James DiEugenio Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 Like Casey's off the shelf covert operation apparatus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Neal Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 On 1/10/2017 at 4:30 PM, Kirk Gallaway said: You sound very confident he will destroy himself like a scorpion, OK I get it, but as I said earlier, in my mind we can't absolutely know for sure until he gets in office. But looking at his recent tweets, the POTUS feeling he has to respond to Meryl Streep's speech and now today completely reversing himself on his tweet a few days ago saying the Republicans should wait on going after Obamacare. -----I'll grant you, we still can't be 100% sure that he's not just a crazy person. Kirk, I'm confident he will destroy himself, but not absolutely certain. I can't see him changing the habits of a lifetime. With his ego, and considering that he just defied all odds (AND the popular vote) and finds himself about to take over the reins of the U$A, he figures no one can successfully oppose him. It all comes down to how his moves will fit in with what orders the Republican party receives. IOW Trump will continue to be Trump, but it's not a certainty what the Republicans will do to achieve their goals. I'm convinced that if Trump's actions are in strong opposition to what his party wants, at the very least he will be neutered by Congress. How much can Trump do if Congress opposes him as they did Obama? *IF* the Republicans want him our of office, how difficult will it be to create enough of a scandal - or simply popularize a real one? There are already allegations of morally unacceptable behavior by Trump while in Russia. If Putin was quietly offered a better deal by the US than Trump can provide considering full Congressional opposition, Putin would throw Trump under the bus in a heartbeat. Trump outed by his own patron would be the poetic justice he deserves... Karma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk Gallaway Posted January 12, 2017 Author Share Posted January 12, 2017 Today it was Trump against the free press and Western Intelligence, with maybe some BS thrown in, but maybe not. i thought he might have craftily employed one strategy to get elected and a different one to govern.You do have to wonder if Trump is so pathological, is this just going to be 4 years of pulling teeth? If so, something has to give.. On one level we have the corporate multi national globalist wing of the Republican Party, and then we have the hardliner pro defense, intelligence wing. One loves his philosophy and the other is starting to move against him. As a politician,Trump is incapable of downplaying his relationship with Putin. Even Sec. of State appointee Tillerson, did a better job in committee.It's not at all inconceivable he could be compromised. Yep, That would be your smoking gun Tom. I had no idea Tillerson and Exon signed the biggest contract in history with Russia in 2011, tying up nearly 5 times the area of drilling rights in Russia than it's next biggest country, which is the US. They drilled their first well in 2014, and now their entire expenditure is frozen because of US sanctions. It's just a big boondoggle! I don't why the Democrats don't bring up these numbers? Marco Rubio (a defense wing Republican)came off more adversarial to Tillerson in the committee hearing than a lot of Democrats. All they need is one Republican to block his appointment should the Democrats vote in bloc to oppose him. But my guess is Rubio will just fall in line. He's not really backing off on divestiture either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ecker Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 Tillerson wants to see some evidence that Putin is a war criminal. Tillerson must be like that Libertarian candidate who said, "What's Aleppo?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Neal Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 7 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said: As a politician,Trump is incapable of downplaying his relationship with Putin. Even Sec. of State appointee Tillerson, did a better job in committee.It's not at all inconceivable he could be compromised. Yep, That would be your smoking gun Tom. Newsweek - Kurt Eichenwald 1-10-2017 "Moscow is seen as a direct threat to the interests of NATO and other American allies—both in its aggressive efforts to reshape global alliances and for its power to damage Western Europe, which obtains almost 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia. Should the United States, the last remaining superpower, tilt its policies away from NATO to the benefit of Russia, the alliance between America and Western Europe could be transformed in unprecedented ways. And so, for perhaps the first time since World War II, countries in Western Europe fear that the American election of Trump could trigger events that imperil their national security and irreparably harm the alliances that have kept the continent safe for decades." It was the Brits who first warned us of the Russian hacking. *IF* Western Europe continues to view Trump as a major threat and makes it clear that they want Trump out of office, will the Republicans (who didn't want Trump in the first place) endanger our alliance? What does the party have to lose if they dump Trumpty Dumpty? If the Republicans who have spoken out against Trump were to quietly inform the Democrats that they would support impeachment proceedings, the Dems would start the ball rolling. Even an unsuccessful impeachment would hurt Trump badly, so he would be forced to cut a deal or be ousted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk Gallaway Posted January 13, 2017 Author Share Posted January 13, 2017 At the federal level, Article II of the United States Constitution states in Section 4 that "The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." In order to remove Trump, he has to be convicted of a crime.There is a difference here, with Watergate, the opposite party did control Congress and did lead the battle cry. My Dad was a fiscal conservative , socially rather progressive Republican. At the beginning of his first campaign for the House, Pete "Paul" Mc Closkey on a couple of occasions came over to our house to campaign for his primary run. He won and my Dad liked him in Washington until he became the first Republican to cross the party aisle and advocate Nixon's impeachment. My Dad saw him as a bit of a traitor until it became obvious that they had the goods on Nixon. I don't think this is just going to go away, and Trump continues to aggravate it. But Trump voters want him to be disruptive.They welcome anything he says that is anti press and anti establishment.Ousting Trump would very disillusioning to some as it would be seen as Washington reestablishing itself. Both him and Sanders are a populist wave, and ousting him would be disruptive even with hard evidence of his being compromised. Some wanted to believe so bad that they've actually believed things he's said that any reasonable people would scoff at. It would have been great if after the fall of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, relations could have progressed by now that we could have disbanded NATO But most of the old Soviet Union satellites bitterly resented and distrusted the Russians and some insisted on joining.. And now it's worse, because there's more fear of Putin because of his stated regret of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In particular the Baltic States. But in this Century, we have treated them rather shabbily. After a decade of chummy talk after the fall and finally when we felt assured they were no longer a real threat.We started judging them like any other country, found them rather profitless and dropped them like yesterday's papers.---Hey, That's just who we are!------JMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Neal Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 14 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said: At the federal level, Article II of the United States Constitution states in Section 4 that "The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." In order to remove Trump, he has to be convicted of a crime. "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" is rather vague even in legal terms. If Trump could be shown to have participated or even encouraged Russian hacking of the election, then that allegation would be enough for impeachment hearings. He did publicly state that he hoped the Russians would hack Hillary's emails. If elected he is signalling that the Russians would have done a good thing with no fear of reprisals. Encouraging election tampering is not a crime, but ethics is certainly an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Brancato Posted January 14, 2017 Share Posted January 14, 2017 Trump may be forced to choose between his business empire and the presidency. I think he would choose the latter in that case. Has anyone read the so called dossier that Buzzfeed published? I tried to post it but couldn't figure out how. There may be planted falsehoods in it designed to discredit the whole, but my bet is that much of it is true. The 'Golden shower' seems far fetched. Ron Reagan said that Trump's inability to say anything bad about Putin is a 'tell'. Love that choice of word. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Varnell Posted January 14, 2017 Share Posted January 14, 2017 Just now, Paul Brancato said: Trump may be forced to choose between his business empire and the presidency. I think he would choose the latter in that case. Has anyone read the so called dossier that Buzzfeed published? I tried to post it but couldn't figure out how. There may be planted falsehoods in it designed to discredit the whole, but my bet is that much of it is true. The 'Golden shower' seems far fetched. Ron Reagan said that Trump's inability to say anything bad about Putin is a 'tell'. Love that choice of word. Trump acts as if Putin were a business partner. Putin's personal wealth has been pegged at $85billion, making Trump the junior. But Putin's perfidy pales in comparison to James Comey's violation of the Hatch Act. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk Gallaway Posted January 14, 2017 Author Share Posted January 14, 2017 Paul, I tried posting it too. I'm told it exceeds the download limit here. It is 19,137 KB. If somebody here can somehow downsize the file, please do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Neal Posted January 14, 2017 Share Posted January 14, 2017 4 hours ago, Paul Brancato said: Trump may be forced to choose between his business empire and the presidency. I think he would choose the latter in that case. Trump would choose the presidency, but being Trump he would get caught making business deals. Once a Trump, ALWAYS a Trump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Wilson Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 If the allegations in the "dossier" can be proven, there is an allegation that Trump, in return for the Russian help in the election, that he provided information on American business leaders. Seems to me that would constitute treason. Having said that, the likelihood that the FBI or the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation will get the confirmation needed. It comes down to whether a Trump team member would risk prosecution by lying to the FBI. It will be interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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