a quick poll about Russia and Donald Trump

I'm convinced, they should stop looking into this immediately before they find something.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kwak5/the-same-twitter-bots-that-helped-trump-tried-to-sink-macron-researcher-says

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n14/david-bromwich/the-age-of-detesting-trump

it's interesting times when Vice and The Hill are covering the same stuff

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/340844-research-links-pro-trump-anti-macron-twitter-bots

This Maddow story about forged Trump-Russia NSA documents someone tried to pass on to their show Is pretty interesting.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/maddow-to-news-orgs-heads-up-for-hoaxes-985491523709?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_lw

"We look forward to a lot of very positive happenings for Russia, and for the United States, and for everybody concerned. And it's an honor to be with you."

I wonder if they have anything on Tillerson or if he's just playing a very long, single minded game to get favorable deals for Exxon. I have a hard time imagining how a guy like Tillerson thinks.

i have a hard time understanding why the CEO of exxon, whom trump had never met, is secretary of state in the first place. it's like there's no reasonable explanation that isn't outrageously fishy

they have similar fetishes

a reasonable explanation that's outrageously fetishy

damn, even the weekly standard is starting to call bullshit on donnie

http://www.weeklystandard.com/trump-caves-to-putin/article/2008751

I have a hard time imagining how a guy like Tillerson thinks.

"thinks"

not suspicious!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/trump-campaign-leaders-met-kremlin-linked-lawyer-report.html

not suspicious at all that our president* and our UN ambassador disagree about russian interference in our election

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/08/haley-russia-election-meddling-240323

but either way -- no big deal!!!!!! got some voter fraud to investigate (nudge nudge wink wink), taxes (and health care) to cut, climate change to deny, and allies to alienate! USA!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-team-says-theres-no-collusion-to-see-here

Before arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email.

The email to the younger Mr. Trump was sent by Rob Goldstone, a publicist and former British tabloid reporter who helped broker the June 2016 meeting. In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he was interested in receiving damaging information about Mrs. Clinton, but gave no indication that he thought the lawyer might have been a Kremlin proxy.

Mr. Goldstone’s message, as described to The New York Times by the three people, indicates that the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information. It does not elaborate on the wider effort by Moscow to help the Trump campaign. There is no evidence to suggest that the promised damaging information was related to Russian government computer hacking that led to the release of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails.

But the email is likely to be of keen interest to the Justice Department and congressional investigators, who are examining whether any of President Trump’s associates colluded with the Russian government to disrupt last year’s election. American intelligence agencies have determined that the Russian government attempted to sway the election in favor of Mr. Trump.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/10/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-russia-email-candidacy.html

them trump boys sure were in a pickle this time

spare a thought for poor hapless eric, who it appears no-one thought about bringing in to this whole mess

This is AP reporter @jonlemire's tweet from same day Don Jr., Kushner, & Manafort met Russian lawyer.

They met in the Trump Tower. pic.twitter.com/I8PCwK2hzA

— ProPublica (@ProPublica) July 11, 2017

why does bill simmons hate america?

https://theringer.com/donald-trump-jr-emails-russia-politics-8ccceec40cf

i don't get it why is Russia an "aggressor"? i dont understand why we should be so concerned with them specifically when we have been funding and supplying weapons to several countries that openly fund the terrorism we have been at war with for over a dozen years now? how is hacking some emails for a campaign manager treason compared to that?aaaaaa

That's not the question. For me it's the extent to which foreign interests possibly own an American president in the form of debt. Obviously this presents enormous ethical problems. Nixon and Kissinger had similar problems. I don't understand how you can dismiss this shit while still thinking I'm not queasy about jingoism over Russia. For months, Adam, you've assumed we're too densen to understand the essential problem, or you've taken this "LOL both sides do it" cynicism. I don't need to be schooled on Reaganism or Clintonism -- I lived thru them, and a commenter has to be pretty fucking stupid not to see how Trump is different. Some of us called our congressman when Clinton's "welfare reform" was on the verge of passing with the entire political establishment backing him. So please spare me your detachment from events. I take It you're not gay, black, or a woman.

i don't get it why is Russia an "aggressor"?

Do you understand why Nixon and Kissinger backing a coup in Chile against Allende was aggression? Russia is an aggressor because they used illegitimate means, covertly spreading lies and propaganda, to attempt to control the destiny of the USA for their own interests and purposes and not the interests of the people of the USA. That's aggression and fuck it if you can't tell that it is.

Adam "how is it a challop if it's posed as a question?" Bru, with the trenchant foreign policy compare-and-contrast

xp to Aimless why Kissinger and Chile instead of Clinton and Honduras?

even townhall (townhall!) is acknowledging the obvious

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2017/07/11/donald-trump-jr-released-the-emails--and-they-look-a-lot-like-um-collusion-n2353355

When a Clinton campaign person got leaks from Ukrainian Embassy:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/07/11/exploring-sean-hannitys-defense-of-donald-trump-jr-clinton-and-ukraine-did-it-too/

lol at hannity turning to politico as a source for his spluttering, desperate whataboutism

I can't believe I just read an entire piece on townhall.com

It's worth bearing in mind that Chalupa is what could loosely be described as an 'unreliable narrator'. A lot of the claims she has made about herself and her work are transparently untrue so pinning anything on the DNC simply through her own admissions about her activities isn't really that watertight. On the other hand, though, if what she claims to have done is correct, it would be pushing the envelope.

The ledger is more interesting, imo. I suspected at the time that it was a fabrication - but a fabrication that pointed to something that might be substantially true - and that looks like it could be correct. The story went that the book turned up out of nowhere, months after the POR offices were raided, and contained detailed lists of all the corrupt payments Yanukovich was making throughout Ukraine. The prosecutor's office timed the announcement with a leak that Manafort was under criminal investigation for bribery.

The best part of a year later, the criminal case against Manafort has been dropped, the prosecutor doesn't appear to believe the ledger has any evidentiary value and there hasn't been a single case of corruption brought against anyone in Ukraine referring to it - which is extraordinary in the context of the original claim for it as the Rosetta Stone to unpick Yanukovich's network of illegal payments, even given Kyiv's general reluctance to nail anyone for bribery.

It's all very strongly reminiscent of the documents that a Sunday Times (iirc) reporter happened to find after taking a cursory look at the bombed out compound of Saddam Hussain detailing oil-for-food bribery payments to George Galloway - which he successfully sued for libel over. It looks like a transparent plant.

However, Manafort was taking much more money than he ever admitted from POR, and clearly wants this all to go away, so isn't really in a position to make much of a fuss.

The ledger was the main thing that brought Manafort down but i occasionally wonder whether, given how badly he was running the campaign, this all backfired spectacularly. Had he not been forced out, and replaced by Bannon's more high-octane brand of evil, would Trump have done better or worse?

Jesus christ, there's someone named 'Chalupa' involved in this mess? Fuck this stupid novel we live in.

Important to note Russia's apparent goals of global destabilization, which are pretty ambitious. Meddling regionally, meddling here, meddling in Europe. Allies with and supporters of North Korea and Syria. And, of course, outright invading countries. All while suppressing freedoms at home and murdering dissidents there and abroad. They're more than aggressors, they're aggressive insidiously and sometimes inexplicably so. I don't know what's going on there and why, exactly, but Putin basically acts like Trump's fantasy avatar. I mean, he wishes.

Don't forget encouraging kids to commit suicide via the 'Blue Whale Game'

I agree Russia is an agressive agressor, but I'm not sure they seek global destabilization. They want regional destabilization for sure, when they can't outright occupy their neighboring countries, they want them to be weak, but the reason they keep fucking up Syria is because they want to keep their military base their, want to keep a military ally. That's stable for them.

i'd have more respect for russia if they elected a solid dane like lars dittmann mikkelsen president or premier or whatever putin is

Brother of Mads, btw.

Yeah, what is Putin these days?

Fred is correct that destablisation is not really the point - in Eastern Europe, Iran, Syria, Iraq, North Korea, etc, it has very much been about maintaining a favourable status quo that other countries, to some extent, want to upset. That sometimes gets mistaken for moral superiority from sections of the right and left, vs the actively destabilising US, when it's primarily motivated by self-interest.

with the consequence-free trump family robinson legally if not literally "the best" western free market usa!usa!usa!#maga can do, putin looks more and more like constantine the great to already shaky american allies :/

He really doesn't.

why Kissinger and Chile instead of Clinton and Honduras?

because Kissinger and Chile makes a stronger case for my point

i meant in the sense of botox, which ain't cheap

xpost

yeah there seems way way way more here than there was with Benghazi

100 times zero is still zero

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Monday, March 27, 2017 6:13 PM (three months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

btw, most of the news stories I heard or read yesterday about the meeting with the Russian lawyer kept emphasizing Donald Trump Jr.'s involvement, while barely mentioning Kushner's and Manafort's attendance at the same meeting. This puzzles me, since Kushner is a member of the current administration and Manafort was then the manager of the Trump campaign. Donald Trump Jr.'s importance is tangential compared to those two.

Well, half scoop is the son of two scoop, and you'd think daddy would be interested in what his eldest son is doing. Now, of course, two scoop is a straight up sociopath, so normal rules doesn't count, but it's not strange that people are focusing on jr.

The focus is on Half Scoop because he tweeted the emails, he agreed to the meeting, and he was the only one actually talking to the Russian lawyer; apparently Manafort was on his phone the whole time and Kush bitched out partway through

I found this very amusing: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/07/goalposts-wont-move

1) Don’t be silly. There’s no evidence that the Russians did anything untoward or that anyone involved with the Trump campaign even met with the Russians, let alone colluded with them for electoral gain. While in principle I support an investigation, in practice we should not waste our time on such distractions from the real issues.

2) Don’t be silly. There’s no evidence that the Russians did anything untoward that I personally find convincing. And while one or two people with the Trump campaign did have undisclosed meetings with Russian officials that they later forgot to remember when denying having them under oath, there is no reason to see that as being particularly suspicious. While in principle I support an investigation, in practice we should not waste our time on such distractions from the real issues.

3) Don’t be silly. The evidence that the Russians messed with the election comes from intelligence sources. ‘Nuff said. And while a myriad of people with the Trump campaign did have undisclosed meetings with Russian officials which kept slipping their minds when they were questioned about such meetings, there is no reason to see that as being particularly suspicious. While in principle I support an investigation, in practice we should not waste our time on such distractions from the real issues.

4) Don’t be silly. Remember: U.S. intelligence, a contradiction in terms. That, or the Deep State apparatus. One of those things. Sure, people involved with the Trump campaign met people connected to the Russian government to discuss colluding with them for electoral gain, but nothing actually come of it in this particular meeting so no harm done, amirite? And if any harm was done, it was to Hillary Clinton because of the bad things she did that, had she not done them, would have meant there could have been no collusion so her evildoing is the real story. Which is why, while in principle I support an investigation, in practice we should not waste our time on such distractions from the real issue, which is Hillary’s evildoing.

i don't get it why is Russia an "aggressor"? i dont understand why we should be so concerned with them specifically when we have been funding and supplying weapons to several countries that openly fund the terrorism we have been at war with for over a dozen years now? how is hacking some emails for a campaign manager treason compared to that?aaaaaa

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, July 12, 2017 3:01 AM (yesterday)

lol wow dude you were literally claiming three months ago that there was "zero" evidence of anything and now you've switched your line to "well it isn't treason!"

i assume if we ever have a tape of trump bragging about how good he is at committing treason your angle will be "i don't get it, what's so bad about treason anyway?"

Adam just admit you voted for teh Donald already

My article from last August describes open Kremlin promotion of Trump in 2014-2015, backed up today by WSJ report https://t.co/V2v3VOMOTT pic.twitter.com/sVoKLqXsyt

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) July 12, 2017