The Russian Connection 3: Mueller is Coming

[GrumpyGran]

5 hours ago, formergothardite said:

We need to pass laws that will help prevent this from happening again.

If we have the chance. I, like most of you live under a cloud, concerned about this country's future. I am lucky I have a husband with military retirement and Social Security. But how long before the Republicans throw us under the bus? For people our age, there is little chance to start over. I may never get to social security because the Repubs may have bankrupted it by then to pay for a useless wall.

We are lucky to have money invested. Riding on the stock market may be great right now but I am terrified of the fall that is bound to come. That and my social security are what I will have to live on if my husband dies before me(he's 13 years older than me). And it's not a lot. If you have $1,000,000 you make a lot in interest and maybe you'll still be okay if you lose 25% of it. If you have maybe half of that, you're not going to make it.

I think about dumping it all and going to make a life for ourselves in another country but that would not protect me from the potential financial disaster. And I would be a long distance from family.

Make no mistake, if they start screwing with social security and medicare a big chunk of their base will be furious. But by then it may be too late to recover. District gerrymandering has given them power in areas where they are the minority and if we cannot get that trend reversed, we are dead.

I don't think they've thought about the end game here. When they deport, drive out or flat-out kill the majority of the poor and middle class, there will be no one to work for them and pay the taxes that support their wealth. Their spiteful immigration policy will have to be re-visited and they might discover that people from Norway don't really want to come here and clean their toilets for $8 an hour. Then they'll have to turn on each other. I'll probably be dead by then because I think the stress is going to kill me, but I'd sure like to see that version of Game of Thrones.

[fraurosena]

It may seem doom and gloom right now, but rest assured, the FBI is still committed to have your backs.

 

---------- this post is going to merge with the previous one so this is an artificial line break between the two-----

It's done.

 

The above tweet has a link that is not working well. Here's an article that has the full text:

https://www.axios.com/read-nunes-memo-fbi-doj-fisa-mueller-7fb8bcb7-1f18-4294-aa95-628d2f67bcdf.html

 

[formergothardite]

Can the FBI now release full information to give a better picture of what really happened since it is pretty obvious Nunes cherry picked things? 

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm so angry about this crap being shoveled by the Repugs. I've said it before, in the past, I've had serious disagreements with members of that party, but I never felt like they were trying to blow up our country and the principles we were founded on. Sadly, now that's no longer the case, it's become another PP (Putin Party), and the vocal members will do anything in service to their master. I applaud the members of our intelligence community who continue to do their jobs to the best of their ability and strive to keep us safe.

On another note, the movie, "Miracle" (about the 1980 US Hockey Team) is on. I bet Nunes would say that the game was fixed and that the Russians should have won.

[fraurosena]

After reading "the memo" within (literally) five minutes, my reaction is...

Seriously? That's it? This is what all that stink is about? Good grief. There is absolutely nothing in there that isn't publicly known already. All of us here in the politics threads could even add to the information, just from the top of our heads. Sheesh.

And to be honest, I'm not sure I understand all the commotion about undermining the FBI either. I didn't read anything about how the FBI or intelligence agencies gather their information. No sources are mentioned, other than Christopher Steele, but that's already common knowledge, so come on!

My goodness, the fear-mongering that has been going on about this document, from both sides, is completely and utterly unfounded.

Here's the rundown:

• the FBI used the Steele dossier as an 'essential part' (meaning, there was more information used) of the Carter Page FISA
• Fusion GPS was paid by HILLARY CLINTON!!!!!!!!!!! and the DNC, and the FBI didn't say so on their application!!!
• the FBI paid Steele for the same information (as was already surmised by Glenn Simpson during his testimony)
• the FBI also used a Yahoo news article by Michael Isakoff for the application; and Steele met with them because Fusion GPS told him to!!!! And shock horror, the article doesn't corroborate the Steele dossier (this is underlined in the memo) because Steele 'leaked' the info to them (the logic here escapes me, what are they trying to say here?)
• the FBI didn't want to work with Steele anymore because he spoke to Mother Jones in October and wasn't nice about the FBI; and he wasn't abiding by the rules of 'source-handling'
• Steele spoke with FBI's General Bruce Ohr, saying he (bolding from the memo) "was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president" and did you know that Ohr's wife worked for Fusion GPS?
• At the time of the application the Steele dossier wasn't corroborated. And Comey briefed Trump about it in January 2017.  And McCabe said no warrant would have been sought from FISC without the dossier's information.
• The application mentions George Papadapoulos, but there is no evidence he conspired or cooperated with Carter Page. And the FBI counterintelligence investigation was started because of Papadapoulos. By Pete Sztrok!!!!! Who had an affair with Lisa!!!! And they texted a lot!!!!!! And Sztrok also wrote that helpful letter about Hillary... oops, no, it doesn't mention that little tidbit...

And that's it. That is everything. 

 

[fraurosena]

Here's the Dems rebuttal. Well, part of it, anyway.

 

[fraurosena]

Here's Seth Abramson's legal take on the memo.

 

[onekidanddone]

I wan to see The Post this weekend.  Anybody seen it?

[Cartmann99]

7 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

I wan to see The Post this weekend.  Anybody seen it?

I'm interested, but I'll wait for Netflix. I can't sit through an entire movie without a bathroom  break, and I always seem to pick the wrong time to go at the theater.

[fraurosena]

1 minute ago, Cartmann99 said:

I can't sit through an entire movie without a bathroom  break,

Wait.. what? You don't have breaks during movies? 

Over here we always have a "half-time break" during a movie (unless its short). Everybody gets a chance to use the bathroom, and buy milkshakes, chips, sweets, popcorn and other drinks. Then everyone hastens back to their chairs and the movie continues.

[onekidanddone]

4 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Wait.. what? You don't have breaks during movies? 

Over here we always have a "half-time break" during a movie (unless its short). Everybody gets a chance to use the bathroom, and buy milkshakes, chips, sweets, popcorn and other drinks. Then everyone hastens back to their chairs and the movie continues.

We used to have that here in the States: Intermission

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The WaPo has published an annotated version of the memo. Because of the notes, I can't quote it, but it's helpful.

[Howl]

Sweet Rufus on a Rock. The Nunes brain trust is obviously low on funds. 

Is it possible that some part of this relates to the WH and Nunes doing damage control relative to #1 Russia fan boi Carter Page?  If they could prove that the particular FISA warrant under discussion was invalid (Steele! Dossier!), could information gotten via Page's communications during that warrant period be somehow disallowed?  I'm looking for secondary motives here, not just the obvious one: trying to impugn the integrity of Mueller's investigation.  

If there is some Carter Page smoking gun communication they are trying to suppress, they are playing a very, very dangerous game. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"The Trump White House’s laughable spin that the release the Nunes memo is all about ‘transparency’"

Spoiler

The Trump White House and GOP leaders have zeroed in on one main justification for releasing the controversial Devin Nunes memo: It's all about transparency. "I've always believed in the public's right to know," Vice President Pence said Thursday. “We have said all along, from day one, that we want full transparency in this process,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told CNN Wednesday.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly leaned into it even harder Wednesday on Fox News Radio: “Frankly, in every other case that I can remember in my lifetime where a president was in some kind of trouble, the president, the White House attempted to not release things. This president has said from the beginning . . . 'I want everything out. I want this thing, I want the American people to know the truth.'”

President Trump is just trying to be forthcoming, you see. He wants to get it all out there! Except he clearly doesn't.

There are two gaping holes in this argument: The first is that the White House has shunned transparency in plenty of ways previous administrations haven't, and the second is that its line for transparency in this case is completely arbitrary — and completely self-serving.

People can feel how they will about the memo, which was released by the House Intelligence Committee Friday afternoon. But the argument that the release was driven primarily by a desire for transparency is a pretty laughable one. The fact is that the White House and GOP leader approved the release of a memo based upon classified information that just so happens to serve their purposes — it reportedly calls into question the FBI's case for surveilling a former Trump adviser — and they have been conspicuously unwilling to release other documents that don't.

Perhaps the White House's biggest anti-transparency move has been withholding President Trump's tax returns, breaking with a practice followed by every president since Jimmy Carter. Trump initially said during the 2016 campaign that he would do so, only to reverse course and claim that his electoral victory was proof that people didn't actually care to see them. (Never mind that a Washington Post-ABC News poll last month showed that 74 percent of all Americans, and even 49 percent of Trump supporters, say they want to see the returns.)

Here are some other anti-transparency moves of varying degrees of importance:

• The chief outside group supporting Trump's agenda, America First Policies, doesn't disclose its donors. It isn't required to, but President Barack Obama's outside group did so voluntarily.
• The Trump White House doesn't share visitor logs as the Obama White House did.
• It has violated its own lobbying ban without disclosing waivers that were given to aides working on issues on which they had previously lobbied.
• During the 2016 campaign, Trump declined to substantiate his claims of “tens of millions” of dollars donated to charity.
• Democrats have accused the Trump administration of ignoring their requests for information from agencies related to their legislative duties.
• The White House tried to block former acting attorney general Sally Yates, whom Trump fired for refusing to defend his travel ban, from testifying before Congress.
• More recently, it has sought to withhold information in both Donald Trump Jr.'s and Stephen K. Bannon's testimonies, citing attorney-client privilege and executive privilege, respectively.
• It still refuses to disclose or confirm when the president goes golfing, leaving reporters to deduce that's what he's doing.

This is a necessarily incomplete list. But it shows that the White House has hardly gone above and beyond on transparency — even in cases where it would be easy to do so.

But perhaps the biggest strike against the White House's spin here is that fact that we're only going to see the memo crafted by House Intelligence Committee Republicans. The Democrats have crafted their own memo, but the GOP-controlled committee voted not to release it. The committee could also release the FISA warrant or other documentation if it wanted to. If transparency is truly the goal, why release more than just one party's argument about the underlying facts? And for that matter, why even classify information in the first place?

The second question is facetious, but it's a key point. It's important for the government to classify certain things, of course, and every decision to disclose classified information is a cost-benefit analysis — a decision that putting the information out there will serve more of a purpose than keeping it classified.

But the White House's argument here doesn't allow for that kind of nuance. It suggests that releasing basically any information is good because it's being “transparent.” And it suggests its own cost-benefit analysis includes a heaping mound of political gain on the benefit side.

I wonder who they think they are fooling by prattling on about being transparent.

[fraurosena]

Best analogy yet.

 

 

[CTRLZero]

4 hours ago, GrumpyGran said:

I, like most of you live under a cloud, concerned about this country's future. I am lucky I have a husband with military retirement and Social Security. But how long before the Republicans throw us under the bus?

I worry about these things, too.  We just experienced a bump in pay on our retirement checks.  Our daughter's paycheck raise came with this caution [paraphrased]:  "We advise you to put this additional money aside, since no one knows what the hell is going on and you may need to pay it back next April." 

 

[Cartmann99]

5 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Wait.. what? You don't have breaks during movies? 

Over here we always have a "half-time break" during a movie (unless its short). Everybody gets a chance to use the bathroom, and buy milkshakes, chips, sweets, popcorn and other drinks. Then everyone hastens back to their chairs and the movie continues.

Yeah, but we got a shitload of guns, the opportunity to become homeless because of medical bills, and a big orange toddler as a leader so... USA! USA! USA!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm not a Michael Steele fan, but this one is good:

 

[onekidanddone]

Michael Steele was Lt. Governor under Spiro T Ehrlich of Maryland, yea, not my buddy. That being said, this is not the first time he has openly criticized Trump, and I must give him kudos for that. He seems to be his own man, and have a conscious and ethics, and isn't lock step with the rest of the RePugs.  So Michael, come on over to the Blue side. We have better cookies. 

[AnywhereButHere]

Random curiosity here, but I really want to her Rod Rosenstein pronounce his own name. Is it Rosensteen or Rosenstine, because it’s become almost a drinking game guessing how each news host/guest is going to pronounce it. In the same program it will be like they’re having dueling pronunciations with each other, and occasionally, in the same thought, the same person will say it both ways. 

Yeah, I know there are more pressing issues in this whole debacle, but it’s driving me crazy! Which is it? 

[AuntK]

I, too, like Grumpy Gran, am worried about the future of this country, particularly since Congress apparently cannot forsee the consequences of their actions any farther than next week.

What is happening to our democracy, what are we giving away to the Russians? I had a conversation with my 21-year-old nephew/godson tonight, (he IS the son I never had), and he understands more than I thought. As he put it, we are at war, not a traditional, WWII-type, military war, but a technological one, and this one is much stealthier and can be much more devastating. And the problem is, most Americans do not recognize that we are engaged in a full-blown war with Russia, and have been for some time. We are so dependent on technology that we cannot let our guard down for a moment, YET look at what the WH and Congress are doing!  Can you imagine what would happen if Russia hacked into our air traffic control system or the New York subway system or some other large city's transportation system?  I don't mean to sound like I need a new tin foil hat, but I think he is right; Russia is never going to bomb us like Japan did, they are going to attack us from the inside and they have already started. And little by little, our rights will disappear, until one day it is too late.  Sound familiar?

[onekidanddone]

Lap dog Jared's building is 666 Fifth Ave. Marked dropped 666 today. I think we need to inform the evangelicals t hat Trump is the Anti Christ

 

[fraurosena]

8 hours ago, AnywhereButHere said:

Random curiosity here, but I really want to her Rod Rosenstein pronounce his own name. Is it Rosensteen or Rosenstine, because it’s become almost a drinking game guessing how each news host/guest is going to pronounce it. In the same program it will be like they’re having dueling pronunciations with each other, and occasionally, in the same thought, the same person will say it both ways. 

Yeah, I know there are more pressing issues in this whole debacle, but it’s driving me crazy! Which is it? 

Well, etymologically speaking, it should be pronounced as Rosenstine. 

The word 'stein' (meaning stone) is German. Pronouncing it as steen would be the Dutch way of saying it. 

That said, we have no idea if his ancestry is in fact German, as the spelling of his name suggests. It may seem that way, but if at some point in history the name was misspelled (and this was a common occurrence), and it was originally spelled as Rosensteen/Rozensteen, it could be that his ancestry is Dutch, and the correct pronunciation of his name is Rosensteen.

That said, his ancestry could still be German, the spelling could still be original, but at some point someone in the family could have started pronouncing it as steen. Who knows? Only Rod Rosenstein could tell you the answer.

All that, and I still haven't given you a definitive answer, @AnywhereButHere. 

[fraurosena]

Yeah, the answers to these questions is what most of us really want to know.

 

 

[AnywhereButHere]

@fraurosena Thanks! That was really interesting! 

One day, the man will introduce himself, or someone will have to outright ask him. And it will probably be at a time I’m not paying attention...