Trump, the 'Russian' President?

[Runnin]

Is that the way it's going to read in history books one day?

Trump supporters see no problem with the fact that our new President has such a cozy relationship with Putin. These people seem to believe Putin's interest in Trump isn't to do serious damage to America. Or do they think Trump is just conning Putin?

The GOP has not only embraced the man, but in doing so they have shown themselves to be hypocrites to their very core. Trump is hundred times more guilty than Hillary on all the faux nationalistic claims against her.

Corruption? National Security? They are willing to overlook much when it's their guy.

Who will America's allies be in the future and how can they trust Trump on anything??? Why would an intelligence agency of any country share anything with America with Trump as its leader?

Countries all over the world are re-thinking their relationship with America and the minute Trump is sworn in the American "brand" is gonna take a major hit.

[Runnin]

Putin's Real Long Game

"...Second, it’s all one war machine. Military, technological, information, diplomatic, economic, cultural, criminal, and other tools are all controlled by the state and deployed toward one set of strategic objectives. This is the Gerasimov doctrine, penned by Valery Gerasimov, the Russian Chief of the General Staff, in 2013. Political warfare is meant to achieve specific political outcomes favorable to the Kremlin: it is preferred to physical conflict because it is cheap and easy. The Kremlin has many notches in its belt in this category, some of which have been attributed, many likely not. It’s a mistake to see this campaign in the traditional terms of political alliances: rarely has the goal been to install overtly pro-Russian governments. Far more often, the goal is simply to replace Western-style democratic regimes with illiberal, populist, or nationalist ones.

Third, information warfare is not about creating an alternate truth, but eroding our basic ability to distinguish truth at all. It is not “propaganda” as we’ve come to think of it, but the less obvious techniques known in Russia as “active measures” and “reflexive control”. Both are designed to make us, the targets, act against our own best interests. ..."

[Oklahomahawk]

And just from a Biblical standpoint (especially end times stuff) it would be a VERY bad idea for us to join with the Russians from a military standpoint, especially if it has anything to do with the Middle East. Just saying...

[mqt]

I think we're headed in the wrong direction under the new administration with regard to foreign policy, but I'm not overly worried yet. I think that currently the President-elect has a combination of overconfidence in his abilities to deal with other people and lack of knowledge of the diplomacy. My hope is that when he's the actual President and learns that governing involves more than tweeting out sick burns that we'll head in a more stable direction.

[Runnin]

And just from a Biblical standpoint (especially end times stuff) it would be a VERY bad idea for us to join with the Russians from a military standpoint, especially if it has anything to do with the Middle East. Just saying...

I don't believe in Revelations but I have read enough of the New Testament to know Jesus seems to have had a lot to say about hypocrites.

[Oklahomahawk]

I don't believe in Revelations but I have read enough of the New Testament to know Jesus seems to have had a lot to say about hypocrites.

It doesn't have to be Revelations, check out the book of Daniel regarding Gog, Magog, and the rest of the whole Hee-Haw gang when they try to invade Israel.

[Runnin]

I find it so odd that no conservative hawks who have been so critical of Obama's foreign polity are interested in this subject.

Before Running for President (as late as 2014), Trump Described Russia as “Our Biggest Problem”


What changed??? This is the one element of Trump's spiel that doesn't make any sense. I understand his affinity for immigration, terrorism, jobs, etc. That's all standard boilerplate political blather, but the Russia stuff just doesn't fit. It's certainly a phenomenon that so called "conservatives" don't seem to mind that their new flag bearer may have been compromised in someway by Putin. WOW!

And it doesn't have to be videos of peeing girls. Trump's been going to Russia for years and coming back telling his pals about it. It would be very unlikely that Putin did not take advantage of the opportunity to get leverage on him, just for the fun of it, if nothing else.

. . . in March of 2014, when he gave a number of interviews in which he said Moscow was the country’s biggest problem and expressed agreement with Mitt Romney who described Russia as the United States’ top “geopolitical foe,” according to a recent review of the president-elect’s past interviews carried out by CNN.

“Well, Mitt was right, and he was also right when he mentioned in one of the debates about Russia, and he said, 'Russia's our biggest problem, and Russia is, you know, really something’,” Trump said on Fox and Friends on March 24, 2014. Trump noted that “everybody laughed” at Romney “including certain media” but “it turned out that he’s absolutely right.” He also warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “rebuilding the Russian empire . . .”

[Julio3000]

Man, it's a good thing those conversations with senior career officials advising him on recusal concluded TODAY, huh?

[Hawk]

Man, it's a good thing those conversations with senior career officials advising him on recusal concluded TODAY, huh?

Almost as coincidental as the leak which prompted the recusal occurring two days after Trump's (successful) joint address.

[Julio3000]

Almost as coincidental as the leak which prompted the recusal occurring two days after Trump's (successful) joint address.

Yes, I doubt that's a coincidence. Of course, I'm not claiming that it is. Nor am I the Attorney General of the United States.

[Hawk]

Nor am I the Attorney General of the United States.

Could've fooled me.

[Runnin]

Man, it's a good thing those conversations with senior career officials advising him on recusal concluded TODAY, huh?

He had already decided to recuse himself. It's true because he said so.

[Julio3000]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ing-to-russia/

I have a small prediction about how this might go in the near term. The WH has suffered from Flynn/Sessions being obfuscatory/untruthful about Russia contacts. Look for them to be more transparent about more pedestrian contacts (I think this has already started, see story about Kushner/Flynn meeting w/Kislyak in December). They will try to get out in front of the story that way, and go on background complaining about nasty partisans criminalizing politics and endangering national security by scaremongering about the Russians.

[Hawk]

I have a small prediction about how this might go in the near term. The WH has suffered from Flynn/Sessions being obfuscatory/untruthful about Russia contacts. Look for them to be more transparent about more pedestrian contacts (I think this has already started, see story about Kushner/Flynn meeting w/Kislyak in December). They will try to get out in front of the story that way, and go on background complaining about nasty partisans criminalizing politics and endangering national security by scaremongering about the Russians.

Short of a smoking gun of some sort, I just don't see this narrative advancing deep enough to where it's going to have a real impact on the Presidency. It was partially litigated (by public opinion) in November, and, sure, while it's true that more information has come to the surface now, months later, I still can't imagine it taking hold in any significant way. On Meet the Press this past Sunday they were comparing the 'Russian' problem with the nuisance that Whitewater created for the Clinton administration. Like a net on a shrimp trawler, the Whitewater story just kept collecting a little bit here and a little bit there until it became big enough to represent a kind of omnipresent negative impact on the administration both in terms of upcoming midterms and in terms of moving legislation through Congress. It had to be addressed. A clip was played where Senator Moynihan basically begged for an investigation -- "Presidents can't be seen to have any hesitation about any matter that concerns their propriety," Mr. Moynihan said. "And this is an honorable man. We have a fine President. He has nothing to hide."

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/10/us...land-deal.html

Obviously, the Whitewater controversy and the Russian connection bear little similarity, at least materially, but you can't help but wonder if they end up in the same place (ultimate findings coming 7 years after the investigation began).

[Julio3000]

Short of a smoking gun of some sort, I just don't see this narrative advancing deep enough to where it's going to have a real impact on the Presidency. It was partially litigated (by public opinion) in November, and, sure, while it's true that more information has come to the surface now, months later, I still can't imagine it taking hold in any significant way. On Meet the Press this past Sunday they were comparing the 'Russian' problem with the nuisance that Whitewater created for the Clinton administration. Like a net on a shrimp trawler, the Whitewater story just kept collecting a little bit here and a little bit there until it became big enough to represent a kind of omnipresent negative impact on the administration both in terms of upcoming midterms and in terms of moving legislation through Congress. It had to be addressed. A clip was played where Senator Moynihan basically begged for an investigation -- "Presidents can't be seen to have any hesitation about any matter that concerns their propriety," Mr. Moynihan said. "And this is an honorable man. We have a fine President. He has nothing to hide."

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/10/us...land-deal.html

Obviously, the Whitewater controversy and the Russian connection bear little similarity, at least materially, but you can't help but wonder if they end up in the same place (ultimate findings coming 7 years after the investigation began).

I disagree that it was partially litigated in November, because at that time the Trump position was no contacts/nothing to do with Russia, and our understanding of those facts have changed materially in the intervening months.

That said, you may very well be right. If there's no "smoking gun"," all of the minor embarrassments will eventually come to light and the whole thing will shift to a relatively more or less protracted but minor dog-and-pony show with no significant consequences.

I'm pretty agnostic about what may or may not have actually happened. I think it's not unlikely that nothing comes of it at all, beyond what's already known. I think it's not unlikely that some peripheral figure will get hung for some-kind of attempt at side-dealing--Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort (peripheral only in that he was ****canned in August), Carter Page are all possibilities here; they have varying degrees of connection to Trump, from personal to professional--that may not penetrate to the President or his immediate orbit.

That said, a couple of things still give me pause. This has already caused the resignation of the NSA and serious embarrassment to the AG. There's been, by any objective measure, a lot of ham-handed denialism, from the campaign to the present day, about contact with Russia. There's a lot of known and undeniable smoke (Manafort and Cohen's business connections in Ukraine, Flynn's lies, Carter Page's general hinkiness, Roger Stone's potential back-channeling to Wikileaks) that's got to be investigated. Nothing at all may come of it, but if you read between the lines, it seems that a few of the Ds on the intelligence committees have pushed around the edges of saying that they believe that there is evidence of contact between Trump associates and Russian intelligence during the campaign. Maybe it's nothing, but it's still to early to say.

To repeat, I don't think there's a huge chance of some showstopping info to coming to light. I do think that, at the very least, the behavior of the campaign/WH has warranted closer scrutiny. I recently saw an interview with a former Russian foreign minister who expressed surprise that the accounts of Trump folks' contact with Russians didn't begin ("before even handshake," in his construction) with a strongly-worded admonition to stop ****ing around with American elections. He suggested that the lack of such an admonition would be passed back up the chain as significant. The resolution might well end up being anticlimactic, but I think it's safe to assume that it's going to run on for a while.

[57Brave]

Read or listen to David Remnick on the topic of Russian involvement.
His impression is the Russians never expected Trump to win. Their game was to weaken the effectiveness and compromise a President Clinton.
And too maintaining a legislature that would be anti-Clinton.


Remnick has a history with Russia/USSR and interesting thoughts on Putin

[Runnin]

I disagree that it was partially litigated in November, because at that time the Trump position was no contacts/nothing to do with Russia, and our understanding of those facts have changed materially in the intervening months.

That said, you may very well be right. If there's no "smoking gun"," all of the minor embarrassments will eventually come to light and the whole thing will shift to a relatively more or less protracted but minor dog-and-pony show with no significant consequences.

I'm pretty agnostic about what may or may not have actually happened.

To repeat, I don't think there's a huge chance of some showstopping info to coming to light. I do think that, at the very least, the behavior of the campaign/WH has warranted closer scrutiny.

I have absolutely no faith that Congress will uncover anything on their own but clearly a lot of evidence has been preserved and someone has chosen to dole these revelations out a sensationalistic portion at a time, ironically, exactly like Comey and the Wiki/Russians did against Clinton. It's pretty hilarious to think that this has all been Obama's plan, that he moved to secure the evidence after Trump won but before he took the oath and got in a position to destroy the evidence.

One has to wonder how much more they have and if they have something truly damaging. You know that team Trump has to be wondering the same thing.

[Runnin]

So while at least 6 (so far) members of Trump's campaign were having chats with the Russian Ambassador, Trump has his people defang Ukraine in the Republican platform during the convention - July 18-21. Then on July 22 Wikileaks releases over 20,000 hacked emails of the DNC. WOW! You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to see something highly suspicious in that timeline.

JD Gordon now says Trump himself wanted the language in the platform changed. For a guy who doesn't seem to know anything about anything, he sure had a lot of specific opinions about Russia and the Ukraine. Wonder why?

I think they are all in deep doodie.

Our lying, draft dodging, pussy-grabbing, fraud committing, rabble rousing scam artist and dictator wannabe of a president seems to be trying hard to add to his impressive resume.


Putin: I want zee Americans to promise not to help the Ukraine.
Trump: I want to be President.
Putin: Maybe I can help with that.
Trump: Deal. I make great deals!

[Hawk]

I disagree that it was partially litigated in November, because at that time the Trump position was no contacts/nothing to do with Russia, and our understanding of those facts have changed materially in the intervening months.

Nevertheless, Clinton felt comfortable enough calling Trump "Putin's puppet" during a nationally televised debate . . . so even if our understanding of the facts has evolved, that implication has not.

[Runnin]

Another Russian diplomat has dropped dead.

Alex Oronov, organizer of Russia-Ukraine blackmail plan, who just happened to live in one of Trum's hotels. Coincidence?