Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[crashcourse]

heres an interesting story

somewhere vince foster is stirring

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/16/slain-dnc-staffer-had-contact-with-wikileaks-investigator-says.html

[crashcourse]

Now confirmed: Israel was the source of the intel Trump shared with the Russians. Russia is Iran's arms dealer. Israel would not be wild about this. They also had a couple of other spats with the Trump team yesterday that got buried by the day's big story

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/w...ssia.html?_r=0

Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, reaffirmed that the two countries would maintain a close counterterrorism relationship.
?Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump,? Mr. Dermer said.

doesn't seem to have bothered the israelies

[Dr. Strangelove]

Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, reaffirmed that the two countries would maintain a close counterterrorism relationship.
?Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump,? Mr. Dermer said.

doesn't seem to have bothered the israelies

Right, because they'd bitch in the paper if it bothered them.

The family of Seth Rich says your FoxNews story is bullshit, crash, and that the PI was never hired by them, but i suppose the Clinton Foundation could've threatened them with their lives...

[Dr. Strangelove]

[ame]https://twitter.com/mattmfm/status/864541942012669958[/ame]

[SeattleLionsFan]

It would be perfectly legal for Trump to establish killing squads to kill anyone that opposes him and then to pardon those folks. Maybe the line shouldn't be legal/illegal?

[Jeff Buchanan]

It would be perfectly legal for Trump to establish killing squads to kill anyone that opposes him and then to pardon those folks. Maybe the line shouldn't be legal/illegal?

Maybe an extreme example but this is an important point.

I might have linked to the article that is behind the foregoing maybe not but the problem with a Special Prosecutor being assigned to investigate the President is that that assignee would report to the Deputy Attorney General (Rosenstein) who reports to the President ..... rather the fox watching the hen house ......

The other problem with a Special Prosecutor is the likelihood that an investigation conducted by the AG, whose purpose is to determine if crimes were committed and then prosecute those crimes, is that Trump's wrong doing may not be comprised of a single or multiple criminal acts. As has been the case in past SP Investigations, criminal activity was uncovered but it was ancillary to the targets of the original investigation and mission of the SP.

Having said that, it is my view, and that of others, that the American people and Congress need to know the type and extent of any wrong doing by the President including ethical misconduct. None of that is in the jurisdiction of the AG or any SP he might assign.

[Jeff Buchanan]

BTW, I'm no legal scholar but from what I'm reading, I don't think Trump did anything illegal with respect to sharing intelligence information with the Russians. He may have mishandled it and in doing so potentially compromised sources but it's folly to try to nail him down on this at the expense of conducting the affairs of state..... which he is, due to circumstances and his own ineptitude, not doing at all well.

I mentioned this up thread ...... there is something like 130 unfilled positions involving consular affairs and ambassadorial positions including both ambassadorships and staffs to support them.

Hack mentioned there are better ways to deliver important intelligence to other states who might benefit from that information suing back-channel methods. The fact of the matter, the entire scheme designed to do that sort of thing is in disrepair and both the President and Congress are to blame.

[froot loops]

One of the bigger problems he has in this latest screw up is the meeting itself was a sourceof embarrassment.

1. What was he meeting with the Russians for? I'm not an expert in this, but generally the foreign minister meets with his equal. At least according to what I have read.

2. It was not mentioned that Kislyak was going to be at the meeting. Kislyak is at the heart of the Trump Russia investigation. He wasn't mentioned and his name was not on the official record of the meeting. Which brings us to point 3.

3. They kept the US media out but let the Russian state media in, that's how we knew Kislyak was there. The White House claimed the Russians tricked them by saying it was an official photog.

The story yesterday was the whipped cream on top of the poo-poo platter. That is why this story is getting traction, a bad meeting made worse 4 days after the fact.

Not to mention, when your staff acts like they are hiding something, people are going to assume you are hiding something. Fine tuned machine.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Robert Reich can not be named as one of my favorites but I like his writing style. Direct and to the point.

In this piece that just popped up on my news feed, he names two potential impeachable crimes Trump has committed but fairly acknowledges the difficulty in nailing them down and getting action from the Congress..... he writes, essentially zero chance

He goes on to say:

If Trump's poll numbers continue to plummet -- particularly among Republicans and Independents -- 23 House Republicans may well decide their chances for being re-elected are better if they abandon him before the 2018 midterms.

Then goes on to say .....

The House impeaches. The Senate convicts. That's the end of Trump.

An interesting take.

Time for a box of popcorn. Well, maybe 2.

https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBBd20K?m=en-us

[Dr. Strangelove]

Crash- These Israeli officials don't sound enthused about Trump sharing their intel

https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/israeli-official-trump-sharing-intelligence-with-russia-is?utm_term=.euVLv99dP#.ljbpvWW8Z

[SeattleLionsFan]

Jeff,
I don't think this is illegal. It would have been highly highly illegal for anyone else but, the President can declassify anything at anytime for any reason. So when he discloses highly confidential information to show off to his buddies, it's not illegal.

Regarding the backlog, has Trump nominated anyone for those positions? I know several months passed before he even tried to nominate anyone.

Froot,
Condi was on one of the shows this weekend, and had no problem with Trump meeting with Lavrob or Kisliyak. She pointed out that Tillerson met with Putin a few weeks ago, and said you'd expect the ambassador to accompany the foreign minister in these types of meetings. So, I have less concern with those points.

[crashcourse]

so DSL a 29 yo guy gets shot twice in the back nothing robbed from him happened to be the leaker of 20, 000 emails from the DNC to Julian Assange and you choose to believe the parents? still haven't caught anybody or come up with motive

lol nothing to see here

not saying this couldn't be a total coincidence but seriously....

[froot loops]

Trump asked Comey to shut down the Flynn investigation the day after he was fired

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html?_r=0&referer=https://t.co/r8s5nFEc9q

[Dr. Strangelove]

Hour into the story and not a single figure in the WH will go on the record to deny it (only anonymously)

[froot loops]

For them it might not be a bad thing. Their PR strategy of ready, fire, aim hasn't served them well.