OT: Very interesting article in NY Magazine yesterday.

by oviedoirish @, Oviedo, Florida, Monday, July 09, 2018, 20:47 (2089 days ago)

Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html?utm_sour...

fisherj08 posted yesterday. A warning to portland and other

by Grantland, y'allywood, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 06:20 (2089 days ago) @ oviedoirish

s who are freaked out - I thought that article was scary as hell. Is that a reputable mag/author? Though I really don't think the author raised any new facts but connected the dots in what I thought was a very clear and frightening manner.

Oh, sorry I missed it.

by oviedoirish @, Oviedo, Florida, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 07:44 (2089 days ago) @ Grantland

- No text -

I wasn't calling you out - just by way of saying I'd read

by Grantland, y'allywood, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 09:28 (2089 days ago) @ oviedoirish

most of it and found it scary as hell!

Chait is a moderate liberal

by Bryan (IrishCavan), Howth Castle and Environs, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 07:38 (2089 days ago) @ Grantland

and used to be editor of The New Republic. His stuff on Trump-Russia has been pretty good. If you want to be really scared, check out Collusion by Luke Harding, who writes for the Guardian and used to be their bureau chief in Moscow. Chait's piece is essentially an abridged version of that (much scarier) book.

Tom Nichols has a good thread on this article...

by domer.mq ⌂ @, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 12:49 (2088 days ago) @ Bryan (IrishCavan)

Read the entire thing, but start here. There are several folks I've followed for years - well before the 2016 elections - who are Russian experts. Tom is one of them. Every single one of them thinks it's blatantly obvious that the "staggering" number of Russian contacts Trump and his family have is an enormous red flag. So it's worth reading the thread and that article with just that single fact in mind.

--
Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick.

Good read from Nichols

by hobbs, San Diego, CA, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 13:43 (2088 days ago) @ domer.mq
edited by hobbs, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 14:05

I think I stumbled onto him via the 20committee/John Sipher twitter causeway.

Overall I agree with Nichols & Chaits larger point and is why I have always thought the Mueller report will be utterly damming to Trump and his family and leave this WH in ruins.

Trump and his allies have the luxury of fighting daily tactical enguagements. The NYT breaks a story. Trump, true to his nature, lies about it. The media reports the lie. The public moves on. The same process repeats itself on a bi-weekly basis. As a running tactical battle Trump has an advantage in that to win he just has to get through the news cycle. Stories don't even need to make sense or speak to anything other than narrative truth.

Those daily battles have obscure the larger strategic picture of what was happening in 2016.

Mueller's report will be the first time that someone has told the Russia/Trump story as a single narrative effort. It will be a long, detailed, utterly riveting publicly televised presentation read to the american people by a former fbi director. It will be Comey to a factor of 5. The sheer weight of that evidence, even circumstantial, is going to bury the Trump family.

The problem will be in responding to everything at one time with a counter narrative that flows logically and ties everything together while explaining away mountains of evidence. I suspect that it can't be done.

It may not make any difference to 'the fans' but I do think that fence sitters are going to desert the President in droves.

I really hope that you are right.

by oviedoirish @, Oviedo, Florida, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 20:03 (2088 days ago) @ hobbs

I worry that we won't be so lucky that trump and family crash and burn while he is in office. I suspect that trump finishes his term but that the SDNY brings the family down afterwards.

I don't want Trump impeached

by hobbs, San Diego, CA, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 21:08 (2088 days ago) @ oviedoirish

unless there is clear incontrovertible evidence that ties him to a 'high crime'. Impeachment shouldn't be used as a tool to invalidate an election that your side didn't win. The GOP was wrong to impeach over Lewinsky. The Democrats shouldn't make the same mistake.

Besides the last thing I want to do is make Trump a martyr.

Kick his ass at the ballot box in 2020 and send him back to NYC, where SDNY and the 'deep state' can have their way with that entire family.

I agree, but if he has committed actual crimes then

by oviedoirish @, Oviedo, Florida, Wednesday, July 11, 2018, 09:28 (2088 days ago) @ hobbs

I hope he gets the boot.

Agree wholeheartedly

by Albie, Wednesday, July 11, 2018, 06:50 (2088 days ago) @ hobbs

but frankly my bigger concern is the dirtbag left and Bernieacs demonizing whoever the Democrats nominate to run, suppressing the vote, motivating more third party candidates, who may or may not be Russian stooges (paging Dr. Stein), etc.

Russia is already pivoting to the hard left. In their wildest dreams the KGB could not have come up with something better than Twitter and Facebook to engage in serious cyber warfare.

If he colluded with Russia to win the election,

by nedhead, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 21:13 (2088 days ago) @ hobbs

he should be thrown in jail. I don't care about the implications for the 2020 election.

Great stuff, thanks.

by oviedoirish @, Oviedo, Florida, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 13:11 (2088 days ago) @ domer.mq

- No text -

Doesn't this help confirm the gut suspicion all reasonable

by Grantland, y'allywood, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 13:29 (2088 days ago) @ oviedoirish

people have had all along and scare the hell out of same said people?

I have been wondering out loud to some friends, when is someone going to thread all of this shit together.

this combined with the article from yesterday re pissing off European allies really gets me on edge - especially for my young children.

It scares the hell out of me.

by oviedoirish @, Oviedo, Florida, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 19:58 (2088 days ago) @ Grantland

I'm also very concerned that if Mueller's report lists major criminal/treasonous allegations against 45 (whether there are indictments or not), will the GOP actually impeach him? I hope that they would, but I have my doubts. What would be the tipping point to impeachment, assuming that Mueller finds illegal activity?

Okay, so is this a mistake in the article?:

by Grantland, y'allywood, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 10:25 (2089 days ago) @ Bryan (IrishCavan)
edited by Grantland, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 10:54

maybe a distinction without a difference but the article says:


"In leaked emails to Kilimnik, Manafort referred to his new standing and asked, “How do we use to get whole?” Kilimnik assured Manafort, “We will get back to the original relationship.” That is, Manafort was asking about, and Kilimnik was confirming, the possibility of trading his position as Trump’s campaign manager for debt forgiveness from Deripaska."

The underlined portion is a hyper-link to a WAPO article that states:

"We can argue over what's innocuous and what's not, but that seems to be an acknowledgment from his own spokesman that Manafort was discussing how he could leverage his status as a leading strategist on an American presidential campaign to chase down debts he was owed — i.e. to enrich himself financially."

The article posits that Manafort owed money and, therefore, my first thought was that he was scared for his life owing money to a Russian Oligarch. But the linked article provides that he WAS OWED money and he was trying to leverage new position to get paid.

To me, one (owing the $) seems worse than the other (being owed the $) from the perspective of the borrow -er/-ee, as the case may be.

Maybe I am too obsessed with this crazy shit.

You're an academic. To you a moderate liberal is...

by Greg, seemingly ranch, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 08:44 (2089 days ago) @ Bryan (IrishCavan)

...Vladimir Lenin.

Kidding, dude. Just kidding.

Well, it was confirmed to me on Twitter today

by Bryan (IrishCavan), Howth Castle and Environs, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 09:30 (2089 days ago) @ Greg

that I probably am a liberal.

[image]

I'm perfectly balanced

by Jeff (BGS) @, A starter home in suburban Tempe, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 13:36 (2088 days ago) @ Bryan (IrishCavan)
edited by Jeff (BGS), Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 13:40

Although, as Grantland points out, a lot of that has to do with my lack of fishing gear.

What is the statute of limitations for purchases? I don't buy Little Debbie snack cakes anymore, but I would if they didn't turn me into a fat guy. Also, my local Costco stopped carrying JIF, so we switched to Skippy, but I would have stuck with it if they carried it. Life is so complicated...

I'm also surprised by all the "not/didn't" items on the list. Apparently liberals do nothing except read, drink, and drive non-Chevy vehicles.

--
At night, the ice weasels come.

Also, I do not buy Tyson but what about Jimmy Dean Sausage?

by Grantland, y'allywood, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 13:51 (2088 days ago) @ Jeff (BGS)

EDIT: I googled Jimmy Dean. Tyson now owns it.

Other than fishing, I am balanced. I think that thing does not consider that there may be some Southerners who tend liberal.

Liberals do not like to fish?

by Grantland, y'allywood, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 10:29 (2089 days ago) @ Bryan (IrishCavan)

- No text -

This one does.

by Albie, Wednesday, July 11, 2018, 06:52 (2088 days ago) @ Grantland

- No text -

The only think Trumpists and I agree upon...

by domer.mq ⌂ @, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 09:54 (2089 days ago) @ Bryan (IrishCavan)

Is that Arby's is fucking delicious.

--
Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick.

You can also confirm your skin color.

by Bryan (IrishCavan), Howth Castle and Environs, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 10:08 (2089 days ago) @ domer.mq

[image]

Arby's has (had) a John Stewart special,

by oviedoirish @, Oviedo, Florida, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 10:03 (2089 days ago) @ domer.mq

which was not on the visible menu. It was a really nice Pastrami sandwich. I haven't had one for a while, so I don't know if they still make it.

I don't meet four of their qualifications

by Greg, seemingly ranch, Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 09:49 (2089 days ago) @ Bryan (IrishCavan)

When you have a taco cart at your house, you use disposable plates.
When you eat chicken wings, you have ranch for your celery.
Sonic has cherry lime-ade, which I love for long drives.
Arby's I cannot defend.

But that list is awesome.

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