Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Trump's braggadocio's is typical Trumpian irresponsibility. Although his comments were nowhere near as irresponsible as the decisions made by certain former Secretary of State that put these emails at risk in the first place.
He's starting to defend him guys. I sense the #NeverTrump is crumbling! Everyone check your numbers!
Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing
Trump's braggadocio's is typical Trumpian irresponsibility. Although his comments were nowhere near as irresponsible as the decisions made by certain former Secretary of State that put these emails at risk in the first place.
He's starting to defend him guys. I sense the #NeverTrump is crumbling! Everyone check your numbers!
Nah... just counter the idea that Clinton isn't as bad as Trump.
jasper76 wrote: It doesn't seem worthwhile to speculate about Clinton and the Russians when there's no evidence that she's running on a pro-Russia platform. But if you want to speculate as to what motives Clinton has got putting American interests over Russian interest in her policies, go for it!
I'm more interested in Trump and his motives since an ex-CIA chief today asserted that Trump is presently an unwitting Russian agent, and rightly notes that in several key policy areas, Trump puts Russian interests ahead of American interests.
Does your opinion change that Morell is an ultimate Clinton insider who's vying for a position in Clinton's cabinet? Who was instrumental in perpetuating the Benghazi caused by YouTube Film lie and since leaving CIA worked for Washington DC PR firm (Beacon Global Strategies) which has close ties to Clinton.
Did you factor that in?
Benghazi? There are beaten dead horses and then there's this 4 year old piñata that just didn't have any candy in it for the GOP.
Trump's braggadocio's is typical Trumpian irresponsibility. Although his comments were nowhere near as irresponsible as the decisions made by certain former Secretary of State that put these emails at risk in the first place.
He's starting to defend him guys. I sense the #NeverTrump is crumbling! Everyone check your numbers!
Nah... just counter the idea that Clinton isn't as bad as Trump.
They're both horrible.
Dare I suggest that this is something you might just be telling yourself to soothe your conscience for supporting Trump via a third party vote?
Trump's braggadocio's is typical Trumpian irresponsibility. Although his comments were nowhere near as irresponsible as the decisions made by certain former Secretary of State that put these emails at risk in the first place.
He's starting to defend him guys. I sense the #NeverTrump is crumbling! Everyone check your numbers!
Nah... just counter the idea that Clinton isn't as bad as Trump.
They're both horrible.
Dare I suggest that this is something you might just be telling yourself to soothe your conscience for supporting Trump via a third party vote?
No. I full know well that a third party vote helps Hillary Clinton.
I've moved on that "grief" stage that Clinton will be elected.
Trump's braggadocio's is typical Trumpian irresponsibility. Although his comments were nowhere near as irresponsible as the decisions made by certain former Secretary of State that put these emails at risk in the first place.
He's starting to defend him guys. I sense the #NeverTrump is crumbling! Everyone check your numbers!
Nah... just counter the idea that Clinton isn't as bad as Trump.
They're both horrible.
Well, I mean...she's not as bad as Trump is.
She's not great, but she also hasn't repeatedly asked why we shouldn't use nuclear weapons if we have them, stated that she'd order US troops to commit war crimes, repeatedly disrespected a Gold Star family, expressed open admiration for brutal dictators, made racist comments in defense of a thinly-veiled con job, suggested the President is behind terrorist attacks, tried to pin all the country's problems on minority groups, tried to pass off all governmental responsibility to a potential VP pick, or constantly made gestures like she's pinching an invisible nipple when she thinks she's made a point.
I'd say almost any one of these would have torpedoed any other candidate, but they ARE torpedoing him, they're just drawing out a scary number of people in support of him while it's happening.
whembly wrote: Nah... just counter the idea that Clinton isn't as bad as Trump.
They're both horrible.
Saying "they're both horrible" over and over again doesn't make it true. Clinton is a typical politician, with the honesty of a typical politician, but at least she's probably capable of doing the job. Trump is an angry narcissist whose policy positions, when you can even get him to give one instead of vague promises to make America great again, are outright lunacy. Saying "well, I dislike something about Clinton, and I dislike something about Trump, so they must be equally bad" is an incredibly lazy way of analyzing the situation.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
The nominee’s Kremlin ties have become a scandal—and the GOP has nobody to blame but itself for this mess
In today’s New York Times, former Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Morell initiated a firestorm by strongly endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. His memorable op-ed didn’t simply back the Democrat, her own grave security lapses notwithstanding. Morell went further, tearing down her Republican opponent as “not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security… he would be a poor, even dangerous, commander in chief.”
Normally that would be sufficiently lethal coming from a former CIA director, but Morell kept going, castigating Donald Trump as a pawn of the Kremlin possessing overtly pro-Russian views. He minced no words: “In the intelligence business, we would say that Putin had recruited Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”
Uproar ensued at once, and the Trump campaign dismissed the allegation as absurd. Mike Pence, Trump’s vice presidential nominee, lambasted Morell’s former agency as “the same CIA that told the president that ISIS was the JV team”—which isn’t exactly a denial of Trump’s ties to the Kremlin.
Critics have countered that Morell is a Clinton operative, but the former spook boss claims to be politically independent. The only “evidence” he’s on Team Hillary is his current employment with a Washington strategic advisory firm with ties to members of the Clinton inner circle.
Before that, Morell spent 33 years at Langley as an intelligence analyst, winding up as the CIA’s deputy director in 2010. Before retiring in 2013, he served twice as the agency’s acting director, in 2011 and again in 2012-13, enjoying a good relationship with President Obama.
In other words, Morell is a typical high-flying mandarin in America’s secret spy empire, the 17-agency behemoth we call the Intelligence Community. These folks tend not to be partisan in a political sense, and if Morell’s a raging liberal and Republican-hater he’s been hiding it well.
Moreover, his depiction of Trump as “an unwitting agent” of Vladimir Putin is shared by many American intelligence personnel, including most of the ones I know. And I know a lot of them from my own time in the Intelligence Community. Among seasoned Russia-watchers and those acquainted with counterintelligence, I don’t know any spies who would substantially disagree with Morell’s comments on the Republican nominee.
In a recent column analyzing Trump’s bizarre comments on Crimea and Ukraine, I explained that his falsehoods uttered on national television meant that the GOP’s candidate “Either is clueless about Crimea and Ukraine, being totally unfamiliar with the basic issues, and decided to pontificate on the subject regardless while on national television. Or he is consciously parroting Kremlin propaganda.”
Morell has chosen my second option for Trump, characterizing him as Putin’s man. The term “unwitting agent” is spy-speak for what Lenin (supposedly) famously termed a Useful Idiot, that is, someone who is duped into spouting propaganda that he may not fully understand. This is a harsh assessment but more charitable than the accusation that Trump’s is a witting agent of the Kremlin.
The case for Morell’s charge is circumstantial but impressive. We have Trump’s repeated business dealings in Russia, dating to the Soviet era, none of them very successful, though that didn’t stop the candidate’s son from declaring in 2008 of the Trump Organization: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
Longstanding rumors of less-than-clean Russian money backing the Trump Organization, coupled with the Republican nominee’s steadfast resistance to release his tax returns, would make any counterintelligence officer wonder what’s going on here, particularly given the Kremlin’s willingness to clandestinely throw money at causes in the West it deems friendly to Russia and Putin.
Then there are the top members of the Trump campaign with questionable Kremlin ties. Mike Flynn, Trump’s national security guru, is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency who in retirement has lots of nice things to say about Russia. His frequent appearances on RT, the Kremlin’s propaganda network, look suspicious, while his appearance at RT’s 10th anniversary gala, complete with a photo op with President Putin, looks even worse. That Flynn won’t answer questions if he is a paid contributor to the Kremlin’s network has set off alarm bells in Washington.
Carter Page, Trump’s go-to guy on Russian matters, unquestionably was paid by the Kremlin during his employment with Gazprom, Russia’s state energy behemoth. Page consistently spouts pro-Moscow views and reliably takes the Kremlin line on a host of issues. Nobody who’s followed him was surprised that, during a recent visit to Russia, Page publicly attacked the United States, pointing to America, not Russia, as the source of the current difficulties in the relationship between the two countries.
Perhaps most troubling is the pivotal role played by Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman, who’s spent a lucrative career as a fixer for unsavory politicos and dictators around the world. One of them was Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s corrupt ex-president and Putin’s man, who fled to Russia after he was booted from office in early 2014. It’s not clear if Manafort still has a financial relationship with Yanukovych—which, given his client’s position as a guest of the Kremlin and a ward of its intelligence services, seems like an important question to ask.
There’s a lot about Donald Trump’s ties to the Kremlin we don’t know, but what we do know is bad enough. His campaign is riddled at top levels by people with troubling connections to Moscow. His business dealings with Russia are not transparent. His casual mouthing of pro-Kremlin propaganda has become routine.
All this is why a lot of American intelligence officers view Donald Trump as a stalking horse, witting or not, for Vladimir Putin. Mike Morell simply said publicly what many veteran spies have been saying privately for a long time.
I know because I’m one of them. During my time in the counterintelligence business, the Trump Organization came up more than once in discussions of American businesses with cozy ties to Moscow. I’m not free to say more—I take my lifetime secrecy oath seriously—but it’s time the American people start to hear the truth.
I was among those who repeatedly warned the GOP that Donald Trump had connections to the Kremlin that needed thorough examination and careful vetting. During the Republican primary, as Trump demolished one rival after another, some of his opponents knew that the real estate mogul turned reality TV star had troubling ties to Moscow.
They did nothing with this information. Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign ignored it altogether. Even Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump’s most dogged foe in the GOP race, limply brought up rumors of the Trump Organization’s mafia ties. It was too little, too late to matter. Now the Republicans are stuck with a nominee who’s tanking in the polls, who seems programmed to self-destruct, and who’s just been called out by the former head of the CIA as a Russian agent.
Allow me to say to the GOP now: I told you so. And I wasn’t alone. Now Hillary Clinton has come out with a devastating campaign ad highlighting Trump’s dubious ties to Putin and the Kremlin. It’s devastating because it’s based on facts—facts which the GOP knew about long ago but chose to ignore.
Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media.
John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee.
whembly wrote: Nah... just counter the idea that Clinton isn't as bad as Trump.
They're both horrible.
Saying "they're both horrible" over and over again doesn't make it true. Clinton is a typical politician, with the honesty of a typical politician, but at least she's probably capable of doing the job. Trump is an angry narcissist whose policy positions, when you can even get him to give one instead of vague promises to make America great again, are outright lunacy. Saying "well, I dislike something about Clinton, and I dislike something about Trump, so they must be equally bad" is an incredibly lazy way of analyzing the situation.
Apples and Orange comparison bro.
You're under the mistaken impression that my vote is "owed" to a particular party.
They're both have disqualifications for different reasons for me. So, they're both unacceptable choices for me.
That is not "an incredibly lazy way of analyzing the situation." That's me, using whatever criteria that I wish, in making a decision to whom I vote for.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/08/05 22:17:52
Does your opinion change that Morell is an ultimate Clinton insider who's vying for a position in Clinton's cabinet? Who was instrumental in perpetuating the Benghazi caused by YouTube Film lie and since leaving CIA worked for Washington DC PR firm (Beacon Global Strategies) which has close ties to Clinton.
Did you factor that in?
Critics have countered that Morell is a Clinton operative, but the former spook boss claims to be politically independent. The only “evidence” he’s on Team Hillary is his current employment with a Washington strategic advisory firm with ties to members of the Clinton inner circle.
Before that, Morell spent 33 years at Langley as an intelligence analyst, winding up as the CIA’s deputy director in 2010. Before retiring in 2013, he served twice as the agency’s acting director, in 2011 and again in 2012-13, enjoying a good relationship with President Obama.
In other words, Morell is a typical high-flying mandarin in America’s secret spy empire, the 17-agency behemoth we call the Intelligence Community. These folks tend not to be partisan in a political sense, and if Morell’s a raging liberal and Republican-hater he’s been hiding it well.
Has Schindler's testimony changed your mind on Morell, then?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/08/05 22:20:44
whembly wrote: You're under the mistaken impression that my vote is "owed" to a particular party.
No, your vote is "owed" to the country. Trump or Clinton will be president, no matter how much you want a third-party candidate to win. And, no matter how much you try to claim that "both are equally bad", Trump is clearly the worse candidate here, to the point where impeachment seems like a "when" question, not "if". So your choices in voting are simple: you can make it more likely that Trump wins, or less likely that Trump wins. You owe your country a vote for Clinton, the most effective way of having your vote reduce the chances of Trump winning.
That is not "an incredibly lazy way of analyzing the situation." That's me, using whatever criteria that I wish, in making a decision to whom I vote for.
It's lazy because it's incredibly simplified. Even if you conclude that Clinton is not worthy of your vote there's a huge difference between "I can't support either" and "they're both equally bad".
And yes, you have a right to vote for whoever you want. I'm still going to tell you that you're wrong.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
whembly wrote: You're under the mistaken impression that my vote is "owed" to a particular party.
No, your vote is "owed" to the country. Trump or Clinton will be president, no matter how much you want a third-party candidate to win. And, no matter how much you try to claim that "both are equally bad", Trump is clearly the worse candidate here, to the point where impeachment seems like a "when" question, not "if". So your choices in voting are simple: you can make it more likely that Trump wins, or less likely that Trump wins. You owe your country a vote for Clinton, the most effective way of having your vote reduce the chances of Trump winning.
That is not "an incredibly lazy way of analyzing the situation." That's me, using whatever criteria that I wish, in making a decision to whom I vote for.
It's lazy because it's incredibly simplified. Even if you conclude that Clinton is not worthy of your vote there's a huge difference between "I can't support either" and "they're both equally bad".
And yes, you have a right to vote for whoever you want. I'm still going to tell you that you're wrong.
HashtagFeeltheJohnson and hashtagImWithHer are functionally the same. Whembly is doing his part to save society.
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
WrentheFaceless wrote: Yea I thought the general consensus that everyone that regularly participates in this thread was tired of whembly talking about the Clinton Email non-issue.
While I think there has been too much going about Whitewater, Benghazi and the two different email "scandals", I think Clinton has to address some concerns about the Sec of State server issue.
The point is not that she committed some terrible crime and deserve to be shot. We already know from the FBI that at worst she committed an error of judgement that lead to the possible exposure of some information, done inadvertently and not worth prosecuting, though some internal disciplinary action may be warranted. She would not be the first politician ever to fall into such an error.
The point is that Clinton needs to accept this, apologise for it, say she has learned a valuable lesson, and move on. ATM she keeps sliding away from the issue by going off at a tangent or blaming her staff or whatever.
This looks shifty and not good leadership behaviour, and it leaves a chink in her armour for Trump to shoot at. It's probably her no.1 weakness.
The irony of Trump attacking someone for not taking responsibility for something is staggering.
But realistically it is one more illustration that Clinton is a pretty poor candidate and that were she not running against what may be the worst Republican nominee in recent memory, she could not afford such missteps.
She isn't a poor candidate in terms of skills, experience, knowledge and so on. She just has this aspect that can give people the impression that she has this flaw, and people seem to want their politicians to be perfect.
Daaaaamn... I honestly didn't know those people on Trump's team had that close of ties to Russia. Seriously, that's fethed up. I have friends and family in the intelligence community but I haven't really talked Trump much with any of them (this may come as a bit of a surprise, but I really don't like talking politics). My one buddy that I see on a regular basis works "for the government" (I'm assuming he's in the intelligence community based on what little he says about his work) and he's not too fond of Trump but that's as far as we've gotten on the subject.
d-usa wrote: "When the Internet sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending posters that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing strawmen. They're bringing spam. They're trolls. And some, I assume, are good people."
Agreed, this is news to me and even inclined to take such extreme accusations with grain of salt, do I really want to even touch the possibility with a ten foot pole?
Maybe I do need to rethink moving to another country. Canada ain't perfect, but at least when Canada is run by bad politicians its not wielding the power to ravage the glob (so long as they don't find a way to weaponize maple...)
Kilkrazy wrote: The point is that Clinton needs to accept this, apologise for it, say she has learned a valuable lesson, and move on. ATM she keeps sliding away from the issue by going off at a tangent or blaming her staff or whatever.
This looks shifty and not good leadership behaviour, and it leaves a chink in her armour for Trump to shoot at. It's probably her no.1 weakness.
I think the problem here is that if she ever does say "I made a mistake" it's going to be twisted into "CLINTON IS WRONG AND ADMITS SHE IS THE GREATEST TRAITOR IN THE HISTORY OF TRAITORS" over and over and over again. When there's no rational discussion of the subject you kind of have to stick to your strongest position and hope for the best.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Kilkrazy wrote: The point is that Clinton needs to accept this, apologise for it, say she has learned a valuable lesson, and move on. ATM she keeps sliding away from the issue by going off at a tangent or blaming her staff or whatever.
This looks shifty and not good leadership behaviour, and it leaves a chink in her armour for Trump to shoot at. It's probably her no.1 weakness.
I think the problem here is that if she ever does say "I made a mistake" it's going to be twisted into "CLINTON IS WRONG AND ADMITS SHE IS THE GREATEST TRAITOR IN THE HISTORY OF TRAITORS" over and over and over again. When there's no rational discussion of the subject you kind of have to stick to your strongest position and hope for the best.
I might be wrong, and this may very well be one of those things that has developed legend status, but I have heard in the past that this is the reason behind one of the famous Bushisms (at least the sound bite aspect of it).
George W. Bush wrote:“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”
The version of the story that I have heard in the past is that as he was telling the story, he quickly realized that "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" would result in sound bites of him saying "shame on me" that would be used over and over again. So he tried to come up with something else on the fly, and that is what we got.
I don't know if there is any truth to it, but I always liked it. I also think that this is part of the reason Obama speaks the way he does. He appears to be very measured with his responses, very lawyerly.
Daaaaamn... I honestly didn't know those people on Trump's team had that close of ties to Russia. Seriously, that's fethed up. I have friends and family in the intelligence community but I haven't really talked Trump much with any of them (this may come as a bit of a surprise, but I really don't like talking politics). My one buddy that I see on a regular basis works "for the government" (I'm assuming he's in the intelligence community based on what little he says about his work) and he's not too fond of Trump but that's as far as we've gotten on the subject.
Yeup.
It's mind-blowing and I wonder why the Clinton team isn't hitting Trump on this hard.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Breotan wrote: So, the media is all about how Trump is cratering. Assuming this is so and not just wishful thinking, is it deliberate or just inevitable?
Does your opinion change that Morell is an ultimate Clinton insider who's vying for a position in Clinton's cabinet? Who was instrumental in perpetuating the Benghazi caused by YouTube Film lie and since leaving CIA worked for Washington DC PR firm (Beacon Global Strategies) which has close ties to Clinton.
Did you factor that in?
Critics have countered that Morell is a Clinton operative, but the former spook boss claims to be politically independent. The only “evidence” he’s on Team Hillary is his current employment with a Washington strategic advisory firm with ties to members of the Clinton inner circle.
Before that, Morell spent 33 years at Langley as an intelligence analyst, winding up as the CIA’s deputy director in 2010. Before retiring in 2013, he served twice as the agency’s acting director, in 2011 and again in 2012-13, enjoying a good relationship with President Obama.
In other words, Morell is a typical high-flying mandarin in America’s secret spy empire, the 17-agency behemoth we call the Intelligence Community. These folks tend not to be partisan in a political sense, and if Morell’s a raging liberal and Republican-hater he’s been hiding it well.
Has Schindler's testimony changed your mind on Morell, then?
Missed this Spinner...
Honestly... yeah. But, that's okay since I'm voting for Johnson anyways.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2016/08/06 02:49:24
No, of course not. You are not legally required to vote for Clinton. But you are wrong if you don't.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
It's mind-blowing and I wonder why the Clinton team isn't hitting Trump on this hard.
Not really. That's more of a back pocket thing you save for debates; especially as Clinton is comfortably ahead. If you bring out the Russia thing it looks like you're kicking a dog, and Clinton has every incentive to look stoic in comparison to Trump.
In fact there is a video circulating around the internet juxtaposing Clinton's reaction to a protest with Trump's reaction to a protest. Trump runs like hell, Hillary doesn't....I guess that plays into the "Hillary held him down!" meme, but that is ridiculously sexist on its face.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
dogma wrote: That's more of a back pocket thing you save for debates; especially as Clinton is comfortably ahead.
This. It's not like Trump has any shortage of things to criticize right now, so it makes sense to save a few for later instead of wasting everything right now when it would just get lost in the flood of other stuff.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
