45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. Vol 2

[jmorgan]

grumbledoak said:

jmorgan said:

Still not saying it was directly spying on? seems it is still caught on tape so to speak, by chasing someone else? If so, who was that? Has Nunes blown it?

If you need judicial approval to directly spy on someone, but you want to spy on them without it, what can you do?

Hint: "incidental" only sounds like "accidental"; they don't mean the same thing.

Yep. Who were they spying on. They might have pulled that just to tape him a well. My preferred reasoning at the moment is they went after someone and he got caught. The why etc., will that be released?

He was very absolute in his tweets initially, then refused to give ground. Was that a stubborn streak or a different leak?

Certainly upped the ante a bit with nunes.

[minimoog]

Interesting that Nunes went and immediately blabbed to Trump about what he'd learned, then held a press conference, but didn't tell the House Intelligence Committee which is investigating Russian interference in Trump's election, of which he is chairman.

Apparently the surveillance activity Nunes has learned of, which is a bit vague but is stated to be both legal and 'incidental', was obtained from - get this for irony - an anonymous source within the intelligence community. No-one but Nunes knows who it is, and no-one can prove it's true. Still, this revelation has handed Trump a golden opportunity to claim his allegations of 'wiretapping' were right. And it's been handed to him by the chairman of the committee supposedly investigating him and his campaign.

Drain that swamp.

Edited by minimoog on Thursday 23 March 07:49

[Eric Mc]

Murph7355 said:

Eric Mc said:

But he hasn't. On this point, I'm 100% behind him.

You see, because someone is a prat 90% of the time, be default it means he isn't a prat 100% of the time.

I get it...when you agree with him it's OK. When you don't, he's the devil

I'm not saying he's great at all. On this one topic I agree with what he has done. On most other things, I don't.

That's the nature of politics. Even parties or individuals one mostly disagree with now and then announce or enact a policy that one DOES agree with.

It's not a difficult concept to grasp.

[anonymous-user]

Murph7355 said:

I get it...when you agree with him it's OK. When you don't, he's the devil

What's that saying about a broken watch? Still can clam to be correct twice a day.

Trump is almost bound to stumble onto the right answer occasionally.

[rscott]

minimoog said:

Interesting that Nunes went and immediately blabbed to Trump about what he'd learned, then held a press conference, but didn't tell the House Intelligence Committee which is investigating Russian interference in Trump's election, of which he is chairman.

Apparently the surveillance activity Nunes has learned of, which is a bit vague but is stated to be both legal and 'incidental', was obtained from - get this for irony - an anonymous source within the intelligence community. No-one but Nunes knows who it is, and no-one can prove it's true. Still, this revelation has handed Trump a golden opportunity to claim his allegations of 'wiretapping' were right. And it's been handed to him by the chairman of the committee supposedly investigating him and his campaign.

Drain that swamp.

Edited by minimoog on Thursday 23 March 07:49

And the lead Democrat on that committee isn't at all happy... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/22/tr... ..

[Eric Mc]

Nunes showed extreme derogation of duty and total lack of independence. Will he be sacked as Chairman now?

[johnfm]

Eric Mc said:

Nunes showed extreme derogation of duty and total lack of independence. Will he be sacked as Chairman now?

Surely he'll be promoted and get a free membership to Mar a Lago?

[p1stonhead]

Possible FAKE NEWS obviously but looks like things are heating up

The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, US officials told CNN.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/us-offi...

[anonymous-user]

Laptop ban on some flights.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp...

Trump levelling the field against middle eastern airline protectionism or response to a new threat?

[mickytruelove]

p1stonhead said:

Possible FAKE NEWS obviously but looks like things are heating up

The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, US officials told CNN.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/us-offi...

I try to get my news from a few places and put together a picture of what it means but i stopped with CNN because it seems the channel is only there to bash trump, 24hrs a day constant "trump is bad".

I agree he is an idiot but he could give free sweets to kids and CNN would report Trump personally gave 30 million children diabetes.

[andymadmak]

p1stonhead said:

Possible FAKE NEWS obviously but looks like things are heating up

The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, US officials told CNN.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/us-offi...

I am genuinely perplexed by the direction of this kind of story. If I have understood it properly (happy to be corrected if I have not) the FBI is suggesting that there is evidence that might show Trump associates encouraging the Russians to release some information that they had about HRC, knowing that such a release would be damaging to HRC campaign.
There is no suggestion that Trump associates provided that information to the Russians, or that they were in any way complicit in the discovery of that information.

Why is the story not about the fact that such "damaging information" existed in the first place? In other words why is the story not about the HRC wrong doing? Presumably, if HRC had not done those things and had not lied about doing those things then there would have been nothing for the Russians to discover and nothing for the Russians to release (whether encouraged to do so by Trump associates or not)

Are people saying that it would have been preferable for the Russians not to release (presumably?) valid information about HRC just so that she could win the election for POTUS? I am genuinely befuddled by this thinking

What am I missing here?

[rscott]

andymadmak said:

p1stonhead said:

Possible FAKE NEWS obviously but looks like things are heating up

The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, US officials told CNN.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/us-offi...

I am genuinely perplexed by the direction of this kind of story. If I have understood it properly (happy to be corrected if I have not) the FBI is suggesting that there is evidence that might show Trump associates encouraging the Russians to release some information that they had about HRC, knowing that such a release would be damaging to HRC campaign.
There is no suggestion that Trump associates provided that information to the Russians, or that they were in any way complicit in the discovery of that information.

Why is the story not about the fact that such "damaging information" existed in the first place? In other words why is the story not about the HRC wrong doing? Presumably, if HRC had not done those things and had not lied about doing those things then there would have been nothing for the Russians to discover and nothing for the Russians to release (whether encouraged to do so by Trump associates or not)

Are people saying that it would have been preferable for the Russians not to release (presumably?) valid information about HRC just so that she could win the election for POTUS? I am genuinely befuddled by this thinking

What am I missing here?

Did you not see the testimony of Comey recently? The Republicans were only concerned with what he was doing about the leaks not with the content of the leaks at all.

Much like Trump now wants action on leaks yet loved them when they were about HRC.

[Efbe]

andymadmak said:

I am genuinely perplexed by the direction of this kind of story. If I have understood it properly (happy to be corrected if I have not) the FBI is suggesting that there is evidence that might show Trump associates encouraging the Russians to release some information that they had about HRC, knowing that such a release would be damaging to HRC campaign.
There is no suggestion that Trump associates provided that information to the Russians, or that they were in any way complicit in the discovery of that information.

Why is the story not about the fact that such "damaging information" existed in the first place? In other words why is the story not about the HRC wrong doing? Presumably, if HRC had not done those things and had not lied about doing those things then there would have been nothing for the Russians to discover and nothing for the Russians to release (whether encouraged to do so by Trump associates or not)

Are people saying that it would have been preferable for the Russians not to release (presumably?) valid information about HRC just so that she could win the election for POTUS? I am genuinely befuddled by this thinking

What am I missing here?

I am not close to this story, but how did the reps know the Russians had this info to leak?

[andymadmak]

rscott said:

andymadmak said:

p1stonhead said:

Possible FAKE NEWS obviously but looks like things are heating up

The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, US officials told CNN.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/us-offi...

I am genuinely perplexed by the direction of this kind of story. If I have understood it properly (happy to be corrected if I have not) the FBI is suggesting that there is evidence that might show Trump associates encouraging the Russians to release some information that they had about HRC, knowing that such a release would be damaging to HRC campaign.
There is no suggestion that Trump associates provided that information to the Russians, or that they were in any way complicit in the discovery of that information.

Why is the story not about the fact that such "damaging information" existed in the first place? In other words why is the story not about the HRC wrong doing? Presumably, if HRC had not done those things and had not lied about doing those things then there would have been nothing for the Russians to discover and nothing for the Russians to release (whether encouraged to do so by Trump associates or not)

Are people saying that it would have been preferable for the Russians not to release (presumably?) valid information about HRC just so that she could win the election for POTUS? I am genuinely befuddled by this thinking

What am I missing here?

Did you not see the testimony of Comey recently? The Republicans were only concerned with what he was doing about the leaks not with the content of the leaks at all.

Much like Trump now wants action on leaks yet loved them when they were about HRC.

Yes, I understand that. It's another iteration of what is essentially the same thing.
Is the message then from both sides that doing bad stuff is not the issue, nor is being caught doing bad stuff..... the REAL issues are who leaks the fact you've been caught doing bad stuff and when they decide to leak it!?

Edited by andymadmak on Thursday 23 March 13:55

[andymadmak]

Efbe said:

andymadmak said:

I am genuinely perplexed by the direction of this kind of story. If I have understood it properly (happy to be corrected if I have not) the FBI is suggesting that there is evidence that might show Trump associates encouraging the Russians to release some information that they had about HRC, knowing that such a release would be damaging to HRC campaign.
There is no suggestion that Trump associates provided that information to the Russians, or that they were in any way complicit in the discovery of that information.

Why is the story not about the fact that such "damaging information" existed in the first place? In other words why is the story not about the HRC wrong doing? Presumably, if HRC had not done those things and had not lied about doing those things then there would have been nothing for the Russians to discover and nothing for the Russians to release (whether encouraged to do so by Trump associates or not)

Are people saying that it would have been preferable for the Russians not to release (presumably?) valid information about HRC just so that she could win the election for POTUS? I am genuinely befuddled by this thinking

What am I missing here?

I am not close to this story, but how did the reps know the Russians had this info to leak?

I don't know either. Possibly it's a case that someone rather sympathetic to the Trump campaign sent a message saying "we've got stuff on your opponent that you might find useful... what do you want us to do with it?"

[Efbe]

andymadmak said:

Efbe said:

andymadmak said:

I am genuinely perplexed by the direction of this kind of story. If I have understood it properly (happy to be corrected if I have not) the FBI is suggesting that there is evidence that might show Trump associates encouraging the Russians to release some information that they had about HRC, knowing that such a release would be damaging to HRC campaign.
There is no suggestion that Trump associates provided that information to the Russians, or that they were in any way complicit in the discovery of that information.

Why is the story not about the fact that such "damaging information" existed in the first place? In other words why is the story not about the HRC wrong doing? Presumably, if HRC had not done those things and had not lied about doing those things then there would have been nothing for the Russians to discover and nothing for the Russians to release (whether encouraged to do so by Trump associates or not)

Are people saying that it would have been preferable for the Russians not to release (presumably?) valid information about HRC just so that she could win the election for POTUS? I am genuinely befuddled by this thinking

What am I missing here?

I am not close to this story, but how did the reps know the Russians had this info to leak?

I don't know either. Possibly it's a case that someone rather sympathetic to the Trump campaign sent a message saying "we've got stuff on your opponent that you might find useful... what do you want us to do with it?"

I would imagine that is the case.

If so that says nothing about leaks, but does show a concerted attempt to influence the election.

[andymadmak]

Efbe said:

andymadmak said:

Efbe said:

andymadmak said:

I am genuinely perplexed by the direction of this kind of story. If I have understood it properly (happy to be corrected if I have not) the FBI is suggesting that there is evidence that might show Trump associates encouraging the Russians to release some information that they had about HRC, knowing that such a release would be damaging to HRC campaign.
There is no suggestion that Trump associates provided that information to the Russians, or that they were in any way complicit in the discovery of that information.

Why is the story not about the fact that such "damaging information" existed in the first place? In other words why is the story not about the HRC wrong doing? Presumably, if HRC had not done those things and had not lied about doing those things then there would have been nothing for the Russians to discover and nothing for the Russians to release (whether encouraged to do so by Trump associates or not)

Are people saying that it would have been preferable for the Russians not to release (presumably?) valid information about HRC just so that she could win the election for POTUS? I am genuinely befuddled by this thinking

What am I missing here?

I am not close to this story, but how did the reps know the Russians had this info to leak?

I don't know either. Possibly it's a case that someone rather sympathetic to the Trump campaign sent a message saying "we've got stuff on your opponent that you might find useful... what do you want us to do with it?"

I would imagine that is the case.

If so that says nothing about leaks, but does show a concerted attempt to influence the election.

Oh, I agree. I think there is no doubt that the Russians sought to influence the election. I'm simply saying that if HRC hadn't created the dirt to start with, the Russians could not have dished the dirt on her so as to have influence over the election.

[p1stonhead]

Manafort also having a good time at the moment

https://apnews.com/122ae0b5848345faa88108a03de40c5...

[rscott]

andymadmak said:

rscott said:

andymadmak said:

p1stonhead said:

Possible FAKE NEWS obviously but looks like things are heating up

The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, US officials told CNN.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/22/politics/us-offi...

I am genuinely perplexed by the direction of this kind of story. If I have understood it properly (happy to be corrected if I have not) the FBI is suggesting that there is evidence that might show Trump associates encouraging the Russians to release some information that they had about HRC, knowing that such a release would be damaging to HRC campaign.
There is no suggestion that Trump associates provided that information to the Russians, or that they were in any way complicit in the discovery of that information.

Why is the story not about the fact that such "damaging information" existed in the first place? In other words why is the story not about the HRC wrong doing? Presumably, if HRC had not done those things and had not lied about doing those things then there would have been nothing for the Russians to discover and nothing for the Russians to release (whether encouraged to do so by Trump associates or not)

Are people saying that it would have been preferable for the Russians not to release (presumably?) valid information about HRC just so that she could win the election for POTUS? I am genuinely befuddled by this thinking

What am I missing here?

Did you not see the testimony of Comey recently? The Republicans were only concerned with what he was doing about the leaks not with the content of the leaks at all.

Much like Trump now wants action on leaks yet loved them when they were about HRC.

Yes, I understand that. It's another iteration of what is essentially the same thing.
Is the message then from both sides that doing bad stuff is not the issue, not is being caught doing bad stuff..... the REAL issues are who leaks the fact you've been caught doing bad stuff and when they decide to leak it!?

Isn't the difference that the HRC emails didn't actually show they'd carried out unlawful activities (just pretty ruthless ones..) whereas the leaks about Trump's team so far appear to be evidence of unlawful activities (lying to Senate hearings, breach of lobbying rules,etc).

[Efbe]

andymadmak said:

Efbe said:

andymadmak said:

Efbe said:

andymadmak said:

I am genuinely perplexed by the direction of this kind of story. If I have understood it properly (happy to be corrected if I have not) the FBI is suggesting that there is evidence that might show Trump associates encouraging the Russians to release some information that they had about HRC, knowing that such a release would be damaging to HRC campaign.
There is no suggestion that Trump associates provided that information to the Russians, or that they were in any way complicit in the discovery of that information.

Why is the story not about the fact that such "damaging information" existed in the first place? In other words why is the story not about the HRC wrong doing? Presumably, if HRC had not done those things and had not lied about doing those things then there would have been nothing for the Russians to discover and nothing for the Russians to release (whether encouraged to do so by Trump associates or not)

Are people saying that it would have been preferable for the Russians not to release (presumably?) valid information about HRC just so that she could win the election for POTUS? I am genuinely befuddled by this thinking

What am I missing here?

I am not close to this story, but how did the reps know the Russians had this info to leak?

I don't know either. Possibly it's a case that someone rather sympathetic to the Trump campaign sent a message saying "we've got stuff on your opponent that you might find useful... what do you want us to do with it?"

I would imagine that is the case.

If so that says nothing about leaks, but does show a concerted attempt to influence the election.

Oh, I agree. I think there is no doubt that the Russians sought to influence the election. I'm simply saying that if HRC hadn't created the dirt to start with, the Russians could not have dished the dirt on her so as to have influence over the election.

quite. and given quite how pro HRC a lot of the establishment seem to be, this dirt still got out!