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US Politics: The 'In His Own Words' Edition


Fragile Bird

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I was always interested in who the 2nd person in the room with the Russian Lawyer and the Trump team and now we know. He was a former FSB counter-intelligence agent who's now a lobbyist who emigrated to the US and holds US citizenship.

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The Russian lawyer who met with the Trump team after a promise of compromising material on Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Russian-American lobbyist — a former Soviet counter intelligence officer who is suspected by some U.S. officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, NBC News has learned. 

NBC News is not naming the lobbyist, who denies any current ties to Russian spy agencies. He accompanied the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, to the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower attended by Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort. 

The Russian-born American lobbyist served in the Soviet military and emigrated to the U.S., where he holds dual citizenship.

 

 

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Conservative Idiot of The Week:

Senator Patrick Toomey


https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/from-hospitals-doctors-and-patients-a-last-gasp-of-opposition-to-the-senate-health-care-bill/2017/07/12/7497c25e-672d-11e7-a1d7-9a32c91c6f40_story.html

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“It’s a guaranteed financial crisis if we don’t do something about our entitlement programs,” said Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), who has pushed for indexing Medicaid to a lower inflation rate. “It’s not a question of whether that happens, it’s just a question of when, and how devastating, that is.”

Worries about financial crises, yet supports the repeal of Dodd Frank.

Believes the best way to handle the aftermath of a financial crises is to give tax cuts to the rich and get on the gold standard.

Actually believes his party has credibility left on these matters.

Believes financial crises only happen because of sovereign debt defaults and not asset mispricing.

Claims he is worried about the deficit, but you know, tax cuts for the rich is cool. Doesn’t want to do anything about fixing the US’s overpriced healthcare system. Though he’d probably claim it’s the best in the world.

Actually believes that Republican Presidents has done better historically with deficits than Democratic Presidents.

You know conservative sorts of people if you are against universal healthcare, than just say that. But, you know, don’t try to hide behind “the deficit”.
 

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6 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Conservative Idiot of The Week:

Senator Patrick Toomey


https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/from-hospitals-doctors-and-patients-a-last-gasp-of-opposition-to-the-senate-health-care-bill/2017/07/12/7497c25e-672d-11e7-a1d7-9a32c91c6f40_story.html

Worries about financial crises, yet supports the repeal of Dodd Frank.

Believes the best way to handle the aftermath of a financial crises is to give tax cuts to the rich and get on the gold standard.

Actually believes his party has credibility left on these matters.

Believes financial crises only happen because of sovereign debt defaults and not asset mispricing.

Claims he is worried about the deficit, but you know, tax cuts for the rich is cool. Doesn’t want to do anything about fixing the US’s overpriced healthcare system. Though he’d probably claim it’s the best in the world.

Actually believes the Republican Presidents has done better historically with deficits than Democratic Presidents.

You know conservative sorts of people if your are just against universal healthcare, than just say it. But, you know, don’t try to hide behind “the deficit”.
 

Unfortunately, this goon is my senator and the sooner we get him out of office the better. There's a group that meets outside his office here every Tuesday. They call it Tuesdays with Toomey and they've gotten zero response from him. He's in hiding from his own constituents. No town halls, no Q & As, nothing. 

Party over country. What do you expect from a Wall Street banker. 

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1 hour ago, Mexal said:

I was always interested in who the 2nd person in the room with the Russian Lawyer and the Trump team and now we know. He was a former FSB counter-intelligence agent who's now a lobbyist who emigrated to the US and holds US citizenship.

 

 

Thanks for the article in the previous thread. I agree, not a good look for Pence.

As to the above, NBC is reporting that there was a 6th person in the room now too. The source, Trump Jr.'s lawyer. 

Lying liars that lie, methinks. 

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31 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Thanks for the article in the previous thread. I agree, not a good look for Pence.

As to the above, NBC is reporting that there was a 6th person in the room now too. The source, Trump Jr.'s lawyer. 

Lying liars that lie, methinks. 

So, three Russians, Jr, Jared, Manafort and DJT saying he het about it, which I mentioned in the last thread.   Damn, sounds like quite the event.   

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Not sure if anyone is paying attention to the right wing news sources but they're pushing a very strong "Democratic set up" narrative in regards to the meeting with Trump Jr and the Russian lawyer/ex-soviet FSB agent. This makes zero sense but the right media gives no fucks. Logically, does it make sense that the Democrats set up Trump Jr using contacts that Trump Jr personally knew, then did fuck all about it for over a year while still failing to campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan? This is just like the whole 3m illegal voters that the Democrats used in all the wrong states.

I'm increasingly worried that when/if Trump goes down, there will be violence. The bullshit propaganda coming out against Democrats with the revelation of every single piece of news against Trump is disturbing.

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The Republican Party:

Says pay attention to the CBO where the projections of future deficits and debt are concerned.

But, then says, ignore the CBO over its healthcare or tax cut projections.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/07/republicans-getting-ready-to-jettison-cbo/

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Last month, OMB chief Mick Mulvaney was griping about the CBO. This seemed kind of pointless, since the CBO exists and it obviously isn’t going anywhere in the short term. So why bother? My guess was that Mulvaney was just preparing the ground for a flank attack on the CBO’s tendency to produce inconvenient estimates:

 

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1 hour ago, Nasty LongRider said:

So, three Russians, Jr, Jared, Manafort and DJT saying he het about it, which I mentioned in the last thread.   Damn, sounds like quite the event.   

I'm surprised that story hasn't gotten more attention. I haven't seen it being reported on anywhere. 

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1 hour ago, Mexal said:

Not sure if anyone is paying attention to the right wing news sources but they're pushing a very strong "Democratic set up" narrative in regards to the meeting with Trump Jr and the Russian lawyer/ex-soviet FSB agent. This makes zero sense but the right media gives no fucks. Logically, does it make sense that the Democrats set up Trump Jr using contacts that Trump Jr personally knew, then did fuck all about it for over a year while still failing to campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan? This is just like the whole 3m illegal voters that the Democrats used in all the wrong states.

I'm increasingly worried that when/if Trump goes down, there will be violence. The bullshit propaganda coming out against Democrats with the revelation of every single piece of news against Trump is disturbing.

Just to follow this up with a link breaking down the right conspiracy theories.

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9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm surprised that story hasn't gotten more attention. I haven't seen it being reported on anywhere. 

The context wasn't very convincing that DJT was talking about the meeting itself.

In other news, the ex-soviet FSB agent, Akhmetshin, was accused of hacking documents by International Mining Resources in a 2015 law suit

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In court papers filed with New York Supreme Court in November 2015, Akhmetshin was described as “a former Soviet military counterintelligence officer” by lawyers for International Mineral Resources (IMR), a Russian mining company who alleged that they had been hacked.

Those documents accuse Akhmetshin of hacking into two computer systems and stolen sensitive and confidential materials as part of an alleged black ops smear campaign against IMR. The allegations were later withdrawn. 

The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. was told in July 2015 that Akhmetshin had arranged the hacking of a mining company’s private records—stealing internal documents and then disseminating them. The corporate espionage case was brought by IMR, who alleged that Akhmetshin was hired by Russian oligarch Andrey Melinchenko, an industrialist worth around $12 billion.

A New York law firm paid Akhmetshin $140,000, including expenses, to organize a public relations campaign targeting IMR. Shortly after he began that work, IMR suffered a sophisticated and systematic breach of its computers, and gigabytes of data allegedly stolen in the breach wound up the hands of journalists and human rights groups critical of the mining company. IMR accused Akhmetshin of paying Russian hackers to carry out the hack attack.

IMR went so far as to hire a private investigator to follow Akhmetshin on a trip to London. That private eye, Akis Phanartzis, wrote in a sworn declaration to the court that he eavesdropped on Akhmetshin in a London coffee shop and heard Akhmetshin boast that "he organized the hacking of IMR's computer systems" on behalf of Melinchenko’s fertilizer producer Eurochem. "Mr. Akhmetshin [noted] that he was hired because there were certain things that the law firm could not do," Phanartzis said.

Absolutely nothing to see here. Nothing at all. 

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I love how the fallback for all the Trump Apologists out there is that “technically what he did was not illegal” Fuck off.  While I am sure he has made a career of “not doing anything technically illegal” he has always come across as smarmy as hell.  I honestly cannot understand how this pathological  narcissist

A.      Actually ran for office

B.      Won

C.      Seems genuinely confused and hurt that a lot of people don’t seem to think he is as awesome as he thinks he is because you know he is the best at everything.

While we probably aren’t going to see impeachment of any sort probably the next best thing that could happen is every time he goes to make a shady move 20 reporters are there to ask why and get to the bottom of it.    

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18 minutes ago, Crazydog7 said:

While we probably aren’t going to see impeachment of any sort probably the next best thing that could happen is every time he goes to make a shady move 20 reporters are there to ask why and get to the bottom of it.    

 

I'm finding it's the epitome of hope for the best, plan for the worst situations. I will never give up hope that Trump will be impeached, that with enough of the shit brought forth and enough Trump incompetence, then enough republicans will break left, sick of the Orange and want to get him out. But simultaneously I am keeping myself grounded by facing the realities, as long as the party over country GOP is in control of government he won't be impeached, it's going to be a four year slog to 2020 and then still a rawboned weary fight against half the country who only cares about their guy winning and screwing over the "libtards" as well Russia mucking around with the election again.

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More interesting articles...

AP had this to say after interviewing Akhmetshin:

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During the meeting, Akhmetshin said Veselnitskaya brought with her a plastic folder with printed-out documents that detailed what she believed was the flow of illicit funds to the Democratic National Committee. Veselnitskaya presented the contents of the documents to the Trump associates and suggested that making the information public could help the Trump campaign, he said.

“This could be a good issue to expose how the DNC is accepting bad money,” Akhmetshin recalled her saying.

Trump Jr. asked the attorney if she had all the evidence to back up her claims, including whether she could demonstrate the flow of the money. But Veselnitskaya said the Trump campaign would need to research it more. After that, Trump Jr. lost interest, according to Akhmetshin.

A month later, DNC emails were released and then these articles about the Victory Fund started popping up: DNC sought to hide details of Clinton funding deal

Did Veselnitskaya have some of the hacked emails with her prior to release?

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3 hours ago, Mexal said:

Not sure if anyone is paying attention to the right wing news sources but they're pushing a very strong "Democratic set up" narrative in regards to the meeting with Trump Jr and the Russian lawyer/ex-soviet FSB agent. This makes zero sense but the right media gives no fucks. Logically, does it make sense that the Democrats set up Trump Jr using contacts that Trump Jr personally knew, then did fuck all about it for over a year while still failing to campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan? This is just like the whole 3m illegal voters that the Democrats used in all the wrong states.

I'm increasingly worried that when/if Trump goes down, there will be violence. The bullshit propaganda coming out against Democrats with the revelation of every single piece of news against Trump is disturbing.

This is the real problem, right here. On one hand you might argue that aggressive conflict between the major parties has been a part of US history. You might argue that the unfolding of this scandal mirrors Watergate, where Republicans were attacking the integrity of Democrats and investigators right up until they decided to abandon that ship and become all decent. But a large part of the right is now driven by the notion where the removal of Trump, by impeachment or election, is either a coup d'etat or a forgery.

Back when the Muslim ban was introduced, people saw a future where the administration would use Muslims as the scapegoat that would legitimize the erosion of adherence to the law. Really, it seems the entire Democratic population is going to be that scapegoat.

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The people who are running things now, the people in the party of the Dark Money Koch Bros, etc., are determined there be nothing that is not privatized / monetized.  This includes not only National Parks (i.e. the same thinking that privatized all those Commons lands in villages and country to the utter devastation of everyone in the community and region except those who could buy the acreage), but the military.  They are really trying to privatize the military because, you know, cheaper, more effective, blahblahblah.

Anyone who believes such bs should read a history of mercenary armies.  And even those who think this is isn't a good idea never bring up the Veterans' Administration which is supposed to aid and assist soldiers with everything from necessary health care to education.  Privatized military means the end of the Veterans Administration too -- and will of course save huge amounts of money.  The military gets by far the largest percentage of tax revenues.  Without social security, medicare and the Veterans Administration there is no need for either a government or taxes at all.  Exactly the goal of the Dark Money people.

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