***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[IATT]

Wait.. Pete actually served and trump got what 4 or 5 instances of ducking service...

 

[atlsfinest]

Is Obama gonna adress Bloomberg running this ad with his face all over it? I swear, there are about 3 Dem candidates running their campaign on being Obama-adjacent

 

[junglejim]

Team Trump really pushing the DNC rigging the election narrative.

Its pretty ironic given that man has conspired with two different foreign governments to help rig two different elections.

 

[IATT]

Its pretty ironic given that man has conspired with two different foreign governments to help rig two different elections.

And dont forget

Republicans to scrap primaries and caucuses as Trump challengers cry foul

The moves, which critics called undemocratic, are the latest illustration of the president's total takeover of the GOP apparatus.

www.politico.com

 

[boris]

Its pretty ironic given that man has conspired with two different foreign governments to help rig two different elections.

These idiots can’t win without cheating and spreading false information.

 

[dwalk31]

Its pretty ironic given that man has conspired with two different foreign governments to help rig two different elections.

Ironically the mueller investigation didn’t come to this conclusion

 

[junglejim]

These idiots can’t win without cheating and spreading false information.

I don't know what you are talking about?



This is obviously true

 

[junglejim]

Ironically the mueller investigation didn’t come to this conclusion

Sorry let me rephrase this. The Russians overwhelmingly interfered in our election to support Donald J Trump and under no circumstances did Donald J Trump go on live television asking the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton's emails whereby soliciting the help of a foreign government.

 

[Belgium]

Ironically the mueller investigation didn’t come to this conclusion

Part of that question was left unanswered because Roger Stone successfully obstructed the investigation and deleted relevant communications.
All the prosecutors could prove was that Stone committed 7 felonies to hide the answers and shield Trump.
Manafort likewise successfully obstructed the investigation regarding his relationship with former GRU officer Konstantin Kilimnik and his boss Oleg Deripaska.

 

[dwalk31]

Part of that question was left unanswered because Roger Stone successfully obstructed the investigation and deleted relevant communications.
All the prosecutors could prove was that Stone committed 7 felonies to hide the answers and shield Trump.
Manafort likewise successfully obstructed the investigation regarding his relationship with former GRU officer Konstantin Kilimnik and his boss Oleg Deripaska.

So my statement was factually accurate?

 

[elpablo21]

 

[junglejim]

Midas well put a moat next to the wall too.

 

[Nike Jordan]

Is Obama gonna dress Bloomberg running this ad with his face all over it? I swear, there are about 3 Dem candidates running their campaign on being Obama-adjacent

I've seen this ad on TV several times. It makes you think Obama outright endorsed Goonberg.

 

[Mark Antony]

I don't know what you are talking about?



This is obviously true

I would like to fight this cretin.

 

[Belgium]

dwalk31
What do you make of the fact that Trump continues to defend Manafort and hasn't uttered one word of criticism about Manafort's spying on the campaign on behalf of Oleg Deripaska and his two ex-Russian intelligence deputies?

Throughout all this time, Trump has yet to utter a single word of criticism towards Manafort for spying on his campaign on behalf of a well-connected Russian oligarch.

From very early on after becoming Trump's campaign chairman, Manafort reached out to former GRU officer Konstantin Kilimnik to ask how he could leverage his position for Oleg Deripaska. Manafort's deputy Rick Gates and others like Alex Van Der Zwaan believed Kilimnik was a spy, as did Kilimnik's former colleagues in Ukraine.

Kilimnik, acting as a liaison between Manafort and Oleg Deripaska, briefed the latter on his interactions with Manafort. Both by personal interactions with Deripaska himself and interactions with Deripaska's deputy Viktor Boyarkin.
Boyarkin is a former Russian intelligence officer. As Putin says, there is no such thing as ex-intelligence in Russia.

At one point, Manafort offered to provide "private briefings" about the Trump campaign to Deripaska, according to an email he sent to Kilimnik.
Manafort denied that he followed through on his offer.

Instead, Manafort provided Kilimnik with private Trump campaign polling data over a span of several months. Manafort instructed Rick Gates to assist in the effort to transfer the polling data collected by Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio. Manafort understood that Kilimnik was going to provide the data to Oleg Deripaska, as well as Manafort's former Ukrainian paymasters Lyovochkin and Akhmetov. The latter are both oligarchs affiliated with the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc party in Ukraine.

On August 2 2016, Kilimnik flew to NY from Russia to meet with Manafort and Gates at the NY Grand Havana club.
At this meeting, Manafort gave Kilimnik a full detailed walkthrough of the polling data. Additionally, he also briefed Kilimnik on the campaign's confidential strategy for a number of key states. Lastly, Manafort discussed their joint effort to secure a pro-Russian "peace plan" for Ukraine.
Little is known about the so-called Mariupol Plan, other than the fact it included bringing back Viktor Yanukovich, the corrupt former Ukrainian president who fled to Moscow after being overthrown. Manafort's daughters described Manafort's former work for Yanukovich as resulting in "blood money" because Manafort had "blood on his hands."

The next day, Kilimnik flew back to Moscow. 7 days later, Oleg Deripaska was spotted alongside Yevgeny Prigozhin, the key figure in the Internet Research Agency's election interference. Prigozhin was indicted by Mueller, as was his company Concord Management, which is currently fighting the charges in the US. The judge imposed a firewall agreement to force the US-based lawyers to seek permission from the court to share any sensitive information with Prigozhin.

The agreement did not work however, and at some point a Russian disinformation campaign appeared online that included documents that were an exact match to non-sensitive discovery materials provided to Concord Management as part of discovery.
Mueller disclosed this in a court filing, noting that some of the documents had been falsified to make the evidence look weaker.
Since then, prosecutors have recently stated in a court filing that they intend to seek a superseding indictment against Concord Management.

After Manafort was forced out of the campaign, he instructed Rick Gates to continue collecting and transfering confidential polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik. Gates did as he was told and the transfers continued for several weeks.

After Manafort's indictment, he continued working with Konstantin Kilimnik on the Ukraine 'peace plan.'
During this time, he also engaged in a conspiracy with Kilimnik to tamper with witnesses relating to his FARA criminal charges.

Manafort ended up being convicted on 8 counts and later pleaded guilty to the other charges, as well as the charges that resulted in a hung jury in the trial due to a lone Trump supporter.

Ahead of the trial, Trump publicly praised Manafort. During jury deliberations he once again praised Manafort in public and attacked the prosecutors.

Some time after the guilty plea, Manafort entered a cooperation agreement with the Special Counsel. Unlike all other cooperators, Manafort stayed in a joint defense agreement with Trump. During his cooperation, Manafort's attorney Kevin Downer briefed Trump's attorneys on all of his interactions with the Mueller prosecutors.

During this cooperation agreement, Manafort repeatedly lied to prosecutors and successfully obstructed their attempts to learn more about the polling data and his relationship with Kilimnik. Prosecutors described these matters as "core to what the Special Counsel is tasked with investigating."

While constantly staying in touch with Trump's attorneys during the time he was lying to prosecutors, Trump publicly stated on November 28 2018 that a pardon for Manafort was still on the table.

Manafort sabotaged his plea own plea deal to successfully prevent prosecutors from getting the answers to matters that laid at the heart of the Special Counsel's mandate. Trump has continued to defend Manafort afterwards, despite his crimespree and months-long spying on the Trump campaign.

 

[Belgium]

So my statement was factually accurate?

Devoid of nuance but generally yes, assuming conspiring is meant in the criminal context rather than colloquially.

The lengths Manafort and Stone went to in order to obstruct the investigation from getting answers to that central question suggests there was certainly something there but their obstruction was successful and thus the prosecutors were unable to learn the full scope of what they sought to hide.

Stone, a notorious liar known for spreading falsehoods, correctly provided the Trump campaign with information that was either a miraculous prediction or advance knowledge of Russia's interference. The Trump campaign built a strategy around Stone's information and Manafort instructed Rick Gates to periodically get updates from Stone about Wikileaks' plans. Steve Bannon testified that the campaign saw Stone as their access point to Wikileaks. Stone was also in touch with the GRU during the election.
Many of Stone's communications from the relevant periods in 2016 were deleted and unrecoverable. When Congress sought answers from Stone about the central question of the campaign's link to Russia's interference, Stone committed 7 felonies to cover up those answers.
The natural inference of that is that whatever Stone was trying to hide was worth a potential sentence of several years in prison.

 

[IATT]

Midas well put a moat next to the wall too.

the only people who thought great strategy was used in the 'battle of winterfell'

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

dwalk31

 

[mplsdunk]

Dude, what’s the issue? I said my bad because I didn’t remember that convo that feels like it was over a year ago. I’m reminded now.

Also re: Jacksonville Florida, most people don’t really include Florida in the Deep South discussion despite it being technically a southern state.

Florida’s culture is quite a bit different than say Ga, Al, and Ms.

But even when you told me that, I said my bad. It’s like you’re acting like I’m calling you white or saying you’re lying or something. I’m not.

Huh? Jacksonville is basically southern Georgia.

same with the panhandle or anything inland.

The coastal cities south of about Tampa are filled with transplants from the Midwest and NE so it gives it a different feel.

Take a trip through green cove or Ocala and tell me how not southern Florida is.

also “the south” isn’t one culture. What does a hillbilly from Kentucky have in common with someone from N.O?

 

[aepps20]

dwalk31

dwalk31 probably loves gym but wouldn't be comfortable if he was the wrestling coach anyone he knew. DISGUSTING

 

[Quincy McCall]

Before SuperTuesday Beezy gotta step out of the shadows like Marlo and tell these old white dudes to stop playing with his name

 

[Belgium]

He's just mad Trump is saying the quiet part out loud.

 

[rexanglorum]

I hate to slightly agree with DWalk but some liberals (not the left) have completely and entirely lost the ability to identify friends and enemies. Eight years of Barack Obama wielding the awesome and lethal powers of the America State, followed by three years of Trump being seen as a usurper has created a lot of love for the institutions which dispense violence for the benefit of the bourgeoisie, white supremacist American state.

The CIA, FBI, Department of Defense and Federal Prosecutors became heroes not because they are now working to advance social justice nor because they have done anything at all to atone for their crimes, which they clearly have not. Those institutions that exist to destroy, maim and cage millions of dissident bodies have achieved respectability among the so called "left" because they, on occasion, annoy and inconvenience Donald Trump.

The rule that annoying Trump will get you redeemed and then celebrated among many, many liberals knows no bounds.

Bloomberg in 2012 was a racist, plutocratic mayor, now he's being embraced. Back in 2005 or so, it was considered a bad thing to run sweatshops, pay workers next to nothing. Remember the utter terror inspired by WalMart? Now it's all good, Jeff Bezos gets under Trump's skin and Bezos and Amazon are great.

Speaking of Bezos, back in 2004 or so, a super rich guy or a big company owning a media outlet meant that we had to be skeptical of it as a source. I remember in the 2000's not being a liberal nor being a leftist and debating with friends and classmates and when I'd feel like I'd made a good point by quoting something from a mainstream news outlet, the rebuttal was that those source were from corporate media. Now, making connections between the biases in the media and the material interests of the owners of media outlets, is considered a conspiracy theory.

In 2005 John Bolton was rightly considered a butcher and a war criminal as was everyone associated with the Bush Administration's War in Iraq. Now, they all have gigs on MSNBC and they they sell books to gullible and well off liberals.


Now, I get that politics is transactional but liberals are settling for a pretty bad deal. If the FBI deposed Trump, if Bezos sent a private army to liberate the concentration camps on the border, if the Federal Marshals, ICE, DHS and United States attorneys made it clear that they would not enforce or prosecute any one for illegal entry if they ignored the Muslim ban, we'd be having a different conversation.

As it stands, none of these powerful people or institutions are seriously checking Trump. nor do they intend to do any thing beyond the symbolic. This should not be a huge surprise. People who have lots of money and who are racist and who prey on vulnerable people like Donald Trump and if Donald Trump had nicer fitting suits, a high quality hair implant job , was thin and spoke reasonable well, those same people and institutions would not even symbolically resist him, they'd embrace him.