US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

And the prologue of each of these pictures...? One of the six western politicians stands way apart in this regard, has a past histoy with Russia that is very different from that of the others. I wonder whom it is.

[u crank]

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

And the prologue of each of these pictures...? One of the six western politicians stands way apart in this regard, has a past histoy with Russia that is very different from that of the others. I wonder whom it is.

Top right and middle left.

[Skybird]

Okay, such over-qualified clever returns need it maybe to indeed lay out black on white what I linked to just one page earlier. Obviously else some people cannot bring themselves to read it and then explain why they think this compares to the - in comparison - trivial financial misteps of for example the Clintons.

To really understand the Donald Trump-Russia story we need to go back to the Cold War, Harding says.

“He has a history of engagement with the Eastern Bloc, he married a woman from communist Czechoslovakia in the 1970s – Ivanka – and we know from de-classified files that Czechoslovak spies took a very close interest in the Trumps.

“If you then fast-forward to 1987, you have Donald Trump travelling on an expenses-paid visit to Moscow, that much was known. What I discovered was that the Soviet ambassador at the time made a concerted effort to flatter and butter up Donald Trump.”

Harding says the ambassador and his daughter visited Trump Tower and proceeded to tell Trump he was a “business genius” who'd built “the most beautiful building in America”.

According to the ambassador’s daughter, Trump melted. It was like “honey to a bee”, she said.

Trump had the kind of profile the KGB found useful and became the target of a classic KGB “cultivation exercise”, Harding says.

“We know from leaked documents they are looking for people who are vain, ambitious, narcissistic, perhaps unfaithful to their wives, corruptible and lousy analysts. And Trump ticked every single box.”

What they didn’t know was that 30 years later this man would be president.
“I think they thought he might be useful to them in some way.”

Trump was most probably what the KGB called a “confidential contact", Harding says.

“What we can say factually is the Soviet state spent hard currency bringing him over [to Moscow]. They would have bugged his hotel room – this is back in '87 – where he was staying round the corner from Red Square.

“He met Soviet officials, he discussed building a hotel, nothing came of it, but what was interesting when he flew back to New York six weeks later he took out three full-page advertisements in the New York Times the Washington Post and the Boston Globe criticising Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy.”

At that time Trump was making noises about a political tilt, Harding says.
“It didn’t happen, the Soviet Union collapsed … but then 5 or 6 years ago we see another concerted effort, this time by Vladimir Putin and his spy agencies, to get close to Donald Trump.”

During the 2016 presidential campaign, a dossier by a former British spy and expert on KGB espionage came to light and shone a light on the Trump’s Russian connections.

Chris Steele was engaged to write the dossier by a wealthy Republican, and when Trump became the GOP presumptive nominee the Democrats picked up the contract.

“Chris Steele didn’t know who the client was. He was basically hired because he was the go-to-guy on Russia and acknowledged expert on Kremlin espionage. He sent out a query to his secret sources ‘What is the relationship between DT and Moscow?’ Steel says he got a series of hair-raising replies.”

Steele’s sources confirmed a “well-developed conspiracy” involving Trump and Russia went back at least 5 years, Harding says.

“It was transactional, with Trump supplying titbits of information about Russian oligarchs in America and the Kremlin funnelling useful political intelligence to Trump and to some extent shaping his political ambitions.”
Steele was so alarmed at what he discovered he passed his information on to the FBI, Harding says.

Yet it was Hillary Clinton who received FBI scrutiny during the campaign.
“On the one hand, there was the Hillary Clinton email server, which was really a non-scandal and relatively trivial.

“On the other hand, there are allegations which senior people in Congress were privately being briefed about as early as September of 2016 that Trump was kind of in bed with the Russians and receiving information that was helping him, from a country that was traditionally an adversary of the United States.”

Steele expected the FBI to move expeditiously, Harding says, and he doesn’t fully understand why the Bureau didn’t.

“The FBI is a Republican-leaning institution, but I was told that the New York division, in particular, hated Hillary Clinton with a white-hot passion. I think there may have been a degree of politicking there."

Senior sources in the Obama administration told Steele they also knew what was in the dossier, but decided to keep quiet, fearful that Trump would use it as a weapon against them.

They were also supremely confident their candidate would win.
“In the end, they didn’t say a huge amount, and I think they now recognise that was a pretty terrible mistake.”

The whole imbroglio has been compared to Watergate, but Harding believes it to be more serious.

“Watergate was one group of Americans screwing another group of Americans. Whereas this is one group of Americans cheating by enlisting the help of an unscrupulous foreign power which had its own agenda – the goal being to destroy Hillary Clinton.”

We know from leaked documents [the KGB] are looking for people who are vain, ambitious, narcissistic, perhaps unfaithful to their wives, corruptible and lousy analysts. And Trump ticked every single box.

Harding says he asked himself a simple question when starting the book: “Why is Donald Trump so nice about Putin? He is so fantastically rude about practically everyone else on the planet.”

The logical answer is Putin has leverage, he says.

“There’s a long history of the KGB spying on people in their intimate moments, sending a tranche of young women to seduce westerners and diplomats and so on – they even had a name, they were called 'swallows'.”
There are also unanswered questions about flows of money from Russia to Trump, particularly after 2008 when “he was broke”, Harding says.

“Obviously Putin knows the full extent of this alleged conspiracy. He knows what money did or didn’t go from Moscow into Trump. He knows what Trump really did during these various Russian trips.

“The dossier alleges Trump has had a series of adventures, not just one.”
Robert Mueller, who is leading the United States Department of Justice investigation into links between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign, is “almost padding towards the front door of the Oval Office", Harding says.

“He’s not there yet, but he’s slowly approaching. I think that explains Trump’s agitated state of mind.”

Such a story you usually would expect to see just in a Hollywood spy movie. This ^ is what makes Trump's handshakes with Putin something different than Bush's or Clinton's or Obama's handshakes, AVGwarhawk, u_crank.

You Americans have a Russian bug in the oval office. You named him "Mr. President". And that is a coup that compares to nothing you guys are bringing up here. You get f-worded by the Kremlin, and all you care for is to bow down deeper and lift your rearends higher and calling that your precious free decision and your sovereignty by which you show the world how strong and great again you are. I call it differently. I call it "getting f-worded".

At least you won a prize: all laughter of the world will be on you. The damages yau cause however also will be felt by many others, and so that is where the joking ends. Winner by technical K.O.: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. What a formidable opponent in the Great Game! Repeatedly playing the biggest military power of the globe against the wall - without firing one shot at it, without taking one single return! Wowh. Since 1989, American diplomacy in Russia is a show of dilettantees. Yelzin made the dollar sign blinking in your eyes and so you got greedy and stopped actually seeing with your eyes. When Yelzin left, a new player seated at the table and tried fair deal, you played foul on him, and he immediately understood and changed the rules. And since then you have lost every point to him that was played over. You are not up to him. None in the West seems to be. John MacCain warned you of this man from early on. You did not listen. And so he makes his moves and scores as he wants, catching you unaware again and again and again.

[THE_MASK]

Better to be friends with a country that has a massive nuclear arsenal than enemies .

[vienna]

Interesting how so many of Trump's supporters, when faced with facts about Trump's corruption, duplicity, dishonor, and lies frantically leap up with claims about Clinton, Obama, etc., rather than directly, and honestly, address Trump's failings. I guess if they don't have legs to stand on, they've got to look to whatever they can pull out of their asses as a means of desperate deflection. Obama, the Clintons, et al, are not currently in the White House or even in positions of power or influence over the general population. If the Trumpers really think Obama, Clinton, etc. should be prosecuted in a court of law, then make it happen; I'll even support you in the criminal process if you can get charges filed; otherwise "quityerbitchin'" and grow a pair and a spine to go with it; if ya got nothin', ya got nuthin'. Saying someone else did so and so is not an answer to the question about why Trump is selling thing country out to Putin and others and why we, the people, should in any way support someone who is so abysmally unqualified to hold the office of Prsident. When the questions are asked about Trump's idiocies, it would be nice to hear an actual answer instead of evasion, deflection, schoolyard cries of "They did it first", platitudes or any of the other attempts at not actually answering the questions posed...




"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it."


-- Mark Twain





Trump and his cohorts are undeserving...

















<O>

[mapuc]

According to a Danish online newspaper, the US Senate has asked the translator who participated in the private meeting between Putin and Trump.

The (Senate) has what I understand, summoned this female translator.

I guess it has something to do with her professional secrecy

Markus

[vienna]

The whole question of the US translator for Trump is an interesting and complex issue. In a sense, the translator is an official employee of the US Government and not a specific employee of Trump, personally, so any sort of 'client privilege' for Trump is questionable if the client is, ultimately, the US Government. She could also be seen as a sort of 'recording' as if she were a recording device or other tech (in her case analog 'human tech') that might be present during other normal meetings. She could also be viewed as simply a witness, someone who happened to draw the straw and be present at the meeting. Her status needs to be defined before she actually is called to testify. In any case, if called to testify, it is severely doubtful she would testify in public: the content of any meeting at the level of a summit would be of the highest classifications and would only be able to be heard in closed door session. What I do find really amusing is Trump and his administration's claims there are no recording of Trump's summit with Putin. Given Putin was a senior officer of the KGB and given the still common Russian propensity to wiretap and/or bug anything they think might profit them, it is a stretch to actually believe Putin doesn't have recordings of the summit. But Trump apparently doesn't think there are any recordings. Why? Because Putin told him there are none...


















<O>

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Okay, such over-qualified clever returns need it maybe to indeed lay out black on white what I linked to just one page earlier. Obviously else some people cannot bring themselves to read it and then explain why they think this compares to the - in comparison - trivial financial misteps of for example the Clintons.

I did read the article Skybird. I didn't take it seriously but since you insist.

From your post..

“He has a history of engagement with the Eastern Bloc, he married a woman from communist Czechoslovakia in the 1970s – Ivanka – and we know from de-classified files that Czechoslovak spies took a very close interest in the Trumps.

Marrying a woman from Czechoslovakia is a slam dunk in the world of conspiracy theories. I spit out some good vodka when I read that.

What they didn’t know was that 30 years later this man would be president.
“I think they thought he might be useful to them in some way.”

Russians are so clairvoyant.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, a dossier by a former British spy and expert on KGB espionage came to light and shone a light on the Trump’s Russian connections.

Some parts of the dossier have been proven untrue. I should not have to remind you that this document was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Hardly an unbiased effort.

Chris Steele was engaged to write the dossier by a wealthy Republican, and when Trump became the GOP presumptive nominee the Democrats picked up the contract.

When I see something this inaccurate I know I am not reading something from an investigative reporter but a conspiracy theorist who only cares about the narrative, not the facts. Steele was not hired by a wealthy Republican. Easily googled.

In April 2016, attorney Marc Elias hired Fusion GPS to investigate Trump on behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). In June 2016, Fusion GPS subcontracted Steele to research and compile the dossier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump–Russia_dossier

Steele expected the FBI to move expeditiously, Harding says, and he doesn’t fully understand why the Bureau didn’t.

Steele misled the FBI about a key aspect of his dossier and they ended the relationship.

I could go on but why bother. This guy is a conspiracy theorist plain and simple.

Here he is being interviewed and it's kinda embarassing. Then he just logs off.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by sober

Better to be friends with a country that has a massive nuclear arsenal than enemies .

That's way too logical. You must be crazy.

People wonder why Trump is nice to Putin and won't criticize him in public. I can think of one very obvious reason. Trump, (who is really stupid) knows that you can't criticize a dictator or embarrass him in public and then expect to negotiate with him in private. You can criticize Angela Merkel or Theresa May in public because they are not dictators. They do the same to Trump. That's OK in a free and democratic world. But Putin is a dictator and is not criticized in his world. Not without repercussions. Doing it to Putin in front of millions of people, some of them Russians, would be the end of that relationship. But Trump is really stupid and he doesn't know that.

[Skybird]

As I said: the laughs are all on you, America. If that is all you have to say on Trump's history with Russia, not even mentioning his terrible manners, his intellectual impotence and his obvious contempt for women, you deserve every decibel of it. What a great, wise, educated, rational statesman you have! But I stick to it, you have made a Russian bug your president, and the more obvious that becomes, the more desperately you will defend him in order to not needing to realise that you did what you did.



Putin just grins. Inside. He plays not only Trump but millions of Americans like a fiddle.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Putin just grins. Inside. He plays not only Trump but millions of Americans like a fiddle.

Oh is that so? Just how exactly is Putin playing me like a fiddle? I mean here I am with a shiny new Trumpian tax break in my pocket, busy as heck at work because of the roaring economy, watching a solid pro-rkba SJC being formed, seeing the leftists howl in impotent rage.



From where I sit things are looking pretty good.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by vienna

Interesting how so many of Trump's supporters, when faced with facts about Trump's corruption, duplicity, dishonor, and lies frantically leap up with claims about Clinton, Obama, etc., rather than directly, and honestly, address Trump's failings.

I would say that one reason for this is that these people, now out of power , still seek to be part of the ongoing political discussion. let's see.....

Barak Obama breaks with tradition to criticize his successor. His wife has done the same.

Hillary Clinton is a non stop critic of Trump and his voters. She wrote a book.

Former Obama CIA director John Brennen has been a non stop critic of Trump and now works for NBC News where he says stupid things on the air.

Former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, not to be out done is the spook expert at CNN criticizing Trump.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden of the Bush and Obama administrations gets in on it to at CNN as well.

Former Obama FBI director James Comey says "all who believe in this country's values" should vote for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.

If these members of the former administration wish to continue contributing to the political discussion, good for them. It's a free country. But everything, and I mean everything they have ever done should be open for scrutiny. Most of these people have lied publicly, some have lied under oath. Some are guilty of other crimes. You want to play in the big league, expect a big league treatment.

The other option...go away quietly.

If the Trumpers really think Obama, Clinton, etc. should be prosecuted in a court of law, then make it happen;

I think you know that is not going to happen and is probably a good thing. The precedent set there would mean every new administration would prosecute people in the outgoing administration. But I see no reason why their misdeeds can't be pointed out.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Oh is that so? Just how exactly is Putin playing me like a fiddle? I mean here I am with a shiny new Trumpian tax break in my pocket, busy as heck at work because of the roaring economy, watching a solid pro-rkba SJC being formed, seeing the leftists howl in impotent rage.



From where I sit things are looking pretty good.

As I said, the GRU already has priced such little details in. The disruption of world trade, the self-inflicted erosion of the Western "union" and the overstretching of the West and the US are worth to allow you a little tax brake. If your country agrees to good-bye itself from world affairs and leave thigns to Russia and China instead, then that really is worth it.


Thats the trick in it. To make you do and will the self-isolation of your country and brakign ties you formed i decades before - and make you beleive that it its good for you so that you donot stop to fulfill Russian interests.



As I earlier said: America allows itself getting f-worded by the Kremlin. Some just take money for it.

[Jimbuna]

President Donald Trump has invited Russian leader Vladimir Putin to visit the US, in a move that drew startled laughter from a US intelligence chief.

"That's going to be special!" said Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, when he was told about the invitation during a live interview.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44895384

The show must go on apparently.