Mark Zaid, JFK and Trump

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

This is pure sophistry, as confirmed by the actual details of the individuals and their extremely tenuous “ties”. The entire paragraph amounts to the wholly uncontroversial observation that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally” from the Wikileaks publication of Clinton emails. The rest is conjecture. There was no “collusion” discovered or catalogued.

Any thoughts about the Trump-Manafort team's 2016 revision of the Republican Party platform in Cleveland weakening U.S. support for Ukraine in their military conflict with Putin's jackboots?

"No collusion" there with the Kremlin?  No "quid pro quo?"

[Paul Brancato]

3 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

Maybe they discussed cutting off the the flow of Chemical Weapons to Ukraine. 

What would Warren do?

 

Unknown, and maybe just as screwed up. If I have my info right, Obama cut off military aid to Ukraine, Trump reversed this. Makes no sense, until you factor in that Trump was promoting US arms manufacturers. 

[W. Niederhut]

59 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

Maybe they discussed cutting off the the flow of Chemical Weapons to Ukraine. 

What would Warren do?

 

Ah, yes, the old "chemical weapons" meme,  used by Donald Trump as a false flag pretext to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syrian government positions TWICE-- in April of 2017 and April of 2018.  (Talk about your Neocon mule!)

Got a reference link for your meme about "chemical weapons" in Ukraine?

[Cliff Varnell]

10 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

This is pure sophistry,

Sophistry is equating "did not establish" with "discredit," and equating "conspiracy" with "collusion."

Sophistry is mischaracterizing half a sentence in the Mueller Report and then dismissing the key conclusion -- "a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government

Quote

as confirmed by the actual details of the individuals and their extremely tenuous “ties”.

First you erroneously claimed the Mueller Report "discredited" Russian collusion, now you're dismissing without evidence a key finding of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

"Collusion" is not a legal term, not a chargeable crime.

Quote

The entire paragraph amounts to the wholly uncontroversial observation that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally” from the Wikileaks publication of Clinton emails. The rest is conjecture. There was no “collusion” discovered or catalogued.

Pure sophistry.  Jeff Carter waves his magic wand over Natalia Veselnitskaya and Konstantin Kilimnik and voila! -- no connection to the Russian gov't!

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/mueller-report-release-latest-news/card/1555615741

Mr. Mueller said he decided not to pursue criminal campaign-finance charges against Mr. Trump Jr. or other members of the campaign related to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer linked to the Kremlin, because he believed it would be difficult to prove both that the campaign officials knew their conduct was unlawful and that the value of the information promised to the campaign in the meeting exceeded the $2,000 threshold for a criminal violation.

</q>

Ignorance of the law is not supposed to be an excuse in the American judicial system.

Shows how far Robert Mueller bent over backwards to treat the Trumps with kid gloves.

 

 

Edited November 24, 2019 by Cliff Varnell

[W. Niederhut]

4 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Sophistry is equating "did not establish" with "discredit," and equating "conspiracy" with "collusion."

Sophistry is mischaracterizing half a sentence in the Mueller Report and then dismissing the key conclusion -- "a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government

First you erroneously claimed the Mueller Report "discredited" Russian collusion, now you're dismissing without evidence a key finding of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

"Collusion" is not a legal term, not a chargeable crime.

Pure sophistry.  Jeff Carter waves his magic wand over Natalia Veselnitskaya and Konstantin Kilimnik and voila! -- no connection to the Russian gov't!

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/mueller-report-release-latest-news/card/1555615741

Mr. Mueller said he decided not to pursue criminal campaign-finance charges against Mr. Trump Jr. or other members of the campaign related to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer linked to the Kremlin, because he believed it would be difficult to prove both that the campaign officials knew their conduct was unlawful and that the value of the information promised to the campaign in the meeting exceeded the $2,000 threshold for a criminal violation.

</q>

Ignorance of the law is not supposed to be an excuse in the American judicial system.

Shows how far Robert Mueller bent over backwards to treat the Trumps with kid gloves.

 

 

And now Trump has confirmed-- in his latest, bizarre one hour rant on Fox and Friends-- that Bill Barr shut down the Mueller investigation before it was completed.

It was no mere coincidence that the Mueller investigation ended abruptly in March, shortly after Trump's GOP Goon Squad in the Senate mustered a 53 vote GOP confirmation of Barr as AG.

Trump blurted out on Fox and Friends this week that the Mueller investigation, "would have ended much sooner if Barr had been there from the beginning."

Yabba dabba doo!

Edited November 24, 2019 by W. Niederhut

[W. Niederhut]

14 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

Maybe they discussed cutting off the the flow of Chemical Weapons to Ukraine.

Robert,

      You posted this comment in response to my question about Trump and Manafort altering the 2016 Republican Party platform in Cleveland to weaken U.S. support for Ukraine.

      I asked whether this GOP platform alteration by Trump and Manafort might have been an act of "collusion"-- a "quid pro quo" for Kremlin assistance in hacking the U.S. election for Trump and the GOP Congress.

      Can you explain how this pro-Kremlin 2016 Trump-Manafort maneuver had anything to do with "cutting off the flow of chemical weapons to Ukraine?"

[Paul Brancato]

1 hour ago, Robert Wheeler said:

I have posted a link to the video of Joe Biden bragging about withholding $1 billion in aid, under the threat that the prosecutor investigating his son needed first to be fired. Despite the video, the TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) Crowd does not see anything remotely improper about Biden's "offer."

In that context, I doubt any link I could post here would be satisfactory proof of my assertion.

It took a lot of review and reading, on my part, to understand the historical context of Chemical & Weapons transfers to Ukraine, so I would not expect too many on this forum to take my word for it or be satisfied with whatever I linked to. To be fair, if the Ukraine was the State of Choice for the past 10 to 20 years, Russia (your apparent nemesis) was the preferred weapons customer for the previous few decades.

The Apollo Affair is a well documented example of Cold War Weapons transfer. It became the model for any number of incidents and efforts to transfer conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons to places like Russia or the Ukraine.

Given the amount of documentation (or proof) surrounding The Apollo Affair, it should not be much of a stretch to imagine that Weapons (nuke, chem, conv.) are sometimes clandestinely sold abroad.

There are any number of incidents over the past 50 to 70 years where weapons or the materials used have disappeared from warehouses, storage facilities, factories, waste depots, etc. You are free to believe the official explanations with respect to any of the investigations. (If their is anything I have learned on this forum though, it is to remain suspicious of "official explanations.")  

Alleged Missing Nuclear Material From DOE's Rocky Flats Weapons Production Plant

INL specialists left plutonium in their car. In the morning, it was gone

CONGRESSMAN UNDERWOOD AGAIN CALLS FOR FEDERAL SURVEY OF GUAM WWII MUNITIONS

Karen Silkwood: The Case of the Activist’s Death. Two years after the death of a young plutonium worker, investigators face frightening questions and a curtain of silence

These links represent just a quick search and collect effort on my part. There is an overall thesis that a black market has existed for conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons for decades. (Iran/Contra is another simple and well documented example.) Whereas Russia has been a conduit (distributor, buyer, end-user) and probably still is, Ukraine has now taken over that roll (or at least competes for the business with the Russians and others.)

Some of this is of course well known to a few of the forum participants. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert - nice research into interesting possibilities of black markets in chemical weapons or nuclear material. There is also the story of enriched plutonium being transferred to Israel clandestinely, facilitated by Angleton.

but you begin your post with Biden’s official threat to withhold aid unless the prosecutor investigating Biden’s son was fired. That’s not what I’ve read about this. The investigation was into Burisma, and the prosecutor was dragging his heels. If anything Biden (I’m not a fan btw) was putting his son in jeopardy by representing American and British interests who wanted the Burisma investigation to continue. This is a classic case, apparently, of diametrically opposed explanations for the same real event. I think Oliver Stone covers the point of view you ascribe to very well in his Ukraine videos. But his piece is not investigative journalism. It’s largely a long interview with a Ukrainian ex politician businessman in which he lays out the theory, putting it in context of Ukrainian history. There is no way to judge the bonafides of the individual. His bio, which the film gives us, doesn’t answer the question. His young beautiful wife and he are quite the couple, giving the apprearance at least of wealth and privilege. He claims to know Putin a bit, and says that when Putin invited him to the christening of his child it was of little impor, just business as usual in the Russian Orthodox tradition. The movie sprinkles in portions of Stone’s long interview with Putin himself. 

I pay attention when Oliver Stone puts his energy into looking deeply at events. In this case I don’t find him credible. The diplomats who testified in the impeachment inquiry, especially the women, are much more believable. And funny enough, now I see Stone getting chummy with Judyth Baker. Well, I looked deeply into her story, and I don’t find it credible at all. All of this leaves me wondering what’s going on with Stone. 

[W. Niederhut]

Posting a reference link related to my question for Robert.

2016 RNC Delegate: Trump Directed Change To Party Platform On Ukraine

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/568310790/2016-rnc-delegate-trump-directed-change-to-party-platform-on-ukraine-supportupport

Edited November 24, 2019 by W. Niederhut

[Jeff Carter]

10 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Sophistry is equating "did not establish" with "discredit," and equating "conspiracy" with "collusion."

Sophistry is mischaracterizing half a sentence in the Mueller Report and then dismissing the key conclusion -- "a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government

First you erroneously claimed the Mueller Report "discredited" Russian collusion, now you're dismissing without evidence a key finding of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

"Collusion" is not a legal term, not a chargeable crime.

Pure sophistry.  Jeff Carter waves his magic wand over Natalia Veselnitskaya and Konstantin Kilimnik and voila! -- no connection to the Russian gov't!

Cliff - if you could describe the supposed “collusion” involving Veselnitskaya or Kilimnik you might then be doing more than blowing hot air. “Collusion” refers to “a secret or illegal cooperation in order to deceive others”, which Mueller specifies for his purpose as coordinating in “election-interference activities”. He then very clearly and unambiguously states “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”  Can’t be any clearer.

The “key conclusion” which you instead refer is not in fact a conclusion - it is an observation, which itself is essentially meaningless in that the phrase “individuals with ties to the Russian government” is, in the Report, extremely elastic, such that it could describe basically every citizen of the Russian Federation. Alex Ovechkin has met Putin, so according to the formula he has “ties” to the Russian government. Ovechkin went to the White House after winning the Stanley Cup. Did something sinister happen then? It was a direct contact between Trump and an “agent of the Kremlin”, no? Maybe the quid pro quo was cemented then. “The red dog barks at dawn, comrade.”

The platform change in July 2016 followed publicly articulated policy intentions, and changed an extreme position to something more in line with policy already existing under Obama.Was Obama operating under a quid pro quo too? That this surmise gained any traction is an expression of how loopy and straw-grasping the true believers really are.

[W. Niederhut]

6 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

It was a leak not a hack.

The rest of your premise is therefore DOA.

Jeff has articulated a view very similar to mine (hack vs. leak). If that is what you would like to focus on, by all means, knock yourself out and re-read what he has said.

The focus is of course elsewhere, but continue to argue about the events of Summer 2016.

 

Wait a minute.  Are you saying that voting systems and databases throughout the U.S. were not HACKED by the Russians in 2016?

Meanwhile, please answer my original question.

What does Trump's alteration of the 2016 GOP platform regarding Ukraine have to do with the "flow of chemical weapons" to Ukraine?

[Bob Ness]

6 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

He then very clearly and unambiguously states “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”  Can’t be any clearer.

Not quite. He could either establish they did or didn't and he did neither. It's also limited to the Trump Campaign. Your assertion was that it was discredited, which isn't true. There was plenty of pretext and an urgent need to investigate prior to the election and Republicans felt that was true after the inauguration. There's no escaping that. Sorry.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Bob Ness

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

Sure Niederhut. The Russians are behind everything. They hacked Bernie. They hacked Hillary. They probably killed JFK.

Didn't Obama kick out the Russians? Didn't he close the Russian's retreat on the old Pratt property on LI and their retreat on Raskob's old Estate?

Clearly the Russians have been up to no good all of these years (70 on LI and 50 on the Eastern Shore), but why all the love for Ukraine?

Gospodi, pomilui... 🙄

 How about just answering my question?

[Bob Ness]

3 hours ago, Robert Wheeler said:

You are wrong Mob.

Seriously Robert? This is the kind of juvenile garbage that people who live in their mom's basement do.

Mueller was a Special Counsel NOT a  prosecuter. He can only make referals and part of those duties is to provide expulpatory information when appropriate.

"A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts".

"This report is submitted to the Attorney General pursuant to 28 C.F.R. § 600.8(c), which  
states that, “[a]t the conclusion of the Special Counsel’s work, he . . . shall provide the Attorney  General a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions [the Special  Counsel] reached.”

Edited November 25, 2019 by Bob Ness

[W. Niederhut]

29 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

The platform change is pretty broad and innocuous. We could both offer an interpretation of its meaning and be simultaneously wrong and right. 

From the article;

Other than that, what else is their that I could say that would not be conjecture? The same for you. I'll try though.

If I understand your position, you would basically argue that Trump is under the thumb of Putin and that was/(is) trying to curry favor with the Russian leader.

I would disagree.

It is my contention that Trump's change in policy (as broadly articulated in the platform change, but mostly from post election events), reflects a decision to avoid further business with the elements in Ukraine it views as corrupt, and likely in cahoots with corrupt American politicians (both sides, R&D, McCain, Romney, Clinton, Biden, and certainly many more, and associated appointees.) 

Under my contention, and taking the quote about WWIII at its face value, the change in the Ukraine Platform would seem to be logically consistent with stopping the "flow of chemical weapons" to Ukraine.

I'll leave it at that, though I am sure arguments will be made that elements in the US did not sell Chemical Weapons to Ukraine. For clarity, this would also include conventional weapons and nuclear material (at least depleted Uranium for tank penetrating shells, but also like fissionable material precursors.) The post I made to Paul has some examples of material that has gone missing, though none of the links actually say where the material ended up (ie. the articles do not specifically say that Environmental Remediation Contractors working at Rocky Flats diverted depleted Uranium to Ukraine or Russia.) 

 

 

Crooked Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Rick Perry have been directly involved in corrupt Ukrainian business deals all along, as we are learning daily.  Everything Trump has done as POTUS has been, essentially, corrupt.  He's a sociopath with no moral compass.

As for Trump's "I don't want to start WWIII" excuse for not supporting Ukrainian sovereignty, it sounds like Neville Chamberlain's argument for signing off on Hitler's annexations of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938.  "Let's not confront the Beast, lest we start a war."

Personally, I have believed since January of 2017, that Donald Trump is a compromised Russian asset-- Putin's puppet.

To date, all of the emerging facts have strongly supported that theory, and nothing has debunked it-- least of all Trump's crooked conduct in Ukraine.

[Andrew Prutsok]

Those darned Ukranians. First they conspire with Hillary to out Paul Mannafort's crimes and his blood money and then they turnaround and hack her emails and give them to Wikileaks. How can you trust people like that?