Former President Donald J. Trump

[Jimbo]

I swear, Snarf, I'm trying but the links above do not make clear to me that, as Marshall said, there was no actual collusion proven but that - Marshall says - they make clear there was only intent to involve the Russians in the elections. This is furthered muddied by the NYT correction that Manafort's connections were not even Russian but Ukrainians. And everyone has "ties" to Putin and "ties" to Russian intelligence. When I see "ties" I see Kevin Bacon's face.

And now I will go and search my sources for a more professional analysis and possible de-bunk or maybe even verification. As of now the story that the DNC hack came, as Bill Binney said, directly from the DNC computer via thumb drive taints my thinking.

[Jimbo]

That didn't take long at all. My gal Caitlin is on the job. Embedded in a larger story about how the establishment media mean to shut down alternative and more critical media was this.

Another report which dominated news headlines all of yesterday claimed that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort (the same Paul Manafort who the Guardian falsely claimed met with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy) had shared polling data with a Russian associate and asked him to pass it along to Oleg Deripaska, who is often labeled a “Russian oligarch” by western media. The polling data was mostly public already, and the rest was just more polling information shared in the spring of 2016, but Deripaska’s involvement had Russiagaters burning the midnight oil with breathless excitement. Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall went so far as to publish an article titled “The ‘Collusion’ Debate Ended Last Night”, substantiating his click-generating headline with the claim that “What’s crystal clear is that the transfer to Kilimnik came with explicit instructions to give the information to Deripaska. And that’s enough.”

Except Manafort didn’t give any explicit instructions to share the polling data with Deripaska, but with two Ukrainian oligarchs (who are denying it). The New York Times was forced to print this embarrassing correction to the story it broke, adding in the process that Manafort’s motivation was likely not collusion, but money.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/a-ne ... 6ba43dc8ce

There are links embedded in the above paragraph in the original which I hope you will check. Be fair, Snarf. I read Marshall's story I hope you will read mine.

[`]

Anyone else here find it suspicious that Jimbo doesn't appear to have received (or at least taken up) an invitation to Coan's new board...

[Jimbo]

Anyone else here find it suspicious that Jimbo doesn't appear to have received (or at least taken up) an invitation to Coan's new board...

Almost every time before I open BCB I say to myself, "Let's see who's mad at me today?" I'm still struck by how virtually no one on BCB agrees with my conspiratorial view of politics when there are millions (I guess) of others who frequent, comment on and donate to the alt news sites I visit. Jimmy Dore's YouTube channel, for example, has 444,000 subscribers. Some of them must love music and following politics ... but noooo. I suspect I would have been banned long ago if not for my love of and participation in the Secret Santa thing. If anything, I think my contrary-ness livelies up the place. But BCBers are a stodgy lot. Sometimes I look at the Brexit thread and am surprised no one seems to be an out and out Brexiteer. Fortunately at least there are a few Tories here to argue with the Labourites, but Is no one a supporter of the People Before Profit party? And god help any American who out and out supports the Libertarians, the Republicans or worse, Trump himself. I can't stand Trump. He is a loathsome person. But then I can't stand the spineless Democrats either who fucked shit up so badly that Trump beat Hillary. Yes, it was the Dems themselves who are to blame and not Paul Manafort, Vladmir Putin or Jill Stein. At the rate they are going today Trump could very easily beat them again in 2020. I am also anti-war, corruption and lying. If there was a Utopian Party I'd join. And 9/11 WAS an inside job.

[Snarfyguy]

I swear, Snarf, I'm trying but the links above do not make clear to me that, as Marshall said, there was no actual collusion proven but that - Marshall says - they make clear there was only intent to involve the Russians in the elections. This is furthered muddied by the NYT correction that Manafort's connections were not even Russian but Ukrainians.

Those "Ukranians" are the pro-Russia guys Manafort was working with to install the Russian puppet Yanukovich and smear and jail his adversary Tymoshenko. They are literally agents of Russia, regardless of what it says on their passports.

Trump's campaign manager gave proprietary polling data to Russian agents before the election; there is no longer any dispute about that. That cat's out of the bag. The question now becomes: will Trump continue to defend Manafort, or turn on him?

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/a-ne ... 6ba43dc8ce

There are links embedded in the above paragraph in the original which I hope you will check. Be fair, Snarf. I read Marshall's story I hope you will read mine.

Link = broken

PS - it doesn't matter if "Manafort’s motivation was likely not collusion, but money." A person's reasons for undertaking such a course of conduct have no bearing on HOW ILLEGAL IT IS or THE FACT THAT TRUMP IS LYING ABOUT IT.

[Jimbo]

Link = broken

PS - it doesn't matter if "Manafort’s motivation was likely not collusion, but money." A person's reasons for undertaking such a course of conduct have no bearing on HOW ILLEGAL IT IS or THE FACT THAT TRUMP IS LYING ABOUT IT.

Trump is a liar. He lies a lot about everything and if the Dems and a few Republicans can figure out a way to remove a clearly insane and demented moron from office (25th Amendment) without triggering World War three that would be good thing, doncha think?

Many of the charges against Manafort and Gates, which include money laundering and tax fraud, relate to alleged crimes that predate either of the political operatives joining the Trump campaign. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor ... 388bdee111

The link worked for me. https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/a-ne ... 6ba43dc8ce

[Snarfyguy]

Trump is a liar. He lies a lot about everything and if the Dems and a few Republicans can figure out a way to remove a clearly insane and demented moron from office (25th Amendment) without triggering World War three that would be good thing, doncha think?

Many of the charges against Manafort and Gates, which include money laundering and tax fraud, relate to alleged crimes that predate either of the political operatives joining the Trump campaign. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor ... 388bdee111

The link worked for me. https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/a-ne ... 6ba43dc8ce

1. I do think, yes.
2. Irrelevant. I also don't care about their parking tickets or, really, anything else about these guys.
3. Link works; will have a look.

[Jimbo]

This is interesting.

"We Don't Take Orders From Bolton": US Withdrawal From Syria Begins

by Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/11/2019 -

Last night, the Wall Street Journal reported that the withdrawal would begin immediately.

Scores of ground troops are headed toward Syria to help move troops out, and a group of naval vessels headed by the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge is headed to the region to back up troops at the vulnerable moment they are leaving the country, the officials said. The Kearsarge carries hundreds of Marines, helicopters and other aircraft.

"Nothing has changed," one defense official said. "We don’t take orders from Bolton."

To account for shifts in plans, the military will stage the personnel and equipment needed for a possible withdrawal, rather than move the U.S. forces out. Troops tasked to help with the eventual withdrawal already are in the area, in places like Kuwait and al-Asad air base in western Iraq.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01- ... ria-begins

[Count Machuki]

Jimmy Dore's YouTube channel, for example, has 444,000 subscribers.

https://buyviewsreview.com/youtube-subscribers-reviews/

YOU CAN BUY YOUTUBE SUBSCRIBERS.

I swear, how can someone so skeptical be so gullible?!

[Count Machuki]

Holy smoke.

[Charlie O.]

Holy smoke.

[Jimbo]

Now from AP.

By Philip Issa and Zeina Karam | AP January 11 at 11:35 AM

BAGHDAD — After days of conflicting statements about a timeline for President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American forces from Syria, a U.S. defense official said Friday the process has begun with the removal of some military cargo.

The official said the movement of equipment is part of what the military calls a “deliberate withdrawal” from Syria, where some 2,000 troops have been working with a coalition of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters to defeat the remnants of the Islamic State group.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not yet been publicly announced, provided no numbers, but said the equipment withdrawal is underway and that an unspecified number of additional U.S. troops have been brought into Syria to assist with the process, including by providing additional security.

Hours earlier, Col. Sean Ryan, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, said “the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria” has started. He said the U.S. would not discuss a specific timeline, locations or troop movements out of concern for operational security.....

[Count Machuki]

Holy smoke.

This FBI thing.

[Jimbo]

Holy smoke.

This FBI thing.

Who are they spying on this time?

[Snarfyguy]

^^^ You'll never guess!

[Count Machuki]

[Jimbo]

The actual NYT headline:

F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia

The shoulda been headline from paragraph 9:

No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials

.



https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/us/p ... quiry.html

Snarf, I know you. You will quibble over the use of "publicly," that maybe, Jimbo, the FBI have internal, super special, FBI use only evidence. But that the Times also used the word "no," as in "No evidence," that after all this time, all the subpoenas, arrests, bombshells, pearl clutching and hair pulling, not to mention the threat in many minds of a world war, and the Times still has no evidence? Trump is a knucklehead but he is right about the New York Times. Fail.

The media is manipulating you, again, taking advantage of your fear and anger to tell you how to think. That’s the takeaway, chump, not Trump.

https://wemeantwell.com/blog/2019/01/09 ... rn-border/

[Snarfyguy]

Snarf, I know you. You will quibble over the use of "publicly," that maybe, Jimbo, the FBI have internal, super special, FBI use only evidence. But that the Times also used the word "no," as in "No evidence," that after all this time, all the subpoenas, arrests, bombshells, pearl clutching and hair pulling, not to mention the threat in many minds of a world war, and the Times still has no evidence? Trump is a knucklehead but he is right about the New York Times. Fail.

I don't know what to tell you; we've been having this argument for something like two years. In an ongoing criminal investigation, the FBI doesn't make their evidence public. Why would they? Do you really think Mueller is BLUFFING and his team has NO EVIDENCE of wrongdoing, even after all the indictments, pleas and sentences?

Hell, there's plenty of evidence in the public domain already, and that's what this newly revealed investigation is about.

<snip>

-- PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP RESPONDS ON FOX NEWS WITH JEANINE PIRRO: PIRRO: “I’m going to ask you, are you now or have you ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?” TRUMP: “I think it’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked. I think it’s the most insulting article I’ve ever had written and if you read the article, you’d see that they found absolutely nothing, but the headline of that article, it’s called the failing ‘New York Times’ for a reason.”

-- FOR THE RECORD: Trump didn’t answer yes, or no.

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/pl ... ked-375644

[Jimbo]

I don't know what to tell you; we've been having this argument for something like two years.

How about, "Yeah Jimbo, you just may be right. Something very weird is going on. Maybe this really is some kind of witch hunt. Weekly "bombshells" which, yes, turn out to be duds. This hatred for Trump has overridden good sense." Or something.

[Snarfyguy]

We shall see...

Meanwhile, on the use of the word publicly in the NYT article:

This is not a word chosen idly, not in a piece as judiciously written as this one. Clearly, the Times printed pretty much all it was given by its sources, but the implication of that "publicly" is that investigators likely know far more than what appeared in the newspaper.

Otherwise, "publicly" is empty verbiage. To have written simply that, "No evidence has emerged that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government official," would have sufficed for the purposes of journalistic balance. But by dropping that fatal "publicly" in there, the Times and its sources likely are giving us a preview of coming attractions.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/p ... ey-firing/

Also: Marcy Wheeler discusses evidence that the Trump team had a quid pro quo with Russia:

https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/01/13/t ... ian-bribe/