192
   

monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

 
 
snood
 
  3  
Wed 6 Sep, 2017 11:52 pm
You guys have maybe strayed just a tad from anything resembling the thread's prevailing subject matter. Maybe.
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  3  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 04:45 am
Here are some excerpts from an interview with John Le Carré on Fresh Air. Here he describes the Russian campaign to disrupt the workings of democratic governments and the Russian influence on Trump:

Quote:
Let's look, first of all, at the operation influence, if you like, and how that's exerted, what we suspect the Russians are doing, not only in the United States, but they did in Britain for the referendum, maybe, in Britain for the election. They certainly interfered in Macron's election in France. So who are these forces? And what is really spooky, I think, and profoundly disturbing is they come from the West as well as the East - that there are oligarchs in the West who are so far to the right that they make a kind of natural cause with those on the other side of the world. Both of them have in common a great contempt for the ordinary conduct of democracy.

They want to diminish it. They see it as their enemy. They see - they've made a dirty word of liberalism - one of the most inviting words in politics. They've - and so they're closing in on the same target from different points of view. That's the first thing. So whether they're called Cambridge Analytica, whether they've got some spooky name and they're hidden away in the Ukraine, they're actually doing much the same job. They're undermining the decent processes of democracy, and that's having its effect. It's had its effect in Europe, in Hungary, in Poland. And I think it's had a quite disturbing effect in my own country. We'll come to that later.

Now, as to what is happening in the other areas of Russian behavior and Mr. Trump's association - there, I think we follow the money trail. I think it's perfectly possible that Trump was taken into what I call a honey trap - that he had ladies found for him, and he misbehaved in Russia. If that film was shown tomorrow worldwide, Trump would get away with it. People would say, well, boys will be boys. Or they would say the different parts of the body in the video don't add up; this is all fake stuff. And 35 experts would testify to that - so wouldn't get any distance on that.

But on the money, that's a deep and persistent theme in Trump's business affairs. It's gone on for a long, long time. It relates, also, to a great extent to property held in the United States, which brings the thing closer to home. And it relates, also, to Mr. Trump's family.

(...)

The power of oligarchs in Russia, what the oligarchs have lent Trump directly or indirectly for his enterprises, the protection they've given him in far places - but none of that will play so well for the downfall of Trump as the domestic stuff, as the properties that he owns around America - how they've been bought, who they've been bought by, in what sums, whether the sums were actually consonant, whether they were gross, whether they look like some kind of backhander or bribe, and the extraordinary number of Russians with criminal records or Eastern Europeans with criminal records who frequent Trump's company.

(...)

Well, first of all, let's remember that Putin, when he was running the KGB from Dresden in East Germany, was a master of kompromat. So when he wanted to obtain a Western diplomat, a Western official, a target of some kind, he would surround them. He would tempt them. He would set stuff up. He would fake a background. They couldn't deny whatever it was.

That's an old skill. It goes back hundreds of years, not just in Russia. But the Russians specialized in it, even in czarist times. And they - the gray czars of today are experts at it. They love it. They love the complexity of it. They love the chess game of it. But I don't think it would work.

So I think the kompromat, if it's taken place, has taken place very largely through Trump's own endeavors to raise money in all sorts of dark places. And together, all those efforts amount to a self-compromising activity, which the Russians have embraced. I think they have him by the short hairs.

In the end, it seems to me, some of this has got to come home to roost. And I think there might be a point - I hope there will be a point when somebody goes to Trump and says, your family is so deeply involved in this that you have a choice - you either fade away or we disrupt the house of Trump in ways that would be very painful to you.
hightor
 
  5  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 04:49 am
@blatham,
Fake news. I don't believe this at all. Probably the DNC is behind it, trying to make Putin look bad and scuttle our chances for better relations with Russia.
blatham
 
  2  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 07:41 am
@hightor,
Quote:
I think, and profoundly disturbing is they come from the West as well as the East - that there are oligarchs in the West who are so far to the right that they make a kind of natural cause with those on the other side of the world. Both of them have in common a great contempt for the ordinary conduct of democracy.
I would like to have a much better sense of the similarities/differences between Bannon and the Kochs. This remains unclear to me.

Quote:
They want to diminish [democracy]. They see it as their enemy. They see - they've made a dirty word of liberalism - one of the most inviting words in politics
This has been a long-term and very effective propaganda ploy.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  2  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 07:43 am
@hightor,
Putin does wish to make America great again. He cares.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  2  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 08:45 am
Josh Marshall sees Trump exactly as I do
Quote:
Trump’s core personal drive is the need to dominate.
TPM
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  1  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 09:02 am
Trump took a public dump on McConnell and the tiny man with the Eddy Munster hairline. I think Schumer had an orgasm.
Lash
 
  1  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 09:08 am
@Cycloptichorn,
Demanding a departure from our current level of political corruption puts me in good company. I'm among a huge and growing activist contingent forcing change. Democrats will move back left, or lose, or do what they should do, and admit they're Republicans and let progressives have the party.

I question anyone who doesn't want to attack political corruption.
Lash
 
  -2  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 09:38 am
@Lash,
Hillary is back in the news--story and video submitted under the Writes a Self-Serving Book, Trying to Re-Write History by Blaming Bernie (& so many others) For Her Loss category: political moves plus $

Key words: Pokémon Go to Wisconsin.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/09/07/seth_meyers_is_not_here_for_hillary_blaming_bernie.html
Finn dAbuzz
 
  -3  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 09:54 am
@Lash,
Former HRC Surrogate: STFU and go away!
revelette1
 
  6  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 10:01 am
@Finn dAbuzz,
She hasn't done anything wrong, she is allowed to promote her book and put down her thoughts and feelings on what she feels happened with the 2016 election. I am going to buy it at some point. Possibly a real book vs. digital. Those types who are turning on her now are the same type who never was there for Obama either when things were tough. Fair weather supporters.
revelette1
 
  7  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 10:09 am
@Lash,
We go through the debt ceiling debate/fight every year as though we have any choice but to pay our debts. I wish I could just refuse to pay my debts out of some kind of ideological idiocy.

Quote:
The nation's debt limit is similar to the limit your credit card company places on your spending. But there's one significant difference. Congress is in charge of both its spending and the debt limit. It already knows how much it will add to the debt when it approves that year's budget deficit. When it refuses increase the debt limit, it's saying it wants to spend but not pay its bills. That's like your credit card company allowing you to spend above its limit and then refusing to pay the stores for your purchases.


source/the balance
snood
 
  5  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 10:20 am
@revelette1,
revelette1 wrote:

She hasn't done anything wrong, she is allowed to promote her book and put down her thoughts and feelings on what she feels happened with the 2016 election. I am going to buy it at some point. Possibly a real book vs. digital. Those types who are turning on her now are the same type who never was there for Obama either when things were tough. Fair weather supporters.

There is NOTHING - absolutely NOTHING Hillary could do in the public eye that would meet with approval from these folk. I admit I am not crazed to relive the wonderful 2016 election so I won't be buying her book. But it's totally understandable to me that she is trying to find a way to live with TWO presidential election losses. If she's got to write about it... Hey, it's not like she's saying anything that isn't arguably true.
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  -1  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 10:30 am
@Finn dAbuzz,
It really is telling about her character that she knows she's damaging her party, but she always puts herself above everything else.

Here's an excerpt from your link:

“The best thing she could do is disappear,” said one former Clinton fundraiser and surrogate who played an active role at the convention. “She’s doing harm to all of us because of her own selfishness. Honestly, I wish she’d just shut the f— up and go away.” …

“None of this is good for the party,” said one former Obama aide. “It’s the Hillary Show, 100 percent. A lot of us are scratching our heads and wondering what she’s trying to do. It’s certainly not helpful.”
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  -3  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 10:34 am
@revelette1,
Wrong. Many people remember Clintons race-baiting and hinting of Obama's 'questionable' religion and heritage during that campaign.

You guys would never forgive a Republican for that. Why let Clintons get away with it? Oh yeah. Rampant hypocrisy.
Lash
 
  1  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 10:35 am
@revelette1,
Tell me about it.
0 Replies
 
revelette1
 
  9  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 11:03 am
@Lash,
I give you that point, Bill Clinton was the one who made a few questionable comments if I am remember correctly. However, they must have all worked it out because it is clear, Obama and Hillary got along really well once Obama won. Speaking for myself, I forgave Bill Clinton with the 2013 election when he spoke at the convention, it was a rousing endorsement of Obama.
0 Replies
 
hightor
 
  7  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 11:11 am
@Lash,
Quote:
Democrats will move back left...

Left of what? They haven't been "left" since the early days of the New Deal. They helped override Truman's veto of Taft-Hartley, they pursued the Cold War with as much enthusiasm as the Republicans, they waged war on Vietnam. The civil rights gains of the '60s were bipartisan accomplishments; the Great Society programs and the War on Poverty were moderate enough to be backed by Wall Street. I don't see a widespread mandate for real "leftist" policies, just a lot of frustrated voters vaguely dissatisfied with the status quo and tying themselves to a largely undefined "progressivism".
Quote:
I question anyone who doesn't want to attack political corruption.

People don't have to be leftist or rightist to want to attack political corruption. If you have solutions to the problem of dark money and the obscene levels of spending required to run a political campaign maybe you could share them here and explain why you think they are "progressive". We had a chance to put another liberal on the Supreme Court and the "progressives" sat on their hands and gave the seat to Gorsuch. Real strategic thinking there.
Finn dAbuzz
 
  -3  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 11:13 am
@revelette1,
Her unnamed former surrogate disagrees with you.

Me, I don't care all that much. She's certainly entitled to promote her book. She's confirming everything I thought about her though and if she creates a fissure in the Democrat Party, so much the better.
maporsche
 
  3  
Thu 7 Sep, 2017 12:06 pm
@hightor,
hightor wrote:

Quote:
Democrats will move back left...

Left of what? They haven't been "left" since the early days of the New Deal. They helped override Truman's veto of Taft-Hartley, they pursued the Cold War with as much enthusiasm as the Republicans, they waged war on Vietnam. The civil rights gains of the '60s were bipartisan accomplishments; the Great Society programs and the War on Poverty were moderate enough to be backed by Wall Street. I don't see a widespread mandate for real "leftist" policies, just a lot of frustrated voters vaguely dissatisfied with the status quo and tying themselves to a largely undefined "progressivism".
Quote:
I question anyone who doesn't want to attack political corruption.

People don't have to be leftist or rightist to want to attack political corruption. If you have solutions to the problem of dark money and the obscene levels of spending required to run a political campaign maybe you could share them here and explain why you think they are "progressive". We had a chance to put another liberal on the Supreme Court and the "progressives" sat on their hands and gave the seat to Gorsuch. Real strategic thinking there.


Left of what is such a great question.

Also, extreme progressiveness is a stance held by ~10% of the population. They're a loud, bitchy, whiny 10%, but they're only 10%.
 

Related Topics

Obama '08? - Discussion by sozobe
Let's get rid of the Electoral College - Discussion by Robert Gentel
McCain's VP: - Discussion by Cycloptichorn
The 2008 Democrat Convention - Discussion by Lash
McCain is blowing his election chances. - Discussion by McGentrix
Snowdon is a dummy - Discussion by cicerone imposter
Food Stamp Turkeys - Discussion by H2O MAN
TEA PARTY TO AMERICA: NOW WHAT?! - Discussion by farmerman
 
Copyright © 2025 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.45 seconds on 03/15/2025 at 01:49:51