All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[BeastieRunner]

Navarro is a great example of what it takes to be "Republican" or "conservative" and get regular air time on CNN along with McCain, Graham, and Kasich.

Meaning ... ?

[Tami]

Navarro is a great example of what it takes to be "Republican" or "conservative" and get regular air time on CNN along with McCain, Graham, and Kasich.

Navarro is a great example of how you can be a Conservative Republican but not be a boot licking Trump apologist.

[GindyPosts]

Navarro is a great example of what it takes to be "Republican" or "conservative" and get regular air time on CNN along with McCain, Graham, and Kasich.

You do know that Paris fellow on their staff is a Hardline black conservative & they love Kellyanne Conway.

[JBatmanFan05]

You do know that Paris fellow on their staff is a Hardline black conservative & they love Kellyanne Conway.

Those are Trump/RNC spokesmen only brought on to defend whatever while surrounded by 3-6 anti-right CNN mainstays they have to defend against as they get drowned out and ganged upon.

Paris Dennard is great though. He'd be perfect as Press Secretary.

[Tami]

Analysis: The Vengeful World of Donald Trump, and Why It Matters - Oct 31 2016

Summarizing Donald Trump's worldview isn't easy, but this may come close: The world is a violent place, and it demands a violent response.

His campaign might seem like a storm emitting strikes of lightning: He's made news by giving out a Republican rival's phone number, tweeting about a "sex tape" and even accusing his opponent, Hillary Clinton, of possibly taking drugs.

But there's a pattern to what he says and does and the campaign's waning days have placed that pattern in sharp focus as Trump issues apocalyptic warnings of a vast conspiracy to steal the election.

To prevail in such an environment, he suggests, the response to any slight must be swift and overwhelming. Dwelling on limits imposed by law or tradition is usually a secondary concern.

This framework has expressed itself in policy, in which Trump has extolled the use of torture, threatened reprisals against the families of terrorists and pledged to jail Clinton, a former senator and secretary of state. It has expressed itself rhetorically in vicious insults against critics and in his encouragement of violence by supporters.

Worth reviewing now that he's in the WH.

[Tami]

Questions that still need to be answered - Does anyone have any questions about current events, politics, Trump and so on that they would liek to have answers to?

[numberthirty]

And the Trump tweets get crazier and crazier. He's really getting unhinged.

While it's not excusable, the guy is six years old when it comes to this. He is not capable of getting poked without reaching over and poking back.

That said, it's not exactly anything new. Even taking note of that the guy is throwing a fit is probably the wrong play. Not like he is someone who can even grasp taking a look at himself to ask if doing so is acceptable.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Analysis: The Vengeful World of Donald Trump, and Why It Matters - Oct 31 2016





Worth reviewing now that he's in the WH.

Indeed. Looking back on the last six months, Velveeta Tyrant hasn't changed all that much, he's still vindictive, blasting anyone who dares to contradict or insult him. While his act plays well with his lemmings, sooner or later, he has to deliver on his promises, when he fails to do so, he's gone, plain and simple.

While it's not excusable, the guy is six years old when it comes to this. He is not capable of getting poked without reaching over and poking back.

That said, it's not exactly anything new. Even taking note of that the guy is throwing a fit is probably the wrong play. Not like he is someone who can even grasp taking a look at himself to ask if doing so is acceptable.

Chances are Trump looks at himself and believes he's done nothing wrong, whether his behavior is acceptable doesn't matter to him. As long as his legion of lemmings remains devoted to him, Trump sees no reason to change, so he'll keep on being an immature child with impulse control problems.

[Judge Dredd]

Questions that still need to be answered - Does anyone have any questions about current events, politics, Trump and so on that they would liek to have answers to?

I would like answers on Health care and the bills being presented to the senate and congress.

[Tami]

Trump cabinet official humiliated, laughed at by world leaders

Donald Trump’s commerce secretary appeared by teleconference at a meeting in Germany and had his video-feed cut — a move reportedly greeted by laughter and applause from other world leaders.

Wilbur Ross was supposed travel to Berlin to attend the meeting of the Economic Council of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s political party. In what can be viewed as a gesture of respect to the United States, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party scheduled Ross to appear immediately before Merkel herself.

However, Ross canceled his in-person appearance at the last minute and instead gave his remarks by live video. Ross used his speech to criticize Germany for its trade surplus with the United States.

After Ross had spoken for more than twice his allotted time, his feed was cut off mid-statement. Leader of the CDU Economic Council Werner M. Bahlsen commented:

That was the U.S. secretary of commerce, who had promised us a 10-minute statement. As you saw, he spoke a bit slowly, so it took a bit longer. Now we look forward to the chancellor’s speech.

Ross has previously made headlines by calling Trump an “environmentalist,” joking that the U.S. airstrike on Syria was “after-dinner entertainment” for guests at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, and openly admiring the lack of free speech in Saudi Arabia.

Trump himself has previously characterized Germany — one of America’s closest allies — as “evil” for selling “millions of cars” in this country.

During Trump’s June 1 Rose Garden speech withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, he posed the question, “At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?”

The answer is clear: Thanks to Trump and his administration, the world is already laughing at the United States.

[GindyPosts]

Those are Trump/RNC spokesmen only brought on to defend whatever while surrounded by 3-6 anti-right CNN mainstays they have to defend against as they get drowned out and ganged upon.

Paris Dennard is great though. He'd be perfect as Press Secretary.

Meanwhile, Fox News has token, mushmouth "liberals" to meekly counter the Superstars they present to create the illusion of balance.

It is how you percieved, but your perception is that all liberals are evil & bad while all conservatives are pure & good.

[JBatmanFan05]

Meanwhile, Fox News has token, mushmouth "liberals" to meekly counter the Superstars they present to create the illusion of balance.

I never said Fox was balanced, I did say the overall major news media is way out of balance.

[Judge Dredd]

Meanwhile, Fox News has token, mushmouth "liberals" to meekly counter the Superstars they present to create the illusion of balance.

It is how you percieved, but your perception is that all liberals are evil & bad while all conservatives are pure & good.

I used to love when Hannity would beat up Colmes, no idea how he lasted as long as he did at Fox.

[Kevinroc]

GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection to Flynn
"Peter W. Smith portrayed the former general as an ally in an effort, independent of the Trump campaign, to find personal emails deleted by Hillary Clinton"

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-ope...ynn-1498770851

WASHINGTON—Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers.

In conversations with members of his circle and with others he tried to recruit to help him, the GOP operative, Peter W. Smith, implied he was working with retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, at the time a senior adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump.

“He said, ‘I’m talking to Michael Flynn about this—if you find anything, can you let me know?’” said Eric York, a computer-security expert from Atlanta who searched hacker forums on Mr. Smith’s behalf for people who might have access to the emails.

Emails written by Mr. Smith and one of his associates show that his small group considered Mr. Flynn and his consulting company, Flynn Intel Group, to be allies in their quest.

What role, if any, Mr. Flynn may have played in Mr. Smith’s project is unclear. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Smith said he knew Mr. Flynn, but he never stated that Mr. Flynn was involved.

Mr. Flynn didn’t respond to requests for comment.

A Trump campaign official said that Mr. Smith didn’t work for the campaign, and that if Mr. Flynn coordinated with him in any way, it would have been in his capacity as a private individual. The White House declined to comment.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian attempts to sway the U.S. election and whether there was collusion between Russians and the Trump campaign. President Trump has denied any collusion and called the investigation a “witch hunt.” The Russian government has denied it interfered in the election.

Mr. Smith died at age 81 on May 14, which was about 10 days after the Journal interviewed him. His account of the email search is believed to be his only public comment on it.

The operation Mr. Smith described is consistent with information that has been examined by U.S. investigators probing Russian interference in the elections.

Those investigators have examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server and then transmit them to Mr. Flynn via an intermediary, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the intelligence.

It isn’t clear who that intermediary might have been or whether Mr. Smith’s operation was the one allegedly under discussion by the Russian hackers. The reports were compiled during the same period when Mr. Smith’s group was operating, according to the officials.

Mr. Smith said he worked independently and wasn’t part of the Trump campaign.

His project began over Labor Day weekend 2016 when Mr. Smith, a private-equity executive from Chicago active in Republican politics, said he assembled a group of technology experts, lawyers and a Russian-speaking investigator based in Europe to acquire emails the group theorized might have been stolen from the private server Mrs. Clinton used as secretary of state.

Mr. Smith’s focus was some 33,000 emails Mrs. Clinton said were deleted because they were deemed personal. Mr. Smith said he believed that the emails might have been obtained by hackers and that they actually concerned official matters Mrs. Clinton wanted to conceal—two notions for which he offered no evidence. Mrs. Clinton gave the State Department tens of thousands of emails related to official business.

Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said in July 2016 there was no evidence the private server had been hacked but held out the possibility it could have been.

In the interview with the Journal, Mr. Smith said he and his colleagues found five groups of hackers who claimed to possess Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails, including two groups he determined were Russians.

“We knew the people who had these were probably around the Russian government,” Mr. Smith said.

U.S. intelligence agencies have accused the Russians of stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and providing them to WikiLeaks last summer as part of a multifaceted operation to interfere with the election and help Mr. Trump’s campaign. Mr. Trump on July 27 publicly encouraged Russia to go further and find the Clinton “emails that are missing.” Asked about that on Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Mr. Trump was joking.

Mr. Smith said after vetting batches of emails offered to him by hacker groups last fall, he couldn’t be sure enough of their authenticity to leak them himself. “We told all the groups to give them to WikiLeaks,” he said. WikiLeaks has never published those emails or claimed to have them.

Mr. Smith and one of his associates said they had a line of communication with Mr. Flynn and his consulting company.

In one Smith email reviewed by the Journal, intended to entice outside experts to join his work, he offered to make introductions to Mr. Flynn’s son, Michael G. Flynn, who worked as chief of staff in his father’s company. Mr. Smith’s email mentioned the son among a small number of other people he said were helping.

Michael G. Flynn didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In another recruiting email seen by the Journal, Jonathan Safron, a law student Mr. Smith described as a close colleague, included links to the websites and LinkedIn profiles of people purportedly working with the Smith team. At the top of the list was the name and website of Flynn Intel, which Mr. Flynn set up after his 2014 firing as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Safron declined to comment on his email or Mr. Smith’s project.

In phone conversations, Mr. Smith told a computer expert he was in direct contact with Mr. Flynn and his son, according to this expert. The person said an anti-Clinton research document prepared by Mr. Smith’s group identified the younger Mr. Flynn as someone associated with the effort. The expert said that based on his conversations with Mr. Smith, he understood the elder Mr. Flynn to be coordinating with Mr. Smith’s group in his capacity as a Trump campaign adviser.

The senior Mr. Flynn was fired as national-security adviser in February after misleading administration officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador concerning sanctions. Those conversations put Mr. Flynn under scrutiny by the FBI and then the special counsel, according to U.S. officials.

Mr. Smith said in the interview he supported Mr. Flynn’s efforts during the presidential transition to establish relations with Russian officials.

Mr. Smith said he never intended to pay for any emails found by hackers.

He said he understood the risk in publishing the emails himself. If, under public scrutiny, they proved not to be genuine, “people would say we made them up,” he said, and the whole project would be dismissed as a Republican hit job on the Clinton campaign. In the early 1990s, Mr. Smith helped publicize Arkansas state troopers’ claims that then-Gov. Bill Clinton had enlisted them to arrange trysts with women, an unproven allegation denied by the Clinton White House.

Mr. Smith’s views on Russian hacking were complex. While he said he believed Russians were likely among those who tried to steal Mrs. Clinton’s emails, he dismissed intelligence agencies’ conclusion that the Russia’s government meddled in the election to discredit Mrs. Clinton and to help Mr. Trump.

Mr. Smith was himself once a hacking victim. Emails he wrote about the 2015 contest to fill former House Speaker John Boehner’s seat were stolen from the Illinois Republican Party and then made public, in a campaign U.S. intelligence officials attributed to Russian actors. Mr. Smith didn’t dispute that Russia might have been to blame. He said he was unconcerned about his messages being exposed.

[JBatmanFan05]

Considering the GOP might drag out the healthcare bill war through July, I do think they will get something passed eventually (I could wind up dead wrong).

Already a lot of pressure from conservative pundits. And I think fear of what Trump might do (his unpredictability) will motivate some.

If something passes, I bet tax cutting will be reduced some to bolster Medicaid.