The Net Tightens

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The Net Tightens

Postby KEND on Sat Feb 17, 2018 10:29 am

The latest DoJ indictment was a masterpiece, the WH have done their best to discredit the Mueller investigation, smearing, firing, attacking the agencies. This one came out of left field, a knight move putting the WH in check. The Russian connection is indisputable, how deep trump and his cohorts were involved either as conspirators, opportunists, willing helpers or just plain suckers has yet to be determined
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby origami_itto on Sat Feb 17, 2018 1:57 pm

No doubt in my mind. Parts of the Trump team were knowingly working with a hostile foreign power and the rest were simply unwitting pawns. No good way to spin it but they will try.
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby Steve James on Sat Feb 17, 2018 2:50 pm

either as conspirators, opportunists, willing helpers or just plain suckers has yet to be determined

the rest were simply unwitting pawns.


When it comes to DT, "plain sucker" and "unwitting pawn" seem most likely.
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby Michael on Sat Feb 17, 2018 10:58 pm

Yesterday, Facebook VP of ads says he's seen all the Russian ads and most of them came after the election and they were designed to cause a divide.

Rob Goldman on Twitter wrote:The main goal of the Russian propaganda and misinformation effort is to divide America by using our institutions, like free speech and social media, against us. It has stoked fear and hatred amongst Americans. It is working incredibly well. We are quite divided as a nation.

The majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election. We shared that fact, but very few outlets have covered it because it doesn’t align with the main media narrative of Tump and the election.

The single best demonstration of Russia's true motives is the Houston anti-islamic protest. Americans were literally puppeted into the streets by trolls who organized both the sides of protest.

So far, there is nothing connecting Trump to this and the only proven connection to Russia is that Hillary's campaign and the DNC paid Fusion GPS to pay ex-MI6 spy Steele to pay his Rooskie sources to provide a ridiculous dossier that had to be shopped around until Buzzfeed published it in order to provide cover so that it could used as a pre-text for a FISA warrant to spy on Trump's campaign.

Meuller's indictment shows this goes back to 2014, which was the year of the great conflict between the US and Russia in Ukraine. Russia trolling and putting ads in Facebook, etc., is just a response to what we were doing in Maidan Square, Kiev, Ukraine that influenced their "elections". Our diplomat was literally handing out cookies to protesters in advance of a violent coup. Not really trying to bring up old arguments, just saying this has nothing to do with Trump.

Goldman's Facebook tweets are basically the third major media fail, possibly fourth and fifth depending on if you count the CNN hidden nothing burger videos, trying to connect Trump to Russia. How many times are you going to fall for this? There are probably better things regarding Trump/Republican policy to focus upon.
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby Michael on Sun Feb 18, 2018 12:36 am

The announcement of the indictment by Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein two days ago.

3:40
“After the election, the defendants allegedly staged rallies to support the president-elect, while simultaneously staging rallies to protest his election,” Rosenstein told reporters. “For example, the defendant organized one rally to support the president-elect and another rally to oppose him, both in New York, on the same day.”

5:23
“There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity,” Rosenstein said. “There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.”



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPK732od8Oc

A summary of the indictment, basically what was said on the video of Rosenstein.
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby windwalker on Sun Feb 18, 2018 5:34 am

has a good time line,,,don't care much for the presentation.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM_guk9 ... e=youtu.be
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby Steve James on Sun Feb 18, 2018 5:36 am

Trump still refuses to sign the sanctions though. It's interesting that he still hasn't agreed publically that Russian did try to interfere with the election, even though the indictment shows that Putin didn't tell the truth. And, does this mean that the investigation was worth it? Should it continue or stop?

The blame shift to Hillary and Obama is immediate and expected. If Obama had said that the Russians wanted Trump to win, what would FOX and the Trump troops would have said? If the only connection was between Hillary and Russia --and Trump said the Russians wanted Clinton to win-- why didn't the indictment confirm that?

And the point of the FB posts was to sow dissension, distrust and division among Americans. They succeeded, and the prez has been happy about it. He even allowed the heads of Russia's intelligence agencies literally into the White House. Let's hear what he has to say about that now. Was he duped or duplicity or both? He was happy about the DNC hacking, remember.
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby Steve James on Sun Feb 18, 2018 6:19 am

Your fearless leader just tweeted that the FBI should have been investigating Cruz instead of wasting time investigating Russia. "No collusion"... But nobody gives a f..k.

Now, he points out that he said it "might" have been the Russians earlier. Fair enough. Now he knows for sure. But, he criticizes the head of his NSA for saying so --because he didn't talk about Hillary.
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby Michael on Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:28 am

I don't think sanctions against Russia are a good thing and generally I think Russia should be considered a competitor and not an enemy. Their demonization is mostly justification for more war spending and we've been through all that before.

Yes, I think the investigation is worth it because it shows the state of affairs inside the USA, that things have gotten to this low level and it's better to be aware of it. The surveillance arranged by Hillary and the Democrats through the FISA court is what people have said all along is an unavoidable problem with secret courts and warrants.

Maybe this will be to the USA what revelations about the STASI were to East Germany and we'll reconsider the pros and cons of what we're doing. Perhaps we'll realize that one consequence of this kind of unaccountable secrecy is to perpetuate the most stagnant and toxic aspects of any established institution.

I agree with Trump maintaining relations with Russia in the middle of outlandish attempts to portray them as the great enemy of the republic, however I do remember when he made that comment during the debates about them hacking Hillary. Trump says some horrible things like that and I'm very grateful you often remind me what he said.
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby Michael on Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:29 am

windwalker wrote:has a good time line,,,don't care much for the presentation.



Saw it a couple of weeks ago.
Michael

 

Re: The Net Tightens

Postby KEND on Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:44 am

Sieele is referred to as 'that spy'. He was a little more than that, he headed the Russia desk at MI5. The democratic party payment tends to cloud the issue, he was probably better informed on Russian operations than anybody else including US intelligence since he was probably more aware of Russia's activities in Europe. Russia has had an ongoing program since WW2 they didn't 'retaliate'. It is also possible steele was acting with the cognizance of MI5, such information is covered in the official secrets act. The M/I complex will seize on this to spend billions on armaments that is a given
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby Steve James on Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:14 am

Michael, I don't think that any of these revelations indicate that there will be less surveillance or better intelligence gathering under a Trump administration. I definitely feel the opposite. All of Trump's tweets and comments undermining every single institution, from the judiciary (and his opinion of judges), to the justice department (and his criticisms of his own appointees), to the Congress, to the FBI and CIA, lead to his conclusion that they all need to be investigated, fired, or prosecuted --if not charged with treason.

So, I think the tendency is more toward a fascist intelligence system run by the state against itself --which means constant surveillance, both in terms of police or military presence as well as monitoring of social media, etc. Isn't that Trump's complaint about the FBI's failure to follow up on Cruz's comments? Didn't someone post a cartoon about the FBI's lack of concern for "domestic terrorism"? Do you think that Trump would oppose more surveillance of Muslims? How about more surveillance of Nazi and KKK and ethno-nationalist groups? How about the friends and contacts of members of those groups? Will he go for limiting their ability to obtain certain weapons?

Afa the FISA stuff, it's another one of those things that I just can't get upset about. Being unjustly surveilled is just part of life. The only reason the Trump party is against is because it was used against Trump. If it were used against Hillary or Obama, the same bunch would be cheering. But, that gets back to the "privacy" (tm bs) argument.

Anyway, as with the birther issue, Trump will soon take credit for getting to the bottom of the whole thing and finding out what's really going on.
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby Steve James on Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:54 am

I don't think sanctions against Russia are a good thing and generally I think Russia should be considered a competitor and not an enemy.


Well, I think you mean that you disagree with sanctions based on what Russia did in the Crimea and Ukraine. I remember the discussions about who was right and wrong in the conflict. Iirc, the Ukrainians were the nazis, and were oppressing the Russians who lived there. This happened before Trump. Likewise, Congress imposed sanctions. Trump now decides whether they should be imposed.

Really, the question is why. Is Russian an "enemy" of the US. Some consider tampering with another country's election an act of war. If Russia meddled in the election, is the only thing we do is try to make sure they don't do it again? Yeah, yeah, I know We have done it in the past, and others do it all the time. NOT the point. They got caught. That's why they can be considered an enemy.

Afa competition, what exactly are we competing for? The PRC is a competitor. We buy Russian steel and import vodka, but we competed with Russia during the Cold War for political dominance. Specifically, it was a competition between the "free world" and communism. It's why we still maintain the embargo on Cuba and consider Castro an enemy. (Hmm, Trump has called the media the "enemy of the people." That's a Stalinist saying). Why is Cuba sanctioned, but Russia not? Russia supported Cuba. Now Russia is capitalist, but the state still controls everything, and is run by an ex-KGB guy.

Anyway, if not a competitor, given what we know today, why consider Russia a friend?
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby origami_itto on Sun Feb 18, 2018 11:03 am

Michael wrote:I don't think sanctions against Russia are a good thing and generally I think Russia should be considered a competitor and not an enemy. Their demonization is mostly justification for more war spending and we've been through all that before.


An overwhelming majority of both houses of congress disagrees.
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Re: The Net Tightens

Postby Michael on Sun Feb 18, 2018 9:11 pm

oragami_itto wrote:
Michael wrote:I don't think sanctions against Russia are a good thing and generally I think Russia should be considered a competitor and not an enemy. Their demonization is mostly justification for more war spending and we've been through all that before.


An overwhelming majority of both houses of congress disagrees.

Based on what? Indictment of some internet trolls who committed identity theft and got a whopping 59,000 "reaches" for a Facebook ad and 3 people to show up for a rally?

We spend as much on military as all of our "enemies" combined, and yet the call for more comes from both the House and Senate, Trump, the military industrial complex, etc. I'd rather spend some of that money on other things, like infrasturcture of all kinds.
Michael

 

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