Real World Event Discussions
Deep state. MSM. Trump ...
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Friday, March 14, 2025 17:04
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Monday, February 20, 2017 8:03 PM
Comey's manipulation of the election - going public with an inconsequential detail of the Hillary investigation a week before the election, while releasing nothing about the investigations into Trump's Russia ties throughout the entire election cycle - seems like the clearest example of 'deep state' undermining democracy.
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"Objective truths are established by evidence. Personal truths by faith. Political truths by incessant repetition."
Russia's and Assad's War Crimes in Syria - http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60278
Evidence the Syrian regime sponsors ISIS - http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60521
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Monday, February 20, 2017 10:16 PM
Quote:What is the correct number of personal ties from outside the USA for the President? Probably zero. Obama got in trouble for having one tie outside, to Kenya. Trump has a few too many, which he refuses to clearly explain their nature. It is not like Trump has simple ties to siblings in Kenya. Or Russia.
Originally posted by DREAMTROVE:
If Trump has ties to Russia, so what? It's not a threat. Large international power groups are a threat, and they use external powers, like China and Germany on a globalist plan to essentially undermine national sovereignty and create an unelected neocon-communist elite that will be terrible for the environment, terrible for the population, terrible for the planet.
Every time we turn around, there's something new, and unexplained, linking Trump to Russia. Just a few days ago, FBI Director James Comey briefed the Senate Intelligence committee about the ongoing investigation of Team Trump and its ties to Russia, and all the chatter afterward was about how the senators seemed kind of shaken by what they heard.
Who knows? Maybe it all turns out to be nothing. But there sure is a lot of smoke out there. It's hard to believe there isn't a fire too.
Trump Pals Have a Plan For Lifting Sanctions on Russia
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/02/trump-pals-have-plan-lifting-sa
nctions-russia
A week before Michael T. Flynn resigned as national security adviser, a sealed proposal was hand-delivered to his office, outlining a way for President Trump to lift sanctions against Russia.
Mr. Flynn is gone, having been caught lying about his own discussion of sanctions with the Russian ambassador. But the proposal, a peace plan for Ukraine and Russia, remains, along with those pushing it: Michael D. Cohen, the president’s personal lawyer, who delivered the document; Felix H. Sater, a business associate who helped Mr. Trump scout deals in Russia; and a Ukrainian lawmaker trying to rise in a political opposition movement shaped in part by Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
....[Mr. Cohen] said Mr. Sater had given him the written proposal in a sealed envelope. When Mr. Cohen met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office in early February, he said, he left the proposal in Mr. Flynn’s office. Mr. Cohen said he was waiting for a response when Mr. Flynn was forced from his post. Now Mr. Cohen, Mr. Sater and Mr. Artemenko are hoping a new national security adviser will take up their cause. On Friday the president wrote on Twitter that he had four new candidates for the job.
The "Ukranian lawmaker" is a pro-Putin opponent of the current regime in Ukraine.
Sater is, um, a guy with an interesting background: "mafia linked," spent some time in prison, worked as an FBI informant, and spent several years as a close business associate of Donald J. Trump. Oh, and Sater was born in Russia and continues to have lots of contacts there.
And Cohen? Well, he's the guy who could actually get inside the White House and deliver the letter. You remember Michael Cohen, don't you? This jerk:
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Monday, February 20, 2017 10:54 PM
Meh. Obama had a lot stronger foreign ties than Kenya. As did Hillary. Meh to Trump too, but he has the lowest number of favors owed by anyone elected in my lifetime. Russia? Not that worried.
Edit.
So some people in Ukraine, a nation that has a 40% ethnic Russian minority, has some people who are pro-Russia. Color me surprised. Also, is it a reason to panic that a neighboring country has supporters? Would we panic if Canada was pro-American, or even pro-Mexican?
Also, speaking of, we live in a country with a 20% ethnic Latino minority, which has basically always been there ever since we conquered northern Mexico. That population is probably pro-Mexican. Is that a threat to national security? In order for there to be a parallel, the US latino populations slant toward pro-Mexico would have to be a threat to the national security of Russia.
I just don't see it.
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Monday, February 20, 2017 11:52 PM
Quote:Because Trump has not disclosed his tax returns, this means we have no real idea how his businesses operate or where they get their money. He might have multi-billion dollar ties to any country on Earth and we have no way of knowing which countries until he shows those tax returns. Trump loudly proclaims he has no deals in Russia, but the physical location of deals and buildings is not the issue. And Trump has not amassed the kind of sterling record of honesty that should make anyone inclined to simply take his word for it.
Originally posted by DREAMTROVE:
Meh. Obama had a lot stronger foreign ties than Kenya. As did Hillary. Meh to Trump too, but he has the lowest number of favors owed by anyone elected in my lifetime. Russia? Not that worried.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017 1:03 AM
By Bloomberg's Eli Lake
Quote:
The Political Assassination of Michael Flynn
... What's more, the Washington Post reported Monday night that last month Sally Yates, then the acting attorney general, had informed the White House that Flynn discussed sanctions with Kislyak and that he could be susceptible to blackmail because he misled Pence about it. If it was the lie to Pence that sunk Flynn, why was he not fired at the end of January?
A better explanation here is that Flynn was just thrown under the bus. His tenure as national security adviser, the briefest in U.S. history, was rocky from the start. When Flynn was attacked in the media for his ties to Russia, he was not allowed by the White House to defend himself. Over the weekend, he was instructed not to speak to the press when he was in the fight for his political life. His staff was not even allowed to review the transcripts of his call to the Russian ambassador.
There is another component to this story as well -- as Trump himself just tweeted. It's very rare that reporters are ever told about government-monitored communications of U.S. citizens, let alone senior U.S. officials. The last story like this to hit Washington was in 2009 when Jeff Stein, then of CQ, reported on intercepted phone calls between a senior Aipac lobbyist and Jane Harman, who at the time was a Democratic member of Congress.
Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-02-14/the-political-assas
sination-of-michael-flynn
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017 1:07 AM
By Damon Linker, self-described neocon
Quote:MORE AT http://theweek.com/articles/680068/americas-spies-anonymously-took-dow
America's spies anonymously took down Michael Flynn. That is deeply worrying.
The United States is much better off without Michael Flynn serving as national security adviser. But no one should be cheering the way he was brought down.
The whole episode is evidence of the precipitous and ongoing collapse of America's democratic institutions — not a sign of their resiliency. Flynn's ouster was a soft coup (or political assassination) engineered by anonymous intelligence community bureaucrats. The results might be salutary, but this isn't the way a liberal democracy is supposed to function.
Unelected intelligence analysts work for the president, not the other way around. Far too many Trump critics appear not to care that these intelligence agents leaked highly sensitive information to the press — mostly because Trump critics are pleased with the result. "Finally," they say, "someone took a stand to expose collusion between the Russians and a senior aide to the president!" It is indeed important that someone took such a stand. But it matters greatly who that someone is and how they take their stand. Members of the unelected, unaccountable intelligence community are not the right someone, especially when they target a senior aide to the president by leaking anonymously to newspapers the content of classified phone intercepts, where the unverified, unsubstantiated information can inflict politically fatal damage almost instantaneously.
The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 14, 2017
President Trump was roundly mocked among liberals for that tweet. But he is, in many ways, correct. These leaks are an enormous problem. And in a less polarized context, they would be recognized immediately for what they clearly are: an effort to manipulate public opinion for the sake of achieving a desired political outcome. It's weaponized spin.
n-michael-flynn-that-deeply-worrying
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017 1:24 AM
More Ukraine-style "color revolution" action from the always-honest NYT:
Quote:MORE AT https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/18/opinion/sunday/how-can-we-get-rid-o
How Can We Get Rid of Trump?
We’re just a month into the Trump presidency, and already so many are wondering: How can we end it?
f-trump.html?smid=tw-share&_r=2
If there's one thing that invasion of Iraq (Operation "Enduring Freedom") taught me .... which was consequential, expensive, involving 130,000 troops from the USA alone, not counting the contractors, coalition, and various wartime hangers-on, is that
THE UNITED STATES POPULATION CAN BE STAMPEDED INTO ANYTHING
ANYTHING
How it is that somewhere between 47-60% supported the invasion of Iraq? In what real world did the invasion of Iraq make any sense at all??? Didn't anyone bother to take a clear-eyed view of the so-called "threat" and notice that it was bogus? Didn't anyone notice the relentless torrent of propaganda, the rapidly- shifting and escalating narrative ... 9-11- terrorists -Curveball - aluminum tubes - yellowcake - bioweapons - chemical - nuclear- "east west north south somewhat of Baghdad" ... designed to keep everyone in a constant state of fear?
Has nobody noticed that the same techniques are being used to stampede us again now? That each half of our nation is being provoked into attacking the other? In what real world does that even make sense??
So let's look at the so-called Russian threat, because looking at all this in the rearview mirror, it will be demonstrated to be fake news, just like Iraq's fake WMD.
The so-called "Russian threat":
Does Russia have missiles on our border, like we have on theirs?
Is Russia constantly patrolling our coasts, like we do theirs?
Does Russia spend $600 billion on defense, like we do?
Is Russia bringing Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Brazil into the CSTO, like we've brought Slovakia, Slovenia, and Albania and Croatia into NATO?
Did Russia use the CTSO to destroy Germany, like we did with Iraq and Libya?
Did Russia create a refugee crisis?
Does Russia have 900+ military installations around the world?
What threat does Russia pose to us? Take a chill pill, and come back and tell us all ... finally ... what threat Russia poses to us. It's been a shapeless monster in the dark, used to scare people into destroying their own nation.
Right now, the only thing that is tacking this nation together is procedure. We have supposedly agreed on the rules of the game. Once you decide to overturn procedure, to openly cheer on a shadow government to get your way, you will be taking America back a realm where it hasn't been for about 150 years, if perhaps ever.
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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017 1:53 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Because Trump has not disclosed his tax returns, this means we have no real idea how his businesses operate or where they get their money.
Second, I'm sure there are irregularities on the tax forms of a guy who used to be a junk bond trader, but it doesn't amount to treason and is unlikely to.
Neither would dealings with Russia. The US govt. has dealings with Russia. HRC may not have been the owner of the 20% uS uranium stake that was sold to Russia, but she did oversee the sale and made $3 million off of it. The problem there isn't just national security, it's also a conflict of interests, profiting off a deal she's overseeing. If you were to dig through Trump's past, I doubt you'd find anything of this caliber, so what's the point?
Other foreign powers, the most embarassing thing for Trump would probably be the extant of his Mexican dealings. But what's the end game of such an investigation?
Most of this stuff jsut seems like HRC power plays, so why would they go anywhere else? HRC has ties to ISIS, she took 25 million from the Saudis, and if you can't trust the Saudis, who can you trust?
I suspect we have to accept Trump because of our failure to support a good candidate when we had one.
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017 4:25 AM
Quote:What is the point? Hillary is not President. Trump is. Your understanding of the Uranium deal is FALSE. www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-uranium-russia-deal/
Originally posted by DREAMTROVE:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Because Trump has not disclosed his tax returns, this means we have no real idea how his businesses operate or where they get their money.
Second, I'm sure there are irregularities on the tax forms of a guy who used to be a junk bond trader, but it doesn't amount to treason and is unlikely to.
Neither would dealings with Russia. The US govt. has dealings with Russia. HRC may not have been the owner of the 20% uS uranium stake that was sold to Russia, but she did oversee the sale and made $3 million off of it. The problem there isn't just national security, it's also a conflict of interests, profiting off a deal she's overseeing. If you were to dig through Trump's past, I doubt you'd find anything of this caliber, so what's the point?
It always astonishes me that people will defend Trump for not publicizing his tax returns. And for continuing to own a worldwide business while in the White House. (Yes, he signed papers for his sons' convenience, but he still owns the business.) Have you not paid any attention to why what Trump is doing has not been done by past Presidents? Not by any of them, ever.
It is NO EXTRA WORK for him to reveal his taxes. With his tax returns and business deals kept secret, Trump is free to take bribes even while he is in office. This is NOT a freedom that President ought to have. If you think that is a wise way to run the USA, you are mistaken. We will find out how big a mistake you made over the next 8 years.
If you think it is moral for Trump to be running his own business, with all the conflicts between his secret business deals and being the U.S. President, you are looney. Again, we'll find out how crazy things get in the White House with all of Trump's new business freedom that no previous President had.
And, by the way, Spiro Agnew, Nixon's VP, resigned because of his income tax returns. He was taking bribes while he was VP and not reporting on his tax returns filed while he was VP. At least Trump's VP Pence won't be resigning because he cheated on his taxes. Can't say the same about Trump. I would bet that Trump keeps his 2016 thru 2024 tax returns completely secret. Past Presidents didn't do that, but Trump will.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017 4:31 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by DREAMTROVE:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Because Trump has not disclosed his tax returns, this means we have no real idea how his businesses operate or where they get their money.
Second, I'm sure there are irregularities on the tax forms of a guy who used to be a junk bond trader, but it doesn't amount to treason and is unlikely to.
Neither would dealings with Russia. The US govt. has dealings with Russia. HRC may not have been the owner of the 20% uS uranium stake that was sold to Russia, but she did oversee the sale and made $3 million off of it. The problem there isn't just national security, it's also a conflict of interests, profiting off a deal she's overseeing. If you were to dig through Trump's past, I doubt you'd find anything of this caliber, so what's the point?
Other foreign powers, the most embarassing thing for Trump would probably be the extant of his Mexican dealings. But what's the end game of such an investigation?
Most of this stuff jsut seems like HRC power plays, so why would they go anywhere else? HRC has ties to ISIS, she took 25 million from the Saudis, and if you can't trust the Saudis, who can you trust?
I suspect we have to accept Trump because of our failure to support a good candidate when we had one.
Wow, OK, lets let the investigations move forward a bit OK? Second, Hillary is gone. Can't hide there anymore. Anyway two wrongs don't make a right. Trump can't justify his actions by criticizing Hilary while doing worse. Last, word is, when the Director of the FBI testified in front of congress they were very, very troubled by what they heard. Marco Rubio vowed to follow through to the end.
I have to add. I have never seen so many Republicans disavow so much of what a Republican president has to say or is trying to do. That's very telling if you seek truth.
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