Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Kapture1]

When this all started we knew two things, that Manifort and Flynn were in some trouble.


Today is just confirming what we already knew.



Big question is what Kushner told the FBI regarding his role in instructing Flynn to make contact with the Russians when the sanctions were signed. I don't think this goes beyond there in terms of "collusion" meaning there was no "collusion" with the Russians. There never was. It's not going to stop the Mueller investigation, but in terms of collusion with the Russians to hack the democrats and rig the election, you would have to be pretty desperate to still believe it.

[Da Geezer]

Now a point that you Progs will just love.

The Senate bill that is about to pass delays the tax cuts until 2019. Such a delay simply delays the beneficial effects of a tax cut into 2019, after the GOP has lost the House. Any corporation will delay a profitable transaction until January of 2019 (they save 15% taxes) and they will delay bringing the $ 2.5 Trillion overseas until 2019. When the economy booms, the Dems will take credit for it.

It amazing how hard it is to be a member of the Stupid Party. I sold 1/3 of my stocks yesterday, so there is that.

[Dr. Strangelove]

My favorite part of the tax bill may be that college endowments are now getting taxed, but Pat Toomey of PA decided ultra-conservative Hillsdale College was entitled to a special exemption from that. Hillsdale has ties to both Devos and Erik Prince and the school President is a board member of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

When it was noticed Dems had a WTF moment. Republicans have since removed the language, I have heard. Who knows how many other little hidden gems there may be?

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/01/senate-tax-bill-hillsdale-college-endowment-275980

[froot loops]

Someone on Twitter was saying Tillerson was pulling a Costanza.

Somewhere I was reading that the White House was unprepared for this plea and they were unprepared for the Papadapolous plea. The news has unnerved them, I understand being unprepared for GP, that was some true Ninja dark arts shit that they pulled off but I don't understand being unprepared for Flynn. The signs were there and there were rumors of some bombshell news about to break this week in Washington.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Were there multiple plans? I thought the cons said Russia wasn't going to benefit from this in any way?

***

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Backers of a U.S.-Russian plan to build nuclear reactors across the Middle East bragged after the U.S. election they had backing from Donald Trump?s national security adviser Michael Flynn for a project that required lifting sanctions on Russia, documents reviewed by Reuters show.

The documents, which have not previously been made public, reveal new aspects of the plan, including the proposed involvement of a Russian company currently under U.S. sanctions to manufacture nuclear equipment. That company, major engineering and construction firm OMZ OAO, declined to comment.


The documents do not show whether Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, took concrete steps to push the proposal with Trump and his aides. But they do show that Washington-based nuclear power consultancy ACU Strategic Partners believed that both Flynn, who had worked as an adviser to the firm as late as mid-2016, and Trump were firmly in its corner.

***

The documents also show that ACU proposed ending Ukraine?s opposition to lifting sanctions on Russia by giving a Ukrainian company a $45 billion contract to provide turbine generators for reactors to be built in Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations.


The contract to state-owned Turboatom, and loans to Ukraine from Gulf Arab states, would ?require Ukraine to support lifting US and EU sanctions on Russia,? Copson wrote in the Nov. 16 email.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-flynn-nuclear-exclusive/exclusive-mideast-nuclear-plan-backers-bragged-of-support-of-top-trump-aide-flynn-idUSKBN1DV5Z6

[Kapture1]

Free markets are a necessary pre-condition for capitalism. Start with Adam Smith and come forward.

Talent:

I'd like nothing more than to discuss this "larger point" whatever it is. I have a strong suspicion though that we are edging into the "social Justice" area, which I have already proven is a synonym for "income redistribution".

[B]JEFF TAKE NOTE[B]

What is Social Justice? - YouTube

Thomas Sowell Dismantles the Ideology of "Social Justice" - YouTube

I challenge you progs who might have the capability of understanding these men to view the videos. DSL, Talent, hack, Jeff , just take time to watch at least the first one. All we are talking about is income redistribution, which Marx said was the goal of communism. I don't know how much simpler I can make it. Do you believe the state has the "duty to impose social justice"? Of course, you do.

Thomas Sowell Basic Economics was a great book. Brilliant mind.



I'm a huge fan of Peterson's take this... Marxism is alive and well in America, but it's disguised as post modernist social justice, where the Marxism is snuck (sneaked) in the back door. It's less about pitting the income classes against each other anymore, that idea didn't take off too well in this country, although that is still part of it. What has worked is pitting the "oppressed" against the so called "oppressors" in the form of race, gender, biological sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religion.


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOPOmrIOaqU&list=PLFZ9Q6hV6p6GeT_JL_KMukNE NPJ8tlk0v&index=3"]Jordan Peterson On the Madness of Social Justice Policies (Part 3 of 7) - YouTube[/ame]



justice doesn't need a modifier. As soon as you add anything to the word justice, is ceases to become actual justice.

[Kapture1]

51-49

Corker sucks, can't wait until he's gone.

[Kapture1]

CNN's Jim Acosta reported tonight that the WH had said the 0bama admin ok'd the transition teams contacting other conteries, including Russia.


James Clapper, who served as the Director of National Intelligence under Obama, said that the claim that the Obama administration authorized Flynn's contacts with Kislyak was "absurd," adding that the administration was concerned by the communications at the time.
“That’s absurd. That’s absolutely absurd," Clapper said on CNN.
"There was great concern at the time, not just with this particular contact, but with the violation of the principle that historically been followed of one president, one administration at a time," he added. "So to say that we blessed it, or acquiesced it is a stretch.”

[Kapture1]

and here is the video of that press conference, where Mark Toner says just that.


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vO3GNexHYI&t=28m25s"]Daily Press Briefing - January 13, 2017 - YouTube[/ame]



you will have to skip to 28:25

[Kapture1]

again, Flynn shouldn't have lied. but there was nothing illegal with reaching out to Russia and setting up the foundation for the upcoming admin during the transition period. Also the claim that Flynn was just a random, unauthorized citizen attempting to subvert the government of the US, during the transition, he became a special government employee of sorts, allowed to make those calls, so the Logan act wouldn't apply.



this feels like the 0bama administration using the Intelligence apparatus of the US to spy on and entrap a political opponent, sedition of the newly democratically elected president. FISA granted with an unverified dossier that was bought and paid for by the DNC, that warrant used to spy on transition officials, including Manafort, the unmasking of Gen Flynn's name, and the illegal leaking of it to the press. Hell, even the sanctions placed on Russia, the transition team WOULD HAVE to call and reach out to Russia after that. And here the IC is sitting there waiting to hit record on that conversation. Then you have the intelligence widely distributed throughout the government as Evelyn Farkas, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Obama, admitted to on the air with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski.

“I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill, it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration,” Farkas, who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said.

“Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama] people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy ... that the Trump folks – if they found out how we knew what we knew about their ... the Trump staff dealing with Russians – that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence.”





I'm telling you, this is the type of shit that banana republics do, the attempt to overthrow a democratically elected president.

[hack]

Were there multiple plans? I thought the cons said Russia wasn't going to benefit from this in any way?

***

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Backers of a U.S.-Russian plan to build nuclear reactors across the Middle East bragged after the U.S. election they had backing from Donald Trump?s national security adviser Michael Flynn for a project that required lifting sanctions on Russia, documents reviewed by Reuters show.

The documents, which have not previously been made public, reveal new aspects of the plan, including the proposed involvement of a Russian company currently under U.S. sanctions to manufacture nuclear equipment. That company, major engineering and construction firm OMZ OAO, declined to comment.


The documents do not show whether Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, took concrete steps to push the proposal with Trump and his aides. But they do show that Washington-based nuclear power consultancy ACU Strategic Partners believed that both Flynn, who had worked as an adviser to the firm as late as mid-2016, and Trump were firmly in its corner.

***

The documents also show that ACU proposed ending Ukraine?s opposition to lifting sanctions on Russia by giving a Ukrainian company a $45 billion contract to provide turbine generators for reactors to be built in Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations.


The contract to state-owned Turboatom, and loans to Ukraine from Gulf Arab states, would ?require Ukraine to support lifting US and EU sanctions on Russia,? Copson wrote in the Nov. 16 email.


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1DV5Z6

Now that part of it makes a little more sense. I'm still skeptical, because the Russians don't need anybody's help to export nuclear tech, though.

[Jeff Buchanan]

You know, re the Flynn affair and whatever fall-out for the Trumps occurs from it, I'm starting to think this is just business as usual for government officials all over the world. I think it's pretty clear the Clintons took full advantage of their political careers in not so tasteful or decorous ways. Then their was the Harding's Tea Pot Dome scandal among other presidential misdeeds.

The difference here is the bumbling of the Trump people in effectively concealing their skullduggery.

[Da Geezer]

Fun thought: Angry Tillerson knows his days are numbered, but hunkers down and forces them to fire him, leaking damaging stories in the mean time like this one:

I read an article, and I don't remember where, that said Tillerson can somehow "retrieve" control over his assets that he divested if he is in office for a year and a day past the date he divested his assets (read Exxon stock).

[Dr. Strangelove]

Remember this guy, Geezer? He's been MIA since January as far as I can tell.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIYHIycbWb8"]Man behind debunked voter fraud claim: Proof is coming - YouTube[/ame]

Kobach's Voting Commission appears to have pretty much faded away as well. Members of the commission have emailed to ask when the next meeting is and have gotten no response.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/whats-become-of-trumps-voter-fraud-commission-even-some-of-its-members-arent-sure

Here's a good lengthy article from earlier this year on Republicans organizing snipe hunts for two decades.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/why-republicans-cant-find-the-big-voter-fraud-conspiracy-214972

[Dr. Strangelove]

[ame]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/937007006526959618[/ame]

We take you now to reaction from the Trump legal team and WH staff



EDIT: At the time, Trump did not mention 'lying to the FBI' as being part of why Flynn was fired. That occurred Feb 13. Trump then told Comey in a private meeting on Feb. 14 to 'let it go' with the case against Flynn. This tweet today implies that Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to drop it. That is not a good thing for their argument that the President made no efforts to obstruct the investigation.

This is a good example of why the people around Trump keep pleading with him to stop tweeting shit about the Mueller probe. But he can't help himself.