US Politics - Trump cancels summit having to do with North Korea

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Alvin Flummux
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Alvin Flummux » Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:15 am

The last thing congressional Republicans want is to destroy Trump, and potentially their own re-election prospects, before they've been able to push through all their major legislative goals.

Anyway, there are multiple plans afoot to force Trump to disclose his tax returns, including at least one state where the Democrats want all future presidential candidates from 2020 onwards to disclose their returns if they want to get their name put on the election ballot - Illinois, I think. California may be pursuing a similar agenda, but I'm not sure.

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Monkey Man
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Monkey Man » Wed Feb 15, 2017 2:41 am

Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence

WASHINGTON — Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.

But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. At one point last summer, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event that he hoped Russian intelligence services had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and would make them public.

The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the Russian government outside of the intelligence services, the officials said. All of the current and former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the continuing investigation is classified.

More details at the link - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/p ... trump.html

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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Garth » Wed Feb 15, 2017 3:10 am

Keep it comin' :toot: :toot: :toot:

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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Garth » Wed Feb 15, 2017 3:31 am

CNN apparently has names and they're just waiting for the White House to comment first! :nod:

15th of January:
Mike Pence: No contact between Trump campaign and Russia
"Of course not. Why would there be any contact between the campaign?" Pence told Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "This is all a distraction, and it's all part of a narrative to delegitimatize the election and to question the legitimacy of (Trump's) presidency."
Asked again on CBS' "Face the Nation" by John Dickerson, Pence once again said "of course" there had not been contact between the Trump campaign and Russia.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/15/polit ... -contacts/

Earlier today:

twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/831583725418733569



Good point:

twitter.com/robbymook/status/831693220086112256


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Garth
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Garth » Wed Feb 15, 2017 3:33 am

Trump aides were in constant touch with senior Russian officials during campaign

High-level advisers close to then-presidential nominee Donald Trump were in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence, multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials tell CNN.
President-elect Trump and then-President Barack Obama were both briefed on details of the extensive communications between suspected Russian operatives and people associated with the Trump campaign and the Trump business, according to US officials familiar with the matter.

Both the frequency of the communications and the proximity to Trump of those involved "raised a red flag" with US intelligence and law enforcement, according to these officials. The communications were intercepted during routine intelligence collection targeting Russian officials and other Russian nationals known to US intelligence.
Officials emphasized that communications between campaign staff and representatives of foreign governments are not unusual. However, these communications stood out to investigators due to the frequency and the level of the Trump advisers involved. Investigators have not reached a judgment on the intent of those conversations.
Adding to US investigators' concerns were intercepted communications between Russian officials before and after the election discussing their belief that they had special access to Trump, two law enforcement officials tell CNN. These officials cautioned the Russians could have been exaggerating their access.
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

The extensive contacts drew concerns of US intelligence and law enforcement officials in part because it came at a time of Russian cyberactivities targeting mostly Democratic Party political organizations.
Post-election intelligence briefings on Russian meddling in the US elections included details of those communications, which included people involved in Trump's businesses.
The communications were gathered as part of routine US intelligence collection and not because people close to Trump were being targeted.
The FBI and US intelligence agencies continue to try to determine what the motive for the communications were.
One concern was whether Trump associates were coordinating with Russian intelligence operatives the release of damaging information about the Hillary Clinton campaign.
"If that were the case, then that would escalate things," one official briefed on the investigation said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/14/polit ... index.html

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Alvin Flummux
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Alvin Flummux » Wed Feb 15, 2017 3:34 am

Pence becoming embroiled in all this makes it all the sweeter to watch, as it'll kill his credibility if/when he chooses to run for the presidency himself.


Veteran newsman and former-CBS journalist Dan Rather believes that the Flynn scandal could grow to rival or even exceed Watergate as the biggest political scandal of our time.

Former CBS anchor Dan Rather on Tuesday blasted the Trump administration’s integrity following former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation.

“The White House has no credibility on this issue,” he wrote on his Facebook page. "Their spigot of lies – can we finally all agree to call them lies – long ago lost them any semblance of credibility.”

“We need an independent investigation,” Rather added. "Damn the lies, full throttle forward on the truth.

"[This] is real and it is serious. Deadly serious. We deserve answers and those who are complicit in this scandal need to feel the full force of justice.”

Flynn resigned late Monday amid scrutiny of his phone conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December after reports that he had misled senior White House officials about discussing U.S. sanctions on Russia before Trump took office.

The retired Army lieutenant general blamed the “fast pace of events” for “inadvertently” giving Vice President Mike Pence and others “incomplete information” about the talks.

Pence had previously insisted Flynn did not discuss sanctions against Russia with Kislyak, but mounting evidence seemingly contradicted that version of events.

Reports emerged last week that Flynn and Kislyak spoke about that topic before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday said Trump ultimately requested Flynn’s resignation once the president’s trust in his former adviser “eroded” following the allegations.

Rather argued Tuesday that the Flynn incident could ultimately eclipse the Watergate controversy.

“Watergate is the biggest political scandal of my lifetime, until maybe now,” he said. "It was the closest we came to a debilitating Constitutional crisis, until maybe now.”

“And we may look back and see, in the end, that it is at least as big as Watergate,” Rather added of Flynn's resignation. "It may become the measure by which all future scandals are judged.”

“It has all the necessary ingredients, and that is chilling. This Russia story started out with an avalanche and where we go from here no one really knows.”


http://thehill.com/homenews/news/319585 ... n-the-lies

Anybody who has studied Watergate will know that it began as a far smaller incident than this, and grew over time as pieces began fitting together, and as whistle-blowers came forward. Now, that's not to say that this scandal will become that huge, but the fact that a highly respected veteran journalist believes that it could, lends the whole idea an element of gravitas that it might otherwise not have had.

More senior heads will roll before it's all over, of that we can be quite sure.

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Harry Ola
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Harry Ola » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:38 am

It's incredible that less than a month in it's easy to see a path from where we are to impeachment.

The Russia allegations are going nowhere and there will be sufficient Russia hawks from the Republicans that Trump will not be shielded from investigation automatically by the GOP majorities. It's easy to see how the allegations get ever closer to Trump and I'd be amazed if he had been particularly careful covering his tracks. If it looks especially bad for Trump, the only thing that could save him is if the GOP still saw him as an election asset, but plummeting ratings could take care of that.

I am not suggesting this will happen, but it would not be a huge surprise from where we are today.

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Harry Ola
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Harry Ola » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:45 am

There's so much chaos, It's difficult to keep up. Here's a story that skipped by:

Kellyanne Conway retweets and responds to a white supremacist :fp:.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/kellyanne-conway-retweeted-white-nationalist

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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Moggy » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:49 am

Trump has retweeted white supremacists before so Kellyanne Conway doing it is nothing. :lol:

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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by captain red dog » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:51 am

Kellyanne Conway is an utter liability amongst liabilities. She doesn't seem to have a clue.

I'd suggest she gets fired but two major sackings in the first month..... :slol:

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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Moggy » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:55 am

Harry Ola wrote:It's incredible that less than a month in it's easy to see a path from where we are to impeachment.

The Russia allegations are going nowhere and there will be sufficient Russia hawks from the Republicans that Trump will not be shielded from investigation automatically by the GOP majorities. It's easy to see how the allegations get ever closer to Trump and I'd be amazed if he had been particularly careful covering his tracks. If it looks especially bad for Trump, the only thing that could save him is if the GOP still saw him as an election asset, but plummeting ratings could take care of that.

I am not suggesting this will happen, but it would not be a huge surprise from where we are today.


Yeah but at least the US is safe from Clinton's emails.

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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by DML » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:55 am

captain red dog wrote:Kellyanne Conway is an utter lia


I fixed that for you.

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Hexx
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Hexx » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:56 am

DML wrote:
captain red dog wrote:Kellyanne Conway is an utter lia


I fixed that for you.


Did you? ;)

He's awake!

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/831830548565852160


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Alvin Flummux
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Alvin Flummux » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:03 pm

captain red dog wrote:I'd suggest she gets fired but two major sackings in the first month..... :slol:


There's a major senior staff reshuffle on the way; Spicer and Conway will both be gone before too long, and if SNL can do the Rosey O'Donnell as Bannon skit, he'll eventually have to go too.

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Hexx
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Hexx » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:12 pm

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/831837514226921472


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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by KK » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:16 pm

First time I've seen it written as "non-sense".

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Alvin Flummux
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Alvin Flummux » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:17 pm

KKLEIN wrote:First time I've seen it written as "non-sense".


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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Hexx » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:25 pm

And another - properly triggered today

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/831840306161123328



This from the man who egged on hackers against his enemies...

So it's fake news or is it information they've been given illegally? And wtf is "Just like Russia" about?

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Hexx
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Hexx » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:30 pm

Harry Ola wrote:There's so much chaos, It's difficult to keep up. Here's a story that skipped by:

Kellyanne Conway retweets and responds to a white supremacist :fp:.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/kellyanne-conway-retweeted-white-nationalist


No she didn't! She has no idea who tweeted that!!!!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... ebook-post

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Hexx
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PostRe: The American Politics Thread
by Hexx » Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:35 pm

He's losing it bigly.

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/831842652085686273



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