Patterico's Pontifications

7/19/2018

President Trump Weighs Out Putin’s Offer Involving the Questioning Of Americans

Filed under: General — Dana @ 1:44 pm



[guest post by Dana]

There was again some confusion yesterday about President Trump’s lack of clarity on the matter of Russia. During an interview, when asked whether he believes Russia is still targeting the U.S., the president allegedly answered, no. I say allegedly because to me there is some confusion in the video as to whether he was responding to that specific question. Even so, I’m not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt because this comes a day after backpedaling on his comments in which he agreed with Putin over his own intelligence community that Russia did not meddle in the 2016 elections. So it’s not unreasonable to conclude that President Trump really does believe that Russia isn’t targeting the U.S. That would certainly be consistent with his naive/ignorant view of Russia, the adoration of strongman Putin and a disturbing tendency to throw his own people under the bus. Further, we have the statement of the journalist who asked the question:

Untitled

With that, it is being reported that President Trump is considering a quid pro quo deal made by Putin, involving the questioning of American citizens by Russian authorities:

At this week’s summit in Helsinki, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed what President Trump described as an “incredible offer” — the Kremlin would give special counsel Robert S. Mueller III access to interviews with Russians who were indicted after they allegedly hacked Democrats in 2016. In return, Russia would be allowed to question certain U.S. officials it suspects of interfering in Russian affairs.

One of those U.S. officials is a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, a nemesis of the Kremlin because of his criticisms of Russia’s human rights record.

Apparently, this is an offer the White House is taking seriously and one that is currently under review. When questioned about it, Sarah Sanders did not dismiss it:

“There was some conversation about it” between Trump and Putin, Sanders said, “but there wasn’t a commitment made on behalf of the United States. And the president will work with his team, and we’ll let you know if there’s an announcement on that front.”

Yet more confirmation that President Trump and his administration have no idea with whom they are dealing, and unbelievably view former-KGB strongman Putin through gullible rose-colored glasses. After President Trump’s Helsinki comments, Dan Coates, the director of national intelligence, warned that, not only did Russia meddle in the 2016 election, but there is no reason why they won’t continue to do so:

“The role of the Intelligence Community is to provide the best information and fact-based assessments possible for the president and policymakers,” said Coats, who took over as U.S. director of national intelligence in March 2017. “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.”

Suggested American citizens for questioning by Russian authorities include Michael McFaul, a former American ambassador to Russia, and Christopher Steel

That the President of the United States would remotely consider not protectingAmerican citizens from Russian authorities for questioning, boggles the mind. Clearly:

“The entire country should be aware of this,” tweeted Tom Nichols, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and the Harvard Extension School. “If Putin can single out” McFaul, Nichols said, “he can single out anyone. The President’s job is to protect us, not to even *consider* handing any of us over to an enemy government.”

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Also, President Trump’s own State Dept. was critical of the proposal and the possible allowance of it:

In a news conference this week, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert called the idea of allowing the Russian government to interview American officials “absolutely absurd,” adding that allowing such a precedent “would be a grave concern to our former colleagues here.”

Interestingly, I started this post early this morning, but because it takes me so long time to complete a post, I am just now reading about this coincidentally timed turn of events:

The White House says President Trump opposes a proposal floated by Russian President Vladi­mir Putin that would allow Russia to interview American officials in exchange for making Russian authorities indicted in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe available for questioning.

The White House announced Trump’s opposition Thursday moments before the Senate voted 98 to 0 to approve a resolution telling the president not to honor Putin’s request, which would have exposed former U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul, among others, to Russian questioning.

“It is a proposal that was *made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “Hopefully President Putin will have the 12 identified Russians come to the United States to prove their innocence or guilt.”

*Are You Kidding Me??

–Dana

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270 Responses to “President Trump Weighs Out Putin’s Offer Involving the Questioning Of Americans”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (023079)

  2. “That the President of the United States would remotely consider not protecting American citizens from Russian authorities for questioning, boggles the mind.”

    Yes. Truly mind-boggling.

    noel (96c84f)

  3. huh?

    they already said no deal

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  4. but this is what you get when you let the hot and horny men and women of the perverted fbi do fake-indictments of people what work for other countries

    you get indictments all up in it!

    yup the cowardly fbi trash who couldn’t indict hillary

    they got not a single concern about indicting the whole whirl no matter how silly!

    buttboy gestapo Robert Mueller

    he axes himself one question:

    Um. There’s no danger these people will every actually show up in court right?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  5. Clean up on this aisle, please.

    Simon Jester (1ab718)

  6. Meanwhile, Trump thinks Helsinki went so well, he’s decided to invite Putin here for a second meeting.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-to-invite-vladimir-putin-for-u-s-visit-this-fall-1532031225?mod=e2tw

    kishnevi (bb03e6)

  7. But apparently not everyone is in the loop
    https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1020043060510507008

    kishnevi (bb03e6)

  8. Dan Coats lol

    he’s not actually in charge of anything you know

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  9. The whole thing is half baked. The person in question, Michael McFaul, is currently a private citizen. There is no authority to arrest him and hand him over to anyone, nor was such a thing ever contemplated.

    The only thing that the Government could do would be to waive diplomatic immunity. That’s it.

    There still would be a need for some legal process to force him to respond to questions. I cannot think of any such thing — maybe the Hague Convention? Which would mean his being questioned in the U.S.

    Bored Lawyer (998177)

  10. Studying philosophy can be fascinating, like this quote (paraphrasing):

    >>Are you an atheist?
    >> Yes.
    >> Oh, then anything is possible!

    The Republican party, if it has been anything, has been against Communism and the USSR. That conviction was fiercely guarded (and rightly so, I might add) by all Republicans. But now, even that belief has been squandered. And now, when it comes to those Republicans, anything is possible.

    Tillman (d34303)

  11. Critics say compromises during the bill’s crafting led to the establishment of a DNI whose powers are too weak to adequately lead, manage and improve the performance of the US Intelligence Community. In particular, the law left the United States Department of Defense in charge of the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). (The limited DNI role in leading the US Intelligence Community is discussed on the Intelligence Community page.)

    it’s just another symptom of failmerica’s bloated corrupt ineffectual intelligence boondoggle

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  12. Tillman, if the USSR went back to communism the Democrats would fall in line behind Putin before you could say “Joseph Stalin.”

    I know you know this, but let’s never forget that it was Barack Obama and his henchwoman Hillary Clinton who downplayed the Russian threat from January 21, 2009 until November 8, 2016, despite repeated warnings from Republicans. I will agree that far too many Republicans are falling in line behind Trump and his strange public obsequiousness to Putin, but I refuse to take the Democrats’ sudden antipathy to Putin as anything other than post-election petulance and convenient blame-shifting.

    JVW (42615e)

  13. “The Republican party, if it has been anything, has been against Communism and the USSR. That conviction was fiercely guarded (and rightly so, I might add) by all Republicans. But now, even that belief has been squandered. And now, when it comes to those Republicans, anything is possible.”

    When it comes to a country being thirty years clean of Communism that *switched from official atheism to official Christianity*, yes, anything is. They have a government that isn’t as nice as the ones in the West. But it has no territorial or ideological ambitions far beyond its own borders and its own people. (Solution: Ban Russians from immigrating!)

    Everything people decry it for applies a hundredfold to Mexico and a thousandfold to China, and the silence of the critics on those countries speaks the loudest of the fundamentally corrupt opportunism of their position.

    If the response to Trump has taught us anything, it’s that precedents are there for the powerful to wipe their butts with. If our diplomats and intelligence people are openly conspiring against the duly elected leaders of our country with their foreign counterparts, then ‘diplomatic immunity’ can go the same way as ‘attorney-client privilege’ and ‘civil service protections.’ Those who call American citizenship ‘just a piece of paper’ deserve no extra respect or protection just because they originally held a job there.

    Deep Cover (a02c00)

  14. It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it. Hopefully President Putin will have the 12 identified Russians come to the United States to prove their innocence or guilt.

    I wonder if the Russian version of a Patterico guest poster is asking “are you kidding me?” to our Whitehouse’s sincere request for handing over the 12 Russians?

    Or, could it be the statement, in its totality, is mocking Putin’s request?

    BuDuh (fc15db)

  15. JVW and Deep Cover, you two are willfully forgetting how ill-behaved Russia has been lately. By the way, Putin admitted he was for Traitor Trump winning the election. Why do you think that is, hmm?

    Putin is a murderer, as documented here by Pat. He supports our enemy in Syria who doesn’t mind kiling civilians, he’s a war crimina, etc., etc.
    https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-criminal-inhumanity-syria/

    I don’t care if you call Russia communist or a powder puff, the KGM man running it is not our friend and deserves a firing squad, not to be coddled by our president, for Christ’s sake.

    Tillman (d34303)

  16. *war criminal

    Tillman (d34303)

  17. *KGB man running it

    Tillman (d34303)

  18. A firing squad, is that like promising the KGB man you’ll have more flexibility after the election?

    Harkin (fdaee5)

  19. Harkin: Squirrel!

    Tillman (d34303)

  20. JVW and Deep Cover, you two are willfully forgetting how ill-behaved Russia has been lately.

    Refresh my memory: under whose administration did Russian seize Crimea? And which US President constantly warned Ukraine not to escalate in the face of Russian aggression? And which President sent Ukraine blankets and such instead of anti-tank weapons when Russia rolled into Ukraine?

    So, how is Russia more ill-behaved since January 20th, 2017, than it was before?

    Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71)

  21. The past is the past Chuck, let’s not try to scapegoat while Rome burns here.

    Tillman (d34303)

  22. You better watch out, you better not cry
    Better beware or get shot in the eye,
    Vladimir Putin’s comin’ to town
    Your name’s on his list and he’s checking it twice
    Gonna find out your naughty ol’ vice
    Vladimir Putin’s comin’ to town

    He sees you when you pee-pee,
    He knows when you’re on tape,
    He watches when you’re spanked real good
    With a Forbes for goodness sake
    Oh you better watch out, you better not cry
    Better not pout or get knifed in the thigh,
    Vladimir Putin’s comin’ to town

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  23. Like I said in the other thread, don’t blame Trump for Mueller’s worthless grandstanding which had no other purpose except to hamstring Trump before Helsinki.

    Moreover, the Russians don’t give up their people. Just the opposite. When their people are caught in foreign countries, they move heaven and earth to get them back. It’s part of the KGB ethos.

    nk (dbc370)

  24. Tillman’s agitprop about Putin *LYING THE RUSSIANS INTO WAR* WITH CHECHNYA, AMERICA’S GREATEST ALLY AND AN IMPORTANT DEVELOPING DEMOCRACY IN THE REGION, WHICH IN NO WAY RESEMBLES LEFTY ARGUMENTS AGAINST BUSH CIRCA 2000-2008…

    and HIS UNFORGIVEABLE SUPPORT OF THE WAR CRIMINAL ASSAD WHO MURDERED INNOCENT MUSLIMS WHO JUST HAPPENED TO LIVE IN ISIS AND MODERATE REBEL SUPPORTING AREAS…

    …leads me to believe he’s found the key to uniting the most noxious of unhinged neoliberal and unhinged neoconservative commentary, a veritable Chomsky-Kristol Axis Of Obnoxious Question-Begging. Please continue arguing this way so that you can effectively alienate every single moderate voter prior to any new elections, I’m sure your pro-American bona fides will TOTALLY survive sounding exactly like everyone that those who voted for Trump or Bernie voted against.

    Deep Cover (ff23e4)

  25. the senate voted unanimously not to turn over any of our dirty state department sluts and expose them to the evil depredations of Putin, Vladimir

    unanimous all except for shameful coward-ass putin puppets John McCain and Richard Shelby that is

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  26. Chechen war is nearly 20 years ago, right around the time American idol premiered. Now 22 years ago, four men were shot down in internationAL waters, as a response a sanctions bill went into effect, until the EU sent their lawyers, because it interfered with the theft of cubAN property

    narciso (d1f714)

  27. Too bad I would like to see kgb interview clinton on why the clinton foundation shut down after she lost. Also her pakistani tech guy. Debbie wasserman schults wouldn’t be a bad interview or the msnbc talking heads on which voting machines in detroit did russia interfere with and what was trumps part in the collusion.

    wendell (bc39b7)

  28. It’s good Trump essentially neutered the modern conservative movement, cooked the odd set of weenies, fried Tedtoo’s Canadian bacon, sidelined the Bushes, humiliated the Clintons and upstaged Reagan while peeing on his grave. A center right court was expected and a modest price to pay. And if Trump wants to sh!t on his personal reputation, diddle porn stars, Playboy bunnies and crave a Forbes spanking or two like the proud New Yorker he is, fine. It’s grand entertainment and long time Big Apple metro area residents have known his shtick and seen the act for decades; it was Steinbrenner, Helmsley and Trump who ran Steady Eddie Koch’s New York w/assists from Reggie, Billy and Yogi. For as we know, in this era, Americans don’t want to be governed; they wish to be entertained. And this has been one helluva ratings and p-ssy grabbing show so far.

    But what Traitor Trump did in Helsinki to Americans is completely, totally and unconditionally unforgivable.

    Those who’ve had some international exposure/experience at varying levels of business and government know the drill and directives all too well; even the most mundane American tourist understands they’re representing the country when travelling and interacting overseas. Whether Traitor Trump realizes it or not, he has diminished respect and leverage for American citizens and endangered them on levels he doesn’t really comprehend.

    He cannot be allowed to move on and get away with this. This jackass doesn’t get a do-over; there are no second chances to make a first impression, particularly after boasting he has been ‘preparing for this his whole life.’ He can’t talk his way out of it w/word play. And anybody who tries to help him spin it– at Fox, on blogs, on editorial boards, in White House press briefings, perched mutey around Cabinet tables, in Congressional cloak rooms, in bars or otherwise- is essentially complicit; an enabler and ‘colluding.’ Real life is a bitch when covered ‘live’ and you can’t edit it before broadcast.

    It’s worth repeating this over and over- as is Trump’s ‘modus operandi:’

    Traitor Trump strode on to the global stage in Helsinki, stood just five feet from Putin, a trained KGB agent, dropped his pants, and sh!t on every American citizen in front of a worldwide audience, then to Vlad’s delight, wiped his azz w/t U.S. flag.

    And what makes it worse, if that’s possible, is after stating how persuasive an argument Putin made of his innocence, Traitor Trump knew he was lying and has been completely aware- for 18 months- the Russian was personally involved in hacking into American elections and had lied to him. Then in turn, with the world watching, Traitor Trump lied to the American people and the entire world again, after raking our long-time allies over the coals.

    This is absolutely unacceptable.

    He took a day to mull over whether to turn U.S. citizens over to Russia for ‘interrogation;’ a death sentence. Now Traitor Trump has invited Putin to the White House.

    All true Americans who care about their country cannot accept this crap any longer. He has crossed a line. There is no ‘deep state.’ But it’s a cinch Traitor Trump is in ‘deep sh!t.’ And when Mueller drops his ‘follow the laundered money’ report, more will hit the fan.

    And what would Traitor Trump’s supposed ‘hero’ say?!?!…

    “‘Despicable!’ That the first time in my life anybody’s ever applied that word to me…” – Gen. George S. Patton [George C. Scott] ‘Patton’ 1970

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  29. I like President Trump even more after he did the Helsinki Summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

    It was a good initial meeting and we’ll have to wait and see what comes out of it.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  30. @30. The Penguin was a villain, too, Mr. Feet.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  31. 24
    nk, in case you missed it…Trump ordered the indictments to be released before he met Putin. Rosenstein met with him (that must have been an interesting meeting) and asked if the indictments should be handed down before or after the summit. Trump chose before.
    Unless you want to contend Trump was trying to hamstring himself…

    kishnevi (0293c7)

  32. t. But it has no territorial or ideological ambitions far beyond its own borders and its own people
    Only if you define those borders as those of the Former Siviet Union.

    kishnevi (0293c7)

  33. Soviet.

    kishnevi (0293c7)

  34. Actually the old Russian empire, but who has challenged the Syrians the Iranians or the Russian masters at all, and who has been yelping loudest.

    narciso (d1f714)

  35. what would the difference have been between whether the lickspittle DOJ announced their fake indictments two days before the summit or two days after?

    not a goddamn thing

    either way

    the cnn jake tapper fake news poofterboys would have wet their panties same same

    the intelligence trash community would have strzoked-out like chubby mormon goth girls getting their first period

    and coward-ass John McCain would have bravely tweeted – just like back in the nam!

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  36. So, where’s Patterico?

    Tillman (d34303)

  37. Trump should step down, until we find out what the hell is going on.
    (Full disclosure, I kind of stole some of that from Tapper.)

    Tillman (d34303)

  38. @37. Hope he and his immediate and extended family are well. The real world can bite and none of us are getting any younger.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  39. Wasn’t sure that would post… what happens when you don’t follow police commands and you have a loaded magazine in your pocket

    Colonel Haiku (d52d85)

  40. @40 Me too DCSCA, me too.

    Tillman (d34303)

  41. @36. and coward-ass John McCain would have bravely tweeted – just like back in the nam!

    Still in Saigon, Mr. Feet?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOfrnKqk3zw

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  42. “Those who’ve had some international exposure/experience at varying levels of business and government know the drill and directives all too well; even the most mundane American tourist understands they’re representing the country when travelling and interacting overseas. Whether Traitor Trump realizes it or not, he has diminished respect and leverage for American citizens and endangered them on levels he doesn’t really comprehend.”

    Only people who’ve had that execrable position called a ‘manager’ talk like this. Trump never has. This is a good thing. This is nothing but a laundry list of ‘we can fire you for any vague reason so be on your best behavior’ that every employee gets to sign to reduce any risk of acting independently or making decisions with human judgment.

    “He cannot be allowed to move on and get away with this. This jackass doesn’t get a do-over; there are no second chances to make a first impression, particularly after boasting he has been ‘preparing for this his whole life.’ He can’t talk his way out of it w/word play. And anybody who tries to help him spin it– at Fox, on blogs, on editorial boards, in White House press briefings, perched mutey around Cabinet tables, in Congressional cloak rooms, in bars or otherwise- is essentially complicit; an enabler and ‘colluding.’ Real life is a bitch when covered ‘live’ and you can’t edit it before broadcast.”

    IF YOU DON’T SHAPE UP *RIGHT NOW*, MR. ANDERSON, I’M GOING TO SAY MEAN THINGS ABOUT YOU TO THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AT OUR NEXT *BIG* MEETING WITH THE *TOP* MEN WHO MIGHT NOT BE SHAREHOLDERS BUT ARE TOTALLY BIG MOVERS AND SHAKERS!

    Yes, can’t see how this attitude would alienate normal people at all.

    “Traitor Trump strode on to the global stage in Helsinki, stood just five feet from Putin, a trained KGB agent, dropped his pants, and sh!t on every American citizen in front of a worldwide audience, then to Vlad’s delight, wiped his azz w/t U.S. flag.”

    You really must have us confused with some other United States of America where managers, bureaucrats, and wonks are highly respected among the people for their commitment to the protection of basic American rights and privileges and a successful post-9/11 international policy.

    Deep Cover (0a8399)

  43. My, my. How awful this all is. So, when Putin made the offer to let us question theirs if they got to question ours, people thought that what he had in mind was that we would turn over our people to be shipped off to deep. dark Russia and left for the KGB to torture out whatever answers they wanted from our election tamperers?

    Boy, it’s a good thing we saw through that and said, NO WAY, VLAD!

    Anon Y. Mous (acdecf)

  44. The past is the past Chuck, let’s not try to scapegoat while Rome burns here.

    No, Tillman, you don’t get to play that game. You said Russia has been particularly ill-behaved lately. I’m pointing out that Russia was much worse behaved before this, and the response at the time was horrible. Trump, for all his faults, has at least sent arms to Ukraine, which is a whole lot more than his predecessor ever did.

    I say this as a Never Trumper.

    Chuck Bartowski (211c17)

  45. @44, Uh-huh. You’re confused, all right.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSpOjj4YD8c

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  46. 38.Trump should step down, until we find out what the hell is going on.

    What he needs is a week at Camp David w/Melania in a locked room; the woman clad in her finest Dior dominatrix ensemble, whipping away at him every time he shouts his safe words, ‘no collusion.’ That outta send the phone, instead of tweets, flying.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  47. Here’s what we should be worried about with respect to Russia:
    * their wish to annex borderlands that they lost during the breakup of the Soviet Union
    * their willingness to do business with Iran, including Lord-knows-what in weapons and technology sales
    * their success in making Germany and other parts of Western Europe dependent upon their delivery of natural gas
    * their attacking, and in some case killing, political defectors inside of our allies’ borders

    Here’s what we should not be worried about with respect to Russia
    * their meddling in the 2016 election

    Russia’s success in “hacking” the DNC email is akin to the teenage punks who walk down the street at night checking each car parked on the street to see if the doors are unlocked. Sometimes the punks find some idiot who left their car unlocked, and sometimes the Russians come across a moron like John Podesta. But between this and the pretty small-bore Facebook ad buys and Twitter bots, it’s laughable to think that they had any kind effect whatsoever on the outcome of the election. And to believe Putin when he says now that he wanted Trump to win is to pretend like Putin doesn’t know exactly what to say to rile up the American electorate.

    JVW (42615e)

  48. there’s absolutely no proof that russia meddled in the 2016 election

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  49. No they didn’t, now podesta took their money and embezzled it in terrible art, wonder what the punishment is There, I know Mueller isn’t interested.

    Narciso (87493d)

  50. @49. There’s more to it than that.

    It’s a probe.

    Russians are a proud pople. A nation in their position, post-Soviet collapse w/a diminished military and regional economic clout; a ‘superpower gone supernova’ as it were, can regain reach, strength and power w/a just a few key strokes rather than rolling tanks into Prague. It’s very cost-effective.

    “I’ll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field.” -‘Q’ [Ben Whishaw] ‘Skyfall’ 2012

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  51. ^people

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  52. Yes that ponderous bit of tripe, is tested when q inadvertently let’s diego hack the backup mi 6 lair and the trigger puller has to save m from being executed in a parliamentary hearing.

    Narciso (87493d)

  53. Russians have no pride they’re a slovenly drunk-ass people what are conditioned utterly and completely to rely on the state for physical and spiritual nourishment

    they like hookers and mayonnaise

    their cuisine is as brutish as their architecture

    and they curse the name of God

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  54. I don’t consider that very significant, kishnevi. Trump might have seen that as a way to accuse him of a cover up and I wouldn’t blame him if he did see it that way. The Democrats and the media for sure would have spun it that way, right Tillman and DCSCA? The indictments and his request to keep them under wraps would have been leaked, wouldn’t they, noel and Dave?

    See, the way real prosecutors bring an indictment is that they get together and do what up here is called “felony review”. Their decision is not based on whether they have probable cause, but on whether they have a decent chance of getting a conviction (at the minimum a prima facie case) and not be wasting precious prosecutorial and court resources. Does Mueller have a snowball’s chance of getting convictions on these indictments? Grandstanding, trying to justify his travesty of an investigation is my conclusion. And I say this knowing that Trump is back in the White House.

    nk (dbc370)

  55. The indictments and his request to keep them under wraps would have been leaked, wouldn’t they, noel and Dave?

    yes yes you are right of course Mr. nk

    rosytwat and the hot and hornies

    you can’t trust them, and President Trump knows this all too well

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  56. Sorry for the double print, now will Putin send a try like he did with concord I don’t think So, that would be acknowledging that this fustercluck has legitimacy.

    Narciso (87493d)

  57. * their success in making Germany and other parts of Western Europe dependent upon their delivery of natural gas

    JVW (42615e) — 7/19/2018 @ 5:44 pm

    Of course, that has been the case for quite awhile. I find the fuss over the direct pipeline to Germany to be quite amusing. We are supposed to be concerned because the pipeline will no longer pass through other countries, depriving them of the ability to put a tax on Germany’s energy, or even to outright turn it off if they so desired.

    How long would we sit still for that situation if our energy was delivered via a pipeline that went through Mexico, and that whenever the Mexicans wanted to play hardball with either us or the country that was sending us the gas, they could just turn the pipe off, or tax the p*ss out of it?

    Anon Y. Mous (acdecf)

  58. Wait and see, there will be more than a few dipsh!ts shouting “obstruction of justice” because Trump is not pressuring Putin “enough” to turn his people over to us. Maybe even for not ordering a covert operation to kidnap them.

    BTW, has everybody forgotten Edward Snowden? When did the Russians turn him over and when is his trial? (It’s a trick question: The Russians never turned him over and he will be tried when Russia becomes the 51st state.)

    nk (dbc370)

  59. Of course you know what line of work Matthias warnig the CEO of midstream was in orinally. He worked for the stasi

    Narciso (87493d)

  60. He ended up on the board of drezdner bank survivising the controversial sale of yukos

    Narciso (87493d)

  61. Whose company was yukes, well it was khodokorsky, that was the oligarch that browder cheered when Putin stole the company away from him

    Narciso (87493d)

  62. @55. Peter was Great, Mr. Feet; as were Laika, Yuri and Ensign Chekov.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  63. Mr. Chekov died not far from where i used to live i’m still kinda sad about that

    it’s just so tragedy

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  64. not far from some of the hikes i used to take i should say

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  65. It was an accident with a self driving car, well that’s the story anyways. But koenig not yerkin will be the real chekhov.

    Narciso (87493d)

  66. Beat me to it, Narciso. I was about to tell happyfeet that, thankfully, Walter Koenig is still alive.

    JVW (42615e)

  67. RIP Adrian Cronaur.

    ropelight (a3accd)

  68. their success in making Germany and other parts of Western Europe dependent upon their delivery of natural gas

    Germany succeeded, economically with the EU, to do what Hitler failed to do militarily with the Wehrmacht. Dominate Europe. It’s good that Russia can bring it to a Halt! just by turning off the gas valve.

    nk (dbc370)

  69. i know but i’m still sad it’s almost as gutting as that story about the little kid what died trying to get his tennis racket out the back of the minivan

    oh man

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  70. tad devine of sanders campaign named popped up in manafort trial as they worked on ukraine election. democratic underground clintonistas are in rapture attacking bernie sanders! cliton cult hates genie sanders, jill stein and donald trump in that order. corporate establishment clinton democrats have been told to lay off attacking alexandra ocasio-cortez as the base has fallen in love with her.

    wendell (bc39b7)

  71. Well the guy worked previously for manbearpig and lurch, however he doesn’t have a 0-10 track record like bob strum who still haunts the msnbc greenroom.

    Narciso (87493d)

  72. I am so tired of hearing about some terrible Russian MEDDLING.

    What is it? Some Podesta emails that said the DNC rigged the primary for Hillary. Who cares?

    Obama meddled in the election of Benjamin Netanyahu. Did anyone in the media complain? This is such a phony issue.

    The Democrats have been in bed with the Russians for ever. Obama said he will have “more flexibility” to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the U.S. presidential election. Hillary gave up 20 percent of US uranium in exchange for millions to the Clinton Foundation. Where is the outrage?

    AZ Bob (885937)

  73. It’s a giant flying squirrel, az bob,

    Btw a contact I know up in Wisconsin not in crazy Madison says urban Milwaukee is committing category
    error again

    Narciso (87493d)

  74. Surprise Surprise, no diebold has nothing to do with this,

    Narciso (87493d)

  75. Wisconsin’s just weird, always in thrall to the dairy mafia and soon to the Chinese, but I am still glad I live at this end of US 41 not at the edge of Pencelandia like the rest of the fam who didn’t move to western states.

    urbanleftbehind (4e4a2c)

  76. tad devine of sanders campaign named popped up in manafort trial as they worked on ukraine election
    Oh, the theorizing is quite Byzantine.
    The idea being floated is that Devine, in his role as media consultant to Bernie, made media buys with Bernie’s money that did not really benefit Bernie in the primaries
    but would hurt Hillary in the general election–presumably at Manafort’s behest.

    The only actual factual support for that idea is the large number of communications to/from Devine that show up in the evidence schedule submitted by prosecutors in the Manafort trial.

    kishnevi (61bde2)

  77. “Tony Podesta, founder of the now-shuttered Podesta Group and brother to former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, has been offered immunity by special counsel Robert Mueller to testify against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, according to a report.

    Fox News’ Tucker Carlson announced on his show Thursday evening that two separate sources confirmed the offer.

    “In other words, for a near identical crime, Bill and Hillary’s friend could escape and emerge completely unscathed while Paul Manafort may rot in jail. Only one of them made the mistake of chairing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” Carlson said.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/robert-mueller-offers-tony-podesta-immunity-to-testify-against-paul-manafort-report

    harkin (e7e3ee)

  78. This is why it’s valuable to familiar with invective in foreign languages, I think the proper phrase is,vekakte, help me out kish.

    Narciso (87493d)

  79. Ferkakte is close enough.

    kishnevi (61bde2)

  80. @46 Please Chuck, Trump kissed Putin’s butt on Court Square. No other President has ever done that.

    Tillman (d34303)

  81. “In other words, for a near identical crime, Bill and Hillary’s friend could escape and emerge completely unscathed while Paul Manafort may rot in jail. Only one of them made the mistake of chairing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” Carlson said.

    Mueller is evil.

    AZ Bob (885937)

  82. It’s not like he has been a,party to this sort of behavior before, yes he has.

    Narciso (87493d)

  83. The predictably dishonest WaPo misrepresented Putin’s incredible offer as a lopsided exchange where the Kremlin would provide access to interviews of Russians Mueller indicted in exchange for allowing Russia to question certain US officials.

    Got that? According to the omniscient WaPo, Mueller would get to watch Russians ‘interview’ the individuals he indicted, (or be given transcripts) while Russian interrogators would directly ‘question’ US officials.

    The only thing that’s incredible about Putin’s so-called offer is that the WaPo expected to get away with presenting such a ridiculously onesided exchange as something that Trump, or any US offical, wouldn’t summarily reject as grossly unfair.

    WaPo’s blind hatemongers actually believe their own propaganda: Trump’s too dumb to be POTUS, Putin’s got the goods on Trump and can blackmail him at will, Trump wants to build golf courses and hotels in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, or perhaps Trump is a Mongolian Candidate (Putin took him into a private room and flashed the Queen of Diamonds).

    Whatever their excuse, the WaPo can extend their slogan Democracy Dies in Darkness to include and We’re Here to Turn Out the Lights.

    ropelight (a3accd)

  84. THIS is actually justification for firing Mueller: a clear indication that the probe is partisan and aimed at Republicans alone.

    Kevin M (5d3e49)

  85. 87… c’mon, AZ Bob… Mueller is a stand-up guy, above reproach.

    It is truly sickening.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  86. Democracy Dies in Darkness when the press takes sides

    Kevin M (5d3e49)

  87. Good one Kevin. Anyone else want to play?

    ropelight (a3accd)

  88. @46 Please Chuck, Trump kissed Putin’s butt on Court Square. No other President has ever done that.

    Tillman (d34303) — 7/19/2018 @ 8:23 pm

    There was one president who was more flexible…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  89. It. Is. What. They. Actually. Do. Tillie. You. Moron. You.

    Trump has been busy undoing all of the moronic stuff Big Zer0 did in Eastern Europe and his passive and weak foreign policy, as well.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  90. Democracy Dies in Darkness Flatulence

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  91. Just don’t light a match coronello.

    Narciso (87493d)

  92. Right Drunku, let’s poke a stick in all our best allies’ eyes – even England’s – claim victory and go home. On the flip side, let’s play go around playing patty-cake with our worst enemies. That’s just brilliant, doofus. Just Brilliant.

    Tillman (d34303)

  93. Democracy Dies in Darkness Fits and Starts

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  94. Weep on, Tillie.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  95. Leave Donald alone, he is living his truth.

    Leroy Jenkins (6e7a1c)

  96. Democracy Dies When it Can’t Keep Its Doctor

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  97. england’s an ally kinda like rosemary kennedy in the attic was an ally

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  98. Haiku – point out hot mic flexibility or pallets of cash to a terrorist state and if it’s a Dem involved, they just shout ‘squirrel!’.

    It’s all they have.

    harkin (e7e3ee)

  99. don’t eat the donuts

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  100. True that, harkin!

    Democracy Dies After Drinking a Smoothie Made by a Transgendered Tattoed Pierced Juice Barista in Austin Texas

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  101. harkin, all you have are bogus “you too” arguments. You have no defense of what’s going on now.

    Tillman (d34303)

  102. For 14 seasons, Donald Trump hosted The Apprentice, the reality show that gave millions of Americans the false impression that he is a business genius. But it was only today, July 19, 2018, that he realized what the title of the show meant.

    Speaking to a crowd at a White House event called Pledge to America’s Workers, Trump came across a line in the prepared text that included the word apprenticeships. Then he went off script: “That’s an interesting word for me to be saying, right? The Apprentice. I never actually put that together until just now,” he said

    Leroy Jenkins (6e7a1c)

  103. i love what’s going on now

    jake tapper doesn’t have any clean panties for tomorrow

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  104. Teeheehee Found it too.

    Biff Radukowski (6e7a1c)

  105. Hypothetical, say an administration had abandoned an ambassador in a god forsaken hellhole surrounded by al she’s a, with only a handful of security, and left to die beaten choking on smoke and sodomized what that reflect poorly on the administration, just spiralling here.

    Narciso (87493d)

  106. oh sh!t i have people in marshalltown

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  107. As for little Montenegro if we had to stage a reaction force, if would come from perhaps radar in Hungary or that base in Poland, but I wouldn’t keep my hopes up.

    Narciso (87493d)

  108. “Tony Podesta, founder of the now-shuttered Podesta Group and brother to former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, has been offered immunity by special counsel Robert Mueller to testify against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, according to a report.“

    Robert Mueller must be going for a lifetime achievement award in getting pedophiles off with light sentences.

    Anton Michael (8a7ec5)

  109. Oh look, a pizzagater.

    Davethulhu (270006)

  110. No he was merely a crook who started his career ravaging Robert Bork and Clarence thomas.

    Narciso (87493d)

  111. Cthulhu!!!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  112. This guy who what he speaks off, fleshes out the hypothetical

    https://mobile.twitter.com/KrisParonto/status/1020057699592036352

    Narciso (87493d)

  113. one of my people i’m going to apocalypse islands with

    she prepped people for lifeflights and they didn’t make it

    i think the news in general come morning could be kinda not good but we’ll see

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  114. Schiffheel Democrats get kid glove treatment and immunity, Republicans get prosecuted.

    Reichsmarschall Mueller.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  115. Is that what they are calling Hawaii now or is that genosha?

    Narciso (87493d)

  116. “Oh look, a pizzagater.”

    Pizzagate would have stayed in the fever swamps but for Tony Podesta’s incredibly disturbing and pedophilic artwork, yes.

    Anton Michael (3cfb6a)

  117. Why wasn’t Mueller on the first plane to Moscow after Putin offered to let him question the people he indicted?

    It’s interesting to imagine what they’d do with these Russians they indicted if they somehow got them to the US. Let me know if I got this wrong:

    There would be a military tribunal.

    The star witness would be some guy from Crowdstrike ( which probably translates in Russian to something similar to what happened in Las Vegas to a country music concert last year )

    The “jury” would have this no-security-clearance appeal to authority figure making assertions against the accused Russians’ assertions that they are innocent.

    The military jury would find the Russians guilty based on the claims of Crowdstrike.

    Patterico was a prosecutor or something.

    jcurtis (27c0af)

  118. Rosenstein said such indictments can act as a deterrent.

    could he be a more malignant pussy

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  119. NeverTrumper gives self-defense tips… https://mobile.twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1020042690811998208

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  120. thank you Mr. Colonel loved that

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  121. I guess this is what they mean by civility:
    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/anti-maxine-waters-protest-canceled-black-panthers-take-over

    So is apparently times reporter sail trespassing on Carey Stewart’s office.

    narciso (d1f714)

  122. I hope president trump let herr mueller get away with this. Tell him no immunity indict pedestal or I pardon manafort.

    wendell (8ac504)

  123. All of you guys defending Trump’s offer to betray an American ambassador, and others, have been duped yet again. Trump does an about face leaving you to explain how you are going to change your own opinions to shadow his latest position.

    You look ridiculous.

    noel (96c84f)

  124. Is anybody axing Traitor Maxine Waters why her gang is burning American flags outside her office? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maxine-waters-los-angeles-office-oath-keepers-counter-protest-today-2018-07-19/ Also note the Dog Trainer weasel headline.

    nk (dbc370)

  125. Trying again. As Limbaugh said, what should Trump have done at the presser? Call Putin a lying thug and blame him for getting Trump elected? Less than that would not satisfy.
    But we also have the spectacle of our intel community being gifted with the status of archangels. Remember all those people who said Bush lied about WMD in Iraq? That was what our sainted intel community told him.
    Remember how Bush missed 9-11? It was our sainted intel community which was supposed to be watching for that.
    Missed the Tsarnaevs. Mateen in Orlando. San Bernardino shooters.
    And now they can do no wrong.
    Does anybody not see how ridiculous this looks?

    Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e)

  126. happyfeet says, “Mr. Chekov died not far from where i used to live i’m still kinda sad about that”

    I would have assumed that a lot of “Chekovs” have died where you used to live.

    noel (96c84f)

  127. Noel for the win @ 135!

    Oath Keepers do not deserve this, but Corey Stewart does, my 0.02 USD.

    urbanleftbehind (4e4a2c)

  128. Richard says…. “That was what our sainted intel community told him.”

    You can believe Donald Trump? You know he lies almost daily. Had a fake University. Conspiracy theories. Refuses to release his taxes as promised. All of it. But you cannot believe a dozen current and former intel/military/justice leaders including Trump’s own appointees?

    Like you said… “Does anybody not see how ridiculous this looks?”

    noel (96c84f)

  129. I suppose this is the beatific part of being a Cruz guy. I never liked the guy. But now I get to berate him and the Democrats.

    The Russkies have been trying to f*** with our elections since the the October Revolution of 1917. Full throttle after the Bolsheviks won the civil war in the 20s.

    Any questions, children?

    The Fidel Castro Democrats who are now shocked, SHOCKED! at Russian Meddling …

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME

    “Casablanca gambling? I’m shocked!”

    …can go **** themselves. And here’s where I get to admit I’m wrong. Up until now I didn’t believe the GRU would be involved in this business. But the KGB seriously f***ed it itself under Gorbachev and there was a realignment. So, things can change.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  130. OT -dammit, my train didn’t stop at Great Lakes, missed a basic graduation ceremony, admittedly I like it more for the hot sisters, girlfriends and milfs that pass thru the gates.

    urbanleftbehind (4e4a2c)

  131. The KGB aligned itself with the dying side of Soviet Union.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  132. From Cheka to NKVD to MVD to KGB, it was the backbone of the Communist Party. There would have been no Soviet Union without it. Putin himself said that he was a true Communist as a KGB officer, that he sincerely believed in Socialism.

    nk (dbc370)

  133. Ok.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  134. Thank Big Zer0 for this entire fustercluck…

    One point I’d like to make, Anderson, that I don’t think has come up very much before — and I’m alluding now to [President Donald Trump’s] criticism of President Obama for all that he did or didn’t do before he left office with respect to the Russian meddling,” Clapper said Thursday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”

    Clapper added that “if it weren’t for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today — notably, special counsel Mueller’s investigation.

    “President Obama is responsible for that, and it was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place. I think that’s an important point when it comes to critiquing President Obama.”

    https://www.lifezette.com/2018/07/obama-is-responsible-for-mueller-investigation-clapper-admits/

    Colonel Haiku (b9f2f5)

  135. Just like the old czarist regime, had the rabkin agentura and the okrana (ht Tim powers) in declare, the lubyanka was in the old anchor insurance company office, the source of the madness, sort of the flipside of wakandas prosperity.

    narciso (d1f714)

  136. Penkovsky, reiss and krivitsky were part of gru, chambers was as well, that’s why the latters defection prompted his letter to adolph berle which was not acted upon.

    narciso (d1f714)

  137. How can you tell when Donald Trump is lying?

    His stubby little fingers are moving.

    noel (96c84f)

  138. And here I thought Jackson Browne was Johnny One Note…

    Colonel Haiku (b9f2f5)

  139. “Following former Obama administration CIA Director John Brennan on Twitter, we see his animus nakedly on display. He is demented by hatred. Is this really the public role a former Director of the CIA is to be playing?”

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/07/the-brennan-factor-revisited.php

    Colonel Haiku (b9f2f5)

  140. Yeah, the unhappy idiots are running on empty on this one.

    nk (dbc370)

  141. So did suvorov, who was the one who introduced us to the spetznaz, so the cover story fed to the times is wrong shocker.

    narciso (d1f714)

  142. Haiku says, “Brennan is “demented by hatred”?

    Do you really want me to pull up all of the nasty comments our dear President has made toward just about everybody? You really want to see demented?

    noel (96c84f)

  143. Strzok, Page and McCabe are small potatoes, but Brennan does give credence that the so-called intelligence community has been out to get Trump since the possibility occurred to them that Hillary might lose and they stood to lose their sinecures. A lot of credence.

    nk (dbc370)

  144. Unlike Trump, at least Brennan’s comments have the benefit of being true

    noel (96c84f)

  145. Got news for you, nk. Trump’s own spy chief thinks he’s whacked too. Or didn’t FoxNews show you his reaction yesterday to the President’s fall invitation to Putin?

    noel (96c84f)

  146. Of course he has, he would certainly a guest character on the black list, because of him we no longer have a prime asset in aqap he directed the spectacularly unsuccessful Syrian rebel program, if one gouges by results. He pushed for the recognition of hezbollah and the Iran deal.

    narciso (d1f714)

  147. Brennan is a traitor trying to undermine the lawfully elected President in foreign relations for crass partisan political reasons. Just like senile race-hustling flag-burner Maxine Waters.

    nk (dbc370)

  148. Hahaha. That is a good one. Brennan is trying to “undermine the lawfully elected President”. Damn, you are a first rate hypocrite. Trump invented that role. Birther Don.

    noel (96c84f)

  149. Trump has also met with France’s Macron and the French refuse to extradite Roman Polanski. Diplomacy. The continuation of war by other means.

    nk (dbc370)

  150. You’re running on empty, noel. It was obvious when you started going after commenters personally.

    nk (dbc370)

  151. LMAO. Seriously? Try rebuttal some time, nk. You playing the victim? Happyfeet likes to pull that too. Aggressive people love to play the victim.

    noel (96c84f)

  152. Oh, and next time the Colonel calls me some nasty, juvenile, emasculating name, I just know you’ll be there to shield me, nk.

    noel (96c84f)

  153. We can and likely will continue to debate ad infinitum who’s the bigger fool but in the meantime here’s the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters Putin proposed should be used. The incident demonstrates the inherent problem with the Special Counsel’s appointment as both the investigative lead of a counter-intelligence investigation and prosecutorial lead on criminal matters arising from the investigation. The foreign policy implications of prosecutorial decisions are not easily separated from the needs of the nation or the needs of the intelligence services.

    THE WHITE HOUSE, February 10, 2000.
    To the Senate of the United States:

    With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, I transmit herewith the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, signed at Moscow on June 17, 1999.

    I transmit also, for the information of the Senate, a related exchange of notes and the report of the Department of State with respect to the Treaty.

    The Treaty is one of the series of modern mutual legal assistance treaties being negotiated by the United States in order to counter criminal activities more effectively. The Treaty should be an effective tool to assist in the prosecution of a wide variety of crimes, including terrorism, money laundering, organized crime and drug-trafficking offenses. The Treaty is self-executing.

    The Treaty provides for a broad range of cooperation in criminal matters. Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes obtaining the testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records and other items; serving documents; locating or identifying persons and items; executing requests for searches and seizures; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; locating and immobilizing assets for purposes of forfeiture, restitution, or collection of fines; and any other form of legal assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested Party.

    I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to the Treaty and give its advice and consent to ratification.
    WILLIAM J. CLINTON.

    Putin’s proposal was a clever ploy to put US in the position of refusing to follow the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance despite the fact that the treaty wasn’t intended to apply to acts of espionage but then is removal and political exploitation of private unclassified information an act of espionage? A lot has changed since this treaty was negotiated but diplomatically accepting and declining a Russian request for a specific case is a worthy debate but not worth much else.

    crazy (5c5b07)

  154. noel. So who misled Bush on WMD? Was it the FDA? Who missed 9-11? Was it the Council on The Arts? Who kneecapped Bush on the Iranian nuclear program?

    Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e)

  155. Bite me, noel! How is that for playing the victim? But your attacks on happyfeet were exactly what I had in mind, and you can just go on ahead and be like Haiku if that’s what you want.

    nk (dbc370)

  156. Richard. So who had the fake University? Lied about Obama’s birth? Lied about Ted Cruz’s dad? Lied about releasing his taxes? Lied about meetings with Russians?

    You want to disbelieve everyone in the entire intelligence community for one or two past assessments that were no 100% accurate? Really? And yet you choose to believe the Donald?

    Well… not me.

    noel (96c84f)

  157. People applying a ‘Traitor’ tag on this president but not doing same to those who signed off on nuke technology for NK and the Mullahs are a hoot.

    harkin (e4ec42)

  158. nk accuses me of……”attacks on happyfeet”. Oh boy. You make me feel so guilty. Happyfeet…. the most insulting, obnoxious commenter I have ever seen on any blog, anywhere.

    I am gonna go and cry now.

    noel (96c84f)

  159. And no. I won’t “bite you”, nk. That wouldn’t be nice.

    noel (96c84f)

  160. “I am gonna go and cry now.”

    noel (96c84f) — 7/20/2018 @ 7:36 am

    One question: will your jag session involve teh biting of teh pillow?

    Colonel Haiku (33489e)

  161. noel,

    happyfeet has ticked everyone off at one time or another, but he doesn’t attack other people here. He just attacks powerful politicians. If you try to read happyfeet as satire, it’s very funny and over time I’m convinced this is a bit of some kind. We need a little more to smile about when we talk about politics, so give that a shot.

    I would be a hypocrite to criticize you for getting bent out of shape, but even taken literally, feets doesn’t bash other commenters here.

    I agree with nk. Try to loosen up and at the very least, know that after many years it’s very clear Happyfeet will never be affected by people getting mad at him. Might as well take it as a joke and laugh it off.

    I say this because I think we have very similar perspectives on Trump, on Russia, and on a lot of the scandals right now. I think you’re a sensible person and the reason you care about feets’s comments is because you care about these issues.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  162. Yes he’s like Andy Kauffman, who sometimes possesses jim carrey.

    Narciso (dc0f8d)

  163. I get all of that, Dustin. But when somebody can derisively mock a dying POW or a man who just lost his wife…. in a public forum, he goes too far. I won’t consider that acceptable behavior. I use swear words all of the time in private. I enjoy biting humor. I watched “Borat” for crying out loud and laughed through it all. But cruel and mean comments about people who are suffering is another thing. And then to play the victim when someone turns it on them? I am not buying it.

    noel (96c84f)

  164. his·sy
    ˈhisē
    noun
    noun: hissy fit
    an angry outburst or tantrum.
    synonyms: temper tantrum, tantrum, angry outburst, fit of temper, paroxysm, paroxysm of rage, histrionics;

    Colonel Haiku (33489e)

  165. Let me be clear. Happyfeet is an intelligent, creative person. I actually like him/her, whatever. But new readers will tune him out or run away because of the frequency and intensity of his insults. And I am annoyed when he displays a complete lack of human decency too.

    noel (96c84f)

  166. But when somebody can derisively mock a dying POW or a man who just lost his wife…. in a public forum, he goes too far.

    Yeah, it’s pretty effed up. I’ve gone through the same criticism years ago with happyfeet. Feets really hates all things Mccain, or at least the persona we see does. I think there’s something theatrical and satircal about it, and at any rate, John Mccain lived an incredible, incredible life, with power and access that none of us will have. There is something profoundly American about bashing the bajesus out of Senators, but refusing to bash other ‘little guys’. Happyfeet has these little principles and one of these days I’d love to learn his honest views about all of them.

    At any rate, my real point is you’re not going to change him so don’t let it bug you. It’s easier to laugh it off.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  167. As for you, Colonel. Your insecurities are for you to figure out. Your constant masculinity bluster says more about you than your targets.

    noel (96c84f)

  168. Ah yes sbc humiliating people who have done nothing against him, give me more of that.

    Narciso (dc0f8d)

  169. Like when he fooled the speakers bureau into pretending his was a legitimate veteran organization, that part of the story is left iut.

    Narciso (dc0f8d)

  170. The way happyfeet plays with language is really quite fun. The bashing — it’s cartoon stuff, really, and it’s never directed at anyone here. (That’s downright unusual, frankly, and welcome.)

    The problem that creates is that if Mr. Feet ever want to be taken serious…I don’t know how that happens, except through creating a different persona.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  171. George Will still has a backbone:

    “We shall learn from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation whether in 2016 there was collusion with Russia by members of the Trump campaign. The world, however, saw in Helsinki something more grave — ongoing collusion between Trump, now in power, and Russia. The collusion is in what Trump says (refusing to back the United States’ intelligence agencies) and in what evidently went unsaid (such as: You ought to stop disrupting Ukraine, downing civilian airliners, attempting to assassinate people abroad using poisons, and so on, and on).”

    http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/397821-george-will-charges-that-trump-colluded-with-putin

    Tillman (d34303)

  172. I realize that most of you are used to happyfeet’s comments and it has become part of the fabric of commentary here. I get that. And I know that he has an artistic expression form that many find refreshing or different. I do too, much of the time. My hope is that people not become accustomed to those particular comments that cross the line into cruelty toward those who are suffering.

    But I am done with the happyfeet criticism. If he’s been doing this for many years, you are no doubt tired of hearing it anyway.

    noel (96c84f)

  173. Personally, I don’t think that McCain is “alert” anymore. I think all these “prepared statements” attributed to him are from the people around him — most likely his daughter and his son-in-law — with their own axes to grind.

    nk (dbc370)

  174. 9. Bored Lawyer (998177) — 7/19/2018 @ 2:27 pm

    The whole thing is half baked. The person in question, Michael McFaul, is currently a private citizen. There is no authority to arrest him and hand him over to anyone, nor was such a thing ever contemplated.

    The only thing that the Government could do would be to waive diplomatic immunity. That’s it.

    There still would be a need for some legal process to force him to respond to questions. I cannot think of any such thing — maybe the Hague Convention? Which would mean his being questioned in the U.S.

    No.

    The New York Times yesterday seemed to indicate in an article yesterday that there actually is something, in the course of paragraph that set about denying it. But it is not likely to happen. (And I think many people would tender their resignations before that would happen.)

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/us/politics/trump-putin-higher-intelligence.html

    As a legal matter, Mr. Trump has no authority to force Mr. McFaul or any other American to face Russian questioning. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, and under a mutual legal assistance treaty between the countries, the Justice Department can reject any request relating to a case it deems politically motivated — a status it has long given to Russia’s case against Mr. Browder.

    Trump could perhaps order that reversed and allow them to be subpoenaed. Of course they still would have the 5th amendment, and perhaps other ways to avoid testifying.

    But Putin anyway was more interested in just claiming to be disinterested in covering anything up.

    So he offered to co-operate in the investigation of the hacking while including a poison pill in tghe offer – and still did not actually commit himself.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  175. RE: crazy @164

    According to the New York Times:

    …the Justice Department can reject any request relating to a case it deems politically motivated — a status it has long given to Russia’s case against Mr. Browder.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  176. The Treaty provides for a broad range of cooperation in criminal matters. Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes obtaining the testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records and other items; serving documents; locating or identifying persons and items; executing requests for searches and seizures; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; locating and immobilizing assets for purposes of forfeiture, restitution, or collection of fines; and any other form of legal assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested Party.

    crazy: Thanks for actually addressing what was bothering me. How would the Govt. force any private citizen to give testimony. Put aside whether the guy is a former US Ambassador. Let’s say a US citizen knows information that someone in Russia needs to prosecute someone. So how does that work? Does the treaty permit a subpoena? Issued by whom?

    (I know this sounds technical, but the question is, how can the Govt. make anyone testify to help a Russian, or for that matter any foreign, criminal investigation?)

    Once you get over that hurdle, the next question is, why do they need to question McFaul. Is he a suspect in something? Or just a witness to someone else’s crime? To what extent is diplomatic immunity a defense to being questioned, especially for a former ambassador? (I mean, let’s say the US Ambassador witnessed a car accident in Moscow. Is there some reason he should not testify about it?)

    That’s what I meant by the whole thing is half baked. Without some legal mechanism, McFaul can just say, shove off. Not because he was the ambassador, but because he is a private citizen.

    Bored Lawyer (998177)

  177. Sammy Finkelman

    Thank you, I did not see your post until after my last.

    So how does the Treaty work? Let’s say that the DOJ approves it. Then what? Someone issues a subpoena? Who? How is it enforced?

    I assume that the testimony is in the US, not in Russia. But maybe I am wrong.

    I also gather that the person need not be a target — just a witness.

    And where does diplomatic immunity come in? Why shouldn’t an ambassador, and certainly a former ambassador, give testimony that he knows? (I get that the prosecution at issue is political. That’s a separate issue.) IOW, let’s say McFaul, hypothetically, witnessed a car accident in Moscow, and they authorities there are legitimiately prosecuting someone for vehicular homicide. Why shouldn’t he testify?

    Bored Lawyer (998177)

  178. Noel. Birther came out of the Clinton campaign. Others got hold of it, but….started with Her Highness.

    Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e)

  179. There’s a market opportunity for “conservatives” like Will, etc. who are vehement in their dislike of the current president and have no qualms about expressing it. There will always be slots and a place at the trough for them on CNN, MSLSD, etc.

    Colonel Haiku (33489e)

  180. 189… try as her campaign did to snuff out those facts, Richard.

    Colonel Haiku (33489e)

  181. noel wrt 167. As you know, the failures are manifold. As is the obvious bias against Trump. So the question of why we need to blindly follow the strictures of, among others, a guy who voted for Gus Hall, and about the time he converted to Islam, declared the Muslim brotherhood a secular organization with no ties to terror. I could go on, as you know. Fake dossier. Surveilling Trump Tower during the campaign. Adjusting the 302s after the Flynn interview.
    Yeah. let’s bow down and accept everything they say. You go first.

    Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e)

  182. OT, but an interesting read… “It was early 1999 when, like Balboa first glimpsing the Pacific, I happened upon one of the heavily Muslim neighborhoods of Amsterdam and saw the future immediately. Taking in the sight of bearded men in long skirts and women in hijab with three or four small children apiece — and noting the hostile looks I got from the men, and the obvious and deliberate separation of the women from the society around them — I recognized at once the demographic significance of it all. Somehow, moreover, I grasped instantly that this couldn’t just be happening in Amsterdam — why would it? It only seemed logical that there must be such neighborhoods in other Western European cities, too. I had never read or heard a word about this phenomenon. But now here I was in the midst of it, and between one moment to the next my view of the city, and the continent, that I, a native New Yorker, had relocated to because I viewed it as civilized, pleasant, and safe, was utterly transformed.

    In the weeks and years that followed, I read a great deal about Islam, discovered Muslim communities in other European cities, and wrote about what I saw happening — and about the direction in which I feared things were going. Almost two decades later, my dire predictions have been proven right. The cities of Western Europe have become steadily more Islamized. And the byproducts of Islamization that I observed all those years ago have been magnified. No-go zones have proliferated. Crime rates have gone up. In one major city after another, the police are either under orders to avert their eyes from Muslim transgressions or have nowhere near the resources necessary to address them efficiently. Yet even as the problem grows increasingly dire, and thus increasingly obvious, authorities whitewash Islam more vigorously than ever and harass and prosecute those who dare to speak honestly about the topic.”

    Read more: https://pjmedia.com/trending/arctic-jihad-refugee-violence-now-strikes-remote-corners-of-europe/

    Colonel Haiku (33489e)

  183. @192 Richard, you and others keep asking the wrong question. The question should be, do we “bow down” to war criminal KGB man Putin and his “besty” Trump? Oh, hell no.

    Tillman (d34303)

  184. Noel. Birther came out of the Clinton campaign. Others got hold of it, but….started with Her Highness.

    Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e) — 7/20/2018 @ 9:00 am

    Sure. This is true. But Trump was the top birther for sure. He and his took that hysteria a lot farther than Hillary. It’s one of the many ways Trump and Hillary are so similar, their circles so intertwined, and why a lot of Americans reject this ‘binary choice’ was a choice at all.

    Like many issues, I see Trump’s fans happy to criticize Hillary for being a birther, and then … they just don’t care that Trump was an even bigger birther. I think there’s a sensible point about internal democrat hypocrisy.

    As is the obvious bias against Trump.

    You mean the traitor? The guy who called America stupid while defending a KGB dictator? Yeah. He’s a real victim so let’s start the waterworks.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  185. Dustin @195

    But Trump was the top birther for sure.

    He wasn’t initially. He wasn’t involved at all initially.

    He latched on to thie in 2011, after it was dead.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  186. Today’s Trump scandal story is that the FBI has recordings of Trump talking about paying off his playboy hooker or however we characterize a married sleaze paying people for sex. The ultimate reality we get is that Trump is indeed susceptible to blackmail regarding his sexual behavior, and that Trump was lying about this event.

    A lot of Trump’s fans have suggested the story of Russian prostitution was fabricated. But here are the facts:

    1 Trump pays people off to keep quiet about his conduct

    2 Putin has some kind of incredible leverage on Trump
    3 Trump has absolutely no self control regarding sex

    Trump is already a tremendous disgrace to the Presidency. Bill Clinton was a disgrace but his conduct, taking advantage of his young employee among other serial sleaze, is on one level while Trump’s is on a completely worse level. The disgrace of this man being supported by the GOP today will last for decades. The GOP that shouted down that Strzok guy for cheating on his wife, while yawning about Trump’s misconduct, has that Dennis Hastert sort of cringe to it.

    Maybe 14 years ago I was sitting at a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building when Hastert sat next to me, I guess waiting for a meeting. He oozed creep. That was the day I screwed up Anthony Weiner’s name-tag Weiner was affable and cool about it, and Weiner was basically just a normal person (didn’t even seen partisan, and he knew I was a die-hard conservative). Over the years I’ve thought back on my brief stint as a peon on Capital Hill and I recognize that everybody there either is alienated and rejects politics, or they are comfortable being surrounded by narcissist perverts all day.

    Our nation’s leaders are sick and twisted, perhaps sick from the immense power and the immense overcomplication of our federal government. There is no question that secession is preferable to the status quo, though the real solution is a massive reduction in the role of our federal government.

    Trump’s the worst example in the White House, though compared to the Hasterts and Foleys I guess he’s not that far afield. I just hope the damage he is doing leads to enough distrust of the federal government that it is reduced in power. Maybe Bannon was onto something there.

    But until we get there, I have to endure Trump’s fans pretending this man isn’t a absolutely unacceptable disgrace. I have to endure people who have the word “honorable” in front of their name act as though Trump hasn’t been thoroughly shown to be dishonest and frankly evil.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  187. He latched on to thie in 2011, after it was dead.

    Sammy Finkelman

    He was birther #1. In fact, he accepts full credit for the movement.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  188. Breaking: According to the NYT, Michael Cohen is singing! He has recordings of Spanky!

    Tillman (d34303)

  189. Correction, “The F.B.I. seized the recording” and there are others.

    Tillman (d34303)

  190. 188. Regarding an ambassador being a witness to a car accident: I think the way things work is that the country where the ambassador is accredited to can ask for diplomatic immunity to be waived. I think the U.S. tends to waive it for legitimate things – not so some other countries..

    I also think diplomatic immunity applies only so long as the person in question is a diplomat. Now theer are probably some other exceptions in the treaty besides political matters.

    McFaul could also, on his own, move to quash a subpoena, like he could if it came from the state of California. Or from the state of New York and he was in California. Or from Spain (assuming there is a similar treaty with Spain.)

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  191. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/us/politics/michael-cohen-trump-tape.html

    Michael Cohen Secretly Taped Trump Discussing Payment to Playboy Model

    I am not sure what the legal issue is here. Trump didn’t lie under oath (or even to the FBI) about not knowing that the payment was going to be made, if that is what is on the tape. It is important, exactly what he said, and when.

    So what is the issue:

    Prosecutors want to know whether that violated federal campaign finance laws,

    This is pretty much nonsense.

    If he had classified it as a campaign expense, he could have been accused of using campaign money for personal benefit. It is also relevant that Trump was the richer guy here. There wass no issue of avoidg reporting it before teh eelction.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  192. I am not sure what the legal issue is here. Trump didn’t lie under oath

    Indeed it’s unfortunate this leaked before Trump testified at all because Trump has consistently lied about this and now he knows he’s caught dead to rights.

    Seems like a pretty obvious campaign expense to me. Beyond that, look at how the National Equirer handled this story. Look at how Trump and his circle have consistently operated in sleazy and dishonest ways in order to gain tremendous power.

    Every time Trump called Ted Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” Trump was drowning in this operation to lie to the American people. It’s no surprise Trump will be defended with some basic deflection that this doesn’t matter and we already know what a sleazy liar our president is, as though that’s not the point.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  193. “I also think diplomatic immunity applies only so long as the person in question is a diplomat.”

    Yes, that is what I was thinking.

    The big “scandal” of the week was that Trump was supposedly considering (although he ultimately rejected) “giving up” McFaul, and that somehow undermined the whole diplomatic corps.

    But the problem is that he is a former ambassador. So there is no immunity. And, at most, he would be required to testify against someone else (or help an investigation into someone else). So unless I am missing something, the whole thing is bogus.

    Now you also raised the issue that the proceedings in Russia are political charges and not legit. Fair enough, but that has nothing to do with McFaul being a former ambassador. The DOJ would make the same refusal if he had never been part of the diplomatic corps.

    Bored Lawyer (998177)

  194. Dustin operates an industrial strength projector with not a lick of self-awareness:

    “Maybe 14 years ago I was sitting at a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building when Hastert sat next to me, I guess waiting for a meeting. He oozed creep. That was the day I screwed up Anthony Weiner’s name-tag Weiner was affable and cool about it, and Weiner was basically just a normal person”

    Even under the kindest interpretation all this says is that Democrats are just better at hiding their pedophilic nature when serving as pre-compromised patsies for the money men.

    (The unkindest interpretation is that you were so used to the company of sexual predators in your particular milieu that Weiner’s behavior and demeanor seemed ‘normal’ to you.)

    “But here are the facts:”

    WRONG. They are your projections, not facts.

    The fact is that Donald Trump ‘lived an incredible, incredible life, with power and access that none of us will have’, and your projections of his nature are simply what you would do if you had that power.

    (John McCain, on the other hand, is instantly recognizable from anyone who spent any length of time in the military as a man who got his successes and do-overs from his established family connections, whereas most of us peasants would have been canned immediately for any of his infractions. There is zero surprise that he was repeatedly accused of collusion with the Viet Cong, it was an easy thing to believe based on his history of collusion with the Democrat party.)

    Anton Michael (e69e3e)

  195. WRONG. They are your projections, not facts.

    I’m not projecting because I have never committed infidelity, I’ve never paid money for sex, I’ve never been blackmailed. Obviously we all know Trump did those things and we also know that Putin has tremendous leverage over Trump (also not something I’m guilty of).

    Do you understand what the term “projection” means?

    John McCain, on the other hand, is instantly recognizable from anyone who spent any length of time in the military as a man who got his successes and do-overs from his established family connections

    He was also a POW whose conduct in that period was exemplary. Like many Officers, yes, he had parents who were successful. How hilarious of a Trump fan to bash someone for being born lucky.

    Dustin operates an industrial strength projector with not a lick of self-awareness:

    I get it, another Trump fan I’ve never heard of is furious with me, and insulting me personally, but was not able to challenge a single argument I made. In fact, you don’t seem to care about the argument or the facts. You just hate everyone who doesn’t love Trump. The reasons for this might be a defense mechanism. But when Trump denied paying off his hooker, he was lying. We know this now. Trump’s lawyer corroborated the recording.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  196. According to the New York Times:

    a conversation with Mr. Trump two months before the presidential election in which they discussed payments to a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump

    This is Karen McDougal, who actually did have an aaffair that lasted ten months in 2006/7 until she called it off because she felt guilty, and not Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels.)

    It would seem that when they “discussed it” Donald Trump said he didn’t want to pay her off, or not pay very much, because in the end it was the National Enquirer (or its parent company) and not Donald Trump who paid her off.

    In fact, we read:

    Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, confirmed in a telephone conversation on Friday that Mr. Trump had discussed the payments with Mr. Cohen on the tape but said the payment was ultimately never made. He said the recording was less than two minutes and demonstrated that the president had done nothing wrong.

    Now I suppose there you could get into a campaign finance quesiton, but unless Trump wanted them to do that, and it was a payoff and not legitimate the problem there is that of the National Enquier and American Media, not Donald Trump. (American Media claims it was a legitimate contract, and they recently settled a lawsuit with her.)

    Here is an article about a different law firm recently hired by the parent company of the National Enquirer:

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/60-minutes-boss-hired-law-firm-over-metoo-story

    The law firm was also recently hired by David Pecker, the CEO and chairman of American Media Inc., parent company of the National Enquirer, to try and shut down a negative story from a newspaper, according to two sources.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  197. “Contact light…”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnzMOB4JvKc

    Tip of the cap to all those at NASA then and now, and to Buzz, Mike and the late Neil Armstrong, busy truly making America great at the apex of the ‘American century’… “the way it was,” 49 years ago today. Still a thrill.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  198. Dustin @206.

    and we also know that Putin has tremendous leverage over Trump

    No, we don’t. What kind of leverage could he have?

    Now I think Trump may fear he let Putin infiltrate opeople into his campaign or something.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  199. 204. Bored Lawyer (998177) — 7/20/2018 @ 10:02 am

    Now you also raised the issue that the proceedings in Russia are political charges and not legit. Fair enough, but that has nothing to do with McFaul being a former ambassador. The DOJ would make the same refusal if he had never been part of the diplomatic corps.

    I think tgeh treaty might contain (almost ccertainly would) other grounds for refusal. A foreign country just can’t subpoena former ambassadors to give up secrets. I mean I can’t believe any treaty would be drafted and ratified that alllowed that.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  200. Anton Michael bashes the military service of someone who actually served (and was brutally physically harmed during his service) while defending someone who lied about bone spurs to dodge the draft (couldn’t even recall which foot they were in). That draft dodger then bashed POWs for getting captured, then bashed America for being “stupid” and “foolish” while that draft dodger lied about a KGB dictator’s actions against the American democratic process, in order to defend America’s enemy.

    John Mccain was a poor Senator and a terrible conservative, but bashing his military service is something Trump’s fans seem to really really NEED to do. It’s not because they actually care that much about military service because they don’t mind Trump being the 2018 version of Jane Fonda, literally bashing our vietnam POWs, and literally acting as a mouthpiece for the KGB’s dictator. There is no exaggeration here. Trump did that.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  201. Michael McFaul, a nemesis of the Kremlin because of his criticisms of Russia’s human rights record.

    I’m surprised he isn’t chomping at the bit for the opportunity to face his nemesis ( or agents of his nemesis ) and talk about Putin’s crimes to a global audience. I think McFaul could require the condition that it be televised. It makes Putin look like he’s innocent and has nothing to hide when you turn down an opportunity like that offered by the man himself. Make him regret the offer.

    jcurtis (27c0af)

  202. @173. So sez the Colludin’ Cuban. Time to have your papers renewed.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  203. =Haikumakov= Gesundheitski!

    Red Colonel; white Russians; blue ballz. A genuine patriotsky, comrade!

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  204. Dustin @ 197:

    A lot of Trump’s fans have suggested the story of Russian prostitution was fabricated

    But what they don’t say was that it was fabricated by Russia.

    It was supplied by Russia, unless it wss fabricated by Christopher Steele, acting independently.

    The principals of Fusion GPS maintained in their Congressional testimony that anti-Trump material was not particualrly sensitive in Russia – and was well known among Russian officialdom and they weren’t afraid to discuss this till later.

    Which is kind of not consistent with Putin backing Trump.

    The fact that this came from Russia is a problem anyway, whether it wss fabricated or not!

    How does this jibe with Putin supporting Trump? And we know he did. And Trump didn’t want to lose that support, either. And that support went back to 2015. At that time Trump used to claim he knew Putin. Now he says he never or almost never met him. Which is the truth.

    Of course the explanation is that when they told lies about Trump to Christopher Steele, they thought the story would never affect the ekection and would stay in the UK.

    They had no idea he was working for the Democcrats. Of course that would be the number one thing for him to conceal as he probed Russians as to WHY Putin supported Trump.

    Myself, I wonder what was the true quality of the work Steele did while he was in MI6. Maybe he wa a sucker for Russian disinformation then too.

    (Another possible explanation for the Russian dininformation given to Steele is that Putin did not in fact support Trump, but just wanted to divide Americans from each other. But I don’t think so. I think with all the leaks to Wikileaks and all he had to be supporting Trump, and this was the period of time in which Steele was gathering most of his information.)

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  205. 206. Dustin (ba94b2) — 7/20/2018 @ 10:08 am

    But when Trump denied paying off his hooker, he was lying. We know this now. Trump’s lawyer corroborated the recording

    Karen McDougal was not a hooker. In fact, when Trump offered her money the first time they had intercourse, she refused to take it. (She wanted a more substantial relationship, and Trump was very happy to take her up on it.)

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  206. @168. Pink and stink: time to change your panties, harkin.

    It’s worth repeating this over and over- as is Trump’s ‘modus operandi:’

    Traitor Trump strode on to the global stage in Helsinki, stood just five feet from Putin, a trained KGB agent, dropped his pants, and sh!t on every American citizen in front of a worldwide audience, then to Vlad’s delight, wiped his azz w/t U.S. flag.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  207. I mean he didn’t lie under oath, he may have admitted to the crimes he committed, but you know, he didn’t lie about it, well, lie about it under oath. Sure he lies 93% of the time he speaks, and the 7% is word salad. But sure, him on tape admitting to crimes is not big deal, it was audio only, could be a comedian faking it, is their video? And even if he did it, it kept Killary from being president so it was actually a patriotic thing to do.

    Biff Radukowski (6e7a1c)

  208. https://nypost.com/2018/07/20/michael-cohen-secretly-taped-trump-discussing-playmate-hush-money

    “Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Giuliani said, adding that Trump had told Cohen that if he were to make a payment to the woman, he should write a check instead of sending cash so it could be documented.

    It seems like Giuliani and Trump’s lawyers know all about this.’

    How come we have these misleading leaks, and the correct, full story has to come out from Giuliani?

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  209. I think somebody must have told Donald Trump at the Lake Tahoe American Century Celebrity Golf Tournament in 2006 …he would see a hooker.

    But that wasn’t the case. Neither Stormey Daniels nor Karen McDougal was a hooker, exactly.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  210. 153. nk (dbc370) — 7/20/2018 @ 6:56 am

    they stood to lose their sinecures. A lot of credence.

    Brennan sounds more like he’s trying to get back a sinecure.

    (or maybe needs politicak protection for something or other)

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  211. Yeah, Giuliani has…9/11 9/11, 9/11 9/11 9/11…lied or seemed a bit off…9/11 9/11, 9/11 9/11 9/11… “You know, I’m not really involved in the — in the Daniels thing. So I don’t — I don’t know. I mean, he denies that it happened.” “Well, it depends on kind of what you mean by met her.” “I don’t know how you separate fact and opinion.” and finally ..9/11 9/11, 9/11 9/11 9/11…

    Biff Radukowski (6e7a1c)

  212. Some background maye:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/us/politics/trump-national-enquirer-american-media.html

    Investigators Focus on Another Trump Ally: The National Enquirer That’s who’s in trouble.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  213. Giuliani has learned a bit more with time.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  214. Leaks tell that Lisa Page defined Strozk’s “there’s no there there” as meaning the collusion accusation was baseless. Known in advance to be so.
    So Podesta gets immunity from doing wnat Manafort did, and that Russian student, in order to get him to testify to whatever Mueller needs against Manafort.
    You’d have to be a lawyer to think that’s neat.

    Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e)

  215. An investigation conjured out of a fraud, actually multiple frauds the dossier and the account of the comet memos

    Narciso (55a2c4)

  216. Sammy – Correcting the falsehoods and mischaracterizations, good show so far.

    Colonel Haiku (33489e)

  217. “I’m not projecting because I have never committed infidelity, I’ve never paid money for sex, I’ve never been blackmailed. Obviously we all know Trump did those things and we also know that Putin has tremendous leverage over Trump (also not something I’m guilty of).”

    Assertions without credible evidence, at least on the last two. Those who lack options and relevant life experience entertain unrealistic fantasies about those who do, this is also known in more Biblical circles as ‘the sin of envy.’

    “Do you understand what the term “projection” means?”

    Yes. You’re assuming, against all credible evidence to the contrary, that all the nasty things Trump is accused of doing ‘is what *I* would do’ if you had those options. But Trump was able to peg Anthony Weiner as an unrepentant sex pervert early, immediately, and often, something you weren’t able to do! Maybe *he* actually knows the difference between an occasional rake and an obsessed, compromised, degenerate sex-pervert, and you don’t, because you have no relevant experience with the personalities. (Don’t apologize for this particular weakness, I expect Mike Pence has the same vulnerability, but people with it also shouldn’t be the first to make judgments on it in the absence of evidence.)

    “He was also a POW whose conduct in that period was exemplary. Like many Officers, yes, he had parents who were successful. How hilarious of a Trump fan to bash someone for being born lucky.”

    The testimony and evidence to the contrary is far more compelling and far more in line with his actual political conduct outside of Vietnam. You’re buying the official story hook, line, and sinker, possibly because you have even less relevant experience in the military than you do with powerful men.

    “I get it, another Trump fan I’ve never heard of is furious with me, and insulting me personally, but was not able to challenge a single argument I made. In fact, you don’t seem to care about the argument or the facts. You just hate everyone who doesn’t love Trump. The reasons for this might be a defense mechanism. But when Trump denied paying off his hooker, he was lying. We know this now. Trump’s lawyer corroborated the recording.”

    More projection of your own mental state onto mine, more presumption in the absence of evidence that neither side seems all that interested in releasing the full information on. I ain’t even mad, since your psychotic moral outrage is instructive rather than infuriating.

    “Paying to keep someone from saying anything at all” is not the same as “paying to keep someone from TELLING THE TRUTH.” The more powerful a man is, the more motivated high-profile women are to lie and exaggerate their relationships with him for their own egos. This goes quadruple when the woman is aging out of a career where physical appearance is everything. The more Stormy and her hilariously corrupt lawyer Avenatti talk, the less evidence they offer, and the more it looks like they’re doing it for the publicity and the publicity only.

    But you’ve never been unfaithful and by your own admission, couldn’t recognize a flagrantly degenerate and unfaithful personality in your own milieu. This is creditable and understandable. It does not lend you credence to judge others from a distance.

    Anton Michael (2c3f6d)

  218. From the series that a&e sacrificed

    http://www.nerowolfe.org/htm/tidbits/Montenegro.htm

    Narciso (55a2c4)

  219. “WASHINGTON POST RETURNS TO FORM:

    ● 2009: Newsweek, then still owned by the Post, declares, “We Are All Socialists Now.”

    ● 2017: WaPo introduces new emo slogan: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

    ● 2018: Embrace the darkness: “God bless the ‘deep state.’”

    Woodward and Bernstein could not be reached for comment.”

    https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/302661/

    Colonel Haiku (33489e)

  220. 225. Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e) — 7/20/2018 @ 11:03 am

    Leaks tell that Lisa Page defined Strozk’s “there’s no there there” as meaning the collusion accusation was baseless. Known in advance to be so.

    Those leaks – and they are not even leaks, in teh sense of unauthrized – are coming form adifferent source. Not people connected with a DOJ investigation.

    Members of Congress on the House Judiciary Committee heard Lisa Page testify behind closed doors. They found her much more honest and forthcoming than Peter Strzok.

    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-leads-interview-fbi-lawyer-lisa-page/story?id=56632046

    Rep. John Ratcliff, R-Texas, told reporters that Page has been more cooperative than Strzok in her interview, offering lawmakers “plausible answers” and “plausible explanations.”

    “In many cases, she admits that the text messages mean exactly what they say, as opposed to Agent Strzok, who thinks that we’ve all misinterpreted his own words on any text message that might be negative,” Ratcliff told reporters.

    http://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/397902-opinion-one-fbi-text-message-in-russia-probe-should-alarm-every-american

    For any American who wants an answer sooner, there are just five words, among the thousands of suggestive texts Page and Strzok exchanged, that you should read.

    That passage was transmitted on May 19, 2017. “There’s no big there there,” Strzok texted.

    The date of the text long has intrigued investigators: It is two days after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein

    named special counsel Robert Mueller

    to oversee an investigation into alleged collusion between Trump and the Russia campaign.

    Since the text was turned over to Congress, investigators wondered whether it referred to the evidence against the Trump campaign.

    This month, they finally got the chance to ask. Strzok declined to say — but Page, during a closed-door interview with lawmakers, confirmed in the most pained and contorted way that the message in fact referred to the quality of the Russia case, according to multiple eyewitnesses.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  221. Of course Strzok could have later on thought maybe there was something, so this proves nothing.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  222. Karen McDougal was not a hooker. In fact, when Trump offered her money the first time they had intercourse, she refused to take it. (She wanted a more substantial relationship, and Trump was very happy to take her up on it.)

    Sammy Finkelman

    You’re right. I was thinking of one of the other women Trump paid for sex who also isn’t a hooker sorta I guess. Hard to keep it all straight because this isn’t interesting beyond the basic fact that our president is extremely dishonest and sleazy, and the same people who preach about sexual morality often seem to not care about Trump’s conduct.

    [you] couldn’t recognize a flagrantly degenerate and unfaithful personality in your own milieu.

    Nah, I didn’t realize Weiner was like that, but then, I assumed everyone in DC was indeed like that. Without a good reason to think Weiner was, how would I know? What a truly bizarre point you’re trying to make. I don’t know what you mean by “your own milieu” except that you want to sound smart while insulting me, but you are generally incoherent.

    The testimony and evidence to the contrary is far more compelling

    No, Mccain’s service as a POW was exemplary. Trump’s fans have said a lot of nasty stuff about Ted Cruz’s dad, or John Mccain, or George W Bush, and generally speaking they believe anything Stormfront or Gateway Pundit lies about, while ignoring actual proof about Trump’s misconduct.

    It is simply hilarious you keep bashing the military service of Mccain in Trump’s defense. Trump not only betrayed the United States and bashed it, while defending a KGB dictator, he never served in our military. You guys just don’t actually care about anything.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  223. 232. Wait – that text message was from 2017 – not the start of the investigation, but only the start of the Mueller investigation.

    Peter Strzok tells Lisa Page that “There’s no big there there.”

    He should know. He’d been involved with that investigatikon since the start – around July 2016.

    (There’d been some discussion within the FBI in March 2016 about the hiring of Manafort, but no investigation then, counterintelligence or otherwise.)

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  224. 233. Dustin (ba94b2) — 7/20/2018 @ 11:40 am

    I was thinking of one of the other women Trump paid for sex who also isn’t a hooker sorta I guess.

    We were meant to think about that by the people who wrote that, or maybe the people who leaked the story.

    They didn’t leak the identity of the woman whom Michael Cohen and Donald Trump were talking about – except to say she was a former Playboy model.

    Who is, of course, Karen McDougal. But you (and the reporters) may have to be on top of this story to realize that. (And even if they realize who it is, the reporters can’t quite say that, but have to be careful, because maybe there was another former Playboy model whom Trump had discussed the idea of paying off.)

    Hard to keep it all straight because this isn’t interesting beyond the basic fact that our president is extremely dishonest and sleazy, and the same people who preach about sexual morality often seem to not care about Trump’s conduct.

    That may be the underlying fact, but when you get into the details, and the question of payoffs, you need to keep the names (and situations) straight, otherwise your conclusions will be wrong.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  225. you need to keep the names (and situations) straight, otherwise your conclusions will be wrong.

    No, I think my conclusions are quite fair. You said it yourself, that Trump offered to pay Mcdougal for sex. In fact, he probably did pay her. What basis do you have to say he didn’t? You have the word of sleazy and dishonest people, the whole lot of them caught lying how many times?

    I cited the news of the day, where Trump is literally recorded talking about paying someone to keep silent about sex, in order to keep the American people from knowing about this during Trump’s presidential campaign where amid Trump’s lying, he accused everyone else of lying every ten seconds.

    We were meant to think about that by the people who wrote that,

    Indeed it’s easy to conflate all of them, even Melania, with the other women who slept with Trump while married in pursuit of wealth. He’s a emotionally and physically loathsome person and obviously there was no other reason for someone to sleep with him.

    At any rate, I counsel you to not trust claims of the the McDougals of the world. To be so close to Trump is to have absolutely no ethics.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  226. Sammy @186, Bored Lawyer @187. Just saw both your earlier and later comments.

    The whole thing seems like a bad idea today, but in fairness to Clinton when he negotiated it and the Senate who approved it a lifetime ago we were still basking in the glow of the “Peace Dividend.” At the time Russia was open for business with the west and we jumped in without any bilateral or international agreement for how we were going to protect American businesses and businessmen potentially running afoul of Russia’s evolving political and legal system. That’s what the treaty was intended to do. Alinsky would be proud of Putin following their common ideology.

    I’ll leave the legal details of how the treaty would actually work to others but I do recognize the cleverness of Putin suggesting but not formally requesting something that Trump was likely to grab and use to take a swing at Mueller/Rosenstein which then blew up in his face until the WH and others informally declined the informal suggestion. Trump could have been wiser and more diplomatic and brush it away while reminding Mueller/Rosenstein their actions created the opportunity for Putin to punk US but nobody ever accused Trump of being either wise or diplomatic.

    Going forward, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Putin’s suggestions for ways for US to work better together that will probably be just as unpalatable as this one. Mueller is Rosenstein’s monster and the monster is going to continue to create problems that Trump will likely also respond unwisely and undiplomatically to until something gives.

    The hope reflected in the treaty that Russia was moving towards a free-er market oriented economy we could work and trade with have certainly dissipated rapidly now that Hillary lost.

    crazy (5c5b07)

  227. 90% of republicans support trump because they know he is with them. Who supports you democrats, wealthy donor class free trade open borders and liberal news media. Oh I forgot the deep state!

    wendell (3a8ab8)

  228. 237. crazy (5c5b07) — 7/20/2018 @ 12:47 pm

    The whole thing seems like a bad idea today, but in fairness to Clinton when he negotiated it and the Senate who approved it a lifetime ago we were still basking in the glow of the “Peace Dividend.”

    They thought Russia was almost certainly going to have a decent government, but maybe we could push it a little further along that way. Even so, like most treaties, it contained safeguards.

    Putin knows how to come uop with things that, to an uninformed person, sound good, but aren’t – but Trump is not even trying to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not here, and not with North Korea.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  229. Exactly. Things don’t always work out the way you hope

    crazy (5c5b07)

  230. 236. Dustin (ba94b2) — 7/20/2018 @ 12:04 pm

    You said it yourself, that Trump offered to pay Mcdougal for sex. In fact, he probably did pay her. What basis do you have to say he didn’t?

    she said she turned down the money, saying she was not that kind of girl.

    Yes, he probably gave her gifts, and certainly took her places.

    I cited the news of the day, where Trump is literally recorded talking about paying someone to keep silent about sex,

    According to Giuliani what he says it, if you pay her, make sure you pay her by check, and not cash, so there should be a record of it. (This is not crazy – it was supposed to be a legally binding contract to buy her silence, so he wanted Cohen to make sure she could not deny receiving the money.)

    in order to keep the American people from knowing about this during Trump’s presidential campaign where amid Trump’s lying, he accused everyone else of lying every ten seconds.

    Theres’s one thing: Even liars have lies told about them, particularly by more skilled and careful liars who are their enemies.

    We were meant to think about that by the people who wrote that,

    Indeed it’s easy to conflate all of them, even Melania, with the other women who slept with Trump while married in pursuit of wealth. He’s a emotionally and physically loathsome person and obviously there was no other reason for someone to sleep with him.

    At any rate, I counsel you to not trust claims of the the McDougals of the world. To be so close to Trump is to have absolutely no ethics.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  231. SF: We were meant to think about that by the people who wrote that,

    Indeed it’s easy to conflate all of them, even Melania, with the other women who slept with Trump while married in pursuit of wealth.

    re; while married, Melania didn’t sleep with him while he was married and she wasn’t married.

    He was previously sleeping with a woman, whom he had told her boyfriend some years before that he was going after her. (They had dealings in connection with something they wanted to do in his casinos)

    When they split up, he really went after her. This woman decided well, why not go with the rich man? She broke up with Trump after he started ordering cosmetic surgery for her without consulting her, or so the story goes.

    So then anyway, after that came Melania Knauss.

    He had started seeing other woman than his wives in the mid-1980s, when Ivana Trump started aging a little – the controversy and divorce postponed his political career – and he aslo did while married to Marla Maples. He didn’t have much in common with her. So even though she stayed young, they broke up.

    He’s a emotionally and physically loathsome person and obviously there was no other reason for someone to sleep with him.

    Physically loathesome?

    Melania’s response to the question of would she be with him if he wasn’t wealthy was would Donald Trump be with her if she wasn’t beautiful. So the part of “pursuit of wealth” is mostly true.

    After about six years, they got married, probably because Melania wanted to have a child. That’s the wedding Bill and Hillary Clinton attended. The Lake Tahoe events happened in 2006, a few months or so after Melania gave birth.

    At any rate, I counsel you to not trust claims of the the McDougals of the world

    It sounds reasonable. She didn’t want a one night stand in exchange for a small amount of money.

    That idea of a misunderstanding sounds very plausible to me. Donald Trump was probably set up by somebody both with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal (I mean how does he get to sleep with two different women at the same place and time?) and that somebody probably lied to both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, and maybe others, to try to get them to be in the same bed with him.

    I don’t know why – maybe somebody wanted a hold on him. Not Russia though. This was long before that, and it’s the mob that’s in Nevada not the KGB.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  232. “Physically loathesome?”

    He prefers them younger and less orange-tinted…

    Colonel Haiku (33489e)

  233. I have been thinking about the whole happyfeet thing for a while today. So, let me get the ground rules down, here. It’s OK for happyfeet to trash, malign and lie about any public figure he wants. And, of course, use every vulgarity know to man in the process. All day long, day after day, so long as he doesn’t directly attack those us who comment on here. Obviously it’s off limits to treat him the same way he treats all of those public figures. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, happyfeet is an artist.

    I think I have that right. Hmm. You guys do have me thinking. Just trying to get along here.

    noel (96c84f)

  234. Mob in Nevada? This all happened in the 70s? Corporations ran the mob off long ago.

    Nate Ogden (223c65)

  235. Like I said earlier. I actually like happyfeet. I don’t care how much nasty he posts. It often makes him less effective, anyway. What I have a problem with is how some of you think criticizing him is out of bounds. If you can dish it out (And nobody can dish it out like he can.) then you can take it. He is a big boy. Or girl. Or whatever.

    noel (96c84f)

  236. Heels or flats today, Rudy?

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  237. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8

    WARNING- DO NOT EAT BEFORE OR AFTER VIEWING THIS CLIP.

    “A woman that looks like that has to have her own special scent.”

    Oh, you dirty boy, Mr. President.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  238. “You’re right. I was thinking of one of the other women Trump paid for sex who also isn’t a hooker sorta I guess. Hard to keep it all straight because this isn’t interesting beyond the basic fact that our president is extremely dishonest and sleazy, and the same people who preach about sexual morality often seem to not care about Trump’s conduct.”

    Men, powerful men especially, don’t pay for sex, they pay for the women to GO AWAY after sex. That you don’t grasp this is again creditable, but not to your understanding of the world.

    ‘the same people who preach about sexual immorality’ wow thanks for stealing this line from the Clinton era when the preaching could be described as ‘active’, almost like it was a throwaway defensive line you memorized beforehand and never really updated for the general decline in religiosity since then. Clinton’s infidelities were in office, aided and abetted by a lawyer wife with retrospectively sadistic tendencies, and worst of all, against women that were 7s at best.

    “Nah, I didn’t realize Weiner was like that, but then, I assumed everyone in DC was indeed like that. Without a good reason to think Weiner was, how would I know? What a truly bizarre point you’re trying to make. I don’t know what you mean by “your own milieu” except that you want to sound smart while insulting me, but you are generally incoherent.”

    I think you’re an urbanite who recognized a fellow urbanite and didn’t think through your reflexive urban prejudices. I think your ‘sense of people’ is entirely untested and didn’t go beyond (opposing party) was creeeeeepy, but (my party) was cool, man!

    “No, Mccain’s service as a POW was exemplary. Trump’s fans have said a lot of nasty stuff about Ted Cruz’s dad, or John Mccain, or George W Bush, and generally speaking they believe anything Stormfront or Gateway Pundit lies about, while ignoring actual proof about Trump’s misconduct.”

    McCain’s ‘service’ as a POW was so exemplary that when he came back to the wife that was waiting on him he divorced her for getting fat. Nothing Trump did even approaches that level of callous betrayal.

    “It is simply hilarious you keep bashing the military service of Mccain in Trump’s defense. Trump not only betrayed the United States and bashed it, while defending a KGB dictator, he never served in our military. You guys just don’t actually care about anything.”

    Trump served our military and our nation as a whole by neutering the military-industrial complex when it pushed for WAR, WAR, EVERYWHERE at McCain and others’ behest. Trump is serving our military right now by pushing for continued engagement with Russia over the various civilian calls for DECLARING WAR ON A NUCLEAR POWER to protect John Podesta’s e-mail account’s honor. Most importantly of all, he actually beat the Democrat when he ran for President, versus losing honorably and throwing his nation into cynical decline for 8 years after while he ran out the clock on his Senate seat.

    This is actually historic, actually statesmanlike, and not a thing McCain has done before or since compares to that. That’s what a fighter does, and this one risked not only his life but his multi-billion dollar fortune and reputation to do it.

    Anton Michael (197bc6)

  239. Meanwhile, has anyone seen David French? I tell you the truth, there is more hope for Dinesh D’Souza than for him!

    https://imgur.com/sSdrMDB

    Anton Michael (2ce54d)

  240. For anyone interested, not long before he passed, Neil Armstrong took the rare opportunity at a 2011 conference in Australia to personally narrate a unique video created which marries the 1969 onboard film of the Apollo 11 moon landing photographed from the right window of the LM with images from Google Moon which fill in the view from the left window so viewers can see what the crew saw as they landed. It’s quite interesting, if only to hear Armstrong discussing it, which was very rare, and to see the larger crater he was forced to fly over before landing.

    It’s only about four and a half minutes, but worth a watch, particularly today.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqe7-rFRrkc

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  241. So all the people who were involved in Clinton’s server crimes, the bleach bit, the destruction and attempted destruction of evidence – all Democrats – get immunity from prosecution and now Podesta… the man presumably guilty of the same crimes as his former business partner, Manafort, who is currently behind bars… Democrat Podesta gets immunity. Robert Mueller should be shown the door, he’s making a mockery of our justice system.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  242. @252. =Haikumakov= Gesundhitsky!

    Red Colonel: Colluding, Complicit, Comradeski and Pinko: CCCP.

    Anybody who tries to help Trump spin – at Fox, on blogs, on editorial boards, in White House press briefings, perched mutely around Cabinet tables, in Congressional cloak rooms, in bars or otherwise- is essentially complicit; an enabler and ‘colluding.’ Real life is a bitch when covered ‘live’ and you can’t edit it before broadcast.

    It’s worth repeating this over and over- as is Trump’s ‘modus operandi:’

    Traitor Trump strode on to the global stage in Helsinki, stood just five feet from Putin, a trained KGB agent, dropped his pants, and sh!t on every American citizen in front of a worldwide audience, then to Vlad’s delight, wiped his azz w/t U.S. flag.

    Hit the showers, Red. You still stink. Traitor Trump lied to the American people and the entire world.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  243. The article you shared here is awesome. I really like and appreciate your work. The points you mentioned in this article are very helpful. I must try to follow these points and also share the other points.

    run 3

    camike (0451cc)

  244. Mr Dustin and other officers of the court may enjoy:

    Cop interrupts his smoke break to arrest trespasser Office Savage

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  245. Alexandria Occasional-Cortex and Bernie Sanders for the win!

    https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1020447912487280648

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  246. Pin that was indeed pretty enjoyable.

    Anton you clearly know nothing about me yet you’ve spent a lot of your time explaining who I am to me. Weirdo.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  247. I suspect he was trolling the Russians and everyone else on this one. The timing of the White House announcement was designed to beat the vote on the Senate proposal, making it a nothing burger since the decision had already been made.

    Bill M (906260)

  248. Lock and load brothers and sisters

    mg (2184ae)

  249. Some time back, Colin Powell believed the intel guys on aluminum tubes and WMD. Fortunately, he did not contradict them, or he’d have been committing treason.

    Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e)

  250. Some time back, Colin Powell believed the intel guys on aluminum tubes and WMD. Fortunately, he did not contradict them, or he’d have been committing treason.

    Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e) — 7/21/2018 @ 4:36 am

    Richard, is this really your honest effort to represent the argument that Trump betrayed the USA?

    Had Colin Powell stood next to Saddam Hussein, praised him over and over again, then called the USA “Stupid” and “Foolish”, and flipped from saying our intel was wrong next to Putin, and then upon return, sheepishly and (and absurdly) claimed he didn’t mean that, yes, of course I would say Powell had betrayed our country. If Powell then turned and said that he was open to sending our intel officials to Iraqi’s officials for interrogation, I would say that’s an outrage.

    It sure seems like many of Trump’s defenses are like yours, and are simply ridiculous exaggerations that make the criticism seem silly. You never bother to deny Trump’s conduct or that this conduct is wrong. You just deflect to something off topic so the heat is off Trump. We’ve seen this from the “I grabbed her by the pussy” scandal, the bankruptcies and fraud, Trump’s adoration of Hillary, his various broken promises, and now with his bizarre behavior towards Russia.

    I agree with DCSCA on this. We all can see plainly that Trump is betraying our nation and his oath of office to protect the American people. We can see that Putin has some mysterious leverage over Trump as we think back to claims Putin was blackmailing Trump. We can see that Trump is being blackmailed by little playboy models far weaker than a sophisticated KGB dictator that Trump is praising so heavily. We can see Trump undermining the crucial alliances against Russia, as well as Russia’s geopolitical foes who aren’t our allies.

    If you’re still defending this conduct, you do indeed stink like Jane Fonda. It’s no surprise that bashing men like Colin Powell and John Mccain will be a more common sight. Sure, they were wishy washy and barely conservative, but more importantly, they served in our military honorably and love America, and therefore they are examples of everything Trump is opposed to.

    Men, powerful men especially, don’t pay for sex, they pay for the women to GO AWAY after sex.

    Yes, anton, we’ve all seen that comedy routine. Congratulations on your worldly neckbeard commentary on marriage. Turns out that Trump married some of these women and kept them in his circle for a long time, and it also turns out he did indeed pay them for sex, but not to go away. That you think this is some clever classy defense of Trump’s conduct, which did indeed involve underaged pageant models being undressed at one point, says a lot about your moral character. Your adoration that Trump’s conduct with Russia is more patriotic than anything any prisoner of war ever did is simply embarrassing political worship of Jane Fonda 2.0. I guarantee you did not ever wear a uniform in our military.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  251. Helsinki may have been cringeworthy, but facts are facts…

    1.) Deployed U.S. Patriot missiles in Poland to counter Russian nuclear-capable intermediate-range weapons, including aircraft and cruise missiles in a “hot war” aimed at Europe. As Newsweek described it July 6, 2017, “in a move set to counter Russia’s reinforcement on NATO’s borders, Poland and the U.S. have agreed that Warsaw will purchase the American-made Patriot air defense missile.”

    2.) Repelled an assault by Russian mercenaries on a U.S. position in Syria, killing between 200-300 of them. NBC News reported March 15 that the mercenaries were “employed by a Russian contracting firm, according to three U.S military officials with direct knowledge of the incident.”

    3.) Deployed U.S. military forces to the Baltic states on Russia’s border, seriously compromising Putin’s ability to threaten NATO’s northern flank.The Wall Street Journal on Jan. 30, 2017, called it “the largest such deployment since the Cold War, a step aimed at reassuring America’s European allies that Washington remains committed to their defense.”

    4.) Trump is targeting Europe’s dependence on Russia for an estimated one-third of its natural gas supplies, encouraging them to instead buy U.S. energy, thus denying Putin critically needed export revenues. “Trump complained Germany is ‘making Russia richer.’ When the NATO secretary general told Trump trade was a separate matter, Trump fired back. ‘How can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against or from the group that you want protection against,’” PBS reported July 11 from the Brussels European Union meeting.

    5.) Trump is pushing NATO member nations to double their defense spending to 4 percent of their Gross Domestic Products. The increase will greatly strengthen the military forces confronting any Russian attack on Western Europe. “President Trump wants to see our allies share more of the burden and at a very minimum meet their already stated obligations,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, according to a July 11 CNN report.

    6.) Trump is implementing a comprehensive modernization of the U.S. military to deter Russia and China. The president’s 2019 Department of Defense (DOD) budget request for $716 billion seeks to upgrade the U.S. nuclear triad (inter-continental missiles, bombers and submarines), add 26,000 troops, buys 10 new ships and boosts “research on research in cyber, electronic warfare, space, artificial intelligence and hypersonics,” according to a February 12 CNBC report.

    7.) Sixty Russian diplomats, including 12 involved in spying activities, were kicked out of the U.S. by Trump in response to the chemical poisoning of a former Russian spy living in Britain. The AP reported March 26 that “senior Trump administration officials said all 60 Russians were spies working in the U.S. under diplomatic cover, including a dozen at Russia’s mission to the United Nations. The officials said the administration was taking the action to send a message to Russia’s leaders about the ‘unacceptably high’ number of Russian intelligence operatives in the U.S.”

    8.) Trump imposed additional sanctions on Russian companies and oligarchs who are Putin allies in retaliation for his digital assaults on American energy firms. “The Trump administration also recently slapped new sanctions on Russian entities and individuals, including two of its top intelligence services, because of 2016 U.S. election meddling and what senior officials described Friday as an ‘ongoing Russian cyberattack on the American energy sector,’” Roll Callreported March 26.

    9.) In a move his predecessor conspicuously refused to make, Trump agreed to provide anti-tank weapons Ukraine has sought for years. Ukraine needs the U.S. Javelin missiles to destroy Russian tanks aiding separatists in the eastern sector of that nation. The Chicago Tribune said March 1 that the “Trump administration told Congress on Thursday that it plans to sell Ukraine 210 anti-tank missiles to help it defend its territory from Russia, in a major escalation of U.S. lethal assistance to Ukraine’s military.”

    10.) Trump signed an executive order launching a major upgrading of U.S, cyber defenses of its digital and other critical infrastructures. “The order seeks to improve the often-maligned network security of U.S. government agencies, from which foreign governments and other hackers have pilfered millions of personal records and other forms of sensitive data in recent years,” Reuters reported May 11, 2017.”

    https://www.lifezette.com/2018/07/10-ways-trump-put-real-muscle-in-u-s-policies-defenses-against-russia/

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  252. And the DoD announced yesterday that they’ll provide $200 million to Ukraine in security cooperation funds for additional training, equipment and advisory efforts to build the defensive capacity of Ukraine’s forces.

    Now you can return to your Alternate Reality…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  253. Trump has never had a woman who was not store-bought. He has been a John since his father hired him his first escort as a teenager.

    And the comparisons to McCain’s divorce and remarriage are ridiculous. How many marriages can survive five and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison? And did McCain cheat on Ivana (his first wife) with Marla Maples right in her face; and on Marla with Melania right in Marla’s face; and on Melania with at least two pronos that we know of?

    Trumpkins, pick your battles! Defending Trump’s morality is like defending Stormy Daniels’ cherry. It just ain’t there, man.

    nk (dbc370)

  254. Bernie Sanders is jones-ing nk’s dream death scenario in a Kansas Marriott right about now, dodging fire from a draco held by a Neta or an LK.

    urbanleftbehind (29e9dd)

  255. urbanleftbehind, have you noticed that the Sandernistas now have a catch phrase that you can identify them with? Like the race-hustlers’ “… help people”? It’s “That’s wrong!”

    nk (dbc370)

  256. Haiku. Everybody knows this as you helpfully provided. https://www.lifezette.com/2018/07/10-ways-trump-put-real-muscle-in-u-s-policies-defenses-against-russia/

    The problem–for some–is that they think or hope nobody knows it. The Some know it, but hope others can be fooled. I say, let them continue. Self-identify, as it were.

    Richard Aubrey (3d7f6e)

  257. Yes Richard, we’ve self-identified as seeing what is plain to see, and following through on speaking the truth about it, because our country is more important than some politician or political party. Trump isn’t putting muscle behind his opposition to russia because he does not oppose Russia. Trump only opposes the freedom loving nations in Europe and only praises dictatorships.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  258. For Administrative Professionals Day (aka Secretaries Day), give the gift of office massage. Office Massage is a treat your staff will appreciate!

    RMRG (15ac24)

  259. Except thanks to Mattis and bolton and pompeo, were actually moving the ball in Ukraine.

    narciso (d1f714)


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