Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by Hermit » Wed Aug 01, 2018 11:10 pm

Brian Peacock wrote:
Wed Aug 01, 2018 7:07 pm
Hermit wrote:
pErvinalia wrote:
Fri Jul 27, 2018 9:40 pm
Well Latham wasn't deranged at the time. Not noticeably, at least.
I noticed. There's that story about Latham having broken a taxi driver's arm because he thought said driver had taken the long way around to his destination in 2001. In 2002 he described himself thus: "I'm a hater." Around the same time he came out with harebrained ideas like "a ladder of opportunity" that would bring prosperity to all Australians". His out of control temper had become legendary among his Labor colleagues, who were well aware, and some of whom had become victims of his aggressive, bullying and intimidating personality before he became leader of the opposition in 2003. He always was a psycho. Many people just were not paying attention until his personality caused him to gravitate toward the fringes of Australian politics where most of the other lunatics congregate.
How much coke do you think he was doing at the time?
None.
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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Aug 01, 2018 11:12 pm

That was his problem.. not enough coke.
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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Fri Aug 03, 2018 12:21 pm

More FAKE NEWS™ from the failing CNN:

'Alleged Russian agent's infiltration of GOP circles anything but subtle'
As far as spy craft goes, Maria Butina's skills didn't seem particularly impressive.

The alleged covert Russian agent liked to communicate via Twitter messages and WhatsApp. Her overly flirtatious approach left men wondering what she was truly after. She tended to brag about her ties to Russian intelligence when she was intoxicated, according to people familiar with the situation.

"She's like a Scud missile. There's no precision," said CIA veteran Robert Baer, a CNN intelligence and security analyst.

Butina has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent in the US. Her lawyer, Robert Driscoll, told CNN Wednesday that she wouldn't take a deal from prosecutors if it meant admitting she was a spy.

"If you're not an agent for a foreign government, you can't lie and say you are in order to get rid of this," Driscoll said.

But intelligence experts say Butina's far-from-subtle approach to infiltrating Republican political circles in the US appears to be just one tactic in Moscow's arsenal as Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to influence American politics and disrupt democracy ahead of the 2016 election. Those efforts are continuing, Trump administration officials say, in the run-up to the midterm elections.

Putin has numerous intelligence services at his disposal. Some excel in hacking. Others churn out seasoned operatives to gather intelligence and quietly recruit Americans. But there are also more informal missions, ones that are often directed by Putin himself with the help of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB's successor.

"It's much less structured," Alina Polyakova, a Russia expert and foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, said of Russia's influence operations. "There often is kind of a proxy lead actor, who is usually an oligarch close to the regime, that is given a project and he outsources portions of that project.""I almost think of it as project management," Polyakova added.

It also helps shed light on why run-ins between a ragtag assortment of Russians and members of Donald Trump's orbit appeared so random.

In April 2016, a Maltese professor with Kremlin ties informed Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that the Russians had thousands of damaging emails about Hillary Clinton,

A month later, a Russian man who went by Henry Greenberg made a more overt offer to longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone: damaging information on Clinton in exchange for $2 million. Stone has said he believes the offer was part of a law enforcement setup directed at the Trump campaign.

That same month, May of 2016, Butina and her alleged handler, Kremlin-linked banker Alexander Torshin, snagged a brief meet-and-greet with Donald Trump Jr. on the sidelines of the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. That was only after her efforts with Torshin to establish back channel communications between candidate Trump and Putin fell short.

By June of 2016, a Russian lawyer met with Trump Jr. and other top Trump campaign officials for the now infamous Trump Tower meeting. The Trump officials believed the lawyer was there to offer dirt on Clinton. The offer was pushed by a Russian billionaire with ties to Putin.

"Everything is not necessarily a planned and highly disciplined intelligence operation," said Steven Hall, a retired CIA chief of Russia operations and a CNN national security analyst. "Sometimes there's these more freelance types of things that also go on."

Efforts to make inroads with the Trump campaign or other right-wing political groups go hand-in-hand with Moscow's more coordinated efforts to hack the Democrats, spread disinformation on social media, sow division and try to sway voters in favor of Trump, according to intelligence experts.

"It's still part of a large tapestry that Vladimir Putin is weaving," Hall said.

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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:02 pm

Looks like the US Secret Service made a severe error, then kept it as quiet as possible.

'Suspected Russian spy found working at US embassy in Moscow'
US counter-intelligence investigators discovered a suspected Russian spy had been working undetected in the heart of the American embassy in Moscow for more than a decade, the Guardian has learned.

The Russian national had been hired by the US Secret Service and is understood to have had access to the agency’s intranet and email systems, which gave her a potential window into highly confidential material including the schedules of the president and vice-president.

The woman had been working for the Secret Service for years before she came under suspicion in 2016 during a routine security sweep conducted by two investigators from the US Department of State’s Regional Security Office (RSO).

They established she was having regular and unauthorised meetings with members of the FSB, Russia’s principal security agency.

...

The Department of Homeland Security was apparently notified about the case but it is unclear how much detail was passed on to officials outside the agency. It is also unclear why the woman, a Russian national, was hired by the Secret Service in the first place or what kind of vetting took place.

The Guardian has been told that the potential breach was not reported to any of the congressional intelligence or oversight committees.

A source said: “A government committee needs to investigate the Secret Service for hiding this breach.”

Another option would be to include it in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into suspected Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.

“The US Congress is focusing on Russian hackers when it is possible that all of the information they needed to get into the system came from the internal breach in the Secret Service,” the source said.

“Her activities of stealing and sharing information could shed more light on how the Russians were able to hack the 2016 presidential election office of the DNC [Democratic National Committee].”

They added: “I think that the special counsel would be the perfect outside entity to investigate the level of damage that [she] caused. They have access to all types of counterintelligence information and they wouldn’t lie ... to avoid reporting this serious operational and security breach.”
Oh, but an anonymous source was quoted in the story. Well then, must be FAKE NEWS™.

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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by Tero » Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:19 pm

#DrainTheTrump already
https://twitter.com/DrainTheTrump
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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by Seabass » Sun Aug 05, 2018 2:07 am

Humanity has jumped the shark.

Russia Appoints Actor Steven Seagal as Special Envoy for Humanitarian Ties With U.S.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... h-u-s.html

Image

Russia is seeking the help of an action star known for fighting off bad guys with his bare hands to improve relations with the United States. Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced Saturday on Facebook that it had named American actor Steven Seagal as special representative for Russian-U.S. humanitarian ties. As part of his unpaid role, the martial artist will have to “facilitate relations between Russia and the United States in the humanitarian field, including cooperation in culture, arts, public, and youth exchanges.” The job marks a “case of people’s diplomacy meeting with traditional diplomacy,” the ministry said, comparing his role to that of a U.N. goodwill ambassador.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also fancies himself quite the martial artist, presented Seagal with Russian citizenship in 2016. The actor has frequently stood up for Russia and its policies. He not only defended Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, he has also pushed back against claims that Moscow meddled in the U.S. presidential election. “For anyone to think that Vladimir Putin had anything to do with fixing the elections, or even that the Russians have that kind of technology, is stupid,” Seagal said in an interview with Britain’s ITV network last year. He has also vociferously praised Putin, calling him “one of the greatest world leaders, if not the greatest world leader, alive today” during a 2013 interview with RT.

The 66-year-old actor said he was “sincerely grateful” for the appointment. “I’ve always tried to do everything possible to help Russian-American relations to improve,” Seagal said. “I was working towards without having an official status and now it is a great honor for me to do the same officially.”

As strange as it is, this isn’t the first time the idea of Seagal as a diplomatic envoy has been put forward. A 2015 BuzzFeed story revealed that Putin had suggested to then-President Barack Obama that Seagal could be an honorary consul of Russia in California and Arizona. “Our reaction was, ‘You’ve got to be kidding’,” a U.S. official told BuzzFeed.
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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by pErvinalia » Sun Aug 05, 2018 2:47 am

Look at the size of Seagull's hand! That's how to dominate in a handshake.
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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by JimC » Sun Aug 05, 2018 4:27 am

He's been on a good paddock... :tea:
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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by Brian Peacock » Sun Aug 05, 2018 6:38 pm

Seabass wrote:Humanity has jumped the shark.

Russia Appoints Actor Steven Seagal as Special Envoy for Humanitarian Ties With U.S.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... h-u-s.html

Image

Russia is seeking the help of an action star known for fighting off bad guys with his bare hands to improve relations with the United States. Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced Saturday on Facebook that it had named American actor Steven Seagal as special representative for Russian-U.S. humanitarian ties. As part of his unpaid role, the martial artist will have to “facilitate relations between Russia and the United States in the humanitarian field, including cooperation in culture, arts, public, and youth exchanges.” The job marks a “case of people’s diplomacy meeting with traditional diplomacy,” the ministry said, comparing his role to that of a U.N. goodwill ambassador.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also fancies himself quite the martial artist, presented Seagal with Russian citizenship in 2016. The actor has frequently stood up for Russia and its policies. He not only defended Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, he has also pushed back against claims that Moscow meddled in the U.S. presidential election. “For anyone to think that Vladimir Putin had anything to do with fixing the elections, or even that the Russians have that kind of technology, is stupid,” Seagal said in an interview with Britain’s ITV network last year. He has also vociferously praised Putin, calling him “one of the greatest world leaders, if not the greatest world leader, alive today” during a 2013 interview with RT.

The 66-year-old actor said he was “sincerely grateful” for the appointment. “I’ve always tried to do everything possible to help Russian-American relations to improve,” Seagal said. “I was working towards without having an official status and now it is a great honor for me to do the same officially.”

As strange as it is, this isn’t the first time the idea of Seagal as a diplomatic envoy has been put forward. A 2015 BuzzFeed story revealed that Putin had suggested to then-President Barack Obama that Seagal could be an honorary consul of Russia in California and Arizona. “Our reaction was, ‘You’ve got to be kidding’,” a U.S. official told BuzzFeed.
My money's on Putin. He has a knife in his shoe.
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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by Brian Peacock » Sun Aug 05, 2018 6:48 pm

@RealDonaldTrump

Donald Trump Jnr will show the Mueller #WITCHHUNT evidence that he's not my son. I barely know him. He's just a hanger-on who fetched coffee and licked envelopes for the campaign. The surname is just a coincidence whipped up by the failing #FAKENEWS media.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by Forty Two » Wed Aug 08, 2018 4:37 pm

Image
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Aug 08, 2018 10:47 pm

Aren't you even slightly embarrassed you support a man like Trump? :ask:
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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by Brian Peacock » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:01 pm

Better Trump than Frump.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by Seabass » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:05 pm

Trump is pretty frumpy.

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Re: Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

Post by JimC » Wed Aug 08, 2018 11:14 pm

Someone's been on a good paddock... :tea:
Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
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