by Darryl Cooper

[Ziggy Stardust]

I would say whoever decided to mistranslate him as "all Mexicans are rapists" or even "Mexicans are rapists" did at least as much as anybody on the discord front. They loved it.

Trump doesn't help either.

In April, as Trump addressed a town hall on taxes in West Virginia, he said, “Remember my opening remarks at Trump Tower when I opened. Everybody said, oh, he was so tough, I used the word rape.”

Whether he said they're or their, Trump doesn't mind. Both work for him. Look how tough he is on immigration. It also works for his opponents.

Reasonable people would assume 'their', but we are no longer in Kansas anymore. I myself first read 'they're'. It was El Mac who pointed out to me it was probably 'their', and yeah, that did seem more reasonable. But the two times Truml reffered to it, it wasn't to correct that sentiment.

So now, I don't know. I'd hope he said 'their', and now kinda likes the tough guy image and lets people in the dark. Or he did say 'they're' because his mouth precedes his brain by a couple of minutes and just wanted to hear people cheer. It's trivial and academic. Which is why I'm still typing this ....

Yeah.

Some are nice people though.

 

[Farm Boy]

No, the Assclown does not help. He's an Assclown. But like you mention, there's been an awful lot of assclowns weighing in on that one. They get off on it. Either way, he still wins. We're still talking about that fat ******. And not about our fake visits of empathy from this actual year at the border, I suppose.

 

[Angst]

Ah, "exonerating Assclown from blame."

This is why I don't trust anything that contains the phrase "dogwhistle." Sorry.

i have no idea what ya mean here

like even if my post is bad, dogwhistles are a thing

idk

 

[Farm Boy]

Your post isn't bad. They're definitely a thing. They're a lesson in bigotry 101, how that guy is saying whatever you want him to say. Once you've written your thoughts over their words, they are not an actor, they are an object. Hear about what they people in South Chicago "believe and think even when they aren't saying it," and it really becomes recognizable after a couple decades.

 

[Angst]

Your post isn't bad. They're definitely a thing. They're a lesson in bigotry 101, how that guy is saying whatever you want him to say. Once you've written your thoughts over their words, they are not an actor, they are an object. Hear about what they people in South Chicago "believe and think even when they aren't saying it," and it really becomes recognizable after a couple decades.

ah so ok sure. yea that's why i listed the last part of my post. whether this kind of rhetoric is automated speech or cynically planned by trump isn't really that relevant, since that's what he does regardless of intention. it's very benefitial sometimes to look at human behavior functionally as what it does is often more important than intention. it's not all in the eyes of the beholders, neither by left or right, in this regard. it's not the left that's painting him as functionally doing it, since the dogwhistling does what it does regardless of agency. what it does is what is does regardless of the left's views on it

thanks btw you can probably tell this is a topic i don't have much energy for anymore.

 

[Farm Boy]

It is tiring. I agree.

 

[Naskra]

dogwhistles are a thing

Fun fact: The dogwhistle was invented by F. Galton, infamous racist and cousin to infamous racist C. Darwin.

 

[Berzerker]

Rubbish. Trump did more in his first year to sow seeds of division and unrest in the USA than the Democrats could ever think of doing. The Russians wanted Trump elected because he would divide and weaken the USA on the world stage. They were counting on his unpredictability and erratic-ness to damage American society. In actual fact, I think that the Russians were counting on Trump starting a civil war, or else he would cripple the country so badly that the USA had no play in world affairs.

I think it has been previously established that the Javelins are on the western side of Ukraine and not at the area in dispute with Russia, or did you conveniently forget that fact?

Who exactly told the world where the Javelins were being kept? Ukraine...the USA? A Ukrainian general was interviewed on the subject and he said his positions were up against armored vehicles, tanks, and after the Javelins arrived they disappeared. Maybe it didn't matter where the Javelins were supposedly housed, Putin didn't want to see his tanks getting blown up. Too reminiscent of Afghanistan I guess, too demoralizing for Mother Russia.

Obama declined sending the weapons because he didn't want to escalate the war and anger Putin. The 'moral of the story' is Putin couldn't have had anything of substance on Trump because he successfully countered Russian armor in Ukraine. The 'puppet' would not have done that.

As for social unrest, Trump doesn't run cities. You're blaming him for riots ostensibly over police abuse and policy in cities run by Democrats. Just about every sin Trump committed was being done by Democrats before him. Images of children in cages and tear gas on the border came from the Obama administration.

The Russians relied on Democrats to stoke social unrest and they did. Apparently someone 'discovered' emails showing the Democrats coordinating with BLM to have protests nationwide if Trump got re-elected. He made us riot! I wonder if they were coordinating before the election. I think so...

BLM 500, MAGA 1

I'll blame Trump for complicity in 1, not 501

 

[red_elk]

A Ukrainian general was interviewed on the subject and he said his positions were up against armored vehicles

Ukraine comments every movement of Russian military near the border as either "Russians running away in fear" or "Russians are coming to destroy us", depending on the direction.
Latest iteration was in April.

 

[Berzerker]

On potential obstruction of justice by President Trump, the investigation "does not conclude that the President committed a crime",[18] as investigators would not indict a sitting president per an Office of Legal Counsel opinion.[19][20] However, the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[21] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described.[22][23] The report states that Congress can decide whether Trump obstructed justice,[24] and has the authority to take action against him.[25][26][27] Attorney General Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had authorized the Mueller probe, decided on March 24, 2019, that the evidence was insufficient to establish a finding that Trump committed obstruction of justice.[28] Upon his resignation on May 29, 2019, Mueller stated that: "the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing".[29][30][17] In July 2019, Mueller testified to Congress that a president could be charged with obstruction of justice (or other crimes) after he left office.

He left office, where are the charges? They aint coming, a jury might recommend charges for Democrats when they learn the investigation was the product of the Steele dossier and red baiting campaign to smear Trump as a traitor. Suddenly obstruction of justice looks like a righteous cause - obstructing an injustice. It was wrong when the FBI smeared MLK and it was wrong when they did it to Carter Page, I'm having trouble convincing Democrats of that.

The Mueller report exonerated Trump on the conspiracy accusation because it was a hoax, a lie that reached the pinnacle of power and was used against political opponents to win an election. The people Darryl Cooper is talking about know that happened. They're not skeptical because Trump says so, I dismissed both him and Republicans until left wing journalists came into view and earned my trust.

 

[Berzerker]

I have no idea what you are saying here.
Berzerker routinely does this thing where he goes on about his position is actually a leftist one citing Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Dore, or someone else; stating effectively that anyone who disagrees with those leftist journalists is clearly a neo-con hack, tricked by the Clinton machine, or in some other way a sellout. Nevermind that Greenwald was fired from his own news outlet because they unreasonably censored him with the burden of needing to provide sources that weren't Rudy Giuliani. Two journalists I linked to that Greenwald hired for the Intercept because of the experience with national security and intelligence issues - James Risen and Robert Mackey - are both of the opinion that even if aspects to the Trump-Russia story were blown out of proportion by the mass media, there were/are still genuinely concerning elements in Trump and his campaign's relation with Russia that deserved to be investigated. But of course Berzerker won't say those are valid arguments coming from experienced leftist and spookwise journalists, just arguments he happens to disagree with.

My position is neither left or right and the reason I cite my sources is because I'm often accused of believing Russiagate was a scam because of Fox. I believe its a scam because of left wing journalists. Thats when I started viewing Fox, the reason I thought Trump was a Manchurian candidate was too much MSNBC. Who did I call a sell out?

Oh yeah, Greenwald was right about the laptop too. Now why should I forgo Greenwald in favor of your sources? I read what you quoted from Risen, where is the conspiracy? When he wasn't debunking Russiagate he spent his time telling us Mueller couldn't find evidence because people lied.

What lie? Weren't your sources blowing Russiagate out of proportion? Thanks to your sources you didn't even know the Steele dossier was used to get the Fisa warrant to spy on Page, thanks to your sources you were calling people liars for disagreeing.

 

[Ajidica]

My position is neither left or right and the reason I cite my sources is because I'm often accused of believing Russiagate was a scam because of Fox. I believe its a scam because of left wing journalists.

And I believe it isn't a scam because of left-wing journalists.

Oh yeah, Greenwald was right about the laptop too. Now why should I forgo Greenwald in favor of your sources?

The laptop, you mean the same laptop that got Greenwald fired from the Intercept because of the abombinable censorship of making him provide sources that are more credible than Rudy Giuliani and an article more factual than the sadly increasingly common Greenwald ranting about the liars and fakers who dared to question him?

What lie? Weren't your sources blowing Russiagate out of proportion?

Which sources of mine? My primary sources on the Trump-Russia connections were reading the actual reports, journalists over at the Intercept notably Greenwald, Risen, and Mackey, Robin Ramsay over at Lobster, and various commentators over at Lawfare but primarily Benjamin Wittes. Wittes did have an unfortunate tendency to let his pundit get ahead of his legal analysis on a number of occasions, but still produce insightful legal analysis and using his long experience with the legal side of surveillance.
He was also notable for being able to admit when he was wrong.

One of the striking features of the public reaction to Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation is just how many people of just how divergent points of view are claiming vindication for whatever positions they held prior to the document’s release.

President Trump and many of his defenders took the report as validating their claims that the FBI leadership had been engaged in a politically motivated, treasonous coup attempt against the president—though the report concludes quite explicitly that nothing of the kind occurred. Many skeptics of the president’s conspiracy theories, by contrast, have focused instead on Horowitz’s rejection of the president’s “Witch Hunt” narrative—thus downplaying the report’s deeply upsetting findings with respect to the Carter Page Foreign International Surveillance Act (FISA) applications.

The two situations are, of course, not parallel. One side is actively misrepresenting what Horowitz found, while the other is merely emphasizing some of the report’s findings at the expense of others. But the result is that, once again, our two broad political movements are reading the same document and seeing in it entirely different texts.

The real Horowitz report has inconvenient sections for just about everyone—including for me. I am not thrilled, to cite one example, that then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes correctly noticed in real-time what turned out to be genuine deficiencies in the FISA process, deficiencies of which I was in retrospect too dismissive. And, unlike Nunes, who is busy pretending in the report’s wake that those deficiencies somehow vindicate his larger claims of politicization and malfeasance at the FBI, I think it’s worth taking the whole document seriously.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/thoughts-horowitz-report-part-i-introduction
https://www.lawfareblog.com/inspector-generals-disturbing-fisa-memo

Cast your mind back to how Nunes raised the underlying issues - late night scurrying around to the White House like he was in a crappy Forsyth thriller knock-off - and using what turned out to be genuine problems to paint a fantasy of some sort of Clinton Cult in the FBI seeking to smear poor innocent Donald Trump, and ask yourself: if Nunes genuinely cared about the actual issues identified in the Horowitz report, was that the best way to generate the consensus needed to address them? The Democrats were seething at the time over the poor handling of the Hotel California feeling Clinton email saga by Comey, the FBI in general, and the fact the New York office was leaking like a sieve. There were circumstances that we could have seen a Church Commission for the 21st century, but Nunes didn't care about that. He wasted what turned out to be genuine issues at the FBI for cheap political hackery.

 

[Angst]

"left-wing journalists" is usually not a term one uses about moderate reporting if one isn't right wing

ajidica, this is not about you btw <3

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Maybe one should read the Mueller Report when having an opinion on the Mueller investition.

Just thinking outside of the box here.

 

[Berzerker]

"left-wing journalists" is usually not a term one uses about moderate reporting if one isn't right wing

ajidica, this is not about you btw <3

What is 'moderate reporting'? Greenwald, Mate and Dore are left wing. Does that mean left wingers who call them left wing are actually right wing? If I refer to a journalist as right wing does that make me left wing?

People here dismiss Fox and Republican media, so did I. My bad... I depended on MSNBC and thats why I was oblivious to what was going on and why I thought Trump was "Putin's Puppet". It was left wing journalists who did the leg work to expose Russiagate for me. Once they convinced me Russiagate was a scam then I started tuning into Fox for updates.

As for me, I score around the center of the lower hemisphere on the political compass test, on or near the vertical axis about halfway down from the horizontal. As I remember someone charted 15-20 people who posted their results and most everyone was solidly in the lower left quadrant, so I assumed they'd be more open to a reality described by solidly left wing journalists. I sure was given Trump was in the WH... The irony is the people who fabricated the Russiagate scam lean right and the Democrats attack the left wingers who exposed it.

 

[Gorbles]

Greenwald, Mate and Dore are left wing

Just quoting for the record, because this explains a lot about Berzerker's politics for anyone not that familiar with them.

 

[Berzerker]

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/16/trump-russia-election-hacking-investigation/
How about another Intercept journalist hired by Greenwald, Robert Mackey?
https://theintercept.com/2019/09/26...resident-probe-conspiracy-theories-democrats/
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/10...ndal-ukraine-absolute-nonsense-reformer-says/
https://theintercept.com/2019/09/22...g-donald-trump-spread-lies-joe-biden-ukraine/

I read thru the first link, it was long and not about Trump conspiring with Putin. Maybe you didn't read that far, but that link was devoted to showing Russian interference. The 2nd link is about Ukraine, not Trump-Putin. From your link:

the evidence shows that the then-vice president had acted to make the prosecution of the firm paying his son more likely, not less likely.

Thats right, Biden told Shokin to investigate his son's company for corruption and then bribed the Ukrainians to fire him when he did. Shokin was fired a few weeks after raiding Burisma, his boss told him to lay off it and he didn't. He was gone 2 days after a court authorized his continued investigation into the money trail from the west to 'activists and reformers' within the country, like people in your 3rd link. Speaking of:

By getting Shokin removed, Biden in fact made it more rather than less likely that the oligarch who employed his son would be subject to prosecution for corruption.

Sounds like a talking point. Was he prosecuted by Shokin's replacement? Nah, he settled up with a fine and returned to Ukraine within months of Shokin's removal. Worked out great for Hunter's boss... And I'm sure every other prosecutor in Ukraine got the message, the US will bribe them out of a job too if they step out of line. Shokin was fired because he stepped out of line.

Do you really think we wanted a crackdown on corruption? We were pouring money into the country to buy allegiances and favors, to fund these 'reformers'. Anyway, that was 4 links that dont show Trump conspired with Putin. And thats what Mueller found, Russiagate was a hoax.

 

[Berzerker]

Let's see, a few weeks after taking office the National Security Advisor straight up lies to the Vice President over pre-election contacts he had with figures in the Russian government. If he had told Mike Pence and the FBI the truth, there would have been no problem. Possibly a bit unseemly given what we learned about some contacts Flynn had with other foreign governments, but nothing major. Instead, by straight up lying to the Vice President, he got fired.

I dont know Flynn's motivation, I suspect he was acting on Trump's behalf and didn't want to tell Obama's FBI about policies they were pursuing and felt obliged to keep Pence out of the loop on something. That was all after the election and is inconsequential to the charge of conspiracy, incoming administrations discuss their priorities with other countries before inauguration day.

Michael Flynn was no schmuck like Papadopolous who got caught up in a game he didn't understand after pretending he knew more than he did.

What game? One of the next moves in the game was the Tower meeting, Fusion sent a 'Russian delegation' to meet with Trump about adoption, but the Trump people were lured by the prospect of information damaging to the Dems. So Putin wasn't involved and that makes sense, why would Putin send someone to NYC with it? They didn't need Trump to publish emails. That meeting was to set Trump up for the collusion accusation, that was the game George P got played in.

After the FBI informed Trump that the FBI was investigating unconfirmed reports (you know, the method by which you confirm reports) the Russian government had blackmail material on Trump; Trump demanded the personal loyalty of the FBI director to the person of Trump. When Comey emphasized the FBI was loyal to the office and pledged his honesty, Trump fired him on nonsense charges.

How did unconfirmed reports find their way into a Fisa application to spy on Trump? Comey was fired for heading an FBI caught lying to a Fisa court to spy on Trump and he should have been gone on day 1, but it took a little while for this to unfold. Basically when Page went public the house of cards began to fall.

Jeff Session all but lied to Al Franken during his senate hearing on what contacts he had with the Russian ambassador. It is not an unreasonable conclusion to come to that something dodgy was going between the Trump campaign and Russia, especially with a lot of reporting coming out of Bloomberg regarding Trump's relation with Felix Sater - a known affiliate of Russian intelligence-, Deutsche Bank -which was up to its neck in totally not laundering Russian money through property-, Paul Manafort calling Russian oligarchs trying to make up for a debt, and Roger Stone playing cute about whether there was a link between the email released through wikileaks and Russian intelligence. (Indeed, Stone's false statement conviction was for pretending that he knew of a connection when he did now know of any connection.)

Sessions 'all but lied' after the election and the Fisa warrant was issued on Page, not Sater, Manafort or Stone.

If Trump wanted to seek allies in a trade war with China, going after Europe would have been a far better decision. Russian-Chinese financial relations is practically nill. Indeed, as of 2007 Europe had a vastly larger financial relation with China than even the United States.
But of course, none of this matters to you in an effort to canonize St Donald of Trump, the man whose only sin was being too trusting of the nasty tricks played by those mean Democrats.

I didn't say Trump wanted Russia as an ally in his trade war with China, I said he wanted to cozy up to Russia in preparation for a trade war with China. Yeah, lying to a Fisa court to spy on your political opponents to win an election is a nasty trick.

There is a major difference between diplomacy and tact with a foreign leader, and openly rubbishing the opinion of your own security services.

Was it diplomatic and tactful with the foreign leader? Tell us President Trump, is Putin a liar or do you mistrust your own intelligence?

It is getting late and I don't feel like hunting through what is nearing decade-old interviews, but essentially she increasingly sounded like she was taking the position that the Syrian government wasn't targeting civilians and protected locations, and that even if they were, it was okay because they were doing so to try and kill anti-Assad forces.

Thats a serious charge, I suggest you hunt for it.

Hilariously, James Risen notes the Mueller Report as confirming reasons to be concerned about Trump-Russia connections.
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/28/mueller-report-trump-russia-questions/

I dunno, I know he got into a fight a few years back with Jeffrey Goldberg over at The Atlantic, alleging that Goldberg was too Jewish to report fairly on the Middle East.

Trump's people were not indicted for conspiracy, so I'd expect 'concern' from some guy asking if Trump is a traitor at news the Mueller report debunked Russiagate. Well, I'm still concerned. Are you still concerned about Carter Page, Mr Risen? I suspect Greenwald meant 'too Jewish' as too biased toward Israeli state propaganda or maybe Zionism. But yes, Greenwald is Jewish and I think you accused him of anti-semitism.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-spying-trump-campaign/

Did Obama Get Caught ‘Spying’ on Trump’s 2016 Campaign?

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed his predecessor, or unidentified political opponents, "spied on our campaign illegally" numerous times.


Rating

Mostly False
About this rating

What's True
Under the Obama administration, the FBI launched an investigation into the Trump campaign's relationship with Russian operatives — a covert operation at the time that required the bureau to request court approval to secretly monitor Carter Page, a former adviser to Trump.

What's False
However, no evidence showed Obama, or any member of the White House, directed counterintelligence agents to illegally monitor the Trump campaign, nor did any court record show that the former president breached his authority as president during the FBI's Russia investigation.

 

[amadeus]

I'm not attempting to debunk (or bunk) the whole story based on this one criticism, but: am I really supposed to believe the President cannot order a wiretap on anyone, and that Obama never did?