StrangeSox

In other "definitely not a Russian pawn" news, Tillerson is bumbling his way through his confirmation hearing and said that sanctions only hurt American businesses. Also claimed that Exxon never lobbied on sanctions related to Ukraine or Russia, but they absolutely did

FBI was too busy with EMAILS to investigate this

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 09:18 AM) Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I've read this line before. Most recently it was 2000, then again in 2004. Every time a Republican wins it's "oh because they scare dumb people the best!" That s*** is done by both parties. That's why our system sucks and is broken. For every "omg the gays are coming!" there's "omg they want to rally up every brown person and put them on a boat!" Trump has certainly made it easier to make the case, but it's still an idea (using fear) that's been around since our democracy was founded. No party is better than the other. There's nothing that makes your last claim inherently true, though. It's entirely possible for a political party to be worse than another political party on ethical and moral standards. Making that claim would let whatever major party was actually acting in unethical and immoral fashion get away with it because of silly, mindless "both sides!"-ism. edit: hell, there are right now legitimate concerns that rise up to the level of treason and being subserviant to foreign powers surrounding one party's President Elect. Maybe it's not an immutable fact, but it seems sort of easy to claim that one party is actually worse than the other right now, given who they nominated, elected and are rallying behind?

The CIA is not exactly the most competent agency in history, but this information was gathered by outside sources and handed over to the FBI and CIA by people concerned that it explained pretty thoroughly why our soon-President has bent over backwards to shift policy very favorably towards Russia and routinely praises their President. It's not really a 1:1 comparison there.

hey blame the forum's autoresizing software for not doing it's thing, not me.

BBC reported earlier that their contact with the CIA indicated that there was more than one source, more than one tape with video and audio (St. Petersburg and Moscow) and that the CIA found the allegations to be credible. here's the transcript of the segment: statement from McCain Link to the image here earlier

(shamelessly stolen) Nixon: You could never have an administration more corrupt than mine Trump: Hold my beer Nixon: ...Wait this isn't beer

If there's one thing I've learned from years of posting on the internet, it's that frantic denials, especially when issued in ALL CAPS, means the person is having a meltdown because it's 100% true. I'm still choosing to laugh at this because what else can you do, but the man who will be President in 9 days is absolutely owned by Russian interests and his actions, statements and policies over his entire campaign only confirm the allegations that broke yesterday.

Uh, Donnie boy, I don't think running to Russia for help is really going to ease people's concerns about you being wholly owned by Russia right now. oh, okay, I'm convinced then. We're back to it being a completely unexplainable mystery why you're extremely friendly towards them and it's been your single consistent policy position and why your campaign was 100% confirmed run by a Russian stooge for awhile. uh so when you're being accused of hiring Russian hookers to piss on a bed Obama slept in at one point, maybe don't put the word 'movement' in quotes in your increasingly desperate denials? Really just invites the continued jokes. Two things. Nazi Germany? I dunno, ask your white supremacist chief policy advisor, bub. I don't think Nazi Germany ran on the intelligence community undermining their leader either, unless you're comparing yourself to Hitler? Second thing: "one last shot" so pretty much confirmed that he's going to wreck our intelligence agencies then? oh and third thing, putting 'leak' in quotes. man, stop setting yourself up like that.

This was published before all of the allegations of Trump's deep and troubling ties to Russia broke yesterday, but here's an article by the former ethics lawyers of George W. Bush and Obama laying out the conflicts of interest that Trump has and what he needs to do to get rid of them. It details the five major things to look for to help ensure that Trump doesn't have the worrying conflicts of interest from his and his family's business empires. Thus far, he's given no signs that he'll comply with any of it, which would arguably leave him in violation of the Constitution. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/201...er-tribe-214619

The sad part is that essentially everything in that document and the various stories from CNN, The Guardian etc. is entirely plausible and would actually explain some things that otherwise don't make a lot of sense, such as why he's consistently praised Russia for years and why his campaign changed GOP platforms to be much more Russian-friendly. Even the golden shower stuff is completely plausible for him because he's such a petty, pathetic and depraved man. e: it's also a little disheartening to see how many Trump supporters and even Trump himself don't even understand what "fake news" is all about. It's not reports that you think are inaccurate or misleading, it's stuff that is 100% straight-up fabricated by content producers to get clicks from gullible and credulous people. Trump's initial response was to call it FAKE NEWS and then link to a literal fake news website. e2: if Trump released his tax returns, he could potentially squash a lot of the allegations of his business ties, laundering money for the Russian mafia, being millions in debt to the Russian mafia, etc.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 10, 2017 -> 10:12 PM) Mike Pence can be an idiot and a sycophant and a homophobe while he's at it, but unless we have evidence of him conspiring as a part of this, he would be fair to serve. Same phrases about Paul Ryan. You want to be terrified? In a couple weeks, the #4 in line will be Tillerson, who led a company that is about to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in Russia once they remove the sanctions. Sorry, this week already started out with laughing at the absurdity of it all and then I got president golden shower. Next week will be existential meltdown, probably alternating between these two moods for the next four years. If Trump's campaign itself was actually contacting Russian sources, it's pretty damn hard to view pence as legitimate. Ryan would be less of a problem in that circumstance.

What happens if trump and his close circle of idiots ie bannon and Flynn start ignoring the intelligence agencies over their conclusions about Russian interference and these investigations, and then we get another large scale attack?

McCain met with comey regarding the allegations against trump, confirmed by Bernstein. https://twitter.com/search?q=place%3A01a9a3...src=twsrc%5Etfw

If there is strong enough evidence of collusion between trump, his campaign and Russia, I can't see how pence wouldn't be implicated simply by association. How could you let a man that was elected on the same ticket stay in office? E: sure is a shame that trump never released his taxes and never will so people can't figure out the true extent of his corruption. I bet Russia has a solid idea of his finances, though.

Senate GOP blocks Sanders on preventing entitlement cuts http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/sena...ntitlement-cuts

From Stern, years ago .”' http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015...e-from-you.html

Trump responding with "FAKE NEWS" and a link to "www.lifezette.com", whatever that is. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/...src=twsrc%5Etfw

On the one hand, I agree with what you're saying. On the other, facts clearly no longer matter so bring on the Trump piss jokes by the bucket full.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 10, 2017 -> 07:39 PM) https://lawfareblog.com/about-explosive-tru...ake-deep-breath Well reasoned assessment. Sure, but I think a key part in there is the Guardian update: This is something that the intelligence community has been taking very seriously.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 10, 2017 -> 07:34 PM) I saw their statement, but publishing a dossier like that and admitting you can't verify is dangerous. There is certainly some false stuff in there (conservatively) and if so that will be used to discredit all info in future. It's the dossier the intelligence community has already presented to Trump, a man who spent years as the leader of the idiot birther brigade. Either way, this is another win for Russia, though. Not even in office yet, and Trump's legitimacy is deeply suspicious.

Follow igorvolskyVerified account ‏@igorvolsky Jeff Sessions' face as he hears about @CNN's Russia compromised Trump story from @alfranken at the Judiciary Committee moments ago

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 10, 2017 -> 07:29 PM) I'm not sure buzzfeed made the right move but not sure "everyone knows about something but nobody talks about it" is good either. This was their statement on publishing the dossier

Comey: I don't comment on pending investigations!