What's new
By:

Donald Fires FBI Director who's investigating Russian Election Hacking

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 365
  • Start date Start date
Bulletproof said:
If I had to guess I'd assume my popularity here is at an all-time low.

But I've explained in detail what you do specifically that gets under my skin. This post is a perfect example. We seem to completely talk past each other. I've given up.
Click to expand...

well, don't throw in the towel just now. We might win tonight.
 
Bulletproof said:
If I had to guess I'd assume my popularity here is at an all-time low.

But I've explained in detail what you do specifically that gets under my skin. This post is a perfect example. We seem to completely talk past each other. I've given up.
Click to expand...
Whatever. You claim to be some sort of protector of good manners, but you occasionally come unglued and exhibit terrible manners.
 
Washington (CNN)Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein visited the White House in December seeking President Donald Trump's help. The top Justice Department official in the Russia investigation wanted Trump's support in fighting off document demands from House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes.

But the President had other priorities ahead of a key appearance by Rosenstein on the Hill, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Trump wanted to know where the special counsel's Russia investigation was heading. And he wanted to know whether Rosenstein was "on my team."
Click to expand...

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/31/politics/donald-trump-rod-rosenstein-december-meeting/index.html
 
Sirkickyass said:
Dropped in on a whim. I think I've mentioned on this site at least one other time that my personal response to this entire Russian quagmire has been to spend significant amounts of time teaching myself Russian (although I ended up caving and hiring a private tutor, because that **** is hard) and reading Russian literature and history to get a sense of who it is that we are at a renewed cold war with.

There is very little doubt in my mind that the decision yesterday not to implement sanctions, and further to scuttle the process of actually compiling a useable list of sanctionable individuals, was a direct personal favor from the President to Putin. To understand Russia's political system, you need to wrap your head around the concept that they have a managed Democracy that features features of a Western Democratic process but serves entirely different political ends. Russia's leaders maintain power by consolidating support among a designated economic elite, who in turn allow the state to retain fundamental control over who has the right to exploit the country's resources. In a way, the Russian "oligarchs" are sort of like feudal lords that have the capacity, collectively, to overturn the power of a king. Putin is functionally an absolute leader, but does rely heavily on the consent of the oligarchy to retain control.

I read some Russian-published news sources with regularity, and the publication of the "Putin list" that was supposed to accompany these sanctions was a really hot button topic in Russia. This was going to the heart of the support structure that Putin needs to retain control, and could have placed several of these oligarchs in the position of needing regime change in order to unlock their wealth abroad. It would have really messed with the true power structure in Russian society in a way that merely naming all the people in the Duma does not.

News stories in Russian were being published about individuals and industrialists bringing cash back into Russia because they were terrified of ending up on this Putin list and being severed from their money overseas. The US ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman Jr., did an interview with a leading security publication that focuses on Russia and Eastern European issues and caters to a largely Russian audience. Most of the questions were about sanctions. Half of the interview were specifically about these sanctions.

http://www.interfax.com/interview.asp?id=806172

It is impossible to overstate how much Russia, and specifically Putin, wanted this to just go away. It's a much bigger favor to Putin, and the oligarchs he relies on to maintain power, than even most Trump critics realize.

До скоро!
Click to expand...

Along those same lines comes this:

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blog...dent-trump-gets-revenge-for-russian-sanctions

On July 28, the US Senate voted 98-2 to adopt the new Combating America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). President Donald Trump had little choice and signed it into law on August 2, although the main aim of the law was to make sure that the president could not revoke the sanctions against Russia because of its military aggression in Ukraine on his own.

The most interesting element of the new law was section 241. It called on the secretary of the treasury, in consultation with the director of national intelligence and the secretary of state, to submit within 180 days a detailed report identifying “the most significant senior foreign political figures and oligarchs” in Russia, “as determined by their closeness to the Russian regime and their net worth” and an “assessment of the relationship between individuals" and "President Vladimir Putin or other members of the Russian ruling elite” and an “identification of any indices of corruption with respect to those individuals.”

This anticipated report was called the “Kremlin list” and it was due at midnight on January 29. The obvious aim was to identify those who had made their fortune on illicit contacts with the Kremlin. The various US government bodies involved clearly carried out conscientious work along these lines.

At the last minute, however, somebody high up—no one knows who at this point—threw out the experts’ work and instead wrote down the names of the top officials in the Russian presidential administration and government plus the 96 Russian billionaires on the Forbes list. In doing so, this senior official ridiculed the government experts who had prepared another report, rendering CAATSA ineffective and mocking US sanctions on Russia overall.
Click to expand...

Can it be any more obvious that this presidency along with its foul party has been corrupted by Russian oligarchs’ money???
 
LOCK HER UP!!!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics...could-be-considering-obstructing-justice.html

On Wednesday, the New York Times’ reporting on the events aboard Air Force One added further detail and context the writing process. At the heart of the account is Mark Corallo, who was a spokesman for Trump’s legal team until he abruptly resigned in July after just two months on the job. At the time, Corallo’s departure was chalked up to too much infighting on the Trump legal team. Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury, however, suggested Corallo resigned over concerns about Trump obstructing justice. Corallo is now set to speak to Mueller’s team and, according to the Times, he plans to tell Mueller that he believed White House communications director Hope Hicks could be attempting to obstruct justice.
Click to expand...
 
Sirkickyass said:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/donald-trumps-very-soviet-fixation-on-applause
Click to expand...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...91602206fb7_story.html?utm_term=.77f73b2de719

"President Trump’s vision of soldiers marching and tanks rolling down the boulevards of Washington is moving closer to reality in the Pentagon and White House, where officials say they have begun to plan a grand military parade later this year showcasing the might of America’s armed forces.....

.....Shows of military strength are not typical in the United States — and they don’t come cheap. The cost of shipping Abrams tanks and high-tech hardware to Washington could run in the millions, and military officials said it was unclear how they would pay for it."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page
Back
Top