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Susan Anderson

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2650 on: February 09, 2018, 09:11:16 PM »
Oh right. I was thinking of Richard Blumenthal. I see Sidney Blumenthal is not the same guy. I know little about him, but "feeding" Steele is nonsense, particularly if it's coming from Malfoy lookalike and nasty Trey Gowdy. Working with Hillary Clinton was not a crime and she was not the villain of this piece. It was Republicans who defunded embassy security and spent millions and years trying to pin the result on her.

Steele was a respected MI6 operative, experienced about Putin and the Russian mob. Here's the testimony, again. http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180118/106796/HMTG-115-IG00-20180118-SD002.pdf

For example:
Quote
page 110: [Simpson, Fusion GPS] Well, I guess I would put it a little differently. So, I mean, the first thing that happened when this FBI stuff came out was that we were totally shocked. And Chris was concerned that something was happening at the FBI that we didn't understand, and that there may be some political maneuvering or improper influence. And, so, we were very concerned that the information that we had about the Russians trying to interfere in the election was going to be covered up. And this was some really bad stuff. We were now in late October, and It was clear that there was a massive attack on our election system by the Kremlin. And that it was, you know, a crisis, and that, you know, so we felt that this needed to be exposed.

[p. 164, there's not much more but it's perfectly clear about the professional antecedents of these people]
MR. SCHIFF: from your description of your relationship with Mr. Steele, I take it that you sent him to find what he could find. You didn't send him to go find evidence of candidate Trump entertaining women ...
MR. SIMPSON: No, but I think this underscores a really important point, which is that kompromat is a big deal for Chris Steele. It is not a big deal for Glenn Simpson, because my professional world is financial crime and politics and the other things. But he is in Russian intelligence.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2018, 09:26:56 PM by Susan Anderson »

TerryM

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2651 on: February 09, 2018, 09:29:25 PM »
TerryM. I have to quit this time-consuming and fruitless discussion soon, but your neverending sniping is not helping. Connecticut is right next to Massachusetts and I don't need a wiki to know what he's been up to. Senator Blumenthal is one of the good guys fighting the good fight, one of the few able to stand up to Trump and the Republican Congress. Faultfinding of our allies is blinding you to the real crimes being committed by the hour in my country!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Blumenthal

If you want an awful, check out WWE executive Linda McMahon who was his opponent. Yes, he's a tough guy. Weak people don't succeed and armchair critics are the least helpful when they demand perfection while ignoring real horrors.


As sidd has already pointed out, and as I had posted even earlier. We have been speaking of a Clinton operative named Sydney Blumenthal, not your beloved Richard Blumenthal.


Anyone can make a mistake, but you may want to revise some of your comments.
Terry

Susan Anderson

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2652 on: February 09, 2018, 09:31:41 PM »
a quick repris of the complexity of military decisions (yes, I would have stopped before replacing Mossadegh at the behest of BP and the UK, but that's past praying for) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh

We went in boots and all in Iraq
We tried to help in Libya
We stayed out of Syria

Result of all: failure, enemies, death, and ruined infrastructure

Susan Anderson

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2653 on: February 09, 2018, 09:36:12 PM »
TerryM:
Quote
your beloved Richard Blumenthal

I have already done so, caught it while I was checking up, due a niggle in my memory. And no, I am sick and tired of the blamefest and I'm not "editing" what I said. I've clarified about my lack of knowledge about Sidney Blumenthal's antecedents.

Your insistence on "beloved" is evidence of prejudice. I am allowed to say what I think, and I've tried to be patient. But all this negativity and microfocus is actively doing harm in my country, and I will do everything in my power to get people to stop blaming victims for what perpetrators do.

Please read what I've written for sense, with a struggle to make myself clearer and be patient with what looks like prejudiced bias to me, to try to understand why I'm making such a point of it.

Martin Gisser

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2654 on: February 09, 2018, 10:28:05 PM »
[...] "feeding" Steele is nonsense, particularly if it's coming from Malfoy lookalike and nasty Trey Gowdy.
You are too kind to this shameless polit criminal. He should be hanging at the virtual gallows ever since the Benghazi fake scandal.

sidd

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2655 on: February 09, 2018, 10:36:28 PM »
Ken White advises Trump (and everybody else)  not to talk to the FBI.

https://reason.com/archives/2018/02/08/donald-trump-shouldnt-talk-to-the-feds-a

White is a former prosecutor, and knows exactly what the feds do to suspects. I think there is a good chance that Trump may not take the advice.

sidd

TerryM

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2656 on: February 09, 2018, 10:44:09 PM »
a quick repris of the complexity of military decisions (yes, I would have stopped before replacing Mossadegh at the behest of BP and the UK, but that's past praying for) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh

We went in boots and all in Iraq
We tried to help in Libya
We stayed out of Syria

Result of all: failure, enemies, death, and ruined infrastructure
Ramen!



I don't understand your bolding of the blaming of victims thing. Who have I blamed? Who are these victims?
BTW, Where did I accuse you of editing your comments? I don't do that and I assume that you don't either.


I do recall Madam Albright opining that if 500,000 babys had been killed, that would be an acceptable price. re. Iraq
That's a bunch of victims, I think Albright's statement was and is appalling.


We came. We saw. He Died. Ha. Ha. Ha.
That was the straw that broke my decades of support.
Who is this victim that I'm blaming?


Trump didn't spend the night in Putin's house, that was Bill. Oh, and I don't find fault with Bill for his sleepover, Putin is not and was not the enemy.
If Hillary sold American uranium to Russia, I hope she got a good price for it. That's how free trade is supposed to work. Just like Moscow selling all those rocket engines to the States, that's how things are supposed to be done.


Find me a victim before accusing me of pillorying him, or her.
Terry

sidd

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2657 on: February 09, 2018, 11:01:45 PM »
Risen claims Russians want to sell the US government stolen NSA codes and Trump kompromat:

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/09/donald-trump-russia-election-nsa/

Information or disinformation ? Guess it depends on who you ask.

" ... they feed him some stuff that’s true, and some stuff that isn’t true, and some stuff that is demonstrably wrong." -- Quote from MacIntyre re Steele.


sidd

sidd

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2658 on: February 09, 2018, 11:31:01 PM »

sidd

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2659 on: February 09, 2018, 11:32:13 PM »

Martin Gisser

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2660 on: February 09, 2018, 11:34:03 PM »
" ... they feed him some stuff that’s true, and some stuff that isn’t true, and some stuff that is demonstrably wrong." -- Quote from MacIntyre re Steele.
Maybe it's time for some evidence. The only demonstrably wrong thing in the Steele dossier I'm aware of is "Kulagin".
« Last Edit: February 09, 2018, 11:39:58 PM by Martin Gisser »

TerryM

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2661 on: February 09, 2018, 11:56:11 PM »
" ... they feed him some stuff that’s true, and some stuff that isn’t true, and some stuff that is demonstrably wrong." -- Quote from MacIntyre re Steele.
Maybe it's time for some evidence. The only demonstrably wrong thing in the Steele dossier I'm aware of is "Kulagin".
This is faint memories from a few years ago, but didn't Steele show a meeting in Moscow between "Kremlin officials" and one of Trump's guys, that took place at a time when Trump's guy was actually trying a case in a US court? He may still be in the process of suing Steele or Fusion GPS IIRC.
Terry

sidd

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2662 on: February 10, 2018, 12:31:47 AM »
Forgot one important name from the Winer article: Nuland of "Fuck the EU" fame. So it's Shearer, Blumenthal, Nuland,Winer in the State-Steele connection.

sidd

AbruptSLR

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2663 on: February 10, 2018, 01:13:38 AM »
While Brand did not say why she is resigning, it seem likely to me that she does not want to be pressured by Trump over Russiagate, should Rosenstein get fired (as Brand would have replaced Rosenstein if he would have been fired).  This just shows what DOJ professionals think of Trump's recent interference with the DOJ:

Title: "Rachel Brand, No 3 justice department official, reportedly planning to resign"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/09/rachel-brand-no-3-justice-department-official-reportedly-planning-to-resign

Extract: "The No 3 official at the US justice department, Rachel Brand, is planning to resign, it was reported on Friday.

Brand, who has been in the job nine months as the department has endured a wave of attacks from Donald Trump and his supporters, is next in line behind Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Trump has reportedly considered firing both Mueller and Rosenstein at times.

The New York Times reported that Brand was leaving for a job as general counsel in the private sector.

Neither Brand nor a justice department spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment."
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SteveMDFP

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2664 on: February 10, 2018, 01:28:46 AM »
" ... they feed him some stuff that’s true, and some stuff that isn’t true, and some stuff that is demonstrably wrong." -- Quote from MacIntyre re Steele.
Maybe it's time for some evidence. The only demonstrably wrong thing in the Steele dossier I'm aware of is "Kulagin".
This is faint memories from a few years ago, but didn't Steele show a meeting in Moscow between "Kremlin officials" and one of Trump's guys, that took place at a time when Trump's guy was actually trying a case in a US court? He may still be in the process of suing Steele or Fusion GPS IIRC.
Terry

It was Trumps lawyer, Cohen:

"The dossier claims that Cohen met with Russian operatives somewhere in Europe, including Prague, to attend a meeting to “clean up the mess” created by public disclosures of other Trump associates’ reported ties to Russia.

Cohen has denied that a Prague meeting occurred, saying that he has never been to the Czech Republic. In May 2017, Cohen provided a copy of his passport to BuzzFeed that showed it had been stamped for entry and exit to the United Kingdom and Italy."

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/09/cohen-steele-dossier-gps-buzzfeed-332747

Of course, Italy, the UK and Prague are all in the Shengen EU zone.  Movement within the zone wouldn't entail stamping of a passport.  Yes, he's suing, but lawyers do this.  I don't think the meeting has been disproved, merely disputed.

Steele never stated that all the information was 100% accurate.  Intelligence agents get misinformed by informants, just like anybody else.

I suspect the dossier is largely accurate.  People doing such work for a living don't further their own interests by providing false research.  He had the contacts and background to do this work.

TerryM

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2665 on: February 10, 2018, 03:47:10 AM »
 Thanks Steve
That's probably the story I'm remembering, and as you said, it's disputed, not proven.
Terry

Rob Dekker

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2666 on: February 10, 2018, 04:16:13 AM »
The Shearer memo is interesting. It independently confirms the Steele dossier.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/30/trump-russia-collusion-fbi-cody-shearer-memo

Specifically this section is interesting :

Quote
Among other things, both documents allege Donald Trump was compromised during a 2013 trip to Moscow that involved lewd acts in a five-star hotel.

So it looks like both documents independently refer to the incident where Trump is with Olga Goldenshower and Lana Urinecostsextra  ;)
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sidd

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2667 on: February 10, 2018, 05:25:41 AM »

sidd

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2668 on: February 10, 2018, 05:52:08 AM »
Color me unsurprised: Trump blocks democratic countermemo:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43012430

sidd

Martin Gisser

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2669 on: February 10, 2018, 06:37:10 AM »
History on Shearer: Serbia/Bosnia and Libya:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419131/meet-cody-shearer-strangest-character-hillarys-vast-left-wing-conspiracy-brendan

sidd

"Hillary’s Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy" -- Hahaaaahahahaha... Sounds like right-wing bullshit to me. Maybe the article is (as often) better than the headline. Still, -> trash can.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2018, 06:43:30 AM by Martin Gisser »

Rob Dekker

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2670 on: February 10, 2018, 07:05:14 AM »
Please read what I've written for sense, with a struggle to make myself clearer and be patient with what looks like prejudiced bias to me, to try to understand why I'm making such a point of it.

Susan, you are spot on.
And let me assure you that the smearing of Blumenthal and Shearer that's going on in this thread remains empty and prejudiced.
 
Bottom line is that that Shearer's memo independently supports the Steele dossier, and despite the fact that BOTH the Shearers's memo AND the Steele dossier were communicated to the FBI in October 2016, the FBI decided that the only thing worth mentioning in public was that the investigation into Clinton's emails was re-opened.

Which reveals EITHER a pro-Trump bias within the FBI OR the FBI did not take Shearer's memo nor Steele dossier seriously.

Either way the current Republican position (that the FBI was pro-Clinton) is incompatible with the evidence we have.
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Alexander555

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2671 on: February 10, 2018, 07:18:12 AM »
How is it possible that you have illegals in the US army. Don't you have a juistice system anymore ?

AbruptSLR

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2672 on: February 10, 2018, 01:02:40 PM »
Color me unsurprised: Trump blocks democratic countermemo:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43012430

sidd

Release The Memo.

Title: "Dems respond to Trump by telling him to #ReleaseTheMemo"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/dems-respond-to-trump-by-telling-him-to-supernumberreleasethememo/ar-BBIW9tX?ocid=spartandhp

Extract: "Democratic lawmakers are blasting President Trump's decision blocking the release of a memo countering a GOP surveillance document, calling on Trump to #ReleaseTheMemo.

Democrats took to social media on Friday, seizing on the same rallying cry used by Trump supporters and Republican lawmakers to push for the release of the initial GOP memo earlier this month."
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Susan Anderson

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2673 on: February 10, 2018, 04:06:01 PM »
@TerryM: I got too heated, and no doubt it all came across as too personal. But please, you asked me to edit my comments, and I said I didn't feel I needed to. Since it was your demand, I'm surprised you turned the meaning on its head. [you used the word revise, I see]

As to blaming victims, that wasn't just about you. It is a general complaint I have about a left-leaning group who prefer to accuse Democrats for what Republicans have done. This blaming of allies and demanding purity only helps the real villains.

The other problem I try to highlight - and I am not innocent of this, perhaps noone is - is looking for evidence to support your point of view and ignoring everything else.

The problems with US vote cheating is that the minority party has been in charge, and they are very busy ensuring that this gets worse. Republican hacking of actual votes - and possibly Russian as well - has been around at the very least since the late 1990s. I made a study of this around the 2000 election and to my dismay I found it was as easy as having a password and changing an Excel document. The CEOs of vote machine providers were in many cases active Republican campaign execs as well. Nothing has changed, nothing has been done. Add to that gerrymandering, suppression, intimidation, and a range of other cheating techniques, and you get what happened in Virginia, where a 10% margin left the losing party's villains in charge of the legislative process and the next round of votes. I was a little shocked to find that in several red states polling places close at 6 pm. Working stiffs can't always get time off to vote, and if they don't have cars, getting to the limited daytime hours of places where they can get the limited means to satisfy voter ID requirements is not easy.

In addition, even when the courts rule, local authorities, put in place thanks to tactics well described in Jane Mayer's Dark Money, often refuse to enforce the law when the courts say Republicans have gone too far.

So in order to get these lowlifes out of office, we have to win by a landslide.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2018, 05:54:04 PM by Susan Anderson »

Susan Anderson

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2674 on: February 10, 2018, 04:10:07 PM »
The National Review is a vehicle for right-leaning Republicans. Not a reliable source, part of the Fox-Breitbart et al. megaphone.

Jim Pettit

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2675 on: February 10, 2018, 05:48:16 PM »
As to blaming victims, that wasn't just about you. It is a general complaint I have about a left-leaning group who prefer to accuse Democrats for what Republicans have done. This blaming of allies and demanding purity only helps the real villains.

+10,000. I participate in a number of politically-progressive fora, and what you've described is a recurring theme in most of them. Now, I remain convinced there are some on the Left who engage in Left-bashing for perfectly acceptable reasons, but the voices of those few are drowned out by disgruntled "Bernie Bros", rabid anti-Clinton types, and pro-Putin Russian bots. Over at Daily Kos, so-called "pie fights" break out in the comment section virtually any time someone dares to note that, like it or not, HRC beat Sanders in the primary, or that, despite what dolts such as Susan Sarandon may think, Clinton would by no possible measure be worse for America than Trump.

One sincerely wishes they would stop that nonsense.

Yes, the Democratic Party has a LOT of issues: it's too beholden to corporate interests, it's run by old-school moderates, and so on. And there are depressing signals that they'll blow the 2018 and 2020 elections by mindlessly pushing for boring, right-of-center "bipartisanship" when that is exactly the opposite of what's needed now. But there's a massive gap between recognizing and correcting those flaws, and giving fodder to the Right by continually beating the Hillary horse, or allowing one's own Putin infatuation to blind them to Russian interference.

TerryM

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2676 on: February 10, 2018, 05:55:53 PM »
Probably Definitely terrible wording on my part.


I was trying to convey the message that in the light of the new data you might wish to reconsider, review or possibly reorganize your thoughts.
"Anyone can make a mistake, but you may want to revise some of your comments."
I can certainly see how it could easily have been misread, and how easy it would have been for me to edit my original script.


The Diebold voting system has been a joke since the machines were installed. Where is the outrage? Why don't prominent Democrats do something about it whenever and wherever they are in power?
Why is it better to complain about the results than to change the system when you can?


I haven't flipped to JimD's position - yet.
But every time single payer is passed over. Every time Diebold is "certified" for the next election cycle, and every time a Democrat votes more money to the MIC, while increasing the suffering of the poorest of the poor, I wonder if I'm being taken advantage of. Taken advantage of by monsters that laugh when viewing their peers being sodomized with bayonetts.


I blame prominent Democrats because I still, stubbornly cling to the notion that the Democrats are the good guys. Republicans do evil things because they believe in an evil ideology. Why do Democrats abet them in their evil deeds?


Terry

Sigmetnow

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2677 on: February 10, 2018, 08:41:18 PM »
Quote
Under the so-called “doctrine of willful blindness,” reinforced by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in a majority opinion in 2011, juries are instructed to “consider whether the defendant deliberately closed his eyes to what would otherwise be obvious to him.”

Trump-Russia Isn’t About the Cover-Up. It’s About the Crime.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-russia-isnt-about-the-cover-up-its-about-the-crime
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

sidd

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2678 on: February 11, 2018, 12:24:55 AM »
nytimes confirms Risen story: 100K US$ paid to source claiming posession of NSA code, pee video, other trump kompromat

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/politics/us-cyberweapons-russia-trump.html

sidd

Buddy

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2679 on: February 11, 2018, 05:24:49 PM »
FOX (RT) News....."The Trump Channel.....where truth and journalism are dead."

Susan Anderson

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2680 on: February 11, 2018, 07:42:09 PM »
sidd, look at the source: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IG/IG00/20180118/106796/HMTG-115-IG00-20180118-SD002.pdf

Nobody is denying that the Clinton campaign (Perkins lawfirm) paid for the opposition research (originally funded by far right Republican FreeBeacon - https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/27/trump-russia-washington-free-beacon-fusion-gps-244265 - during the primary). That does not make the work corrupt: it's well sourced and independently confirmed.

What is corrupt is billionaire Putin asset Trump and his buddies. Most of the Steele dossier is not about the "pee pee tape" which is a distraction,* but about well known history on Trump's work with money launderers, investments from Putin allied oligarchs and the Russian mob that are unexplainable except in terms of using T to disrupt US trust, and a certain corrupt affinity amongst these fat cat profiteers (see picture of Trump and Kislyak yukking it up in the White House). There is no evidence that they "cooked up" evidence in direction collaboration with Clinton and the DNC, though Trump operatives Nunes and Republicans in Congress, who like their multi-trillion dollar heist, military buildup, voter suppression, and hate promotion, would like you to believe that. What Steele and Simpson found became urgent when Comey exposed the Clinton investigation while keeping the TrumpPutin election hacking one secret:

Quote
Well, I guess I would put it a little differently. So, I mean, the first thing that happened when this FBI stuff came out was that we were totally shocked. And Chris was concerned that something was happening at the FBI that we didn't understand, and that there may be some political maneuvering or improper influence. And, so, we were very concerned that the information that we had about the Russians trying to interfere in the election was going to be covered up. And this was some really bad stuff. We were now in late October, and It was clear that there was a massive attack on our election system by the Kremlin. And that it was, you know, a crisis, and that, you know, so we felt that this needed to be exposed.

You appear to have closed your mind to the obvious. Trump's behavior is a matter of public record since he emerged on the scene in his youth. He's always been willing to use corrupt means to get power and wealth. He's always exploited women. I think of Faust and Milton's Paradise Lost: "Evil, be thou my good."

Your willingness to provide a megaphone to Republican and Russian opposition trolling and ignore any evidence that contradicts your opinion is similar to the blindness of climate deniers.
______
*I've never believed Trump, who bugs his own hotels and is known to have listened in, would act out with prostitutes in Russia, though when he was younger he was possibly stupid enough to believe his "charms" conquered all and his libido was not to be denied. Simpson talks about the importance to ex-MI6 Steele of "kompromat" later in the transcript linked above (that and other interesting evidence emerges later, one bit around page 160 et ff.).
« Last Edit: February 12, 2018, 08:35:21 PM by Susan Anderson »

Susan Anderson

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2681 on: February 11, 2018, 08:11:42 PM »
I see I've repeated myself somewhat there, but won't retract it because the information continues to be ignored and misrepresented, and the original document is such a good source. It can't be cut and pasted so the representative extracts I provided will have to do.

Meanwhile, the NYT article (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/politics/us-cyberweapons-russia-trump.html), for those interested in the twists and turns of Russian manipulation of US public opinion, is a good read. Here's an extract which sums up part of it:

Quote
American intelligence agencies believe that Russia’s spy services see the deep political divisions in the United States as a fresh opportunity to inflame partisan tensions. Russian hackers are targeting American voting databases ahead of the midterm election this year, they said, and using bot armies to promote partisan causes on social media. The Russians are also particularly eager to cast doubt on the federal and congressional investigations into the Russian meddling, American intelligence officials said.
---
The Times obtained four of the documents that the Russian in Germany tried to pass to American intelligence (The Times did not pay for the material). All are purported to be Russian intelligence reports, and each focuses on associates of Mr. Trump. Carter Page, the former campaign adviser who has been the focus of F.B.I. investigators, features in one; Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire Republican donors, in another.

Yet all four appear to be drawn almost entirely from news reports, not secret intelligence. They all also contain stylistic and grammatical usages not typically seen in Russian intelligence reports, said Yuri Shvets, a former K.G.B. officer who spent years as a spy in Washington before immigrating to the United States after the end of the Cold War.
---
In December, the Russian said he told the American intermediary that he was providing the Trump material and holding out on the hacking tools at the orders of senior Russian intelligence officials.

The effort ended because the hacking tools, what the US really wanted and needed, weren't on offer.

TerryM

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2682 on: February 11, 2018, 09:08:57 PM »
Susan
Do you look forward to President Pence?
Terry

Susan Anderson

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2683 on: February 11, 2018, 09:21:37 PM »
Terry: No. I hope he will be caught up if there is a conviction. In many ways he's worse than Trump: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/the-danger-of-president-pence, the reason Trump is organized enough to do real damage: his alliance with the Koch organization. To be honest, I don't think Trump will be forced to step down, but I do think the truth needs to be presented in its full nauseating obviousness in a public arena. I hope for both houses of Congress by January next year, which will stop some of the rot.

Also to be honest, I'm losing hope that we will be in time to avoid climate catastrophe, for which we are not by any measure prepared. Luckily, I'm 70 and without descendents, so I can go gently (I hope) into that good night.

I'm safely ineffective in Massachusetts, where Warren, Markey, and Lynch will have no problem being reelected (Clinton 60%, Trump 33%). We have a good mayor too, and a decent Republican governor (they do exist).

Elsewhere, there will be vote cheating galore. That's where Russian hacking and Kochian (ALEC) tactics matter (AG Sessions and the Supreme Court are a problem there, as are local authorities who won't enforce the law).
« Last Edit: February 11, 2018, 09:28:09 PM by Susan Anderson »

TerryM

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2684 on: February 11, 2018, 10:41:45 PM »
Terry: No. I hope he will be caught up if there is a conviction. In many ways he's worse than Trump: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/the-danger-of-president-pence, the reason Trump is organized enough to do real damage: his alliance with the Koch organization. To be honest, I don't think Trump will be forced to step down, but I do think the truth needs to be presented in its full nauseating obviousness in a public arena. I hope for both houses of Congress by January next year, which will stop some of the rot.

Also to be honest, I'm losing hope that we will be in time to avoid climate catastrophe, for which we are not by any measure prepared. Luckily, I'm 70 and without descendents, so I can go gently (I hope) into that good night.

I'm safely ineffective in Massachusetts, where Warren, Markey, and Lynch will have no problem being reelected (Clinton 60%, Trump 33%). We have a good mayor too, and a decent Republican governor (they do exist).

Elsewhere, there will be vote cheating galore. That's where Russian hacking and Kochian (ALEC) tactics matter (AG Sessions and the Supreme Court are a problem there, as are local authorities who won't enforce the law).


Pence, I believe, would be much worse than Trump. However the fear of Trump being impeached is overblown.


No president has ever been removed through impeachment.
While the Democrats, with luck, may pick up some off year seats in the House, they need the vote of two thirds of the Senate. This can't possibly happen during Trump's first term, and if he proves to be popular enough to win a second term, it's extremely unlikely that the Democrats could have picked up enough seats in an election that leads us to Trump II.


Trump and the GOP are picking up voters even as Russiagate is screamed through the airways. According to fivethirtyeight, if elections were held tomorrow, the Democrats might or might not pick up a few seats, but they wouldn't win a house majority.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happened-to-the-democratic-wave/

How is this even possible after over a year of breathless accusations?


I gave up on our culture surviving climate change some time ago. Like yourself, I'm old and I can accept this.
What I don't want is our culture to suicide itself under mushroom clouds.
Prodding Russia, Korea, and China, makes little sense to me.

You and I lived through the first cold war. I don't need or want a replay. I had the opportunity to thank Sergei Khrushchev for the sacrifice that his family made, that allowed my family to survive.
Nikita was privately convinced that following his compromise during the Cuban missile crisis, he would be executed. He acted anyway, and a huge number of us are alive due to his actions.

Trump is almost certainly a one term president.
Rather than concentrating on ruining his already battered reputation, why not start grooming our 2020 field. Why not take some important stands that will assure Democratic wins in 2018 and 2020.

If you give the voters what they want, they will vote for you.
Terry

How many votes did they get for impeachment a few weeks back?

Rob Dekker

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2685 on: February 12, 2018, 04:38:16 AM »
nytimes confirms Risen story: 100K US$ paid to source claiming posession of NSA code, pee video, other trump kompromat

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/politics/us-cyberweapons-russia-trump.html

sidd

Is it just me or can somebody explain why the NSA went through so much trouble to obtain their own code back ? If it was hacked, it's out there. The genie is out of the bottle...

Also interesting that the NSA and CIA did NOT want the Trump kompromat, for fear that it would have consequences for higher officials being bullied by Trump.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2018, 04:43:17 AM by Rob Dekker »
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Rob Dekker

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2686 on: February 12, 2018, 05:00:22 AM »
How many votes did they get for impeachment a few weeks back?

I don't know about a few weeks back, but as of right now, the call for impeachment was signed by 4,691,587 Americans :
https://www.needtoimpeach.com/
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SteveMDFP

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2687 on: February 12, 2018, 05:06:31 AM »


Is it just me or can somebody explain why the NSA went through so much trouble to obtain their own code back ? If it was hacked, it's out there. The genie is out of the bottle...


I think the idea was to try to sort out which NSA tools were taken, and which were still secret.  I'm sure the NSA has a lot of different hacking tools in its library.

Of course, they could pay a lot of shady characters a lot of money, and still never be able to be sure that a given tool was still secret.  I'm glad they didn't fork over more than $100k to this guy.

sidd

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2688 on: February 12, 2018, 05:42:12 AM »
Let's see. They don't know what Snowden took. The latest debacle reveals that they don't know what the Shadow Brokers took. They had to be told by Kaspersky what was revealed by their moronic contractor who tried to pirate Microsoft, downloaded a virus ridden warez package while runnin Kaspersky AV.

These are the guys calling in drone strikes, and they wonder why they haven't won hearts and minds in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria and Somalia and Yemen and ...

So sad. My tax dollars at work. Although there may be some advantage to an incompetent secret police, rather than a competent one.

sidd

Rob Dekker

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2689 on: February 12, 2018, 05:48:04 AM »


Is it just me or can somebody explain why the NSA went through so much trouble to obtain their own code back ? If it was hacked, it's out there. The genie is out of the bottle...


I think the idea was to try to sort out which NSA tools were taken, and which were still secret.  I'm sure the NSA has a lot of different hacking tools in its library.

Of course, they could pay a lot of shady characters a lot of money, and still never be able to be sure that a given tool was still secret.  I'm glad they didn't fork over more than $100k to this guy.

I agree.
But the bottom line is that since they even attempted to get their code back, that they did not know exactly how (and where and when) the hack occurred. That is troubling to say the least.
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Rob Dekker

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2690 on: February 12, 2018, 05:49:07 AM »
Let's see. They don't know what Snowden took. The latest debacle reveals that they don't know what the Shadow Brokers took. They had to be told by Kaspersky what was revealed by their moronic contractor who tried to pirate Microsoft, downloaded a virus ridden warez package while runnin Kaspersky AV.

Do you have link to where you obtained that information ?
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TerryM

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2692 on: February 12, 2018, 05:53:09 PM »
The Dutch Foreign Minister has admitted that he lied when he told of Putin's plans for a "Greater Russia". His right wing boss is not going to fire him.


http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2018/02/zijlstra-admits-faking-story-about-putins-greater-russia-ambitions/

He claimed to have overheard Putin at an event that the Dutchman hadn't even attended. He now claims to have heard the tale from an anonymous source.

Terry



AbruptSLR

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2694 on: February 12, 2018, 11:10:13 PM »
It is probably wishful thinking on the part of Team Trump if they think that Mueller's spending will say at $10 million per year if/when Mueller starts indicting, and litigating, multiple parties beyond Manafort and Gates:

Title: "Trump budget anticipates Mueller investigation will stretch into fiscal year 2019"

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/12/trump-budget-mueller-investigation-404587?lo=ap_c1

Extract: "President Donald Trump's new budget projects that special counsel Robert Mueller's office will still be in business in fiscal year 2019 — even though White House officials have repeatedly said they expect the probe to wrap up soon.

The budget projects that Mueller's team will keep spending at its current rate of about $10 million per year in the next fiscal year, which starts in October."
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Rob Dekker

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2695 on: February 13, 2018, 09:41:08 AM »
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/317967-report-nsa-doesnt-know-the-extent-of-snowden-damage

https://www.wired.com/2014/08/snowden-breadcrumbs/

https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/11/19/kasperskys-carrot-and-stick-tao-compromise-incident-report/

sidd

Sidd, none of your links provide any info on which data the Shadow Brokers obtained.
Your last link comes closest, but does not mention Shadow Brokers either.
Why do you think your links provide any information on this issue ?
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2696 on: February 13, 2018, 09:31:27 PM »
To respond to the coming blue wave the GOP primarily seems to be attacking House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senator Tammy Baldwin, and Nunes' next memo will focus on attacking Susan Rice; all of which demonstrates just how misogynistic the GOP is.  Hopefully, female voters will give their response to this misogyny in November.  If so this should give Mueller an opportunity to report his findings to a Democrat controlled House in January 2019:

Title: "Democrats' 2018 advantages"

https://www.axios.com/democrats-2018-midterm-election-advantages-790cd461-9298-4db9-ba87-3a63e0b05c9b.html?source=sidebar

Extract: "Republicans are responding to this in a few ways, namely by relying on their traditional campaign playbook of attacking Nancy Pelosi, as NBC's Jon Allen noted. We've also seen outside conservative groups spending millions against Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

Bottom line: Of the disadvantages mentioned, Republicans can only really control fundraising and candidate recruitment. And anti-Trump resistance is a big underlying factor in Democrats' success since his election, which is one thing they're banking on for voter turnout in the midterms."
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Jim Pettit

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2697 on: February 13, 2018, 09:52:16 PM »
Greenwald dissects fake news (including the Dutch lie about Putin) :

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/12/dutch-official-admits-lying-about-meeting-with-putin-is-fake-news-used-by-russia-or-about-russia/

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/12/harvards-laurence-tribe-has-become-a-deranged-russia-conspiracist-today-was-his-most-humiliating-debacle/

sidd

Quote
Greenwald’s search for evidence of the vast liberal conspiracy against Trump has led him to ever more marginal targets. His most recent column focuses on the conspiratorial tweeting of Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor who has some unsound views, including a side gig as paid advocate for the coal industry. Greenwald recently equated some hyperventilating tweets by a biology professor with the abuses of power committed by J. Edgar Hoover...

The problem is that the search for anti-Trump conspiracy theories is the whole of Greenwald’s analysis. He sees, or allows himself to see, nothing but crazy charges against Trump, to the point where there is no room in his field of vision for Trump himself. And so it seems obvious for him to casually observe that the conspiracy theories of the far right have disappeared, when in reality they have more power and influence than ever before
.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/how-glenn-greenwald-made-the-russia-scandal-disappear.html

I, too, find Greenwald difficult to take now that he's gone 'round the bend, as they say, and both fully embraced, and been fully embraced by, the hysterical Right.

AbruptSLR

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2698 on: February 14, 2018, 12:21:34 AM »
The Kremlin is sufficiently concerned about the Navalny video that it might block millions of its own citizens from using YouTube or Instagram:

Title: "Russia Is Trying to Bury This Video—And Might Shut Down YouTube to Do It"

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/russia-is-trying-to-bury-this-video-and-they-might-shut-down-youtube-to-do-it/

Extract: "An investigation into a deputy prime minister, escorts, and a yacht sends regulators scrambling."
« Last Edit: February 14, 2018, 12:37:31 AM by AbruptSLR »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Russiagate
« Reply #2699 on: February 14, 2018, 12:44:05 AM »
When the State Department informed Russian ambassador Kislyak about the sanctions Obama was putting in place at the end of 2016, the ambassador’s first call was to:  Mike Flynn.  And the FBI was listening.

Trump camp ties to Russia were a transition quandary for Obama team
Rachel Maddow shows how a newly released e-mail from Susan Rice illuminates the challenge for Obama officials trying to decide how to communicate with Trump officials they knew were under investigation. Video, Duration: 20:10
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-camp-ties-to-russia-a-transition-quandary-for-obama-team-1160191043914
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.