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Recent news in the US
17 February 2017, 00:44,
#1
Recent news in the US
Attempted President Trump impeachment coming up? Dr Paul Craig Roberts seems to think so.

Good thing you guys stood up for your rights...

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/02/...dency-rip/
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17 February 2017, 03:06,
#2
RE: Recent news in the US
Not a credible source. He just parrots whatever Russian propaganda Putin puts out over RT. But the New York Observer has an interesting story I will post a link to when I get back to my desktop.

73 de KE4SKY
In
"Almost Heaven" West Virginia
USA
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17 February 2017, 03:11,
#3
RE: Recent news in the US
KremlinGate Enters Uncharted Waters as Russian Links Overwhelm DC

New revelations of clandestine ties between the president and Moscow bring turmoil to the Oval Office
By John R. Schindler • 02/15/17 6:15pm

http://observer.com/2017/02/donald-trump...ike-flynn/

Just a few days ago, I broke the story that the National Security Agency, the country’s most prolific and secretive spy service, was withholding highly sensitive intelligence from the White House, fearing that it might be compromised by members of Team Trump who possess unsettling links to Moscow. That bombshell, which gained significant media traction, was pooh-poohed by some pundits who preferred to ignore the new administration’s increasingly obvious ties to the Kremlin.

Then Michael Flynn, the embattled National Security Advisor, got pushed out late Monday, once the extent of his dishonesty about his repeated phone calls to the Russian ambassador came to light. Flynn’s unceremonious defenestration, just three weeks after the inauguration, sets a White House record—but what’s remarkable is how someone as slippery and dissimulating as Flynn lasted even that long.

Particularly since the Justice Department shared its security concerns about the National Security Advisor with the White House weeks ago, based on intercepts of calls between Flynn and the Russian embassy in Washington, to no avail. That Flynn lied about the content of those calls, specifically discussions of lifting sanctions on Russia, to Vice President Mike Pence, offered the ostensible reason why Flynn tendered his resignation, but the reality is murkier and more troubling.

In the first place, it’s difficult to see how Flynn decided to parley with Moscow without a go-ahead of some kind from Donald Trump. We don’t know this to be the case and cannot allege or even speculate that this occurred. But while Flynn is unquestionably a loose cannon, as a career military man he understands the chain of command with perfect clarity. Moreover, accepting that the soon-to-be National Security Advisor opened up back-channels of communication with the Kremlin all by himself is as credible as the notion that the Plumbers decided to break into the Watergate without orders from higher up.

In response to Flynn’s downfall, the right-wing media went into spasms of indignation, denouncing his “political assassination“—a take endorsed by the president himself. Allegations of political interference by leaky, Obama-controlled intelligence agencies spread like wildfire, though it’s impossible not to notice that the same right-wing pundits now furious about Intelligence Community leaks hurting Trump were greeting similar leaks rapturously exactly one year ago, when they were severely damaging Hillary Clinton in EmailGate.

The president seems to be increasingly flabbergasted by the exposure of his clandestine relationship with Moscow.

Trump likewise demonstrates remarkable inconsistency, since only a few months ago, he considered how purloined Clinton and Democratic National Committee emails went public to be utterly unimportant compared to their content. In the president’s eyes, IC leaks of information unflattering to him are illegal and immoral, while Russian intelligence stealing his opponents’ emails and divulging them to the public via Wikileaks are the height of integrity and patriotism.

The rising debate over Flynn’s demise, however, was quickly overshadowed by explosive reports that revealed Team Trump’s secret collusion with the Kremlin in the months leading up to the election. As The New York Times reported, NSA intercepted numerous conversations between members of Trump’s inner circle and senior Russian intelligence officials, as well as other Kremlin power-players. Although NSA sources did not reveal the content of those calls—and even specified that to date, no signs of collusion in hurting Clinton’s campaign had been found—the appearance of something worse than mere impropriety was unavoidable. There are several reasons why a presidential campaign might regularly contact a hostile foreign intelligence service—and none of them is savory.

Then CNN amplified this big news with a deeply sourced report of its own describing “constant communications” between high-level Trump associates and Russian spies last summer and fall. There’s now no doubt why NSA is worried about sharing its best intelligence with a White House that can’t get off the phone to the Kremlin.

One of the Trump associates named in both reports is Paul Manafort, the shady veteran political operative who left the campaign last August when his unsavory ties to the Kremlin hit the newspapers. In response to the latest allegations, Manafort replied, “I don’t remember talking to any Russian officials,” last year, memorably adding that he had no recollection of ever being in contact with Kremlin spies: “It’s not like these people wear badges that say, ‘I’m a Russian intelligence officer.’”

That appears to be yet another untruth, since as I reported back in August, Manafort’s longtime friend in Kyiv, Konstantin Kilimnik, who served as his translator and sidekick during Manafort’s years as a political fixer for Ukraine’s then-ruling party, was remarkably open about his longstanding affiliation with GRU, that is Russian military intelligence. Kilimnik boasted of his GRU ties, which he didn’t discuss in the past tense only. For Manafort to say he’s never been in contact with Russian spies is therefore unconvincing.

Since the Intelligence Community has already concluded that Russian spies, acting on the orders of President Vladimir Putin, clandestinely interfered in our election last year, to benefit Trump at the expense of Hillary Clinton, the Republican candidate’s regular contacts with the Kremlin and its spy agencies appear highly suspicious and raise many troubling questions. Here some of Trump’s stranger utterances on the campaign trail, for instance his encouraging Moscow last summer to release more of his opponent’s purloined emails, go from appearing merely unseemly to potentially something much worse.

In response to the latest revelations of Team Trump’s troubling Moscow linkages, his defenders are citing the usual litany of excuses which we are accustomed to hearing from Wikileaks and all the other Putin-helpers in the media. That our spy agencies are out of control and spying on Americans. That the IC is partisan and inclined to casually break laws. That Americans should fear our own spies, but strangely not Russia’s.

Perhaps this is progress of a sort, since it was only a few weeks ago that Trump compared the IC to Nazi Germany.

None of this is true. In the first place, NSA intercepted the relevant communications entirely legally. Just as in the Flynn case, they were not “spying on Americans” but on legitimate foreign intelligence targets, in this case under the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. When an American citizen pops up in, say, a phone call to a top GRU operative—that’s called “incidental collection”—that information gets minimized and tightly protected. But NSA and the FBI are not required to pretend the call never happened, so long as proper minimization procedures, which are required by FISA, are followed.

The president seems to be increasingly flabbergasted by the exposure of his clandestine relationship with Moscow. As is his wont, he took to Twitter to lambaste the Intelligence Community and the mainstream media some more, denouncing “fake news” and IC leaks, while asserting that American spies are acting “just like Russia”—a puzzling statement that may be more revealing than the president intended—and to top it off they’re “very un-American.” Perhaps this is progress of a sort, since it was only a few weeks ago that Trump compared the IC to Nazi Germany on Twitter.

All the same, presidential mania on social media isn’t a pretty picture and will do nothing to stop the coming investigations by Congress into what exactly was going on between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin last year. Trump’s bluster and deflections on the campaign trail sufficed to push aside some of those troubling questions, but things have reached a point that the full story, no matter how unpleasant it may be, will come out, eventually.

At a minimum, the House and Senate intelligence committees will be conducting investigations which ought to worry the White House, whose political future will likely depend on how many Republicans are willing to back Trump—and by extension the Kremlin—over fellow Americans. Since several prominent Republican senators, including Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr, have indicated that investigations are going forward, the White House can’t depend on partisan loyalty to protect them for much longer.

Republicans should be advised to put country over party right now and pursue rigorous inquiries into the full extent of Trump’s Moscow links and their impact on the election—and the new administration. Washington is at the precipice of a scandal unlike anything seen since Watergate. Indeed, KremlinGate promises to be much seedier and more troubling than anything proffered by President Nixon.

Here the inevitable comparisons to Watergate fall short. Tricky Dick committed domestic crimes, and paid the price for them, but Nixon was in no way beholden to a foreign power—much less one which has several thousand nuclear weapons pointed at the United States. Neither did Nixon collude with that foreign power’s spies to arrange his own election to the presidency.

We are now discussing things worse than mere impeachment. If members of Trump’s team colluded with Russian intelligence, the Espionage Act comes into play, and we’ve entered uncharted waters, presidentially speaking.

For the foreseeable future, the still-forming White House will be enmeshed in fighting for its political life as disturbing allegations mount in Washington. Donald Trump promised to shake up American politics, and less than a month into his presidency he has surely done so. But not in the way he promised.

73 de KE4SKY
In
"Almost Heaven" West Virginia
USA
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17 February 2017, 10:33,
#4
RE: Recent news in the US
I'm not so sure. They are throwing everything they can at him to rattle him and slow him down but he still managed to do most of his campaign promises in the first three weeks, They can't keep it up and he still has just under 4 years to go, more if they keep this up.

It does show that politics need a good shake up and that is going on now. Upsetting the applecart was always going to be messy.
Skean Dhude
-------------------------------
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. - Charles Darwin
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17 February 2017, 11:57,
#5
RE: Recent news in the US
The cries of treason are already being fired off.
I feel Trump acted too quickly in shaking the apple cart - maybe he would have been better off taking a year to build his team/army before making any bold moves.
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17 February 2017, 12:37,
#6
RE: Recent news in the US
Everyday HERE in the UK Trump is on our news ....i have never seen anything like it EVER ! this assassination by the MM press is unbelievable ...and our shower fake press joining in ....TV, Radio and the papers...Today on the morning news we were told that Tony Blair is to promote the idea of a NEW REFERENDUM on Brexit okay we ALL know he is a complete and utter lying TWAT (i am being kind here) .....but all these actions just reinforces how corrupt our world really IS ....i know we are told that bad people Will have their judgement in the end.....but i just had a word with GOD ...and asked can judgements be done a bit faster ....even if still living...and the handing out of size 14 shovels ....i'v had no reply as yet....but i did have a sort of vision though.....someone looking at my hands and this voice saying "oh my SS what great big hands you'v got!"
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17 February 2017, 23:54,
#7
RE: Recent news in the US
(17 February 2017, 11:57)LAC Wrote: The cries of treason are already being fired off.
I feel Trump acted too quickly in shaking the apple cart - maybe he would have been better off taking a year to build his team/army before making any bold moves.

It is a two edged sword. If he works fast he is being brash and impulsive and if he works more slowly they scream he is not fulfilling his campaign promises.

Impeachment in the U.S. is not as easy as screaming in the streets or calling for a no confidence vote. It also can not be initiated by retired college professors or journalism hacks.

Trump can only be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors or treason and even then a 2/3 majority of Congress is needed to remove a president. They do not have that majority.

Add to that Trump is sitting on a good majority approval rating. The press would have the world think we were burning down our nation and rioting in the streets ad it is not happening. Trump has a 55% approval rating and it is going up daily.

Trump knew that there would be impeachment threats from day one. It was "plot for overthrow of the government scheme #1" from before the election.

Bill Clinton was as guilty as sin for lying to Congress, and everyone knew it and he basically admitted it, but he was not removed from office. He committed pure treason, but his party was able to block his removal.

What is happening with the media right now is they are losing all credibility and no one is believing anything they say. It is not just the news either, I have stopped watching half of what is on TV as being a biased smear campaign against our nation. The main TV channels have turned into pure propaganda broadcast systems. Anti Trump stuff pops up everywhere and in every station brake, news alert and candy commercial.

It is biased bigotry of the worst kind and reminds me of the propaganda campaigns of the Hitler era, only this time it is the ultra liberal media attempting to overthrow the established government.
__________
Every person should view freedom of speech as an essential right.
Without it you can not tell who the idiots are.
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18 February 2017, 00:20,
#8
RE: Recent news in the US
If you observe the "Mainstream" US media, especially conservative media, the talk is focussed about the Dems not having a "message" to advance to their people and that there aren't any young-bloods to rebuild the party around.

Bollocks! Why rebuild what you don't need, and which has become irrelevant?

If you think of this US internal political within the context of old Cold War Soviet-style "active measures," the end-products of covert, quasi-military activity, AND you're one of the One-Worlders, project ahead to envision what your goals are and what resources you need to achieve progress...

No US elections soon, so why put time and resources into the base? Instead, use what you control: the press, established Civil Service appointees [leftist operatives] seeded into all of our intelligence organizations by Obama; use the constitution and articles of impeachment, foment widespread chaos financed by Soros' money and his street goons of Move On, and Black Lives Matter.

By so doing, you capture all the focus which had been focussed upon Trump's successes, and replace it with a fear and distrust based upon the perception he's ineffective, elitist, racist, etc.

That's the game on the board! Anyone who doesn't see it for what it is mentally challenged.

I told Trump supporters during the election campaign to be careful what they asked for. He is a Trojan Horse.

Now there is an ongoing high speed dash now among the DNC and establishment Republicans alike to use the Russians as the lever and means to impeach Trump. Doing so would cause a constitutional crisis which will surely be exploited by the DPRK, Iran, the Russians and China to create destabilizing mischief while the White House and our Intelligence Community continue shuffling their deck chairs on the Titanic...

We should expect a continuous clamor from MSM/lib press to drum the vilification of the Russians/Putin to the US public, featuring them hacking the election, touting their spy ship off our East coast, the compromising of General Flynn, etc.

Their goal is to create a foundation of fear and loathing toward the Trump Administration, upon which can the libs and disgruntled Republican establishment can collectively build a case to impeach Trump, based on his and his staffs' relationship with those evil Russians. This effort is being aided and abetted not only by the MSM but by many remaining Obama/DNC appointed Senior Executive Service [leftist operatives] still working within the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc.

Any article which purports to have cogent analysis of Trump's staff/motives, etc, especially when based on speculation, should be REJECTED as a factual source unless it contains a quality analysis of other explanations which can equally or better account for the behaviors being reported on - like left over Obama mid-level administrative "true believers" working to implement the means of impeachment, by creating chaos and blaming Trump for it, coupled with their handlers use of Goebbels big lie philosophy: "tell them a big lie often and they will come to believe it" to explain the chaos to the people.

There are already some liberals claiming he is unfit to lead because his relationship w/ Russia is traitorous! Those of us who spent our formative years in uniform mitigating against these old-style Soviet Cold War active measures agree that this unfortunate assessment may well be so and we feel a disturbing sense of deja vu...

73 de KE4SKY
In
"Almost Heaven" West Virginia
USA
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18 February 2017, 16:10,
#9
RE: Recent news in the US
Thanks for the information all, very informative.
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19 February 2017, 22:10,
#10
RE: Recent news in the US
In the next few weeks you will be hearing the ravings of one of our senators named John McCain.

He ran against Obama back in '08 and was crushed due to his pandering to the liberal elements. His plan being to become as liberal as the liberals to steal some of their base, Over here that never works and what happened was the independent swing vote that is heavily conservative stayed at home, giving Obama the edge. One was just as bad as the other so why vote?

He is an institution in Congress and no one seems able to move him out of the way due to the choices in his State being even worse than himself. He is the leader of the anti-Trump, non-conservative segment of the Republican Party. The leader of the infighting.

The leader of the losers on the winning side!

He is bitter due to being shown up by a non-institutional politician who won against an entrenched politician, and he has been trying to organize the entrenched Republicans (the professional politicians) against Trump from the day Trump announced his campaign.

His rantings are not those of the majority of America, or the majority of voters that put Trump in place. We elected Trump in spite of what McCain says and/or does.

Trump is doing exactly what we elected him to do.
__________
Every person should view freedom of speech as an essential right.
Without it you can not tell who the idiots are.
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