TRUMP is seriously dangerous

[Jerky]

I think it's pretty obvious that SLAD is using slight hyperbole (only very slight indeed) to indicate what she suspects is the truth behind these curious events. Surely, just like you and me and everyone else, she can't claim to "know" anything for certain. It's just snark, but it's got the weight of truth behind it. Maybe that's why you're confused by it?

J.

[0_0]

well thanks for that snarky reply jerky i guess but it leaves unanswered the second part of my question: do you think the president should have some freedom here to make a judgement call, or is the only american democratic way to handle this shoot first ask questions later?

[Jerky]

Believe it or not, that was me at my most sincere and least snarky.

I like you and appreciate your presence here. I didn't mean to offend you one iota.

J.

well thanks for that snarky reply jerky i guess but it leaves unanswered the second part of my question: do you think the president should have some freedom here to make a judgement call, or is the only american democratic way to handle this shoot first ask questions later?

[0_0]

that's nice, thank you! personally i think it is good policy for the american president to be very careful with blaming russia for a chemical terror attack on uk soil, and while i agree that this level of restraint is somewhat unexpected from trump, maybe even suspiciously so who knows, i can only say that i'm with him on this one

[Asta]

O-O, I’m not sure you understand the gravity of this situation. Twenty one people were also sickened by this poison attack on the Russian exile and his daughter. Meanwhile another critic of Putin has been found dead in his London flat. Pretty simple connecting the dots here. Tillerson critisizes Putin and oops, he gets fired. Trump is in so deep with the Russian mafia, it stinks.

And yeah, I can be snarky. I get so freaking tired of people who try to give trump a pass. I believe Russia is taking over our country without having to fire a single shot. And it’s okay with don the con.

[seemslikeadream]

thank you Asta

Collective defence - Article 5

Last updated: 22 Mar. 2017 14:32

English French Russian Ukrainian

The principle of collective defence is at the very heart of NATO’s founding treaty. It remains a unique and enduring principle that binds its members together, committing them to protect each other and setting a spirit of solidarity within the Alliance.



Highlights

Collective defence means that an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies.

The principle of collective defence is enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.
NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States.
NATO has taken collective defence measures on several occasions, for instance in response to the situation in Syria and in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
NATO has standing forces on active duty that contribute to the Alliance’s collective defence efforts on a permanent basis.
https://www.nato.int/cps/ua/natohq/topics_110496.htm

[0_0]

O-O, I’m not sure you understand the gravity of this situation. Twenty one people were also sickened by this poison attack on the Russian exile and his daughter.

i'm pretty sure i do understand. but understanding the gravity of the situation is another matter than understanding who's to blame. maybe "connecting the dots" is a little too easy here? understanding what's a good response to the situation is a third matter.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

I believe Russia is taking over our country without having to fire a single shot.

Those are serious allegations (or has it already been decided that these are 'facts' at this point?).

Red Scare Fever has clearly taken hold in the 21st Century.

Any direct evidence of the RUSSIAN TAKEOVER OF OUR COUNTRY would be welcome; the armchair sleuths here are ready to examine the exhibits that have led to this conclusion -- perhaps there's a dossier we missed?

[seemslikeadream]

At the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — agencies responsible for keeping American secrets safe from foreign spies — career officials agreed that Mr. Flynn represented an urgent problem.

Yet nearly every day for three weeks, the new C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, sat in the Oval Office and briefed President Trump on the nation’s most sensitive intelligence — with Mr. Flynn listening. Mr. Pompeo has not said whether C.I.A. officials left him in the dark about their views of Mr. Flynn, but one administration official said Mr. Pompeo did not share any concerns about Mr. Flynn with the president.

General Flynn ...convicted FELON and cooperating witness

Will Flynn bring back Yellowcake to WH Menu after 1-21-17?
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40188

Despite Concerns About Blackmail, Flynn Heard C.I.A. Secrets
By MATT APUZZO, MATTHEW ROSENBERG and ADAM GOLDMANJUNE 20, 2017

Mike Pompeo, center, the C.I.A. director, at the Capitol to brief members of the House Intelligence Committee last month. Credit Al Drago/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Senior officials across the government became convinced in January that the incoming national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had become vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

At the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — agencies responsible for keeping American secrets safe from foreign spies — career officials agreed that Mr. Flynn represented an urgent problem.

Yet nearly every day for three weeks, the new C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, sat in the Oval Office and briefed President Trump on the nation’s most sensitive intelligence — with Mr. Flynn listening. Mr. Pompeo has not said whether C.I.A. officials left him in the dark about their views of Mr. Flynn, but one administration official said Mr. Pompeo did not share any concerns about Mr. Flynn with the president.

The episode highlights a remarkable aspect of Mr. Flynn’s tumultuous, 25-day tenure in the White House: He sat atop a national security apparatus that churned ahead despite its own conclusion that he was at risk of being compromised by a hostile foreign power.

The concerns about Mr. Flynn’s vulnerabilities, born from misleading statements he made to White House officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, are at the heart of a legal and political storm that has engulfed the Trump administration. Many of Mr. Trump’s political problems, including the appointment of a special counsel and the controversy over the firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, can ultimately be traced to Mr. Flynn’s stormy tenure.

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Continue reading the main story
Time and again, the Trump administration looked the other way in the face of warning signs about Mr. Flynn. Mr. Trump entrusted him with the nation’s secrets despite knowing that he faced a Justice Department investigation over his undisclosed foreign lobbying. Even a personal warning from President Barack Obama did not dissuade him.

Mr. Pompeo sidestepped questions from senators last month about his handling of the information about Mr. Flynn, declining to say whether he knew about his own agency’s concerns. “I can’t answer yes or no,” he said. “I regret that I’m unable to do so.” His words frustrated Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“Either Director Pompeo had no idea what people in the C.I.A. reportedly knew about Michael Flynn, or he knew about the Justice Department’s concerns and continued to discuss America’s secrets with a man vulnerable to blackmail,” Mr. Wyden said in a statement. “I believe Director Pompeo owes the public an explanation.”

After Mr. Pompeo’s Senate testimony, The New York Times asked officials at several agencies whether Mr. Pompeo had raised concerns about Mr. Flynn to the president and, if so, whether the president had ignored him. One administration official responded on the condition of anonymity that Mr. Pompeo, whether he knew of the concerns or not, had not told the president about them.

A C.I.A. spokesman declined to discuss any interactions between the president and Mr. Pompeo.

“Whether the C.I.A. director briefed the president on a specific intelligence issue during a specific time frame is not something we publicly comment on, and we’re not about to start today,” said the spokesman, Dean Boyd.

Concerns across the government about Mr. Flynn were so great after Mr. Trump took office that six days after the inauguration, on Jan. 26, the acting attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, warned the White House that Mr. Flynn had been “compromised.”

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Ms. Yates’s concerns focused on phone calls that Mr. Flynn had in late December with Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. When the White House faced questions about whether the two men had discussed lifting American sanctions on Russia, Vice President Mike Pence told reporters that Mr. Flynn had assured him that sanctions were not discussed. Intelligence officials knew otherwise, based on routine intercepts of Mr. Kislyak’s conversations.

“That created a compromise situation,” Ms. Yates later told Congress, “a situation where the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians.”

Mr. Trump waited 18 days from that warning before firing Mr. Flynn, a period in which Mr. Pompeo continued to brief Mr. Flynn and the president. The White House has offered changing explanations for why the president waited until Feb. 13 — soon after Ms. Yates’s warning made national news — before firing Mr. Flynn.

White House officials have said they moved deliberately both out of respect for Mr. Flynn and because they were not sure how seriously they should take the concerns. They also said the president believed that Ms. Yates, an Obama administration holdover, had a political agenda. She was fired days later over her refusal to defend in court Mr. Trump’s ban on travel for people from several predominantly Muslim countries.

A warning from Mr. Pompeo might have persuaded the White House to take Ms. Yates’s concerns more seriously. Mr. Pompeo, a former congressman, is a Republican stalwart whom Mr. Trump has described as “brilliant and unrelenting.”

Mr. Pompeo was sworn in three days before Ms. Yates went to the White House. He testified last month that he did not know what was said in that meeting. By that time, C.I.A. officials had attended meetings with F.B.I. agents about Mr. Flynn and reviewed the transcripts of his conversations with the Russian ambassador, according to several current and former American security officials. Separately, intelligence agencies were aware that Russian operatives had discussed ways to use their relationship with Mr. Flynn to influence Mr. Trump.

Mr. Pompeo, who briefs the president nearly every day, had frequent opportunities to raise the issue with Mr. Trump.

The President’s Daily Brief is a rundown of what America’s spies consider the most pressing issues facing the United States. On any given day, it can include details of a terrorist plot being hatched overseas, an analysis of a foreign political crisis that threatens American interests or a look at foreign hackers who are trying to breach American government computer systems.

Each president takes the briefing differently. Mr. Obama was said to prefer reading it on a secure tablet. President George W. Bush liked his briefers to talk through the document they were presenting. Mr. Pompeo has described Mr. Trump as a voracious consumer of the briefing who likes maps, charts, pictures, videos and “killer graphics.”

At an event last month at Westwood Country Club in Northern Virginia, Mr. Pompeo told retired C.I.A. officials that his briefings often ran past their scheduled 30 minutes, according to one retired official in attendance. Mr. Pompeo said Mr. Trump was eager for information and asked many questions.

At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Pompeo assured senators that he would provide the president with unvarnished information, even when it would be viewed as unpleasant. “I can tell you that I have assured the president-elect that I’ll do that,” Mr. Pompeo said.


On Capitol Hill, Mr. Wyden questioned why Mr. Pompeo continued having discussions with Mr. Flynn despite the concerns of intelligence officials. “He was the national security adviser,” Mr. Pompeo said. “He was present for the daily brief on many occasions.”

Mr. Flynn had no love for the C.I.A., and the feeling was mutual. An Army general who had risen to lead the Defense Intelligence Agency, Mr. Flynn emerged in retirement as a C.I.A. critic, blaming the agency for his firing and what he called its failure to foresee the rise of the Islamic State. He insisted the Obama administration had politicized the agency, an assertion Mr. Pompeo later said he saw no evidence to support.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/us/p ... o-cia.html

[Belligerent Savant]

.
I presume the above is not intended as an answer to my question(s), but rather a continuance of your M.O.

By all means, carry on.

Will await direct evidence in the meantime.

[Rory]

Deleted

[Asta]

Firing Tillerson is a fairly clear response.

I don’t appreciate the remark about red scare fever. I’m 65, grew up with duck and cover, a bomb shelter in my parents basement, Korea, Vietnam wars, etc. the Berlin Wall was REAL. Stalin was REAL. Sadly so was Joseph McCarthy. He abused his power but hey that’s so ... authoritarian. Seems like a lot of people like that idea of control these days. Thinking for yourself is such hard work.

Trump is a wannabe dictator. And to paraphrase him, Putin knows his weaknesses, and he knows how to play that stupid bastard. People who don’t agree with Putin have shortened life spans.

I prefer to live in a democracy, not an oligarchy. But that’s where we’re headed, if it hasn’t already happened. Sure feels like it.

Oh and Rory, are you serious?

[Asta]

Just to change gears here, I have some friends who are in their early thirties, they’re teachers, smart, but I was shocked by a conversation we had in which they said they believed the holocaust was exaggerated and that hitler was actually a kind person who loved children and dogs. They were sincere. I wanted to throw up.

Is that where some of you kids coming from? Don’t know your history? Are your text books being rewritten? Just asking.

[Rory]

Deleted

[Rory]

Deleted