I think this is a big a deal, but of course it’s no big deal. I just can’t see how one could not be a white nationalist a still align with this guy. There has to be a limit to tribalism right? Right?

The thing about tribalism is that it walks hand in glove with otherism. When your worldview is constructed around "us" versus "others," the tribe ends up getting a long damn leash.

So you do not think that the UN is a better substitute than the EU as the third leg?

Faults and all, I think its a more respected institution globally when you are talking about Africa, Asia (not sure about South/Latin America). I see getting rid of NATO and WTO and the UN still has a chance to "do shit" by itself.

That's pretty funny.

I wanted to see the reaction of the GOP members while this exchange was happening. I found a video but it didn't pan to the other members unfortunately.

Gerry Connolly on Twitter: "Republicans seem obsessed with Peter Strzok's texts about Donald Trump so I read theirs. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
#Receipts #RussianShowTrial… https://t.co/3z9hKek8A0"

I've not read where this was a pattern with him? If not a pattern and it happened as stated below, definitely stupid and insensitive, but not sure it rises to him being a racist/racial slur.

The article did say the other company on the phone moved to terminate its contract with Papa John's which indicates it may have been very bad e.g. what we read doesn't convey the tone, length of the discussion etc. Kudo's to the company on stepping away from what I assume to be a lucrative deal on principle.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkir.../#781c9d844cfc

Sounds like a guy whose inability to communicate suggests his place is in the kitchen.

Thanks Trump! I just got laid off.

https://www.wtnh.com/news/internatio...s-1/1297547162


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This new GOP standard of investigators can't show any bias against those they are investigating is going to have profound impacts at the state and local level.

I guess police can no longer investigate black people then.

Mueller indicts a dozen Russians for hacking the DNC days before Trump goes to meet his boss in Helsinki.

Mueller indicts a dozen Russian intelligence folks, including naming Guccifer 2.0.

Roger Stone has already admitted to emailing Guccifer. They're getting closer.

Oh my. Indictment says a member of Congress contacted Guccifer 2.0 and asked for stolen documents in August 2016.

I imagine Stone flipped a while ago

This is brilliant:

My dude, I deal with goalpost-moving shit enough with my parents. I do not need it from you.

Look, no, you know what?

The UN is not a "more respected institution" globally. It isn't any kind of a model for integration, particularly because the Security Council is essentially a giant pissing contest. Any of the permanent members can veto anything that comes before the Council, so it's essentially been a proxy for national interest power games between the US and Russia/the USSR for the last 70 years.

That doesn't mean it doesn't have a place in the world order, but the EU is better for European stability than the UN, as currently constituted, ever could be.

Next time try to focus on what's being discussed instead of moving goalposts. That's obnoxious.

I don't think he has a pattern of racist statements, but he definitely has a pattern of saying really dumb things (and quite possibly being either an alcoholic or a lush).

Also, maybe it was partly a moral stand, but I also assume as a marketing/PR agency they just realized "holy shit, if this is how he talks when we're trying to explain to him how to handle the issue with the media, it's only a matter of time until he gets embroiled in new controversies" and the headache/potential damage to their reputation having a client like that just isn't worth the contract.

Yeah, the PR firm leaving seemed to be more of the same "we're just cutting our losses now before we get caught up in the zero tolerance/knee jerk reaction crowd" momentum. Their comment was something along the lines of differing with him on how to address his PR difficulties.

I'm not sure I understand your "moving goal post" statement. I guess its because you think I snuck UN in there? My original response in #11177 was:

Good point. Probably some moral and also some business sense in cutting their losses early.

Must be a coincidence.

July 27, 2016, Trump: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."
Indictment: That evening, Russian operatives targeted Clinton campaign emails "for the first time." pic.twitter.com/fanyaAxwfJ

— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) July 13, 2018

Sure seems like collusion to me.

Any idea who is the "person" in "... person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign"?

Roger Stone

Probably Roger Stone. He's admitted to talking with Guccifer. Even posted screenshots of their conversations on his website.

Based on the names in Mueller's indictment today, we can safely call the investigation a vich hunt.

NYT Headline:

Louisville Might Rename Papa John's Stadium After Racial Slur


I know I don't have a vote, but that seems like the wrong decision...:D

Oof.

Also, has the term spearphishing been around for a while now? That's a pretty cool one.

Lot of corporate welfare for the Pence family.

Report: Pence family's failed gas stations cost taxpayers $20 million - CBS News

I think with the new indictments out today, things are going to be moving very quickly on Trump/Russia. Rumor is that the Freedom Caucus is going to impeach Rosenstein may be as soon as Monday, we'll have to see what Mueller has planned if that happens:


http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...in-soon-report

Stephen Colbert had a pretty funny monologue. The link had some video of the exchanges. I think the best ones was at approx. 5:46 and 10:00

https://www.salon.com/2018/07/13/wat...ional-hearing/

Oh yeah, I could definitely see the smirk.


.

Made me immediately think of this scene from the Wire (NSFW, obviously): Criminal Conspiracy Notes - YouTube

Would be a dumb move by the GOP. Zero chance the impeachment would ever be successful and would likely help Dems quite a bit in mid-terms.

The fact that trump is the person the Republicans are ready to die on a hill for is so strange.

I'd do anything for a chance to vote for a Republican who actually gives a damn about an America that extends beyond the future their eyes will see. A real Republican, one from the days when the Democrats were all about small government.

It confuses me how that switch even happened.

I'm not usually the activist type, but I'm ready to go on this:

https://act.moveon.org/event/mueller...events/search/

thanks for the link. Nice to see some advance organizing on this.

The way those indictments lay out names, times, even search terms used, should scare the shit out of all the Trump folks.

They did it and Mueller knows how.

Was Giuliani out on the talk circuit today (or will be he tomorrow)? If not, I think we might have some guesses as to why.



I'm trying not to speculate about what we don't know, just to keep from having an expectation about what might be there. So it's quite eye opening when these little bits come out about what they do know, and it seems to be much more detailed than I was expecting.

Latest tweet from him was this today. None of the regular tweeters I follow are talking about him being on any talk shows that I can see:


"Congressman Steve Cohen wants to give biased renegade Agent Strzok the Purple Heart. Now he wants to impeach the President even though DOJ disclosed that the latest indictments yield no evidence of American involvement. This is pathological.:


Appararently, he's been off twitter since 2016.

So some idiot on Twitter posted a picture of a rally in London supporting Tommy Robinson (white supremacist) and Trump, claiming it was larger than the anti-Trump rally, and won't be covered by MSM as a result. Of course it would help if the picture was in London. It's not, its in Cairo Egypt and has a lot of people praying..and not to Trump I can guarantee.

lol

Schnatters defense is that he got in trouble because he wouldn't say n!@#@!

A glimpse into why Republicans have been throwing a fit over Sacha Baron Cohen's new show.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainmen...merica-review/

Interesting article on the British investigation into the ties between Cambridge Analytca, Facebook, the Leave EU campaign, and Trump/Russia:


Elizabeth Denham: ‘Data crimes are real crimes’ | UK news | The Guardian

You should really read through the indictment. It's fascinating in how advanced Russia is in cyber warfare. Much further ahead than we are.

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/175688...ment-full-text

I thought one of the interesting things was how they took defunct local papers and created Facebook pages for them. Then linked out to legit stories and built up followings. Like the Chicago Daily News hasn't existed since the 70's but still had a semi-recognizable name. They got a lot of followers.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2018/07...ricans-report/

They have been actively using, learning, and adapting cyber war with the Ukraine for well over a decade, in the field. There's next to no risk for them in that battle. I'm guessing that the US has some pretty good work behind the scenes too, but I'd rather just know it's there and not hear about it in a world court or in Newsweek.

Yeah, part of being good at this stuff is not having your successes and techniques known by everyone in the world.

I doubt they are more advanced than the US and I'm sure most of America's exploits remain unknown.

Correct.

That was quite the Q&A session. Not sure how you go to work tomorrow if you are Dan Coates or others in intelligence.

So the american president just pretty much sold out all american intelligence agencies and sided with the foreign power at fault based on a single one on one talk. And Germany is the one wholly in Russia's pocket he said :lol:

And Putin said he wanted Trump to win.

I doubt it's as good as this. They got the ruling party in this country to lick their boots.

Lord you people are suckers. https://t.co/PjmJHZaQbb

— Neera Tanden �� (@neeratanden) July 16, 2018

i kept thinking of this scene through the whole press conference

Attachment 6979

Germany's foreign secretary after the summit: "We can no longer completely rely on the White House"

The language used is no coincidence, because in that same interview he was also emphasizing the similarity in interests and the good relations between Germany/Europe and "the US" since WW2, while explicitly stating (and not for the first time) that one can't rely on "the White House". Not the first time there has been made a distinction like that from politicians over here.

The general impression i am getting is that basically Germany and the EU as a whole will pretty much wait this shitshow out and is fine treading water rather than make any decision based on making Trump happy. And in the meantime they will work on contingency plans/policies in case the crazy person gets another term.

This woman was very close to the NRA.

Gonna get a head start on this, I'm bad at learning new languages.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D9DY6WP...=9909182750601

I'm not a lawyer, so I may be misreading things, but this affidavit is Holy Shit bonkers.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-re...80766/download

Tom Winter‏Verified account @Tom_Winter









BREAKING / NBC News: DOJ announces the arrest of Russian National Mariia Butina, age 29, for "infiltrating organizations having influence in American politics, for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian Federation." She was arrested yesterday.


She was one that was reaching out to the NRA

I'm not either, but I'd say its pretty damning. Can't wait until they reveal who "US person 1 and 2" are.

It's worse than the worst case scenario. The Russians were using a GOP operative to establish backchannel communication between the Russians and GOP leaders through the NRA.

Makes all the Kushner/Flynn backchannel stuff during the transition more interesting, too.

November 11, 2016: Maria Butina DM's Torshin asking him what "our people" thought about a Secretary of State contender.
Late November 2016: Christopher Steele says Kremlin intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. pic.twitter.com/vG4Sw2atXo

— Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) July 16, 2018

2020 can't get here soon enough.

Judge in Manafort's case postponed a meeting on change of venue until next Mon morning. possible flipping?

Guess I was right about things moving quickly about Trump/Russia :)

And now a video from 2015 Freedom Fest where Trump was asked a question about US/Russia relations. And the woman asking? Maria Butina


Trump answers question on Russia at FreedomFest 2015 - YouTube

Give it 24 hours and Trump will do something even more absurd and go on multiple twitter rants which the media will then follow and this will all blow over.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Where's Cam? He's got some explaining to do.

Trump's problem is that Mueller doesn't care about any of that.

There's going to be a lot of these. That's the arrested spy with her Russian minder.

First episode was just on over here: first half was not great:

First section was Bernie Sanders basically being professional and not calling him a twat. Wasn’t funny either.

Second section was an old Republican couple being grossed out by, well pretty gross/stupid conversation, but being polite and not throwing him out. Again, not funny at all.

Third section was an artist being up her own arse - no surprise there, or much humour

I nearly quit TBH because it was neither thought provoking or funny, but the last section saved it. I won’t ruin it, but it was far more clever in concept, preparation, delivery, and in the scope of both numbers and importance of the people involved (assuming they were who the captions said they were)

Even if you are generally behind the people being ridiculed, you can’t be happy about some of the idiotic things they agree to in conversation, and agree to say/promote while doing a promo to camera. Again all this assumes they are who they are captioned to be, otherwise the joke’s on me!

Either perservere through the first three sections, or just skip to the last bit as that is definitely worth watching.

You'll find him on twitter preaching the good word about how background checks don't work and awarding a "good guy" of the day. You can guess what the good guy is packing!

At least we know who's paying his bills. What a true patriot! :lol:

This should surprise no one.

NEW: I can confirm that the US Congressman who allegedly met with Butina and Torshin in August 2015 in Moscow was Dana Rohrabacher. pic.twitter.com/0Kw0xgDpym

— Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) July 16, 2018

Not shocking in the least that it was Rohrabacker.

Just finished watching it and, overall, I agree. The last segment is 100% must watch. It's seriously depressing to see people ok with what they were pitching. I'm guessing clips or quotes from this are going to end up in campaign ads soon.

what was the last segment?

Kinderguardians

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-r...review-698440/

I'm a Sepinwall fanboy, but I think this take on the show, and our country, is really good.





I'm interested to see what current sitting congressmen did, sure. But, as a concept and a show? Meh.

US Person 1 appears to be GOP Consultant Paul Erickson:


Maria Butina, Russian gun-rights advocate who sought to build ties with NRA, charged with acting as a covert Russian agent - The Washington Post

I think the moment when Trump said it's the US's fault that Russian-American relations are poor is the one that will ultimately bring him down.

First time I've been shocked by something he's said. Like, I literally gaped at the screen like a damn goldfish.

When even Joseph McCarthy is rolling over in his grave, anyone who supports him after this has crossed the Rubicon into idolatry with Trump as golden calf.

Sure enough, I've seen a few Tea Party Republican voters (not politicians AFAIK) declaring that they're now breaking with Trump.

They'll turn on Rush Limbaugh tomorrow who'll spin the issues in such a fashion that the liberal media is to blame and then they'll be happy angry Republicans again.

I do feel like this does move him into a new metric.

Larry Pratt, Trent Lott, Dana Rohrabacher, Joe Walsh, and Joe Walsh recorded a promo that supported teaching kindgergarten classroom students how to defend themselves with "pistols, rifles, semi-automatics, and a rudimentary knowledge of mortars".

I guess this could be a poll.

But is it really possible this is blackmail? I’ve always assumed Russia was doing what a foe would do and just struck gold when the guy they helped would rather deny than admit his win was not all him.

Reading through Twitter on my phone this morning I had to actually watch the Trump-Putin video to see if it was just a case of Trump being trump causing the usual "impeach him" outrage or if it was next level. But yeah...
Whole thing felt like the final big payoff for Putin - make Trump look like a weak buffoon on the world stage and shatter all remaining confidence in the US internationally in the most demeaning way possible. Must be some particular spicy pee videos Putin and co. have in their archives.

I've joked about it ever since the pee video rumours, but is there any doubt at this stage? Only question I think is what it is - either something personal on Trump, or the threat of personal financial ruin. Even the election rigging wouldn't be enough on its own to explain that performance IMO.

What If Trump Has Been a Russian Asset Since 1987?

Wow. Trump just sold out the USA.

No wonder our government is pivoting towards a closer relationship with China.

Even this bumpkin from the Philippines can see it. What a twat.

Corbes article above alluded to Russian financial support or embarrassing pictures.

His business(es) has had financial support from Russia interests for a while now. I also think the specter of his election being tarnished/illegitimate because of Russian interference weighs on him. So easily believe these key reasons of how he reacts to Russia.

The embarrassing pictures is probably the most dubious. If it was peeing, it would be damaging (is there a lot of evidence for this for is it from one source?) and he would probably claim it was doctored. If it was him having regular sex, I doubt he would care that much.

Regardless of the three factors, I still struggle with why he is doing this. If he was beholden to Russia, you would think he would find less visible and less combative ways of "complying" and not tarnish (more) his Presidency in the history books.

Could be as simple as money laundering for the Russian mob.

Because he's not that smart and is too stubborn to take advice from people who know better who could couch things like politicians always did.

I read somewhere that Mueller probably has Trump's tax returns. Never done money laundering but I would think there would be evidence for that in his/company's tax returns.

Maybe I'm naive, but isn't it the point of money laundering that it doesn't show up in your taxes?

***yes, I know you could have some holes in things or absurdly high interest amounts that don't match your income or whatever, but the point is, if you're money laundering, you're probably not going to report it on your taxes. What the taxes can show is who you're paying interest to, where your reported income is coming from, etc.

I don't think Trump was having his money cleaned. If, as his own sons have stated, he was selling a lot of condos in cash to Russians, those LLCs could be traced back to individuals and the sources of the money figured out.

But I'd bet there are problems for Trump extending well beyond that in his financial records.

Apparently the only other option was for Trump to declare an all out war on Russia that would have already killed is after the nukes were fired, so it's hard to argue that Trump didn't do a great job.

And GOP electeds are getting in on the act.

Rep. Pete King told me he “absolutely” stands by House Intelligence Committee’s report that disputed IC findings that Putin wanted Trump to win. Putin yesterday confirmed he wanted Trump to win.

King told me he has seen the intelligence and doesn’t believe Putin.

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 17, 2018

NowThis on Twitter: "Trump's thoughts on Brexit is like a college student trying to pull off a presentation on a book they didn't read… "

If he didn't have such power, he'd be soooo amusing. I mean, why couldn't you have a system where there is one person with the power and then one is a figure-head, he'd be so perfectly amusing to watch in such a role with high visibility but limited power :(

King Donald the First. He'd love that.