(04-11-2017, 12:20 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Milo is about as Alt-Right as John Major.

Wiki Wrote:Milo Yiannopoulos (/jəˈnɒpᵿləs/; born Milo Hanrahan; 18 October 1984; also writing under the pen name Milo Andreas Wagner is a British media personality associated with the political alt-right and a former senior editor for Breitbart News. Describing himself as a "cultural libertarian," he is a vocal critic of feminism, Islam, social justice, political correctness, and other movements and ideologies he sees as authoritarian or of the regressive left.

In July 2016, he was permanently banned from Twitter for what the company cited as "inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others".

In February 2017 he resigned from Breitbart after a controversy arising from a video clip in which he said that sexual relationships between 13-year-old boys and adult men and women can be "perfectly consensual" and positive experiences for the boys. Defending himself in the midst of allegations that he was a supporter of paedophilia, Yiannopoulos stated that his statements were an attempt to cope with his own past victimhood, as an object of child abuse.

CNN Wrote:The White House said Tuesday the Syrian regime and Russia are trying to "confuse the world community about who is responsible for using chemical weapons against the Syrian people in this and earlier attacks."

Senior administration officials stopped short of saying there was definitive proof of Russian collusion with Syria on the chemical attack last week, but the administration bluntly accused the Russian government of helping the Syrian regime cover-up chemical weapons still in the country.

CNN Wrote:White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that, despite the report, there was "no consensus in the intelligence community" that Russia was complicit in the attack.

The comments from White House officials come after Russian leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, dismissed the idea they were aware of the chemical attacks.

Exasperated, Putin told reporters that that the story is "very tedious."

(04-11-2017, 01:46 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Here is CNN reporting on the Trump White House suggesting collusion with Syria in the recent chemical attacks.  White House: Russia, Syrian regime trying to 'confuse' the world over chemical attacks.

CNN Wrote:The White House said Tuesday the Syrian regime and Russia are trying to "confuse the world community about who is responsible for using chemical weapons against the Syrian people in this and earlier attacks."

Senior administration officials stopped short of saying there was definitive proof of Russian collusion with Syria on the chemical attack last week, but the administration bluntly accused the Russian government of helping the Syrian regime cover-up chemical weapons still in the country.

The article ends...

CNN Wrote:White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that, despite the report, there was "no consensus in the intelligence community" that Russia was complicit in the attack.

The comments from White House officials come after Russian leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, dismissed the idea they were aware of the chemical attacks.

Exasperated, Putin told reporters that that the story is "very tedious."

This to me echoes the Trump style.  If anyone opposes him, he will make up stuff and go on a PR offensive without being able to back it up.  I guess it worked during the campaign.  Running international diplomacy that way seems questionable.

(04-11-2017, 01:03 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: If you look at where and who is producing this Drama it isn't Hollyweird.  And I don't watch Game of Thrones on the Tee-Vee either.  I refuse to pay for HBO and would rather watch it pirated.

(05-10-2017, 10:02 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Smash the Ugly Green Toad. Prosecute Treason!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/05/10/daily-202-firing-fbi-director-comey-is-already-backfiring-on-trump-it-s-only-going-to-get-worse/5912635de9b69b209cf2b7fb/?utm_term=.5b835653ed57

'“The Comey putsch heightens the mystery at the center of the Flynn case,” David Ignatius, who first broke the news of Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador, writes in a must-read column. “Trump has been digging a hole for himself from the beginning on Russia-related issues. It’s an odd pattern of behavior. Trump may have done nothing improper involving Russia, but why does he act so defensive? In a book called ‘Spy the Lie,’ a group of former intelligence officers explain the behavioral and linguistic cues that indicate when someone is being deceptive. Interestingly, many of these are evident in Trump’s responses to questions about Russia’s covert involvement in U.S. politics. The authors’ list of tip-offs includes ‘going into attack mode,’ ‘inappropriate questions,’ ‘inconsistent statements,’ ‘selective memory’ and the use of ‘qualifiers,’ such as ‘frankly,’ ‘honestly’ and ‘truthfully.’ The authors’ point is that people who are innocent answer questions simply and directly.”'

(05-10-2017, 10:02 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Smash the Ugly Green Toad. Prosecute Treason!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/05/10/daily-202-firing-fbi-director-comey-is-already-backfiring-on-trump-it-s-only-going-to-get-worse/5912635de9b69b209cf2b7fb/?utm_term=.5b835653ed57

'“The Comey putsch heightens the mystery at the center of the Flynn case,” David Ignatius, who first broke the news of Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador, writes in a must-read column. “Trump has been digging a hole for himself from the beginning on Russia-related issues. It’s an odd pattern of behavior. Trump may have done nothing improper involving Russia, but why does he act so defensive? In a book called ‘Spy the Lie,’ a group of former intelligence officers explain the behavioral and linguistic cues that indicate when someone is being deceptive. Interestingly, many of these are evident in Trump’s responses to questions about Russia’s covert involvement in U.S. politics. The authors’ list of tip-offs includes ‘going into attack mode,’ ‘inappropriate questions,’ ‘inconsistent statements,’ ‘selective memory’ and the use of ‘qualifiers,’ such as ‘frankly,’ ‘honestly’ and ‘truthfully.’ The authors’ point is that people who are innocent answer questions simply and directly.”'

(05-11-2017, 03:34 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(03-11-2017, 11:49 AM)Odin Wrote: Robert Kagan: Russia’s ability to manipulate U.S. elections is a national security issue, not a political one.

Quote:It would have been impossible to imagine a year ago that the Republican Party’s leaders would be effectively serving as enablers of Russian interference in this country’s political system. Yet, astonishingly, that is the role the Republican Party is playing.

U.S. intelligence services have stated that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the intention of swinging it to one side. Knowing how cautious the intelligence community is in making such judgments, and given the significance of this particular finding, the evidence must be compelling. At the very least, any reasonable person would have to conclude that there is enough evidence to warrant a serious, wide-ranging and open investigation. Polls suggest that a majority of Americans would like to see such an investigation carried out.

It’s important at this time of intense political conflict to remain focused on the most critical issue. Whether certain individuals met with Russian officials, and whether those meetings were significant, is secondary and can eventually be sorted out. The most important question concerns Russia’s ability to manipulate U.S. elections. That is not a political issue. It is a national security issue. If the Russian government did interfere in the United States’ electoral processes last year, then it has the capacity to do so in every election going forward. This is a powerful and dangerous weapon, more than warships or tanks or bombers. Neither Russia nor any potential adversary has the power to damage the U.S. political system with weapons of war. But by creating doubts about the validity, integrity, and reliability of U.S. elections, it can shake that system to its foundations.

The United States has not been the only victim. The argument by at least one former Obama administration official and others that last year’s interference was understandable payback for past American policies is undermined by the fact that Russia is also interfering in the coming elections in France and Germany, and it has already interfered in Italy’s recent referendum and in numerous other elections across Europe. Russia is deploying this weapon against as many democracies as it can to sap public confidence in democratic institutions.

The democracies are going to have to figure out how to respond. With U.S. congressional elections just 20 months away, it is essential to get a full picture of what the Russians did do and can do here, and soon. The longer the American people remain in the dark about Russian manipulations, the longer they will remain vulnerable to them. The longer Congress fails to inform itself, the longer it will be before it can take steps to meet the threat. Unfortunately, the present administration cannot be counted on to do so on its own.

There’s no need to ask what Republicans would be doing if the shoe were on the other foot—if the Russians had intervened to help elect the Democratic nominee. They would be demanding a bipartisan select committee of Congress, or a congressionally mandated blue-ribbon panel of experts and senior statesmen with full subpoena powers to look into the matter. They would be insisting that, for reasons of national security alone, it was essential to determine what happened: what the Russians did, how they did it and how they could be prevented from doing it again. If that investigation found that certain American individuals had somehow participated in or facilitated the Russian operation, they would insist that such information be made public and that appropriate legal proceedings begin. And if the Democrats tried to slow-roll the investigations, to block the creation of select committees or outside panels, or to insist that investigations be confined to the intelligence committees whose inquiries and findings could be kept from the public, Republicans would accuse them of a coverup and of exposing the nation to further attacks. And they would be right.

But it is the Republicans who are covering up. The party’s current leader, the president, questions the intelligence community’s findings, motives, and integrity. Republican leaders in Congress have opposed the creation of any special investigating committee, either inside or outside Congress. They have insisted that inquiries be conducted by the two intelligence committees. Yet the Republican chairman of the committee in the House has indicated that he sees no great urgency to the investigation and has even questioned the seriousness and validity of the accusations. The Republican chairman of the committee in the Senate has approached the task grudgingly. The result is that the investigations seem destined to move slowly, produce little information and provide even less to the public. It is hard not to conclude that this is precisely the intent of the Republican Party’s leadership, both in the White House and Congress.

This approach not only is damaging to U.S. national security but also puts the Republican Party in an untenable position. When Republicans stand in the way of thorough, open and immediate investigations, they become Russia’s accomplices after the fact. This is undoubtedly not their intent. No one in the party wants to help Russia harm the United States and its democratic institutions. But Republicans need to face the fact that by slowing down, limiting or otherwise hampering the fullest possible investigation into what happened, that is what they are doing.

It’s time for the party to put national security above partisan interest. Republican leaders need to name a bipartisan select committee or create an outside panel, and they need to do so immediately. They must give that committee the mission and all the necessary means for getting to the bottom of what happened last year. And then they must begin to find ways to defend the nation against this new weapon that threatens to weaken American democracy. The stakes are far too high for politics as usual.

I missed your post when you did it. This is very good. BTW I read "While America Sleeps" when it first came out. Haters of Neocons would hate it.

(03-11-2017, 11:49 AM)Odin Wrote: Robert Kagan: Russia’s ability to manipulate U.S. elections is a national security issue, not a political one.

<snip>

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176280/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_globalization_of_misery/[/
Much [url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/politics/trump-invites-rodrigo-duterte-to-the-white-house.html Wrote:outrage[/url] has been expressed in recent weeks over President Donald Trump’s invitation for a White House visit to Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, whose “war on drugs” has led to thousands of extrajudicial killings. Criticism of Trump was especially intense given his similarly warm public support for other authoritarian rulers like Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sisi (who visited the Oval Office to much praise only weeks earlier), Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who got a congratulatory phone call from President Trump on his recent referendum victory, granting him increasingly unchecked powers), and Thailand’s Prayuth Chan-ocha (who also received a White House invitation).
But here’s the strange thing: the critics generally ignored the far more substantial and long-standing bipartisan support U.S. presidents have offered these and dozens of other repressive regimes over the decades. After all, such autocratic countries share one striking thing in common. They are among at least 45 less-than-democratic nations and territories that today host scores of U.S. military bases, from ones the size of not-so-small American towns to tiny outposts. Together, these bases are homes to tens of thousands of U.S. troops.
To ensure basing access from Central America to Africa, Asia to the Middle East, U.S. officials have repeatedly collaborated with fiercely anti-democratic regimes and militaries implicated in torture, murder, the suppression of democratic rights, the systematic oppression of women and minorities, and numerous other human rights abuses. Forget the recent White House invitations and Trump’s public compliments. For nearly three quarters of a century, the United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in maintaining bases and troops in such repressive states. From Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Republican and Democratic administrations alike have, since World War II, regularly shown a preference for maintaining bases in undemocratic and often despotic states, including Spain under Generalissimo Francisco Franco, South Korea under Park Chung-hee, Bahrain under King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, and Djibouti under four-term President Ismail Omar Guelleh, to name just four.
Many of the 45 present-day undemocratic U.S. base hosts qualify as fully “authoritarian regimes,” according to the Economist Democracy Index. In such cases, American installations and the troops stationed on them are effectively helping block the spread of democracy in countries like Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kuwait, Niger, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
This pattern of daily support for dictatorship and repression around the world should be a national scandal in a country supposedly committed to democracy. It should trouble Americans ranging from religious conservatives and libertarians to leftists — anyone, in fact, who believes in the democratic principles enshrined in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. After all, one of the long-articulated justifications for maintaining military bases abroad has been that the U.S. military’s presence protects and spreads democracy.
Far from bringing democracy to these lands, however, such bases tend to provide legitimacy for and prop up undemocratic regimes of all sorts, while often interfering with genuine efforts to encourage political and democratic reform. The silencing of the critics of human rights abuses in base hosts like Bahrain, which has violently cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators since 2011, has left the United States complicit in these states’ crimes.
During the Cold War, bases in undemocratic countries were often justified as the unfortunate but necessary consequence of confronting the “communist menace” of the Soviet Union. But here’s the curious thing: in the quarter century since the Cold War ended with that empire’s implosion, few of those bases have closed. Today, while a White House visit from an autocrat may generate indignation, the presence of such installations in countries run by repressive or military rulers receives little notice at all.
Befriending Dictators
The 45 nations and territories with little or no democratic rule represent more than half of the roughly 80 countries now hosting U.S. bases (who often lack the power to ask their “guests” to leave).  They are part of a historically unprecedented global network of military installations the United States has built or occupied since World War II.
Today, while there are no foreign bases in the United States, there are around 800 U.S. bases in foreign countries. That number was recently even higher, but it still almost certainly represents a record for any nation or empire in history. More than 70 years after World War II and 64 years after the Korean War, there are, according to the Pentagon, 181 U.S. “base sites” in Germany, 122 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. Hundreds more dot the planet from Aruba to Australia, Belgium to Bulgaria, Colombia to Qatar. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, civilians, and family members occupy these installations. By my conservative estimate, to maintain such a level of bases and troops abroad, U.S. taxpayers spend at least $150 billion annually — more than the budget of any government agency except the Pentagon itself.

(06-06-2017, 03:32 PM)Odin Wrote: Leaked Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election.

The Russians had access to voter registration roles. This is fucking terrifying.

(06-08-2017, 12:09 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(06-08-2017, 11:18 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The former FBI director seems to have made clear that Russia has interfered in the 2016 election and can be expected to do much the same later.

Russian leadership can figuratively stab President Trump in the back if it is convenient or necessary.

Yep. And that was the plan all along. Having a PotUS at the beckon call of the Kremlin. Life imitating art. Except in the current case, we are not dealing with a brainwashed ex-POW of the Korean War. But that is just a minor detail. At the mission level, the result is the same.