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Donald Trump 2018

TheFlyingBoat

By TheFlyingBoat
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TahoeHorn

TahoeHorn 107

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Bevo VIII said:


She’s been very impressive in all these hearings but I don’t know if she’s ready for that stage just yet.

Witnesses can be impressive.  Senators and Congressmen can't.  They just read questions created by staff.  George C Scott was not a great general.  He was an actor.

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M12BH
M12BH

SInce y'all seem to be my clearinghouse for all things political, let me tell a story.  A couple of them, actually.  Three, if you want to be specific. When I was 14 I went with a family frien

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SimonBolivar

SimonBolivar 10957

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, TahoeHorn said:

Witnesses can be impressive.  Senators and Congressmen can't.  They just read questions created by staff.  George C Scott was not a great general.  He was an actor.

Witnesses can just read answers prepared by their legal team and rarely will be candid on questions they aren't prepared for.

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Tuco

Tuco 5076

Posted
Posted
26 minutes ago, TahoeHorn said:

Witnesses can be impressive.  Senators and Congressmen can't.  They just read questions created by staff.  George C Scott was not a great general.  He was an actor.

Bullshit. The Senators/Congressmen hire the team, manage the team, and set the direction.  And then they do their part in executing the presentation of the work.  And if Kamala were to become President, she'd take that team with her, augment it with others, and lead it in her new role. 

To dismiss their part in it is to pretend that all bosses are equal, because it's their underlings who do most of the work.  There are plenty of Sens/Reps who look like complete fucking idiots during these things.  Because they are.  Because they don't know how to lead a team or because they don't really understand what's been written for them.  If you can't tell the difference between Inhofe and  Franken, then that's on you.

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yoladu

yoladu 4089

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Aqua Buddha said:

It's just like DACA.  Repeal it just because.  Say you want it fixed.  Reject all offers to fix it.  Offer no alternative.

because someone is looking for a pretext for war.

Trump warns of ‘very severe consequence’ if Iran restarts nuclear program

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/09/trump-iran-restart-nuclear-program-577375

 

Edited by yoladu
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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23367

Posted
Posted (edited)

This whole article is fucking nuts.

 

 

Translation: "Standing in line to the voting station. Like an average American. 6.45 am."

 

 

Kremlin-linked Russian politician Alexander Torshin traveled frequently between Moscow and various destinations in the United States to build relationships with figures on the American right starting as early as 2009, beyond his 

previously known contacts with the National Rifle Association.

Documents newly obtained by NPR show how he traveled throughout the United States to cultivate ties in ways well beyond his formal role as a member of the Russian legislature and later as a top official at the Russian central bank. These are steps a former top CIA official believes Torshin took in order to advance Moscow's long-term objectives in the United States, in part by establishing common political interests with American conservatives.

"[Vladimir] Putin and probably the Russian intelligence services saw [Torshin's connections] as something that they could leverage in the United States," said Steve Hall, a retired CIA chief of Russian operations. "They reach out to a guy like Torshin and say, 'Hey, can you make contact with the NRA and some other conservatives ... so that we can have connectivity from Moscow into those conservative parts of American politics should we need them?' And that's basically just wiring the United States for sound, if you will, in preparation for whatever they might need down the road."

Torshin's trips took him to Alaska, where he requested a visit with former Gov. Sarah Palin; to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.; to Nashville, where he was an election observer for the 2012 presidential race; and to every NRA convention, in various American cities, between 2012 and 2016.

But the jig is up. Last month, Torshin was designated for sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department.

"We can conclude that the administration thought he was acting to advance Putin's malign agenda, but what precisely [he did] they did not make clear," said Daniel Fried, a former State Department coordinator for sanctions policy who helped craft the sanctions that ultimately were employed against Torshin.

Arriving at Sarah Palin's doorstep

Torshin's outreach to the United States started well before Russia's now-public campaign of electoral interference during the 2016 elections. And it appears to be a cultivated effort to reach out to conservatives, even in its earliest stages.

"I really do think the Russians are looking at being able to reach out to the right ... to say, 'Hey, you know Russians actually share a lot of the same values,' " said Hall, whose 30-year career in the CIA concluded in 2015.

 

Hall said their message was: "You know, we don't like LGBT causes any more than you conservatives on the right in the United States do; we are interested in engaging the NRA ... the church plays an important role in Russia just as it should in the United States."

Torshin's earliest known visit to the United States was in 2009, when he requested a meeting with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin — a request that has never before been reported.

An email from the former Alaska governor's archives, released because of a public records request from activist Andree McLeod and posted online en masse by then-Alaska Dispatch News reporter Richard Mauer, shows how Torshin made the approach through the Russian ambassador to the U.S., who was then-Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

An aide wrote to Palin in May of 2009: "You had received a request to call the Russian Ambassador regarding a proposed visit by Mr. Alexander Torshin... Torshin will be visiting Alaska on June 6, 2009 and we have asked the Lt. Governor to meet with him." Neither the Russian Embassy nor Palin responded to a request for comment.

The lieutenant governor at the time was Sean Parnell, who would go on later to become the governor of Alaska. Parnell told NPR he doesn't recall meeting with Mr. Torshin, nor did the name ring a bell — but he said it wouldn't be odd for him to take such a meeting.

"It wouldn't be unusual for Alaska's Lt. Governor to take a meeting with a visiting foreign dignitary, especially if the Governor's Office had been approached first by the visitor/visiting delegation to schedule a meeting and the governor had declined," Parnell said in an email.

Torshin's travels in the United States continued with a strange trip to Tennessee. Public records requests made by NPR shed light on how Torshin managed to become an election observer in Nashville during the 2012 presidential elections.

"The interesting thing about election monitoring is it does get foreign officials out and about in places that they perhaps might not usually go," said Hall, the former CIA chief of Russian operations. "It wouldn't be uncommon for either somebody like Mr. Torshin, or a diplomat, or a Russian intelligence officer to appear in places like Washington or New York ... But a place like Nashville, or other locations in the United States, provide sort of an insight about what's really going on in the heartland."

A memo left for Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett on Oct. 11, 2012, shows that local lawyer Kline Preston, known for his support of Putin, made the application for election observer status on behalf of Torshin.

"Russian Senator Alexander Torshin would like to observe our Presidential election. Polling stations," the 2012 message reads.

An email from Tennessee Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins shows that Torshin requested visits to the Davidson County Election Commission and the Williamson County Election Commission. And a sign-in sheet showed that he visited the polling station at Grassland Middle School in Williamson County, Tenn.

According to these documents, Torshin was accompanied by a Russian diplomat named Igor Matveev. Matveev had postings in Syria and the United States and is fluent in Arabic and English. Hall said that Matveev, who did not respond to a request for comment from NPR, fit the profile of a professional diplomat rather than an intelligence operative due to his background, "but basically the Russian intelligence services can and do oftentimes co-opt standard diplomats to do their bidding for them."

Torshin made no secret of his visit to Tennessee, and posted it on Twitter, as he has many of his visits to the U.S. He even posted a photo of himselfin line at a Nashville-area polling place.

 

Translation: "Standing in line to the voting station. Like an average American. 6.45 am."

 

 

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Jive Turkey said:

 

Scumbags gotta scumbag. Just another day in trump world. I don’t think she realizes how bad she is making herself look in the future when people ask what the hell happened. But I don’t know her so who gives a shit about her. 

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burntorangebongos

burntorangebongos 10710

Posted
Posted (edited)
 

Wanna talk about that 3.3 billion contract AT&T got with the NSA in January?

https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2018/03/t-won-secret-33-billion-nsa-contract-despite-more-expensive-bid/146853/

Maybe they are cool with the non merger cuz they got this instead?

Edited by burntorangebongos
fuck quoted wrong post meant to quote 6233
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Chooky

Chooky 13307

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Message Board User said:

 

In another ideological parody, Trump sticks it to libs and lifts ban of elephant trophy hunts on a continent that has repeatedly proven it is incapable of monitoring any semblance of proper herd management.  Wait ... .  

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RPM

RPM 26305

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 Yeah yeah, Sarah Palin but no one votes for Vice President so she factored very little in my decision.

She factored heavily in mine. Swung my vote.

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