192
   

monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

 
 
Builder
 
  0  
Mon 30 Oct, 2017 09:06 pm
@Cycloptichorn,
Quote:
I'll make you happy though: go ahead and investigate it! I welcome it. I'm sure we can look into two things simultaneously, there's no reason why we can't look into this while Mueller keeps himself busy.

Cycloptichorn


Indeed, though you fail to ask the important question; why isn't the media interested in the Uranium deal HRC made with Russia?
Setanta
 
  3  
Mon 30 Oct, 2017 09:37 pm
Builder is obviously an unabashed conservative operative. Snopes calls the claim false:

You can read the Snopes page by clicking here.
farmerman
 
  5  
Mon 30 Oct, 2017 09:57 pm
@Setanta,
ya gotta laugh because its so damned brutal , this game of preemptiv politics.
Id mentioned it back in 2015 when it began .Its like our Bakken gas fields would be bought by the Chinese. The gas all remains here , its just that we pay another landlord rather than Bakken/Williams. When ya want to mutate a story for your own benefit, you can count on Americans to be paying attention with on ear.
All the guys blowing smoke about this are the same guys who were talking about " fast Breeder reactors"

Im glad people are finally reading the small print to see what fools these politicians believe we are. I guess by this and the entire "coal bullshit" weve done our best to live up to their beliefs
0 Replies
 
Builder
 
  -3  
Mon 30 Oct, 2017 10:38 pm
@Setanta,
PMSL that you still think an adulterous couple googling stuff from their basement office, have some online credibility, Set. Too phunny, chum.

As for your pigeon-holing attempt, anyone politically active in Australia votes independent. The corruption and ownership of the two major parties is complete, to the point where donors are openly complaining that they're not getting value for their money.
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izzythepush
 
  3  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 01:50 am
Quote:
Facebook has said as many as 126 million American users may have seen content uploaded by Russia-based operatives over the last two years.
The social networking site said about 80,000 posts were produced before and after the 2016 presidential election.
Most of the posts focused on divisive social and political messages
Facebook released the figures ahead of a Senate hearing where it - together with Twitter and Google - will detail Russia's impact on the popular sites.
Russia has repeatedly denied allegations that it attempted to influence the last US presidential election, in which Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton.
The latest figures released by Facebook have been seen by Reuters news agency and the Washington Post newspaper.
The 80,000 posts were published between June 2015 and August 2017.
Facebook said they were posted by a Russian company linked to the Kremlin.
"These actions run counter to Facebook's mission of building community and everything we stand for," wrote Facebook's general counsel Colin Stretch, Reuters reports.
"And we are determined to do everything we can to address this new threat."
Nov 2016: Zuckerberg says only a "small amount" of content on Facebook is hoax news
Aug 2017: Facebook says it will fight fake news by sending more suspected hoax stories to fact-checkers and publishing their findings online
Sept 2017: The US Senate Intelligence Committee criticises Twitter for offering an "inadequate" appearance in briefings on alleged Russian interference
Oct 2017: Google finds evidence that Russian agents spent tens of thousands of dollars on ads in a bid to sway the election, media reports say
Oct 2017: Facebook says it will provide details of more than 3,000 adverts it says were bought in Russia around the time of the election
Oct 2017: Twitter bans Russia's RT and Sputnik media outlets from buy advertising amid fears they attempted to interfere in the election
On Monday, Google also revealed that Russian trolls uploaded more than 1,000 videos on YouTube on 18 different channels, according to the Washington Post.
Meanwhile, Twitter found and suspended all 2,752 accounts that it had tracked to Russia-based Internet Research Agency, a source familiar with the company's written testimony was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Dave Lee, BBC technology reporter, San Francisco
It's quite staggering how this problem, dismissed just over a year ago by Mark Zuckerberg as "crazy" talk, has exploded into a crisis at the world's biggest social network.
Apparently not learning from that mistake, we understand that the thrust of Facebook's message to various government committees this week will be that just one in 23,000 or so messages shared on the network were from the Russians.
It should not surprise Facebook if such a statement - an engineer's defence, you might say - gets short shrift from a panel already unsatisfied with some of what it's heard from the companies so far.
You won't see Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey or Google's executives answering questions this week. That job will be left up to their lawyers.
You wonder how long tech's great and powerful can get away with not personally standing up for the companies they built.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41812369
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  4  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 02:04 am
Opinion piece about recent arrests.

Quote:
The biggest news wasn't about Manafort
On Monday morning Paul Manafort and business associate Rick Gates were charged with 12 counts of money laundering, undisclosed foreign lobbying, lying to government investigators, and various and sundry other serious-sounding offences.
It turned out that wasn't the biggest news of the day.
Indictments had been telegraphed since news reports on Friday evening mentioned they were signed, sealed and soon-to-be-delivered. Manafort's name was at the top of most lists of possible targets. It was the follow-up revelation from Robert Mueller's independent counsel team, however, that caught most of Washington by surprise.
George Papadopoulos - hardly a household name - had pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with Russian nationals and connected individuals while he was serving as a foreign policy with the Trump campaign.
Where the Manafort indictment was somewhat expected and covered business dealings prior to his time as head of the Trump campaign, the Papadopoulos news sits at the heart of Mr Mueller's investigation into possible Trump team collusion with Russia.
Here are three reasons why Papadopoulos is a key piece of the puzzle. And lest we give the Manafort case short shrift, here are three more reasons why it could end up being even more explosive.
Papadopoulos was an intermediary
Per details of the indictment and plea agreement, Papadopoulos has revealed that he was in contact with individuals - a London professor, a female Russian national, a Russian foreign affairs ministry official - either directly or tangentially connected to the Russian government.
He was passing along details of conversations he had to senior members of the Trump presidential campaign team including, reportedly, Manafort. At one point, a "campaign supervisor", responding to one of Papadopoulos's emails, replied "good work".
While not evidence of collusion, this is clear indication that the Russian government was seeking back channels to the Trump campaign - and were finding at least some success.
The White House has diminished Papadopoulos's role within the campaign, noting he was an unpaid adviser and that his efforts to set up a senior-level meeting between the Trump team and Russian officials were rebuffed.
Papadopoulos did have a sit-down conference on 31 March 2016, with Mr Trump and the rest of the foreign policy team. Candidate Trump also mentioned Papadopoulos, whom he called an "excellent guy", as an adviser in a 21 March interview with the Washington Post.
Papadopoulos may have been on the campaign periphery, but he was far from a total unknown.
Papadopoulos heard about Clinton "dirt"
On April 26, 2016, Papadopoulos's professor contact told him he had just returned from Moscow and learned from "high-level Russian government officials" that they possessed "dirt" on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails".
It's unclear from the indictment whether Papadopoulos passed this bit of information on to his campaign contacts, although it notes he "continued to correspond" with them.
What is clear, however, is that there is now evidence that individuals with Russian government connections on two separate occasions tried to let the Trump campaign know that they had information they thought was damaging to the Democratic candidate.
Papadopoulos was the first. The second was when the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, heard a similar line from his publicist-friend Rob Goldstone in June 2016.
Trump Jr responded by writing "if it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer". Later that month, Trump Jr, Manafort and Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met a group of Russian nationals.
In July, embarrassing emails that were hacked from the Democratic National Committee were published by Wikileaks. In October, the contents of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's personal email inbox were released.
It makes for an interesting timeline.
Papadopoulos is co-operating
If there's anyone in Trump's campaign circle with something to hide, they should be concerned that Papadopoulos was arrested back on 27 July. He struck a plea agreement with the Mueller team on 5 October.
That was nearly four weeks ago and, according to the court documents, Papadopoulos has been co-operating with government investigators ever since. In fact, Mr Mueller told the relevant court he did not want the arrest made public because it would "significantly undermine his ability to serve as a proactive co-operator".
So who has Papadopoulos spoken to since his arrest? And what sorts of topics could he have discussed?
According to Dan Dale of the Toronto Star, a former prosecutor told him the term "proactive co-operator" can indicate someone who is willing to wear a wire tap.
HotAir Blog goes through an extended what-if scenario that envisions how Papadopoulos could go about surreptitiously gathering incriminating details from members of Trump's campaign inner circle. He could ask for their "advice" on how to disrupt Mr Mueller's investigation after disclosing that he had been arrested.
"Suddenly those people woke up this morning and realised they'd had conversations with Papadopoulos recently about how to throw Mueller off the trail and only now do they realise he's been in cahoots with Mueller for three months," the theory goes. "Hoo boy."
Hoo boy, indeed.
Manafort hire shows bad judgement
Even if, as Mr Trump writes in a tweet, Manafort's alleged illegal activities occurred "years ago", before he took a senior position in the Trump campaign, it still reflect's poorly on the then-candidate's personnel choices.
It was clear at the time Manafort came on board with Mr Trump that he had some questionable dealings in his past - including work for pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians, Philippine ex-leader Ferdinand Marcos and a group with ties to Pakistani intelligence.
Like many politicos in Mr Trump's orbit, Manafort was thrust into the campaign spotlight with little background vetting because more established hands wanted nothing to do with the upstart candidate's presidential efforts.
The decision to run with Manafort, who was backed by Trump confidante Roger Stone, has come back to haunt his presidency.
Manafort move could set stage for more indictments
Part of the case against Manafort - that he was operating as an undisclosed agent for a foreign government - echoes similar allegations made against another Trump associate, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
Flynn resigned his White House post after revelations that he had lied about discussing US sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2016. It was later disclosed that Flynn was also working for the Turkish government - something he didn't disclose on his relevant government forms.
If Manafort can face charges for his Ukrainian involvement, Flynn may be in jeopardy as well.
Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern also theorise that Mr Mueller's case against Manafort for financial misdeeds relating to foreign income could serve as a blueprint for a future case against Mr Trump's own business organisation, which also brings in a fair amount of revenue from foreign sources.
"This is an indictment that should terrify Trump in that it shadows and hints at his own unlawful conduct," they write.
Mr Trump wasn't named in the Manafort indictment, but the message may have been sent nevertheless.
Will Manafort co-operate?
Then there's the million-dollar question. If Manafort and Gates are each staring at double-digit prison terms if convicted, might they follow Papadopoulos's lead and seek to strike a deal with Mr Mueller in exchange for leniency?
Papadopoulos, of course, is a figure from the edges of the Trump campaign. Manafort, for months, was at the heart of it.
Mr Mueller and his veteran team of prosecutors know how to build a case against a large enterprise. Start with the easy targets, then offer a deal. Work your way up from the bottom. Reward those who co-operate early, and throw the book at the hold-outs. Turn the screws, and have your targets constantly looking over their shoulders.
Manafort and Gates may have nothing to bargain with - the White House insists that there is nothing there. If they do, however, this rollercoaster ride is only just beginning.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41808283
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  3  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 03:23 am
@Builder,
That's a classic argumentum ad hominem fallacy. All of your posts here support conservative memes, or attempt to derail the discussion by mentions of Clinton. If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . .
Builder
 
  -2  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 03:42 am
@Setanta,
Correlation does not equal causation. Historically, I support the middle left.

You've been doing this long enough to know when you're in the wrong, and as usual, you attack the messenger, and not the message.

That, in online etiquette, is an admission of defeat. Later, dude.

As an aside, the "left" and the "right" only exist in a form today that separates the people. Politically, the lines are so blurred, they only exist for turnips like your good self to snipe with.
Setanta
 
  3  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 04:09 am
@Builder,
Can you say hypocrisy? You attacked Snopes as a source on exactly the basis of an argumentum ad hominem, a slur against those who you allege run the site. I dismissed your participation in this thread on the basis of your constant attempts to derail the thread with references to Clinton, and your penchant for forwarding conservative memes. Neither of those constitute argumentum ad hominem--I made no personal references to you, after all I don't know you. Pointing out your consistent behavior in this thread may not be pleasant for you, but it does not constitute a dismissal of your "contributions" based on any personal characteristics.

I'll believe your "later" when you have disappeared for a considerable period ot time. I see you are happy to make personal remarks about me--say . . . I know . . . I'll report your name calling, and let's see what the moderators think.
0 Replies
 
revelette1
 
  3  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 07:20 am
Months Before News of Email Hack, Trump Aide Knew (NYT)
0 Replies
 
Finn dAbuzz
 
  0  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 07:52 am
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:

This should not be taken as an endorsement of Finn's essentially hateful ranting, but I see no difference between the classic European fascist states and Stalin's alleged Marxist-Leninist state. The only difference was in who owned the means of production--not a serious distinction in comparing the soviet system and European fascism. After all, the Soviet Union owned the means of production, and were therefore just cutting out the middleman, the capitalists.


Heaven forbid! Smile

In any case the "ranting" was from Brett Stephans not me. (Although I agree with those bits quoted. )
0 Replies
 
Cycloptichorn
 
  5  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 08:07 am
@Builder,
Builder wrote:

Quote:
I'll make you happy though: go ahead and investigate it! I welcome it. I'm sure we can look into two things simultaneously, there's no reason why we can't look into this while Mueller keeps himself busy.

Cycloptichorn


Indeed, though you fail to ask the important question; why isn't the media interested in the Uranium deal HRC made with Russia?


The obvious answer here is that Clinton wasn't in charge of the deal, which I'm sure you know is true. It's also a boring story with nothing new happening, so there's not much 'news' there.

Cycloptichorn
thack45
 
  6  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 08:19 am
@Cycloptichorn,
Years ago, there was a story in Ohio of a lion on the loose in a city called Gahanna. Never did hear what came of that. Why is the media not getting to the bottom of this!? Well I think we who are the discerning know exactly why that is...
ehBeth
 
  2  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 08:24 am
@thack45,
I remember that! I visited Set in Mudsock right around then.
0 Replies
 
revelette1
 
  2  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 09:10 am
Quote:
In an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Jay Sekulow was asked if he could definitively say that the president has ruled out firing Mueller.

"Let me say this and I have said this, there is no conversation regarding firing Robert Mueller. And there's no basis to fire Robert Mueller," Sekulow said

Asked again if the president is ruling out firing Mueller, he said, "I will say this, the president has not indicated to me or to anyone else that I work with that he's had any intent of terminating Robert Mueller and the way it would work is, you could only terminate a special counsel for cause and we just don't see any basis for cause."

Sekulow was also asked if Mr. Trump is ruling out pardons, but Sekulow said that he hasn't had a conversation with the president about that, but that "pardons are not on the table."


CBS NEWS
BillW
 
  2  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 09:51 am
@revelette1,
Just a contrived legal response coming out of the insane asylum.
revelette1
 
  2  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 10:16 am
@BillW,
The question is whether Sekulow will be left with egg on his face. Going by past events...
izzythepush
 
  3  
Tue 31 Oct, 2017 10:17 am
Legally Trump may be able to keep all this at arms length, but politically it's impossible. Trump knew the sort of person Manafort was when he hired him, that speaks volumes about his judgement. Manafort lobbied for some of the most repulsive dictators in the world.

Quote:
A home improvement company in the Hamptons, New York, is on the list for more than $5m. An antique rug store in Alexandria, Virginia, is down for almost $1m. A men’s clothing store in New York: $849,215. A clothing store in Beverly Hills, California: $520,440. A contractor in Florida: $432,487.

An indictment unsealed on Monday morning lists dozens of alleged payments by Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, to stores and businesses since 2008. In nearly all the transactions, cash flowed from accounts in tax havens such as Cyprus and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

For years, the transglobal torrent of money drenched luxury retail outlets and real estate offices from New York to California and back again, the indictment says. Art galleries, landscapers, car dealerships – none of the retailers seem to have checked very carefully where the cash came from.
Amid the shopping sprees, Manafort himself returned frequently to the alleged sources of his fortune in the former Soviet bloc. The consultant-for-hire had set up shop at 4 Sophia Street in Kiev back in 2005, as Ukraine struggled through waves of election, revolution and reverses.

There, Manafort found high demand for his skills as a former Washington lobbyist for some of the world’s most notorious despots – Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos and Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi among them. Soon, his sphere of operation came to include members of the Russian oligarchy.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/30/paul-manafort-profile-donald-trump-dictators
 

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