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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (1083537)	8/17/2018 11:03:28 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578335

We Know Trump Is Guilty. We’re Having a Hard Time Admitting It Talking Points Memo by Josh Marshall The greatest conceit in public life today is the notion that we don’t already know President Trump is guilty. Guilty of what? Conspiring, by whatever level of directness, with a foreign power to win the Presidency and then continuing to cater to that foreign power either as payback for the assistance or out of fear of being exposed. In other words, collusion, a national betrayal that may break some statute laws but which far transcends them and isn’t in the past but is rather on-going. It’s true that as a matter of courtroom, reasonable doubt legal proof we don’t yet know this. Or at least, we in the public don’t have all the necessary evidence. It’s possible that critical details are in the hands of the Special Counsel’s office or somewhere in the Intelligence apparatus. But that’s not really the point. These aren’t questions of criminal law. They might become questions of criminal law. But they’re not there yet. They are now simply political questions, meant in the sense that the country must make decisions about President Trump’s conduct and and whether he can be trusted with the truly vast powers of the Presidency. The relevant concept is consciousness of guilt. We have all the evidence about various contacts between the Russian government and its cut-outs and the Trump campaign. We know about the Trump Tower meeting. We know about the meetings with George Papadopoulos. We know about Michael Flynn’s immediate move to start managing the payoffs to the Russia within hours of President Trump’s surprise win. We know there was ‘collusion’; we don’t know how high it went or just what Trump’s role was. Somehow we’re expected to believe that Trump himself was never informed about any of these actions. And that’s there’s no more to be uncovered in a truly unfettered public investigation. That’s a fascinating cat and mouse game. It will be fascinating to cover as a news story. It doesn’t matter for understanding what happened. Here is where consciousness of guilt becomes so straightforward. From the very beginning the President has used every power at his disposal to stop investigations into what happened. He tried to end the investigation into Michael Flynn. He demanded loyalty and protection from the head of the FBI. He fired the head of the FBI because of the Russia probe. He told us it was about the Russia probe. He tried to fire Robert Mueller. He tried to bully Jeff Sessions into resigning so it would be easier to neutralize the investigation. He has been at more or less constant war with the FBI and the Intelligence Community. He openly dangles pardons to thwart the investigation. According to a Washington Post article published today, he’s now pushing ahead with revoking the security clearances of various former officials who were tied to the origins of the Russia investigation. He now says it’s about the Russia probe. In ordinary life, such flagrant and on-going efforts to prevent the truth from coming out are a clear sign of guilt. We rightly demand a higher standard before the criminal law because that is about taking away someone’s liberty. That’s not the case here. We’re only talking about taking away or restrain the power we have given him to use on our behalf. In Joe Klein’s roman å clef Primary Colors, the Bill Clinton character ‘Jack Stanton’ is forced to submit to a paternity test. It’s negative. He’s not the father. But then it emerges that Stanton submitted someone else’s blood. As the dialog between the characters explains, that doesn’t mean Stanton is the father. The key aide actually thinks he’s probably not. But he switched the blood sample because he wasn’t sure he wasn’t. Which was crystal clear evidence that he had the affair. That’s what mattered. Take another analogy. You suspect someone has embezzled money from a company. You ask to see the company’s books. The suspect burns the books. They may have prevented you from learning the details. But they told you all you need to know. They’re guilty. Trump is guilty. Why there’s such resistance to this reality is an interesting question. My own best guess is that it is too disquieting a reality to grapple with. Someone who has deliberately betrayed his country and who is compromised by and under the thumb of a foreign despot clearly should not be President. But his supporters don’t accept that. And as long as they don’t there’s no path to removing him from power prior to 2020 and maybe even beyond. That means that for the present we are locked in a situation in which we must operate in a system in which the person with the most power is working for a foreign adversary, whether out of avarice or fear. That is a profoundly uncomfortable reality. Remaining agnostic on the big question is more comfortable. That’s my theory. But my theory, the why, doesn’t really matter. The fact that the reality is real and that it’s too hard for many to accept is what matters.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (1083537)	8/17/2018 11:18:16 AM
From: Sdgla	1 Recommendation Recommended By FJB Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578335

Fact rat.. brings out the stupid in you. Brennan, like you, remains a traitor and a commie. John Owen Brennan is a traitor. John Owen Brennan is a traitor and (former) CIA Director: In mid-December 2013, Judicial Watch obtained and released the full transcript of a May 7, 2012, teleconference between then-White House top counterterror adviser (now CIA Director) John Brennan and various TV terrorism consultants in which Brennen revealed that the U.S. and its allies had “inside control over any plot” in its efforts to thwart a May 2012 terrorism bomb plot, thus blowing the cover on undercover agents within al Qaeda. The Brennan revelation of “inside control” – an intelligence community euphemism for spies within an enemy operation – reportedly helped lead to the disclosure of a previously well-kept secret at the heart of a joint U.S.-British-Saudi undercover terrorism operation inside Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). According to to a Reuters May 18, 2012, report: The next day’s headlines were filled with news of a U.S. spy planted inside Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who had acquired the latest, non-metallic model of the underwear bomb and handed it over to U.S. authorities. At stake was an operation that could not have been more sensitive — the successful penetration by Western spies of AQAP, al Qaeda’s most creative and lethal affiliate. As a result of leaks, the undercover operation had to be shut down. In the transcript obtained by Judicial Watch, Brennan led the teleconference where he addressed the top terror consultants for ABC, NBC, CNN, and CBS including Caitlin Hayden, Frances Townsend, Richard Clarke, Roger Cressey, and Juan Zarate. In an apparent attempt to soft-peddle the thwarted terrorist attack, Brennan twice exposed the covert operation; first at the outset of the call, then as the conference drew to a close: BRENNAN: The device itself, as I think the FBI statement said quite clearly, never posed a threat to the American public or the public … Well, as we, well know, Al Qaeda has tried to carry out simultaneous types of attacks, and so we were confident that we had inside control over the – any plot that might have been associated with this device. CLARKE: If it gets asked. There was no active threat because we had insider control. BRENNAN: I would not disagree with the way you put that, at all. It should also be noted that records obtained by Judicial Watch in May 2012, through a Freedom of Information lawsuit, indicate that Brennan helped orchestrate the administration’s attempt to influence the storyline of the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.” A transcript of a July 14, 2011, meeting between Defense Department officials, including Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers, and filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal reveals that Boal met directly with White House officials on at least two occasions regarding the film: “I took your guidance and spoke to the WH and had a good meeting with Brennan and McDonough and I plan to follow up with them; and they were forward leaning and interested in sharing their point of view; command and control; so that was great, thank you,” Boal said according to the transcript. During Brennan’s February 2013 CIA confirmation hearings, he confirmed he had met with Boal “on how White House officials viewed the opportunities and risks associated with a film about the raid that killed bin Laden.” Brennan, of course, was not the only Obama administration official who attempted to curry favor with “Zero Dark Thirty” filmmakers. In early December Judicial Watch released more than 200 pages of documents from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including a previously unreleased CIA internal report, confirming that former CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed classified information at a June 24, 2011, bin Laden assault awards ceremony attended by filmmaker Mark Boal. Significantly, the entire transcript of the Panetta speech provided to Judicial Watch by the CIA was classified “Top Secret.” More than 90 lines are redacted for security reasons, further confirming that significant portions of the speech should not have been made in front of the filmmaker who lacked top security clearance.