Political Roundtable Part XII

[dckingsfan]

[quote="sfam"]Its becoming clear now why we are seeing so many leaks from the National Security Establishment - they clearly think many in the Trump administration are traitorous. There's no other explanation for this. [quote]
Yup. There is a cold war going on...

[nate33]

I really hope its delusional but actual facts are pointing in the other direction. It has already been widely reported that Trump - the King of Debt - couldn't get financing from US banks, and did in fact get financing from Russia. So there are ties there.

We have reporting from multiple outlets with multiple current and retired sources from multiple agencies indicating that there has been constant contact between multiple Trump officials and Russian officials, throughout the campaign.

I think you have to examine the nature of those "ties" and the nature of the "Russian officials" involved.

For example, here is what The New York Times said that Paul Manafort said about his Russian connection:

Mr. Manafort, who has not been charged with any crimes, dismissed the officials’ accounts in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “This is absurd,” he said. “I have no idea what this is referring to. I have never knowingly spoken to Russian intelligence officers, and I have never been involved with anything to do with the Russian government or the Putin administration or any other issues under investigation today.”

He added, “It’s not like these people wear badges that say, ‘I’m a Russian intelligence officer.’”

Several of Mr. Trump’s associates, like Mr. Manafort, have done business in Russia. And it is not unusual for American businessmen to come in contact with foreign intelligence officials, sometimes unwittingly, in countries like Russia and Ukraine, where the spy services are deeply embedded in society. Law enforcement officials did not say to what extent the contacts might have been about business.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html

It's possible for Trump people to have dealings with the Ukraine, or even Russia, and not knowingly be conducting espionage. The whole "with ties to" phrase is being overused to intentionally malign Trump. (Not that Republicans don't try the same tactics against Democrats.)

[sfam]

Here's something that almost never happens - the head of a Combatant Command - SOCOM in this case, criticising the stability and safety of the US Government

The head of US Special Operations Command said Tuesday that the US government is in "unbelievable turmoil," a situation that he suggested could undermine US efforts to fight adversaries such as ISIS.

"Our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil. I hope they sort it out soon because we're a nation at war," Army Gen. Raymond "Tony" Thomas told a symposium in Maryland

To the question of whether this is a made up fake news crisis, this really doesn't happen. When it does, there is usually an immediate termination.

We are in a real crisis according to the Combatant Command leader conducting most of the operations around the globe.

[sfam]

It's possible for Trump people to have dealings with the Ukraine, or even Russia, and not knowingly be conducting espionage. The whole "with ties to" phrase is being overused to intentionally malign Trump. (Not that Republicans don't try the same tactics against Democrats.)

If everything is benign, the Trump campaign wouldn't have been lying about them. They've continually said there were no contacts, which are now finding out not to be true. The intelligence community has apparently known this for over a year.

But it iss great to see the concern over the leaks. I'm sure you had similar ones when the FBI was leaking daily about how Clinton broke the law and would be indicted soon. Leak used to be Trump's favorite campaign line.

Funny how it doesn't seem so funny now. Sad.

[FAH1223]

The Red Line thing was horrific.

It is Obama's Rwanda - closing in on a 1/2 million death mistake.

It's just as much the rest of the world's Rwanda as it is Obama's.

Obama's foreign policy position has been extremely consistent from the beginning - the US is not going to shoulder the load anymore while the entire EU sits on the sideline. Status quo has been that the US will come in and clean up the mess, and nobody else has to do their part. Obama pushed back hard against the Washington foreign policy establishment on this broad issue, and Trump supporters should love it because he PUT HIS FOOT DOWN AND NEGOTIATED A BETTER DEAL

They underestimated Assad. Syria isn't Libya. Russia/China got burned by not vetoing the UN Security Council resolution in 2011.

They made sure the Syrian government wouldn't be overthrown with no fly zones and other similar things to Libya. Diplomatically China/Russia have vetoed everything. Russia has installed S-300 and S-400 anti air defense systems, Moscow has had the Tartus naval base for 50 years and aren't giving that up. With the re conqueror of East Aleppo, the Russians have the Chechen Military Police patrolling the city (perhaps cause of the Sunni Muslim identity).

Iran's only Arab ally is in Damascus and their militias from Iraq/Afghanistan along with IRGC commanders helped Assad's overstretched army.

Russian Air Force and intelligence shifted the conflict completely.

China is providing humanitarian aid in the face of Western blockade of Damascus.

Assad controls all the major cities in the country where 70% of the population live and the rebels are hold up in Idlib province where there's a civil war amongst them (you have the largest Al Qaeda affiliate there) and rebels near the Damascus country side with ISIS in the East and Kurds/other rebels in the north. Turkish army is also in the north.

The policy of regime change was a failure. Obama was never going to overthrow Assad with a covert CIA program. You could destabilize the country, sure. But they miscalculated the support Assad enjoys. Even a US ally like India has relations with Damascus and is against forced regime change. Turkey has shifted policy because they let terrorist groups have free reign on the border.

Assad isn't a saint. He's a brutal dictator. But the crazy thing is with the exodus of the refugees and the support he enjoys from his Alawi sect, the Christians, the Druze, and the Sunni business class, he could win a legit election. The Syrian opposition is fragmented. Who's moderate and who's an extremist? There's also war fatigue and people who oppose the regime don't want state collapse like Somalia had when Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.

[sfam]

America's spies anonymously took down Michael Flynn. That is deeply worrying.
by Damon Linker

The United States is much better off without Michael Flynn serving as national security adviser. But no one should be cheering the way he was brought down.

The whole episode is evidence of the precipitous and ongoing collapse of America's democratic institutions — not a sign of their resiliency. Flynn's ouster was a soft coup (or political assassination) engineered by anonymous intelligence community bureaucrats. The results might be salutary, but this isn't the way a liberal democracy is supposed to function.

Unelected intelligence analysts work for the president, not the other way around. Far too many Trump critics appear not to care that these intelligence agents leaked highly sensitive information to the press — mostly because Trump critics are pleased with the result. "Finally," they say, "someone took a stand to expose collusion between the Russians and a senior aide to the president!" It is indeed important that someone took such a stand. But it matters greatly who that someone is and how they take their stand. Members of the unelected, unaccountable intelligence community are not the right someone, especially when they target a senior aide to the president by leaking anonymously to newspapers the content of classified phone intercepts, where the unverified, unsubstantiated information can inflict politically fatal damage almost instantaneously.

... In a liberal democracy, how things happen is often as important as what happens. Procedures matter. So do rules and public accountability. The chaotic, dysfunctional Trump White House is placing the entire system under enormous strain. That's bad. But the answer isn't to counter it with equally irregular acts of sabotage — or with a disinformation campaign waged by nameless civil servants toiling away in the surveillance state.

... Down that path lies the end of democracy in America.

This is from The Week. Definitely a left-of-center rag.

Should we show the links about unelected FBI officials in the NY office saying Clinton was going to be indicted? Worse, we had the head of the FBI come out 11 days before the election impugning her integrity for what we now know was completely baseless reasons.

Yes, this is bad. Its a horrible trend - one that didn't start with the Trump administration. Obama had horrible leaks about drone attacks which drove him crazy.

But at least so far, the difference is the leaks appear to be true. The leaks supporting Trump by the FBI were baseless.

[nate33]

Hey Nate, I think there's one thing here that I think we all can agree upon and that is Flynn is the fall guy here...or they hope it stops with Flynn. Flynn was acting on-behalf of Trump. What were his instructions? Other Trump campaign officials were purportedly in-touch with Russian intelligence throughout the campaign. This is bad, really bad.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

I suspect that Flynn is a fall guy. I suspect that Trump had some knowledge of Flynn's communications with Russia, but I also don't think there is anything sinister about that. It probably went something like this:

Flynn: Mr. Trump, some contacts I have within the Russian government are apoplectic about these Obama economic sanctions made during the last week of his Presidency. They're pissed and they want to know if we support this. They thought from your tone during the campaign that you would be trying to improve relations with Russian, not make them worse.

Trump: Well, clearly I don't support this. I'm am trying to improve relations with Russia. If they contact you again, just let them know that these sanctions came from Obama and had nothing to do with my campaign. Maybe it'll prevent them from doing anything rash in the next week.

Flynn: Will do, sir.

Or maybe, Flynn concluded the same thing on his own without first consulting Trump, and then told Trump about it after the Justice Department told Trump that Flynn and the Russians were communicating. Either way, I don't think it's that big of a scandal. Its a modest break from normal protocol made necessary by Obama's highly irregular imposition of sanctions a week before he is out of office.

[nate33]

America's spies anonymously took down Michael Flynn. That is deeply worrying.
by Damon Linker

The United States is much better off without Michael Flynn serving as national security adviser. But no one should be cheering the way he was brought down.

The whole episode is evidence of the precipitous and ongoing collapse of America's democratic institutions — not a sign of their resiliency. Flynn's ouster was a soft coup (or political assassination) engineered by anonymous intelligence community bureaucrats. The results might be salutary, but this isn't the way a liberal democracy is supposed to function.

Unelected intelligence analysts work for the president, not the other way around. Far too many Trump critics appear not to care that these intelligence agents leaked highly sensitive information to the press — mostly because Trump critics are pleased with the result. "Finally," they say, "someone took a stand to expose collusion between the Russians and a senior aide to the president!" It is indeed important that someone took such a stand. But it matters greatly who that someone is and how they take their stand. Members of the unelected, unaccountable intelligence community are not the right someone, especially when they target a senior aide to the president by leaking anonymously to newspapers the content of classified phone intercepts, where the unverified, unsubstantiated information can inflict politically fatal damage almost instantaneously.

... In a liberal democracy, how things happen is often as important as what happens. Procedures matter. So do rules and public accountability. The chaotic, dysfunctional Trump White House is placing the entire system under enormous strain. That's bad. But the answer isn't to counter it with equally irregular acts of sabotage — or with a disinformation campaign waged by nameless civil servants toiling away in the surveillance state.

... Down that path lies the end of democracy in America.

This is from The Week. Definitely a left-of-center rag.

Should we show the links about unelected FBI officials in the NY office saying Clinton was going to be indicted? Worse, we had the head of the FBI come out 11 days before the election impugning her integrity for what we now know was completely baseless reasons.

Yes, this is bad. Its a horrible trend - one that didn't start with the Trump administration. Obama had horrible leaks about drone attacks which drove him crazy.

But at least so far, the difference is the leaks appear to be true. The leaks supporting Trump by the FBI were baseless.

There's also the minor issue that Clinton WASN'T THE FREAKING PRESIDENT.

[nate33]

Should we show the links about unelected FBI officials in the NY office saying Clinton was going to be indicted? Worse, we had the head of the FBI come out 11 days before the election impugning her integrity for what we now know was completely baseless reasons.

It wasn't baseless at the time, and there was no additional impugning of her integrity. Comey merely said that a bunch more emails came in and we needed to look at them.

[sfam]

GOP Intel Chair: ‘Pretty Sure FBI Didn’t Have Warrant’ To Record Flynn

WASHINGTON — House Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes called foul on the leaks of classified information relating to conversations between former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and a Russian ambassador.

“Any intelligence agency cannot listen to Americans’ phone calls,” Nunes told reporters Tuesday night. “If there’s inadvertent collection that you know is overseas there’s a whole process in place for that.”

He explained, “It’s pretty clear that’s not the case, so then they could have been listening to someone else and inadvertently picked up an American. If that happens, there’s a whole process in place to where they have to immediately get rid of the information unless it’s like high level national security issue and then someone would have to unmask the name — someone at the highest levels.”

“So in this case it would be General Flynn and then how did that happen. Then if they did that, then how does all that get out to the public which is another leak of classified information,” Nunes added. “I’m pretty sure the FBI didn’t have a warrant on Michael Flynn.”

http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/14/gop-intel-chair-pretty-sure-fbi-didnt-have-warrant-to-record-flynn/#ixzz4Yk5sXjIL

They don't need one. They only need to be recording the Russian agent.

[nate33]

It is Obama's Rwanda - closing in on a 1/2 million death mistake.

It's just as much the rest of the world's Rwanda as it is Obama's.

Obama's foreign policy position has been extremely consistent from the beginning - the US is not going to shoulder the load anymore while the entire EU sits on the sideline. Status quo has been that the US will come in and clean up the mess, and nobody else has to do their part. Obama pushed back hard against the Washington foreign policy establishment on this broad issue, and Trump supporters should love it because he PUT HIS FOOT DOWN AND NEGOTIATED A BETTER DEAL

They underestimated Assad. Syria isn't Libya. Russia/China got burned by not vetoing the UN Security Council resolution in 2011.

They made sure the Syrian government wouldn't be overthrown with no fly zones and other similar things to Libya. Diplomatically China/Russia have vetoed everything. Russia has installed S-300 and S-400 anti air defense systems, Moscow has had the Tartus naval base for 50 years and aren't giving that up.

Iran's only Arab ally is in Damascus and their militias from Iraq/Afghanistan along with IRGC commanders helped Assad's overstretched army.

Russian Air Force and intelligence shifted the conflict completely.

China is providing humanitarian aid in the face of Western blockade of Damascus.

Assad controls all the major cities in the country where 70% of the population live and the rebels are hold up in Idlib province where there's a civil war amongst them (you have the largest Al Qaeda affiliate there) and rebels near the Damascus country side with ISIS in the East and Kurds/other rebels in the north. Turkish army is also in the north.

The policy of regime change was a failure. Obama was never going to overthrow Assad with a covert CIA program. You could destabilize the country, sure. But they miscalculated the support Assad enjoys. Even a US ally like India has relations with Damascus and is against forced regime change. Turkey has shifted policy because they let terrorist groups have free reign on the border.

Assad isn't a saint. He's a brutal dictator. But the crazy thing is with the exodus of the refugees and the support he enjoys from his Alawi sect, the Christians, the Druze, and the Sunni business class, he could win a legit election. The Syrian opposition is fragmented. Who's moderate and who's an extremist? There's also war fatigue and people who oppose the regime don't want state collapse like Somalia had when Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.

I wish I could +1 this more than once.

[Wizardspride]

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/stop-that-bs-joe-scarborough-hammers-republicans-for-refusing-to-investigate-flynn-and-trump/

‘Stop that BS’: Joe Scarborough hammers Republicans for refusing to investigate Flynn and Trump


Joe Scarborough might be the host of “Morning Joe,” but as a former Republican House member, he can provide insight into the inner workings of Congress. Wednesday he was at a loss to understand why Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and other members of Congress were denouncing investigations into Gen. Michael Flynn and President Donald Trump and their repeated communications with Russia before the inauguration.

“It is an issue of competence,” Scarborough said. “It’s also up to the Republicans on Capitol Hill to get to the bottom of this and to begin investigating. And how disheartening it was to see several people on the hill and some editorial writers say this isn’t about the Russian connections.”

He went on to name former aide Paul Manafort, who had Russian connections and was running the Trump campaign. The intelligence community now says that there was constant communication between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

“They cannot be so stupid to pretend they picked on poor Michael Flynn out of nowhere,” Scarborough continued. “Michael Flynn, a man who visited Russia, had dinner with Putin, was believed to have received payments from Russia. Do you think they would have done this to Rex Tillerson? No. They wouldn’t have done it to Rex Tillerson and would not have done it to James Mattis and would not have done it to John Kelly and would not have done it to other members of Donald Trump’s cabinet. Republicans, you can just stop that BS. And editorial writers, stop shaming yourself.”

[sfam]

Should we show the links about unelected FBI officials in the NY office saying Clinton was going to be indicted? Worse, we had the head of the FBI come out 11 days before the election impugning her integrity for what we now know was completely baseless reasons.

It wasn't baseless at the time, and there was no additional impugning of her integrity. Comey merely said that a bunch more emails came in and we needed to look at them.

No, that's just it - it was baseless - completely and utterly baseless. It was a lie, put out without basis. FBI agents were leaking daily that Hillary was about to be indicted.

This is different. Its like there are actual transcripts of the conversations and stuff.

[nate33]

GOP Intel Chair: ‘Pretty Sure FBI Didn’t Have Warrant’ To Record Flynn

WASHINGTON — House Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes called foul on the leaks of classified information relating to conversations between former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and a Russian ambassador.

“Any intelligence agency cannot listen to Americans’ phone calls,” Nunes told reporters Tuesday night. “If there’s inadvertent collection that you know is overseas there’s a whole process in place for that.”

He explained, “It’s pretty clear that’s not the case, so then they could have been listening to someone else and inadvertently picked up an American. If that happens, there’s a whole process in place to where they have to immediately get rid of the information unless it’s like high level national security issue and then someone would have to unmask the name — someone at the highest levels.”

“So in this case it would be General Flynn and then how did that happen. Then if they did that, then how does all that get out to the public which is another leak of classified information,” Nunes added. “I’m pretty sure the FBI didn’t have a warrant on Michael Flynn.”

http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/14/gop-intel-chair-pretty-sure-fbi-didnt-have-warrant-to-record-flynn/#ixzz4Yk5sXjIL

They don't need one. They only need to be recording the Russian agent.

I'm not an expert on this, but the article says that if you find yourself recording an American "there’s a whole process in place to where they have to immediately get rid of the information". That process wasn't followed or was commandeered by someone outside of Trump's chain of command.

[nate33]

Should we show the links about unelected FBI officials in the NY office saying Clinton was going to be indicted? Worse, we had the head of the FBI come out 11 days before the election impugning her integrity for what we now know was completely baseless reasons.

It wasn't baseless at the time, and there was no additional impugning of her integrity. Comey merely said that a bunch more emails came in and we needed to look at them.

No, that's just it - it was baseless - completely and utterly baseless. It was a lie, put out without basis. FBI agents were leaking daily that Hillary was about to be indicted.

This is different. Its like there are actual transcripts of the conversations and stuff.

Clearly, the intent of the Deep State operative is to undermine Trump. If those transcripts had anything bad, they would have been leaked too.

[Wizardspride]

........

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[sfam]

Hey Nate, I think there's one thing here that I think we all can agree upon and that is Flynn is the fall guy here...or they hope it stops with Flynn. Flynn was acting on-behalf of Trump. What were his instructions? Other Trump campaign officials were purportedly in-touch with Russian intelligence throughout the campaign. This is bad, really bad.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

I suspect that Flynn is a fall guy. I suspect that Trump had some knowledge of Flynn's communications with Russia, but I also don't think there is anything sinister about that. It probably went something like this:

Flynn: Mr. Trump, some contacts I have within the Russian government are apoplectic about these Obama economic sanctions made during the last week of his Presidency. They're pissed and they want to know if we support this. They thought from your tone during the campaign that you would be trying to improve relations with Russian, not make them worse.

Trump: Well, clearly I don't support this. I'm am trying to improve relations with Russia. If they contact you again, just let them know that these sanctions came from Obama and had nothing to do with my campaign. Maybe it'll prevent them from doing anything rash in the next week.

Flynn: Will do, sir.

Or maybe, Flynn concluded the same thing on his own without first consulting Trump, and then told Trump about it after the Justice Department told Trump that Flynn and the Russians were communicating. Either way, I don't think it's that big of a scandal. Its a modest break from normal protocol made necessary by Obama's highly irregular imposition of sanctions a week before he is out of office.

So Flynn had 5 phone calls with Russian officials that day, so its pretty logical to assume he was doing Shuttle diplomacy for Trump. This is of course is totally at odds from what the Trump administration is saying - to hear them Flynn was doing this on his own.

The problem of course is if the conversations said in essence, "Don't react to the sanctions, we will remove them when Trump gets in office." That would be illegal, and apparently is what we hear the acting Attorney General indicated.

Again, I would agree this is minor compared to continued and ongoing contacts between multiple Trump staff throughout the campaign during the time frame where Russia was attacking our election process. If there is an impeachment out of this, it will come from here.

[sfam]

It wasn't baseless at the time, and there was no additional impugning of her integrity. Comey merely said that a bunch more emails came in and we needed to look at them.

No, that's just it - it was baseless - completely and utterly baseless. It was a lie, put out without basis. FBI agents were leaking daily that Hillary was about to be indicted.

This is different. Its like there are actual transcripts of the conversations and stuff.

Clearly, the intent of the Deep State operative is to undermine Trump. If those transcripts had anything bad, they would have been leaked too.

Give them time.

Not sure what Deep State operative means, but what's clear is there are multiple leaks from both current and former officials from multiple agencies. This just doesn't happen unless those people think there is something really wrong here. Traitorous actions quality.

[nate33]

Hey Nate, I think there's one thing here that I think we all can agree upon and that is Flynn is the fall guy here...or they hope it stops with Flynn. Flynn was acting on-behalf of Trump. What were his instructions? Other Trump campaign officials were purportedly in-touch with Russian intelligence throughout the campaign. This is bad, really bad.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

I suspect that Flynn is a fall guy. I suspect that Trump had some knowledge of Flynn's communications with Russia, but I also don't think there is anything sinister about that. It probably went something like this:

Flynn: Mr. Trump, some contacts I have within the Russian government are apoplectic about these Obama economic sanctions made during the last week of his Presidency. They're pissed and they want to know if we support this. They thought from your tone during the campaign that you would be trying to improve relations with Russian, not make them worse.

Trump: Well, clearly I don't support this. I'm am trying to improve relations with Russia. If they contact you again, just let them know that these sanctions came from Obama and had nothing to do with my campaign. Maybe it'll prevent them from doing anything rash in the next week.

Flynn: Will do, sir.

Or maybe, Flynn concluded the same thing on his own without first consulting Trump, and then told Trump about it after the Justice Department told Trump that Flynn and the Russians were communicating. Either way, I don't think it's that big of a scandal. Its a modest break from normal protocol made necessary by Obama's highly irregular imposition of sanctions a week before he is out of office.

So Flynn had 5 phone calls with Russian officials that day, so its pretty logical to assume he was doing Shuttle diplomacy for Trump. This is of course is totally at odds from what the Trump administration is saying - to hear them Flynn was doing this on his own.

The problem of course is if the conversations said in essence, "Don't react to the sanctions, we will remove them when Trump gets in office." That would be illegal, and apparently is what we hear the acting Attorney General indicated.

Again, I would agree this is minor compared to continued and ongoing contacts between multiple Trump staff throughout the campaign during the time frame where Russia was attacking our election process. If there is an impeachment out of this, it will come from here.

It's a fine line. "Don't react to the sanctions because we will remove them" sounds like conducting diplomacy. "Those sanctions came without consultation with the Trump campaign" is just a statement of fact.

[sfam]

http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/14/gop-intel-chair-pretty-sure-fbi-didnt-have-warrant-to-record-flynn/#ixzz4Yk5sXjIL

They don't need one. They only need to be recording the Russian agent.

I'm not an expert on this, but the article says that if you find yourself recording an American "there’s a whole process in place to where they have to immediately get rid of the information". That process wasn't followed or was commandeered by someone outside of Trump's chain of command.

I'm slightly more expert on this. They are and have been listening in on Russian agents in the US for like decades. They WILL record those conversations ESPECIALLY if an American is on the other side. They would only need FISA court approval if they wanted to tap Flynn's line.

The fact that we hear of multiple Trump folks contacting Russian agents, when we know the trump folks phones weren't tapped should be worrying to all of us. There is only one set of phones tapped here, and they didn't belong to US citizens.