proof that Trump is dirty, and Muller is on to him. As for the conflict of interest thing… what conflict?> there is no scandal there./. nothing to see. everyone does it…….
as for teh indictments…. who knows it might be some minor infraction of banking law or lying to teh FBI. ect ect..
Well, Trumpalos gonna trumpalo I guess. Whether this can be seen as direct response to Republican cucks threatening mueller’s investigation or not, it’s coming at the conclusion of (at least thus far) months of investigations. Unlike the wide eyed Trump supporters that swallow every dumb diversion he shits out on Twitter, arms to the air, swaying and singing “Hallelujah, dear leader!” I am willing to let this event mature before I pick a camp.
One thing that I did get a chuckle about happened directly after discussing the NFL anthem thing last week. As soon as Drudge could post some obviously misleading, completely out-of-context ratings smears, there were trumpalos copy and pasting it here, seemingly scooping the turd right out of the punch bowl and swearing it’s chocolate ganache. Similarly, I’ve been looking at the headlines on drudge and cnn, and sure enough, Drudge has front paged a Bernstein quote that is both incomplete and out of context for the faithful masses. LMAO!!
so, excuse me if I’m just going to pass this one over here too, since it doesn’t even attempt to entertain the possibility that there’s meat to any of these accusations. Your minds are already made up and just waiting for Drudge to paste some flimsy ass confirmation bias to cut and paste.
Not that it matters to any of the blind faithful, but there are poll numbers on trump, and it appears that he’s losing support in the “no college education white male” bracket as well as independents. It’s long been my suspicion that Trump’s downfall will be death by a thousand cuts; that people will just see the scam artistry for what it is. They’ll start to ignore the tweets, carry on the football games, keep pressing to change congress and try to just keep moving forward.
I don’t even read or glimpse what he says on twitter anymore. I am fixated on things like district gerrymandering finally getting a say in the Supreme Court, keeping an eye on the “stupid tax” that is about to hit Trump’s base like a ton of bricks, and things that are actually going to affect American life.
“But crooked Hillary! Crooked democrats!! Mueller’s biased!!Muh flaaayuuug!!” Lmao, trump did prove that PT Barnum is wise well more than a century after his death.
NFL ratings still dropping. Sponsors are now starting to complain to the NFL about it.
Meanwhile, World Series ratings just hit a 5 year high…interestingly where no kneeling protests are going on.
I love that people keep saying the “nfl ratings are down.” Says it all right there. Lmao
If there’s any question as to the incredible amount of ignorance not only in the above statement, or the clickbait stories that confirm it to the unwashed masses, there’s also the completely unknown, unconsidered and generally ignored idea that people might actually not be watching due to the treatment of the protestors.
Wait, what? No fucking way, you say! Well, who knows? There doesn’t even seem to be a measure dedicated to even entertaining this segment. Could be a factor or not a factor at all but trumpalos dont fucking care!! We’re inventing truth here!!
Like making statements like “nfl ratings are down!” when the nfl isn’t even the medium that is measured in ratings determination. Lmao!!
http://deadline.com/2017/10/dodgers-win-world-series-game-1-ratings-down-astros-fox-this-is-us-1202194362/
It’s like people don’t even fucking care about the truth. Lmao
Trump’s rise or fall will be dictated by the economy and jobs, same as most presidents. The public is annoyed by a variety of topics such as the latest Gold Star feud, the lack of any legislation on health care, and the like. But Trump has to deliver on jobs and economic growth and if he does, he’s assured easy re-election. At the moment, the outlook is promising.
That’s an interesting article of faith there because the stock market keeps setting records, gdp is 3 percent and trump’s approval rating is a lowly38 percent.
I spoke to the approval rating already. It’s the small stuff he’s getting hammered over. On the economy he looks better. Take a look at this NBC poll. Note that on his handling of the economy, his “approve” is higher than his “disapprove”.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-s-approval-rating-drops-lowest-level-yet-new-nbc-n815321
As I pointed out last week, Trump has had plenty of good news, but he keeps getting himself sucked into damaging events that dominate the news cycle. I think the polls are overstating the negatives but the reality is that Trump needs to correct his messaging. He shouldn’t be talking about anything but the economy.
Like my article being about game 4, but your article being about game 1.
Never mind that your own article was updated to say game 1 was the second most watched game 1 since 2010. It’s even in the updated headline:
You are such a toolbag, you really should read articles before posting them based on the URL.
Roger Stone is suing Twitter:
https://www.thewrap.com/exclusive-roger-stone-says-he-will/
Then tell Jeff Sessions to get off his derriere:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/10/29/president-donald-trump-tweets-clintonrussia-ties-investigated/
And the others involved?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/29/hill-republicans-want-more-answers-from-wasserman-schultz-podesta-about-trump-dossier-money.html
Is the Walking Dead still worth it?
So I’m clear – what’s the scandal here? I mean is it really a surprise that the secret funder of the opposition research was Trumps opposition? Seriously, what’s the scandal?
And that Tweet is disingenuous. No one is mad that Trump did oppo research. They’re mad at the allegations that Trump and a foreign Government colluded to break the law, hack into American servers, and release both true and fake information in order to influence the election in favour of what the Russian Government wanted, rather than what the America people wanted.
The DNC hired a research firm. the same one that a Republican had previously hired, and the same one they used to do oppo on Romney in 2012.
Now we can argue as much as you like about whether that actually happened, but if Trump would have hired a well known Washington Opposition research firm, then no one would mind.
This article spells it out.
Podesta made that statement to Congress while he was sitting next to one of the attorney’s (his attorney) who hired Fusion GPS for the research…
Ah ok – so the scandal is lying to congress, not hiring Fusion GPS.
If it’s discovered that Clinton and Podesta did lie to congress, they should be charged.
But it doesn’t in any way change the situation. We’d be in the same place if Bruce Campbell had paid for the firm, and then lied about it. It changes no games.
Zurvan, you’re so incapable of grasping any of this I honestly debate to myself whether I’m just picking on someone mentally inferior.
You posted game 4 ratings OF THE FUCKING FINALS of a different sport, taking the care of an albatross landing to avoid comparing the ratings sport to sport, regular season vs. post season, hell not even year over year.
I’m between you being deliberately dishonest about the article I posted stating that the ratings, year over year for this event have fallen, or if you just skimmed the srticle looking for an ounce of information that didn’t make you look like a completely biased fool.
Since I really don’t respect your thought process enough to give you the benefit of the doubt I’m just going to say the topic is over your head, and you prefer the padded walls of your myopic list of websites that say this is all due to the anthem.
It’s not even the sport being broadcast that determines the ratings you goon. It’s the television stations. The information being displayed clearly shows that regardless of what’s being broadcast in the time slot, year over year, the ratings overall have dropped. That is because less people subscribe to cable.
For fuck sakes, YouTube is offering to broadcast the World Series FOR FREE right now, and fox has reduced the amounts of commercials dramatically to five seconds without cutting away from the game at all during innings.
I doubt you’re watching the World Series. I’m sure it means nothing the two teams happen to be in two of the most populated markets in the nation, or that you comprehend any information beyond a headline on the Drudge Report.
So, have it. In your safe space this is all the anthem. You should be a studio executive with the brilliant insights you bring to the table.
It’s not just that. The FBI used the dossier and apparently claimed that it was its own investigative work when submitting it as evidence for a FISA warrant. CIA Director Brennan said as much.
Basically, the Democrats paid a firm to gather intelligence on Trump partly by colluding with the Kremlin and then got the FBI to use that intelligence to try to prove that Trump was colluding with Russia. It also looks bad that they tried to hide the payments from the FEC.
And Bruce Campbell NEVER lies about anything. How dare you defame him and his glorious chin.
I just finished watching Stranger Things 2.
I’ll admit it: I was very skeptical that it would be on par with Season 1. I thought they got lucky and couldn’t possibly do it again. I was so very, very wrong and will never again doubt the Duffer Brothers. It was fantastic. Highly recommended.
Hey, JDPS, remember how we were talking about the crazy trails the JFK investigation followed a few days ago offline?
Did you see that Hitler apparently escaped Berlin?
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/655755/Nazi-Conspiracy-Adolf-Hitler-Alive-Argentina-CIA-Files-Open-Declassified-World-War-2-Reich
How so?
I’m sorry, I don’t speak idiot. Perhaps you could attempt English every now and then. It would make things easier for everyone.
As for the rest of it, it’s hardly my fault you didn’t read your own link showing ratings were the second highest since 2010 for game 1, you buffoon.
That’s where the intel purportedly came from.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/11/democrats-spread-false-russian-information-on-trum/
Let’s recap this once more. The Trump/Russia narrative started with the Democrats secretly (and possibly illegally) paying a contractor millions of dollars to harvest opposition research from the Russians. Remember back when doing this was a huge problem? Pepperidge Farm remembers. The Obama Administration then used that to justify spying on Trump’s campaign.
It doesn’t look good.
Good game between the Dodgers and the Astros, now this is what sports is supposed to be like, not about overpaid SJWs.
Kevin Spacey comes out of the closet:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/kevin-spacey-gay-article-1.3598122
So does Spacey’s past behavior mean we shouldn’t watch House of Cards or any of his other performances anymore?
Um – see this is a different perspective thing again. Steele is a spy. If he gets information about Russians, of course he gets it from Russian sources. Where do you think he’d go to get information on Trump/Russia? Jamaica?
Or do we think that Judi Dench was colluding with Bloveld by getting Bond to spy on him? Did CNN get the story because they were colluding with congress? Austin Powers was colluding with Dr Evil all this time!
What exactly do you think the grand Clinton plan was anyway. Call up the old friend Vlad, arrange for a dossier to be drawn up (again, if it’s not true, why bother with the collusion? You could just make it up), find a republicans opposed research contract, buy out said contract, obtain dossier, then not release it, lose the election, roam in the woods, something something profit.
There may be something there is they employed Steele to do something illegal, such as break in and steal something, or hack into servers. But if it’s just good old research, it’s all good. Dirty Washington politics, but nothing that doesn’t happen everywhere.
Sure enough, it’s Manafort…and Rick Gates (who?). This seems to be unrelated to the 2016 campaign. Now what?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/us/politics/paul-manafort-indicted.html
Okay, let me see if anything has changed since the last time we discussed opposition research
Donald Trump Jr met with a Russian who requested a meeting to provide him with opposition research on Hillary Clinoton. He offered nothing to her and received nothing from her. You thought that was unusual.
By contrast, the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid millions of dollars for opposition research into Trump, denied that they paid for it, and appear to have broken the law in doing so.
Has your opinion of DJT Jr’s meeting with Russians changed or is it still true that using foreign intelligence sources to obtain opposition research to use in an American presidential campaign is ONLY problematic when it involves the Trump campaign and Russia?
The more interesting case, being overshadowed by Manafort is the now-unsealed guilty plea and cooperation by George Papadopolous. He worked on Trump’s campaign as a foreign policy adviser. Indictment on him is here:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4163402/Papadopoulos-Statement-Offense.pdf
It looks similar to the DJT Jr meeting, honestly. A Russian claimed to have dirt on HRC and started working on Papadopolous to get a higher-level meeting.
Some might call it “good old research” but Papadopolous appears to have lied to the FBI about certain details of his relationship with the Russian guy. It comes back again to Russians actively trying to get an “in” with Trump campaign officials, but we already knew they were doing this.
Papadopolous is still a good one to watch. I’ll be interested to know what information he had to share in exchange for a reduced sentence.
And not only that they did opp research, but said made up and uncorroborated information was used as THE basis for FISA warrants by the Obama administration and then ultimately a special counsel.
I mean, surely that would give anyone pause as to how far and illegal this activity should be. It’s one thing to use this to get dirt, it’s another to create false accusations to then be used to open investigations into opposing campaigns and parties.
Is Tony Podesta next? This does give some credence to what Tucker Carlson was saying last week.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/30/tony-podesta-stepping-down-from-lobbying-giant-amid-mueller-probe-244314
And now Nancy Pelosi wants another Russian investigation to investigate the Russian investigation that was launched from the Russian investigation.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/30/nancy-pelosi-calls-additional-fully-independent-in/
Hmm:
https://lawnewz.com/high-profile/mueller-teams-apparent-mistake-could-really-really-hurt-their-case-against-manafort/
Firstly – if those two things are the same, then I’m not sure why YOU think it’s a scandal. Because:
Pee. Tape. 🙂
Secondly, I don’t equate those two things.
The suspicion in the Trump/Russia scandal is that the Trump Team actively worked with the Russian Government to hack into the DNCs emails, coordinate the leaking of them through Wikileaks and to help them spread disinformation to the most effective areas. The Trump team denies this and says that they never met any Russians.
But that was a lie – it turns out that DJT Jr did in fact meet with a “Russian Government Lawyer” to discuss “information that would incriminate Hillary”. (As well as several other Trump Campaign officials meetings that seem to have slipped their mind.)
The meeting isn’t the thing. Maybe it was a meeting with someone unconnected to the Russian Government, who simply wanted to give the Trump Campaign some information and talk about Russian adoption. But if it isn’t a coincidence, it points to the Trump campaign colluding with a foreign Government to hack into American severs, and influence the election to the advantage of Mother Russia and DJT personally.
Now the Clinton Campaign hired an American firm of ex Wall St Journal reporters to get information about Trump. It was the same Washington firm that they’d used in the Obama/Romney election, and the same Washington DC firm that Jeb Bush (come on, it was Jeb, wasn’t it?) was currently using until he dropped out of the race. They needed an investigator who was good at finding things out that the Russian Government doesn’t want found out – so an ex MI6 spy seemed like a good choice. This spy found some things out and produced a dossier. It was not released by the Clinton Campaign (as far as we know)
As far as we know right now, there was no coordination between the DNC and the Kremlin. Which makes sense, because if there was, what would they be coordinating on? A cunning plan to lose the presidency to a reality TV star, spend months in the woods and release a fairly boring book?
Pardon me, but
This is not a lie. No evidence has ever come out of any of that happening.
Trump Jr. being duped into a meeting regarding opposition research that turned out to be nothing of the sort isn’t even in the same sport as your statement above. If they lied about never meeting with Russians, shame on them. It’s still not even close to your outline of the suspicion above.
It’s a scandal because:
1. The DNC and Clinton campaign attempted to conceal their payments to Fusion GPS from the FEC, thus breaking the law.
2. The dossier was used to justify wiretapping the Trump campaign by Obama’s CIA and Justice Department, despite the fact that we know some of it was definitely fabricated.
If you don’t see why either of those is problematic, I don’t know what else to tell you. If you want to twist yourself into knots trying to explain why it’s okay for one campaign to spend millions of dollars gathering intelligence from foreign intelligence sources for opposition research and problematic for another campaign to agree to meet with foreign nationals who are offering to give that information to them, I’ll continue watching in amusement.
The golden shower thing was made up on 4Chan and shopped out to a journalist who fell for it and it made its way into the dossier.
Yes, exactly that. This would be actual illegal activity, like concealing payments to a contractor by bundling it into legal services to fool the FEC. Unfortunately, me and millions of other Americans aren’t convinced that Russia hacked the DNC at all because as it did with Fusion GPS, the FBI effectively outsourced the investigation to a DNC contractor and never examined the server itself.
But let’s say we knew for sure that Russia did the hacking. That DJT Jr met with a Russian lawyer (who was associated with Fusion GPS) doesn’t magically connect to “Trump Campaign coordinated on the hacking.” You’re missing at least one, if not two, connectors there. There is zero evidence anyone has heard of that the Trump campaign coordinated with anybody to hack the DNC. No hacker has even been identified who the campaign might have coordinated with. How do you show that any member of the Trump campaign coordinated on the hacking?
We know that the DNC “coordinated” as much as the Trump campaign did (whatever that means). Both sought to obtain opposition research from Russian nationals. The Steele dossier clearly states that information within it came from Kremlin officials.
If collusion is defined as getting dirt about your opponent from foreign sources, then yes, the Democrats colluded too. But as I keep saying, it’s ONLY when the Trump campaign might have benefited from it and ONLY when the information was provided by Russia do people on the Left believe that there’s a scandal.
DJT Jr didn’t do anything wrong by meeting with that Russian lady. Papadopolous didn’t do anything wrong (that we know of) simply by meeting with a Russian “professor” either. He was only charged with lying about the timeline and details, but speaking to a Russian is not a crime.
Normally, I’d even say that the DNC and Clinton campaign did nothing wrong by digging up opposition research from foreign intelligence sources, but they did break the law by trying to cover their tracks–just like Papadopolous. I’m disappointed that you’re refusing to see the obvious distinction.
If you think the Steele dossier is a non-scandal despite the illegal actions taken to conceal payment for it, then it’s hard to see what you could find problematic about DJT Jr’s meeting. I just wish you’d be consistent.
Couple of more things I’d like to discuss.
First, I haven’t seen it being discussed very much that Mueller threw the book at Manafort and Manafort plead “not guilty.” I remember a lot of speculation about whether Manafort would flip and become a witness against Trump. That clearly hasn’t happened. Did anyone expect that?
Second, where’s Flynn? The failure to register as a lobbyist for foreign agencies charge that Manafort and who’s-it got applies to him as well.
Worth noting that if the Trump team had actively cooperated somehow with the Russians to hack and release any of Clinton’s emails at any point in the campaign, they would hardly need to have a minor player like Papadopolous futilely trying to arrange meetings with fake nieces of Russian officials.
Stuff like this makes it seem less likely that there was any collusion, not more.
I was referring to the fact that the Trump team said they never met any Russians. OK, maybe not a lie. How about ‘multiple lapses in memory, and confusion when filling in forms.’
See the smiley face next to it….
Probably worth investigating then. The US intelligence community, while having not finished the investigation, is ‘convinced’ it is Russia. But, hey, maybe it’s Wales?
Nope – but you’ve got to admit, of all the Lawyers in the world for DJTJr to meet with it’s really really unlucky that this one worked for the Russian Government that the Trump campaign is suspected of meeting with.
If collusion is defined as getting dirt about your opponent from foreign sources, then yes, the Democrats colluded too
Yeah – but collusion isn’t defined as that is it? That’s what you’re now trying to define collusion as to prove that it’s no big deal. The theory is that Russia did something bad, and that the Trump campaign helped.
Here’s the theory at it’s simplest.
We think Russia wanted to influence the election to benefit the Russian Government.
We think that in order to do this, they stole emails and leaked them strategically. They also ran a propaganda campaign of disinformation. This is a tactic we know Russia has spoken about using, and has used in other countries.
We think that in order to achieve this, the Russians had help.
We suspect this might have been the Trump Team
There are lots of things pointing to this, but it’s all circumstantial.
DJTJr meeting with a Russian Government Lawyer is one of these circumstantial things. As are all the other meetings that members of the Trump campaign have been caught having. As is Trump firing the guy investigating the theory. All circumstantial. But (to quote Thrill) It doesn’t look good.
As for the Clinton issue – if she did break the law by concealing payment, then she should be prosecuted. But concealing payment to a Washington Firm isn’t “colluding with the Kremlin” as you stated above.
Oh.
Is that like this?
I only ask because one is a crime, and one isn’t.
Yep.
#whataboutism
Maybe it’s a DNC insider, exactly as Assange and the VIPS organization has been saying. The intelligence community doesn’t KNOW. They have “high confidence” that Russians did it. That means they don’t know. They might have been able to get more certainty if it had been fully investigated but they never saw the server. They just took the DNC and Crowdstrike’s word for it that it was all Russian’d out.
It’s not a matter of luck at all. We’ve discussed her activities before in actively trying to get an audience with various American officials. We’ve also discussed the curious circumstance of her unusual visa waiver granted by the Obama Administration. It wasn’t unlucky. Either it was consistent with her efforts to influence American policy or if one wanted to be paranoid, it was a setup.
It isn’t defined as anything except when anyone who had anything to do with the Trump campaign was so much as standing in the same room as a Russian, from what I can tell. There’s no statutory definition or other agreed-upon definition I know of.
Seriously, what makes it “collusion” to you? We’ve argued this before and I don’t feel like we’ve ever sorted it out.
And this is where I don’t know how you think that any of these activities support your theory. I’ll explain.
So Trump, or at least someone high up in his campaign, have worked out a deal to get Trump elected President so the US can help Russia rebuild the Soviet Empire or whatever and Trump can finally open a casino hotel in Vladivostok. Doesn’t matter what. Let’s say that both parties are fully incentivized to launch a team up in maybe early 2015, just before the Russians supposedly gained access to the DNC’s servers.
Here’s my first problem with your theory. Why does Putin “need” to coordinate with Trump at all and why would they need his his help?
Putin is the head of state of a large nation with an extremely effective espionage service and cyberwarfare capability. What help do you think Trump is in any position to offer? Does Donald Trump have his own botnet? Does the RNC have a known history of conducting spearphishing campaigns against anyone? Does Trump have a special relationship with Mark Zuckerberg that would enable him to convince Zuck to not flag any of those pro-Trump or pro-BLM or whatever ads? Perhaps Trump has the ability to sneak into DNC headquarters and figure out where everybody writes their passwords?
You say Putin may have had help. What is Trump’s role in helping and where would anything he has be insufficient for the resources Putin already has at his disposal? So that’s the first weakness in your theory. Putin can try to influence an election anywhere in the world for whichever outcome he prefers and he doesn’t need the side he’s helping to do anything at all.
The second place your theory is weak is that you think these meetings with Trump campaign surrogates somehow provide evidence that there was collusion. I say it’s the opposite.
For your theory of collusion to work, it means that Team Trump and Putin conspired to hack the DNC and John Podesta and then to distribute them through Wikileaks. They’ve managed to do this without attracting any information from the US intelligence community using some secret communication method that the NSA can’t catch.
The Russians had already hacked into the DNC servers in mid-2016 and Podesta’s Gmail account at some point later and now they are about to release the emails to Wikileaks as planned. Success! So now what? Well, first they send an operative to make a deal with Papadapolous and they offer, uh, a bunch of emails. This doesn’t make sense because they had already coordinated to have Russia hack stuff and then release the emails through Wikileaks. Isn’t that your theory? Why does Papadopolous have to have a meeting?
They also send a lawyer, who has overstayed her visa, to meet with Trump’s son. She offers “some dirt on Hillary Clinton.” But again, wasn’t the hacked information supposed to be released to Wikileaks? The lawyer gets Trump there and doesn’t offer anything. She blabs about the Maginstky Act and DJT Jr just….leaves. I’m confused. Is he in on the collusion? Is the lawyer? Is DJT Jr aware that his dad has already made a deal with Putin? Does the lawyer know she’s wasting her time trying to solicit anything from DJT Jr since the Kremlin has already hacked the DNC and is going to release what it found to Wikileaks?
Think about it. If the meetings are evidence of collusion, why is it that the people meeting on both sides don’t seem to be aware that the Russians have already hacked into the DNC server and that the information is going to be released anyway?
And why does Putin need Kislayek to stalk Flynn and Sessions? He’s got to be aware that Kislayek is being monitored by the NSA. The deal is already done. Why risk exposing the plot by reaching out to such high-level individuals?
Your theory doesn’t only rely on the Russians simply being incompetent at spycraft. It depends on everyone on Team Trump who actually tried to conspire with the Russians to be totally unaware that there was already a plan of collusion that was being followed.
I mean, the Russians have already carried out this sophisticated cyberwarfare psy-op thing. So why exactly do they need to send a bunch of people to meet up with Trump campaign people and harangue them about international adoption law? None of this supports your theory.
Well, I can’t argue with that. Comey had to go, but it should have been done much sooner and once done, Trump should have shut up about it. I never shy away from saying that Trump’s current Russia situation is largely his own making from fumbling Comey’s termination.
*The Russians had already hacked into the DNC servers in mid-2015
Again ILC, you haven’t addressed that this dossier full of fabrications and paid for by the DNC was used as THE basis for the prior administration to use wire taps etc to investigate the leading candidate of the opposition party?
Do you see no problems with this? Did the Obama team know it was all fabricated due to the fact the frickin DNC paid for it?
This is a HUGE issue that you seem unable or unwilling to address. FISA warrants etc all based on lies created by the DNC and then acting upon by the former POTUS.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/10/30/gregg-jarrett-still-no-evidence-trump-russia-collusion-but-hillary-is-different-matter.html
Worth a read.
There’s nothing wrong in just colluding in a thing. It depends what the thing is. I can collude with you to make a delicious lemon iced Victoria sponge. That’s fine. But if I colluded with you to throw 5,000 puppies off a cliff, then that’s bad.
So 2 questions a) Did the Russians act to meddle in your election and b) Did the Trump team help.
Just like a) Did Thrill steal oll those puppies and throw them off a cliff and b) Did Cress help?
You may not ‘need’ me to help me throw those puppies off a cliff, but maybe I can make you more effective. Maybe I can point you to the exact locations most effective in Puppy throwing. Maybe we can coordinate the timing with things going on in my political campaign. Or maybe I can just state over and over again that Thrill is not involved in any of the recent puppy thefts.
You might have already stolen those puppies – but maybe we meet up to discuss the cliff throwing. Also to discuss what I’m going to give you in return for helping.
I’m tiring myself out with this tortured analogy – but this is a good discussion. And a great example of what we were talking about in the Big Sort Thread.
Apologies – I’m having trouble posting (I think it’s something my end though)
if the Dossier had some valid information about the Trump campaign, I wouldn’t care what the source is. Only whether or not it was true. /snark
From what I understand that isn’t actually confirmed. But if it were – then it might point to the fact that there were things in the dossier that the DOJ and a FISA court deemed worthy of probably cause. But of course if this does shake out that the Obama DOJ knowingly mislead the FISA court, then of course there should be repercussions.
(By the way are you referring to the Manafort FISA warrant?)
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/30/mueller-manafort-gates-testimony-244339
Hate to break up the lovefest here. According to the lickspittle brigade there’s nothing to see here, and the Drudge Report assured us that this means Hillary is toast. Could be true but I found this tidbit almost unreported today but huge in unprecedented legal significance.
Apparently mueller was able to convince a judge for a judicial order waiving manafort’s attorney client privilege. From everything I can understand reading about it, this is fucking huge and the burden of proof is such a high bar most judges don’t ever allow it.
The inquisitive part of me thinks that this is how trump’s satellites thought they’d get away with fraud; by using the attorneys as the middle men, but it got uncovered. Manafort agreed to answer only seven specific questions but mueller was after much, much more.
I also found the papadopalous plea interesting because from the sources I’ve read, even if convicted without a plea his punishment wouldn’t really have involved anything more than probation. What does that mean? Well, either this cuck was so frightened of getting his shit pushed in he sang without knowing the feds didn’t have enough to grant him a room at the steel bar in, OR they dangled quite a few more charges in front of this cuck and he sang them show tunes.
Also of note, some of the meetings with the Russian officials papadopalous copped to lying about to the feds involved trump’s genetic mistake trump jr. and Jared Kushner.
After reading through the indictments I’m still trying to discern how many other targets there are. I’ve counted four but am I wrong?
Keep reading drudge and breitbart lickspittles. And to quote neegan “I hope you have your shittin’ pants on” because the shittin’ is upon us.
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/925066745408360448
Four sealed cases between the Manafort and papadopalous dockets. The mind reels!!
Is it podesta, don jr, sessions, Flynn?
Good start.
So far, so good. Those are the right questions.
And that’s where you lose it every time.
Say I have 5,000 puppies that I need to get rid of somehow because they’ve been breeding out of control. The city is fining me because they think the puppies are mine and I’ve been letting the puppies run stray all over town and they’re bugging my neighbors. I can’t handle the sanctions, so my best hope is to get a change to the laws that requires all pregnant dogs to have abortions so the stray puppies gradually start disappearing. I might have some other ideas for reducing the stray puppy issue, but the abortions will at least get me out of future fines.
So I know that you love puppies and you don’t want them running around stray. You also want to eliminate the population of stray puppies, but you want them to be adopted out to good homes and you’re working on an initiative to do that by running as the head of your condo association or something to urge everyone to help.
I look at you and think, “Hmm, if he wins, he’ll help me get rid of these puppies by getting them adopted out. Then I can get out of these sanctions–I mean fines.” I contact you and set up a meeting. I say that I have a list of 30,000 email addresses of people who really want to adopt puppies.
When I show up at the meeting, instead of giving you the list, I try to get you to help me circulate a petition among the condo association to mandate puppy abortions. “What is this?”, you ask. “I don’t want any part of this.” And you leave.
I keep trying to curry influence with other members of the condo board. They meet with me, but I find only limited support or none at all. A few people who also want puppies to find good homes agree that after the condo association election, spaying and neutering should be mandatory.
Meanwhile, I need to get rid of the puppies and I do, but I don’t tell anyone how. A few weeks later, you win the election and become head of the condo association. But you have a problem. The crazy cat lady who lives on the corner says that I’ve been killing the puppies by throwing them off of a cliff and you were colluding with me. She tells the police that I threw them off of a cliff, but refuses to let the police see where the cliff is or where the bodies are. She tells them she already investigated it.
Improbably, the police decide to investigate you as a puppicide colluder. This is because:
1. You shared my goal of removing the puppies.
2. You held meetings with me to discuss getting the puppies off of the streets.
3. The puppies are now gone.
It’s too many coincidences. Because you met with me, you MUST have been colluding on murdering the puppies. Never mind that there’s no real evidence of foul play on our part beyond what the cat lady said. We had meetings, so that indicates we colluded.
But we didn’t, did we? We just both wanted to deal with the puppy situation for different reasons. I didn’t tell you how I was going to get rid of them and you certainly would oppose me if I told you I was going to kill the puppies.
The police investigate and even though they don’t find any evidence that you helped me kill the puppies (and everyone is sure I did) it drags on for a year and they finally end up arresting a couple of your neighbors for producing fraudulent dog licenses.
This is how I see the Trump/Russia scandal.
That analogy is awesome. I absolutely wouldn’t disagree. The only difference I’d say is that you see the lack of concrete evidence presented (yet) as proof of innocence, and I don’t. Watergate took ages, yadda yadda yadda.
(By the way, this has been a real education. I’ve found researching your points online pretty tricky – when I imagine they’re right at the top of google for you…)
You do know that Manafort and what’s-his-name are being prosecuted for crimes that had absolutely nothing to do with their work on the Trump campaign, right? I’m reading your comment and I can’t help but read it any other way than that you must think it is related to Trump and Russia collusion.
It’s far less than the big deal you think it is, but have fun with it.
There are at least four unsealed indictments in numerical sequence between those that were unsealed today. Gabriel Malor (who is a lawyer) thinks that it isn’t unusual for there to be that many but says that at least one might be related to Mueller’s investigation.
It looks to me like Tony Podesta is a likely candidate for one. I’ve also seen another lobbyist’s name floating around. He is a NeverTrump Republican who also did some work with one of the Manafort-linked firms.
I’m increasingly starting to believe that Tucker Carlson’s source was telling the accurate truth about the true direction Mueller’s investigation is taking. NOBODY was talking about Tony Podesta potentially being indicted two weeks ago and now he’s resigned from his own company.
I’ll give links if requested and won’t fuss about it too much. I never know when I’m having a discussion with somebody which stories they have or haven’t read. I also tend to sift through various articles, tweets, and posts pretty quickly so I don’t always have a single link to refer back to when I’m in the middle of a discussion.
I’ll be working to make a point and don’t want to slow down to throw in a link, so I stick to the gist of the argument without obsessing about the details. You can tell when I’m doing it because I start saying things like this:
Quick note on this:
I hope it’s understood that FISA court judge cares very much about where information comes from when authorizing a warrant, regardless of how true the information is.
*bows to the master of analogy*
Wow thrill you lazily try to steer an argument where I wasn’t even putting it, by attributing to me something I never even said. Again.
I’ll be crystal clear with you. I DONT GIVE A FUCK about the collusion aspect of this. If they can prove it, great. If they can’t. So what?
What is going to be more than enough is mueller, said ho already has been granted court ordered access to all of trump’s tax records and communications, comes up with similar charges against trump, junior and/or kushner.
Fraud and conspiracy will be more than enough to force an impeachment hearing, and if not that an obstruction charge for firing comey will also do nicely.
I don’t give a fuck about podesta and Hillary. If he can bag the both of them I’m a-ok with that. Getting trump, who IS in power and sucks at his job out of power is the focus. Getting an above the law politician or politicians caught in the net is perfectly fine with me.
I don’t have any problem with this outcome. OTOH it appears that the trump loyalists, who signed a deal with Satan to do anything, ANYTHING for the coveted judicial nominees who seem to be doing somersaults to make this unhappen.
It’s wishful thinking. Trump isn’t getting impeached over anything Mueller is looking into, if ever. There’s definitely no basis for an obstruction charge.
Some of you are going to make it really hard for me to control my obscene gloating when Mueller wraps this up and leaves Trump standing tall.
I’m still closely watching what Tucker Carlson is doing. It’s the only thing that makes sense as to why Manafort was charged with something unrelated to the 2016 campaign at the moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akqmmMH6aMo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZWkW0ZSUdo&feature=share
What? No dead puppies?
At least they got him where it counted:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/gunman-opens-fire-home-depot-truck-runs-4-bike-riders-article-1.3602094
Another triumph of Communist engineering:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/10/31/200-feared-dead-after-tunnel-collapses-at-north-korean-nuclear-test-site-japanese-tv-claims.html
http://abcnews.go.com/US/feds-interviewed-suspected-nyc-truck-attacker-2015-terror/story?id=50859185
WELL NOW,. another known wolf?
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Person-of-Interest-Sought-Tribeca-Truck-Terror-Attack-NYC-454528503.html
A hadji in arms,,,,?
As for Manafort.. figured he was dirty, but Muller aint gonna get shit on trump , over this, i assume that he will find something in is other business deal sings, totally unconnected to russia.
Anybody see what Donna Brazile wrote?
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774
That is some astonishing ass-covering. This part in particular is hilarious:
No mention of the fact that Wikileaks revealed her own role in providing Hillary with debate questions in advance.
Something bad is about to happen to the DNC and she’s distancing herself from it. This is incredible.
An indictment on…a lot related to our youth.
Save us Gen Z, you’re our only hope.
Speaking of clueless fools, can we talk about the NFL’s shitty week?
Monday Night Football ratings back down again:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/monday-night-football-ratings-stumble-140656227.html
I can tell you that locally, it’s generally a big deal when the Chiefs play the Broncos. A bit harder to write this off as just being a match between two teams nobody cares about.
Papa Johns is disassociating itself with the SJWFL and specifically cites the anthem protests and the league’s refusal to deal with it as being bad for business:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/01/media/nfl-papa-johns-protests/index.html
And Congress is moving to eliminate NFL subsidies for stadiums. If it passes, it will take $200 million out of their profits to build and maintain their own stadiums. This is the one that I find most humorous. If the players want to engage in politics, I’m glad that they won’t be able to do it in a venue my tax dollars helped pay to build. Fuck ’em.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/2/gop-bill-slashes-tax-break-nfl-pro-sports-stadiums/
I’m not sure that Sessions is going to escape being found in contempt of Congress this time, at the minimum.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/02/politics/jeff-sessions-congress-russia-trump-campaign/index.html
Would you stop that? You’re going to burst Dredd’s fragile reality bubble.
Yeah that’s big. If it’s true then it’s bad. if it’s not true she’s distancing herself from something really bad…
The entire US political establishment seems to be having a nervous breakdown. I’m not sure if I should be celebrating it or feeling as terrified as they are.
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