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SciFiSlasher from Absolutely none of your business. Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#240201: Apr 28th 2018 at 4:20:08 PM

The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Jr. and Kushner was much closer to the Kremlin than was previously thought.

Washington (CNN)Newly surfaced emails indicate that Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign associates in 2016, once worked with Russia's chief legal office in an effort to thwart the Justice Department, The New York Times reported on Friday.

...

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that there are ties between Veselnitskaya and the Russian government, and last year, Veselnitskaya denied having worked for the Russian government in an interview with NBC News.

But the newspaper now reports that in the interview with NBC News set to air on Friday, she says, "I am a lawyer, and I am an informant," and that since 2013, she has been "actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general."

edited 28th Apr '18 4:22:06 PM by SciFiSlasher

"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#240202: Apr 28th 2018 at 4:20:35 PM

#2 doesn't happen unless a substantial number of Republican Senators play ball, which won't happen barring (maybe) a truly massive escalation of one or more of his scandals.

I suspect it will be a mix of #1 and #3, though I doubt he'd ever resign unless he's facing imminent impeachment or the indictment of his inner circle (and possibly himself for State level charges).

Yeah I don't think #2 is very likely at-all, but it's not inconceivable that the party gets butchered enough in the midterms to make enough Republicans willing to defect to impeach him. Obviously we shouldn't rely on or expect it but I think it's possible.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#240203: Apr 28th 2018 at 4:32:49 PM

[up][up][up][up] Trump is a useful idiot, not an enemy agent. As we know the facts now, Watergate is definitely worse.

Trump is coming pretty close though, and his politics are much more damaging.

edited 28th Apr '18 4:34:57 PM by archonspeaks

They should have sent a poet.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#240204: Apr 28th 2018 at 4:33:42 PM

[up]x6

I think Trump is a bigger deal because while this is certainly illegal and pathetic, it doesn't necessarily involve cooperating with a foreign power to fix an election.

Although we didn't know it at the time, apparently he actually did.

Nixon Tried to Spoil Johnson’s Vietnam Peace Talks in ’68, Notes Show

Richard M. Nixon told an aide that they should find a way to secretly “monkey wrench” peace talks in Vietnam in the waning days of the 1968 campaign for fear that progress toward ending the war would hurt his chances for the presidency, according to newly discovered notes.

In a telephone conversation with H. R. Haldeman, who would go on to become White House chief of staff, Nixon gave instructions that a friendly intermediary should keep “working on” South Vietnamese leaders to persuade them not to agree to a deal before the election, according to the notes, taken by Mr. Haldeman.

The Nixon campaign’s clandestine effort to thwart President Lyndon B. Johnson’s peace initiative that fall has long been a source of controversy and scholarship. Ample evidence has emerged documenting the involvement of Nixon’s campaign. But Mr. Haldeman’s notes appear to confirm longstanding suspicions that Nixon himself was directly involved, despite his later denials.

“There’s really no doubt this was a step beyond the normal political jockeying, to interfere in an active peace negotiation given the stakes with all the lives,” said John A. Farrell, who discovered the notes at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library for his forthcoming biography, “Richard Nixon: The Life,” to be published in March by Doubleday. “Potentially, this is worse than anything he did in Watergate.”

Mr. Farrell, in an article in The New York Times Sunday Review over the weekend, highlighted the notes by Mr. Haldeman, along with many of Nixon’s fulsome denials of any efforts to thwart the peace process before the election.

His discovery, according to numerous historians who have written books about Nixon and conducted extensive research of his papers, finally provides validation of what had largely been surmise.

While overshadowed by Watergate, the Nixon campaign’s intervention in the peace talks has captivated historians for years. At times resembling a Hollywood thriller, the story involves colorful characters, secret liaisons, bitter rivalries and plenty of lying and spying. Whether it changed the course of history remains open to debate, but at the very least it encapsulated an almost-anything-goes approach that characterized the nation’s politics in that era.

As the Republican candidate in 1968, Nixon was convinced that Johnson, a Democrat who decided not to seek re-election, was deliberately trying to sabotage his campaign with a politically motivated peace effort meant mainly to boost the candidacy of his vice president, Hubert H. Humphrey. His suspicions were understandable, and at least one of Johnson’s aides later acknowledged that they were anxious to make progress before the election to help Mr. Humphrey.

Through much of the campaign, the Nixon team maintained a secret channel to the South Vietnamese through Anna Chennault, widow of Claire Lee Chennault, leader of the Flying Tigers in China during World War II. Mrs. Chennault had become a prominent Republican fund-raiser and Washington hostess.

Nixon met with Mrs. Chennault and the South Vietnamese ambassador earlier in the year to make clear that she was the campaign’s “sole representative” to the Saigon government. But whether he knew what came later has always been uncertain. She was the conduit for urging the South Vietnamese to resist Johnson’s entreaties to join the Paris talks and wait for a better deal under Nixon. At one point, she told the ambassador she had a message from “her boss”: “Hold on, we are gonna win.”

Learning of this through wiretaps and surveillance, Johnson was livid. He ordered more bugs and privately groused that Nixon’s behavior amounted to “treason.” But lacking hard evidence that Nixon was directly involved, Johnson opted not to go public.

The notes Mr. Farrell found come from a phone call on Oct. 22, 1968, as Johnson prepared to order a pause in the bombing to encourage peace talks in Paris. Scribbling down what Nixon was telling him, Mr. Haldeman wrote, “Keep Anna Chennault working on SVN,” or South Vietnam.

A little later, he wrote that Nixon wanted Senator Everett Dirksen, a Republican from Illinois, to call the president and denounce the planned bombing pause. “Any other way to monkey wrench it?” Mr. Haldeman wrote. “Anything RN can do.”

Nixon added later that Spiro T. Agnew, his vice-presidential running mate, should contact Richard Helms, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and threaten not to keep him on in a new administration if he did not provide more inside information. “Go see Helms,” Mr. Haldeman wrote. “Tell him we want the truth — or he hasn’t got the job.”

After leaving office, Nixon denied knowing about Mrs. Chennault’s messages to the South Vietnamese late in the 1968 campaign, despite proof that she had been in touch with John N. Mitchell, Mr. Nixon’s campaign manager and later attorney general.

Other Nixon scholars called Mr. Farrell’s discovery a breakthrough. Robert Dallek, an author of books on Nixon and Johnson, said the notes “seem to confirm suspicions” of Nixon’s involvement in violation of federal law. Evan Thomas, the author of “Being Nixon,” said Mr. Farrell had “nailed down what has been talked about for a long time.”

Ken Hughes, a researcher at the Miller Center of the University of Virginia, who in 2014 published “Chasing Shadows,” a book about the episode, said Mr. Farrell had found a smoking gun. “This appears to be the missing piece of the puzzle in the Chennault affair,” Mr. Hughes said. The notes “show that Nixon committed a crime to win the presidential election.”

Still, as tantalizing as they are, the notes do not reveal what, if anything, Mr. Haldeman actually did with the instruction, and it is unclear that the South Vietnamese needed to be told to resist joining peace talks that they considered disadvantageous already.

Moreover, it cannot be said definitively whether a peace deal could have been reached without Nixon’s intervention or that it would have helped Mr. Humphrey. William P. Bundy, a foreign affairs adviser to Johnson and John F. Kennedy who was highly critical of Nixon, nonetheless concluded that prospects for the peace deal were slim anyway, so “probably no great chance was lost.”

Luke A. Nichter, a scholar at Texas A&M University and one of the foremost students of the Nixon White House secret tape recordings, said he liked more of Mr. Farrell’s book than not, but disagreed with the conclusions about Mr. Haldeman’s notes. In his view, they do not prove anything new and are too thin to draw larger conclusions.

“Because sabotaging the ’68 peace efforts seems like a Nixon-like thing to do, we are willing to accept a very low bar of evidence on this,” Mr. Nichter said.

Tom Charles Huston, a Nixon aide who investigated the affair years ago, found no definitive proof that the future president was involved but concluded that it was reasonable to infer he was because of Mr. Mitchell’s role. Responding to Mr. Farrell’s findings, Mr. Huston wrote on Facebook that the latest notes still do not fully answer the question.

The notes, he wrote, “reinforce the inference but don’t push us over the line into a necessary verdict.” Critics, he added, ignore that there was little chance of a peace deal, believing that “it is irrelevant that Saigon would have walked away without intervention by the Nixon campaign.” In effect, he said, “they wish to try RN for thought crimes.”

An open question is whether Johnson, if he had had proof of Nixon’s personal involvement, would have publicized it before the election.

Tom Johnson, the note taker in White House meetings about this episode, said that the president considered the Nixon campaign’s actions to be treasonous but that no direct link to Nixon was established until Mr. Farrell’s discovery.

“It is my personal view that disclosure of the Nixon-sanctioned actions by Mrs. Chennault would have been so explosive and damaging to the Nixon 1968 campaign that Hubert Humphrey would have been elected president,” said Mr. Johnson, who went on to become the publisher of The Los Angeles Times and later chief executive of CNN.

edited 28th Apr '18 4:43:20 PM by megaeliz

tricksterson Never Trust from Behind you with an icepick Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Never Trust
#240205: Apr 28th 2018 at 4:58:45 PM

@Fourthspartan: You don't seriously think Trump, his followers or the bulk of the Republican leadership has any interest in the Constitution or the rule of law do you? I doubt he'd succeed but I won't be surprised if he tries.

Trump delenda est
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#240206: Apr 28th 2018 at 5:05:45 PM

[up]What they have interest in doesn't matter, he cannot do this and if he tries it will simply be another thing to possibly impeach him over.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Raptorslash Since: Oct, 2010
#240207: Apr 28th 2018 at 5:08:20 PM

Another factor - I don't think Nixon had the kind of devoted, unquestioning following that Trump has.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#240208: Apr 28th 2018 at 5:12:37 PM

[up]He totally did.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#240209: Apr 28th 2018 at 5:18:37 PM

What about Chappaquiddick?

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#240210: Apr 28th 2018 at 5:23:53 PM

Presumably they were talking about this.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#240211: Apr 28th 2018 at 6:01:13 PM

Nixon and Trump's big differences are.

1. Nixon actually cared about doing his job.

2. Nixon's efforts have killed thousands of people

3. Nixon knew how to do his job.

edited 28th Apr '18 6:01:27 PM by CharlesPhipps

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#240212: Apr 28th 2018 at 6:21:20 PM

It comes down to which you consider worse: evil and competent, or evil and incompetent.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#240213: Apr 28th 2018 at 6:37:13 PM

Some of the weirdest highlights from Trump's rally in Michigan. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

"You may have heard I was invited to another event tonight, the White House Correspondents Dinner, but I'd much rather be in Washington, Michigan than Washington, D.C. right now," Trump says to begin his campaign rally.

Trump claims that there are five times as many people stuck outside the rally than actually in the rally. Any reporters on the scene?

Trump: "We support the rule of law, and we support the heroes of law enforcement."

Trump: "We honour our flag. And if others honoured our flag, they'd be a lot better off." "...we stand for the national anthem."

On California, Liberals, and his stupid wall:

"San Diego, they're being just overrun...overrun by people pouring. So they're begging us for a wall." San Diego is not begging for a wall. Trump then falsely says the wall has been "started in San Diego." Only prototypes have been built there.

Trump calls California Gov. Jerry Brown "Moonbeam." He rails against sanctuary cities.

Trump: "The Democrats don't care about our military. They don't." He says that is also true of the border and crime.

On the Nobel Prize

When Trump starts talking about North Korea, some of the crowd starts loudly chanting "NO-BEL." He laughs and says, "I just want to get the job done."

On Russia

"I'm tougher on Russia. Nobody ever thought. In fact. Have you heard about the lawyer? For a year, a woman lawyer..."

Trump is offering an elaborate and bizzare theory for why Natalia Veselnitskaya now claims to be an "informant" in contact with the Russian government, claiming it's actually because he's so tough on Russia that...I don't even understand

On the FBI

Trump is on an extended rant against Comey, the "two lovers" at the FBI, and Andrew Mc Cabe. He falsely says again that Andrew Mc Cabe took $700,000. He references the pathological liar character Jon Lovitz once played on Saturday Night Live.

On Trade and China

Trump says there might be "a little pain" because of his hard line on trade, but it'll be good in the end - "ultimately for my farmers: I love my farmers." Interesting "my."

Trump on China: "When we lose $500 billion a year, and that's in a trade deficit..."

That is the 30th time in office he has given an inaccurate figure for the China trade deficit. It is $337 billion.

Trump with some admiration: "I looked at President Xi, and he's the BOSS. He's the guy."

Israel

Trump is getting even more detailed in his almost certainly fictional story about how he almost signed a plan to spend $1 billion on a new Jerusalem embassy and then stopped. He now says: "It's signed Donald and then it stopped and I put a big X over the Donald."

Trump is complaining about "some genius" who decided to move the U.S. embassy in London even though it was on "THE best site." It was moved because the Bush administration decided it couldn't be secured against terrorism in a dense neighbourhood.

on midterms:

Trump warns that Democrats will try to impeach him if they retake the House

Trump warns his supporters against complacency in the midterms, but he says they're going to do well because the economy is so great and because "we're respected again" around the world.

On Community Colleges

President Donald Trump: "Nobody really knows what a community college is."

Trump: "Nobody knows what a community college is. We're going to start using - and we had this - 'VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS.'"

Both exist. They are different things. People know this.

On Syria

Trump on a military strike: "Look at what happened in Syria: boom, boom, BING."

His achievements

Trump brings back one of his weirdest false claims, saying he was named Michigan's "Republican of the Year" even before he was running. He used to claim he was named Michigan Man of the Year, period, which is not a thing.

Trump says he says this not as a "braggadocios" thing but just as "fact": "Nobody in the first year of office has done what we've done. It's not me, it's we."

edited 28th Apr '18 6:56:13 PM by megaeliz

Raptorslash Since: Oct, 2010
#240214: Apr 28th 2018 at 6:42:06 PM

I bet he wants a Nobel Prize because Obama got one.

RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#240215: Apr 28th 2018 at 6:46:18 PM

God, even reading transcripts of him speaking is so difficult.

It's been fun.
DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#240216: Apr 28th 2018 at 6:46:53 PM

[up][up]A Nobel Peace Prize, to be precise - not really the most prestigious of Nobel Prices. :/

edited 28th Apr '18 6:47:12 PM by DrunkenNordmann

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#240217: Apr 28th 2018 at 6:47:04 PM

"Michigan Man of the Year" is totally a thing. It's a man who wears an unbottoned checkered shirt over a white undershirt, drinks Bell's, and still talks about the 1984 World Series.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#240218: Apr 28th 2018 at 6:50:07 PM

[up]x4 Laura Ingraham certainly thinks so.

edited 28th Apr '18 6:50:17 PM by speedyboris

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#240219: Apr 28th 2018 at 7:16:18 PM

So how big was Trump's latest ego-boosting rally? Bigger or Smaller then the Arizona event last year? That could be important to see who is sticking with him and who isn't.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#240220: Apr 28th 2018 at 7:30:41 PM

As a comparison have some Nice Donald Trump, to remind us what a sane and well adjusted president would say:

It's wheels up today for Michigan, where I'll be chairing a roundtable of car industry representatives, witnessing Detroit's surprising emergence as a hipster haven, and heading to Flint where I'll look over several proposals to finally bring potable water to the city...

Finally tonight I'll head for Macomb County, where I'll head up a listening session to hear the varied concerns of simple farmers, and people of the land.

Can this guy be our president instead?

edited 28th Apr '18 7:31:17 PM by megaeliz

TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#240221: Apr 28th 2018 at 7:56:23 PM

Man, this white house correspondents dinner.

Phew.

They're going all in on Sarah Sanders, and Trump.

New Survey coming this weekend!
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#240222: Apr 28th 2018 at 8:10:27 PM

Poor snowflake couldn't handle the heat, so he went to rant to his cultists.[lol]

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#240223: Apr 28th 2018 at 8:57:22 PM

My favorite has to be the Syria comment:

Trump on a military strike: "Look at what happened in Syria: boom, boom, BING."

"Boom, boom, BING"

So that's how you describe an airstrike that you announed to the world on twitter, because your closest advisiors, Fox and Friends, told you to, while the rest of your administration was still trying to decide on a response, while also tipping off the Russians and Assad a week before it happened, so you just bomb an empty building.

Got it.

edited 28th Apr '18 9:14:42 PM by megaeliz

DrDougsh Since: Jan, 2001
#240224: Apr 28th 2018 at 9:11:15 PM

What are the chances of Trump actually getting a Nobel nomination? Moon Jae-in would seem almost like a shoe-in for the Nobel peace prize this year if the peace talks lead to anything substantial, but then there'd probably be an expectancy for it to be joint between him and Kim... and I'm sure nobody wants to award a Nobel to Kim.

edited 28th Apr '18 9:14:16 PM by DrDougsh

TheWildWestPyro from Seattle, WA Since: Sep, 2012 Relationship Status: Healthy, deeply-felt respect for this here Shotgun
#240225: Apr 28th 2018 at 9:12:44 PM

[up]

People would sooner saw off their pinky toes than award Nobels to Kim in public.


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