US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

.

Transparency? I wonder, why should I care whether 'you' dont have any idea whats in the tax return of a sitting U.S. president His tax returns just as every other American citizen is their own business and private information. The only ones making it your business is the press and you. And neither of you count for jack squat. Someone could see my returns and get a good laugh. Revealing his could lead to his financial ruin. My advice is butt out and mind your own business in regards to peoples private information.

But if you must know ask Putin he probably already knows more than anyone.

[Oberon]

Is Pew Research fake news yet? Do we have a list of 'Non-fake news' sites, or should I just assume that it's just Fox News and Breitbart that are allowed to have news these days?

http://www.people-press.org/2017/02/...ply-polarized/

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Is Pew Research fake news yet? Do we have a list of 'Non-fake news' sites, or should I just assume that it's just Fox News and Breitbart that are allowed to have news these days?

you are over thinking this.

Does the story support your personal political opinions? Then it is real news

Does the story refute or challenge your personal political opinions? Then it is fake news

Just remember that if a news media ever publishes even one story that you don't agree with, every story that news media publishes from then on is fake news.

[Rockstar]

Many opinions about Hitler. Personally I have absolutely no admiration for the man. However few can deny his achievements in the first four years of his jihad.

Joachim Fest, German journalist and historian, “If Hitler had succumbed to an assassination or an accident at the end of 1938,” he wrote, “few would hesitate to call him one of the greatest of German statesmen, the consummator of Germany’s history.... No objective observer of the German scene could deny Hitler’s considerable exploits,”

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American historian John Toland. “If Hitler had died in 1937 on the fourth anniversary of his coming to power … he undoubtedly would have gone down as one of the greatest figures in German history. Throughout Europe he had millions of admirers.”

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Sebastian Haffner, German journalist and historian, also a fierce critic of the Third Reich and its ideology, his portrayal of the German leader in The Meaning of Hitler is a harsh one, the author all the same writes:

“Among these positive achievements of Hitler the one outshining all others was his economic miracle.” While the rest of the world was still mired in the economic paralysis, Hitler had made “Germany an island of prosperity.” Within three years, Haffner goes on, “crying need and mass hardship had generally turned into modest but comfortable prosperity. Almost equally important: helplessness and hopelessness had given way to confidence and self-assurance. Even more miraculous was the fact that the transition from depression to economic boom had been accomplished without inflation, at totally stable wages and prices … It is difficult to picture adequately the grateful amazement with which the Germans reacted to that miracle, which, more particularly, made vast numbers of German workers switch from the Social Democrats and the Communists to Hitler after 1933. This grateful amazement entirely dominated the mood of the German masses during the 1936 to 1938 period …”

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John Lukacs, another American historian has written: “Hitler’s achievements, domestic rather than foreign, during the six (peacetime) years of his leadership of Germany were extraordinary … He brought prosperity and confidence to the Germans, the kind of prosperity that is the result of confidence. The thirties, after 1933, were sunny years for most Germans; something that remained in the memories of an entire generation among them.”

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So the question is which part of Hitler are you prepared to associate with Trump? Genocidal maniac or statesman and economic genius? I will say this, its a good thing we have Presidential term limits in our country which prevents them from taking deadly advantage of such successes.

[eddie]

Latest quote from Trump-

"I see stories of chaos, chaos, yet it is the exact opposite," he said. "This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine, despite the fact that I can't get my Cabinet approved."

Seriously????

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politi...es/ar-AAn1sLG?

[Skybird]

According to Wall Street Journal, the US intelligence services intentionally withhold sensible informaiton from Trump due to fears that they would be leaked. They fear their work and sources could be compromised by the fighting going on in the WH, and between WH and external government services. https://www.wsj.com/articles/spies-k...ump-1487209351 The site is subscription-only these days. But several international media sites refer to it and retell it.

[Skybird]

And more of my former branch colleagues point at the relevance of Trumps symptomatic behaviour.

http://www.lancedodes.com/new-york-times-letter

Some of the peopole he has choosen into his inner circle, also are psychologically highly conspicious. Conway as one example, or Bannon.

Not reassuring, but in fact worrying.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Skybird

According to Wall Street Journal, the US intelligence services intentionally withhold sensible informaiton from Trump due to fears that they would be leaked. The site is subscription-only these days. But several international media sites refer to it and retell it.

....

U.S. intelligence officials have withheld sensitive intelligence from President Donald Trump because they are concerned it could be leaked or compromised, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.
The officials’ decision to keep information from Mr. Trump underscores the deep mistrust that has developed between the intelligence community and the president over his team’s contacts with the Russian government, as well as the enmity he has shown toward U.S. spy agencies. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump accused the agencies of leaking information to undermine him.
In some of these cases of withheld information, officials have decided not to show Mr. Trump the sources and methods that the intelligence agencies use to collect information, the current and former officials said. Those sources and methods could include, for instance, the means that an agency uses to spy on a foreign government.
A White House official said: “There is nothing that leads us to believe that this is an accurate account of what is actually happening.”
A spokesman for the Office of Director of National Intelligence said: “Any suggestion that the U.S. intelligence community is withholding information and not providing the best possible intelligence to the president and his national security team is not true.”
Intelligence officials have in the past not told a president or members of Congress about the ins and outs of how they ply their trade. At times, they have decided that secrecy is essential for protecting a source, and that all a president needs to know is what that source revealed and what the intelligence community thinks is important about it.
But in these previous cases in which information was withheld, the decision wasn’t motivated by a concern about a president’s trustworthiness or discretion, the current and former officials said.
It wasn’t clear Wednesday how many times officials have held back information from Mr. Trump.
The officials emphasized that they know of no instance in which crucial information about security threats or potential plotting has been omitted. Still, the misgivings that have emerged among intelligence officials point to the fissures spreading between the White House and the U.S. spy agencies.
Mr. Trump, a Republican, asked Monday night for the resignation of Mike Flynn, his national security adviser, after the White House said the president lost trust in him, in part, because he misstated the nature of his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump castigated the intelligence agencies and the news media, blaming them for Mr. Flynn’s downfall.
“The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy. Very un-American!” Mr. Trump tweeted.
iframe.twitter-tweet { width: 100% !important; }
Mr. Trump doesn’t immerse himself in intelligence information, and it isn’t clear that he has expressed a desire to know sources and methods. The intelligence agencies have been told to dramatically pare down the president’s daily intelligence briefing, both the number of topics and how much information is described under each topic, an official said. Compared with his immediate predecessors, Mr. Trump so far has chosen to rely less on the daily briefing than they did.
The current and former officials said the decision to avoid revealing sources and methods with Mr. Trump stems in large part from the president’s repeated expressions of admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his call during the presidential campaign for Russia to continue hacking the emails of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia stole and leaked emails from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign to undermine the election process and try to boost Mr. Trump’s chances of winning, an allegation denied by Russian officials.
Several of Mr. Trump’s current and former advisers are under investigation for the nature of their ties to Moscow, according to people familiar with the matter. After Mr. Flynn’s dismissal, lawmakers have called on the government to release the transcripts of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and to disclose whether Mr. Trump was aware of or directed Mr. Flynn’s conversations.
Two senior intelligence officials denied Wednesday that Mr. Flynn had engaged in extensive contacts with Russian officials. One of the officials said none of the other advisers had extensive contacts with Russian officials or engaged in any pattern of contacts.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he has heard concerns from officials about sharing especially sensitive information with Mr. Trump.
“I’ve talked with people in the intelligence community that do have concerns about the White House, about the president, and I think those concerns take a number of forms,” Mr. Schiff said, without confirming any specific incidents. “What the intelligence community considers their most sacred obligation is to protect the very best intelligence and to protect the people that are producing it.”
“I’m sure there are people in the community who feel they don’t know where he’s coming from on Russia,” Mr. Schiff said.
Tensions between the spy agencies and Mr. Trump were pronounced even before he took office, after he publicly accused the Central Intelligence Agency and others of leaking information about alleged Russian hacking operations to undermine the legitimacy of his election win. In a meandering speech in front of a revered CIA memorial the day after his inauguration, Mr. Trump boasted about the size of his inaugural crowd and accused the media of inventing a conflict between him and the agencies.
In a news conference on Wednesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Trump again lashed out at the media and intelligence officials, whom he accused of “criminal” leaks about Mr. Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador last December.
Mr. Trump didn’t explain Wednesday why he asked for Mr. Flynn’s resignation. Instead, he suggested the leaks and the media were to blame for his ouster.
“General Flynn is a wonderful man. I think he’s been treated very, very unfairly by the media,” Mr. Trump said. “And I think it’s really a sad thing that he was treated so badly.”
“I think in addition to that from intelligence, papers are being leaked, things are being leaked,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s criminal action. It’s a criminal act and it’s been going on for a long time before me but now it’s really going on.”
Reviving his line of criticism against intelligence officials during the transition, Mr. Trump said the “illegally leaked” information was from people with political motivations. “People are trying to cover up for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton,” Mr. Trump said.
A person close to Mr. Trump said he was reluctant to let go of Mr. Flynn because Mr. Flynn had vigorously supported him at a stage of his presidential campaign when few people did. Mr. Trump also felt Mr. Flynn did nothing wrong in his conversations with the U.S. ambassador to Russia and had good intentions.
“They both continue to support each other,” this person said.
For intelligence veterans, who had hoped that Mr. Trump’s feud with the agencies might have subsided, Wednesday’s comments renewed and deepened concerns.
“This is not about who won the election. This is about concerns about institutional integrity,” said Mark Lowenthal, a former senior intelligence official.
“It’s probably unprecedented to have this difficult a relationship between a president and the intelligence agencies,” Mr. Lowenthal said. “I can’t recall ever seeing this level of friction. And it’s just not good for the country.”
Several congressional probes are examining Russia’s alleged meddling in the election. On Wednesday, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee requested a Justice Department briefing and documents related to Mr. Flynn’s resignation, including details of his communications with Russian officials.

Submitted w/o comment ....

[skidman]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Many opinions about Hitler. Personally I have absolutely no admiration for the man. However few can deny his achievements in the first four years of his jihad.

some of Hitler's "achievements" 1933-1937

legal prohibition of all labour unions 1933

legal prohibition of all political parties 1933

abolition of the German constitution 1933

erection of the concentration camps Nohra, Dachau, Oranienburg, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen 1933-1937, ca. 350.000 inmates

Nürnberger Rassengesetze 1935 (look it up!)

Reichsweite Judenkartei 1935 (look it up!)

Your statement is absolutely unacceptable. Your post is the saddest post I have read on Subsim so far. Do we really have to go through this again? I cannot believe it.

Regarding Hitler's so-called 'achievements', read this: http://reason.com/archives/1999/08/01/nazi-economics

Just an example:

Hitler paid for his economic "miracle" partly by depleting his nation's gold reserves, which he used to import critical raw materials for the manufacture of weapons. When he took office, the Reichbank had reserves totaling 937 million ReichMarks; four years later, that figure was down to only 72 million ReichMarks. Massive government borrowing financed the rest of the government-driven economy. As [Historian Stephen] Roberts put it, "The Nazi state is being financed by short-term [90 day] loans--up to 15 billion Reichmarks by the end of 1936....In short, Germany is going round and round. She can get nowhere until she returns to normal economic conditions, but she is afraid to try and get back to those, because she fears economic collapse and social upheaval if she does so."

[ikalugin]

I have posted that stuff about intell services before you guys (in different threat though), I guess noone reads the links that I post

But yes, Trump really doesnt have a good relationship with his spooks.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Which doesn't make the dosier valid. Regarding the parts that (according to you) are substantiated by the FBI, would you care to enlighten me regarding their content?

The principal impetus for Flynn's resignation was the leaked data, with the leak being both dammaging (to US foreighn policy) and motivated by internal political factors. But I guess the next time Democratic party tries to pull of something like the Iran deal, or threaten 3rd parties with the use of strategic offensive weapons that would be conveniently leaked.

The report itself does not pass any scrutiny (did you even read it?) nor is it's author authorative as you claim.

I, in fact, did read the dossier and, in fact, I even printed the whole thing out; it has long been a habit of mine, since, school days, to have hard copies of anything I wish to analyze or study. I'm not anti-tech, but I do find it easier to do analysis of complex documents or evidence when I am able to place corresponding or conflicting elements of texts side-by-side rather than flipping back and forth, something I can't easily do on a web page or on a screen. I will admit I didn't read the dossier when it first became public; I only browsed it because, at the time, the coverage of the contents online and in the other press was mainly about the more 'juicy' parts, which I found uninteresting. Also, since there were questions about the documents provenance, I also waited until further details on that aspect emerged. When the name and reputation of the compiler also became public, I became more interested and I researched the name: Christopher Steele, former MI6 operative, Russian expert, with over 20 years of intelligence operations experience, and highly regarded within intelligence circles, both in the UK and abroad. He was the first in MI6 to have identified the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko, former FSB agent and anti-Putin dissident, as a "hit" engineered by the Kremlin. Steele was also the person who compiled and provided to the US FBI data and evidence used to break the corruption in FIFA, leading to dozens of criminal charges against FIFA members and, ultimately, the ouster of FIFA President, Sepp Blatter. Of course, you would know this if you had done a simple Google search; since you apparently didn't, here are a couple of links to start you off:

Christopher Steele: super-spy or dodgy dossier writer? The secret world of the man behind the leaked Trump document (12 Jan 2017) --

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7524191.html

Donald Trump dossier: intelligence sources vouch for author's credibility (12 Jan 2017) --

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...dossier-author

Unless you can find (I'm not going to do all your work for you) a reliable, detailed, documented source to refute the reputation of Steele, his capabilities, soundness of data, and effectiveness seem to be of a very high order...

Regarding your claim it was the "leaked data" and not the dossier that was the downfall of Flynn, where do you think the "leaked data" had it's origin? The FBI was motivated to investigate Flynn and others by intel contained in the dossier and they were further given to lending credence to the possibility some of the data in the dossier might have substance by the reputation of the compiler, someone with whom the FBI had previous and productive contact and in whom they placed a high degree of trust. The fact the FBI felt strongly enough about the veracity of some key elements of the dossier-derived intel to move their findings up the chain to both then President Obama and President-Elect Trump is ample evidence of how the FBI held the seriousness of the situation; and the FBI did not just take the dossier-derived intel at face value; using the dossier, the FBI asked for and received copies communications intercepts from other agencies such as the NSA and CIA; these transcripts were used to substantiate not only that alleged communication had indeed taken place, but, also the content and context of those communications. (There have been a number of jokes lately over the fact Flynn, with a long resume in intelligence, would have not been aware conversations between Russian officials and US citizens are routinely monitored and, also, that Flynn would hold such conversations over open, unsecured lines; the bigger and worse 'joke' is Trump actually appointing such a dismal idiot and then spending weeks trying to cover up his own misstep.) There was, in this case, no real "leaked data" that brought Flynn down; the data was already out there, in public, long months before Trump fired Flynn, it just needed substantiation which the FBI has provided and, given the Trump administration has only been carping about the data being "leaked" and neither denying the soundness of the data nor offering substantiated counter data of their own, it would seem, by all measures, those claims from the dossier investigated by the FBI are very highly likely true; only a formal adjudication process can finally, definitively tell the tale, but, since the Trump administration seems, somehow, not terribly eager to address breaches of law and possible treason by people in and around their camp, I guess we will have to wait for either other outside-the-administration legal actions ro run their course, or, another dismaying and embarrassing 'shoe' to 'drop'...

I also wish to make this clear: I do not in any way give any serious credence to the more "salacious" aspects of the dossier; it sounds like more of the sort of tabloid fodder. However, the dossier was a "raw data" compilation and, if you have ever done mass data compilation of any kind, as I have over many years, you would know how you start with the broadest of data sets and then refine and define, separating the 'wheat from the chaff' until you get a final, polished product. Steele did just that: he compiled as much data as he could find, good and bad, and then he moved it up the chains to those in a better position to polish; he did his job and he did it well...

So, ahem, I await your detailed, researched, and substantiated rebuttal or refutation. But please don't take too long: I may only have another 20 or so years to live...

Ahem...

Originally Posted by August

If he did he won't admit it.

Unlike a number of other posters who do hit-and-run drive-by-sniping of dubious 'facts' and, when challenged seem to have nothing to say of consequence in rebuttal nor offer apology for misstatements, I have, in the past, indeed admitted to errors and have, indeed, in fact, apologized for my transgressions; so, again, the above quoted statement is wrong: I have and will in the future, when necessary, "admit it". Will you?...




<O>

[vienna]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

I have posted that stuff about intell services before you guys (in different threat though), I guess noone reads the links that I post

But yes, Trump really doesnt have a good relationship with his spooks.

Perhaps you would kindly give links to the thread in question or the posts in question, please?...



<O>

[Bilge_Rat]

well Trump is on the right track, his approval rating is back up to 55%.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ..._index_history

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by vienna

So, ahem, I await your detailed, researched, and substantiated rebuttal or refutation. But please don't take too long: I may only have another 20 or so years to live...

Ahem...

The "Dossier" is not credible.

1. It was commissioned as a OPPO hit piece;

2. There are several proven factual errors;

3. None of the claims have been independently verified.

It is just rumors and innuendo.

More importantly, now that Trump is the President of the USA, he does not have to disprove anything. It is up to those who claim he is a Russian mole to prove their point.