US Politics- Stay Gold, Pony Boy

[Martell Spy]

Obama on presidency: 'Anything you say can move markets or start wars'

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/obama-presidential-powers-warning-233629

John Lewis on Trump: ‘I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president’

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/john-lewis-donald-trump-not-legitimate-president-233607

 

Why Does Donald Trump Continue to Defend Russia and Attack U.S. Intelligence?

If collusion doesn’t explain his behavior, what does?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/why_does_donald_trump_continue_to_defend_russia_and_attack_u_s_intelligence.html

[Ormond]

34 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

 

Why Does Donald Trump Continue to Defend Russia and Attack U.S. Intelligence?

If collusion doesn’t explain his behavior, what does?

 

Well, duh, because he's a complete narcissist and therefore feels emotionally threatened by any idea that there was any influence on his election other than his own greatness. So he automatically believes that anything anyone tells him about the Russian hacking, no matter what evidence they present, has to be wrong. He can't take not getting 100% of the credit for his own success. And his lackeys know that if they don't back him up on this they'll be in big trouble with him.

[Dr. Pepper]

Trump says John Lewis is all talk, no actions or results

This man orange shit thing is out of fucking control.

[LongRider]

41 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Why Does Donald Trump Continue to Defend Russia and Attack U.S. Intelligence?

If collusion doesn’t explain his behavior, what does?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/why_does_donald_trump_continue_to_defend_russia_and_attack_u_s_intelligence.html

An interesting snippet from the article.  The Orange Shit Thing was briefed about the hacks on Jan 6 and later that day his spokesperson Conway said this:

Quote

 

Hours after the briefing, Conway appears on Fox News. She repeats Trump’s claim that the discussion of Russian hacking is “a political witch hunt.” Responding to a question about the intelligence officials who prepared the Russia report, she says Trump “will convene his own panel. … He wants to talk to his own intelligence community. He wants to talk to his own advisers about what makes sense moving forward.”

(my emphasis)  

Say what?  His own intelligence community?  Calling Sean Hannity!  Jokes aside, I find this really weird.  Does he have his own spooks on the payroll?  Who are they, what credentials do they have?  He has his own security force and now his own intelligence community?  Troubling.

[maarsen]

3 hours ago, Mudguard said:

It started as opposition research for Republicans, but when that money dried up, he found Democrats willing to pay for it.  I call that shopping the report around.  He eventually also passed the report along to a bunch of people, from intelligence agencies to reporters.  Apparently, the existence of the report was widely known among reporters, the intelligence agencies, and both Democrats and Republicans.

Would he have done this if he was really concerned about protecting his identity or the identity of his sources?  After passing the report to so many different people, it was inevitable that it would get out.  If there was any truth to his report, I think it's very likely that Putin can figure out who the leaks are.  I doubt that many people would have knowledge of the allegations.  All his sources, if they really existed and were telling the truth, have been put in jeopardy.  His family would have been put in jeopardy.  Seems massively unprofessional to burn your sources and it seems irresponsible to put your family in danger for a piece of opposition research.

More likely, this report was fabricated.  We still don't have any confirmation of any of the substantive allegations.  If this was a fake, then nobody would be put in jeopardy.

Allegations have followed Trump for years. Shady business dealings, multiple bankruptcies,  hiring illegal aliens to work for him, racism in rental housing complaints, child rape, and then there is the documented stuff like losing almost a billion dollars, mob ties,  the fact that no USA bank will lend him money, sexual assaults, more bankruptcies, his inability to form a coherent thought, and the list goes on.  Just read any New York newspaper going back to the 70's and you can develop just as damning a dossier on the man. The only new revelation for me was that he enjoyed golden showers.  And that explains his curious choice of hair colour. 

[maarsen]

2 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

An interesting snippet from the article.  The Orange Shit Thing was briefed about the hacks on Jan 6 and later that day his spokesperson Conway said this:

(my emphasis)  

Say what?  His own intelligence community?  Calling Sean Hannity!  Jokes aside, I find this really weird.  Does he have his own spooks on the payroll?  Who are they, what credentials do they have?  He has his own security force and now his own intelligence community?  Troubling.

Intelligence community?? More like a stupidity community.

[LongRider]

4 minutes ago, maarsen said:

The only new revelation for me was that he enjoyed golden showers.  And that explains his curious choice of hair colour. 

The piss jokes, long may they rain.

2 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Intelligence community?? More like a stupidity community.

This made me laff out loud!  High fives, man, high fives!

[LongRider]

Some Repub governors no likey the plan to kill O-Care and they are speaking up:

Quote

But Trump’s push comes as at least five of the 16 Republican governors of states that took federal money to expand Medicaid are advocating to keep it or warning GOP leaders of disastrous consequences if the law is repealed without a replacement that keeps millions of people covered. They include Govs. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Rick Snyderof Michigan, John Kasichof Ohio, Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Brian Sandovalof Nevada.

And more Republican governors might join with a Friday deadline to submit written proposals to Republican leadership on the Hill.

Trouble in Paradise?  Sad!

from here; http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/gop-governors-republicans-obamacare-233576

[Fragile Bird]

4 hours ago, Mudguard said:

It started as opposition research for Republicans, but when that money dried up, he found Democrats willing to pay for it.  I call that shopping the report around.  He eventually also passed the report along to a bunch of people, from intelligence agencies to reporters.  Apparently, the existence of the report was widely known among reporters, the intelligence agencies, and both Democrats and Republicans.

Would he have done this if he was really concerned about protecting his identity or the identity of his sources?  After passing the report to so many different people, it was inevitable that it would get out.  If there was any truth to his report, I think it's very likely that Putin can figure out who the leaks are.  I doubt that many people would have knowledge of the allegations.  All his sources, if they really existed and were telling the truth, have been put in jeopardy.  His family would have been put in jeopardy.  Seems massively unprofessional to burn your sources and it seems irresponsible to put your family in danger for a piece of opposition research.

More likely, this report was fabricated.  We still don't have any confirmation of any of the substantive allegations.  If this was a fake, then nobody would be put in jeopardy.

     

This MOFO is the guy who brought down FIFA!

Anyone who could finally, after years and years of complaints about the bribery sucking, fat old dudes who ran soccer like a fiefdom, marshal the goods in a way to start the arrests and charges flowing, has my admiration.

And there's a pattern here - he followed the crumbs left after years of rumours about Trump.

Your statement, "his sources, if they really existed and were telling the truth" says more about you than about Steele.

[Martell Spy]

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/14/14273180/john-lewis-donald-trump

John Lewis is the last person Donald Trump should be picking a fight with right now
This is not how Trump will lift his 37% approval rating.

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, Nasty LongRider said:

The piss jokes, long may they rain.

This made me laff out loud!  High fives, man, high fives!

I just thought of a title for the next iteration of this thread.

Urine good hands now! 

[LongRider]

2 minutes ago, maarsen said:

I just thought of a title for the next iteration of this thread.

Urine good hands now! 

+1

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I thought the next one would be 

Doom's day clock, inaugaration of the inaugarable

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

FB,

LBJ is not the person I would hold up for avoiding conflicts.  He was a horses ass and meglomanicial in his own right.

[maarsen]

6 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

+1

I am like Donald's women. I aim to please. 

[LongRider]

Just now, maarsen said:

I am like Donald's women. I aim to please. 

   Damn...............wish I'd said that!   

[maarsen]

My humour algorithm seems to be working well today. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Anyhow, while we are all busy taking the piss out of the Donald.

Has anybody commented on his exquisite top class list of inaugaration performers?

Which includes 3 Doors down (the American Nickelback), and a Bruce Springsteen coverband (it's better than original, believe me.)

I wonder, is anybody familar with US copyright law? Can Springsteen send his coverband a cease and desist letter prohibiting them from using his songs? 

 

[Mudguard]

7 hours ago, Mexal said:

You keep trying to wrap yourself in this logic but it's not sound.

1. There is nothing in his past to suggest it's fabricated. He is known as a stone hard professional who was in the business for a long time. He worked the Russian desk, lived in Russia for a few years, had strong relationships with the head of MI6, UK's Ambassador to Russia and everyone in the intelligence community. His work on the Fifa probe directly lead to multiple arrests. Everything we've ever heard about him suggests there is very little chance he made this up. You should read the articles because you clearly haven't (Mother Jones, Guardian, Independent, Independent 2, Huffington UK). There is zero reason that a professional intelligence office who has been a ghost his entire life would purposely out himself with a fabricated story, destroy all of his credibility and likely his business to put something out there he didn't believe. Give me one good reason why he would do that.

2. The suggestion he shopped it around doesn't exactly line up. Maybe the company that hired him shopped it around, but given he had no knowledge of either client, it's highly unlikely he had anything to do with it. And if by shopping it around, you mean being hired by someone then hired by another on the opposite side when the first client had no need for it, sure, then it was "shopped around". It's not like he finished the report, put it on an auction site then sold it to the highest bidder. From what the Independent says, Steele was so troubled by what he found, he continued to work past the election without payment. That doesn't sound like it's a guy who was just doing this for the money so he could "shop it around" especially as he gave it to MI6 and the FBI because he didn't think it should just be in the hands of Trump's political opponents, the ones who originally hired him.

3. A lot of people had it but that doesn't mean a lot of people had it from him. He gave it to the FBI. They didn't do much with it from everything we can see. Clearly they were so caught up in EMAILS! So he gave it to MI6 and a reporter (David Corn from motherjones). From there it got around. We have no idea if it'll burn his sources. We don't know the web Putin has or how connected this MI6 agent is. Clearly he felt that what he found was so dangerous that he had to give it to people who could investigate it, sources or no. And he's right. If there is any truth in there, it's a huge fucking deal for the United States and western democracy.

All that being said, we still don't have any idea if there is truth in there. Steele's sources could have been wrong or fed misinformation. Steele could have misinterpreted the intelligence he received. I don't know. There are reasons to doubt the veracity of the claims though Steele himself is not one of those reasons from anything I can see. Comey refuses to confirm whether he's investigating Trump's ties to Russia., which leads me to believe he is. The Senate Intelligence Committee is going to conduct an investigation into the Russian hacking and Trump's ties. MI6 is likely looking into it and I'm sure other foreign governments. So if there is any truth to that dossier, it'll come out over the next few months, whether in the US or in the UK (their reporting on this is much better than US). 

I've read plenty of articles where past colleagues vouch for Steele.  I just don't give nearly as much weight to those recommendations as do you.  His reputation is enough for me to take a look at the report, but after reading that mess of a report and the extraordinary claims it was making, I needed to see some evidence that corroborated the allegations.  I come from a science background, and when you make extraordinary claims, you need to back it up with an extraordinary amount of evidence.  This isn't science, so I'm not expecting a ton of evidence, but I do require at least some credible evidence to back up the extraordinary allegations made in the report.  And there has been no corroboration by any intelligence agency or news agency, despite them having the report for many months now.  I don't see why they need another few months at this point.  Expecting corroboration of any of the substantive allegations at this point seems about as likely as expecting the recounts to find evidence of Russian hacking.  If the report was just recently disseminated to reporters and intelligence agencies, I would agree waiting a few months to allow them to attempt to corroborate the allegations.  But we are way past that point already.

The report itself appeared to be shoddily put together.  Numerous typos and factual errors, including falsely accusing Michael Cohen of going to Prague to make deals with Russia, one of the bigger allegations in the report.  If he wasn't fabricating the report, then apparently he didn't really do any fact checking of his own.  The Michael Cohen allegation was proven false within a day or two of the report being released to the public.  Also, the report says nothing about the confidence level Steele had in his sources or the confidence level he had in his allegations.  Why didn't he include this?  How is the person commissioning the report supposed to interpret the allegations properly without that information.  It just presents everything as fact without any corroborating evidence whatsoever, making the report essentially useless as opposition research, but great for tabloid fodder.  This is the only work product I've seen from Steele, and based on what I've seen, I'm not impressed at all.

It's possible that instead of fabricating the report, he was just completely inept and duped by sources feeding him misinformation.  But given his reputation, is it likely that he would be this easily duped to believe all these incredible allegations?  And what who was directing these people to feed this misinformation?  There were at least half a dozen different sources, all with stories that implicated Trump conspiring with Russia, so it seems unlikely that his sources all would have independently created a consistent narrative.  Doesn't seem like Putin would have anything to gain by feeding him allegations that he was conspiring with Trump.

As to why he would have fabricated such a story.  Who knows.  Maybe he hates Trump.  Lots of people hate Trump.  There were reports that suggested that Steele hates Putin for poisoning Litvinenko, who Steele was the case officer for.  I'd like to see Steele give an interview where he defends his report.  Why does he think it's credible?  Does he still think it's credible even after the Cohen allegations have been debunked?  If he wants to rehabilitate his reputation, I think he's going to have to do an interview.

[Mudguard]

4 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

     

This MOFO is the guy who brought down FIFA!

Anyone who could finally, after years and years of complaints about the bribery sucking, fat old dudes who ran soccer like a fiefdom, marshal the goods in a way to start the arrests and charges flowing, has my admiration.

And there's a pattern here - he followed the crumbs left after years of rumours about Trump.

Your statement, "his sources, if they really existed and were telling the truth" says more about you than about Steele.

So exactly what were his contributions in the FIFA investigation?  Since you are claiming that he's the one who brought FIFA down, presumably he played a critical role in the effort.  Everything I've read about Steele's involvement has been extremely vague.  Do you have any citations that explain his role and contributions in detail?  Seems to me like he was brought in when it was already pretty clear that there was evidence of wrongdoing.  

My statement says that I'm skeptical of the report after intelligence agencies and new agencies have failed to corroborate any of the substantive allegations after many months.  What do you think my statement says about me?