U.S. Politics: Russian Around

[denstorebog]

Is anyone following the stuff that Rachel Maddow is uncovering? This is today's contribution to what seems to be a clearer and clearer picture of how and why the Trump team, possibly Trump himself, went in and changed the Ukraine stance in the party platform. Featuring the Steele dossier and Steele himself.

I admit that the scope of this particular scandal has started growing a bit above my ability to understand it - not so much the connections and what may have happened, but the severity. Does anyone have an educated guess if these particulars about the Steele dossier + the Ukraine policy has the potential to take Russiagate to a new level, or if it's just another indication that yeah, people in the administration are probably somewhat friendly with Russia, and so what?

EDIT: I see ME posted this on the previous page already, but no one seemed interested at the time. MSNBC is headlining the story as well, now.

[OldGimletEye]

Lets all get together and do some hatin on the Republican healthcare "plan".

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-health-care-plan-has-already-run-out-friends

Quote

Yesterday afternoon, the American Nurses Association condemned the House Republicans’ health care plan, explaining that the American Health Care Act “threatens health care affordability, access, and delivery for individuals across the nation.”

The ANA, representing over 3.6 million nurses, is hardly the only major stakeholder drawing this conclusion. The list of organizations that have come out against the Republican plan has grown quite quickly, and includes the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, AARP, the American Cancer Society, and the American Psychiatric Association, among others.

Even America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the powerhouse trade association for private insurers, isn’t happy.
 

 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

7 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

*snip*

To sum up: I think your concern here is a valid one and it’s one I’m sympathetic too. But, I’m not inclined that raising rates now is appropriate. Certainly, a lot of this data will have to watched carefully.

Thank you for the very thoughtful response.  I think this is a "reasonable people can disagree" moment.  I am seeing credit terms loosening in my practice - not at the consumer level, but certainly at the business level.  There's also the feeling of a PE bubble building - lots of hot auctions, public style terms.  Also, as everyone knows, when law firms raise associate salaries, that's a canary in a coal mine, and that happened last year

[All-for-Joffrey]

2 hours ago, denstorebog said:

Is anyone following the stuff that Rachel Maddow is uncovering? This is today's contribution to what seems to be a clearer and clearer picture of how and why the Trump team, possibly Trump himself, went in and changed the Ukraine stance in the party platform. Featuring the Steele dossier and Steele himself.

I admit that the scope of this particular scandal has started growing a bit above my ability to understand it - not so much the connections and what may have happened, but the severity. Does anyone have an educated guess if these particulars about the Steele dossier + the Ukraine policy has the potential to take Russiagate to a new level, or if it's just another indication that yeah, people in the administration are probably somewhat friendly with Russia, and so what?

EDIT: I see ME posted this on the previous page already, but no one seemed interested at the time. MSNBC is headlining the story as well, now.

You do realize the language in question was whether or not to provide lethal support to Ukraine because of the Russian invasion, right? (Which MSNBC conveniently leaves out in this article as they don't discuss what the actual policy in question was at all .) Refusing to give Ukraine lethal military assistance had been the policy throughout the entire Obama administration (and with good reason). The Trump camp successfully lobbied against the neocon wing of the party who wanted the inclusion of language stipulating that the US should provide lethal assistance to the Ukraine -- likely due to Manafort's obvious influence and his Russia/Ukraine conflicts of interest. Literally all it did was put the GOP platform's language on Ukraine in line with Obama's. So like so much of the other sensationalized Russia nonsense floating around, this isn't really a big deal. I suggest not getting your news from cable TV.  

ETA: Fuck, I mean the Russia Conspiracy Trap op-ed I posted the other day that numerous people accused of hand-waiving already addressed this very issue:

 

Quote

Take, for example, one of the earliest revelations: in July an opinion piece in The Washington Post claimed that the Trump campaign “worked behind the scenes” to block a platform amendment that would have called for providing lethal aid to Ukraine—including weapon systems, mortars, grenade launchers, ammunition, and other armaments. The article was slightly misleading: it made it seem like Trump’s people made the party abandon a plank that would have called for maintaining or increasing sanctions and lethal aid. In fact, the sanctions part of the plank stayed in the platform—it was the lethal-aid amendment, a step that had hitherto not been taken, even during the height of the Ukraine war in 2014, that was tabled. The issue is far from a clear-cut one: few people in Washington, whether Republicans or Democrats, are on record as favoring lethal aid.

 

 

 

Now, the Republican convention is back in the news because one of the conversations the Russian ambassador had with Sessions, who was at the time an adviser to the Trump campaign, occurred in Cleveland, at a diplomacy panel timed to run alongside the convention. On March 2, USA Today reported that two more members of the Trump campaign—J.D. Gordon and Carter Page—spoke to the Russian ambassador at the same panel. When CNN picked up the story, it reported that “Gordon said that he was a part of the effort that was part of the Trump campaign to put some language in the GOP platform that essentially said that the Republican Party did not advocate arming the Ukrainians in their battle against pro-Russian separatists.” Correspondent Jim Acosta continued,

 

 

 

Of course, that was a big issue that was flaring up at the time. That effort was ultimately successful. They were successful in having that language in the Republican Party platform. I asked J.D. Gordon, ‘Well, why is that? Why did you go ahead and advocate for that language?’ He said this is the language that Donald Trump himself wanted and advocated for back in March at the meeting at the unfinished Trump Hotel here in Washington, D.C. J.D. Gordon said then-candidate Trump said he did not want to, quote, ‘go to World War III over Ukraine.’ And so, as J.D. Gordon says, at the Republican convention in Cleveland he advocated for language in that Republican Party platform that reflected then-candidate Trump’s comments.

He then briefly noted that Gordon denied that any inappropriate conversation had occurred between him and the Russian ambassador.

The report sounded damning—unless one knew, of course, that the “language” to which Acosta managed to refer four times in the space of thirty seconds did not exist—no statement on Ukraine was inserted into the Republican platform by the Trump campaign—and that the sentiment ostensibly ascribed to candidate Trump falls squarely in the foreign-policy mainstream and was, in fact, the position held by the Obama administration. The “meetings” that sounded so sinister were in fact public encounters that occurred during a panel and, later, a cocktail party—schmoozing, which is both the ambassador’s and campaign advisers’ jobs. But all of Friday-evening punditry on CNN and MSNBC was from that point on occupied with connecting the imaginary dots of the Russian ambassador-Trump campaign cabal at the Republican convention. CNN also ran with an unsubstantiated report that the Russian ambassador is a “spy master,” an outrageous assertion that mirrored Russian propaganda about Obama’s Moscow ambassador, Michael McFaul.

 

[Kalbear]

It's more damning mostly because it was literally the only thing that the Trump campaign changed on the GOP plank. Everything else was completely unchanged. 

[aceluby]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's more damning mostly because it was literally the only thing that the Trump campaign changed on the GOP plank. Everything else was completely unchanged. 

It's Obama's fault.

[All-for-Joffrey]

In other news, the January raid on AQAP in Yemen is looking like an even bigger and bigger shit show. (In the past few weeks, the Trump administration has intensified Yemen counter-terror operations and it looks like they're doing away with even the token guidelines that Obama had in place to limit civilian casualties.) Not only were US and Emirati troops firing indiscriminately at civilians while the actual targets may not have even been AQAP members, the village residents also thought it was a Houthi/Saleh attack (for obvious reasons) and began firing back -- meaning that US/Emirati forces were essentially at war with the entire village -- a village that happened to be on the side of the faction that the US/UAE is supporting in the civil war. The Intercept actually talked to the victims of the raid. (Gee, what a novel idea!) 

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/09/women-and-children-in-yemeni-village-recall-horror-of-trumps-highly-successful-seal-raid/

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

3 hours ago, denstorebog said:

Is anyone following the stuff that Rachel Maddow is uncovering? This is today's contribution to what seems to be a clearer and clearer picture of how and why the Trump team, possibly Trump himself, went in and changed the Ukraine stance in the party platform. Featuring the Steele dossier and Steele himself.

I admit that the scope of this particular scandal has started growing a bit above my ability to understand it - not so much the connections and what may have happened, but the severity. Does anyone have an educated guess if these particulars about the Steele dossier + the Ukraine policy has the potential to take Russiagate to a new level, or if it's just another indication that yeah, people in the administration are probably somewhat friendly with Russia, and so what?

EDIT: I see ME posted this on the previous page already, but no one seemed interested at the time. MSNBC is headlining the story as well, now.

Yeah, I'm really buying into Maddow's premise that Russia really seems to be setting policy here using the Trump campaign as a proxy. It seems a fairly logical leap here that if this was taking place as far back as the Republican National Convention (which was right around the time Jeff Sessions met with the Russian Ambassador) that this is still occurring. It will be interesting to see how the proposed interviews with Steele (the British ex-Intelligence officer) go, or if they even occur at all. That seems like the next big step towards trying to unravel this whole mess.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 hour ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

You do realize the language in question was whether or not to provide lethal support to Ukraine because of the Russian invasion, right? (Which MSNBC conveniently leaves out in this article as they don't discuss what the actual policy in question was at all .) Refusing to give Ukraine lethal military assistance had been the policy throughout the entire Obama administration (and with good reason). The Trump camp successfully lobbied against the neocon wing of the party who wanted the inclusion of language stipulating that the US should provide lethal assistance to the Ukraine -- likely due to Manafort's obvious influence and his Russia/Ukraine conflicts of interest. Literally all it did was put the GOP platform's language on Ukraine in line with Obama's. So like so much of the other sensationalized Russia nonsense floating around, this isn't really a big deal. I suggest not getting your news from cable TV.  

ETA: Fuck, I mean the Russia Conspiracy Trap op-ed I posted the other day that numerous people accused of hand-waiving already addressed this very issue:

 

 Which excuses Trump/Russian collusion how? Obviously this plank was of interest to the Russians. It appeared to be in line with criticisms Trump had made of Obama's handling of the whole Ukraine situation ("he did nothing, he handed Ukraine to the Russians, etc) 

 

53 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's more damning mostly because it was literally the only thing that the Trump campaign changed on the GOP plank. Everything else was completely unchanged. 

Also damning in that at the time, both Trump and Manafort denied having anything to do with the plank being changed. It was quote, "something I'll have to look into". Now, a Trump lackey has stated that the plank change was made at Trump's direct request.

[All-for-Joffrey]

Quote

Which excuses Trump/Russian collusion how?

Oh look, the Russia conspiracy trap again. What exactly about this proves that Trump colluded with Russia? Just looking at the facts it's pretty clear that objecting to language in the GOP platform to provide lethal military aid to Ukraine came from Manafort due to his previous work for the Yanukovych government and his pro-Russia sympathies. While highly problematic, these sorts of conflicts of interest (either with the private sector or for foreign states) are par for the course when it comes to DC policy making -- even if, in this case, it ends up avoiding a bad/dangerous policy -- yet you're disproportionately highlighting this one over the thousands of other DC conflicts of interest in policy making to try to tie this into a larger conspiracy theory about how Trump colluded with Russia to hack the DNC and/or Russia has "kompromat" on Trump. 

Quote

Obviously this plank was of interest to the Russians. It appeared to be in line with criticisms Trump had made of Obama's handling of the whole Ukraine situation ("he did nothing, he handed Ukraine to the Russians, etc)

This  makes absolutely no sense. The policy is not in line with Trump's criticisms of how Obama handled Ukraine at all. As I stated above, rejecting the insertion of this language to provide lethal military assistance to Ukraine in the GOP party platform is precisely in line with Obama's Ukraine policy. So if anything, it highlights Trump's glaring double standards on the issue. (IE: Using the idiotic talking points you highlighted below while allowing Manafort to talk him into pursuing the same exact policy as Obama.) 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

You do realize the language in question was whether or not to provide lethal support to Ukraine because of the Russian invasion, right? (Which MSNBC conveniently leaves out in this article as they don't discuss what the actual policy in question was at all .) Refusing to give Ukraine lethal military assistance had been the policy throughout the entire Obama administration (and with good reason). The Trump camp successfully lobbied against the neocon wing of the party who wanted the inclusion of language stipulating that the US should provide lethal assistance to the Ukraine -- likely due to Manafort's obvious influence and his Russia/Ukraine conflicts of interest. Literally all it did was put the GOP platform's language on Ukraine in line with Obama's. So like so much of the other sensationalized Russia nonsense floating around, this isn't really a big deal. I suggest not getting your news from cable TV.  

ETA: Fuck, I mean the Russia Conspiracy Trap op-ed I posted the other day that numerous people accused of hand-waiving already addressed this very issue:

 

The whole point IS that the Republicans have always said they would provide lethal support to the Ukraine because of the Russian invasion. I mean, have you lost your mind? The Republicans changing their fucking policy platform to align with Obama?

Trump and other Republicans have campaigned on the very point for years - Gutless Obama!

So why the bloody hell did that change?

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

10 minutes ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

This  makes absolutely no sense. The policy is not in line with Trump's criticisms of how Obama handled Ukraine at all. As I stated above, rejecting the insertion of this language to provide lethal military assistance to Ukraine in the GOP party platform is precisely in line with Obama's Ukraine policy. So if anything, it highlights Trump's glaring double standards on the issue. (IE: Using the idiotic talking points you highlighted below while allowing Manafort to talk him into pursuing the same exact policy as Obama.) 

 The plank as it was initially presented was in line with Trump's criticisms of Obama's handling of the Ukraine situation. Yes, I would imagine that Manafort had something to do with the insistence on changing that plank, but again that doesn't downplay the possibility of collusion, it's potentially another example of it.

 

To your first point, it is a clear example of a potential connection between the two parties. Why is Trump so insistent on changing a plank that supports his criticism of his political opponents? I'm not saying it proves collusion, but it certainly supports the theory. Are you saying that changing the plank to fall in line with Obama's policy is normal? To be expected? 

 

/Oh yeah, and if this isn't a big deal, then why does Trump deny having anything to do with it at the time?

[All-for-Joffrey]

10 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

The whole point IS that the Republicans have always said they would provide lethal support to the Ukraine because of the Russian invasion. I mean, have you lost your mind? The Republicans changing their fucking policy platform to align with Obama?

Trump and other Republicans have campaigned on the very point for years - Gutless Obama!

So why the bloody hell did that change?

Manafort's previous work for Yanukovych. I've already explained this in the post directly above yours. So...what is your point exactly?

(But to be fair, I think painting the GOP as unanimously in favor of providing lethal assistance to Ukraine isn't entirely fair. It was mostly just McCain, Graham, the usual neocon suspects, etc. pushing for lethal assistance to Ukraine.) 

[denstorebog]

19 minutes ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

Oh look, the Russia conspiracy trap again. What exactly about this proves that Trump colluded with Russia? Just looking at the facts it's pretty clear that objecting to language in the GOP platform to provide lethal military aid to Ukraine came from Manafort

What the fuck are you talking about? The whole point here is that a Trump campaign NSA is now saying that this came from Trump himself. Are you saying that the campaign adopted a laissez-faire stance towards everything in that program, except one item of distinct interest to the Russians, which Manafort then asked Trump himself to go in and get involved with? And Trump had no personal interest in it? He put in an effort to muscle in some random item through on behalf of a random associate, and no one else wanted to get some stuff changed while Trump was at it? Economy, social issues, national security, all fine with everyone, but fucking Ukraine?

I mean, how much can you possibly want to believe that there's nothing here?

[Mexal]

18 minutes ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

Oh look, the Russia conspiracy trap again. What exactly about this proves that Trump colluded with Russia? Just looking at the facts it's pretty clear that objecting to language in the GOP platform to provide lethal military aid to Ukraine came from Manafort due to his previous work for the Yanukovych government and his pro-Russia sympathies. While highly problematic, these sorts of conflicts of interest (either with the private sector or for foreign states) are par for the course when it comes to DC policy making -- even if, in this case, it ends up avoiding a bad/dangerous policy -- yet you're disproportionately highlighting this one over the thousands of other DC conflicts of interest in policy making to try to tie this into a larger conspiracy theory about how Trump colluded with Russia to hack the DNC and/or Russia has "kompromat" on Trump. 

This  makes absolutely no sense. The policy is not in line with Trump's criticisms of how Obama handled Ukraine at all. As I stated above, rejecting the insertion of this language to provide lethal military assistance to Ukraine in the GOP party platform is precisely in line with Obama's Ukraine policy. So if anything, it highlights Trump's glaring double standards on the issue. (IE: Using the idiotic talking points you highlighted below while allowing Manafort to talk him into pursuing the same exact policy as Obama.) 

But it's not Republican policy. It was not Trump's policy. This is where you keep mixing things up. It does not matter if it was Obama's policy. What matters is what Hillary Clinton would do and what Trump would do. That was what the election was about.

So this is what we know. 

1. Republicans believed in giving lethal weapons to Ukrainians. It was in the platform.

2. Trump criticized Obama for doing nothing in Ukraine.

3. Trump personally asked to change the language in the Republican platform to soften the stance on Ukraine, the only language the Trump campaign requested to change. This is in a platform that includes allowing parents to force children into conversion therapy if they were gay.

4. Trump and his campaign lied about being involved in that until recently

5. Manafort's protege, a Russian national who also worked for a pro-Putin Ukrainian president, flew to the US twice to meet with the Trump campaign, once in April and once around the Republican convention.

6. Said protege was investigated for ties to Russian Intelligence.

7. Manafort quit the campaign because it was exposed he took $12.7 million from a pro-Russian group in Ukraine off books for services we don't know about

8. Steele's research and dossier makes mention that Trump changed the stance at the behest of the Russians

9. The protege said in Ukraine that he was involved in getting the language softened which would confirm another element of Steele's dossier

So yea, the language changed to Obama's policy but none of this makes sense for Trump to do. Fine, you don't see the connections and it's all hysteria but that timeline looks really fucking weird to me and I'm sure it does to investigators. Now, will it amount to anything? Is there any actual proof? I don't know. Bu constantly bringing up the point that Trump's policy change which was singular and came out of nowhere, that benefited Russia in a Republican platform that previously did not is no big deal because the prior President, who he was not running against (Clinton was more pro-hawk on Russia), believed in a similar policy, does not pass the logic test to me.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Did anyone else read the fascinating article in Slate today making comparisons between Nixon and Trump?  Basically, I really hadn't immersed myself in Nixonian scholarship before - meddling with a foreign power to influence an election?  CHECK.  THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE.  So, whether anything happened or not, and honestly, at this point, who the hell knows, it's not exactly without precedent.  Growing up in the 80s definitely gives me the ZOMG Russia heebie jeebies (which may well be very much borne out in truth) but you know, who knows.

[Swordfish]

2 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

What the fuck are you talking about? The whole point here is that a Trump campaign NSA is now saying that this came from Trump himself. Are you saying that the campaign adopted a laissez-faire stance towards everything in that program, except one item of distinct interest to the Russians, which Manafort then asked Trump himself to go in and get involved with? I mean, how much can you possibly want to believe that there's nothing here?

Yeah.  It's reallt the direct involvement of Trump and the denials here that seems the most problematic to me,

[All-for-Joffrey]

 

Quote

Yes, I would imagine that Manafort had something to do with the insistence on changing that plank, but again that doesn't downplay the possibility of collusion, it's potentially another example of it.

How? Again, where the hell is your evidence? Because making accusations like that without hard evidence is exactly the sort of shit we saw in Benghazi/email-gate. (Email-gate might be a better example here as the premise of that was at least based on actual wrongdoing and then spiraled into larger, factually/evidenced-challenged theories.) 

Quote

To your first point, it is a clear example of a potential connection between the two parties. Why is Trump so insistent on changing a plank that supports his criticism of his political opponents?

Again, why are you assuming it was Trump who was insistent on it? Looking at the evidence right in front of us, it was obviously Manafort. Trump knows jack shit about foreign policy -- he just does what his psychotic advisers tell him to. And this criticism on his ties to Russia wasn't as widespread at the time this actually happened and when the story broke so he didn't really have anything to worry about in that regard. 

Quote

/Oh yeah, and if this isn't a big deal, then why does Trump deny having anything to do with it at the time

Because now, in March 2017,  it's politically explosive when it wasn't in the summer of 2016? Or the Trump lackey in question is lying to deflect the heat from himself to Trump? Or Trump legitimately forgot? I would imagine Manafort just came to Trump, told him that they should stop the addition of lethal assistance to Ukraine in the platform, Trump said "yeah, go ahead, whatever," and Manafort took care of the rest. 

[Mexal]

1 minute ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

 Because now, in March 2017,  it's politically explosive when it wasn't in the summer of 2016? Or the Trump lackey in question is lying to deflect the heat from himself to Trump? Or Trump legitimately forgot? I would imagine Manafort just came to Trump, told him that they should stop the addition of lethal assistance to Ukraine in the platform, Trump said "yeah, go ahead, whatever," and Manafort took care of the rest. 

It is for four reasons. 

1. Hillary Clinton doesn't exist anymore so emails/Benghazi aren't a crutch. 

2. There isn't a million different Trump scandals to talk about 

3. The former NSA resigned after 28 days for lying about conversations with Russian officials and the sitting Attorney General recused himself after lying to Congress about conversations with Russian officials

4. More information has been investigated and more information has been reported on to add to the connections like Manafort's protege with Russian intelligence connections flying to the US twice to talk with Manafort and claiming to help soften the language in the Republican platform

Investigations take time. One piece leads to another which leads to another. The financial picture takes a long time to work through when you have shell companies and offshore accounts and more shell companies. This shit takes time and each day we learn another piece of the puzzle. You might think it's irrelevant and adds up to nothing but it doesn't seem that way. Coincidences happen. But if you believe this many connections are just coincidence, I'd love to sell you the moon.

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

 How? Again, where the hell is your evidence? Because making accusations like that without hard evidence is exactly the sort of shit we saw in Benghazi/email-gate. (Email-gate might be a better example here as the premise of that was at least based on actual wrongdoing and then spiraled into larger, factually/evidenced-challenged theories.) 

We have a report that says that Trump personally ordered the change, per one of his aides. That would be the evidence. Do we have it in written documentation? No - but we do actually have a reporter who vetted the information. That's a far cry from pizzagate bullshit. 

6 minutes ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

Again, why are you assuming it was Trump who was insistent on it? Looking at the evidence right in front of us, it was obviously Manafort. Trump knows jack shit about foreign policy -- he just does what his psychotic advisers tell him to. And this criticism on his ties to Russia wasn't as widespread at the time this actually happened and when the story broke so he didn't really have anything to worry about in that regard. 

We're assuming that because it was reported as such. Now, I happen to agree that Manafort is almost certainly one of the main reasons Trump agitated for it, because Trump is easily manipulated like that - but that doesn't really make it much of a distinction. Either  Trump doesn't care that much and is easily manipulated by people who are actively working for Russian interests or Trump does care, but neither is a good look. 

6 minutes ago, All-for-Joffrey said:

Because now, in March 2017,  it's politically explosive when it wasn't in the summer of 2016? Or the Trump lackey in question is lying to deflect the heat from himself to Trump? Or Trump legitimately forgot? I would imagine Manafort just came to Trump, told him that they should stop the addition of lethal assistance to Ukraine in the platform, Trump said "yeah, go ahead, whatever," and Manafort took care of the rest. 

The problem is that this isn't how good politics works. If there's no real story, you don't deny something that might have happened - you instead say "I don't believe so" or "not to my recollection". You don't deny it like Flynn did. You don't deny it like Sessions did. You don't deny it like Page or Manafort or Trump have. And while Trump is a neophyte in that regard, he's reasonably competent in that respect (he did something like that after being called on the lie about winning more EC votes than anyone other than Reagan) and people like Sessions are FAR more competent in that respect.

Ultimately I agree that it's far too early to make a decision on whether or not the dossier is 100% correct or whether Trump is actually compromised - but I also believe very strongly that there are enough actual perjuries and lies that an investigation is warranted.