Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[Karl Henning]

His "most ridiculous denial yet."

Is there a single person anywhere who believes [El Presidente Tupé's] laughably insincere attempt to walk back his disastrous news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin?

We've seen this scenario before: [El Tupé] says something appalling; his aides scramble to convince him that he needs to do damage control; he reluctantly agrees to read a prepared statement doing so; then soon after he reverses himself, insisting that what he said originally was correct.

In this case, it was his statement in Helsinki, as Putin smirked next to him, that when American officials told him about Russian interference in the 2016 election, "They said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be."

We've seen this scenario before: So predictable.  Sad.

[drogulus]

     Trump: We're partners.

     Vlad: No, puppet.

     Trump: We're a team, right?

     Vlad: No, puppet.

     Trump: No puppet!

     Vlad: I'm sorry to differ with you sir, but you are the puppet. You've always been the puppet. I should know sir. I've always been here.

     Yes, at least since the late 19th century.

     The Legacy of the Czar's Secret Police

The original Czarist secret police were active throughout Europe and in the United States, where they carried out operations against Russian, Polish, Ukranian, and Jewish exile groups.   Of the Okhrana agents named by the CIA, it is known that in the late 1880s, a Polish-born officer, Boleslaw Malankiewicz (AKA, Boleslaw Miklaszewski), was tasked to the large Okhrana station in London, which hosted a large community of Russian and Slavic political refugees.  During his tour of duty, the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park, London was subject to a bomb attack in 1894.  This was possibly the first international terrorist incident in Britain. The incident outraged the British public, leading to a crackdown on anti-Czarist exiles. The episode was immortalised by Joseph Conrad in his novel The Secret Agent.

Operations against targets in America and the United Kingdom were run out of the Paris Okhrana center, at that time under the command of P.I. Rachkovski, the spy master for all czarist espionage outside Russia from 1885-1902.   Rachkovski is now generally considered the author of the notorious The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a forgery purporting to lay out a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity and European civilization by terrorism and the destabilization of national economies.  By the 1920s, The Protocols had been seized on by anti-semites as genuine proof of a global Jewish plot - among others, American Henry Ford had millions of copies reprinted -- and the forgery was used to justify the very real persecutions of Jews during the following decades.

In reality, it was the Okhrana itself that was the true source of much of the worst political terrorism and economic sabotage of the time.   The Protocols were a reasonably accurate reflection of the activities and plottings of the autocratic right-wing of the fin d'siecle, and provide a sort of Rosetta Stone for the international Fascist movement during the decades that followed its first appearance in 1897. 






     
     

     

[Karl Henning]

Trump says Russia wants what's best for America.  I believe him.

[Karl Henning]

Trump says Russia wants what's best for America.  I believe him.

(Oh, I am such a fibber!)

[drogulus]

     Maria Butina, Who Infiltrated NRA and GOP Has Ties to Russian Intelligence: Prosecutors

But Butina's principal Russian liaison wasn't known to be an intelligence official. Instead, it was a man identified in court documents only as a "Russian official" but who is widely understood to be Torshin, a former Russian elected official from Putin's United Russia party. Torshin, The Daily Beast reported Tuesday, met in August 2015 with pro-Russia GOP congressman Dana Rohrabacher, someone to whom the affidavit alludes but did not name.

Only now, federal prosecutors allege that Butina has substantial ties to Russian intelligence as well, deepening the intrigue around the young Russian widely seen around D.C. – and the potential legal liability for her numerous American contacts in the NRA and GOP politics.

     

[eljr]

     Maria Butina, Who Infiltrated NRA and GOP Has Ties to Russian Intelligence: Prosecutors

But Butina's principal Russian liaison wasn't known to be an intelligence official. Instead, it was a man identified in court documents only as a "Russian official" but who is widely understood to be Torshin, a former Russian elected official from Putin's United Russia party. Torshin, The Daily Beast reported Tuesday, met in August 2015 with pro-Russia GOP congressman Dana Rohrabacher, someone to whom the affidavit alludes but did not name.

Only now, federal prosecutors allege that Butina has substantial ties to Russian intelligence as well, deepening the intrigue around the young Russian widely seen around D.C. – and the potential legal liability for her numerous American contacts in the NRA and GOP politics.

   

Why are all these republicans knee deep in communists?

[eljr]

(Oh, I am such a fibber!)

don't back down!

When you lie you double down

you'd make a terrible president!

[BasilValentine]

His "most ridiculous denial yet."

Is there a single person anywhere who believes [El Presidente Tupé's] laughably insincere attempt to walk back his disastrous news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin?

We've seen this scenario before: [El Tupé] says something appalling; his aides scramble to convince him that he needs to do damage control; he reluctantly agrees to read a prepared statement doing so; then soon after he reverses himself, insisting that what he said originally was correct.

In this case, it was his statement in Helsinki, as Putin smirked next to him, that when American officials told him about Russian interference in the 2016 election, "They said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be."

We've seen this scenario before: So predictable.  Sad.

What all the outrage over his capitulation and denials is accomplishing, however, is distracting from the real issue: Whatever agreement Trump made with Putin. The GRU and top echelons of the Russian military know what it is and are, according to disembodied voices I heard on NPR (sorry), preparing to act on it.

[drogulus]

     I'm getting close to giving up on Trump proofing the United States. Leave the translator alone. Let Trump be Trump, somewhere else. He can't be fixed. He's irreparably broken.

     With the sleazebag gone it will be safe to give NATO countries heck for their pitiful combat power and maybe threaten to move some bases if they don't shape up. No, they don't owe us money, that's ridiculous, and I'd be delighted to give them money if they'd use it to bolster their fighting capability. They wouldn't, and they don't need our money any more than we need theirs.

[SimonNZ]

Russiagate Is Far Wider Than Trump and His Inner Circle

"The point here isn't necessarily that Rohrabacher, a Republican congressman from California, solicited illegally obtained documents from Russian officials. There are other plausible candidates who might have done that. The point is that Russiagate, which is widely understood to be a scandal surrounding Donald Trump's close associates like Paul Manafort, may go wider and deeper, and could implicate at least one member of Congress.

Moreover, it seems that the Republican leadership was at the very least aware of this possibility, amused by it, and did nothing whatsoever to alert the public or any relevant authorities. They were happy to enjoy the benefits of Russian interference and said so openly among themselves. Similarly, as the Post reported, when Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was informed of Russian interference in September 2016 in a meeting with President Obama and other senior officials, he threatened to cast any public announcement of the threat as partisan politics. It's not a stretch to say McConnell deliberately undermined national security for partisan advantage, a decision that has paid off with the signing of a massive tax cut for the wealthy and the looming establishment of a durable right-wing majority on the Supreme Court.

In other words, Russiagate isn't just the narrow story of a few corrupt officials. It isn't even the story of a corrupt president. It's the story of a corrupt political party, the one currently holding all the levers of power in Washington. After Trump groveled before Putin in Helsinki, many Republicans in Washington proclaimed their solemn concern, just as they did when the president expressed his sympathy for the white supremacists in Charlottesville last year. But all of them are fully aware that they are abetting a criminal conspiracy, and probably more than one."

[SimonNZ]

Putin's "Incredible Offer" To Trump Is Even Worse Than We Feared. The White House is considering handing over American citizens to Putin for questioning.

"With the media focused on Donald Trump's self-abasing performance in Helsinki, a key detail of the president's summit with Vladimir Putin got lost in the noise. Putin, Trump said on Monday, had extended him an "incredible offer": to let Robert Mueller's team fly to Moscow to meet with the Kremlin's own investigators to get to the bottom of the 2016 election hacking. The offer was, of course, patently absurd—laughable, even, except that Trump seemed so excited by it. Putin, however, was deadly serious. Although his own comments at the joint press conference were not covered as feverishly, the Russian president laid out exactly what he intended by the offer: a devil's bargain that no American president other than Trump would ever entertain.

"So far, I can say the following," Putin explained, referring to Russia providing cooperation to Mueller. "We have an existing agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, an existing treaty that dates back to 1999. The mutual assistance on criminal cases." This treaty, he noted, is "in full effect" and "works quite efficiently." Perhaps, Putin suggested, Mueller could use this treaty to submit an extradition request for the Russian intelligence officers that the Justice Department indicted last week for interfering in the election.

There would be "another condition," Putin added. "This kind of effort should be mutual one. Then we would expect that the Americans would reciprocate."

That condition, Putin said, would be giving Russia the right to question Bill Browder, an American-born British financier who famously lobbied Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, which resulted in harsh penalties and sanctions on Russia. The Kremlin retaliated by trying Browder in absentia for tax fraud—resulting in a conviction and an extradition request that was rejected by Interpol as obviously political in nature. Without any evidence, Putin claimed on Monday that Browder laundered $400 million out of Russia to the Hillary Clinton campaign. "We have a solid reason to believe that some intelligence officers accompanied and guided these transactions," Putin continued. "So we have an interest of questioning them. That could be a first step. We can extend also it. Options abound. They all can be found in an appropriate legal framework." Afterward, Russian prosecutors also demanded to interrogate former American ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, a harsh critic of Putin's regime, in what appeared to be another example of political intimidation. (McFaul noted on Twitter that he wasn't even in Russia at the time of the case against Browder.)

President Trump is apparently willing to indulge the "offer." On Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that "some conversation" had transpired with regard to the proposal, but that the administration had no comment. The offer was simply "an idea they threw out," Sanders said, emphasizing that the White House had not yet committed to anything. "The president is gonna meet with his team and we'll let you know when we have an announcement on that."

Political and media commentators were apoplectic. "What's next, turning me over to al Qaida for questioning?" asked CNN analyst and former C.I.A. officer Nada Bakos. Former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice was similarly enraged: "If the White House cannot defend and protect our diplomats, like our service members, they are serving a hostile foreign power not the American people." The feelings were shared on the other side of the aisle. "This would be an impeachable offense," remarked conservative John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary. "No. You are not overreacting," wrote Tom Nichols, another conservative and frequent Trump critic. "The entire country should be aware of this. If Putin can single out [McFaul], he can single out anyone. The President's job is to protect us, not to even consider handing any of us over to an enemy government."

McFaul himself was stunned. "I hope the White House corrects the record and denounces in categorical terms this ridiculous request from Putin," McFaul tweeted immediately. "Not doing so creates moral equivalency between a legitimacy U.S. indictment of Russian intelligence officers and a crazy, completely fabricated story invented by Putin." Browder was likewise incredulous. "I donated ZERO. Total amateur hour," he tweeted. During an appearance on Fox Business later that day, Browder alleged that Russia also wanted to interrogate several State Department officials instrumental in drafting the Magnitsky Act, as well as several agents investigating Russian money laundering. "And [the White House is] saying we haven't decided whether we want to hand them over? That is absolutely appalling."

[SimonNZ]

[Zeus]

This Maria Butina story is quite embarrassing for the GOP:



This woman was infiltrating the NRA and the National Prayer Breakfast, even going so far as offering sex for jobs, etc.

She met a lot of famous conservatives, and was actively setting up secret communications channels between various Republicans and Moscow.  There is even some indication that Russia might have provided funds to the Trump campaign via the NRA!

It's hard to know at this point what is true and what isn't.  We'll just have to see how far this story develops.

[SimonNZ]

...and rumours are exchanged sex for access, with among others Don Jr.

[71 dB]

This Maria Butina story is quite embarrassing for the GOP:



This woman was infiltrating the NRA and the National Prayer Breakfast, even going so far as offering sex for jobs, etc.

She met a lot of famous conservatives, and was actively setting up secret communications channels between various Republicans and Moscow.  There is even some indication that Russia might have provided funds to the Trump campaign via the NRA!

It's hard to know at this point what is true and what isn't.  We'll just have to see how far this story develops.

Time to wake up Americans! Money in politics not only turns democracy into oligarchy, but also makes it possible for foreign countries to buy influence. Save your country while you can!

[Karl Henning]

The Quisling Congress

[Florestan]

Money in politics

Are you going to seriously tell us that money play no role in Finland's politics and that Finnish politicians are driven solely and exclusively by patriotism and civic duty?

[eljr]

  There is even some indication that Russia might have provided funds to the Trump campaign via the NRA!

It's hard to know at this point what is true and what isn't.  We'll just have to see how far this story develops.

This looks pretty solid right now but I'll wait for the main stream media to report it before I accept it's likely validity.

One affect Trump has had on me is that I have come to appreciate the importance and accuracy of the main stream media. Without them, with this president, this country world be transformed forever.

My hat is off to them.

[Karl Henning]

Trump is right, although not in the skewed way of his constant noising off:  a free press is the enemy of would-be tyrants.

[Karl Henning]

So, just which genius thought it was reasonable to let El Tupé speak to Putin with no adult supervision? Have we gone from foreign dictators playing a narcissist President, to foreign dictators playing the United States?

Officials at the most senior levels across the U.S. military have been attempting to determine what [El Presidente Tupé] may have agreed to on national security issues in his one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.