U.S. Politics: Moscow on the Potomac

[Zorral]

Some are suggesting the small handies is exhibiting the signals indicating Alzheimer's onset:

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/video-suggests-trump-suffering-alzheimers 

It certainly runs in the family history, including both his grandfather and father. 

He's the oldest to inhabit the Oval, ascending to his reign at age 70.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/15/donald-trump-fake-news-238379 

Also -- his staff puts fake news on his desk, and he believes it. 

For ex: 
 

Quote

 

Quote:

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus issued a stern warning at a recent senior staff meeting: Quit trying to secretly slip stuff to President Trump.  Just days earlier, K.T. McFarland, the deputy national security adviser, had given Trump a printout of two Time magazine covers. One, supposedly from the 1970s, warned of a coming ice age; the other, from 2008, about surviving global warming, according to four White House officials familiar with the matter.  Trump quickly got lathered up about the media’s hypocrisy. But there was a problem. The 1970s cover was fake, part of an Internet hoax that’s circulated for years. Staff chased down the truth and intervened before Trump tweeted or talked publicly about it.

 

 

[Week]

10 minutes ago, Zorral said:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/15/donald-trump-fake-news-238379 

How does having two Time Magazine covers get anyone so lathered up? Regardless of whether one was faked -- no need to even read the fucking article (which - clearly, he wouldn't be able to as it didn't exist).

I also saw this lead to a new terrifying term - "fake, but accurate" in that the cover was fake but the story was accurate-(ish???).

[Kalbear]

Just now, Week said:

I also saw this lead to a new terrifying term - "fake, but accurate" in that the cover was fake but the story was accurate-(ish???).

I've seen this a lot recently, among both left and right leaning people, when pointing out something they're linking to is fake. They say 'okay, THIS is fake but it points out something important!' or 'it feels right' or 'maybe it'll convince the stupid people that are falling for the other fake news'. 

All of these things are, of course, lame. 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Kushner's Pushing 500k Investment to Chinese to Secure "Investment Visas"

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-a-beijing-ballroom-kushner-family-flogs-500000-investor-visa-to-wealthy-chinese/2017/05/06/cf711e53-eb49-4f9a-8dea-3cd836fcf287_story.html?utm_term=.0852cd8d1186

 

/Awesome Pay-to-Play citizenship plan

EB-5 visas are nothing new; they've been around for almost 30 years now. And they were expressly created for businesses to advertise a way to attract to top-level talent and for people with the start-up capital to create a small business to move to the US.

The gross part is the President's son-in-law shilling them and using that connection as an enticement.

[Kalbear]

Well, okay, this seems bad, but think about the emails.

Quote

 

President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said that Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information Trump relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trump’s decision to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.

“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”

 

 

[Fez]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Well, okay, this seems bad, but think about the emails.

 

Freaking awesome. So much goddamn winning.

Can we just all agree that Trump's had four years of accomplishments in four months time and schedule another election already? 

Fucking hell.

[A True Kaniggit]

1 minute ago, Fez said:

Freaking awesome. So much goddamn winning.

Can we just all agree that Trump's had four years of accomplishments in four months time and schedule another election already? 

Fucking hell.

How certain are we that Trump even knows how long a presidential term is? Maybe we can just tell him it's time for the next election. Hell, it'd probably make him happy. He seemed to enjoy campaigning. 

[Kalbear]

As far as I can tell, what this does is the following:

• It seriously hurts the relationship with that ally, who had previously stated they were pissed about Trump's revealing info
• It almost certainly means we will not get intel from that ally again, especially regarding this source
• It likely gives the Russians enough information to burn that source
• It will likely jeopardize further actions with that information area (something to do with ISIS)

What it is not:

• Illegal (POTUS can say anything they want about classified info, even data shared from allies)

[felice]

4 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I think Trump is very confused here. I don't know if he thinks "priming the pump" as he says works because of 1) demand side effects, or 2) because of supply side effects.

You believe he has any thoughts on how it actually works? I rather doubt his understanding is any deeper than "water pumps need priming, and the economy pumps money so it needs priming too".

[Kalbear]

Just now, felice said:

You believe he has any thoughts on how it actually works? I rather doubt his understanding is any deeper than "water pumps need priming, and the economy pumps money so it needs priming too".

I suspect someone told him the term, he hadn't heard it before, and he decided it was his term. 

[Trebla]

 

This old tweet is getting a lot of play right now.

[OldGimletEye]

11 minutes ago, felice said:

You believe he has any thoughts on how it actually works? I rather doubt his understanding is any deeper than "water pumps need priming, and the economy pumps money so it needs priming too".

Sorry I goofed.

I didn't mean to suggest that there might be the slightest possibility that he actually understands how this is supposed to work according to any model known to humanity at this time.

And certainly his advisers aren't giving him one iota of a clue. 

So much for his bidness experience.

[Kalbear]

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Anyone ever listen to the No Agenda podcast?  It came highly recommended from a couple of friends, but after listening to a few episodes I was horrified.  Its just... Idiotic.  I can't believe how dumb the two guys are, but apparently it's a pretty popular, (and listener funded) cast amongst people who self identify as 'independent'.

I was really disappointed that my friends actually endorse this and am kind of dreading when it comes up in conversation.  It's like Beavis and Butthead talk politics but without the humor.

 

[Zorral]

37 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

As far as I can tell, what this does is the following:

• It seriously hurts the relationship with that ally, who had previously stated they were pissed about Trump's revealing info
• It almost certainly means we will not get intel from that ally again, especially regarding this source
• It likely gives the Russians enough information to burn that source
• It will likely jeopardize further actions with that information area (something to do with ISIS)

What it is not:

• Illegal (POTUS can say anything they want about classified info, even data shared from allies)

If that is true how can there be treason?  There is no clause anywhere that declares that POTUSes cannot be tried for treason.

 

 

[Mexal]

At least the Senate Intel Committee has been briefed on this. Buzzfeed is reporting it's much worse than what Post reported. No idea what this does but it might up their level of commitment to the investigations at the very least.

[Kalbear]

Also, if you wanted to see an example of what a 'war' looks like between the intel community and the POTUS, this would be it. One really easy way that this was found out would be by routine intel on Kislyak (just like the stuff that caught Flynn) capturing this conversation, along with high-level memos circulated around the WH. Both would be available to IC and both would possibly have been ignored...if Trump hadn't pissed everyone off so much. 

I would expect continuing information like this, as the IC continues to show how bad Trump is. 

Also, I would imagine that other intel agencies are salivating at the thought of being near Trump for any length of time. He did this to impress an ambassador; imagine what he'd do if he was trying to impress a woman he wanted to fuck?

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

If that is true how can there be treason?  There is no clause anywhere that declares that POTUSes cannot be tried for treason.

Treason implies doing something to help a known enemy. By itself, sharing classified info as POTUS is not that, as he has the authority to declassify it at will. He would need to be doing it specifically to aid that enemy. 

That said, it's a pretty slippery slope and one that would be very open to impeachment. 

[Zorral]

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Also, if you wanted to see an example of what a 'war' looks like between the intel community and the POTUS, this would be it. One really easy way that this was found out would be by routine intel on Kislyak (just like the stuff that caught Flynn) capturing this conversation, along with high-level memos circulated around the WH. Both would be available to IC and both would possibly have been ignored...if Trump hadn't pissed everyone off so much. 

I would expect continuing information like this, as the IC continues to show how bad Trump is. 

Also, I would imagine that other intel agencies are salivating at the thought of being near Trump for any length of time. He did this to impress an ambassador; imagine what he'd do if he was trying to impress a woman he wanted to fuck?

If that is true how can there be treason?  There is no clause anywhere that declares that POTUSes cannot be tried for treason.

Treason implies doing something to help a known enemy. By itself, sharing classified info as POTUS is not that, as he has the authority to declassify it at will. He would need to be doing it specifically to aid that enemy. 

That said, it's a pretty slippery slope and one that would be very open to impeachment. 

But he didn't perform any of the procedures for doing this.  Perhaps at the highest levels intent matters when quantifying whether or no there is treason, but not for any other people.  And yah, for something so trivial as to weeny-wag another male -- my intel is the bestest intel, here let me show u!

Impeachment procedure needs to start NOW.

Thank goodness I'm outta among great music and friends for the night, because I'm just sick to my stomach -- not for the first time, but this -- THIS!

 

Quote

President Donald Trump revealed information in his meeting with Russian diplomats that was so sensitive that it may jeopardize a critical source of intelligence on Islamic State, the Washington Post reported, citing current and former U.S. officials. The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, the report said. The identification of the location where the threat was detected was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U.S. ally or intelligence capability involved, according to the report.

 

[Kalbear]

Just now, Zorral said:

But he didn't perform any of the procedures for doing this.  Perhaps at the highest levels intent matters when quantifying whether or no there is treason, but not for any other people.  And yah, for something so trivial as to weeny-wag another male -- my intel is the bestest intel, here let me show u!

My understanding is that he has the power to declassify anything at any time, if he so chooses, and while there's a procedure to officially mark it as such he can reveal data at his choosing. This is specifically a POTUS-only power - so there are a bit more weird nuances. McCain also believes that he has this power, as he responded to questioning in a particularly mealy-mouthed way. But per this article, POTUS can declassify information however he chooses.

Also on impeachment - while there might be enough to create articles of impeachment, there certainly isn't a majority of the House that would vote yes on it. This, again, is a massive failure of the US system and something that represents a true constitutional crisis - that if the House refuses to act on trying POTUS for a crime, POTUS is simply not guilty. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

/Please Mr. President! NO MOAR WINNING!