patrick.net

They drove over that IED a long time ago.

anonymous says

Journalists helped solve the billionaire's accessibility problem by being a more hated group than the arrogant rich.

Exactly!

The press needs to chill out and get back to actual journalism.

Ironman says

anonymous says

Keep saying President Pence out loud so you get used to the sound.

Keep dreaming (but don't get your hopes up).

I've heard establishment Democrats who have become so deeply indoctrinated and scared by TDS that they do hope for that, even though they acknowledge it would be disastrous for the actual liberal causes they claim to believe in. They talk about fascism and nuclear war and either Hitler or Mussolini.

I try to remind them it was the Democrats who campaigned on escalating war in the mideast, including committing acts of war against Russia, including shooting down Russian planes literally seconds' flying time from Armageddon. To my eyes, the party that campaigns for war between the world's two largest nuclear powers has a worse risk of war, compared to the candidate that campaigns against that. Prominent Democrats were literally saying that America must kill Russian soldiers in Syria. Nevertheless, TDS appears to have caused a mental fixation in the base.

Frankly, the reason the merchants of war dislike the President is precisely because he campaigned against the war they were trying to sell. He and Steve Bannon seem rather to agree with Samuel Huntington's more persuasive view that Islam and possibly China present bigger problems. The proven Islamic influence over the Democratic establishment concerns me more than whatever details might arise about alleged Russian connections.

Donald Trump is the first Republican nominee to campaign holding up a gay pride flag, and Democrats want to replace him with a religious crusader who would wage holy war adjacent to the holy land. It shows very conspicuously where their priorities are. Obamneycare had already made me cynical about both major parties, but the Democrats' warmongering and their willingness to sacrifice liberalism on behalf of Islam has further proven it.

"If I told you that Democratic Party lobbyist Tony Podesta, whose brother John Podesta chairs Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, is a registered foreign agent on the Saudi government's payroll, you'd probably think I was a Trump-thumping, conspiratorial nutcase. But it's true."

"How Saudi Arabia captured Washington"

"Saudi Arabia Continues Hiring Spree of American Lobbyists, Public Relations Experts"

"The Red Line and the Rat Line"

Russia never flew planes into the World Trade Center, and Russia never killed 3,000 Americans. Saudis did both, and their government were reportedly accessories both before and after the fact. KSA has a very clear agenda, stated openly on the Saudi flag: "There is no god but Allah, Mohamed is his prophet." They underline that statement with a sword, just like the swords they use to decapitate blasphemers and apostates. Nothing the Democrats could fabricate about Russia would match the facts of KSA.

rando says

anonymous says

Journalists helped solve the billionaire's accessibility problem by being a more hated group than the arrogant rich.

Exactly!

The press needs to chill out and get back to actual journalism.

The commercial and government press can't make as much $ from actual journalism as they can from amplifying cover stories and marketing campaigns. If you had a choice between two stories:
1) the hard work of actual journalism reporting actual fact for no money and little exposure;
2) fame and fortune, or at least a comfortable upper-middle class life for yourself and your family, in exchange for simply repeating lies that are spoonfed to you;
which would you choose? Before you answer, imagine that you have a mortgage, car payments, and a family who depend on you and who will be proud of seeing you on TV and in print, and no other way of making a comparable living.

Most of the audience doesn't even want objectivity. They want to feel good about the beliefs that they identify with already. The search for facts and objective reality is a rough and steep path, and it doesn't even lead to golden fields.

curious2 says

Democrats want to replace him with a religious crusader

I'd rather not replace Trump with Pence, but...
curious2 says

me more than whatever details might arise about alleged Russian connections.

If it turns out that Trump was encouraging Russians to hack into the DNC and the HRC campaign to get and release dirt on his opponents, that's a big problem. I hope that the extent of his encouragement was publicly asking them to hack and get HRCs email. That was bad enough considering what transpired, but at least it was out in the open, and would not be an impeachable offense.

Starting a trade war with China and ruining the peace between us would damage world stability. IMO, the biggest China threat is not direct war, but their efforts to destroy the dollar as world currency. If they replace us in what was the TPP and we get in a big trade war with China, that will have a more detrimental impact on our security than whatever threat the Islamic cave man movement presents.

YesYNot says

a big trade war with China, that will have a more detrimental impact on our security than whatever threat the Islamic cave man movement presents.

That is the globalists' narrative, but I doubt it.

I'm more concerned about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, their record of supporting Islamic terrorists and colluding with Saudis to hide Osama bin Laden from us, and their enthusiasm for killing on behalf of Islam. Sharia patrols and Islamic kill lists of Americans living in America are also a concern, approximately proportional to the number of people inside the USA who believe in Islam.

Certainly the merchants of debt want everyone to consume as much as possible and maximize GDP, and the public debt and pension liabilities have created huge constituencies to maximize GDP and thus a fear of trade reduction. I see those issues as adverse consequences of deficit spending and a culture of debt. People get hijacked into a situation where they fret more about debt service than death or loss of liberty. It's a false economy: people sacrifice liberty for money, spend money they don't have to buy junk they don't need, and end up like heroin addicts jonesing for more junk.

It has to be:

* Enough Official Gov. Agency support for a Russian Connection to help smear Trump
BUT
* Not so much of DOJ/Obama Admin participation so it raises questions about Patriot Act spying on political opponents during election campaign.

The NYT just changed the headline of an article it published almost two months ago: They just realize how this narrative could come back and bite them on the ass after the Trump Tweet.

YesYNot says

If it turns out that Trump was encouraging Russians to hack into the DNC and the HRC campaign to get and release dirt on his opponents, that's a big problem.

At what point do we say "No evidence, so drop it."?

At the 6 month point into Watergate, secret accounts were found, participants were arrested and charged. 6 months+ into the Trump-Russia story, and there isn't a shred of evidence.

One of the things the Democrats could do would be to turn over the DNC Server to the FBI so they themselves (not hired DNC Contractor Crowdstrike) can employ forensic techniques on it. However, turning it over would reveal crap security protocols and probably not provide evidence that any specific entity was responsible, which is why they won't. Better to keep driving the rumor than closing the "Hack" story either by finding it can't be determined who it was.

If there was any evidence that Trump-Russia colluded, we would have seen it by now; the Deep State loathes Trump and would have leaked it long ago, even if it was only a strong whiff of evidence and not conclusive.

YesYNot says

Starting a trade war with China and ruining the peace between us would damage world stability.

We have hundred of billions in Trade Deficits with China, and Pivot to Asia by showing military force started with Obama, and it looks like Trump is continuing it.

Germany, UK, France, and Russia were each others' big trade partners before WW1 and WW2. UK and China in the 19th Century. The French and British Celts since before Gaul was Roman, raid and trade.

Trade Partners are actually only slightly less likely to war on each other as Neighbors.

In support of the OP:

A month into its sweeping investigation into the Kremlin’s efforts to undermine the US election, the Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to answer all those questions — publicly, coherently, and fast. As the days tick by, they’re less and less sure they’ll be able to.

Even some Democrats on the Intelligence Committee now quietly admit, after several briefings and preliminary inquiries, they don’t expect to find evidence of active, informed collusion between the Trump campaign and known Russian intelligence operatives, though investigators have only just begun reviewing raw intelligence. Among the Intelligence Committee’s rank and file, there’s a tangible frustration over what one official called “wildly inflated” expectations surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation.

Since the probe was first announced in December — days after the FBI and CIA told Congress they believed the Kremlin had worked to elect Trump — political infighting has fundamentally shifted its mandate. Instead of a surgically precise examination of the raw intelligence that led US agencies to conclude the Kremlin attempted to tilt the election, the Intelligence Committee investigation has quickly become the catch-all for any politician’s lingering questions related to Moscow. Now, several committee sources grudgingly say, it feels as though the investigation will be seen as a sham if the Senate doesn’t find a silver bullet connecting Trump and Russian intelligence operatives.

“I don’t think the conclusions are going to meet people’s expectations,” a second official said.

Of course, you also won't find anything if there is no anything to find. Hoping for one party to win over the other is hardly brazen interference in an election, happens ALL the time. Merkel, UK ex-PM B'liar, and Hollande vociferously backed Hillary and their State TV coverage was entirely "With Her".

Comey is a smart cookie. He makes the Dems happy by keeping investigations open, while finding nothing over and over again. And Trump can't fire him because "OMG! Trump is firing the FBI Director to protect himself! Impeach!"