Trump & Putin. Yes, It's Really a Thing

[Winehole23]

A. Nobody has proved Russia released the emails
B. Are you cool with Hillary rigging the primaries and ripping millions of Americans from their vote?

Agreed, and nope.

It's a bit of a stretch to blame Hilary for rigging the primaries: the DNC and the rules did that.

[Splits]

Damn, no wonder hater loves Trump

Trump Foreign Policy Adviser Traveled To Russia Prior To Changes In GOP Platform

Carter Page expressed a wish for a closer relationship between Washington and Moscow.

WASHINGTON ― Just days before Republicans adopted a new, more Russia-friendly plank into their party platform, one of Donald Trump’s top advisers visited Moscow in July to deliver speeches criticizing decades of U.S. foreign policy.

Global energy investor Carter Page joined Trump’s team in March. Since then, Page has criticized U.S.-Russia policy in a number of public speeches, and repeatedly expressed his hope that a closer relationship between the two nations might be possible with Trump in the White House.

“Washington and other Western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change,” Page said last month during a commencement speech at a Moscow economics graduate school.

Page also suggested the United States should ease economic sanctions imposed on Russia following its 2014 incursion into Ukraine and Crimea, which was condemned in an overwhelming vote in the United Nations. In exchange for sanctions relief, Page said, American companies might be invited to partner with Russian firms to exploit Russia’s oil and gas fields.

[Splits]

[spurraider21]

Trump visited Russia??

Holy !


I can only imagine your reaction when you find out Obama went to Cuba

[Splits]

[pgardn]

It's still ALIVE:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...ilimnik-227181


The slime that Trump hires and fires.

[Reck]

It's still ALIVE:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0...ilimnik-227181


The slime that Trump hires and fires.

I give this guy a week before he "steps down" from being the Trump's campaign chairman.

[pgardn]

I give this guy a week before he "steps down" from being the Trump's campaign chairman.

How about a day. Good call. The demotion and his slimy dealings sealed the deal. I thought he might just stay on and collect a pay check while working for Assad on the side.

[Reck]

How about a day. Good call. The demotion and his slimy dealings sealed the deal. I thought he might just stay on and collect a pay check while working for Assad on the side.

Holy .

[boutons_deux]

Paul Manafort Resigns As Head Of Trump Campaign



The Russian/Ukrainian connection!

[hitmanyr2k]

I saw that resignation coming. I knew Manafort's demotion was about more than Trump feeling "boxed in and not able to be himself on the campaign trail" since he really hasn't changed much at all. That demotion was all about putting Manafort under the guillotine because they knew the damaging stories that were about to break.

[Pelicans78]

I saw that resignation coming. I knew Manafort's demotion was about more than Trump feeling "boxed in and not able to be himself on the campaign trail" since he really hasn't changed much at all. That demotion was all about putting Manafort under the guillotine because they knew the damaging stories that were about to break.

This election is a storm on both sides. Trump just happens to be the bigger turd.

[boutons_deux]

This election is a storm on both sides. Trump just happens to be the bigger turd.

what is the REAL storm on Hillary's side? please exclude desperate Repug fabrications, lies, witch hunting.

[Pelicans78]

what is the REAL storm on Hillary's side? please exclude desperate Repug fabrications, lies, witch hunting.

You're asking me when you criticize her all the time? You know her issues when it comes to foreign policy, corruption, etc. The same talking points when you were supporting Bernie over her. Don't ask so shocked when someone else is not a fan when you don't even like her yourself. Gimme a ing break.

[boutons_deux]

You're asking me when you criticize her all the time?

You Lie.

I don't like her personally, I don't care about her gender, but my biggest objections are her policies of neocon "regime change".

I attack her attackers not in her defense but for the sheer pleasure of exposing her attackers as lying s bags.

That she's owned by BigFinance isn't a distinguishing problem, since ALL politicians are s to "money in politics".

Any corruption the Repugs are trying to stop her with is perfectly hypocritical cherry picking, since EVERY Repug is just as corrupt in pay-for-play bribery Washington.

The Hillary storm is totally fabricated by Repugs, since Repugs don't GAF about policies and governing, only in fabricated storms of "personal destruction", paranoia, hate, gods-guns-gays-abortion-knitters-immigrants-white-supremacy.

[Splits]

CBS This Morning: Paul Manafort May Be Guilty Of "Tax Evasion, Money Laundering, And Illegally Providing Funds For Lobbyists"


MARGARET BRENNAN (CO-HOST): This morning, a Ukrainian lawmaker is revealing new details about millions of dollars in cash possibly set aside for Donald Trump's campaign chairman by a pro-Russian political party he consulted for. Investigators are looking for the person who signed for that money. Paul Manafort says he never received any secret payments. Our Charlie D'Agata is in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, where he has seen the evidence. Charlie, good morning.

CHARLIE D'AGATA: Good morning. Well this is a copy of the statement that was released condensed from the black ledger. And yes, there are items like expenses and computer equipment, but in some cases the reason for payment is listed in just one word: "Manafort."

It details what appears to be undisclosed cash payments to Paul Manafort from his client's party at the time, Russian-backed former President Viktor Yanukovych, like never before. 22 items dating back from November 20th, 2007. The biggest entries -- $1.3 million, $1.15 million, and $3.5 million -- simply state "payment" or "Paul Manafort contract," in all, totaling to $12.8 million. The new details were brought to life by anti-corruption politician Serhiy Leshchenko. Do you believe that's enough to start pursuing criminal charges against Mr. Manafort?

SERHIY LESHCHENKO: There are some investigations in Ukraine based on these records. And I believe he has to be interrogated in this case too.
D'AGATA: Investigators are now trying to determine whether Manafort played a key role in secretly routing millions of dollars to U.S. lobbyists. Though none of the entries are signed by Manafort, it’s Vitaliy Kalyuzhny's signature that appears most. He was a senior member of Yanukovych's party who founded an organization that reportedly paid millions of dollars to Washington-based lobbyists in order to sway public opinion in favor of Russian-backed Yanukovych. And anti-corruption officials say another name popped up on that ledger, Larry King. The name of the former CNN host appears next to a payment of $225,000 just two months before this 2011 interview with then-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. Just another bizarre twist in what has become an increasingly murky tale.

Well Larry King aside, as far as investigators here are concerned, Paul Manafort may be guilty of tax evasion, money laundering, and illegally providing funds for lobbyists in the United States, and he should face questioning here or in America.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/0...g-funds/212522

damn, this dude is going down

[boutons_deux]

http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/0...g-funds/212522

damn, this dude is going down

Looks like Trash should have "extremely vetted" his own staff.

[boutons_deux]

More of Kremlin’s Opponents Are Ending Up Dead

While Mr. Kara-Murza survived, few others in his position have proved as lucky. He said he was certain he had been the target of a security service poisoning.

Used extensively in the Soviet era, political murders are again playing a prominent role in the Kremlin’s foreign policy, the most brutal instrument in an expanding repertoire of intimidation tactics intended to silence or otherwise intimidate critics at home and abroad.

Muckraking journalists, rights advocates, opposition politicians, government whistle-blowers and other Russians who threaten that image are treated harshly — imprisoned on trumped-up charges, smeared in the news media and, with increasing frequency, killed.

Political murders, particularly those accomplished with poisons, are nothing new in Russia, going back five centuries. Nor are they particularly subtle. While typically not traceable to any individuals and plausibly denied by government officials, poisonings leave little doubt of the state’s involvement — which may be precisely the point.

“Outside of popular culture, there are no highly skilled hit men for hire,” Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University and an authority on the Russian security services, said in an interview. “If it’s a skilled job, that means it’s a state asset.”

Applied most notoriously in the case of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a Putin opponent who died of polonium-210 poisoning in London in 2006, murders and deaths under mysterious cir stances are now seen as such a menace that Kremlin critics now often flee the country and keep their whereabouts secret.

“The government is using the special services to liquidate its enemies,” Gennadi V. Gudkov, a former member of Parliament and onetime lieutenant colonel in the K.G.B., said in an interview. “It was not just Litvinenko, but many others we don’t know about, classified as accidents or maybe semi-accidents.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/wo...pgtype=article

[boutons_deux]

Mikhail Baryshnikov: Trump's rhetoric reminds me of Soviet Union

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/17/politi...inkId=27821396

[Splits]

Just in case anyone was still wondering, Donald Trump really, really loves Vladimir Putin


Updated by Yochi Dreazen
Sep 7, 2016, 10:43p

Vladimir Putin runs a kleptocracy that invades neighboring countries, stands accused of trying to interfere in the US election, and backs dictators around the globe. Donald Trump prefers to focus on a different aspect of Putin’s rule: the Russian strongman’s sky-high approval ratings.

Ignore the fact that Putin’s popularity at home has been boosted by his willingness to exile, jail, or kill both political opponents and journalists. To Trump, that simply makes Putin a strong leader, one whose praise the Republican nominee is happy to accept.

"When he calls me brilliant, I'll take the compliment," Trump said during a televised town hall meeting Wednesday.

The comment came during a slightly surreal exchange with moderator Matt Lauer, who pressed Trump about his past pro-Putin comments, which have included praising him as a "leader" and someone "highly respected within his own country and beyond" (the NBC anchor chose to ignore the fact that several close Trump aides — including the mogul’s recently ousted campaign manager, Paul Manafort — have extensive, and lucrative, businessrelationships with Moscow).

"He does have an 82 percent approval rating according to the different pollsters," Trump said. "By the way, some of them are based here."

That’s not true — only one poll shows that level of support, and it was conducted by a Moscow-based nonprofit called the Levada Center — but those details are entirely beside the point. Given the chance to back away from his praise of Putin — a position that has alarmed many leading Republican national security figures — Trump chose to instead double down.

"If he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him," Trump said. "The man has very strong control over a country. It's a very different system and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly in that system, he's been a leader. Far more than our president has been a leader."

Beyond the rhetoric, Trump has taken positions — endorsing Moscow’s support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria, refusing to commit to defending NATO allies against a possible future Russian invasion — that are closely in line with the Russian leader’s long-held strategic goals.

The mogul has even encouraged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s email and publicly release what it found, a comment that led a spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan to write that "Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election."

Trump later insisted he was joking.

Earlier in Wednesday’s exchange, Lauer ran through a laundry list of Putin’s sins.

"He's also a guy who annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine, supports Assad in Syria, supports Iran, is trying to undermine our influence in key regions of the world, and, according to our intelligence community, probably is the main suspect for the hacking of the DNC computers," the moderator said.

Trump responded by arguing, in effect, that Barack Obama was just as bad.

"Do you want me to start naming some of the things that President Obama does at the same time?" Trump asked.

Obama took office hoping to "reset" relations with Russia, but will leave the White House with the two countries further apart than at any point since the Cold War. Trump’s continued praise of Putin — and willingness to, with a straight face, argue that Obama is just as immoral as the Russian strongman — suggests that the GOP nominee might actually succeed in building a warm relationship with Moscow. He’d just shed decades of American commitments and principles to make it happen.

http://www.vox.com/2016/9/7/12843184...ents-town-hall

[boutons_deux]

Putin Becomes the Ultimate Test of GOP Loyalty to Trump

The curious case of the Trump campaign doubling down on Putin

One more point here: What's amazing about the Trump campaign's embrace of Putin, even from Pence, is that Putin is one of the more reviled figures among American voters. Here are the fav/unfav ratings from our May 2016 NBC/WSJ poll:

• Barack Obama: 49% positive, 41% negative (+8)
• Bernie Sanders: 43% positive, 36% negative (+7)
• Paul Ryan: 29% positive, 29% negative (even)
• Democratic Party: 38% positive, 41% negative (-3)
• Hillary Clinton: 34% positive, 54% negative (-20)
• Republican Party: 24% positive, 49% negative (-25)
• Donald Trump: 29% positive, 58% negative (-29)
• Vladimir Putin: 8% positive, 59% negative (-51)

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/firs...sm_fb_lastword

[hater]

Putin is a great leader and 100x the leader Odumbo is. That is a fact.

Pimp recognize pimp. So not surprised Mr Trump likes Putin. 2 great guys that will most likely bring years of peace and prosperity to this world.

[Splits]

lol hater you da man

[Splits]

CBS This Morning: Paul Manafort May Be Guilty Of "Tax Evasion, Money Laundering, And Illegally Providing Funds For Lobbyists"


MARGARET BRENNAN (CO-HOST): This morning, a Ukrainian lawmaker is revealing new details about millions of dollars in cash possibly set aside for Donald Trump's campaign chairman by a pro-Russian political party he consulted for. Investigators are looking for the person who signed for that money. Paul Manafort says he never received any secret payments. Our Charlie D'Agata is in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, where he has seen the evidence. Charlie, good morning.

CHARLIE D'AGATA: Good morning. Well this is a copy of the statement that was released condensed from the black ledger. And yes, there are items like expenses and computer equipment, but in some cases the reason for payment is listed in just one word: "Manafort."

It details what appears to be undisclosed cash payments to Paul Manafort from his client's party at the time, Russian-backed former President Viktor Yanukovych, like never before. 22 items dating back from November 20th, 2007. The biggest entries -- $1.3 million, $1.15 million, and $3.5 million -- simply state "payment" or "Paul Manafort contract," in all, totaling to $12.8 million. The new details were brought to life by anti-corruption politician Serhiy Leshchenko. Do you believe that's enough to start pursuing criminal charges against Mr. Manafort?

SERHIY LESHCHENKO: There are some investigations in Ukraine based on these records. And I believe he has to be interrogated in this case too.
D'AGATA: Investigators are now trying to determine whether Manafort played a key role in secretly routing millions of dollars to U.S. lobbyists. Though none of the entries are signed by Manafort, it’s Vitaliy Kalyuzhny's signature that appears most. He was a senior member of Yanukovych's party who founded an organization that reportedly paid millions of dollars to Washington-based lobbyists in order to sway public opinion in favor of Russian-backed Yanukovych. And anti-corruption officials say another name popped up on that ledger, Larry King. The name of the former CNN host appears next to a payment of $225,000 just two months before this 2011 interview with then-Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. Just another bizarre twist in what has become an increasingly murky tale.

Well Larry King aside, as far as investigators here are concerned, Paul Manafort may be guilty of tax evasion, money laundering, and illegally providing funds for lobbyists in the United States, and he should face questioning here or in America.

http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/0...g-funds/212522

damn, this dude is going down

Called it.

[boutons_deux]

Didn't PMs own daugher tweet that PM's money was "blood money"?