Eww, you are a sick puppy! 
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Surely none of this is actually new? This, and far more, was unacknowledged fact long before this. And the tip of the iceberg - let’s be honest, it’s pretty likely that Trump’s team colluded with, even if after the fact, the Russian intelligence, who hacked the Democrats, etc. And all that no doubt pales in comparison with Trump’s financial shenanigans - not just the massive conflicts of interest, but being practically owned by Russian mobsters (which is likely part of the Kremlin’s compromising material they have on him), etc. (So many "etc"s with Trump because the shit-piles are never-ending.)
So what does this mean? The entire Trump administration is illegitimate. If Trump gets impeached, Pence is more fruit from the poisoned tree. Even that presumes the Republicans won’t block investigations and impeachment proceedings, which they’re doing at the moment.
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Is it Mar-a-Leavenworth time? I hear Eastern Kansas is lovely this time of year.
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You won’t hear a peep from Jack Kemp about this, no matter how ugly it gets. But not because he’s rolled over for Trump like the rest of his party has. More that his voice of outrage has gone the way of Rob Ford.
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Remember this?
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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.
Is it really such a scandal? Everything that happened was legal. There is no evidence to the contrary.
From the outside this looks like grasping for straws, by the public in general but especially by the press.
The US media is in shambles but it’s a self inflicted wound. During G.W. Bush and the Obama years the US press behaved like willing mouthpieces, uncritically repeating government propaganda and even self censoring itself to gain premium access.
At the start of Trumps campaign the press repeated Trumps alternative facts uncritically and unchecked to the public to gain a few percentiles of market share. Many commentators over here (but also in the US) criticized this. Too late they (the press) realized their error.
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Yes, it is. Especially if the discussions involved collaboration to undermine the US electoral system. Hell - collaboration with foreign intelligence assets to influence our own domestic policy by private citizens is nudging the T word.
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You guys, please help move this along…thanks.
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I agree that so far its not a slam-dunk. But I disagree that it is grasping at straws. This is how scandals unfold - they start with the smoke and then keep exploring until they find the fire. Sometimes there is no fire, but if you ignore the smoke you never find the fire.
I think everyone would agree, trump is by far the biggest camwhore on the net.
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Looking at some of Trump’s associates, perhaps about visas for Russian ladies looking for temporary husbands in the US.
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When questioned, the 45th President responded only “Fyake nyews. Грустный.”
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Don’t forget that Reagan’s “uncompromising stances on liberty, freedom, and democracy” included support for right-wing dictatorships in Latin America,. “Economic freedom”, not political freedom, was the freedom that really mattered.
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And Asia, and the Middle East, and Africa, and…
Loot the peasants all you want, murder and torture as many activists as you like; just so long as you claim that some of the corpses were socialists, the US military of the '80’s had your back.
And then we get to the ever-so-clever idea of arming both sides in the Iran-Iraq war. No way that was ever gonna cause any blowback…
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Hopefully, once there’s a responsible American government in place, we’ll see a deep investigation into the FBI.
They should not be kingmakers.
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And apartheid South Africa. And UNITA, the Maoist group in Angola, which was the enemy’s enemy because it was fighting the Marxist MPLA, which was supported by the USSR and Cuba.
And, as you say, protecting Israel by helping the two biggest armies in the Middle East annihilate each other.
Then there were the Falklands, where they had to think about whether to side with a democratic NATO ally or a military dictatorship. And Grenada, where they merrily invaded an overseas territory of the said NATO ally.
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My gut feeling is–knowing what the morons and racists have already swallowed without taking off their MAGA hats – is that will happen around the 12th of never.
Watch. Within a day or two, Trump will tweet something UNBELIEVABLE(!!!) about some celebrity’s weight or “Nordstroms being responsible for the holocaust” and all of this will be page 5.
Hope I’m wrong, but…
“You know what else they say about my people? The polls, they say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s like incredible,” Trump said.
I really think this is one of the few factual things he’s ever said.
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I do. It was probably just a creditor keeping a very close eye on a notoriously unreliable debtor as part of a loan agreement, but it goes to the root of things. The oligarch who runs Alpha Bank has an odd relationship with Putin – not exactly friendly but still useful when called upon (the only way they could stay in business under that regime). More to the point, they’re not the only Russian bank that started lending the Short-Fingered Vulgarian money after most reputable Western banks finally recognised he was a grifter. I’m sure the tax returns he kept promising to release but never did will bear this out.
From there it’s not a great leap (especially combined with the alleged existence of kompromat) to speculate that when he decided to run his creditors, on their political boss’s orders, “suggested” that he bring on Putin-friendly advisors like Flynn, Manafort, Carter “Gazprom” Page and Tillerson. And here we are.
Speaking of Russian energy companies, here’s another story worthy of investigation:
More than a month after Russia announced one of its biggest privatizations since the 1990s, selling a 19.5 percent stake in its giant oil company Rosneft, it still isn’t possible to determine from public records the full identities of those who bought it.
[…]
But important facts about the deal either have not been disclosed, cannot be determined solely from public records, or appear to contradict the straightforward official account of the stake being split 50/50 by Glencore and the Qataris.
[…]
In addition, public records show the ownership structure of the stake ultimately includes a Cayman Islands company whose beneficial owners cannot be traced.
What would having a friendly or at least neutered POTUS for four years be worth to Putin? Or maybe this is a little pool created for Western right-wing populist parties and their leaders.
It’s a scandal in that, as the carefully un-highlighted portion of your article mentions, “these communications stood out to investigators due to the frequency and the level of the Trump advisers involved.” I don’t know about German governments, but American ones don’t usually include so many high-level advisors who are in this frequent contact and who have such longstanding ties with a rival regime that’s made clear its ill-will toward liberal democracy and made clear its desire to neuter the West vis-a-vis its own expansionist agenda.
Indeed, the mere appearance of the scandal is the point, evidence or not, as it undermines public confidence in liberal democracy. And not only in the U.S.: Russia is funding right-wing populist parties that promote bigotry in Europe as well. For example, check this article out:
The right-wing populist, anti-refugee Alternative for Germany party is seeking ever-closer ties with Moscow. Now, the AfD’s youth wing is discussing an alliance with the youth movement of Putin’s party United Russia. The AfD is also courting Russian-German voters.
I can definitely see some bigoted right-wing Germans being so short-sighted in their hatred for immigrants that they’d try forging an alliance with their ultra-nationalist counterparts in Russia. That is scandalous, not the least of which in that it fits in perfectly with the geopolitical goals to which Putin subscribes.
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Nudging? You have a funny definition of a nudge.
I’m just damning with faint nudge.
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Russia != USSR. Since the implosion of the Soviet system and under all presidents from Yeltsin to Putin the Russian system is a rather pure money-driven oligarchy. probably not very different in views and positions to Reagan and Trump.
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