Loose Lips - Uh Oh. Special Prosecutor appointed.

So now we have Trump telling his best Russian buds deeply classified intelligence about, you know, important stuff. Sort of as serious as Hillary's email breeches.

Or not.

Can't wait to hear McConnell's and Ryan's defense of Trump on this one.



They won't.  It's clearly party over country with them.  We're stuck with him for four years.  If middle America gets their way it'll be eight. 



Wouldn't it be nice if we could have better relations with the Russians?



drummerboy said:

So now we have Trump telling his best Russian buds deeply classified intelligence about, you know, important stuff. Sort of as serious as Hillary's email breeches.

Or not.

Can't wait to hear McConnell's and Ryan's defense of Trump on this one.

They're hiding in the bushes.


Trump has an 80%+ approval rating with Republicans. The same Republicans who put party above country at every turn. I'm not sure there's anything Trump could do, short of obvious and unmistakable treason, that would cause his supporters to turn. Forget about bipartisan government. It's a breakdown of the system.


I guess McMaster has become a Putin stooge.

Tonight's story reminds me of WaPo's bombshell that Russia hacked the electric grid.

Here's a good tongue-in-cheek swipe at what Seymour Hersh calls the "crazy town" reporting on Russia:



fairplay said:



drummerboy said:

So now we have Trump telling his best Russian buds deeply classified intelligence about, you know, important stuff. Sort of as serious as Hillary's email breeches.

Or not.

Can't wait to hear McConnell's and Ryan's defense of Trump on this one.

They're hiding in the bushes.

AMONG the bushes.


I'm not so sure. Blabbing Double Top Secret information (about ISIS!!) to the Russians, of all people is gonna get a lot of Republicans in Washington upset. And you know every one of our allies is right now reconsidering whether to share any intel at all with the U.S.

I originally predicted Trump would be gone by the end of the summer. For a while I wondered about that prediction. I'm more confident about that prediction today. Every week is worse than the last. The upcoming overseas trip has the potential to be a monumental embarrassment and travesty.

spontaneous said:

They won't.  It's clearly party over country with them.  We're stuck with him for four years.  If middle America gets their way it'll be eight. 



this is your response?

wow.

paulsurovell said:

I guess McMaster has become a Putin stooge.

Tonight's story reminds me of WaPo's bombshell that Russia hacked the electric grid.

Here's a good tongue-in-cheek swipe at what Seymour Hersh calls the "crazy town" reporting on Russia:



yeah. I just heard on NBC something I've been thinking. When Sally Yates was talking about Mike Flynn's concerning behavior she ran to the WH about, it was probably that he had been sharing classified Intel with Russia. I'll betcha!


looking ahead to the Overseas trip, from Kevin Drum....

http://www.motherjones.com/kev...


Meanwhile, over at Foreign Policy, Robbie Gramer reports that our allies think Trump is an idiot too:

       NATO is scrambling to tailor its upcoming meeting to avoid taxing President Donald Trump’s notoriously short attention span.
The alliance is telling heads of state to limit talks to two to four minutes at a time during the discussion, several sources inside NATO and former senior U.S. officials tell Foreign Policy. And the alliance scrapped plans to publish the traditional full post-meeting statement meant to crystallize NATO’s latest strategic stance.
        ....“It’s kind of ridiculous how they are preparing to deal with Trump,” said one source briefed extensively on the meeting’s preparations. “It’s like they’re preparing to deal with a child — someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of NATO, no interest in in-depth policy issues, nothing,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They’re freaking out.”

The Republican Party has a lot to answer for. When that day comes, it's going to come hard.


A glimmer of hope -- Ann Coulter is starting to turn on Trump.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

Ann Coulter has admitted that, four months into the Trump presidency, she's worried that her favorite candidate's administration is a bust.
Coulter - who last year published the book In Trump We Trust - has told The Daily Caller that she is beginning to doubt Trump's ability to pull off his promised changes.
Likening his presidency to a man who promised to drive to LA, but then started heading to New York, she says there is still a chance for him to 'turn the car around'. 
But if he doesn't, she said, 'I'll say we had no choice, but the Trump-haters were right… It's a nightmare. I can't even contemplate that. Right now I'm still rooting for him to turn around.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4507832/Ann-Coulter-scared-Trump-haters-right.html#ixzz4hDRHChRa 

Believe me, I want nothing more than to be wrong on this.  But after all the **** that has happened and still nothing, I've gotten to a point where I just have to accept that he's here to stay.

drummerboy said:

I'm not so sure. Blabbing Double Top Secret information (about ISIS!!) to the Russians, of all people is gonna get a lot of Republicans in Washington upset. And you know every one of our allies is right now reconsidering whether to share any intel at all with the U.S.


I originally predicted Trump would be gone by the end of the summer. For a while I wondered about that prediction. I'm more confident about that prediction today. Every week is worse than the last. The upcoming overseas trip has the potential to be a monumental embarrassment and travesty.

spontaneous said:

They won't.  It's clearly party over country with them.  We're stuck with him for four years.  If middle America gets their way it'll be eight. 



I think at some point the "adults" among the Washington Republicans, (McConnell et al) are just going to get fed up with Trump and decide that he's causing more harm to Republicanism than good.

If I saw "improvement" in Trump I wouldn't feel this way. But every week is worse than the last. I don't see how Republicans can survive if Trump continues on his current track. They have to turn on him at some point.

Unless R's are even more amoral than I think they are.  And that's pretty amoral, I can tell you, but it's possible that they're worse than I can even imagine and will stick with Trump for a long time. But while I think they're monsters, I have to admit that they're politically astute. But at some point, I can't see how sticking with Trump is to their advantage. And all they live for is political advantage.

I do think that this blabbing to the Russians can be a turning point. Coming so soon after the Comey debacle.  The coming days will see how it plays out.
spontaneous said:

Believe me, I want nothing more than to be wrong on this.  But after all the **** that has happened and still nothing, I've gotten to a point where I just have to accept that he's here to stay.
drummerboy said:

I'm not so sure. Blabbing Double Top Secret information (about ISIS!!) to the Russians, of all people is gonna get a lot of Republicans in Washington upset. And you know every one of our allies is right now reconsidering whether to share any intel at all with the U.S.


I originally predicted Trump would be gone by the end of the summer. For a while I wondered about that prediction. I'm more confident about that prediction today. Every week is worse than the last. The upcoming overseas trip has the potential to be a monumental embarrassment and travesty.

spontaneous said:

They won't.  It's clearly party over country with them.  We're stuck with him for four years.  If middle America gets their way it'll be eight. 



But let's see how things stand at the end of his little jaunt across the pond. I see 9(?) days of international embarrassment for the U.S.


I dont see how you can refer to McConnell  as one of the adults.  McCain and Collins yes, but not him.



FilmCarp said:

I dont see how you can refer to McConnell  as one of the adults.  McCain and Collins yes, but not him.

+1


It would have been more reassuring if McMaster's denial had fewer words, like "Nothing classified was disclosed".  Instead he was specific in describing types of information which was not disclosed.


I wouldn't count McCain as one of the adults either. 

I've no respect for a man who has been through what McCain has been through in his military career, who then bows down to a civilian Trump who never served but had plenty of disparaging comments to make about McCain. Trump's humiliation of McCain was some of the worse disses heard and McCain still voted for Trump. He too is a Party over Country guy. 

FilmCarp said:

I dont see how you can refer to McConnell  as one of the adults.  McCain and Collins yes, but not him.



This is very probable. 

fairplay said:

yeah. I just heard on NBC something I've been thinking. When Sally Yates was talking about Mike Flynn's concerning behavior she ran to the WH about, it was probably that he had been sharing classified Intel with Russia. I'll betcha!



Within the last hour, Trump has tweeted that he did disclose something:  "As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

https://twitter.com/realDonald...

https://twitter.com/realDonald...

Sure, he has "the absolute right" to disclose any confidential information he wants to disclose.  That is not the issue, just as what McMaster said was not the issue (I heard it called a "classic non-denial denial" on the radio earlier).


South_Mountaineer said:

It would have been more reassuring if McMaster's denial had fewer words, like "Nothing classified was disclosed".  Instead he was specific in describing types of information which was not disclosed.

McMaster's statement. Has it been published by WaPo or the NY Times? I couldn't find it.

The primary claim against Trump is that what he said could reveal a source. McMaster and the others in the room deny that. It appears that the media is doing far more to reveal the source than what was said in the meeting.

H.R. MCMASTER: I just have a brief statement for the record. There is
nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the
American people. The story that came out tonight as reported is false.
The president of the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats
to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation. At no time,
at no time, were intelligence sources or methods discussed.
The
president did not disclose any military operations that were not already
publicly known. Two other senior officials who were present, including
the secretary of the state, remember the meeting the same way and have
said so. Going on the record should outweigh the anonymous sources. I
was in the room. It didn’t happen. Thanks, everybody. [Fox News, The Story, 5/15/17]
https://www.mediamatters.org/r...


paulsurovell said:

The primary claim against Trump is that what he said could reveal a source.

The even more consequential claim is that if any president discloses sensitive information that an ally didn't want disclosed, whether or not it could reveal a source, it discourages allies from sharing information with us.


Best new joke so far: at least we've found the source of WH leaks.


Thanks for the link to the article entitled "Media Figures Immediately Call Out McMaster's Statement As ********", which explains the problems with the interpretation you adopted.

paulsurovell said:
South_Mountaineer said:

It would have been more reassuring if McMaster's denial had fewer words, like "Nothing classified was disclosed".  Instead he was specific in describing types of information which was not disclosed.
McMaster's statement. Has it been published by WaPo or the NY Times? I couldn't find it.

The primary claim against Trump is that what he said could reveal a source. McMaster and the others in the room deny that. It appears that the media is doing far more to reveal the source than what was said in the meeting.
H.R. MCMASTER: I just have a brief statement for the record. There is
nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the
American people. The story that came out tonight as reported is false.
The president of the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats
to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation. At no time,
at no time, were intelligence sources or methods discussed.
The
president did not disclose any military operations that were not already
publicly known. Two other senior officials who were present, including
the secretary of the state, remember the meeting the same way and have
said so. Going on the record should outweigh the anonymous sources. I
was in the room. It didn’t happen. Thanks, everybody. [Fox News, The Story, 5/15/17]
https://www.mediamatters.org/r...



McCain and Collins have no power. McConnell runs things.


sac said:



FilmCarp said:

I dont see how you can refer to McConnell  as one of the adults.  McCain and Collins yes, but not him.

+1




DaveSchmidt said:



paulsurovell said:

The primary claim against Trump is that what he said could reveal a source.

The even more consequential claim is that if any president discloses sensitive information that an ally didn't want disclosed, whether or not it could reveal a source, it discourages allies from sharing information with us.

This is the long-term damage that Trump is inflicting upon the United States. We cannot be trusted. We cannot be relied upon. During the campaign, there was a lot of fretting that the US under Trump would be pursuing a neo-isolationist stance, pulling out of trade agreements, turning away from alliance like NATO. 

It turns out this was not quite right. Rather, the world is turning away from us.  Whatever our official stance on NATO, on NAFTA, etc doesn't really matter because, stay or leave, other countries are seeing that they need to freeze us out for their own safety.

The task of the next president will be to fix the damage Trump is inflicting. It's going to be like post-Sandy repairs, with a lot of (metaphorical) rotted wood, potentially toxic mold, and praying that the foundation hasn't been irreparably damaged.



PVW said:


The task of the next president will be to fix the damage Trump is inflicting. It's going to be like post-Sandy repairs, with a lot of (metaphorical) rotted wood, potentially toxic mold, and praying that the foundation hasn't been irreparably damaged.

And if the next president is a democrat then the republicans will blame him or her for our bad international relations



paulsurovell said:

I guess McMaster has become a Putin stooge.

Tonight's story reminds me of WaPo's bombshell that Russia hacked the electric grid.

Here's a good tongue-in-cheek swipe at what Seymour Hersh calls the "crazy town" reporting on Russia:

A Trump stooge.

I read a few articles after the election tackling the issue of whether professionals had a patriotic duty to serve in the Trump administration if asked, as a check on the president, or whether doing so would inevitably corrupt them.

In the last week, we've seen Rod Rosenstein make a statement on Comey's firing that was immediately contradicted by Trump, and now McMaster make a statement also immediately contradicted by Trump:

Mr. Trump’s tweets on Tuesday morning appeared to undercut the carefully worded statements made by his advisers on Monday night that attempted to dispute the original story without taking issue with specific facts in it. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said in a statement that the president “did not discuss sources, methods or military operations” with the Russians. Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, H. R. McMaster, likewise told reporters that Mr. Trump had not disclosed intelligence methods or sources.

(NYT)

I think we have our answer to the question of where one's duty lies. If you value your professional integrity and reputation, stay far away from Trump.



DaveSchmidt said:



paulsurovell said:

The primary claim against Trump is that what he said could reveal a source.

The even more consequential claim is that if any president discloses sensitive information that an ally didn't want disclosed, whether or not it could reveal a source, it discourages allies from sharing information with us.

it's this ^

none of us knows how sensitive the information was, and if revealing it would actually jeopardize anyone's security.  But if a source reveals something in confidence, and that confidence is subsequently breached, then it's an issue.  And it doesn't matter that it was revealed to the Russians.  If it was revealed to the British or the Canadians, it's still a breach of confidentiality.


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