President 'The Donald' Trump and Surprising Consequences - Mod warning in OP

PopePalpatine

demfad wrote: »

Putin's not going to pleased that his circle is so tiny. :pac:

Professor Moriarty

Odds on Trump being impeached or resigning during first term:

Three weeks ago: 6/4
Last week: 11/10
This morning: 1/1
This afternoon: 10/11

Hank Scorpio

And *poof* there goes your narrative

https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/831929420973735936

demfad

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Putin's not going to pleased that his circle is so tiny. :pac:

If you take two people who are linked and google you can find underlying articles/connections.

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/211152/trump-data-analytics-russian-access

Here is another thread of connections:

One of the bigger circles is a guy called Dimitri Firtash He is a Ukrainian (business-mobster) linked to Paul Manafort . Manafort was campaign manager for Putin Puppet and former Ukrainian president Yanukovich and was campign manager for Trump until Russian connections forced him to resign (he still lives in Trump tower and was always in background).
Firtash is also in control of a company called SCR which set up Cambridge Analytica. CA is the big data polling company that was used for Trump and Brexit. Bannon is on the board of CA.) Mercers have invested heavily in it and are hugely influential in it.
Over 10 years, the Mercers have worked with Bannon, KellyAnne Conway (all connected with the Religious Statist supra group The Council for National Policy: Conway is executive board, Bannon is there as teas party leader).
The Mercers funded the superpac that helped Trump. Bannon, Conway jumped from the superpac to lead Trumps campaign when the 'Russians' Manafort, Page etc. had to jump off.
Rebekah Mercer picked Sessions, Flynn and Pence for Trumps campaign.

When the media giggled that Trump didnt even know that the Whitehouse needed 3000 staff, they didnt see what this meant. That Mercer, Bannon, Conway had kept him blind. Now Rebekah Mercer was in charge of 'recruitment', first pick (with Trump's no-choice blessing) Bannon as her man in the oval office.
The Whitehouse has been filled deep with people either in or thinking in line with the CNP.
Betsy DeVos to make eductaion religious again. Climate deniers and oil men with enviroenmental and national park remits.
Deconstructors in charge of departments to take them apart, create small government. Huge damage will be done.

If Trump goes relatively quitely the CNP have a better replacement in Pence.

Howver, A big 9/11 style investigation (looking more likely) could see the Republican establishment destroyed and even the rising replacement (CNP) damaged badly.
Bannon admitted that this Christian or patriarcal nationalism is a world movement, a new world order. A huge investigation....wel who knows what might happen.....but it needs to happen i would maintain.

BabyCheeses

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

And *poof* there goes your narrative

https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/831929420973735936

What's with Trump supporters suddenly agreeing with the conclusions of investigations?

It was there bread and butter before.

Hank Scorpio

BabyCheeses wrote: »

What's with Trump supporters suddenly agreeing with the conclusions of investigations?

It was there bread and butter before.

It's either that or agreeing with charts like the one above that the pizzagate believers are so keen on.

El_Duderino 09

A question for Trump supporters

Ok so there has been a lot of controversy and tuscusdion of Donald Trump's Presidency in the last few weeks.

Has anything Trump has said or done changed your opinion of him in any way?

How would you characterise the first few weeks of his presidency?

Cheers

demfad

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

And *poof* there goes your narrative

https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/831929420973735936

Yes that is technically true but missing a big YET. Look at the bold below:
"Investigators have not reached a judgment on the intent of those conversations". Thats all.

You'll also note that Trump, Flynn, Pence, Spicer (yesterday) said that there had been NO contact whatsoever between campaign Trump and Russian intelligence agents or officials.

In light of the fact (only denied by Russia now) that Russia hacked and interfered with the US election relavent questions might be.

What was the nature of these conversations?
Why did Trump, Pence etc. lie about them taking place?
And with relation to Flynns dismissal: Did Trump direct Flynn to discuss sanctions with Russia?

Nice try. This isnt going away. It will all come out sooner or later.

igh-level advisers close to then-presidential nominee Donald Trump were in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence, multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials tell CNN.

President-elect Trump and then-President Barack Obama were both briefed on details of the extensive communications between suspected Russian operatives and people associated with the Trump campaign and the Trump business, according to US officials familiar with the matter.
Flynn scrambles White House
Both the frequency of the communications during early summer and the proximity to Trump of those involved "raised a red flag" with US intelligence and law enforcement, according to these officials. The communications were intercepted during routine intelligence collection targeting Russian officials and other Russian nationals known to US intelligence.

Among several senior Trump advisers regularly communicating with Russian nationals were then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and then-adviser Michael Flynn.
Officials emphasized that communications between campaign staff and representatives of foreign governments are not unusual. However, these communications stood out to investigators due to the frequency and the level of the Trump advisers involved. Investigators have not reached a judgment on the intent of those conversations.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/donald-trump-aides-russians-campaign/index.html

Hank Scorpio

demfad wrote: »

Nice try. This isnt going away. It will all come out sooner or later.

Funny thing is I've been hearing that since August.

26000 Elephants

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

And *poof* there goes your narrative

https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/831929420973735936

Sorry, Hank, but your repeated cross posting of this non sequitur is really grasping at straws. I know you havent read his latest article, because if you did you would see it does not support your 'narrative' at all.

Hank Scorpio

26000 Elephants wrote: »

Sorry, Hank, but your repeated cross posting of this non sequitur is really grasping at straws. I know you havent read his latest article, because if you did you would see it does not support your 'narrative' at all.

The moment these stories broke, I think it was the WaPo, they iterated the interactions anyone connected to Trumps team had to Russia wasn't election related and there was no evidence of collusion. Has this changed? Is there a single fact in all of this noise that implicates Trump in any way? Until then I'm not going to lose my nuts like all the liberal news outlets are.

Like I said on the other thread, the mood on conservative news platforms is entirely different. If they want to nail Trump, they need to come up with something of substance and not regurgitate stories the FBI have cleared him of multiple times since summer of last year.

Christy42

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Funny thing is I've been hearing that since August.

Well demfad is looking good on the this won't go away prediction. The it will come out I am less convinced of but at this point something will bring Trump down. He has gone to war entirely with the media and facts in general really. His whitehouse seems to be more leaks than boat and has shown complete commitment to being hostile to any critics which is not going to win many over.

Hank Scorpio

Christy42 wrote: »

Well demfad is looking good on the this won't go away prediction. The it will come out I am less convinced of but at this point something will bring Trump down. He has gone to war entirely with the media and facts in general really. His whitehouse seems to be more leaks than boat and has shown complete commitment to being hostile to any critics which is not going to win many over.

I agree with you in the point that attacking the Intel agencies was fruitless and it's coming back to bite him in the arse, the media not so much after what went on during the election.

26000 Elephants

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

The moment these stories broke, I think it was the WaPo, they iterated the interactions anyone connected to Trumps team had to Russia wasn't election related and there was no evidence of collusion. Has this changed? Is there a single fact in all of this noise that implicates Trump in any way? Until then I'm not going to lose my nuts like all the liberal news outlets are.

Like I said on the other thread, the mood on conservative news platforms is entirely different. If they want to nail Trump, they need to come up with something of substance and not regurgitate stories the FBI have cleared him of multiple times since summer of last year.

Why deflect to non-referenced WaPo stories? I talked about a specific NBC article that clearly stated that there is, in all probability, questions to be answered.

The thing is - he has not been cleared of anything because no investigation of substance has concluded yet. That will change in the near future.

Hank Scorpio

26000 Elephants wrote: »

Why deflect to non-referenced WaPo stories? I talked about a specific NBC article that clearly stated that there is, in all probability, questions to be answered.

The thing is - he has not been cleared of anything because no investigation of substance has concluded yet. That will change in the near future.

Because it's all speculation. Here's what the NYT wrote.

"American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officals said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they have seen no evidence of such cooperation."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

Christy42

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

I agree with you in the point that attacking the Intel agencies was fruitless and it's coming back to bite him in the arse, the media not so much after what went on during the election.

I would begin to start to think about being sympathetic about his complaints of fake news if him and his team showed the slightest care about what facts were. I care when the media are biased and publish lies but overall the media has not been terrible on this front. Trump and his aides however have many, many, many documented lies both big and small and he can go take a run and jump if he wants to lecture others about lying. Especially when his first reaction to everything is to cry fake news even if it is real.

It is obvious that Trump has no interest in cleaning up the media- he would be trying to set an example himself if that were the case but he is worse than them. He just wants people to stop believing the media so they only listen to what he and his team have to say.

Billy86

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Like I said on the other thread, the mood on conservative news platforms is entirely different. If they want to nail Trump, they need to come up with something of substance and not regurgitate stories the FBI have cleared him of multiple times since summer of last year.

Just to be sure, we're talking about the same FBI that are apparently investigating TrumpCo's Russians connections as we speak?

demfad

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Funny thing is I've been hearing that since August.

And Carter Page has been dumped from the campaign (connections with Russia)
Campaign Manager Paul Manafort has been dumped from the campaign (connections with Russia)
Flynn gone for same reasons.
A FISA investigation was started in October between Donald Trump's server and two Russian banks.
The FBI is leading a 5 Intel agency organisation into Trump/Russia ties.
There are two congress committee investigations.
There is a DOJ investigation into the FBI.

Everyone in congress knows that he is in cahoots. Individual Republicans (McConnell, Ryan) will act after the next blow.

Russian actually warned Trump yesterday to deliver on his 'obligations' (remove sanctions as per deal).

Today Putin instructed Russian state media to stop fawning over Trump.

When the big revelations come it will destroy everything that Putin thought he achieved in US and Europe and Putin himself will be in great danger after more sanctions are imposed.

Hank Scorpio

Christy42 wrote: »

I would begin to start to think about being sympathetic about his complaints of fake news if him and his team showed the slightest care about what facts were. I care when the media are biased and publish lies but overall the media has not been terrible on this front. Trump and his aides however have many, many, many documented lies both big and small and he can go take a run and jump if he wants to lecture others about lying. Especially when his first reaction to everything is to cry fake news even if it is real.

It is obvious that Trump has no interest in cleaning up the media- he would be trying to set an example himself if that were the case but he is worse than them. He just wants people to stop believing the media so they only listen to what he and his team have to say.

Sorry but that is complete BS. There's been a constant narrative of negatively coming from certain mainstream media outlets since he won the primaries. ( That's before going into the DNC Collusion ). The only thing that's changed now is that the narrative has switched to illegitimacy. You can talk about straight up lies if that's scale you're using to measure if the media are biased or not, what you fail to factor in is the narrative being told.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/301285-media-and-trump-bias-not-even-trying-to-hide-it-anymore

Trump and his camp have said stupid things, many of which were flat out false. Only a fool would dispute that and I'm not going to do that.

Hank Scorpio

Billy86 wrote: »

Just to be sure, we're talking about the same FBI that are apparently investigating TrumpCo's Russians connections as we speak?

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html?_r=0

What makes you think the outcome 3 months later will be any different?

demfad

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Because it's all speculation. Here's what the NYT wrote.

"American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officals said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they have seen no evidence of such cooperation."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

The fact that that there was constant communications between Team Trump and Russian intelligence/government officials is not in dispute or is it?

You are only disputing the reason. The Intel guys are not going to say that they believe there was a breach of the espionage act even if they believe it. They are saying enough to get an investigation started. The congress and then the courts will make their own conclusions.

Can you clarify your position: are you saying that these communications didnt happen (Trump wont even say that) or are you saying that the conversations were benign?

If its the latter give us an example of an innocent explanation...I cant think of any.

demfad

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html?_r=0

What makes you think the outcome 3 months later will be any different?

If there is a FISA investigation (needs probable cause and FBI can use a wiretap) then it would be ILLEGAL for the FBI to comment on it one way or another. In fact they usually give a GLOMAR response (we can neither confirm nor deny..).
That is the response that director Comey has been consistantly giving.
The NY office (which said nothing to be seen here) is responsible for criminal investigations which don't come under the FISA act.
The conneticut office does high security FISA investigations.

This is the New York Times post election admitting that it knew about ongoing FBI investigations into Trump but that it failed to report it.
Not only did it fail to support it but (as your link proves) it falsely stated that there was none.

There is a DOJ investigation into the NY FBI. A few of Guiliannis old pals in there will be sweating.

Christy42

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Sorry but that is complete BS. There's been a constant narrative of negatively coming from certain mainstream media outlets since he won the primaries. ( That's before going into the DNC Collusion ). The only thing that's changed now is that the narrative has switched to illegitimacy. You can talk about straight up lies if that's scale you're using to measure if the media are biased or not, what you fail to factor in is the narrative being told.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/301285-media-and-trump-bias-not-even-trying-to-hide-it-anymore

Trump and his camp have said stupid things, many of which were flat out false. Only a fool would dispute that and I'm not going to do that.

Well unless you want endless stories about his 5 year ban on lobbying the media are going to find it hard to publish 50% of their stories in his favour. Even with that there is the caveat that he just put lobbyists into positions of power directly.

I guess the economic speculation has been decent. Even on here the best I have seen in his defense are negative stories about democrats and that his connections with Russia have yet to be proven (which is some serious damming by faint praise).

Hank Scorpio

demfad wrote: »

The fact that that there was constant communications between Team Trump and Russian intelligence/government officials is not in dispute or is it?

CNN ran with that headline and conveniently left out the part there was no evidence or indications that the conversations had anything to do with the election or anything involving hacking/collusion.

Can you clarify your position: are you saying that these communications didnt happen (Trump wont even say that) or are you saying that the conversations were benign?

If its the latter give us an example of an innocent explanation...I cant think of any.

Who are the people named that are apparently connected? They are almost solely based on Paul Manafort who was a political consultant in the Ukraine. The reports state the contact happened a year before the election. The NYT article itself offers an innocent explanation.

"it's not unusual for American businessmen to come in contact with foreign intelligence officals, sometimes unwittingly, in Countries like Russia and Ukraine, where the spy services are deeply embedded in society."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

Hank Scorpio

Trump is holding a press conference

demfad

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

CNN ran with that headline and conveniently left out the part there was no evidence or indications that the conversations had anything to do with the election or anything involving hacking/collusion.

They didnt leave anything out and nobody said there was no evidence. All they said was that: Investigators have not reached a judgment on the intent of those conversations. Why are you deliberately trying to mislead?

Who are the people named that are apparently connected? They are almost solely based on Paul Manafort who was a political consultant in the Ukraine.

The named people are Roger Stone who is one of the longest in Trumps campaign Team, Carter Page who was put into the campaign team by Jeff Sessions and Manafort. Paul Flynn put on the team by Rebekah Mercer. CNN say there are more (not named).

The reports state the contact happened a year before the election.

No. The reports say that the communications were constant during the campaign, including you know, the time where the Russians hacked the election to help Trump win.

The NYT article itself offers an innocent explanation.
"it's not unusual for American businessmen to come in contact with foreign intelligence officals, sometimes unwittingly, in Countries like Russia and Ukraine, where the spy services are deeply embedded in society."

Again deliberately taken out of context.

However, these communications stood out to investigators due to the frequency and the level of the Trump advisers involved. Investigators have not reached a judgment on the intent of those conversations.
Adding to US investigators' concerns were intercepted communications between Russian officials before and after the election discussing their belief that they had special access to Trump, two law enforcement officials tell CNN. These officials cautioned the Russians could have been exaggerating their access.

Also. Paul Manafort was lying in his response when he said that he never knowingly communicated with Russian intelligence.

One of the Trump associates named in both reports is Paul Manafort, the shady veteran political operative who left the campaign last August when his unsavory ties to the Kremlin hit the newspapers. In response to the latest allegations, Manafort replied, “I don’t remember talking to any Russian officials,” last year, memorably adding that he had no recollection of ever being in contact with Kremlin spies: “It’s not like these people wear badges that say, ‘I’m a Russian intelligence officer.’”

That appears to be yet another untruth, since as I reported back in August, Manafort’s longtime friend in Kyiv, Konstantin Kilimnik, who served as his translator and sidekick during Manafort’s years as a political fixer for Ukraine’s then-ruling party, was remarkably open about his longstanding affiliation with GRU, that is Russian military intelligence. Kilimnik boasted of his GRU ties, which he didn’t discuss in the past tense only. For Manafort to say he’s never been in contact with Russian spies is therefore unconvincing.

http://observer.com/2017/02/donald-trump-administration-kremlingate-russia-mike-flynn/

Again can you furnish us with a reason why the Trump campaign would be constantly communicating with Russian spies during a presidential campaign when Russian inteligence was hacking the election to help Trump.

Could you also furnish us with a reason why Trump et al would insist that NO communciation whatsoever occured?

Overheal

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Trump is holding a press conference

ill catch the ex-post-factchecked version

Hank Scorpio

I answered your questions already. Spies don't tell the people they're talking to they are spies do they? Until something untoward comes out, everything is pure speculation.

Hank Scorpio

Overheal wrote: »

ill catch the ex-post-factchecked version

Har Har. :mad:

For the rest it's starting now.

Billy86

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html?_r=0

What makes you think the outcome 3 months later will be any different?

The US intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia had intervened in the election partly to help Trump. So why didn't they conclude that three months earlier back in October, what made the outcome different? Or why not in February 2016? Or 2015? Or 2014, even? Probably because investigations come about due to suspicions and evidence, and take time to reach their conclusions as more evidence comes available, crazy as that might sound.

Your link doesn't have an outcome by the way, it explicitly says the investigations have not been concluded. And here we are three months later, with more evidence coming available on which to help reach conclusions.