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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI'm sorry, I'm having trouble getting over the fact that CARTER PAGE WAS A KNOWN RUSSIAN ASSET.
Forget names, the fact that the presidential campaign of a nominee for a major political party--any nominee, any party--would be employing an individual as a SENIOR FORIEGN POLICY ADVISOR who was already known by U.S. intelligence to have had numerous contacts with intelligence operatives from a hostile foreign government.....that absolutely blows my mind.
Should the FBI have been on that like white on rice?
You bet your ass they should.
Why are we even debating this?
Lest I remind you again, these are what prominent Kremlin insiders were bragging about while Page was in Moscow....
dawg
(10,610 posts)We're through the looking glass here.
Half the country has sold out to authoritarianism, and there's no turning back for them. If we aren't able to beat them back electorally, they will lead us to disaster.
unblock
(51,974 posts)we're doomed if they're not absolutely decimated. frankly, the best case for us is we win both houses of congress, and only barely at that. i'll take what i can get, but it's not nearly enough to put an end to this nonsense.
even donnie going one way or another won't be enough. there's still foxnews and hate radio and 30+% of the country utterly brainwashed.
we're not out of the woods until the republican party is completely non-viable as a major political force.
we seriously need a new fdr and overwhelming majorities in both houses to escape this disaster.
dawg
(10,610 posts)The Senate math is terrible for us this year - perhaps the worst it's ever been for any major political party.
But control of the House would be enough to slam the brakes on the Republican agenda. Instead of watching helplessly as they proceed to "entitlement reform", we could jam them up right proper.
Also, we'd have the power of the subpoena and could make Trump's life miserable in lots of little ways that *would* make a difference.
unblock
(51,974 posts)they're on a tear to appoint the worst of the worst with life tenure.
all those vacancies created from 8 years of obstructing obama, they get to fill in 4 years. hopefully only 2 years.
Maraya1969
(22,441 posts)Like an advertisement that showed very deliberately and in small words, with a black board how the gop line, "People don't kill people, guns kill people" is patently absurd
I think a lot of them really don't get the math and the comparisons to other countries with gun control laws. They need a big board showing these people in some bright colored graph how countries that have very regulated laws for owning or using guns don't have the massive amount of loss of life that the US does. And they need to be shown how having a couple armed teachers and cops in the hallways is not really going to stop mass shootings. Facts like how the student is not going to start shooting with these people around and even if, say the teacher is armed the student already has his gun out and is shooting and probably with an automatic assault weapon and there will be loss of life.
I fear I am not explain myself properly. The problem with a lot of republicans is they just hear something and accept it as true even if it doesn't make sense. If we could combat this and get them to understand some of the basics they might think about voting differently.
I want them to know that their dear George Bush started a war that killed over a million people and we have lost over 200,000 soldiers to suicide since they have returned home. And then sent the country into the greatest recession because he did what 45 is doing now. Paying for things while cutting taxes.
Maybe basic information about how tax dollars work for the country and how, if you take in less it is just like getting a cut in pay and still trying to run your household on less money.
unblock
(51,974 posts)donnie wanted contact with putin. plenty of deals to make and money to be made.
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)Because:
Hannity
Carlson
Fox and Friends
Fox News
Breitbart
the Daily Caller
et al., aka right wing propaganda
jayschool2013
(2,309 posts)Greenwald and the Intercept
DemocracyMouse
(2,275 posts)jayschool2013
(2,309 posts)Cha
(295,903 posts)avebury
(10,946 posts)on requiring them all to register as agents of a foreign government.
dalton99a
(81,065 posts)niyad
(112,434 posts)besides, even if there was, no crime)
mopinko
(69,806 posts)he is and was a bagman.
hopefully that is all on tape somewhere.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,083 posts)GusBob
(7,286 posts)The funniest thing to read is the Russian surveillance tape where the Russians talk about the guy being too stupid to be of any use
erronis
(14,949 posts)Yulia Nikolaevskaya: Wow. How nice to hear that. I wonder if Trump will become president. will they keep such rhetoric towards Russia?
-- Konstantin Rykov: He also came to the intelligence service to understand the reaction to Donald
-- Yulia: le. so, just in care, on the head, we stroked? And why does he need our reaction to Donald?
-- Konstantin: Julia (Yulia) let me talk about this a bit later post will write an extended one .. topic is important
-- Yulia: Ok
...
Where is this being recorded?
What is the "head, we stroked" (I'm not sure I want to know.)
If this is true, it appears that there is more info that was taken into non-disclosed channels.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)It may not be a tape but a transcript of a conversation
They definitely stated the guy was dumb a bag of rocks and would serve no purpose as an asset
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,083 posts)Lest one thinks he's just some random Russian schlub on the internet, he's far from that.
He's a former member of the Russian parliament (Duma) for Putin's United Russia party. He's one of the biggest names in Russia in the internet. He's inserted himself in both domestic and foreign politics from everywhere from France to Scotland. He once bribed Marine La Pen to support the Russian annexation of Crimea. And just days after the US election, he openly bragged about how he had run a social media campaign from Russia using Cambridge Analytica data in order to get Trump elected. He even hosted Election Day and Inauguration Day parties for Trump in Russia and invited the likes of Jack Hannick, one of the co-founders of Fox News.
He's attended Kremlin sponsored forums on pro-Russian internet activity and was actually named a "trusted confidant" of the Kremlin by Putin.
And he has a vast legion of Russian internet trolls at his disposal.
So, in short, he's a Kremlin agent.
What was going on here....if I'd venture to guess, this conversation was directed to screw with the mind of one particular person, that being former US Ambassador Michael McFaul.
McFaul, along with other members of President Obama's state department, was the subject of much hatred and vitriol by the Russian online community, mainly for their positions they took regarding Ukraine and sanctions against Russia. Rykov and his followers constantly disparaged the US state department for what they saw as singling out Russia for humiliation.
They personally harassed McFaul and his family while he was ambassador. However, McFaul's not a shy guy when it comes to social media, so he pushed back. When Rykov was unsuccessful in trying to influence the Scottish independence referendum, McFaul openly mocked Rykov by name over Twitter.
So naturally, Rykov wanted his revenge against McFaul, and coupled with his efforts to influence the US vote for Trump, he did all he could to openly jab at the former ambassador.
So you'll see that he actually tags McFaul into this post, and McFaul actually acknowledges it in the comment section.
Now, specifically as it pertains to Page....remember the Russian intelligence service first attempted recruiting Page back in 2013. The US tried to warn Page that he was being recruited as a Russian asset, and Page promptly turned around and blabbed that fact to the Russians.
So now you have Page in Russia again, specifically while he's an advisor on the Trump campaign no less, and Rykov has knowledge of this and I think he wants to show off in front of McFaul that Russia already has their fingers all over the Trump campaign and US elections. (Whether Trump ultimately wins or not is almost beside the point....I think they were just besides themselves that they'd recruited a US Presidential candidate, win or lose)
Of course, to play devil's advocate, there's the chance that Rykov is just completely bullshitting here, and Page was just in Russia to give a speech in an individual capacity, not on behalf of Trump and never met with Russian intel.
But why would he make it up then? It's an oddly specific thing to make up. Why would he brag to McFaul about Russian intel recruiting a Trump campaign asset just for no reason at all?
I'm far more inclined to say Rykov was telling the truth here.
Interesting though as to the timing. Rykov posts this the day Page gives his speech in Moscow, July 7, 2016. Steele doesn't report Page's activities to the FBI until late July 2016, so this predates Steele.
And either McFaul reports this post to US intelligence, or more likely, US intelligence already familiar with Rykov, is immediately made aware of Rykov's claims about Page.
Either way, it seems to independently verify Steele's claims about Page before that part of the dossier was even written.
MBS
(9,688 posts)Tommy_Carcetti
(43,083 posts)My five part assessment:
Part One-- https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210416264
Part Two-- https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210416302
Part Three-- https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210430029
Part Four-- https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210567354
Part Five-- https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210567354
MBS
(9,688 posts)What a stranger-than-fiction moment in our history. For the last few years, I've felt like I'm living in an endless episode of the Twilight Zone. With the events of the last week, that feeling has become overwhelming.
Cosmocat
(14,543 posts)One of his fricken campaign manager's resume was made up mostly of working with eastern european thugs.
It just is emblematic of a country that has been gaslighted to the point of turning 2/3 of the brains in this country into mush that people completely ignore how absurdly russia dirty 45 and company are and focus on this kind of bullshit.
THE SAME BULLSHIT HE WAS SPEWING A YEAR AGO WHEN HE WAS SCREAMING BHO WIRETAPPED HIM.