Those leaks have been mostly from the Presidential Administration. Congress hasn't been exceptionally leaky lately, that I know of at least.
I believe the dossier was purported to have leaked from various congressional staff.
True. If they're worried about a replay of that, it might explain the super secrecy. If you limit the knowledge to commitee membership, it makes the list of potential leakers a lot smaller.
The whole "how did they get taped calls of Flynn??" is such a non-issue. Practically all foreign diplomats are likely under surveillance of some kind and they just happened to catch Flynn on one of those calls.
e: and given the last meeting the democrats were pretty upset, this one might be more important if they're actually just going along with the super-secrecy right now.
The whole "how did they get taped calls of Flynn??" is such a non-issue. Practically all foreign diplomats are likely under surveillance of some kind and they just happened to catch Flynn on one of those calls.
I guess the other possibility, that I hadn't really thought about until now, is that it wasn't the Russian ambassador they were tapping, it was because they were already monitoring Flynn.
Which granted feels a little bit too convoluted when there's a perfectly sane explanation right there that explains things equally well.
... But on the other hand, people have been wondering how Flynn could be so dumb as to not expect his call to be listened in on when he's a former spook himself. Maaaybe he was calling the ambassador through a back channel, but it was still caught because his own connection was tapped?
But then that doesn't really jive with the reports from people who've seen the supposed transcripts, who mostly say that there wasn't really any massive bombshells in there, that it was more about the lying later on.
Who knows.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
e: and given the last meeting the democrats were pretty upset, this one might be more important if they're actually just going along with the super-secrecy right now.
But yeah, this is the thing that really makes it seem like something Proper Big was discussed. The bipartisan intelligence committee + Chuck Schumer, and not only are neither side openly hinting about anything, they're not even hinting at things anonymously off the record the next day. Staffers and even other congresscritters apparently don't know either.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
3 hours in a secluded room, no one will talk about it or even admit to staffers they were there?
I can only assume that either the head of the FBI, the senate minority leader, and the senate intelligence commitee have formed a Cabal, or Comey found Flynn's stash in his office and really wanted to make up for pissing everyone off at the last breifing.
So there's a thing that happens right now, with local police and surveillance technology. Police scan your data and find evidence that you're doing something criminal using invasive surveillance that would be illegal. But they know they cannot use the evidence in court, because they obtained it illegally. So instead they create a situation where the police would legally find that evidence in normal procedures, and then bring charges based on the narrative they created.
For example, they're tracking a phone of someone suspected of dealing drugs, but they do not have a warrant for that. Instead, there's a "random" traffic stop, and oh hey our drug dog is right near by, and hey what do you know, this guy's carrying a lot of drugs right now. Gee wasn't that convenient. And look! Our illegal surveillance methods didn't even get exposed!
James Comey has known about Trump's Russian ties since at least July of last year, likely longer. Possibly MUCH longer.
The story about Flynn's little call is quite possibly true, but also quite possibly a convenient story for public consumption, put forth to protect the methods and sources used.
If it were a nuclear weapons test, wouldn't it have been picked up on seismographs unless it was very, very small? If it was an airburst, wouldn't someone have noticed? I'm not saying it couldn't be a weapons test, just noting that don't we usually have alternative methods of confirmation?
With the obvious caveat that some of those sources might not be forthcoming for any number of reasons right now (ie; controlled by the US who isn't feeling like sharing or something).
Satellites would have seen it if it was above ground, seismographs would have picked it up, etc.
No, Russia didn't test a fucking nuke somehow without anyone other than an Internet reporter noticing. Get better sources, guys; you're going down the Twitter garbage hole.
If it were a nuclear weapons test, wouldn't it have been picked up on seismographs unless it was very, very small? If it was an airburst, wouldn't someone have noticed? I'm not saying it couldn't be a weapons test, just noting that don't we usually have alternative methods of confirmation?
With the obvious caveat that some of those sources might not be forthcoming for any number of reasons right now (ie; controlled by the US who isn't feeling like sharing or something).
Satellites would have seen it if it was above ground, seismographs would have picked it up, etc.
No, Russia didn't test a fucking nuke somehow without anyone other than an Internet reporter noticing. Get better sources, guys; you're going down the Twitter garbage hole.
Like, I want to believe that. My question is do you think this White House would announce it if Russia did something bad?
If it were a nuclear weapons test, wouldn't it have been picked up on seismographs unless it was very, very small? If it was an airburst, wouldn't someone have noticed? I'm not saying it couldn't be a weapons test, just noting that don't we usually have alternative methods of confirmation?
With the obvious caveat that some of those sources might not be forthcoming for any number of reasons right now (ie; controlled by the US who isn't feeling like sharing or something).
Satellites would have seen it if it was above ground, seismographs would have picked it up, etc.
No, Russia didn't test a fucking nuke somehow without anyone other than an Internet reporter noticing. Get better sources, guys; you're going down the Twitter garbage hole.
Like, I want to believe that. My question is do you think this White House would announce it if Russia did something bad?
Wasn't it some ukranian news source, via french science people?
It was a very dumb Ukrainian person citing a French scientific source for the original data. If it was Russian, almost definitely an accident on a naval vessel. It's happened before. Industrial accident is most likely though.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate intelligence committee has sent formal requests to more than a dozen organizations, agencies and individuals, asking them to preserve all materials related to a probe the panel is conducting on Russian interference in the 2016 election and related issues, a congressional aide said Saturday.
The committee chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and its vice chairman, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., sent letters out on Friday - the same day committee members received a classified briefing from FBI Director James Comey. Committee members declined to comment on what was discussed after the more than hourlong briefing.
The aide was not authorized to discuss the issue and spoke only on condition of anonymity
On Thursday, Senate Democrats wrote the White House and law enforcement agencies seeking assurances that they were preserving all materials related to contacts individuals associated with President Donald Trump had with Russians.
Those letters asked for confirmation that the White House, FBI and Justice Department had instructed their employees to preserve all materials related to any contacts Trump's administration, campaign, transition team - or anyone acting on their behalf - have had with Russian government officials or its associates.
The letter to the White House counsel said the executive branch and Congress have been investigating Russia's efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. As a part of these investigations, there have been ongoing inquiries into communications or contacts between the Trump campaign or Trump transition team and associates or officials of the Russian government, including communications involving ousted national security adviser Mike Flynn.
Congressional staffers have said that they are not aware of any evidence that materials are not being preserved, but Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday on the Senate floor: "There is real concern that some in the administration may try to cover up its ties to Russia by deleting emails, texts and other records that could shine a light on those connections. These records are likely to be the subject of executive branch as well as congressional investigations and must be preserved."
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
I bet Joe McCarthy is in hell, laughing hysterically at all of this.
British officials believe Russian authorities were behind a plot in October to kill Montenegro's pro-Western prime minister, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported, citing senior British government sources.
A special prosecutor in the former Yugoslav republic said in November that a group of "Russian nationalists" had planned to assassinate Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic to get an opposition party into power.
Moscow denied involvement in any plot, and Montenegrin opposition parties have said the plot was fabricated and accuse Djukanovic of using the security services to help extend his quarter century of dominance.
The British newspaper reported on Sunday that senior British officials believed there had been a plot to kill Djukanovic, and that Russia had constructed it in a way that it could be blamed on rogue Russian nationalists if uncovered.
I reallllllly wonder if this is "we have proof, 100% solid, now what do we do about it?"
That will never happen so it's a solid deduction, imo.
I think it's just some "the situation is 110% shit, now what do we do?" pep talk. My deepest wish is it was spiced with a little "we know what you did, motherfucker" to Comey but I don't dare to even hope that's true.
Can't help but just shrugging about the whole thing...
I reallllllly wonder if this is "we have proof, 100% solid, now what do we do about it?"
That will never happen so it's a solid deduction, imo.
I think it's just some "the situation is 110% shit, now what do we do?" pep talk. My deepest wish is it was spiced with a little "we know what you did, motherfucker" to Comey but I don't dare to even hope that's true.
Can't help but just shrugging about the whole thing...
I imagine that went exactly like that scene from Ghostbusters.
Schumer: "Everything was fine with our system until the Hillary emails story was resurrected by dickless here."
Comey: "I was fulfilling my obligations!"
McConnell: "Is this true?"
Harris: "It's true, Senator. This man has no dick."
Nice that we're finally investigating this after the election.
After the guy who benefited from this won.
All according to... what's the Russian version of "Keikaku"?
Seriously. You think people are angry and protesting now? What happens if it's revealed that Donald Trump won due to Russian Interference? Do you think people will be content with simply impeaching Trump? What legitimacy does Pence have when he rode in on Russia's coattails? How legitimate is the Congress? We have no mechanism to legally deal with a compromised election, nor a complete lack of faith in the government. It'd be anarchy.
Nice that we're finally investigating this after the election.
After the guy who benefited from this won.
All according to... what's the Russian version of "Keikaku"?
Seriously. You think people are angry and protesting now? What happens if it's revealed that Donald Trump won due to Russian Interference? Do you think people will be content with simply impeaching Trump? What legitimacy does Pence have when he rode in on Russia's coattails? How legitimate is the Congress? We have no mechanism to legally deal with a compromised election, nor a complete lack of faith in the government. It'd be anarchy.
All while Putin laughs.
In a normal world? The current administration is shown the boot, and the USA goes through the process of creating a process to handle such situations going forward.
But at the moment?
Trump calls it fake news, the GoP all nods their head in unison, and they try and bury the whole issue.
Maybe, MAYBE such a big stink is raised that we can still get rid of more than 1-2 people... But I have decreasing faith in that every day.
Nice that we're finally investigating this after the election.
After the guy who benefited from this won.
All according to... what's the Russian version of "Keikaku"?
Seriously. You think people are angry and protesting now? What happens if it's revealed that Donald Trump won due to Russian Interference? Do you think people will be content with simply impeaching Trump? What legitimacy does Pence have when he rode in on Russia's coattails? How legitimate is the Congress? We have no mechanism to legally deal with a compromised election, nor a complete lack of faith in the government. It'd be anarchy.
All while Putin laughs.
In a normal world? The current administration is shown the boot, and the USA goes through the process of creating a process to handle such situations going forward.
But at the moment?
Trump calls it fake news, the GoP all nods their head in unison, and they try and bury the whole issue.
Maybe, MAYBE such a big stink is raised that we can still get rid of more than 1-2 people... But I have decreasing faith in that every day.
1. This is not and never has been a "normal world".
2. If Trump benefited from Foreign Interference, then the entire Federal Government is suspect: how many Senators and Representatives benefited from that downticket, and how do you determine their legitimacy? The only way to restore faith in the Federal would be to hold completely new elections, which takes time and money and ain't never going to happen.
I don't think we will have another election. Even if the hand of god (whichever one you feel like imagining) came down and presented the government with a list of all the people that were party to Russia meddling with the election, and all of them were booted (or even sent to jail). They would still just find a way to shuffle the cards to keep this current administration in power.
But there is nothing to stop us from having a new election. This situation is unprecedented... it wasn't really ever expected. The only thing stopping us from creating a process where we could hold a do over is ourselves.
Which of course means the GoP won't be for it unless they see it as something that will help them right now.
There is nothing in the constitution or statute that calls for a redo. Maybe in some nightmare scenario where the entire established line-o-succession got wiped out. Otherwise it just keeps going down the line.
Apparently Flynn was shopping around a plan with Ukrainian Party of Regions (the pro-Russia faction of the opposition) to publicize some tax information about Poroshenko to try to force him from power.
If anything actually happens with this Flynn and Russia stuff, we're looking at Pence as president, which is fucking terrifying
I just can't imagine him being that clueless or isolated though
Biden memes aside, and Cheney was the actual president thing, has there ever been a situation where the VP had no idea what was allegedly happening when things were this ridiculous?
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augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
If anything actually happens with this Flynn and Russia stuff, we're looking at Pence as president, which is fucking terrifying
I just can't imagine him being that clueless or isolated though
Biden memes aside, and Cheney was the actual president thing, has there ever been a situation where the VP had no idea what was allegedly happening when things were this ridiculous?
I don't know, but I can see that happening in this instance if Pence is considered too establishment by the cabal. Also wondering if Pence hasn't been putting on a show of looking Presidential lately because he knows or suspects there's a ticking clock on this Russia stuff.
If anything actually happens with this Flynn and Russia stuff, we're looking at Pence as president, which is fucking terrifying
I just can't imagine him being that clueless or isolated though
Biden memes aside, and Cheney was the actual president thing, has there ever been a situation where the VP had no idea what was allegedly happening when things were this ridiculous?
Well, Truman had no idea that the US was developing the greatest superweapon ever made, that's a pretty big one...
The VP isn't really in the chain of command unless the president chooses to put him there. Constitutionally the VP doesn't have much to do except for breaking ties in the senate. Biden and Cheney both had a lot of autonomy, but there's been a fair share of VPs who just kind of sat on their thumbs and were never in the loop as well.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
If anything actually happens with this Flynn and Russia stuff, we're looking at Pence as president, which is fucking terrifying
I just can't imagine him being that clueless or isolated though
Biden memes aside, and Cheney was the actual president thing, has there ever been a situation where the VP had no idea what was allegedly happening when things were this ridiculous?
I don't know, but I can see that happening in this instance if Pence is considered too establishment by the cabal. Also wondering if Pence hasn't been putting on a show of looking Presidential lately because he knows or suspects there's a ticking clock on this Russia stuff.
If I was in Pence's situation I'd probably make sure that I was as isolated as possible from whatever the administration is doing, just in case everything blows up in their faces. He has no actual power and no need to suck up to Trump, so why get involved at all?
If anything actually happens with this Flynn and Russia stuff, we're looking at Pence as president, which is fucking terrifying
I just can't imagine him being that clueless or isolated though
Biden memes aside, and Cheney was the actual president thing, has there ever been a situation where the VP had no idea what was allegedly happening when things were this ridiculous?
Well, Truman had no idea that the US was developing the greatest superweapon ever made, that's a pretty big one...
The VP isn't really in the chain of command unless the president chooses to put him there. Constitutionally the VP doesn't have much to do except for breaking ties in the senate. Biden and Cheney both had a lot of autonomy, but there's been a fair share of VPs who just kind of sat on their thumbs and were never in the loop as well.
I think what Douglas was getting at was more of a contextual thing - given what we know about Pence's proximity to Trump's inner circle, specifically Flynn, I think he's implying it's almost preposterous to imagine that Pence was just out of the loop on this one giant thing
Truman/FDR's dynamic kind of compares in some respects to Pence/Trump but diverges in what I think are more important contextual things regarding scandals and such
For the fancifully conspiratorial, maybe the LBJ/JFK assassination is somewhat more analagous: WHO KNEW WHAT, WHEN?
"and the morning stars I have seen
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
Your what seems like daily reminder: this is the Russia thread.
Considering that they are, from the meeting and subsequent memo to retain/prevent destruction or deletion of all documents plus everything else, the most likely foreign actor here - yes, yes it is.
British officials believe Russian authorities were behind a plot in October to kill Montenegro's pro-Western prime minister, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported, citing senior British government sources.
A special prosecutor in the former Yugoslav republic said in November that a group of "Russian nationalists" had planned to assassinate Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic to get an opposition party into power.
Moscow denied involvement in any plot, and Montenegrin opposition parties have said the plot was fabricated and accuse Djukanovic of using the security services to help extend his quarter century of dominance.
The British newspaper reported on Sunday that senior British officials believed there had been a plot to kill Djukanovic, and that Russia had constructed it in a way that it could be blamed on rogue Russian nationalists if uncovered.
Posts
True. If they're worried about a replay of that, it might explain the super secrecy. If you limit the knowledge to commitee membership, it makes the list of potential leakers a lot smaller.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
e: and given the last meeting the democrats were pretty upset, this one might be more important if they're actually just going along with the super-secrecy right now.
I guess the other possibility, that I hadn't really thought about until now, is that it wasn't the Russian ambassador they were tapping, it was because they were already monitoring Flynn.
Which granted feels a little bit too convoluted when there's a perfectly sane explanation right there that explains things equally well.
... But on the other hand, people have been wondering how Flynn could be so dumb as to not expect his call to be listened in on when he's a former spook himself. Maaaybe he was calling the ambassador through a back channel, but it was still caught because his own connection was tapped?
But then that doesn't really jive with the reports from people who've seen the supposed transcripts, who mostly say that there wasn't really any massive bombshells in there, that it was more about the lying later on.
Who knows.
But yeah, this is the thing that really makes it seem like something Proper Big was discussed. The bipartisan intelligence committee + Chuck Schumer, and not only are neither side openly hinting about anything, they're not even hinting at things anonymously off the record the next day. Staffers and even other congresscritters apparently don't know either.
3 hours in a secluded room, no one will talk about it or even admit to staffers they were there?
I can only assume that either the head of the FBI, the senate minority leader, and the senate intelligence commitee have formed a Cabal, or Comey found Flynn's stash in his office and really wanted to make up for pissing everyone off at the last breifing.
For example, they're tracking a phone of someone suspected of dealing drugs, but they do not have a warrant for that. Instead, there's a "random" traffic stop, and oh hey our drug dog is right near by, and hey what do you know, this guy's carrying a lot of drugs right now. Gee wasn't that convenient. And look! Our illegal surveillance methods didn't even get exposed!
James Comey has known about Trump's Russian ties since at least July of last year, likely longer. Possibly MUCH longer.
The story about Flynn's little call is quite possibly true, but also quite possibly a convenient story for public consumption, put forth to protect the methods and sources used.
edit: Parallel construction, that's the phrase.
Satellites would have seen it if it was above ground, seismographs would have picked it up, etc.
No, Russia didn't test a fucking nuke somehow without anyone other than an Internet reporter noticing. Get better sources, guys; you're going down the Twitter garbage hole.
Like, I want to believe that. My question is do you think this White House would announce it if Russia did something bad?
Wasn't it some ukranian news source, via french science people?
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-montenegro-election-britain-idUSKBN15Y00R
I think it's just some "the situation is 110% shit, now what do we do?" pep talk. My deepest wish is it was spiced with a little "we know what you did, motherfucker" to Comey but I don't dare to even hope that's true.
Can't help but just shrugging about the whole thing...
After the guy who benefited from this won.
I imagine that went exactly like that scene from Ghostbusters.
Schumer: "Everything was fine with our system until the Hillary emails story was resurrected by dickless here."
Comey: "I was fulfilling my obligations!"
McConnell: "Is this true?"
Harris: "It's true, Senator. This man has no dick."
All according to... what's the Russian version of "Keikaku"?
Seriously. You think people are angry and protesting now? What happens if it's revealed that Donald Trump won due to Russian Interference? Do you think people will be content with simply impeaching Trump? What legitimacy does Pence have when he rode in on Russia's coattails? How legitimate is the Congress? We have no mechanism to legally deal with a compromised election, nor a complete lack of faith in the government. It'd be anarchy.
All while Putin laughs.
In a normal world? The current administration is shown the boot, and the USA goes through the process of creating a process to handle such situations going forward.
But at the moment?
Trump calls it fake news, the GoP all nods their head in unison, and they try and bury the whole issue.
Maybe, MAYBE such a big stink is raised that we can still get rid of more than 1-2 people... But I have decreasing faith in that every day.
1. This is not and never has been a "normal world".
2. If Trump benefited from Foreign Interference, then the entire Federal Government is suspect: how many Senators and Representatives benefited from that downticket, and how do you determine their legitimacy? The only way to restore faith in the Federal would be to hold completely new elections, which takes time and money and ain't never going to happen.
I envy other countries that can just have elections
I'm intrigued as to what's next though
That "secret" meeting is fascinating
But there is nothing to stop us from having a new election. This situation is unprecedented... it wasn't really ever expected. The only thing stopping us from creating a process where we could hold a do over is ourselves.
Which of course means the GoP won't be for it unless they see it as something that will help them right now.
Apparently Flynn was shopping around a plan with Ukrainian Party of Regions (the pro-Russia faction of the opposition) to publicize some tax information about Poroshenko to try to force him from power.
I just can't imagine him being that clueless or isolated though
Biden memes aside, and Cheney was the actual president thing, has there ever been a situation where the VP had no idea what was allegedly happening when things were this ridiculous?
I don't know, but I can see that happening in this instance if Pence is considered too establishment by the cabal. Also wondering if Pence hasn't been putting on a show of looking Presidential lately because he knows or suspects there's a ticking clock on this Russia stuff.
Well, Truman had no idea that the US was developing the greatest superweapon ever made, that's a pretty big one...
The VP isn't really in the chain of command unless the president chooses to put him there. Constitutionally the VP doesn't have much to do except for breaking ties in the senate. Biden and Cheney both had a lot of autonomy, but there's been a fair share of VPs who just kind of sat on their thumbs and were never in the loop as well.
If I was in Pence's situation I'd probably make sure that I was as isolated as possible from whatever the administration is doing, just in case everything blows up in their faces. He has no actual power and no need to suck up to Trump, so why get involved at all?
I think what Douglas was getting at was more of a contextual thing - given what we know about Pence's proximity to Trump's inner circle, specifically Flynn, I think he's implying it's almost preposterous to imagine that Pence was just out of the loop on this one giant thing
Truman/FDR's dynamic kind of compares in some respects to Pence/Trump but diverges in what I think are more important contextual things regarding scandals and such
For the fancifully conspiratorial, maybe the LBJ/JFK assassination is somewhat more analagous: WHO KNEW WHAT, WHEN?
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
Technically they could have called for a new election up until the point he was inaugurated if they had wanted to.
But yeah at this point it just goes down the line and the guys after Pence are just as scary, namely Paul Ryan and Orrin Hatch.
Considering that they are, from the meeting and subsequent memo to retain/prevent destruction or deletion of all documents plus everything else, the most likely foreign actor here - yes, yes it is.
If only Tito were still around.
A critic of Vladamir Putin is fleeing Russia, leaving Russia for treatment. For his second poisoning.
The hospital in Russia could not identify what he had been poisoned with.
I guess this means that they don't think they are getting the rest of Ukraine back.
Or it's a step in a larger plan.
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