General US Politics Discussion

[Creed Bratton]

Oh, is that why Dana Boente resigned today?

 

How do you keep allowing yourself to be so easily duped? The uranium deal was about Russia buying a controlling share in a Canadian company that had a mining license for 20% of American uranium. They don't have an export license. That uranium isn't going anywhere. And 20% of American uranium is not a lot. So this lie that it was a national security risk is truly a moronic one.

 

The idea here is obvious. They're trying to find a reason to fire Mueller because he was in charge of the FBI back then, so they're bringing up a made up scandal. Details of the "scandal" are apparently so complicated that Trump supporters will simply not bother looking into it, they'll just believe whatever they hear on their right-wing news source. Like sheep.

 

Nine people from different government agencies were involved in the uranium deal, by the way. That would be the Committee on Foreign Investments. Not to mention that the sale had to be approved by the governments of of South Africa, Kazakhstan and Canada. So either they're all in Russia's pockets or they have no idea how to do their jobs. Or, more likely than both of those options, there is no scandal and Trump is just looking for a way to discredit Mueller because Trump is a criminal and he needs a reason to fire the guy that's going after him.

 

As for the dossier, there's nothing illegal about opposition research. By the way, the initial deal was done by Republicans. Hillary just continued their work. But it's irrelevant who paid for it. Like I said, it's not illegal. It's another fake scandal designed to distract from the real one. The contents of the dossier weren't illegally collected and nobody from the DNC or Hillary's campaign had anything to do with any Russians. The dossier was created by Christopher Steele using his sources. So there's no collusion with Russia there. And no, it wasn't officially discredited.

 

On the other hand, Trump campaign was actively trying to get their hands on Hillary's e-mails. Those e-mails were obtained through illegal means, which would make Trump campaign potentially guilty of a criminal conspiracy, since they can't legally seek to acquire them.

Edited October 29, 2017 by The Yokel

[sivispacem]

Spaghetti, your approach to this subject, "throw as much disparate and often entirely unrelated stuff at the wall in the vain hope that some of it sticks", isn't really conducive to having a coherent discussion on the subject. But given your proclivity towards misrepresentation, conspiracy, insults and assertion ad infinitum that your reading or interpretation of comments and events is correct, even when it's obviously not, I don't think you actually have much, if any, interest in having a coherent discussion.

 

The fact you have to resort to a Gish gallop of different arguments, some which are scarcely related; some which are obvious tu quoque; some of which you make non sequitur conclusions from, doesn't really sell confidence or coherence.

 

With that in mind let's look at some specific claims:

 

See Mr. Manafort was playing both sides, he was also working for the DNC and Mr. Podesta (well both Podesta's actually).

Citation needed here I think. I can find no evidence anywhere that Manafort "played both sides" with respect to the election. It's common knowledge that he championed Russian and Ukrainian (under Yanokovich, so basically Russian) causes in the US during the Obama administration, but this has little to do with the Podesta brothers or the DNC apart from them helping to architect his downfall vis-a-vis breaches of the Logan Act in Russia and Ukraine.

 

It was reviled this week (interesting how this thread got locked just when all this info was coming out...) that the Clinton Campaign paid Fusion GPS for the discredited and debunked pee-pee dosser. The sources for the dossier were...wait for it...wait for it...Russian Intelligence operatives. Yes, it's true!

So there was Russian interference in the election, and the Democrat National Committee paid for it!

An interesting mingling of fact and fiction here. Yes, it was confirmed that people involved in the Clinton campaign contributed to the funding the opposition research dossier on Trump. This wasn't really a revelation seen as it was confirmed months ago. But this narrative conveniently ignores a number of other facts of the case.

 

Firstly, the dossier was initially embarked upon, and partially funded by, Republicans opposed to Trump. This took place "early" 2016 though exact dates don't appear to be clear. They ended their funding when Trump won the nomination, which was May. The dossier was released to the FBI in "mid" 2016, which is probably August at the latest. This begs the question- who was actually paying for the dossier at the time when Steele was hitting up his contacts in the Russian intelligence services?

 

Your assumption seems to be that it was the Dems, ergo allegations of Russian collusion, but I'm not so sure. Steele is ex-MI6, so one can assume that's he's going to produce his dossier, which is in effect a piece of intelligence analysis, in accordance with the intelligence cycle. That's collection, collation, analysis and production, with overarching planning and direction. Now I would think reaching out to some old Russian intelligence contacts as groundwork for collection which would suggest early in the process rather than later, but we simply don't know.

 

But even if it were accurate to say the Dems directly funded Steele to reach out to his shady spook contacts, so what? You appear to make the leap that this is illegal collusion, but this simply isn't the case. It's certainly unsavoury and underhand, but is is illegal for a private citizen to speak with contacts in Russia to obtain information on a political opponents? I don't think it is. It's kind of hard to see exactly what point you're trying to make, given the scattergun approach you've made, but it reads as a tu quoque something like "well the Dems funded opposition research that involved discussion with Russian intelligence contacts so if anyone is guilty of collusion they are". The problem is, though, that this doesn't stand up to the most basic scrutiny. A conversation had between two individuals as private citizens, even if one is a current serving member of the intelligence apparatus, is not equivalent to allegations of direct collusion between a foreign power and a political figure or their campaign. Intelligence officers speaking off the record, legally speaking, are not diplomatic representatives of a foreign government. Nor is information provided by them expressly endorsed by the government in question. Moreover, an accusation of collusion on the part of the Hillary campaign, Podesta or the DNC would require that someone explicitly directed Steele to seek out contacts linked to the Russian government rather than him doing so through his own volition as part of opposition research.

 

How would PDT know this was a hoax? Because it was in the post-mortem book written about the Clinton Campaign:

It's always fun when you grab the wrong end of the stick. The fact the Clinton campaign wanted to run with the Russia/Coney narrative is evidence of poor strategy but little else. The fact this was the chosen narrative to run with does not make it meritless; certainly Russian state sponsored interference in the election is an accepted fact amongst all but the most hard-line Trump supporters, including across a broad spectrum of the republican party. Eve Trump himself has acknowledged is, albeit in contradictory ways seemingly designed to downplay any impact it may have had.

 

Add all of that to the developing Uranium1 scandal

I struggle to see how this is a "scandal". There's little the US could do to prevent a Russian state enterprise taking a majority stake in a Canadian registered company; the only person with the power to "block" such a sale would be the President and even then Uranium One could just cease exploration operations in the US and just extract north of the border instead.

 

The Committee on Foreign Investments can make recommendations on whether or not a deal involving foreign state ownership of companies operating in the US should proceed, but not one of the nine members of that committee (one of whom was Clinton) voted against the deal.

 

It's worth noting that this has literally no impact on the US anyway, as the Nuclear Regulatory Comission forbids foreign transfer of uranium mined in the US without authorisation- something which was never even sought, much less granted, in the case of Uranium One.

 

Frankly the whole thing is a laughable storm in a teacup that Trump afficionados are conspiring to portray as some kind of clandestine deal. The irony in this case being your woeful misrepresentation of the deal itself, it's implications and the involvement of various different branches of government, executive agencies and other parties, comes scarcely days after you attempted (both incorrectly and poorly, I might add) to lecture me on the specifics of various branches of government and where their jurisdiction lies. Physician, heal thyself.

 

And now, as they say, you have the whole truth.

The feeble portrayal of yourself as an arbiter of factual accuracy is amongst the most hilarious things I've ever heard.

[El Dildo]

you can't call everything you disagree with Fake News when you're willing to trust sites like https://www.newsbusters.orgor http://thefederalist.com

[sivispacem]

On that particular note:

 

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/newsbusters/

 

"...moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy. See all Right Bias sources.

 

Factual Reporting: MIXED"

 

The Federalist fares a little better on factual accuracy, but it's still very right/right-o Terraria biased.

[Typhus]

With these indictments coming on Monday, I'm seeing a lot of talk about people potentially being arrested. How badly could this go for Trump, potentially? Could one of his children, for example, be affected?

[Raavi]

Manafort and Flynn (in that order) seem the most likely. I really don't see anything earthshaking coming out of this tomorrow, and probably not out of this whole Mueller investigation period.

[Spaghetti Cat]

Spaghetti, your approach to this subject...

 

Eh, I don't want to say that your wrong, that may be to confrontational, how about you are not quite correct? Does that work better?

 

There are a few moving parts here, so allow me to be clear. With regards to the Dosser, I agree that in all likelihood Fusion GPS was hired by a Republican at first. It came out this week that the man behind the Washington Free Beacon, a website I like and trust*, was the first. According to reports the charge was to investigate several Republicans (not named Rubio) during the primary. What I'm talking about, and where you get confused, is that the DNC took over AFTERWARDS and hired Mr. Steele to produce what finally came out. With that, how about we look at the timeline:

 

Mid-late 2015 - Free Beacon hired Fusion GPS to conduct research into Rep candidates.

 

June 2016 - First FISA request made on Trump associates (using this term loosely since we don't know, probably Carter Page in all likelihood) Request is denied.

 

July 2016 - Fusion GPS hired by DNC/Clinton Campaign, paid approx. $9 million. According to Director Comey FBI started looking into Trump collusion with Russia.

 

August 15, 2016 - hillary begins tweeting about Trump collusion with Russia.

 

October 2016 - Second FISA request on Trump associates approved. FBI in discussions to pay Mr. Steele for his work.

 

October 31, 2016 - Mother Jones reports about 'veteran spy who gave FBI information on Trump-Russia collusion.

 

November 2016 - Trump elected, Clinton looses.

 

Dec. 2016/Jan. 2017 - Russian collusion stories pick up full steam.

 

January 2017 - Now President Trump is briefed on dossier by Director Comey. Reports of the meeting are leaked to CNN.

 

Spring 2017 - Former FBI Director Muller charged with investigating Russian-Trump collusion.

 

 

So the question is did this dossier become the rational behind the FISA requests on Trump associates? It would appear so. If that's the case, did this fake opposition research become the entire focal point behind the Trump-Russia narrative? I'm proposing that it did.

 

Crimes? Ok let's look at those.

 

First it's illegal to give false testimony to Congress. It would appear that Mr. Elias did just that when himself and Mr. Podesta gave testimony before the Senate intelligence committee:

 

 

In recent closed-door interviews with the Senate intelligence committee, Podesta and Wasserman Schultz said they did not know who had funded Fusion GPS, the intelligence firm that hired British Intelligence Officer Christopher Steele to compile the dossier on Trump, the sources said.

 

Podesta was asked in his September interview whether the Clinton campaign had a contractual agreement with Fusion GPS, and he said he was not aware of one, according to one of the sources.

Sitting next to Podesta during the interview: his attorney Marc Elias, who worked for the law firm that hired Fusion GPS to continue research on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC, multiple sources said.

Links to FNN, hot air instead: https://hotair.com/archives/2017/10/27/cnn-podesta-wasserman-schultz-denied-funding-dossier-investigators-elias-present/

 

 

Number two, violation of campaign finance law for failure to disclose paying $9 million dollars to Fusion GPS.

 

http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/news/press-releases/hillary-america-dnc-failed-disclose-legally-required-information-about-funding

 

 

Number Three, if the reports about the Steele dossier and the FBI are correct, and that info was used to illegally spy on American citizens (apparently hundreds if not more) then it's a violation of Fourth Amendment Constitutional protections.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268230/how-obama-used-hillarys-dossier-spy-trump-daniel-greenfield

 

Those are a few that come off the top of my head, probably a few more that I'm not aware of.

 

Now compare that to the breathless coverage given to the one meeting between Don Jr and this Russian lawyer some time back.

 

You've asked me some time back if Russia has ANY interference in the election. Far from being a die-hard I actually agreed with you. But in a muck-it-up kind of way. The 'Russia stole the election' narrative has been run into the ground and you know that. So don't put me in a box that I don't belong in. My point with showing the book excerpt was to show that there WAS a connection in thinking the loss was related to Russia. It started that night and continues to this day, this is no accident. The irony of all of this that there was collusion, but it was with Hillary herself.

 

As for Uranium1, I don't know how to put this delicately but the Clinton's are crooks. Anyone who thinks they wouldn't sell out their country for a dollar is misguided. Hate Trump if you wish, but the idea that the Clinton's being payed somewhere in the range of $90 million for being good people is...what's the term...laughable. They were being payed for approval of the deal, how could it be interpreted otherwise? I would agree that Bubba is a good speaker, but not THAT good! If Trump on the other hand had been payed even $90 by some Russian it would be DEFCON 5. That's the hypocrisy in the matter.

 

Newsbusters, what's wrong now? I never claimed that they were impartial. Now how about the meat of the matter. The major news organizations are not doing their job, and I'd argue, actively covering it up. In-fact - http://amp.dailycaller.com/2017/10/28/cnns-undisclosed-ties-to-fusion-gps/

 

So there ya go, links and all. Enjoy.

 

 

*I do think WFB does good reporting and has some good people there, but they really fouled up on this one. IIRC the founder there was rabid #NeverTrump but paying opposite research firms to do work real reporters should do is just bad. I think this is the problem with todays news that much of the actual reporting is outsourced to outfits like Fusion GPS. That's why it pays to look at several different outlets. If nothing else than to double check. So even though I do like WFB, I'm also willing to call them out on something like this.

[Tchuck]

 

As for Uranium1, I don't know how to put this delicately but the Clinton's are crooks. Anyone who thinks they wouldn't sell out their country for a dollar is misguided. Hate Trump if you wish, but the idea that the Clinton's being payed somewhere in the range of $90 million for being good people is...what's the term...laughable. They were being payed for approval of the deal, how could it be interpreted otherwise? I would agree that Bubba is a good speaker, but not THAT good! If Trump on the other hand had been payed even $90 by some Russian it would be DEFCON 5. That's the hypocrisy in the matter.

 

How the hell are you linking Clinton with Uranium1? She was one of 9 others who approved the deal. What about the other 8? Were they also paid millions to approve it? Or did they do so out of the kindness of their hearts?

 

Not to mention, as sivis pointed out, no Uranium will be transferred unless authorization is granted. Which wasn't even sought; when it is sought, then you have your government to blame for the outcome. All this, so far, was "Russian state wants to own a Canadian mining company". Done.

[Creed Bratton]

How the hell are you linking Clinton with Uranium1? She was one of 9 others who approved the deal. What about the other 8? Were they also paid millions to approve it? Or did they do so out of the kindness of their hearts?

 

Not to mention, as sivis pointed out, no Uranium will be transferred unless authorization is granted. Which wasn't even sought; when it is sought, then you have your government to blame for the outcome. All this, so far, was "Russian state wants to own a Canadian mining company". Done.

Let's not allow facts to interfere with a good right-wing conspiracy theory.

[sivispacem]

With regards to the Dosser, I agree that in all likelihood Fusion GPS was hired by a Republican at first.

There's no "in all likelihood", this is confirmed fact.

 

What I'm talking about, and where you get confused, is that the DNC took over AFTERWARDS and hired Mr. Steele to produce what finally came out.

Wait, how is there any confusion here? That's just a repetition of what has already been confirmed?

 

With that, how about we look at the timeline:

Hang on, this timeline basically validates the assertion that Steele was most likely hitting up Russian intelligence contacts at a time Republican figures were bankrolling him. If it wasn't until July that the Dems started paying for Fusion GPS' work, the Republicans or their supporters been paying for it for almost a year, and it was August (or I suppose September if you really want to push the definition of "mid-2016") at the latest when Steele presented the finished dossier to the FBI, it would have been an almost complete document by the time the Dems took over funding it.

 

The Dems buying an almost complete piece of opposition research with all the legwork already done is a bit of a non-story.

 

So the question is did this dossier become the rational behind the FISA requests on Trump associates? It would appear so.

How so? If the Dems didn't take over funding of the dossier until July 2016 but the first FISA request was issued in June 2016, how can the dossier be the rationale behind the request? The Dems and FBI wouldn't get eyes on the dossier until 1-2 months later. So unless Republican figures had shared the initial research work with the intelligence community, or the IC had gained access to the dossier before this point, I struggle to see how this could be the case.

 

If that's the case, did this fake opposition research become the entire focal point behind the Trump-Russia narrative? I'm proposing that it did.

I would point to this as a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, but that would require the sequence of events to fit the theory which it simply does not. It reads very much as an attempt to shoehorn facts to fit a theory.

 

The question of what initially drove the FBI into looking at foreign state collusion with the trump campaign is one that hasn't been definitely answered and probably won't be until the investigation is complete, but contemporary reporting points heavily to the preliminary inquiry into Manafort's dealings with Russian and Ukrainian government figures which were already under investigation when the FBI announced they were looking into Trump team Russia links. I imagine operators working for the Russian intelligence apparatus stealing and leaking documents from political organisations in an attempt to shape the electoral narrative also features pretty highly.

 

So, do you have any evidence that the Trump dossier was likely the justification behind the inquiry. The timeline makes it pretty improbable generally, and nigh-on impossible if you want to pay the blame at the door of the Democrats. It simply does not follow.

 

First it's illegal to give false testimony to Congress. It would appear that Mr. Elias did just that when himself and Mr. Podesta gave testimony before the Senate

There are two separate things you seem to be conflating here.

 

The first is whether or not senior figures in the DNC and Democrat party had knowledge of the funding of Fusion GPS' to supply the dossier. I find it pretty unbelievable that as a whole they wouldn't, but I see no specific evidence that points to either of the cited individuals in question having specific knowledge. If they did have then yes, I'd absolutely agree they'd committed a criminal act in lying to Congress. But that would require some evidence they did in fact have prior knowledge and I don't see any being presented. I'm not saying they didn't lie, just that there's no actual evidence they have.

 

In the case of Marc Elias, he's a lawyer, not a political figure. It's possible that he was also unaware- the firm he works for may have been involved, that doesn't personally implicate him. But even if he did, that one's a bit of a non-issue as he's not a Democrat figure.

 

Number two, violation of campaign finance law for failure to disclose paying $9 million dollars to Fusion GPS.

This is...questionable. The DNC did disclose the payment, but it was made to a law firm for legal services rendered. We don't know the specifics of what the firm was asked to provide or roles it was asked to perform, but it all comes down to intent. If the DNC intentionally used Perkins Coie as a middle man to obfuscate the destination of funds used for opposition research then yes, that's a clear violation of electoral funding rules. But if the dossier was purchased by Perkins Coie as part of a wider set of services rendered to the DNC and Hillary for President then this is much less clear cut. To allege, as you do, it's categorically illegal, doesn't really ring true; the same can be said for all these points in fact.

 

Number Three, if the reports about the Steele dossier and the FBI are correct, and that info was used to illegally spy on American citizens (apparently hundreds if not more) then it's a violation of Fourth Amendment Constitutional protections.

Even if the underlying narrative were true- and given the timeline of events (putting the Democrat funding of Fusion GPS' after the initial FISA request) simply doesn't fit the story there's no reason to believe it actually is- this wouldn't necessarily be a Fourth Amendment violation.

 

Where does your assertion that collection of US citizens' communication data as illegal actually come from here? The cause, commonly championed by the likes of the EFF, that the entire FISA system that enables surveillance of US citizens' engaging in communication with foreign nationals can be subject to intelligence collection? Or the specifics of this actual case? You seem to suggest the latter, but you've not really made an argument asserting why specific FISA collection targeting individuals linked to the Trump campaign would be expressly illegal or unconstitutional. If those individuals were engaging in communications with foreign actors linked to other nations' intelligence apparatus, then such collection would be pretty much exactly what the Act was designed to grant the ability to surveil.

 

I mean, all if this assumes that there's no merit in the Steele dossier. You've repeatedly called it "fake" but that's more hyperbole than anything, let's be fair. It's "unproven" inasmuch as no claims made in it had been demonstrated to be factually true; equally, though, no part of it has been conclusively demonstrated false to my knowledge.

 

If the FBI did make counterintelligence movements off the back of the dossier that involved the surveillance of US citizens, what do we think is more probable? That they were engaged in a wilful fishing expedition using a document they knew was fabricated baloney to try and dig up dirt on Trump et al at the behest of the Democrats, as various less-than-reputable right wing media bullhorns are pronouncing? Or that they used FISA powers to investigate the veracity of specific claims in an unverified OR document that alleged the potential-future POTUS had been compromised by the FSB? If the document was nothing more than a character assassination piece, why was the FBI the first recipient? That's pretty exceptional for opposition research in and of itself.

 

The 'Russia stole the election' narrative has been run into the ground and you know that.

This narrative has been a convenient one for the Clinton campaign as it absolves them from Blane for their dismal failure, but that doesn't mean it's entirely groundless or false as you've repeatedly suggested. I'm glad to hear you accept the Russian interference, but the dichotomy between "Russia won the election for Trump" and "Russian interference in the campaign had no impact" is a false one.

 

As for Uranium1, I don't know how to put this delicately but the Clinton's are crooks.

This reads like an explicit admission of confirmation bias. "I have nothing to rebut your comments on Uranium One directly, but them Clinton's are corrupt so you can bet your bottom dollar there was something nefarious going on". Tail wagging the dog, whatever you want to call it.

[Typhus]

Paul Manafort is the first to be collared in the Russian inquest:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/30/paul-manafort-robert-mueller-donald-trump-russia-inquiry

There must be a hope that he might be able to lead them to the bigger fish. Trump's reaction will be very interesting. Hypothetically, can't he just hand out a pardon?

Edited October 30, 2017 by Typhus

[Creed Bratton]

He is a pretty big fish. He's the money laundering guy. Who better to go after than the money guy? But yeah, they probably went after him to flip him. We know he's tight with Russian oligarchs. If anyone knows the full extent of Russian involvement in Trump's campaign it's Manafort.

Edited October 30, 2017 by The Yokel

[Raavi]

Hypothetically, can't he just hand out a pardon?

 

Yes. He can also just fire Mueller. Both options would be extreme ill-advised at this point in time however. So far there is not even a single mention of Trump or the TRUMP company in the indictment.

[Creed Bratton]

Good luck pardoning a guy accused of:

 

7 Counts of failing to report/file foreign bank accounts.
1 Count of Misleading Statements
1 Count of Misleading Statements to FARA (the Foreign Agents Reporting Agency)
1 Count of Not Registering as a Foreign Agent
1 Count of Conspiracy to Launder Money
1 Count of Conspiracy against the United States

[Svip]

Trump won't pardon Manafort. Instead, the White House and President Trump are trying to distance themselves from Manafort, and also trying to talking about Clinton and Russia in an attempt to distort the news cycle.

[Creed Bratton]

It's a lovely read: https://www.justice.gov/file/1007271/download

 

OH SNAP: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-30/trump-foreign-policy-adviser-pleaded-guilty-in-mueller-probe

 

George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in secret!

Edited October 30, 2017 by The Yokel

[Cebra]

OH SNAP: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-30/trump-foreign-policy-adviser-pleaded-guilty-in-mueller-probe

 

George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in secret!

This is the real news getting overshadowed by Manafort's arrest. Papadopoulos is cooperating with the Mueller investigation. Read the 70-some page indictment against him - he met Russian officials numerous times, including a woman with Kremlin connections who claimed to be Putin's own niece. One of the pages confirms that other Trump campaign officials were fully aware of the extent of this collusion (my money's on Manafort, who was still campaign manager at the time), and the Russian even says verbatim: "Let's discuss. We need someone to communicate that DT is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal."

 

Collusion. Planned collusion. Even if Manafort's indictment is based off financial crimes of his own volition, his indictment says the crimes went into 2017 despite Trump's desperate claim on Twitter this morning. He will flip on anyone he can. There is collusion pointing in every direction but the God Emperor himself's, but nobody will ever convince me that someone at every single level of his campaign was aware of this except him. Manafort will flip on everybody to save his own skin, and God only knows what Papadopoulos has already told Mueller. I feel like this is as close to a smoking gun as we will get for the time being, and I have no doubt Mueller knows so much more.

 

It's a good day.

 

Edit: This is hard to follow, and Seth Abramson has done a write-up on Twitter both to summarize recent events and what they mean for the future of Trump's White House. Give it a read.

Edited October 30, 2017 by Cebra

[Creed Bratton]

This is the real news getting overshadowed by Manafort's arrest.

Oh this is definitely bigger than Manafort.

 

Wow, Fox News is already trying to find dirt on the judges in Manafort/Gates cases: https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/925079120584888320

Edited October 30, 2017 by The Yokel

[itsallup]

 

 

This is an interesting article. Apparently Trump will not block the release of documents concerning the death of President Kennedy:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/21/trump-jfk-kennedy-assassination-documents

I wonder how significant these may be. Though in truth I doubt it will be anything Earth shaking, as some people doubtlessly believe.

Just makes me wonder if these files are real or something for media stir.

 

They're quite real, I'm sure. And, as a lot of us thought, yielded up nothing which really challenged what we already knew about the assassination. It did give us further insight into the Russian perception of America during the Cold War - with how the Kremlin were apparently pegging LBJ as the culprit and interpreting it as some kind of coup. Which I believe they also thought about Watergate.

 

I am curious as to those documents Trump withheld. As he did so on the behest of the CIA, could it indicate a thawing of their relationship?

 

 

Russia with the USA is like Islamist whenever a bomb explodes anywhere. Whatever happens, they did it.

 

Typical. I doubt, though, that Russia has anything to do with it, or even go further as to say they arent a tad involved in Trumps election. They just like to take the credit.

[darthYENIK]

White guy kills 59 people with a rifle, not a terrorist.

 

Muslim kills half a dozen people with a car, terrorist.

 

Im so happy for the people who finally got to cure their terrorism blue balls when they got all excited after the first reports of the Vegas massacre, only to find out it was a white guy who has only had one picture of him taken ever, and he closed his eyes. You finally get to hoist your pitchforks at Islam again.

 

PS, when ISIS claims responsibility, try to remember that they also claimed responsibility for Vegas.

[Chiarii]

That's some really poor race baiting. I'm sure you can do better. There are other pictures of the Vegas shooter circulating, including his post-mortem shot. I'm guessing the reason why the one of him with his eyes shut is the most shown is because it's his most recent.

 

But yah, it makes sense to not lable the Vegas guy a terrorist considering we still have no idea what his motive was. That's kinda the point of terrorism... to have an agenda that you want to advance.

[HeteroDahmer]

I find it sad that even in tragedy, so many people just use it as an excuse to attempt to strengthen their own racial injustice beliefs.

Edited November 1, 2017 by HeteroDahmer

[Clem Fandango]

I find it sad that even in tragedy, so many people just use it as an excuse to attempt to strengthen their own racial injustice beliefs.

It's almost like we can use political discourse to understand and subsequently better society.

 

I don't know why you assume it's an 'excuse' either, a lot of people are frustrated at our society focusing all its fear and anger onto Muslims and ignoring it's much bigger problems.

[RedDagger]

The point here can also equally be taken as complaining about how a lot of people are quick to moan about Islamic terrorism the moment a brown person does something, but always tread carefully whenever a white person does something; salivating at the thought of a terrorist attack to use as ammunition to goad liberals and stir up hate for foreigners if it suits them.

 

But sure, yeah, you could also ignore that point for some strange reason we'll never understand.

[Chiarii]

The man literally left a note pledging allegiance to ISIS, so it's completely fair to call it terrorism.

 

The note the man in Vegas left was believed to be some kind of numeric calculation for bullet drop.

 

The New York terrorist had a specific agenda, the Vegas shooter's agenda is still unknown. It's apples and oranges.

[Creed Bratton]

So Manafort had three passports and he traveled to China under a fake name. Other than spies, who does that?

Edited November 1, 2017 by The Yokel

[Typhus]

Something I've been wondering in the last few days: The day before Manafort was hauled in, Trump's son-in-law took a sudden unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia. Do you think he was pre-emptively trying to flee the country in case it was him they were after?

[Clem Fandango]

The man literally left a note pledging allegiance to ISIS, so it's completely fair to call it terrorism.

 

The note the man in Vegas left was believed to be some kind of numeric calculation for bullet drop.

 

The New York terrorist had a specific agenda, the Vegas shooter's agenda is still unknown. It's apples and oranges.

I guess but is it not obvious anyway that the media would prefer to deal with Islamic terrorism than the fact that America has a problem with mass murders? I mean yeah maybe it's just those wacky jihadis again but this comes right after a bunch of guys fulfilled their right-wing meme fantasies by driving into crowds of protesters and the worst(?) mass shooting yet.

 

There have been a lot of incidents in the West where describing killers as 'Islamic terroritsts' is about as meaningful as describing Elliot Rogers an 'alt-right terrorist.' Sort of a token admission.

[Creed Bratton]

Something I've been wondering in the last few days: The day before Manafort was hauled in, Trump's son-in-law took a sudden unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia. Do you think he was pre-emptively trying to flee the country in case it was him they were after?

That would be a really dumb move. If I remember correctly he was involved with Saudi Arabia before, so it was probably related to whatever shady business he's been tasked with.

 

But these people aren't exactly geniuses so, who knows?

Edited November 1, 2017 by The Yokel

[Chiarii]

Donna Brazile is saying Clinton 'hijacked' the DNC. This comes just after Podesta gets indicted for his involvement w/ a pro-Russia Ukranian group. The left is getting exposed but this lack of ethics is something we've come to expect from the Democrats.

 

Bernie supporters should be more outraged about this than anyone, but I'm guessing that their blind, irrational hatred for the other side of political spectrum is greater than their integrity or ability to comprehend that their own leaders are the biggest threat to their party.