Patterico's Pontifications

4/2/2017

President Trump And The Russian Kerfuffle

Filed under: General — Dana @ 9:34 am



[guest post by Dana]

Two takes that I’ll just leave here for you to consider.

First, Andrew McCarthy at NRO has written a thought-provoking piece, Democrats Know the Election Was Legitimate but Persist in a Dangerous Fraud:

Russia is a hostile regime whose intelligence operations — from cyber to propaganda to political assassination to promotion of rogue regimes and factions — are formidable. Many of us were warning against Putin while George Bush was gazing into his eyes for a “sense of his soul,” the Bush administration was imagining Russia as a “strategic partner,” Hillary Clinton was resetting our path to cozy relations, Barack Obama was appeasing Putin in desperation to keep the perilous Iran nuclear deal on track, and Donald Trump was “bromancing” the dictator. So if Democrats have suddenly decided the Kremlin is a malign force, we should welcome them and fight the urge to ask, “What took you so long?”

Russia did not “hack our election.” But Russia is our “number-one geopolitical foe” — to quote Mitt Romney’s bull’s-eye assessment, the object of such media-Democrat scorn. Putin’s anti-American operations in the run-up to the election — which were directed, according to our intelligence agencies, against both political parties — should be a matter of serious concern to all Americans, as should Russian machinations in the Obama years, the Bush years, in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

Yet, rather than encourage a responsible evaluation of what we’re up against, Democrats and their media allies are promoting a fraud: If you take the Russian threat seriously, it means Russia stole the election and, ergo, that Donald Trump is an illegitimate president. Since that is not what happened, Republicans — who should be pushing Trump toward a harder line against Moscow — will be constrained to refute the Democrats’ allegations. The Democrats will demonize Trump, while Trump sympathizers sound like Putin’s defense lawyers.

In the Kremlin, they’ll be smiling.

Second, Mark Cuban, avid troller of President Trump, went on an interesting Twitter rant last night:

Untitled1

Untitled2

Untitled

Untitled3

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

268 Responses to “President Trump And The Russian Kerfuffle”

  1. Good morning.

    Dana (023079)

  2. The only part of Cuban’s analysis that I take issue with is #8.

    How is Steve Bannon implicated in pushing the campaign in the direction of being pro-Russia or even pushing to bring people on subject to Russian influence?

    Also, you left out tweet #9: “9) No chance this is a DJT led conspiracy. He isn’t detail oriented, organized or big picture enough to pull off any time of conspiracy”

    I think that is basically accurate. Trump’s style is to pick competent people and trust them to get the job done. I don’t see him as a conspiratorial mastermind moving pawns around, thinking 10 moves ahead, in some kind of 3-D chess. I see him as masterfully reading people and knowing how to persuade them, and reacting instinctively, sometimes recklessly.

    Daryl Herbert (7be116)

  3. Thanks, Daryl, #9 is there now.

    Dana (023079)

  4. If I decide to infect the country with Ebola, I don’t need the Ebola virus to conspire with me.

    Collusion is not irrelevant, but it is unnecessary. If Trump is good for Russia, he is bad for America.

    nk (dbc370)

  5. #10 makes no sense

    if Putin wanted to backchannel coordinated misinformation (whatever the eff that means) why would he have needed Mr. Trump’s “greed” to facilitate this

    this Mark Cuban douchebag doesn’t strike me as being particularly smnart or insightful

    isn’t he just another p.o.s. reality tv star like Ivanka?

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  6. *smart* or insightful i mean

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  7. reminder me again what’s the difference between when you wanna vett something and when you wanna tapp something

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  8. The crowdstrike report, which makes the wmd report seem perfect is at the basis of this

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2
    017/04/russia_no_the_pony_in_the_manure_is_the_corruption_of_our_intelligence_officials.html

    So is the dodgy dossier, which the lead people as the sbu or perhaps svr are laughing themselves silly over.

    narciso (4abc80)

  9. yes yes Meghan’s cowardly ex-military weirdo daddy lurvs him some dossier

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  10. And if the sitting President suspects me of wanting to infect the country with Ebola, he has the right to investigate my vectors of infection.

    nk (dbc370)

  11. I heard both Cornyn (R) and King (D) on SeeBS radio this morning. They were both on the same page that Putin f***ed with the election and that he will do so again in future elections.

    nk (dbc370)

  12. If people spending money on his businesses doesn’t make them his friends, why should it make them Trump’s? There was no cause for that sentence in Cuban’s Tweet 2. The rest is better argued.

    The point here is Putin actually told his associates, after the sanction on Russia because of Ukraine, not to take their money out of Russia (because he didn’t want them to be vulnerable to pressre and afraid of losing money) Whether Trump thought he’d maybe make an exception for him {Tweet 4], and let thejm buy again you could argue. Obviously, that’s all over and done with.

    This is not the angle, by the way, the Democrats are looking at, maybe because it’s too accurate, and can be contained. The effect is limited. Trump wouldn’t do too much for that. (to sell condominiums at a given price point a little bit faster.) They were hardly his only possible customers, and at a certain point Trump would have given up on this.

    They’d rather imagine Russian investments.

    Trump was looking for deals in Russia, for years, but never got them. Quoting something Donald Trump Jr said in 2008 doesn’t give him investments in Russia.

    Cuban could be right that while Trump had knew that people coming into his campaign had Russian connections, he had no idea that they might be influenced by Russia, but trusted them [tweets 6 and 7]. Their previous work may only have appeared to him a a lack of scruples, which was maybe good from his point of view.

    That he repeated Russian propaganda, [Tweets 10 and 11] probably correct, but Trump didn’t care that what he said was the truth, so he may never have gotten to the point of realizing that some of any inaccuracies were coming from Russia, since he never bothered to check out the truth of anything beyond seeing that he wasn’t the only one saying something.

    On top of that, he was probably also being fed “principled” arguments, like the argument that Russia could be a big help to America in defeating ISIS. It was convenient to him to listen to that.

    That he had no idea where the Russians fit in, [Tweet 7] probably correct.

    Putin may have back channelled misinformation [Tweet 10] to Trump

    http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/full-clint-watts-trump-campaign-picked-up-on-kremlin-lines-912176195714

    http://www.redstate.com/jaycaruso/2017/03/31/former-fbi-agent-testifies-trump-basically-stooge-putin-video/

    But I don’t see what kind of greed on the part of Trump is involved here, except maybe the “greed” to win the election.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  13. One of the prime examples of Russian influence on Trump, I think, was his oppositon to Syrian refugees.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  14. plus too many russians drives down property values really damn fast

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  15. the beautiful elegiacal essay by Salena Zito is beautiful and elegiacal

    Shuttered machine shops, refineries, steel mills and manufacturing plants near Trenton and Philadelphia slide past the window like a kaleidoscope of sorrow; scores of once-charming century-old houses are now covered in graffiti and dot areas in and around Baltimore, Newark and Wilmington, Del.

    It used to be that the people who lived and worked along the Acela corridor were held in at least as much esteem as those in the urban bookends that connect them. They were the people who made the stuff that made this country great, mostly blue-collar, mostly union members, mostly middle-class.

    They worked hard, they played hard. On Fri nights, when their shifts ended, they went to the neighborhood bars; on Sundays they prayed for their sins. And, in between, they coached their kids’ softball games or volunteered at the concession stands.

    sweet palestine

    good times never seemed so good

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  16. That’s because most of the rest of the industrial world’s factories, railroads, ports and merchant navies had been bombed to smithereens. Now they’ve been rebuilt.

    nk (dbc370)

  17. But nice squirrel.

    nk (dbc370)

  18. Trump tweeted on Tuesday:

    Donald J. Trump
    @realDonaldTrump

    Why doesn’t Fake News talk about Podesta ties to Russia as covered by @FoxNews or money from Russia to Clinton – sale of Uranium?

    3:41 PM – 28 Mar 2017

    (That’s really 6:41 PM EDT.)

    On Wednesday, I think, Scott Pelley, anchor of the CBS Evening News said there was no evidence of Hillary Clinton getting Russian money and that she had no power to appprove it – and a graohic showing all the government agencies which had to approve it was shown. (He didn’t talk about Podesta)

    Now the thing is like this: Donald Trump got the accusation wrong. But there areally is a really strong accusation, with missing pieces that prevents anything from being conclusive..

    It’s an accusation Bannon should be familiar with and he worked with Peter Schweizer, who first raise thie accusation.

    Donald Trump’s version is oversimplified and wrong. As is too much of what he says.

    First, the money did not come from Russia, but from people who made deals with Russia, particularly Frank Giustra.

    Second, Scott Pelley repeats the Clinton “Look Ma: No Hands” defense that Hillary had no power to do anything. Here it is, as given in the New York Times of April 24, 2015: The New York times article contains the Clinton defense:

    In a statement, Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, said no one “has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.” He emphasized that multiple United States agencies, as well as the Canadian government, had signed off on the deal and that, in general, such matters were handled at a level below the secretary. “To suggest the State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in the U.S. government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly baseless,” he added.

    But this argument is specious.

    What she could have done is give them advice – act as a lobbyist – not in telling anyone she supervised what to do, which would be openly corrupt, or even arguing with people she didn’t supervise, which might lead to suspicion later, but in finding out the thinking of the various people in the government with a role in having to approve the sake of uranium and then telling her “clients” what arguments what arguments to make, and what arguments not to make, or even what deals were possible and not possible.

    Inside information. Very very valuable, near real time inside information. Plus possible advice.

    The whole thing was detailed in the New York Times:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-
    control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=1

    It’s important here to note that the agreement that was made was not kept, that is, that the people trying to get this approved were probably not being honest.

    At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.

    This is where Hillary might come in.

    And that’s not even looking at the angle of, let’s say, warning Frank Giustra off some deals, or telling him that some other idea might work, which most people would never attempt.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  19. The GISStemp (democrat front group) claim that 2016 and 2017 were the warmest and second warmest years ever is based entirely on extrapolation and projection into the Arctic of Russian surface temperature readings, taken from a smattering of thermometer boxes located in Siberian cities, read by Putin employees, then smeared over vast areas to affect the illusion that the Arctic is boiling.

    Proof of claim. https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/2016_map_nasa.png

    Why are we continuing to focus on the furbie that Russians influenced our election, while ignoring the real collusion between Democrats and Russians trying to impose socialism on America’s economy via the climate change myth?

    papertiger (c8116c)

  20. One of the prime examples of Russian influence on Trump, I think, was his oppositon to Syrian refugees.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5) — 4/2/2017 @ 10:34 am

    =================================================

    Given ISIS stated objective of using the refugees to flood the West with their foot soldiers – call me crazy – but not welcoming Syrian refugees would seem wholly appropriate under the circumstances.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  21. I know I’d always ask a Democrat like Cuban – who was an enthusiastic supporter of Hillary Clinton – for his unbiased analysis of a situation like this.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  22. Good Lord.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  23. 14. happyfeet (28a91b) — 4/2/2017 @ 10:35 am

    plus too many russians drives down property values really damn fast

    They wouldn’t actualy be living tehre too much. Buying condominiums in New York and elsewhere was a way of sheltering money from confiscation by Putin (through fake lawsuits for instance) in case they fell out of his good favor. In 2014, told people close to him to stop doing that ans to bring their money back.

    It looks like he actually started in 2013 (although initially it on;y applied to people with positions in the government:

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aZhtaJX4sZIJ:https://www.rt.com/business/russia-officials-foreign-assets-998/%2Bputin+russians+assets+abroad+bring+home&hl=en&gbv=2&ct=clnk

    Top state officials at different levels – from heads of country’s biggest corporations like Gazprom or Lukoil to the bosses of the country’s key state bodies like the Central Bank, can be punished if they, or their spouses or underage children, have any sort of financial asset abroad…. Property, however, remains untouched by the ban, provided officials declare them and explain how they obtained the money for the purchase

    I think there was no law ever about property.

    There also may be some loopholes about assets.

    In 2016, at about the time he gave up on the possibility of Trump winning, Putin went even furtehr:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3833941/Russia-orders-officials-fly-home-relatives-living-abroad-tensions-mount-prospect-global-war.html

    Politicians and high-ranking figures are said to have received a warning from president Vladimir Putin to bring their loved-ones home to the ‘Motherland’, according to local media…

    …According to the Russian site Znak.com, administration staff, regional administrators, lawmakers of all levels and employees of public corporations have been ordered to take their children out of foreign schools immediately.

    Failure to act will see officials jeopardising their chances of promotion, local media has reported.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  24. Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/2/2017 @ 11:13 am

    Given ISIS stated objective of using the refugees to flood the West with their foot soldiers

    Oh, I think Russia is responsible for those claims, too.

    The claims don’t matter anyway – the reality does, and this is not real. One or two people got part of the way to France using a Syrian passport in someone else’s name.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  25. Nothing to see here, Sammy. It’s all a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to delegitimize the Trump Presidency.

    (That was sarcasm.)

    nk (dbc370)

  26. Temrmber the war of the worlds broadcast in 1938, that was fake news, yet the reaction was real, the relevant agencies didn’t even actually examine the server, they farmed it out to crowdstrike, which didn’t e in a checkered record, which nakashima of bezos helped puff up.

    narciso (d1f714)

  27. No sale, Sammy…

    “European security officials say they think that the Islamic State has seeded terrorist cells on the continent over the past year ….

    The vast majority of migrants were genuinely fleeing war and poverty. But over the past six months, more than three dozen suspected militants who impersonated migrants have been arrested or died while planning or carrying out acts of terrorism. They include at least seven directly tied to the bloody attacks in Paris and Brussels.

    The Islamic State is gloating that they have far more lying in wait.

    “We have sent many operatives to Europe with the refugees,” an Islamic State commander said in an interview over an encrypted data service. “Some of our brothers have fulfilled their mission, but others are still waiting to be activated.”

    This is the problem with President Obama’s proposal to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. It creates an opportunity for ISIS to do to the US what it has done in Europe.”

    https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.com/how-isis-smuggles-terrorists-among-syrian-refugees-453039%3Famp%3D1

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  28. Of course, Islamic state’s top leaDership are upper level baathist military and intelligence officers, who were strongly sympathetic to salafi

    narciso (d1f714)

  29. Ironically, the Obama administrations promotion of the Arab spring, brought the middle east, in a way they hadn’t Berber since the end of the cold war, not in Egypt and Syria but also Libya under haftar
    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/04/02/how-will-state-department-ideologues-deal-with-the-egyptian-white-house-visit/#more-130762

    narciso (d1f714)

  30. 19. Russia can’t really want us to take action in reducing carbon emissions, because they sell oil, or is he only against coal?

    The thing anyway is, temperatures haven’t risen very much – what has gone up is the standard deviation.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/science/deadnettle-spring-global-warming-flowers.html

    More recently, after the biologist Carol Augspurger examined more than a century of weather and forestry records from Illinois, she concluded that the yearly probability of frost damage had increased by a factor of seven since 1980, compared to the odds of frost damage during the 90 years of weather that came before.

    Now, you see, if the only thing that was happening was warmer temperatures and an earlier spring, there shouldn’t be any more frost damage. That can only be if the variance or the standard devisaiton of temperature was going up.

    And the factor that can cause that is the presence or absence of water vapor in the atmospohere.

    The percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is mostly constant – it goes up dring certain periods of the year, and it is higher near cities, but that sholdn’t cause a greater day to sday or maybe week to week variance in temperatures. Dihydrogen monoxide causes that.

    It collects in clouds, which are never in the same place, and later falls to the earth in liquid and sometimes powdery form, which changes the albedo of the ground. Sometimes the powder melts and refreezes – but this time into solid crystals (and occasionally small crystals may even fall)

    There’s been approximately a 5% increase in the level of dihydrogen monoxide in the atmosphere since about 1900 or so.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  31. The Progressive Coalition is mentally ill.

    Mark Cuban, conspiracy theorist.

    Cuz Trump is in their pocket but too stupid to get it.

    Cuz Clapper and Morrell are lying to help Trump.

    Cuz DJT, a drill baby drill guy who wants a bigger US Military, is good for Russia Energy Oligarchs.

    Got it.

    Mental. All of them. Can’t get over they simply lost.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  32. The truth of the matter is, the Arab spring was caused by Bradley -> Chelsea Manning and wikileaks, which published something written by U.S. diplomats in Tunisia about their ruler. That started the whole thin.

    The possibility that things coud go wrong in revolutions was enunciated in the Declaration of Independence of the United States in 1776:

    http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/document/

    Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  33. If Trump is good for Russia, he is bad for America.

    A bold face lie in it absolute or naive. Pick.

    Like saying trade is bad. Another lie in its absolute.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  34. I said promotion of, saameh, toppling of us allies of one form or another by avowedly islamist elements, is counterproductive.

    narciso (d1f714)

  35. #11 I heard from the same people there was WMD.

    Liars lie for their own reasons.

    Russia meddled about as much as the USSR did in 1960.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  36. Bad italics use. Sorry.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  37. So Bradley Manning’s leaks started the Tunisian Revolution?

    Uh, yeah, no.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  38. There probably we, when you give some 18 month, they bury it in caches or transfer to syria

    narciso (d1f714)

  39. A warm day in Siberia. [YouTube]

    papertiger (c8116c)

  40. How do I know this, in addition to mentions of insurgent attacks on coalition personnel in Wikileaks, Cj shivers did a whole serieson this.

    narciso (d1f714)

  41. it’s not like Russia could run failmerica any worse than perverted Mitt Romney’s incompetent little butt-boy Paul Ryan and the pro-abort freedom filth trash

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  42. Cuban, lol, why not Madonna and her remarks? or chelsea handler, or maher, or suck the fence building punk?

    mg (31009b)

  43. So Trump rightfully points out Clinton’s made money from Russian dealing but we focus on the technical aspects of who the middle man was.

    Their is term for this I have learned from my Paid Liars — called Fraud in the Inducement.

    The intent is not to highlight the truth which is Clinton was more in the pocket of Foreign Govts than any candidate in the History of the USA … but to dwell on accurate distinctions that make no difference.

    Like yes, he was spied on and likely for political reasons.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  44. Zuck

    mg (31009b)

  45. Snoop dawg must have a lot in common with some conservatives. who knew?

    mg (31009b)

  46. Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/2/2017 @ 11:29 am

    “European security officials say they think that the Islamic State has seeded terrorist cells on the continent over the past year ….

    I don’t think so. Since when is ISIS telling the truth? ISIS is trying to scare people, and also prevent people from escaping, who might carry with them, important intelligence information.

    And hiw does the Washngton Post even know it spoke to a real ISIS commander?

    The article is 11 months old and none of the things predicted have hapepned.

    The people arrested all got caught. And I can bet you that they weren’t, in fact, any of them, Syrian. Actual Syrians who have never been out of Syria don’t know any of the European languages and can’t do anything.

    Furthermore, al Qaeda or ISIS have only been only present in Syria since 2011. That’s not enough time to make a suicide bomber.

    I’d like to see what the story is with those seven. I heard of one person involved in the Paris attack who it seems deliberately had a Syrian passport on his body. The only thig that sounds right is the terrorists travelling in groups. Except for very high ranking figures, ISIS wouldn’t trust its people to stick to the mission unless they were together.

    This is the problem with President Obama’s proposal to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. It creates an opportunity for ISIS to do to the US what it has done in Europe.”

    There’s no comparison.

    What happened in Europe was a mass migration, where they didn’t even stop them, at least at the first stop, long enough to ask more than a few questions. (and even that was enough to stop 2 out 4.)

    The United States can identify false passports (the U.S. government knows, for instance, when and where different serial numbers were used by the Syrian government) and Obama was only taking people who had been in refugee camps one to two years, which also predates the time when ISIS was sending anybody away. (ISIS was instead trying to get people to come to them).

    No terrorist group would send somebody to wait in such a place with no idea where and when they would leave and where they would go. A terrorist group would want to send people to places they were familiar with.

    No terrorist group would have agents wait so long. I mean they might even switch sides. Other people might identify them as terrorists.

    No terrorist could lie about their past and not get caught lying.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  47. The reality is the entire foreign advisory board, including turbo tie. and gates signed off onnthe acquisition of guiffra’s firm by rusatom.

    narciso (d1f714)

  48. Sammeh how many western Europeans of north Africa or middle easternnbackgroynd like Abe hamza’s son have gone to Syria,
    And/or have come backmon forged passports

    narciso (d1f714)

  49. Seinfeld, cher, beck, and whoopee couldn’t be reached for comment.So they took Cuban.roflmfao, I find the hate fest hysterical, keep em coming.

    mg (31009b)

  50. #47 Exactly why people hate Govt.

    Because a group of FP elitists thought it swell to sell the Uranium to the Russians and now those same people want to bemoan dubious allegations of Russian interference in an election.

    I dunno but when you opinions violate your “principles” then we have to assume you are commenting from a point of view of SELF INTEREST.

    Blah (44eaa0)

  51. 43. Blah (44eaa0) — 4/2/2017 @ 12:05 pm

    So Trump rightfully points out Clinton’s made money from Russian dealing but we focus on the technical aspects of who the middle man was.

    Well, Trump could correct his error, but he doesn’t do it, probably because he has a terribly vague knowledge of the accusation. He could link to the New York Times article I linked to, but he doesn’t. I don’t think we even had Spicer backing this up. Maybe Bannon prefers the oversimplified, and wrong, accusation. I don’t like that.

    I’m the one telling you how the Clintons really got the money. The Trump White House didn’t tell any people, apparently, so the impression was left that there was no money given at all to the Clintons by anyone connected with this deal – which almost certainly was not on the up and up. Fraud in the inducement is indeed what it looks like it could have been, and they could have gotten a lot of help from Bill or Hillary Clinton, and their retainers, in getting that done.

    By the way, some money did come from Russia, albeit not exactly the Russian government:

    And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

    And there is circumstanial evidence the Clintons knew some things were clues. They kept the clues secret:

    As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors.

    Now the thing is, you can’t prove anything wrong was done, because you have no idea what secret help she might have given the people trying to get the sale approved. At least not without looking at any of the deleted emails, where perhaps some traces might have been left.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  52. Cuz DJT, a drill baby drill guy who wants a bigger US Military, is good for Russia Energy Oligarchs.

    1. Domestic drilling in the U.S. won’t be profitable unless world prices for oil go up and that is good for Russian oil already drilled and waiting to be pumped. The smart thing for America’s economy right now is to use cheap foreign oil and tap ours when the cheap foreign oil runs out. It’s not like our oil won’t be there when we need it.
    2. Making the Soviet Union spend a sh!tload of money on its military is how Reagan brought it down.

    Your other points are pointless. Putin thought that Trump would be good for Russia, and that’s what matters. It’s Putin who’s playing seven-dimensional chess and Trump who is playing Kandy Krush.

    nk (dbc370)

  53. 48. narciso (d1f714) — 4/2/2017 @ 12:13 pm Sammeh how many western Europeans of north Africa or middle easternnbackgroynd like Abe hamza’s son have gone to Syria,
    And/or have come backmon forged passports Not too many. They use forged passports because they know they are on terrorism watch lists.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  54. Two takes… but a singular message: say nyet to Trump.

    1. ‘Thought provoking’ McCarthy has zero credibility; he was one of the 40 “conservatives” highlighted in that infamous 2016 NR cover piece who inked an opposition essay staunchly against Trump.

    2. Cuban is just a jag. [W.Pa natives know what that is.] His envy is as unbecoming as his jealous. Besides, he endorsed HRC.

    “There’s an old saying in England; where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” – James Bond, 007 [Sean Connery] ‘From Russia, With Love’ 1963

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  55. @55. typo –> s/r ‘jealousy’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  56. 56… one take: I trust McCarthy much, much more than an anonymous blogger.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  57. nk (dbc370) — 4/2/2017 @ 12:31 pm

    Domestic drilling in the U.S. won’t be profitable unless world prices for oil go up and that is good for Russian oil already drilled

    Higher oil prices are good for Russian oil. So then maybe they want less drilling for oil and gas in the USA and Europe, and certainly no exports.

    I could see that Russia might possibly create an illusion of higher temperatures in the Arctic because maybe someone would pay them some money for doing something or other. Things from the Russian government are just unreliable, but they could lie for any number of different reasons.

    maybe some reasaons would say distort the truth one way and otter reasopns would say distort it the other way.

    The smart thing for America’s economy right now is to use cheap foreign oil and tap ours when the cheap foreign oil runs out. It’s not like our oil won’t be there when we need it.

    You just need to watch out for abrupt cutoffs, and also that it hasn’t been legally locked up.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  58. 47. narciso (d1f714) — 4/2/2017 @ 12:10 pm

    The reality is the entire foreign advisory board, including turbo tie. and gates signed off onnthe acquisition of guiffra’s firm by rusatom.

    And that’s the essence of the Clinton defense.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  59. 46… I’ll give thanks today that you are no where near our policy makers, Sammy. Our goose would be properly cooked if you were.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  60. But the entire administration as complicit as with the Rhodesia road show in Iran and Cuba

    Back in the day, the soviet had cultivate arafat according to pavepa, gru, kgb handled wading haddad of the pflp (the outfit that odeh, came from, that Carlos was a pArt of) and Abu mazen

    narciso (d1f714)

  61. A hot day in Siberia. [Vimeo]

    Good weather, so there’s a crowd to see the motocross.

    But why are they all dressed in jackets, long sleaves, pants, and wool hats?

    Didn’t get the good word from Gistemp about the hottest year ever, maybe!?!

    papertiger (c8116c)

  62. Straight from the vox’s mouth

    hotair.com/headlines/archives/2017/04/02/how-does-populism-turn-
    authoritarian-venezuela-is-a-case-in-point

    narciso (d1f714)

  63. 37. Blah (44eaa0) — 4/2/2017 @ 11:53 am

    So Bradley Manning’s leaks started the Tunisian Revolution?

    Uh, yeah, no.

    Yes, it did.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-wikileaks-2011-1

    http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/wikihistory-did-leaks-inspire-arab-spring

    It was a WikiLeaks document pertaining to the unexampled greed and massive corruption of Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and all his money-hungry family.

    ShareTweet EmailPrintThe most memorable details were in a dispatch written by Robert F. Godec, the US ambassador to Tunisia, who had dined a year earlier in the lovely seaside resort of Hammamet. ..

    …Tunisia happens to have the highest percentage of Facebook users in the world—“Something like two million among ten million people have their own Facebook account,” Radwan Masmoudi, president for the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, told a British newspaper. Since the information on the site is constantly being passed along, it is almost inconceivable that the fruit-seller Bouazizi, a frustrated university graduate of twenty-six, didn’t know the contents of Godec’s leaked report. On November 28th of last year, [2010] a TuniLeaks site was created—the very day the New York Times began posting the materials it had received from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

    Al Jazeera, too, which enjoys tremendous popularity in Tunisia, had drummed the WikiLeaks revelations into the consciousness of disgusted citizens. When that brutal policewoman told Bouazizi that his cart would be confiscated because he didn’t have a proper license, the contrast between the fruit-seller’s own shabby, miserable existence—an existence that allowed the policewoman to slap him around and spit in his face—with that of Pasha, the pampered tiger munching four chickens a day, must have been unbearable. ..

    …Before his abrupt departure, for example, Clinton’s own spokesman, Philip Crowley, insisted: “Tunisia is not a Wiki revolution. The Tunisian people knew about corruption long ago. They alone are the catalysts of this unfolding drama.”

    But, as Crowley well knew, they were not. The catalyst was Private Bradley Manning, who fed WikiLeaks most of its information—the same Private Manning whose treatment, after arrest and incarceration, Crowley found so appalling he felt obliged to mention it in public. And then offer his resignation.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  64. Now that was not Bradley Manning’s intention, or taht of Wikileaks.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  65. Sammy @ #30

    Thanks for the New York Times warning.

    The rest of what you said about Co2 being constant, and H2O increasing by 5%, however is horse apples.

    Sorry.

    You can buy a hygrometer for $10’s of dollars. A co2 meter costs $100’s, and worse, since the wavelength a nondispersive infrared sensor picks up is cross sensitive to H2O, your co2 sensor is going to be interfered with by water vapor. Unless you dry out the air first, which is another expense.
    Also the reason why co2 at parts per million concentrations don’t mean a damn global warming wise, in an atmosphere with 5% water vapor.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  66. Putin’s definitely promoting Marine Le Pen in France.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/24/vladimir-putin-hosts-marine-le-pen-in-moscow

    Vladimir Putin has a previously unannounced metting with Marine Le Pen in the Kremlin. She had only bene schduled tosee Russian legislators. He said he wans’t meddling in the French election, but he wished her good luck and she said she was for removing the sanctions on Russia and recognizing the annexation of Crimea.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/world/europe/marine-le-pen-of-france-meets-with-putin-in-moscow.html

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  67. Cuban actually was gung hi Trump the latter half of 2015 well into early 2016. Whether it was genuine or on orders from Clinton to push along a perceived patsy, his greatest sin was appearing as a hip popular Trump surrogate in a certain other contender’s home state, leading a much more congested win then expected.

    urbanleftbehind (d5b2e7)

  68. Then again, the Dallas maverick’s recent performance leaves something to be desired

    narciso (d1f714)

  69. papertiger (c8116c) — 4/2/2017 @ 1:14 pm

    The rest of what you said about Co2 being constant, and H2O increasing by 5%, however is horse apples.

    I said Co2 doesn’t change much from day to day but H20 does, so that an increase of the variance in the temperature from week to week (and that’s what more plant killing frosts means) has to be attributable to H2O because the amount of H2O is vastly different from week to week over any particular place or even continent on the earth, but Co2 stays about the same from week to week..

    What I said about H2O increasing by 5% is something I read somewhere, and it’s talking about the average concentration in the atmosphere. It’s about 5% higher than it once was. Co2 maybe went up more.

    Now there is anotehr problem with the Co2 theory. Carbon dioxide levels have only risen gradually, but..

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/science/deadnettle-spring-global-warming-flowers.html

    A naturalist named Richard Fitter walked the fields of Oxfordshire, England, for more than half a century, faithfully recording the first flowering dates of 385 plant species.

    Years later, when his son Alastair analyzed the data, he found that the 1990s marked a significant change on our warming planet — that hundreds of plants were, on average, flowering five days earlier than they had been during the four decades that had gone before.

    But if carbon dioxide levels was the only siignificant factor, there should not have been a spike in the 1990s!

    And indeed noen of the climate models that try to attribute everything to Co2 work.

    Why the spike?

    So there has to be another factor involved, like sunspots.

    And there’s another thing: Whatever effect Co2 has, that is the result of what people have been doing for over 150 years. One year, or two, or three, or ten, doesn’t make much of a difference, even if the amount added per year now is higher than it once was.

    It makes even less of a difference when we are considering, not the amount of Co2 added ina given year, but the difference in the amount added if the amount added was lower.

    I think it was once said, all that what these people want to do would do, is give us the Co2 levels of 2094 in 2100 – six years later. (with a similar idea if you pick other years) Just what is that doing? Nothing.

    If it were important to lower the temperature there are all sorts of things you might do (fertilizing the Southern Pacific with iron, spewing sulfer dioxide over the Arctic)

    That’s geo-engineering, but so is cutting down on Co2 emissions with the aim of affecting the climate, but the difference is, cutting down on Co2 emissions is geo-engneering that’s guaranteed not to work!! </b?

    The advocates themselves aay so, and say things like it is a first step and other foolishness like that.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  70. The most recent example

    m.wbtv.com/wbtv/db_330726/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=wrcMfTHf

    narciso (d1f714)

  71. So the Trump loyalists quote Trump himself saying Russian conspiracy stuff is very newsworthy and we should be talking about it… but only as it relates to Podesta, some footnote, and not to the current guys in positions of accountability.

    Well you guys aren’t all wrong I guess!

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  72. Sammy, you can’t say and I can’t say, in fact nobody can say with anything close to certainty what the specific co2 content of the air is in any specific spot, because it’s prohibitively expensive.
    The apparatus to do it, the time to do it, all of it.

    Even the bought out advocates on Mona Loa, they have the apparatus and a paper record of the minute to minute readings, but even they toss out more data then they use in the finished product they present to the public. There are wide fluctuations from minute to minute. They throw out transient readings as they see fit. And whatever remains they average out over weeks and months until it matches the result they were looking for.
    Just in the one place with it’s ocean outgassing, uptaking, and volcanoes, belching Co2 as the mood strikes.

    Those readings can not be extrapolated to encompassing the entire world. On your own block there will be vagaries, lawns, trees, deadwood, termites, automobiles, power plants, backyard barbeques.

    You don’t know. You can’t know from minute to minute the co2 content of the air around you.

    On the other hand, water vapor we have a pretty good handle on. So much so that if you leave the gas cap loose on the truck the sensors in your engine will trip the check engine light, just from detecting the extra H2O from the air in your gas.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  73. Why is it accepted fact that Russia was going to use any intel gathered to disrupt the election? Is it not more their style to develop dossiers for later use against actual opponents for specific benefit to their mother country?

    Why is it that almost never are the unsuccessful attacks ion the RNC mentioned in any of these stories? Not even Fox News points out this Russian EEOC-compliant hacking.

    Ed from SFV (3400a5)

  74. Everclear – why does Everclear only go up to 190 proof?
    http://www.theliquorbarn.com/everclear-grain-alcohol-190-proof-375ml/

    Because the water content in the air prevents further refining.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  75. “Everywhere, day after day, he repeats a message of hatred, prejudice and violence. There is a long list of those who are subjected to his insults and threats: Mexicans and women, Muslims and people with physical disabilities, immigrants and the LGBT community, those who advocate limiting the arms trade, and those who fight against pollution, as well as an endless list that includes Republican politicians who distance themselves from his ultra-reactionary speech and foul language.
    On a couple of occasions he suggested the assassination of Hillary Clinton; and in the debate with her, before millions of viewers, he threatened her with imprisonment if he reached the presidency. In any country in the world, and in the United States in normal situations, a similar character would lose any election and – most likely – be held in a penal institution or in an asylum. Trump, incredibly, has been the focus of the election campaign and – although many criticize him – he has the support of millions of voters.

    The only way to defeat him is Hillary Clinton, the first woman in history with a chance of being elected. The difference is abysmal. Barack Obama did not exaggerate when he said she was more prepared to be President than he – Obama – or her husband, Bill Clinton.”

    No, that wasn’t from #NeverTrumpelstiltskin, or perhaps an erstwhile quasi-conservative voter who derides partisanship and now sees the Republican Party as an evil entity. It’s…

    teh Communist Party USA!!! http://www.cpusa.org/article/hillarys-hour/ LOLOLOLOL

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  76. 73. papertiger (c8116c) — 4/2/2017 @ 3:08 pm

    Sammy, you can’t say and I can’t say, in fact nobody can say with anything close to certainty what the specific co2 content of the air is in any specific spot, because it’s prohibitively expensive.

    Well, they measured it in Mauna Loa, Hawaii, since 1957, and theer’s chart taht shows how it varies by season, with an upward trend so that, afeter some time, the high for one year is below the low for the other year.

    http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/assets/publications/keeling_tellus_1960.pdf
    https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

    jhhat’s not he best thing. I saw a chart taht started in 1957.

    They also measure around cities and it is usally about 50 ppm higher in a city than the area surrounding it.

    Even the bought out advocates on Mona Loa, they have the apparatus and a paper record of the minute to minute readings, but even they toss out more data then they use in the finished product they present to the public. There are wide fluctuations from minute to minute. They throw out transient readings as they see fit. And whatever remains they average out over weeks and months until it matches the result they were looking for.

    Well, they could have biasing it since about 1988, but it’s risen since 1957.

    Just in the one place with it’s ocean outgassing, uptaking, and volcanoes, belching Co2 as the mood strikes.

    Those readings can not be extrapolated to encompassing the entire world. On your own block there will be vagaries, lawns, trees, deadwood, termites, automobiles, power plants, backyard barbeques.

    You don’t know. You can’t know from minute to minute the co2 content of the air around you.

    We;re not interested in the local levl. Just what the average is.

    On the other hand, water vapor we have a pretty good handle on. So much so that if you leave the gas cap loose on the truck the sensors in your engine will trip the check engine light, just from detecting the extra H2O from the air in your gas.

    What I was saying was that variance from time time and place to place of the amount of H2O in he atmosphere must be greater than that of Co2. Co2 doesn’t behave like H20.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  77. Yes… it’s the Democrats and their #NeverTrump colluders… https://static.pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Screen-Shot-2017-04-02-at-8.43.12-AM-600×302.png

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  78. Rob Schnieder, truly one of the greatest minds of the generation.

    Davethulhu (c75fb7)

  79. Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/2/2017 @ 3:51 pm

    No, that wasn’t from #NeverTrumpelstiltskin, or perhaps an erstwhile quasi-conservative voter who derides partisanship and now sees the Republican Party as an evil entity.

    It didn’t sound like it. nd it’s not. Too extreme.

    Sammy Finkelman (bd89d5)

  80. Seeing as she was one of those who used the petegrushka to facilitate the rhodes roads show
    https://medium.com/@Cernovich/susan-rice-requested-unmasking-of-incoming-trump-administration-officials-30085b5cff16

    narciso (d1f714)

  81. Bing headline; Arctic melt ponds water increases sea life

    At least 25 links from respected science sites, but a concerted effort to bury the story by the usual global warming pushers that you can watch in real time. A four years old BBC link titled “Ponds predict Arctic sea ice loss” is being promoted up the scroll by connivers gaming the link system.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  82. melt ponds are so good

    i love how they sparkle in the sun and teem with LIFE

    faster, please

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  83. “Rob Schnieder, truly one of the greatest minds of the generation.”

    — Dave teh Squid

    Smart enough to wade thru the bovine excrement you and your puppeteers are ladling out.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  84. So many proggtarded psychos so little time. Push the reset button hillarity!!!111!!! Tell Vlad I have
    “more flexibility after the election” Hussein!!!111!!! A-holes following proggtard propaganda

    newrouter (0841d5)

  85. @53 nk

    The McMuffins are playing Angry Birds.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  86. 81… how about that, narciso! Susan “Sunday show” Rice..

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  87. narciso

    Thread crossover

    Trump+Russia= Democrat Fan Fiction mashup Tomorrow Never Dies and The Aviator.

    Media moguls trying to start World War III sounds like it was ripped out of today’s headlines.

    Senator Schumer feels so much like Senator Brewster it’s bonkers. Plus a half-crazy OCD billionaire with his own media savvy.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  88. Susan Rice eh?????

    Harkin (ae69e2)

  89. Yes it does rhyme as they say, also tnd (besides effectively deepsixing terri Hatcher career) is about the unreliability of digital evidence.

    narciso (74fb4e)

  90. Mark Cuban’s is an opinion piece which can be summarised as ‘I don’t think Trump has the brains to organise this conspiracy ‘.

    That may well be true, but it’s an opinion piece that shouldn’t carry any more weight than the other thousand or so takes out there.

    What can be said for sure is that a number of Trump advisors are behaving suspiciously and only revealing pertinent information when compelled to do so. To my mind that makes the investigation a necessity. Hopefully it leads nowhere, but only the most partisan could claim they wouldn’t want to know more if the other party were in this situation.

    Bob (d88d9f)

  91. Please somebody photoshop Comey and Robert B Reichhhhhhhhhhuh as Big and Little Enos.

    Pinandpuller (ba5ff1)

  92. Like Robert Malley who negotiated with Hamas, and later became part of the Iran negotiating team, who actually made erdogan the bff in the region, who absolved Iran’s crackdown in 2009, that kind of weird, how out pulling ballistic defense out of eastern europe

    narciso (74fb4e)

  93. “the relevant agencies didn’t even actually examine the server, they farmed it out to crowdstrike,”

    No. The DNC contracted with Crowdstrike. The FBI was given the Crowdstrike report.

    Davod (f3a711)

  94. 1. Almost no-one in the political hierarchy thought Trump could win. Not the Republicans, nor the Democrats.

    2. The Democrats wanted to run against Trump.

    3. If the Russians helped remove everyone but Trump, who did they help – Duh – Democrat Hillary.

    Davod (f3a711)

  95. PS. Trump’s people ran a good insider (keep it quiet) campaign, which is how he tipped the scales in some must have Hillary states. That is the main reason he won against Hillary.

    Davod (f3a711)

  96. Bob (d88d9f) — 4/2/2017 @ 9:30 pm: Are you the night shift?

    Davod (f3a711)

  97. Bob. Silly me. You are probably the day shift.

    Davod (f3a711)

  98. Cuban is a wealthy guy who is dumber than a box of rocks.

    Skeptical Voter (1d5c8b)

  99. Cuban is what Trumpkins claim Trump is. A genuine self-made billionaire, the son of an automobile upholsterer. He’s all over the political map — I can’t see how he can like both Ayn Rand and Mayor Bloomberg — but his assessent of Trump as a “jagoff” is spot on.

    nk (dbc370)

  100. it’s an opinion piece that shouldn’t carry any more weight than the other thousand or so takes out there.

    Why not? Cuban is a pretty sharp guy. What he’s saying is in many respects a defense of Trump, and it makes innate sense. I don’t agree with a lot of his politics, but successful businessmen have a knack for knowing people. It’s Trump’s need to cheat at business (through political shenanigans and bribes, frauds, lawfare) that speak to his poor way with people… in fact I see a lot of this in Cuban’s explanation of the situation.

    But the truth will come out about this. Trump doesn’t have the faith of his government. He won’t be able to keep secrets like great leaders sometimes can.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  101. 98. Davod (f3a711) — 4/3/2017 @ 3:13 am

    Almost no-one in the political hierarchy thought Trump could win. Not the Republicans, nor the Democrats.

    I think everyone thought Trump had the worst chances of any person who could get the Republican nomination, but very good political people would not rule it out absolutely. 2. The Democrats wanted to run against Trump. I think this is correct. Well, actually they planned to run against Jeb Bush. They had strategy worked out for that. 3. If the Russians helped remove everyone but Trump, who did they help – Duh – Democrat Hillary. I think the Russians were primarily motivated, at first, at pushing their anti-NATO, Russia-did-nothing-wrong-in-Ukraine, the-West-should-join-Russia-in-fighting-against-Islamic-terrorism propaganda. They wanted a major candidate to echo that or at least not hold anything against them.

    They only began trying to help Trump to win in June – when their penetration of the DNC was discovered and announced and they knew it was stopped (except for Podesta’s GMail account) and Trump was the presumptive Republican nominee. The first thing was to publish the Democratic Opposition research against Trump, as of the previous fall.

    I also think the Russians concluded Trump was going to lose and gave up on him about three weeks before the election.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  102. 94. Bob (d88d9f) — 4/2/2017 @ 9:30 pm

    Mark Cuban’s is an opinion piece which can be summarised as ‘I don’t think Trump has the brains to organise this conspiracy ‘.

    It’s not just that. It’s what Trump did.

    It made no political sense, for instance, for Trump to take all these policy positions that Russia would like. That indicates people are influencing Trump, without him understanding maybe what is going on, and that they are not having him act in his best interests.

    And there’s another thing,too. At a press conference in July 2016, Trump, among other ramblings,, at one point asked Russia to find Hillary’s deleted e-mails. If he was in private communication with Russia, would he have done that? In antitrust cases sometimes you gte public statements like that when people can’t communicate privately. And you can’t call that in itself collusion because teh Russians never released Hillary’s deleted e-mails. Also when Trump said that, he seemed somehow to be underthe impression they still existed (which may have been true) and were somehow accessible online and hackable. There were people sayig taht kind of stuff at the time.

    That may well be true, but it’s an opinion piece that shouldn’t carry any more weight than the other thousand or so takes out there.

    What can be said for sure is that a number of Trump advisors are behaving suspiciously and only revealing pertinent information when compelled to do so. To my mind that makes the investigation a necessity. Hopefully it leads nowhere, but only the most partisan could claim they wouldn’t want to know more if the other party were in this situation.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  103. What I suspect is that Obama spied on the Trump campaign, illegally, in every way possible, looking for anything at all that would help Hillary, and all the stuff about Trump and Russia is a smokescreen to justify and distract, made up by the Democrats and their media flunkies. But so what? It does not make Trump any better of a semblance of a human being Pass the potato chips, please, and God help America.

    nk (dbc370)

  104. And God created lawyer.

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  105. Ok, let’s define terms here. As I understand it, the core accusation is that the Russians were behind the email hacks that revealed that Democrat Party insiders were engaged in a highly questionable effort to ensure that the Party nomination went to Hillary, regardless of what the rank and file might actually vote for.

    Am I wrong?

    C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37)

  106. Yes, rpessentially, but if you examine the software its not at all clear,

    Did the Russians want a stringer us military, an redoubled cracking effort and more resolute law enforcement.

    narciso (d1f714)

  107. It ain’t over ’til it’s over…

    “How do I know this with utter certainty? Because it’s all so glaringly obvious, and it’s the only scenario that fits the facts. As Hugh Hewitt says, this scandal has three silos. The first silo is the question of whether the Russians somehow “hacked our election.” The second silo is whether any Trump people “colluded” with the Russians. The third silo, the one patriots care most about since it’s the one that isn’t a ridiculous fantasy, is whether anyone in Obama’s administration used our intelligence apparatus to spy on his and Hillary’s political opponents. The answers are “No,” “No,” and “Yes.” The end results are going to be a stronger Trump, weaker Democrats, and various Obama minions exploring new career opportunities in the exciting fields of license plate-making, large-to-small rock transformation, and artisanal pruno distilling.”

    https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/04/03/the-russiagate-scam-will-blow-up-in-the-democrats-smug-faces-n2307707

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  108. The problem, is we give the democrats the benefit if the doubt, that they are sincerely mistaken, were they on Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Egypt, Libya, no they were committing political malpractice.

    narciso (d1f714)

  109. C. S. P. Schofield (99bd37) — 4/3/2017 @ 7:36 am

    As I understand it, the core accusation is that the Russians were behind the email hacks that revealed that Democrat Party insiders were engaged in a highly questionable effort to ensure that the Party nomination went to Hillary, regardless of what the rank and file might actually vote for.

    Am I wrong?

    They are trying to mix people up, actually. They want people to think that Hillary got a bad reputation because of the Russians.

    There were private emails revealed that were damaging to Hillary but they principally consisted of:

    1) The very fact that she (only) had a secret (not known to many of her subordinates) private homebrew e-mail address and server, combined with her bad explanations as to why, and the way she purported to give the State Department copies of work related e-mail. All the things that she and otehrs said about e-mail did not have the ring of truth.

    There are grounds for suspicion that all sorts of minor laws may have bene violated, not to mention that at one time, when e-mail from her was going into spam, the (newly installed?) state.gov spam filter was temrprarily disabled until apparently Bryan Pagliano, or someone, whitelisted her email address without making a record of it, which would have subjected that e-mail address to Freedom of Information Act requests and subpoenas (you can’t subpoena what you don’t know about)

    This does not even get into he question wof whether she sent things via that system that shouldn’t have been on it, although that question would have been possible had she used the unclassified state.gov system instead.

    2) Responses to Freedom of Information Act requests, on other email (everything she returned was eventually made available, although some litigaton was required to speed it up) filed by the Associated Press, the Western Journalism Center, and the Republican National Committee, which took lawsuits to get.

    The main thing that came from the Russian hacking of the DNC (which was, after all, not Hillary’s secret unsubpoenable and unhackable e-mail) was proof that the DNC, which was supposed to be neutral, was helping Hillary during the primary season, although that was previously obviously actually just from what they did during the campaign, like changing the rules for being in a debate, or their attempt to cut off Bernie Sanders from their voter database because of alleged reading of somethng that only Hillary’s campaign was supposed to read (this was done as a test to see if voter record notes from one campaign was available to the other – Bernie Sanders had to sue the DNC to get back access.)

    I think theer weer a few other things that came from the Podesta e-mail hack, like Doug Band’s criticism of Chelsea Clinton for criticizing him, in which he pointed ouyt how much he had helpwd what he called Clinton Inc.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-bill-clinton-inc-hacked-memo-reveals-intersection-of-charity-and-personal-income/2016/10/26/3bf84bba-9b92-11e6-b3c9-f662adaa0048_story.html

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  110. narciso @111. Do you mean fracking effort? The Russians wanted the U.S. not to be opposed to them, to have oNATo and other alliances get weaker, and to enter into an “alliance” with Russia against terrorism, which would absolve them of all crimes, and also work only to advance Russian interests, like the survival of Assad.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  111. Branco gets it. The Russian kerfuffle is really an effort to hide the evidence.

    crazy (d3b449)

  112. Sammeh the best way vie NATO to confront Russia, is at least having a 2% contribution to the alliance, sanctions are near beer.

    narciso (d1f714)

  113. “Podesta email hack”… as if access wasn’t moronically handed over.

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  114. Forever #NeverTrumpelstiltskin

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  115. You’d think “true conservatives” would be rejoicing, but the porridge is not to their taste…

    http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2017-04-03-US–Trump-Undoing%20Obama/id-c4fa9fa659394514aa645a7cfd3c31ed

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  116. #GoldilocksNeverTrumpelstiltskin

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  117. 117. narciso (d1f714) — 4/3/2017 @ 8:47 am

    the best way vie NATO to confront Russia, is at least having a 2% contribution to the alliance, sanctions are near beer.

    For NATO countries to sudddenly up their contributions is pretty much impossible to happen. The United States insisting on that might be a way of breaking up NATO. Trump was also complaining about South Korea and Japan in the same way.

    Putin also wants to break up the EU – anyting that keeps European nations united.

    Nowe the thing about the 2% is that the countries who are most worried about Russia, Estonia and Poland, already spend that amount on defense (as do Greece and Turkey I think, but not necessarily as a defense against Russia) Lithuania doesn’t. And Sweden is neutral, but increasing defense.

    President Trump presented German Chancellor Angela Merkel with an imaginary bill when they met. Of course the NATO treaty doesn’t call on countries who don’t spend 2% of their estimated GDP on their military to pay the United States, or even NATO as a whole, the amount of the deficiency.

    It just calls on each country to spend their own money. It’s a clause that was apparently mostly ignored in recent years or decades. I’m not sure what the clause actually says.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  118. 118. Colonel Haiku (236f6f) — 4/3/2017 @ 8:48 am

    .“Podesta email hack”… as if access wasn’t moronically handed over.

    Following the advice, although not to the letter (but he did say, or type, it was a legitimate e-mail) of the IT person at the sdemocratic National Commirree that he consulted.

    What happened to Podesta is pretty much the way all hacks happen. They have to get the password.

    Which they can also get by guessing, by a dictionary attack, by answering the security questions, or by using the same password that they already have on another account, or maybe from some e-mail they already have that has the password.

    Or they can intercept the password being entered if they can get in between the computer and the ISP or at least between the computer and the Internet connection.

    The only other ways to break in are via getting someone to open an e-mail which runs a program that breaks into the computer or the server (for this they have to know what software the server is running) or to attach some device to the computer or server. Like a USB drive that the computer automatically uploads software from, and the software was specially written.

    None of which was possible with Hillary’s email account. Phishing wold not work. IS she going to think, for instace that J. P. Morgan Chase s sending e-mail to her secret address? She probably didn’t even know her password. There was no backdoor password reset. If she ran into any trouble, she got into personal contact with the SYSOP. The Blackberry sent only encrypted mail, she hardly ever let it out of her sight, and the server in Chappaqua (or in Bill Clinton;s office in Harlem) was guarded by the Secret Service.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  119. Actually he dodnt sammeh, so lets game this out as venereal sheriff has done, Russia invades one of the Baltic countries, NATO forces respond then what

    narciso (d1f714)

  120. Chelsea Clinton had written something about how Doug Band was using the Clintons to make money. Doug Band sewnt e-mail to many Clinton associates (including Podesta) saying that Chelsea Clinton was trying to justify her position and look at all he had done.

    Now that was made public by Wikileaks toward the end of October. What about what I said that Russia gave up on electing Trump three weeks before the election? But these things take time to plan. Russian proganadda stopped promoting Trump about three weeks before the election.

    The biggest accusation of collaboration is that Roger Stone (who was separate from the campaign) announced in advance that something would be forthcoming from wikileaks about Podesta. Like he says, he’d need a time machine to be involved in the hack if a conversation he had with Wikileaks was what caused it. Of course Russia didn’t ask Trumnp or anybody who to hack.

    The real question is did anyone spread Russian propaganda and get it to Trump? Alger Hiss waa a aspy, bit the real questions they had about him was something else.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  121. I’m not sure what the clause actually says.

    NATO Clause #111.FU.USA states: If at any time a member state fails to or refuses to, for any imaginable reason, pay it’s fair share of the costs of NATO, the United States will be held accountable to make good for said state. This includes all monies owed, supplies, logistics, research and development, medicine, support help, aircraft, naval or merchant ships, weapons and most importantly armies and blood.

    This clause will run concurrently with United Nations Clause #122.FU.USA

    Now you know, Sammy.

    Rev. Hoagie® (785e38)

  122. Its more logical, that the crowdstrike and the dingy dossier was the coverstory for the surveillance in the first place, isn’t it

    narciso (d1f714)

  123. Further it was why they had sessions recluse, so he could not investigate neither the surveillance nor take a fresh look at the Dec.

    Re lager hiss, signs of his involvement didn’t come out till 1937, after the assasination of krivitsky which prompted chambers to come in from the cold and contact Adolf Berle, who did nothing with the infirmation

    narciso (d1f714)

  124. Correction Alexander barmine did in 1938, chambers did in 1939, William bullitt was informed subsequently, then came gouzenko.

    narciso (d1f714)

  125. narciso (d1f714) — 4/3/2017 @ 9:27 am

    so lets game this out as venereal sheriff has done, Russia invades one of the Baltic countries, NATO forces respond then what

    Russia is likely to be very cautious, and have invaded gradually and ina deniable way – Russia probably cancels the war.

    The eral dangerous place is North Korea. Trump is going to get very close to issuing China an ultimatum. China will probably agree, then maybe break it or stall on the detauls. If they really think taht trump is going after the regime of Kim John Un, which he will if they keep on testing missiles, they’ll try to do it themselves first. Now the plan Mattis may come up with is not so much to get rid of Kim as get rid of the nuclear program. They’ll try to disable his communications. The timetable for this is probably no more than 3 or 4 months away.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/02/donald-trump-north-korea-china

    On North Korea, he said: “China has great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don’t it won’t be good for anyone.”

    That means that even if they think North Korea will fire artillery on Seoul they’ll go ahead. Or worse.

    Trump is giving China a chance to squash North Korea’s nuclear program, or at least their attemting to build missiles that can hit the U.S. He’s not going to rely on Star Wars, nor on Kim Jong Un’s restraint. At a minimum China has to first try cutting off North Korea’s money. He will absolutely not accept pretend sanctions.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  126. narciso (d1f714) — 4/3/2017 @ 9:39 am

    contact Adolf Berle, who did nothing with the infirmation

    I think they warned FDR that he wasn’t really a loyal Democrat, and people used him as a back channel to Russia, knowing that whatever they said to him would make its way back to Russia. They thought of him as a fool, who imagined the Communist Party was going to help his presumed political aspirations.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  127. The Communist Chinese military is embedded with the North Korean military, most of whose members are probably secretly in fear of their lives from Kim Jong Un.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  128. Are we supposed to file Cuban’s commentary under “It takes one to know one”? Sad Mark Cuban, nobody knows his name, while Trump is a very big deal. That must be a bitter pill.

    Trump doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to be a good president. Clinton, Carter and Nixon are all considered among the brightest and look where they got us. I suspect Mr. Cuban isn’t the rocket scientist he thinks he is, either.

    Every now and again, I take my eye off the ball and allow myself to be thoroughly disgusted by a not-so-presidential Tweet. Then I read something like Rand Paul’s comments about his weekend golf outing with Trump and I’m reassured.

    I found the following AP headline/lede particularly reassuring, since the AP has been zealously anti-Trump:

    Bit by bit, Trump methodically undoing Obama policies
    WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid the turmoil over staff shake-ups, blocked travel bans and the Russia cloud hanging overhead, President Donald Trump is steadily plugging away at a major piece of his agenda: Undoing Obama. From abortion to energy to climate change and personal investments, Trump is keeping his promises in methodically overturning regulations and policies adopted when Barack Obama was president.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  129. I do not believe Mitch McConnell will get Neil Gorsuch to the SupremeCourt.

    mg (31009b)

  130. sleazy susan rice lied like a filthy pig about her obscene abuse of intelligence on tv just last month

    Rice herself has not spoken directly on the issue of unmasking. Last month when she was asked on the “PBS NewsHour” about reports that Trump transition officials, including Trump himself, were swept up in incidental intelligence collection, Rice said : “I know nothing about this,” adding, “I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that account today.”

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  131. Just a reminder.

    Not one shred of actual evidence has ever been presented on Trump collusion with Russia.

    Not one shred of evidence has been presented that Russia did anything to influence the outcome of the election.

    Nobody has credibly suggested that anyone hacked into the voting machines and altered the results, or that Hillary Clinton actually had more electoral college votes.

    What remains is the release of information through Wikileaks. No one suggests Trump had anything to do with the hack itself. Worst case, and I mean absolutely worst case, Donald Trump himself or one of his flunkies acting under his direction “coordinated” with the Russians regarding the timing of the Wikileaks document dumps for maximum political effect.

    So?

    The content of those emails, as problematic as they were for Clinton, was never in question in terms of their authenticity. And what do they say? That the Democrats colluded to prevent Bernie Sanders from receiving the nomination. Which, you know, is kinda something we already knew and suspected.

    Alternate theory is the leaked emails were from someone from inside the DNC with an ax to grind leaking it to a journalist(as has been suggested by Assange’s people repeatedly.) Oh, and interesting note – all DNC staffers just got fired. And the evidence that Russia had anything to do with the hack was provided to the FBI…by a private company working for the DNC. Color me un-impressed.

    Tenn (131b65)

  132. @139. Just reminder: Watergate.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  133. @108 nk

    AKA”What difference, at this point, does it make?”

    Hillary really upped her game after the 800+ raw FBI files a la Craig Livingstone.

    Pinandpuller (ba5ff1)

  134. 135. mg (31009b) — 4/3/2017 @ 10:39 am

    I do not believe Mitch McConnell will get Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

    How can he fail? He can count votes. He knows what he s doing. He’s not Paul Ryan.

    What it looks like won’t happen is he won’t get Neil Gorsuch confirmed without overturning the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations.

    Schumer claims Trump should send anoher nominee.

    Sammy Finkelman (50ab1c)

  135. And the evidence that Russia had anything to do with the hack was provided to the FBI…by a private company working for the DNC.

    and the fbi is filled with corrupt fbi bimbos lorded over by a p.o.s. douchebag wholly lacking even the most rudimentary sense of integrity

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  136. omg just stop it

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  137. Where’s the big post on Hillary and her minions not only being granted access to State Dept intelligence after she left the admin. but also leaking that info to members of the Congress??

    Where’s the big post on Susan Rice supposedly asking for unmasking of Trump campaign personnel on foreign phone calls/emails??

    Hello?

    harkin (b7bcc1)

  138. #53 NK,

    1) Putin thought Trump helpful to Russia? Another bold face fabrication. Who has been more helpful than Obama and Team Hillary to Russia??????? So to think that is stupidity from the echo chamber. If Putin is betting he bets on HRC b/c that is his best hand.

    2) Yes more drilling is not good for Russia. Not sure what part of supply and demand you don’t understand. Even if our oil costs $55 per barrel the fact DJT is willing to remove barriers puts a cap on the price of oil. Please leave Economics to those of use who understand markets. And there are plenty of fracking spots where you can produce profitably at $45 … and if NG prices go up its will make it likely lower than $35 since much of the NG is not even captured for resale b/c prices are simply to low.

    3) I am starting to believe that anyone who thinks Putin Russia a some big deal is either brainwashed or stupid or mendacious. Because as of yet I have no seen one shred of evidence why our relationship with Russia isn’t simply Frenemy type — when it makes sense get along, when it does not, don’t. China is 10X worse than Russia with hacking, theft of IP, taking over US Assets, and expanding into friendly waters with unfriendly intentions.

    Blah Blah (44eaa0)

  139. McCarthy not only inked an essay opposing Trump highlighted on NR’s infamous 2016 cover listing 40 ‘conservatives’ against The Donald, McCarthy also advocates abolishing Medicare.

    You won’t be needing this, old man.” -James Bond, 007 [Sean Connery] ‘From Russia With Love’ 1963

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  140. #143 Happy,

    Even worse, not only did the FBI eat up the Crowd Strike propaganda about DNC Servers they allegedly paid for the Trump Dossier knowing full well the author and its source were DNC affiliated or Putin affiliated.

    Russia Story is 100% fabricated propaganda by the Democrats and Republicans are either too stupid/gullible or have Trump Derangement Syndrome.

    How do you launch such a wide scale spying operation on the RNC Candidate for POTUS with Fake Dossier and Crowdstrike as your “sources?”

    Crowdstrike which is founded by an anti-Putin Russian who makes major dollars off Russian hacking paranoia.

    Fake Dossier which uses Russian IC Agents as sources to claim Trump had golden showers in Obama’s former Hotel bed.

    Seriously?

    And people bought this garbage?

    If any employee of mine brought such a half cocked plan to me based on that analysis, they’d have proved the peter Principle to me and be demoted.

    Blah Blah (44eaa0)

  141. Be nice if folks could oppose Trump on his policies and let go of the personal animus.

    Makes for logical discussions.

    What we have now is MENTAL ILLNESS gone main stream.

    Blah Blah (44eaa0)

  142. 1) Putin thought Trump helpful to Russia? Another bold face fabrication. Who has been more helpful than Obama and Team Hillary to Russia??????? So to think that is stupidity from the echo chamber. If Putin is betting he bets on HRC b/c that is his best hand.

    Do you believe that Russia is happy about the sanctions that have been in place since 2014?

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  143. Gorsuch. A fella demonstrating obtuse judgment and a prickly temperament. Yes, a perfect replacement for Scalia.

    “Keep On Truckin'” – Robert Crumb, 1967

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  144. daveyboy- at this point what difference does it make

    mg (31009b)

  145. Gorsuch. A fella demonstrating obtuse judgment and a prickly temperament. Yes, a perfect replacement for Scalia.

    “Keep On Truckin’” – Robert Crumb, 1967

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 4/3/2017 @ 12:25 pm

    ====================================

    Some would rather have it be what feels right or contemporary at the moment, they are not fans of original intent, much less the constitution.

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  146. Some roll with the changes and try to find common ground, while others obfuscate and denigrate. Some also realize money does not grow on trees or the vine.

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  147. Dave teh 🐙, unlike Obama, do you believe Russia and Putin pose a significant challenge to the USA? Or is that the “80s” calling to ask for its foreign policy back?

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  148. teh Susan Rice

    http://ace.mu.nu/archives/flaming_skull.gif

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  149. daveyboy Cernovich had it first and bloomturd and the slimes sat on it for 2-days.

    mg (31009b)

  150. Col – When do the subpoenas go out?

    mg (31009b)

  151. “Just as in every aspect of American life, the extremist left is determined to create a caste system in which some people are allowed to speak, and some people are not, and some people are to be believed, no matter how absurd their claims, and others are to be dismissed — even if they’re telling you you didn’t see the [Hillary Clinton] seizure your Fake News Eyes tell you they saw.”

    May God have mercy on their souls.

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  152. thOR, “Every now and again, I take my eye off the ball and allow myself to be thoroughly disgusted by a not-so-presidential Tweet.”

    Be a good idea to have a 2 week rule for your disgust.

    http://www.unz.com/ishamir/eerie-prescience-of-donald-trump/

    Leon (168f33)

  153. at this point what difference does it make

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  154. At alperovitch is part of the Atlantic council, where rice and the late Richard Clarke and shinseki came from, recall the hagel kerfluffle over the donations which had a number of high profile
    Saudi businessperson, juffali, olayan, and alamoudi,

    narciso (d1f714)

  155. Saw a sign in front of a house yesterday in English, Spanish and Arabic:

    No Matter Who You Are,

    We’re Glad You’re Our Neighbor

    Pinandpuller (ba5ff1)

  156. seriouspost: this is going to fall by the wayside the same as every other “smoking gun” that has been brought forward.

    1) there are no details as to why rice was asking for unmasking
    2) there’s no details as to whether the unmasking requests were granted
    3) there’s still no evidence that trump himself was unmasked
    4) there’s still no evidence that Obama was involved

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  157. Since they have Curves for Women I’m going to open a place for guys called Massage-a-Nistic.

    Pinandpuller (ba5ff1)

  158. I think Lager Hiss was Alger’s swarthy brother.

    Pinandpuller (ba5ff1)

  159. “at this point what difference does it make!”

    Davethe🐙 (fab944) — 4/3/2017 @ 1:02 pm

    The battle cry of the pathologically disingenuous…

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  160. oh praise jesus

    this is so good

    Lawmakers in Kansas on Monday failed to override Republican Governor Sam Brownback’s veto of a bill expanding eligibility for Medicaid for the poor under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA).

    The Kansas House of Representatives voted 81 to 44 in favor of overriding the veto, falling three votes short of the 84 needed to advance the override.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  161. Madame susan rice
    may get turn in teh barrel
    san francisco treat

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  162. ain’t hogan’s heroes
    but she went all Sgt. Shultz
    sez “I know nothing!”

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  163. Some have suspected that for quite a while, but not in the way Rice means…

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  164. 170. The reason so many Kansas Republicans wanted to expand Medicaid was because, for now, the money was almost free, and Obamacare removed some old provisions to pay hospitals for emergency care, and replaced it with this Medicaid expansion, and if they didn’t expand Medicaid some hospitals were saying they might go bankrupt and have to close, and Kansas is a largely rural/small town state, so people in various areas might be left withoyt any nearby hospitals, and they’re not so near already for many people.

    So what’s thw case against taking the money? Theer’s ana rgument that Medicaid, with its qualifications and POSSIBLE CLAWBACK, is a terrible program for individuals, and it wastes money to, but it is good for rural hospitals.

    If we get some competition going, there’s going to be a problem for doctors and hospitals, so somebody’s got to plan how that goes, too.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  165. it’s teh soft bigotry of low expecdustins

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  166. Whoops… danger phone… expectations.

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  167. Danged not danger… my phone, she’s a no-gooda…

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  168. Swing low, sweet chariot… comin’ for to bury teh bone…

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  169. Re: Susan Rice and unmasking.

    It wasn’t just Susan Rice, if you read the sources carefully, but they are playing her name up because orf Benghazi.

    The unmasking may not be a real problem, but the leaking is. They are two different things. It’s one thing to ask who is this American the Russian Ambassador is speaking to, and later, what did they say. It’s another thing to run to the Washington Post with what yyou find out. That’s not supposed to happen.

    It’s illegal, and not just because you might be dealing with classified information.

    There is an accusation that Obama ordered information widely distributed in the hopes it would leak. I don’t think so. He did want members of Congress and others to know. And also in case Donald Trump or somebody else ran into trouble, the information would be there.

    Names got unmasked even when it was other countries and not Russia.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  170. What happened with Nunes last week might be this: It could be there was some protocol in place, devised by the white House counsel, where nobody ccould go to Donald Trump with information – nobody involved in fact could talk to him – in order that he might not be accused of interfering with an invstigation. They could only go to Congress.

    So somebody in the White House called in the House Intelligence Committee Chairman in order to get the information to Donald Trump.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  171. Kansas remains the shining city on a hill, the envy of the other 49 states.

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  172. Blah Blah (44eaa0) — 4/3/2017 @ 12:17 pm

    If Putin is betting he bets on HRC b/c that is his best hand.

    Regardless of your logic, which isn’t solid, hwo can you beleive that Putin secretly wanted Hillary Clinton to win? He wasn’t acting that way. At all.

    2) Yes more drilling is not good for Russia.

    And not just drilling any energy production. So you are right, there. Putin would like environmentalist wackos in charge just so long as they don’t go too far, and actually cut world consumption.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  173. liar, liar pantsuit on fire

    mg (31009b)

  174. another serious question: why is Trump quoting fox news or whatever all the time? couldn’t he just go to the parties involved and ask?

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  175. No, Squid, it’s every city under Democrat governance for a half century or more… it is they who shine brightest: Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, Oakland, Baltimore, Newark, Flint, etc…

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  176. “According to Lake, it was NSC deputy Ezra Cohen-Watnick who first uncovered Rice’s role in “unmasking” the Trump transition officials. Meanwhile, reports emerged a few weeks ago that the CIA wanted Cohen-Watnick removed from the NSC. Is that a coincidence or not?”

    http://hotair.com/archives/2017/04/03/report-susan-rice-requested-unmasking-of-u-s-persons-in-raw-intel-connected-to-trump-and-associates-dozens-of-times/

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  177. The LA Times has a 4-part editorial series on Trump?

    http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-our-dishonest-president/#nt=oft02a-2la1

    [LAT: Trump is a train wreck. He will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change (!) and profoundly weaken the system of American public education, de-insure millions of people, transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, defang the government’s regulatory agencies, bloat the Pentagon’s budget and supposedly retreat from the global stage. But worst of all, he’s untethered to reality. He’s worse than the other Republicans. People must protest and vote. But don’t worry too much. “This nation survived Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon. It survived slavery. It survived devastating wars. Most likely, it will survive again.”]

    http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-why-trump-lies/

    {LAT: He’s worse then all the otehr liars taht have come before him]

    …Richard Nixon said “I am not a crook” but by that point must have seen that he was. Bill Clinton said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” but knew that he did…Donald Trump [has] an apparent disregard for fact so profound as to suggest that he may not see much practical distinction between lies, if he believes they serve him, and the truth…If one of his lies doesn’t work — well, then he lies about that.]

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  178. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/02/french-polling-watchdog-warns-over-russian-news-agency-election-report

    Claim that Russia is pushing false polls. Fillon is really in third place, but Russia is making him the leader. In France there is a runoff for the top two – Putin seems to be gambling on a bandwagon effect. The two leading candidates in Russian polls are both against sanctions.

    Sammy Finkelman (6f9f42)

  179. Sammy, my parrot took one look at today’s LAT on the bottom of his cage and had a massive, uncontrollable defecation. It left him squawking, whistling and cursing like a peglegged pirate.

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  180. 2 speech rule would beat a filibuster if the republicans didn’t surrender.

    mg (31009b)

  181. Does anybody know who the Russians picked for March Madness?

    Rev. Hoagie® (785e38)

  182. 137. The story doesn’t say the FBI paid Fusion GPS. ANd they didn’t pay anyone in the beginning. They started paying Christopher Steele in October.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  183. To get the thread back on topic:

    The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.

    The meeting took place around Jan. 11 — nine days before Trump’s inauguration — in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, officials said. Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would be likely to require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions.

    Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.f2706e4a2664

    Davethulhu (fab944)

  184. Erik Prince is a known ex-military weirdo/flaming homosexual who enjoys cooking classes (empanadas! yum!), designing his own jewelry, and knock knock jokes with surprise twist punchlines, often involving funny and/or clever wordplay.

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  185. plus he’s the brother of that chick what’s in charge of the education

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  186. susan rice knows nothing, but her interest in knowing nothing started in July of 2016 and spiked after the November election…

    http://circa.com/politics/accountability/white-house-logs-indicate-susan-rice-consumed-unmasked-intel-on-trump-associates

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  187. it’s 🐙 🐙 🐙 🐙
    all of the time except when
    it’s calamari

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  188. Rice goes good with squirrel stew.

    Looks like garbage.
    Smells like borscht.
    Tastes like… strawberries.

    “When I was an ensign on a cruiser, five pounds of cheese went missing. Everybody forgot about it– but me.” – Captain Queeg [Humphrey Bogart] ‘The Caine Mutiny’ 1954

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  189. The susan rice thing is called “muddying the waters”. Trump made an accusation that was bizarre, and when asked to back it up he babbled about Fox News. Clear BS from a recognized con man.

    I have a hard time seeing any scandal in someone trying to let the voters know who Trump was working with. Trump’s efforts now are damage control.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  190. give me more of that, Dustin. I love it. funny stuff.

    mg (31009b)

  191. Robert Osborne is dead.

    Looks like pudding.
    Smells like horsesh*t.
    Tastes like… Canadian Club.

    “You are so goddamn smart. Except you ain’t.” – Eddie Dane [J.E. Freeman] ‘Miller’s Crossing’ 1990

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  192. Blackwater is w__res in camouflage underwear. They really all belong in a Turkish prison, but they seem to be good at getting government contracts, including a contract to provide security for the Department of State when Hillary was SOS.

    nk (dbc370)

  193. No Dustin, the Russia story, was to cover for the surveillance, like the video covered the Benghazi attack, the fellow univision as mateen’s mateen’s lover, et al.

    narciso (d1f714)

  194. The Democrats continue to baffle our law enforcement.

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  195. They’re exactly the kind of people the Trump/Kushner Family would be cumpari with. Blackwater.

    nk (dbc370)

  196. @202. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/erik-prince-create-secret-trump-russia-dialogue-report-article-1.3018024

    Looks like trouble.
    Smells like borscht.
    Taste like… crow.

    “There’s a saying in England; where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” – James Bond, 007 [Sean Connery] ‘From Russia, With :love’ 1963

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  197. How many unmasking queries did Susan Rice and others do of US persons picked up in foreign intelligence collection not connected to Trump over the same period?

    crazy (d3b449)

  198. Blackwatergate.

    хороший!!!

    “…because people have gotta know whether or not their President’s a crook. Well, … Well, I’m not a crook.” – Big Dick Nixon, 1973

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  199. We know how many were leaked – zero

    crazy (d3b449)

  200. What to do, Donald. What to do…

    JARED!

    “Here I come to save the day! That means that Mighty Mouse is on the way.” – ‘Mighty Mouse’ theme song, 1955

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  201. Anyway, Blackwater was a sideline for Prince, and he sold it years ago. His real money comes from his daddy, as does his sister’s, Betsy DeVoss, Trump’s Secretary of Education, whose only qualification for the job is that she donated a lot of daddy’s dough to Trump’s campaign. Maybe Prince did not have an “official” connection with Trump’s campaign, but he for sure had a connection.

    nk (dbc370)

  202. now you’re gonna tell us jared tastes like strawberries

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  203. No Dustin, the Russia story, was to cover for the surveillance, like the video covered the Benghazi attack, the fellow univision as mateen’s mateen’s lover, et al.

    narciso

    LOL

    The russia stuff is real. I have no doubt the guys who siced Lois Lerner on Tea Partiers were more than willing to surveil actual criminal republicans too though.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  204. at the end of the day vladimir way bad wanted the diseased morally bankrupt piggy-slut democrat to win

    he chose poorly

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  205. The Democrats continue to baffle our law enforcement.

    Colonel Haiku

    The GOP is in the hot seat now. They get some of the scrutiny too. Comey did his thing with Hillary’s servers too so this partisan witchhunt whining is also muddying the waters.

    If you don’t like it, don’t elect criminals.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  206. above all don’t appoint corrupt criminal skank-boys to head your sleazy fbi bimbo-bordello

    but that ship has sailed

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  207. Mark Steyn has some deep thoughts about pervert Mitt Romney and his slurpy egg mcmuffin’s fascist deplatforming campaign against Milo

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  208. @215. Wild strawberries.

    But ahhh… the pitter-patter of happyfeet.

    “Kids Say the Darndest Things’ – Art Linkletter

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  209. “SUSAN RICE IN CROSSHAIRS AS POTENTIAL FELON
    A major development in the Obama spy/leak scandal: former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice has been identified as a person who repeatedly requested that associates of Donald Trump (and perhaps Trump himself) be unmasked in raw intelligence intercepts.” — John Hinderaker

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/04/susan-rice-in-crosshairs-as-potential-felon.php

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  210. This just in. Comey reaches out to the one detective who can get to the bottom of this…

    https://www.pinterest.com/pin/465348573968096137/

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  211. Best case scenario, Susan Rice gets in Scooter Libby style trouble and they still impeach Trump. You guys are looking at this all wrong. We could get Pence in the oval office.

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  212. Dustin, your so funny.

    mg (31009b)

  213. Take a look at this, and then review recent posts to learn who aligns themselves with scumbags… https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/848918739399606272

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  214. Just saw this. The Susan Rice thing was “first reported” by Mike Cernovich. When it’s by Mike Cernovich, “first reported” means “made-up; faked; a big fat lie from a Trumpkin liar”. The Susan Rice story is phonier than Trump’s hair, folks.

    nk (dbc370)

  215. Or for that matter, parrots them… squawk squawk!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  216. Plenty of folks here remind me of adam piece of shiff.

    mg (31009b)

  217. Like a big pile of nothing such as Mike Cernovich would have inside information as to what Rice did for Obama. I’ll cut him this much slack: He’s not smart enough to come up with this on his own. It was probably fed to him by Roger Stone or even the FSB dezinformatsiya/kompradat section.

    nk (dbc370)

  218. Zentous did some good reporting on the Egyptian tie to Benghazi, his reports on Syria were less impressive, and his last round of stories were downright embarassing.

    narciso (d1f714)

  219. The desperation from the Trump camp. “Oh they unmasked us! Those bastards!”

    Things a comic book villain might say.

    And they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!

    Dustin (ba94b2)

  220. 232… “multiple sources”…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  221. The perpetual worried and befuddled look of our nation’s top law enforcement… https://mobile.twitter.com/OhSusieCue/status/849030359337451520/photo/1

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  222. “They will always try to make story of Russia interfering to help Trump about anything other than Russia interfering to help Trump. Wont work.”

    — Ben Rhodes April 3, 2017

    Smells familiar…
    https://patterico.com/2017/04/02/donald-trump-and-the-russian-kerfuffle/#comment-1989192

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  223. The Russians were doing this when the FSB was still the NKVD. They plant a fake story with a friendly outlet. A sensationalistic bigger news outlet picks it up. From then on it gets legs, because some legitimate outlets feel that they cannot ignore it.
    Pizzagate started by Alex Jones?
    “Cruz’s affairs” planted by Roger Stone in the National Enquirer?
    Like that.

    nk (dbc370)

  224. Take whatever David corn tells you to the bank, same with Glenn thrush, Spencer Ackerman, haberman 7/10 times right

    narciso (b9586d)

  225. #NeverTrumpelstiltskinners unmasked…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  226. It matches what Adam kredo said about the StU behinds, like price and ahmed who worked for rhodes

    narciso (b9586d)

  227. Tucker Carlson says he can’t get one person from the 17 intelligence agencies or one Democrat politician to appear on camera and tell him they have evidence that proves the Russian government hacked into the DNC or the election. He says “provide some evidence or stop talking”.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  228. If podvenny, sic had already been convicted in 2015, why didn’t Steele name, this appears like retroactive justification on buzzfeed’s part much like their whitewashing the ikwan

    narciso (b9586d)

  229. Riddle me this, if he is so valuable why is he being sent back to russia?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4374412/Russian-spy-released-early-federal-prison.html

    narciso (b9586d)

  230. “Much of the surveillance “incidentally” collected on Trump was actually just intercepts of foreign officials talking to each other about Trump. Not Russia, either.

    Sara Carter at Circa:

    The intelligence reports included some intercepts of Americans talking to foreigners and many more involving foreign leaders talking about the future president, his campaign associates or his transition, the sources said. Most if not all had nothing to do with the Russian election interference scandal, the sources said, speaking only on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the materials.

    What “national security” value does this have? It sure just looks like Susan Rice and others in the Obama Administration were just using foreign intelligence collection as a source of opposition research against the Republican candidate.

    Adam Housely reports Nunes had to go view these documents himself in the Eisenhower Building SCIF because the intelligence agencies from whom he requested this information were “slow-rolling” him.

    Mark Levin discusses Evelyn Farkas’ virtual admission she was a recipient of the leaks. I wonder if Evelyn Farkas knows Susan Rice.”

    http://ace.mu.nu/archives/369138.php

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  231. But, hey… Nothing to see there. Sheeeeeesh.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  232. “A Former Trump Adviser Met With A Russian Spy”
    https://www.buzzfeed.com/alimwatkins/a-former-trump-adviser-met-with-a-russian-spy?utm_term=.oevB32M7Z#.jk4Z047oV

    A real Page turner, too. “… [Carter Page] rose to prominence seemingly out of nowhere last summer, touted by then-candidate Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers.”

    “Oh myyyy.” – George Takei

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  233. Oooohhhh… Buzzfeed. Clickbait for the mentally challenged.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  234. Nunes had to go view these documents himself… … because the intelligence agencies from whom he requested this information were “slow-rolling” him.

    The officers in the intelligence agencies are liable… cleaning out the deadwood at the very least.

    Gives Trump a chance to deploy his catch phrase.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  235. @248. Speaking of mentally challenged, Page confirmed the story to them.

    “Klink! You boob!” – General der Infanterie Albert Burkhalter [Leon Askin] ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ CBS TV, 1965-1971

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  236. I’ve seen commercials for “The AmeriKans” (never an episode).

    One thing you never see is the name tag “Russian Spy” on their lapel.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  237. The charges, filed in January 2015, came after federal investigators busted a Russian spy ring that was seeking information on US sanctions as well as efforts to develop alternative energy. Page is an energy consultant.

    Preaching to the choir – baby. Warmers already sold out the entire human race for a piece of silver. It’s the nature of the profession. Still it’s tough featuring Carter Page dealing in “cutting edge” secrets about our 13th century windmill tech.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  238. More easy to feature Page joining the Ruskie for a chuckle over Obama approving new windmill construction.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  239. They don’t admit it, but this was likely their model ://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardi1an.com/world/2016/jun/30/how-a-czech-super-spy-infiltrated-cia-karel-koecher

    narciso (b9586d)

  240. There’s alittle of this, but you don’t see too much:

    http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kMddzr–rzUJ:https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150520193831.htm%2Blancet+cold+weather+deaths&hl=en&gbv=2&ct=clnk

    Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analyzing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries.

    It kills more in places where there is not too much cold weathwr. It doesn’t kill so much immediately. It causes pneumonia, and it causes blood clots.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3397495/Cold-weather-raise-risk-stroke-30-Sudden-drop-temperature-causes-blood-clot-block-arteries.html

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  241. Marcisp @254 and 255. I am not getting the links.

    narciso @256 Of course they say it like it’s a bad thing.

    That these police force agreements are good things are the way it’s promoted.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  242. The first was about the koecher spy ting, The other they edited out of a profile of dr. Gorka for the forward.

    narciso (b9586d)

  243. Sammy my tooth is much better. Thanks to you. It’s been a good day.

    Beautiful Day. [U2b]

    papertiger (c8116c)

  244. 245. The New York Times said the Evelyn Farkas story isn’t so, although what she said is actually worse, or at least more biased against Trump) according to the New York Times,

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/us/politics/sean-spicer-evelyn-farkas-trump-wiretapping.html

    According to Mr. Spicer, this is what Ms. Farkas said, although the part in bold seems to be Mr. Spicer’s own addition:

    “I was urging my former colleagues, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill. I was telling people on the Hill, ‘Get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can.’ I had a fear that they were essentially watching the Trump staff and he was worried about the Trump administration.

    Here is what Ms. Farkas actually said:

    “I was urging my former colleagues, and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill — it was more, actually, aimed at telling the Hill people: Get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration, because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people that left. So it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy.” [and kept away from Congress]

    She went on to say: “That the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about their, the staff, the Trump staff’s dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried, because not enough was coming out into the open, and I knew that there was more.”

    Spicer quotes or describes her as saying that she had a fear [should that word be feeling?] that they [Obama’s people?] were essentially watching the Trump staff and he [Obama?] was worried about the Trump Adminsitration [would do]

    But what she actually said was that <b? she had a fear that the Trump people would try, on purpose, to compromise (that is spoil) sources and methods.

    That’s real distrust.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  245. 260. papertiger (c8116c) — 4/3/2017 @ 9:43 pm

    Sammy my tooth is much better. Thanks to you.

    Thanks for telling me. I was beginning to wonder.

    Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f)

  246. Enough with the grandstanding in front of the media. Get it done.

    Colonel Haiku (236f6f)

  247. So Carter Page working with the FBI to identify Russian Spies implication him (and the FBI?) in collusion with Russia?

    Trump Derangement Syndrome……

    The more facts we get the more obvious is this Russia thing was manufactured by Democrats out of thin air to play politics. And sadly the IC and FBI are useful and willing dupes.

    Blah Blah (44eaa0)

  248. Happyfeet, have you ever “dated” Milo?

    Blah Blah (44eaa0)

  249. Looks like Erik Prince is a patriot.

    Get Russians not to live it up with Iranians.

    Good stuff.

    Exactly what is the Russia boogey man story??????????

    Blah Blah (44eaa0)

  250. The thing they are comparing, or compared, to Watergate is the hacking of the Democratic National Committee. The Democrats would like to be responsible for what the Russian government did – but the facts aren’t close to that.

    Sammy Finkelman (07acc5)

  251. @266. Blah, blah, blah…

    Get an education; looks more like Erik Prince is Betsy DeVos’ brother.

    DCSCA (797bc0)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.2144 secs.