Random Politics & Religion #23 (Fake News)

Hate to say it, but "Team Trump" having 18 undisclosed contacts with the Russian government leading up to the time of the election? Trump and Pence both had to know that was going on. They either knew and ordered it, knew and did nothing, or didn't know and could do nothing. If it's one of the first two, they're both getting locked up alongside Ryan, Flynn, and Priebus.

If these things actually happened then Trump should be ousted no matter the political outcome.

I'll go down this rabbit hole of crazy just to point out that even if by some unholy miracle you're actually right for once, no matter who gets ousted you have someone who is either a Republican or, far less likely, a Trump-appointed Independent to take the spot. There is no winning outcome for you.

Julian Assange's charges have been dropped.

Assange about to walk out of the Embassy?

I agree. But there's that magical, magical "if" causing everyone and their dog to jump to conclusions.

Maybe if neither side jumped to a conclusion then we'd finally have a chance at getting the truth.

It's too late most of you already convicted Trump of treason high crimes misdemeanors and changing lanes without a turning signal.

No most of us aren't idiots and accept that there is a possibility he has. Which is entirely different than acting like he did nothing wrong.

No most of us aren't idiots and accept that there is a possibility he has. Which is entirely different than acting like he did nothing wrong.

Next thing we know, you are going to call us all climate deniers because we question the blind faith on skewed altered data some people have on climate change.

I will just call you an idiot

The blizzard of lies and distraction blowing through Washington is not just any routine stuffstorm, but a calculated attempt to bring down a president – our president, not the establishment’s president. And more than that, it’s an attempt to ensure that we never again have the ability to disrupt the bipartisan D.C. cabal’s permanent supremacy by inserting a chief executive who refuses to kiss their collective Reid.

This is a coup against us. It’s a coordinated campaign by liberals and their allies in the bureaucracy and media to once and for all ensure their perpetual rule over us. We need to fight it, here and now, so we don’t have to fight it down at the bottom of this slippery slope.

It’s brazen. It’s bold. It’s insulting to our intelligence. They aren’t even trying to hide their lies anymore. Truth is irrelevant; this is a choreographed dance routine and everyone has his moves. Call it Breakin’ 2: Electric Leakaroo, except instead of trying to save the community center they’re trying to save their power and prestige.

To buy the media narrative on this latest Russian nonsense, you must believe:

1. That whatever was revealed was super-secret, though we don’t know exactly what it was. When in doubt, assume it’s on par with the nuclear codes!

2. That there was no good reason to share this info with Russia, like coordinating our fight against our joint enemy or to prevent another Russian airliner massacre. Because why would we want another power fighting ISIS or civilians not to be blown out of the sky?

3. That LTG McMaster, who literally wrote the book on soldiers standing up to misbehaving civilian leaders and displayed immense personal courage in battle, turned chicken and sat there silently as Trump monologued about this unknown mystery info of doomsday-level import.

4. That LTG McMaster lied on camera. Twice. And that Secretary of State Tillerson lied too.

5. That random anonymous sources in an intelligence community that hates Trump with a burning passion must be believed without question, though we don’t know their identities or their motives.

6. That these anonymous randos must be believed, even though they were not actually in the room to, you know, actually hear what happened. The traditional bar on hearsay is apparently now just a bourgeois conceit.

7. That when the Washington Post and the rest of the media publishes classified stuff (including intelligence provided by allies) leaked by anyone not named “Donald Trump,” it’s awesome.

8. That the Washington Post and the rest of the media, which has been wrong over and over again in their reporting, are not wrong again.

9. That the Washington Post and the rest of the media are objective and have no anti-Trump bias, even though they are literally cheering the hits on the president.

10. That there are unicorns.

The latest pseudo-scandal is that Trump doesn’t think Mike Flynn did anything wrong, and told James Comey so back in February. So basically, Trump expressed the same view he had of the whole Flynn nonsense to Comey as he has expressed to every interviewer. Comey did nothing, and said nothing (even when testifying to Congress) for nearly three months, because it was nothing. The Russian snipe hunt continued throughout unabated. That off-hand comment was a pretty poor attempt at obstruction of justice since it didn’t obstruct anything – to the limited extent these Russian witch hunts can be confused with “justice” at all.

So the Menschian thinkers who usually scream “Treason!” are now screaming “Obstruction of Justice!” It’s adorable when they learn new terms and try to use them correctly; they’re so proud of themselves and their vocabulary building that you almost feel bad having to point out that they sound like idiots.

It is nice, though, to have liberals finally come out against the abuse of executive power, misuse of classified material, and Russians. Welcome to the party, except we know you’re full of Schumer.

It’s all lies, and they know it and we know it. Normal people just shake their heads and wonder why Washington is so consumed with political nonsense instead of solving problems. But then, Washington does not produce solutions. It produces only political nonsense.

This is a concentrated, coordinated effort by elite insiders to take down not this president – Trump’s not the point here – but to take down us, the normal American they seek to rule. Someone came to Washington who wasn’t part of the club, and that’s intolerable. So they are desperate to expel him, and by extension, us.

Every day will be a crisis, every action he takes will be the worst thing that has ever happened, and every step towards keeping his promises a crime.

Repeal Obamacare? TRUMP’S SENTENCING MILLIONS TO DEATH!

Talk to Russians? IT’S TREASON!

Telling Comey he wishes this nonsense would stop? OBSTRUTION OF JUSTICE EVEN THOUGH NOTHING WAS OBSTRUCTED!

Now, this campaign isn’t aimed at us. Normal people, people who don’t live in DC or NYC or LA, just tune it out. After all these years, and with the help of the web, we normals know the game. We’re woke, as the dorky leftists say.

The target of this constant barrage is the soft and the stupid, the smug and the sanctimonious, the wusses and the surrender flunkies. That’s why you get the girlish-handed likes of David Brooks writing dainty columns that give Trump such a pinch! That’s why David Frum starts using words like “courage” to impugn actual men who have done actual man-things, like LTG McMaster. That’s why Kasich spews his bilious funk of sanctimony and submission, among other funks. It’s all to appeal to the Fredocons, the soft-headed RINOs who are smart, not dumb like everyone says, who just want something for themselves – attention, approval, and media pats on their pointy little heads.

So these fussy ninnies, fresh from having some v-capped crone screeching at them that they will vote to take away her right to have taxpayers fork cash over to kill the baby no man will ever give her, wander outside into a wall of mics and cameras and pause. Then they talk, and when what they say trashes Trump sufficiently, the smiles from the press come, and the nods, and then the faux respect. Now they are no longer mean old Rethuglicans but dauntless heroes, at least in Georgetown, because they are willing to dance and caper to the tune of the establishment.

This tsunami of baloney isn’t aimed at us. It’s aimed at them, the Republicans who are foolish enough to believe their new friends when they whisper words like “honor” and “patriotism.” Some of the marks are real patriots who fall prey to these liars when they couch their bogus narrative in national defense terms. But the majority of the marks are just morons.

When targeting the dummies, the goal is simple. Draw off enough weak, attention-addicted RINOs to make it impossible for the President to govern. Then, hopefully, us normals will shrug, and slink away, having relearned our place. After all, we’re deplorable.

And when the liberal establishment retakes power, and the mavericks and goody-goodies get tossed aside, the bureaucracy, media and the Democrats will conspire to ensure that no one can ever take their power from them again. But they haven’t considered the consequences. We’ll object.

So we have to fight against this cable network coup. Because, if we don’t fight now, we all may end up fighting later.

Im not espousing or arguing against any belief system or lack thereof. Simply stating a basic fact that modern humans or the earth itself being 10k years old is disproven by all relevant evidence. I don't know why this is controversial.

Hate to say it, but "Team Trump" having 18 undisclosed contacts with the Russian government leading up to the time of the election? Trump and Pence both had to know that was going on. They either knew and ordered it, knew and did nothing, or didn't know and could do nothing. If it's one of the first two, they're both getting locked up alongside Ryan, Flynn, and Priebus.

I closed my laptop, but my mouth hung open. Under oath, in front of the Senate subcommittee on crime and terrorism, Sally Yates and James Clapper quietly blew the doors off the Russia investigation. Well, maybe dismantled the hinges. Because while it might have sounded like they did a whole lot of dodging up there, they really didn’t.

I mean, they really, really, really didn’t. Here’s the biggest piece of news of the hearing:

Holy ***!

No? Fine. Press on, good reader. All will be revealed in time. Because here’s the whole story the two of them laid down, with the help of a late-breaking report from NBC that we still haven’t fully grasped the importance of. I’ll try to tell the story like normal people talk, and split it up nice ‘n easy: What we knew; and what’s new?

Spoiler: It ends with a shitload of powerful people going to prison.

If you don’t get anything else out of this, though, here’s the big question: Why would Donald Trump—after being warned by Obama and his own transition team; then being told by Sally Yates that Flynn spoke to the Russian ambassador illegally and lied to the Vice President about it; and learning that this means Russia had blackmail on your National Security Adviser; and then sitting on that information for weeks and doing nothing for no logical reason; and then finally firing the guy; and then learning Flynn was a foreign agent of Turkey; and that he lied on his security clearance form; and that he’s been under FBI investigation for collusion with Russia this whole time—why the *** would Donald Trump, if he really wants to distance himself from Russia, why in *** hell is Donald Trump still defending Mike Flynn?

Answer that, and I think you’ve got your answer to this whole thing.

Away we go. Seven sections. For the short version, just skip right down to the official Michael *** Flynn Timeline!

1. The ***

Let’s get this out of the way. First, the leaks. This is a distraction and immaterial to the truth about Trussia. The Senate asked Yates and Clapper this question point-blank: Had they ever leaked or authorized leaks of classified information? No, they both said. James Clapper added, “The transcendent issue here is the Russian interference in our election process and what that means to the erosion of the fundamental fabric of our democracy.” Leaks? “Ancillary.”

Unmasking is a different kettle of fish altogether. You can go read tons about all of this stuff.

Next, the vetting of Michael Flynn. This one’s easy. Is it Obama’s fault? Well, turns out Flynn lied to the Defense Department about taking money from Russia on his 2016 security application. Also, the Trump transition team did in fact vet Flynn. Guess who was running that show? Mike Pence! Whoops a daisy!

Also, Flynn never even received his security clearance at the NSA level. He took the office, then got fired. Never got cleared.

2. Who They Are

Sally Yates was the deputy attorney general under President Barack Hussein Obama, and she stayed on after the inauguration to be the acting attorney general under Donald J. Trump while Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was being confirmed in the Senate. Mr. Trump fired Ms. Yates about a week later because she challenged the legality of the “travel” ban.

James Clapper was the Director of National Intelligence under Obama. He oversees the intelligence agencies, all seventeen of them, and sort of holds them together. He obviously isn’t personally involved in every investigation, but he’s the one holding all the reins. Like Mowgli from The Jungle Book, riding a raft of seventeen dolphins. Then simply replace Mowgli with this guy.

They were asked generally about Trussia, and about General Michael *** Flynn, specifically. They were also asked about unmasking and leaks and the “travel” ban and a host of other comparatively small-potatoes *** distractions the GOP has been trotting out to confuse you and slow everything down.

My first insane-sounding statement of this piece: The GOP is trotting out those distractions because they don’t know what the *** is going to happen to their party, or the country, really, when most of the Trump administration is gutted from office and goes to prison. This likely includes Donald Trump and Mike Pence. After today, Michael *** Flynn is a given.

3. Michael *** Flynn

“To state the obvious,” Yates said early on, “you don’t want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians.”

We knew: Mr. Trump’s National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had indeed been compromised. Yates and Clapper said the Russians had blackmail on Flynn thanks to his participation in calls discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador. She warned the Trump White House as soon as she could, because it seemed to her Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence about those conversations, who then spread that lie to the American people.

We know this story pretty well from there: nothing happens for a few weeks; Flynn only gets canned when the Washington Post reveals Flynn lied.

What’s new? First, turns out Yates discussed with the White House the possibility that Mike Flynn faced criminal prosecution for what he did. This was also a very big deal in the Justice Department. Yates said they were calling many conversations with experts in the national security division, and consulting on how best to notify the White House.

We also learned Yates was fired just a few hours after she handed the White House the classified evidence of Flynn’s “underlying” behavior to support the case against him. What did the White House do with that information, Ms. Yates? “I don’t know. That was my last day at DOJ.”

More importantly, perhaps, we learned Yates had told the White House she hoped they wouldn’t just sit on the information she’d given them. And what did the White House do? Sat on it. Trump did nothing for 18 days, and when he did, it was only because of media pressure.

Which brings us to:

4. Michael *** Pence

We knew: Pence told the American people in January, repeatedly, that Flynn hadn’t spoken about sanctions with the Russian Ambassador. This was not true. According to the White House, Pence was out of the loop all the way until Feb. 9, which is when the Washington Post revealed Flynn had lied.

What’s new? Pretty much nothing. But remember this: Yates said the White House told her Trump had been briefed about Flynn on Jan. 26, the day she first told McGahn, the White House lawyer. But for 18 days, nobody, for some reason, told Mike Pence. Or at least that’s what the White House says.

Why? Had Pence truly been misled by Flynn, he’d tell the same lies if he were asked the same questions. Why would the Trump administration leave Pence open to telling that lie again? This would have gone on until Pence lied, I’d imagine, if the Flynn story hadn’t leaked. I see no alternative to that, if Pence truly didn’t know about any of this.

5. Why Would Pence Not Know?

First, the White House just has to say he didn’t know. Their decision was pretty clear: They weren’t going to fire Flynn for anything. They did nothing about this for 18 days. The thinking was, “If we don’t tell anyone about this, no one will be the wiser. After all, it’s classified information.”

This is why they had to keep Pence isolated from Flynn, either for real, or in the stories to the press. Then came the leaks.

6. Clapper Smacks Down Trump’s Argument

We’re getting there. Gonna make sense out of that quote soon…

We knew: There’s an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia to influence the outcome of the election. This would be treason. We haven’t seen any public evidence yet, though last week Rep. Swalwell became the first intelligence committee member to admit publicly he had indeed seen evidence of collusion.

THAT’S *** YUGE. But it’s not technically new.

What’s new? First, Trump keeps citing this NBC interview where James Clapper tells Chuck Todd he hasn’t seen any evidence of collusion whatsoever, but yesterday Clapper got the chance to explain what he meant. This didn’t stop Trump from misquoting Clapper in a tweet and then creating a new banner photo out of that tweet, which he left up for about nine hours then deleted.

But yesterday Clapper testified that the FBI didn’t normally share evidence with him about ongoing counterintelligence investigations. More, he said he hadn’t known the FBI had been investigating the contacts between the Trump team and Russia until FBI director James Comey told the world about it a few weeks ago. This means Clapper was speaking the truth to Todd. It’s not that there isn’t evidence. It’s that the FBI hadn’t chosen to share this highly sensitive investigation with Clapper.

Trump has been taking words out of context for months to try to sustain this *** argument. I’m glad someone finally asked Clapper the right questions.

But we’re just getting to the good part.

7. Evidence of Collusion

We knew: Next to nothing, as mentioned above. We’ve only seen media reports. But now…

What’s new? First, Clapper threw down pretty hard. First he dropped that Trump’s business ties to Russia are the subject of an ongoing investigation. He then confirmed a report in The Guardian that in late 2015 British intelligence services collected intelligence about communications between the Trump campaign and Russian agents, then passed this information to the U.S. as part of a decades-old “routine exchange of information.” Agencies from other European countries also soon contributed this information.

Clapper said this story was “accurate,” and added that the details were “quite sensitive.” This is the first admission from a U.S. intel officer that our intel community has seen information about links between the Trump campaign and Russia. And it started in late 2015.

Clapper also dropped a bit about facts I don't like and alt-right news sites colluding with Russia: “I can’t say to what extent that was coordinated with news sites. Some might have been unwitting.” Some. Might have been.

THE OFFICIAL MICHAEL *** FLYNN TIMELINE!

1. December 2015 – Flynn takes $45,000 to speak at RT gala and sit next to Putin

2. Late 2015 – British, European agencies begin sharing intel about Trump team’s interactions with Russia

3. February 2016 – Flynn joins Trump campaign

4. April 2016 – Flynn clearance renewed; Trump gives speech in front of Kislyak, Flynn, Sessions

5. Spring 2016 – US intel agencies open Trussia investigations

6. Summer 2016 – Flynn passed over for VP

7. August 17, 2016 – First Trump intel briefing discusses Trussia; Flynn flips out; Christie censures him

8. November 10, 2016 – Obama warns Trump not to hire Flynn

9. November 11, 2016 – Christie fired

10. November 2016 – Flynn admits taking $500,000 as a foreign agent of Turkey… during the campaign

11. November 2016 – Head of Trump’s national security transition team worried about Flynn’s communications w/Kislyak; give Flynn official CIA profile on Kislyak

12. December 2016 – Flynn and Jared Kushner sneak Kislyak into Trump Tower for secret meeting

13. December 29, 2016 – Flynn speaks several times with Kislyak on the phone; they discuss Obama’s sanctions

14. Early January 2017 – Pence and others say publicly that Flynn didn’t discuss sanctions w/Kislyak

15. January 24 – The FBI interviews Flynn about discussing sanctions w/Kislyak

16. January 26 – Yates informs White House counsel about Flynn’s behavior; counsel tells Trump

17. January 27 – Yates holds second meeting with White House counsel

18. January 28 – Trump invites Flynn to join his call with Vladimir Putin; recording is turned off halfway through

19. January 30 – Yates sends classified evidence to WHC about Flynn’s contacts with Russia; Trump fires Yates

20. February 9 – The Washington Post reveals Flynn discussed sanctions with Kislyak

21. February 12 – Chris Christie goes on Meet the Press and slams Trump, Flynn, and Pence

22. February 13 – Flynn’s fired

Later: Flynn files late as a foreign agent of Turkey; it’s revealed he lied to the Federal Government on his 2016 security clearance form; and then he offers to testify in front of Congress in exchange for immunity.

He’s denied the opportunity.

No most of us aren't idiots and accept that there is a possibility he has. Which is entirely different than acting like he did nothing wrong.

Does anyone deny that CO2 levels haven't risen in recent years? No.

Nice strawman though.

Also, I'm calling it now, eliroo is going to accuse me of using another logical fallacy incorrectly, even though he just gave another textbook definition of a strawman fallacy.

an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument.

blind faith on skewed altered data some people have on climate change.

So guilty until proven innocent? All anyone has to do is make an accusation, kick the media machine into gear and you are hooked.

You're the tool the establishment has always wanted.