We need to talk about Donald – the Nightmare continues

[Forty Two]

Did Democrats meet with Russian officials and lie about it?

Nancy Pelosi did,http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/n ... ing-235653 as did Claire McCaskill.







You'll find like a dozen Democrats were meeting and communicating with Russian officials.

One, so what? There's nothing wrong or illegal with talking to Russians or Russian "officials?" When I was in college I met with several ambassadors as part of an externship program. La-de-fucking-dah.

And, misstating whether you met them or met them under certain contexts or relative to certain issues, is not a fucking crime or "lying," per se. I don't give a fuck if Pelosi met with them, or if McCaskill met with them. And, when McCaskill said she "never" met with the Russian officials and they call the House Foreign Relations committee, she probably was not viewing it as saying she never ever met or talked any of them under any circumstances. Same goes for Jeff Sessions.

This is total, unadulterated, weapons-grade bullshit being sold for political purposes by the Democrats, who are as much a bunch lying, cheating, scheming, bullshit artists as the Republicans.

Fuck, they had Hillary Clinton's IT guy caught scouring the web for ways to "scrub" identities from archived emails to protect his "VIP" (Hillary). I mean, FFS.

[pErvinalia]

Did they lie to congress? Twitter isn't congress.

[Forty Two]

You asked if they lied. They lied.

Did any of the Dems or their staff lie about their meetings?

they lied.

[pErvinalia]

The context is the repubs lying in official statements. I was going to say "you know that", but you've repeatedly shown that straightforward stuff is complicated for you.

[Brian Peacock]

You asked if they lied. They lied.

Did any of the Dems or their staff lie about their meetings?

they lied.

Did Pelosi have personal, private, off-the-books meetings with Ruski Ambassadors, or others, or meetings in her capacity as a committee member or in some other official capacity? Have Democrats had, and then lied about, personal, private, off-the-books meetings when asked, or volunteered a lie when not even asked - as Jeff Sessions did?

You seem to want us to think that 'just having a meeting with X,Y or Z' is the issue here -- so that criticising Flynn or Sessions etc, and the investigations into the Trump campaign, become a double standard -- when that isn't the issue at all. The more you push that line the further from the point you travel.

[Forty Two]

The context is the repubs lying in official statements.

You asked if any of them lied. You did not refer to Congress. And, official statements are not merely those made to Congress. So what's your question? Did any lie? Did any lie to Congress specifically? Did any lie in any official statement? What's it going to be? You do this all the time, pErvin. I answered your question, and then you want to argue about it to try to pretend that I did not answer your question by suggesting that I should have known that when you referred to lies you didn't mean any lies, you meant specific lies to specific people.

:
I was going to say "you know that", but you've repeatedly shown that straightforward stuff is complicated for you.

LOL - you'd do better to just use the words that communicate the idea you wish to communicate. Using words that communicate one idea, and expecting the people you're addressing to read between your lines, or to add restrictions and limitations to them is lazy and stupid on your part. But, then again, that's par for your course.

Too much trouble for you to be clear that you didn't mean just "lie" about it, but that you were referring to lying "to Congress." I guess that if someone tells baldface lies about talking to Russian officials, it's only worthy of investigation if the lies are told "to Congress." If not, then it's a ho-hum affair, nothing to see here. Right?

[pErvinalia]

The context is the repubs lying in official statements.

You asked if any of them lied. You did not refer to Congress. And, official statements are not merely those made to Congress. So what's your question? Did any lie? Did any lie to Congress specifically? Did any lie in any official statement? What's it going to be? You do this all the time, pErvin. I answered your question, and then you want to argue about it to try to pretend that I did not answer your question by suggesting that I should have known that when you referred to lies you didn't mean any lies, you meant specific lies to specific people.

:
I was going to say "you know that", but you've repeatedly shown that straightforward stuff is complicated for you.

LOL - you'd do better to just use the words that communicate the idea you wish to communicate. Using words that communicate one idea, and expecting the people you're addressing to read between your lines, or to add restrictions and limitations to them is lazy and stupid on your part. But, then again, that's par for your course.

Too much trouble for you to be clear that you didn't mean just "lie" about it, but that you were referring to lying "to Congress." I guess that if someone tells baldface lies about talking to Russian officials, it's only worthy of investigation if the lies are told "to Congress." If not, then it's a ho-hum affair, nothing to see here. Right?

This is why you have such a bad standing here.

[Forty Two]

You asked if they lied. They lied.

Did any of the Dems or their staff lie about their meetings?

they lied.

Did Pelosi have personal, private, off-the-books meetings with Ruski Ambassadors,

Did anyone from the Trump campaign have personal, private, off-the-books meetings with the Ruski Ambassador?

Aren't most meetings with Ambassadors "off the books?" Or are books kept about meetings, with transcripts and such? Where is the "book" that logs meetings with ambassadors.

Ambassadors are supposed to talk to people. There is no official channel required to talk to an ambassador. You can pick up the phone and call most embassies, and with some embassies you can get your own meeting with the ambassador to discuss whatever issue you may have.

Also, the meetings Jeff Sessions had were like this:

So what are the two meetings that Sessions had? The first came at a conference on “Global Partners in Diplomacy,” where Sessions was the keynote speaker. Sponsored by the U.S. State Department, The Heritage Foundation, and several other organizations, it was held in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention. The conference was an educational program for ambassadors invited by the Obama State Department to observe the convention. The Obama State Department handled all of the coordination with ambassadors and their staff, of which there were about 100 at the conference.” After the meeting, several ambassadors came up to Sessions, one of which was the Russian Ambassador, and they thanked him for his comments.

Sessions also apparently met with the Russian ambassador in September. But on that occasion, Sessions was acting as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, not as a surrogate for the Trump campaign. That’s why the meeting was held in his Senate office. His DOJ spokesperson, Sarah Isgur Flores, says they discussed relations between the two countries – not the election.

There was nothing unusual about this: Sessions met with more than two dozen ambassadors during 2016, including the Ukrainian ambassador the day before the meeting with the Russian ambassador.

The only “interference” that we know of was the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computer system. The emails purloined in that escapade embarrassed Democratic Party insiders by revealing that its claims of neutrality during the hotly contested Democratic primary were a total sham.

While the DNC may have tipped the scales against Bernie Sanders, there was no actual cyber-interference in the voting process in 2016.

Hans von Spakovsky, formerly with the US Department of Justice - in this opinion piece - http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/03/ ... esign.html

or others, or meetings in her capacity as a committee member or in some other official capacity? Have Democrats had, and then lied about, personal, private, off-the-books meetings when asked, or volunteered a lie when not even asked - as Jeff Sessions did?

You seem to want us to think that 'just having a meeting with X,Y or Z' is the issue here -- so that criticising Flynn or Sessions etc, and the investigations into the Trump campaign, become a double standard -- when that isn't the issue at all. The more you push that line the further from the point you travel.

This whole thing is bullshit, because there's nothing wrong with talking to ambassadors. We're not at war with the Russians. There is no official channel that is supposed to be used. There would be nothing wrong with anyone going to the Russian embassy and asking to talk to the Ambassador, and if he was willing to talk to us, there is nothing illegal or criminal about it, even if we're running for office.

Sessions testimony before Congress was referring to discussions concerning the election, and he was not trying to hide the fact that he met the Russian ambassador. The White House helped coordinate his first ever "meeting" with the Ambassador as noted above, and the second meeting was when he was acting on the Senate Arms Services Committee.

So, where are the person, private, off-the-books meetings you referred to?

[Forty Two]

This is why you have such a bad standing here.

You ask a question, and have it answered. The answer is not to your liking, so you accuse me of not answering a different question which you meant to pose, and which you claim I should have known you were asking, and then you insult me because of it - I point out that I answered your question as posed, and that you should probably use the words that accurately convey your question, if you mean something different, and that's why I have a bad standing here?

Do you think you have bad standing here? Or, do you think nobody sees your dishonesty, your avowed troll-status where you use, as a strategy, abuse of people you don't like for the expressed purpose of driving them off the forum? Do you think people don't see when you don't read people's posts, but knee-jerk declare them to be wrong? When you ascribe to people views they don't hold? When you constantly make threads personal fights, where you want to call people names and otherwise insult them instead of just discussing issues or having fun? You think nobody sees this about you? Your tactics of accusing people of dishonesty, when you, yourself, are often dishonest and disingenuous? Your tactic of derailing threads? Off topic ad hominem, and just merely peppering your posts with various insults and digs against people to try to get a rise out of them?

[Animavore]

A good article on the fall of the US as World leader.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... ement.html

[Tero]

Mein Covfefe

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B071W88W ... ype=ebooks

[Brian Peacock]

Did anyone from the Trump campaign have personal, private, off-the-books meetings with the Ruski Ambassador?

... So, where are the person, private, off-the-books meetings you referred to?

The FBI and Congress are examining a campaign event last spring during which Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner were in a small gathering with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak and other diplomats at Washington's Mayflower Hotel, multiple U.S. officials told NBC News.

Five current and former U.S. officials said they are aware of classified intelligence suggesting there was some sort of private encounter between Trump and his aides and the Russian envoy, despite a heated denial from Sessions, who has already come under fire for failing to disclose two separate contacts with Kislyak. Kushner also denied through a spokesman that he met privately with Kislyak that day.

The officials acknowledged to NBC News that the evidence does not amount to proof, and they have declined to provide details about it. ...

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/did ... an-n767096

Russian government officials discussed having potentially "derogatory" information about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and some of his top aides in conversations intercepted by US intelligence during the 2016 election, according to two former intelligence officials and a congressional source.
One source described the information as financial in nature and said the discussion centered on whether the Russians had leverage over Trump's inner circle. The source said the intercepted communications suggested to US intelligence that Russians believed "they had the ability to influence the administration through the derogatory information."

But the sources, privy to the descriptions of the communications written by US intelligence, cautioned the Russian claims to one another "could have been exaggerated or even made up" as part of a disinformation campaign that the Russians did during the election.

The details of the communication shed new light on information US intelligence received about Russian claims of influence. The contents of the conversations made clear to US officials that Russia was considering ways to influence the election -- even if their claims turned out to be false. ...

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/30/polit ... formation/

You're now going to say that this doesn't prove anything, which indeed it doesn't - this isn't evidence, it's reporting, the substantiating of evidences is something for the ongoing investigations to secure and for a judicial process to determine. But it's a bit of a stretch to say that the concerns about Session, Flynn, Kushner, Manafort, Page, Stone, Slater (and the beat goes on), their connections to Trump and to Russia, and Trump's connections to Russian, and therefore the ongoing investigations, are all 'bullshit'.

[Forty Two]

A good article on the fall of the US as World leader.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... ement.html

Good. Since when have you folks wanted the US to be a World Leader? Isn't the US part of the problem? Always "leading" everybody into wars over oil, and meddling in the affairs of other nations?

Shouldn't you be glad that the US is not going to be the world leader it has been over the last, say, 1/4 century? Do you bemoan this fall?

[Forty Two]

Examine away - the fact that they are "examining" something, means absolutely nothing. Is there something criminal about meeting there with the various diplomats? What? Note, the FBI, Secret Service and CIA are also 'examining' what's going on with Kathy Griffin and her satirical beheading of Trump. Are we supposed to be concerned?

It's all bullshit - contrived, political bullshit. There isn't even an allegation that they did anything wrong. Even if they "colluded" what did they "collude" on? Nobody says the election was hacked. Nobody says the voting machines were tampered with, fraudulent votes cast, or the count tampered with. If they colluded to engage in propaganda or bad mouth Hillary, that wouldn't even be unethical, let alone illegal. The only criminal activity would be if there was an illegal hacking of the Hillary computers to get at those Wikileaks emails. However, there is nothing connecting Trump to any of that. Do you think they are going to find that Trump people and Russian people got together and plotted, starting before Trump was even considered a serious candidate, to hack the DNC?

I mean, come on....

[Brian Peacock]

It's interesting that you're focussing on the asserted absence of criminality without acknowledging the kind of wrong-doing involved in, say, colluding with a foreign power to effect an election result or, for example, taking certain policy decisions to avoid the personal consequences of an implied or actual threat of exposure for some inappropriate action or relationship, which would most likely constitute an impeachable offence -- pertaining to a charge of misconduct -- rather than a strictly criminal one. That said, I believe treason is still a criminal offence in the US.