Russia claims to have compromise info on Trump

[twenty02]

The media would be much better if it really were objective. They did the same thing when they reported that the kid who killed all those people at the Aurora Colorado theater was a member of the tea party. The media is simply too pro-left and it blows up in their faces in a number of different ways. You would think they would understand that approximately half of the county disagrees with their leftism and seeks fair reporting. It is in the media's self-interest to be fair, but they just can't do it. They are becoming irrelevant and are slowly going out of business.

That's just silly....one side does not have complete control of media. The largest cable news network is right leaning. There are dozens of right leaning media-sites. Conservatives also totally dominate radio.

Anyone from any side that promotes false or poorly sourced stories will very quickly be rightly denigrated in the public sphere.

This is "fake" outrage.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

The media would be much better if it really were objective. They did the same thing when they reported that the kid who killed all those people at the Aurora Colorado theater was a member of the tea party. The media is simply too pro-left and it blows up in their faces in a number of different ways. You would think they would understand that approximately half of the county disagrees with their leftism and seeks fair reporting. It is in the media's self-interest to be fair, but they just can't do it. They are becoming irrelevant and are slowly going out of business.

Why make this about the news media? Intel agencies briefed the president and the president elect on this story. How is that in any way not news? It is at least as much news as those quadrillion classified emails on Wiener's laptop. I didn't here complaints about news media speculating on that?

It is news, we just have to be smart enough to take it for what it is, unverified. After all, some of us were certain Wiener's laptop was a smoking gun. I don't think this Trump story will play out any differently. We all need to be smart enough to keep the cart behind the horse. At this point, there is zero evidence to incriminate Trump.

 

[IUJIM]

Nope, but I guarantee you it shows something he doesn't want us to see. I'd say it's very likely he owes serious money to the Russians and that he has various dealings with them. If so, he lied about that today,

So his tax returns "very likely" says that "he owes serious money" to the Russians, therefore he lied today. That is just some brilliant stuff there, Zeke.

 

[Univee2]

So his tax returns "very likely" says that "he owes serious money" to the Russians, therefore he lied today. That is just some brilliant stuff there, Zeke.

It's what passes for reasoning among the shrill, fever-browed crowd.

Here, they just want to pee on anybody who didn't vote for Hillary. On, the OTF, it's the ovens, so we've got that going for us.

And, the next full (wolf) moon is tomorrow, so this weirdness isn't totally unexplainable.

 

[twenty02]

Tapper comments.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

It is news, we just have to be smart enough to take it for what it is, unverified.

Unverified news. That kinda sounds like an oxymoron to me.

 

[HillzHoozier]

Tapper comments.

View embedded media

Shorter CNN: "You didn't hear this from us, but Buzzfeed says..."

 

[CO. Hoosier]

That's just silly....one side does not have complete control of media. The largest cable news network is right leaning. There are dozens of right leaning media-sites. Conservatives also totally dominate radio.

Anyone from any side that promotes false or poorly sourced stories will very quickly be rightly denigrated in the public sphere.

This is "fake" outrage.

Your comment about "'fake' outrage" is fake outrage. I'm simply making an observation. I think the quality of news woud improve without obvious bias.

 

[zeke4ahs]

Nope, but I guarantee you it shows something he doesn't want us to see. I'd say it's very likely he owes serious money to the Russians and that he has various dealings with them. If so, he lied about that today,

So his tax returns "very likely" says that "he owes serious money" to the Russians, therefore he lied today. That is just some brilliant stuff there, Zeke.

As usual, stellar contribution there, Jimbo. Trump has spoken frequently, as has his son, about his various assets and business deals with Russia. Today he denied he had any. That's not too difficult to decipher .

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Unverified news. That kinda sounds like an oxymoron to me.

It certainly appears the Intelligence agencies briefed the president and president elect that they are looking into this matter. That appears to be a fact. Are you disputing that, are you disputing the intel agencies briefed those two men on this? If not, what the heck is the problem. That is the news story. What some 3rd rate news site did with it is different. I don't believe CNN or the other mainstream sites have run with the details. They are reporting that intel agencies briefed the president and president elect. What part of that is wrong. And if it turns out the intel is 100% wrong (and it probably will), this is absolutely no worse than Wiener's laptop which turned out to be 100% bogus.

 

[Fro]

Your comment about "'fake' outrage" is fake outrage. I'm simply making an observation. I think the quality of news woud improve without obvious bias.

The media's bias should be towards the truth and facts, not towards being equally fair to every side in every situation.

With a post-truth politician like Trump in office, it's not surprising that the media wouldn't be 50/50 on everything.

If he says he has no business dealings with Russia despite he and his son being on record otherwise, that should be reported.

 

[IUJIM]

As usual, stellar contribution there, Jimbo. Trump has spoken frequently, as has his son, about his various assets and business deals with Russia. Today he denied he had any. That's not too difficult to decipher .

Just trying to understand how anybody can become so jaded, so hateful, to one human being. I always thought, for many years, that you were one of the more thoughtful posters from the left. Something happened, and I am sure you will say it is trump, but you really need to step off of the ledge and regroup.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

That's mediaspeak for: this is bullshit.

Lol. If that's what you call "common sense" then we'll have to agree to disagree. The media (other than Trump-Fox News) has been beaten about the face and neck soundly in the last six months. Not being able to properly corroborate such a damning story does automatically make it bullshit...especially when you're dealing with Russia. Not publishing it without substantial corroboration makes them responsible.

 

[SuperHoosierFan]

Just trying to understand how anybody can become so jaded, so hateful, to one human being. I always thought, for many years, that you were one of the more thoughtful posters from the left. Something happened, and I am sure you will say it is trump, but you really need to step off of the ledge and regroup.

I was going to say the same thing...to any republican...about Hillary

A republican bringing up a "jaded" or "hateful" view, as a fault in someone else, of another person is hilarious. I guess there really are good republican comedians.

 

[wiede]

I don't know anything classified about it and couldn't say anything if I did. But I don't.

If that information is real he's more crazy than I thought he was. I wouldn't put a high level of confidence on this because it was from some private eye kind of guy paid to find dirt and not from intelligence services but if it turns out true than we will have some very interesting times ahead of us. I'm in wait and see what is really true mode.

The source is a former British intelligence officer. At the highest levels.

Other than concern for western democracy, why would he burn his bridges with the private companies that paid him to collect this information? He's certainly outed himself to those groups, because they have those same reports.

Wouldn't that be harmful to his interests?

The US intelligence agencies certainly believed he was credible enough to open up an FBI investigation on this stuff. That is still ongoing BTW.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain away the communications between Trump's servers and the largest private bank in Russia. That is something that is really damning, because you really can't fake the evidence. And on top of that, the communication started again AFTER the information got out into the public realm. The odds of that happening are next to nothing. The Russian server would have to know the specific name/web address/DNS of the new Trump server. That doesn't happen without coordination.

This has legs. It's just a matter of what can be proven. If any of this ends up being true (and the timing and anecdotal evidence shows a strong correlation), Trump is toast.

The irony in all of this is that by meddling with the US election, it put Putin in a worse position. Anything other than being extremely tough on Russia by Trump will be viewed as validation of this story. It worked TOO well.

I'm going to enjoy watching this play out.

And BTW, before all this broke, I was advising my wife to accept what happened and to move on. So, I'm not holding on to some fantasy that he won't be president. He will be president, but it may end up being a matter of how long he's president. Remember, watergate took several years to unfold.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Mike Pence is going to look like a genius when this is all over.

Lost in all this mess is that Trump finally admits that it was probably the Russians who hacked he DNC. I guess @CO_Hoosier and @Mas-sa-suta can't use Fake News as a response to that story any longer...except they will.

 

[twenty02]

Your comment about "'fake' outrage" is fake outrage. I'm simply making an observation. I think the quality of news woud improve without obvious bias.

I really just wanted to use "fake" in something, like all the other cool people.

 

[wiede]

So...a bunch of well-placed anti-Trump cranks falling for a troll somehow sanitizes people against buying into it and passing it along?

No, it doesn't. People need to use their own sense of caution with anything like this. Otherwise, you risk making a fool of yourself....as so many people here have.

I mean, we've gotten to the point where people are defending it by saying "but....it's believable!!"

That's pathetic. Those of you touting this are officially as bad as the birthers. Take a bow.

This is grounded in reality. What goat said earlier.

The birthed stuff was pure fantasy from the beginning.

This comparison is a huge false equivalency. They're not even close.

 

[Mas-sa-suta]

You aren't using common sense, IMO....you've gone into hyper-partisan defense mode.

Common sense would be..."this whole thing seems kinda far-fetched, I doubt anything comes of this".

Not...."this is a hoax and McCain and/or the FBI fell for it! What dupes they are! I used common sense and figured it all out already!"

That's Mas/Lucy level of deduction.

And that 'level of deduction' is stll pretty far above your level.
Let me help you out. This is so fake, that even Julia Ioffe wouldn't print it.
Maybe she learned something about consequences from printing Fake news.

 

[zeke4ahs]

As I've been saying for months and would appear to be obvious to everyone except this "Fifth Avenue" supporters. http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intelligence-report-russia/ Wonder if we will ever see what it actually I and how compromising it is.

BBC reports more than 1 tape and more than 1 source. BBC fake news?

 

[iu_a_att]

Fine....Bill Clinton, then.

The point is: it's all absurd. And the only thing one accomplishes by jumping on one of these political paddywagons is to make themselves belong there.

Here is where we should all be coming from. First, would the allegations if proven and admitted to have any impact on our decision of whether someone should be president or not. I think the point you are trying to make is that many people claim that such information matters but they are lying (probably to themselves). For many people the ONLY thing that matters is partisanship. You implicitly suggest varying the partisanship of the accused from Trump to Clinton and you suggest that all those currently calling Trump unacceptable would nevertheless find Clinton acceptable and vice versa. Is is not that the allegations are absurd as much as they really don't matter. So, let's suppose that Trump confessed to everything in the allegations. Would that change your assessment of whether he should be President? I believe that I would agree that Bill Clinton should be impeached if he admitted guilt for the same things Trump is accused. But would I really? I don't know how I could persuade you of the hypothetical. In any hypothetical people are always more ethical than they are in real life. But at any rate we aren't done.

Second, if we are actually talking about allegations that WOULD matter if proven then we should investigate the allegations including their basic credibility. There is a second trick that partisans play. Partisans drastically increase (or decrease) the standards of determining guilt. As you point out many conservatives were convinced by Pizzagate on the basis of absurd evidence. You suggest that many liberals are guilty of a similar low standard for conviction taking the current unverified reports as damning evidence. Here we should agree that we are better served by delegating things to a more professional investigation. That is what I think should happen in the case of Trump and his allegations. An impartial investigator should be appointed, given subpoena powers and allowed to investigate. It is a headache but the right way to proceed. As with Comey and his investigation of Hillary it is better to have the investigator not be of the same party as the investigated.

 

[MrBing]

The source is a former British intelligence officer. At the highest levels.

Other than concern for western democracy, why would he burn his bridges with the private companies that paid him to collect this information? He's certainly outed himself to those groups, because they have those same reports.

Wouldn't that be harmful to his interests?

The US intelligence agencies certainly believed he was credible enough to open up an FBI investigation on this stuff. That is still ongoing BTW.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain away the communications between Trump's servers and the largest private bank in Russia. That is something that is really damning, because you really can't fake the evidence. And on top of that, the communication started again AFTER the information got out into the public realm. The odds of that happening are next to nothing. The Russian server would have to know the specific name/web address/DNS of the new Trump server. That doesn't happen without coordination.

This has legs. It's just a matter of what can be proven. If any of this ends up being true (and the timing and anecdotal evidence shows a strong correlation), Trump is toast.

The irony in all of this is that by meddling with the US election, it put Putin in a worse position. Anything other than being extremely tough on Russia by Trump will be viewed as validation of this story. It worked TOO well.

I'm going to enjoy watching this play out.

And BTW, before all this broke, I was advising my wife to accept what happened and to move on. So, I'm not holding on to some fantasy that he won't be president. He will be president, but it may end up being a matter of how long he's president. Remember, watergate took several years to unfold.

You think I'm a Trump supporter? You couldn't be more wrong if you do. I've been a Democrat my entire life and I voted for Hillary. I think Trump is a liar, a sexist and probably a racist. I'm just saying that I don't have a high level of confidence in this report. It should be investigated and there could be accuracy to it but I wouldn't get my hopes up about it. That's all I'm saying.

 

[zeke4ahs]

As usual, stellar contribution there, Jimbo. Trump has spoken frequently, as has his son, about his various assets and business deals with Russia. Today he denied he had any. That's not too difficult to decipher .

Just trying to understand how anybody can become so jaded, so hateful, to one human being. I always thought, for many years, that you were one of the more thoughtful posters from the left. Something happened, and I am sure you will say it is trump, but you really need to step off of the ledge and regroup.

I can't imagine why anyone would be upset about Trump, particularly a woman, or a minority that he has denigrated his entire life. Might want to look into the many women's groups that are now becoming politicized, all because of this election. The first meeting in Zionsville, they were hoping for 100. There were 500 with many people turned away. That little march in DC coming up? Women are pissed and it's not hard to understand at all. Unless you think it's ok to talk about women the way he has his whole life and treated them the way he has his whole life.

 

[Bill4411]

Nope, but I guarantee you it shows something he doesn't want us to see. I'd say it's very likely he owes serious money to the Russians and that he has various dealings with them. If so, he lied about that today,

He probably wasn't worried about what his connections where with the Russians were when he filed his tax returns prior to 2011 as he wasn't seriously thinking of running for President or whatever the office will ultimately morph into under Trump.

Trump says he won't release even his tax returns even from the 1970's, which are way beyond the statute of limitations for IRS fines, etc. So, I suppose unless we have an impeachment hearing where his tax returns can be subpoenaed we will never see them.

 

[Sope Creek]

And that 'level of deduction' is stll pretty far above your level.
Let me help you out. This is so fake, that even Julia Ioffe wouldn't print it.
Maybe she learned something about consequences from printing Fake news.

You're that sure . . . OK . . . First round - drinks, not munitions - is on you if this has legs. Let's see how this plays out.

 

[Bill4411]

So his tax returns "very likely" says that "he owes serious money" to the Russians, therefore he lied today. That is just some brilliant stuff there, Zeke.

They will show who he is indebted to for income tax deductions like interest, etc.

 

[Mas-sa-suta]

You're that sure . . . OK . . . First round - drinks, not munitions - is on you if this has legs. Let's see how this plays out.

Fair enough.....I drink Glenmorangie , The Quinta Ruban, Port Cask Finish.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

Lol. If that's what you call "common sense" then we'll have to agree to disagree. The media (other than Trump-Fox News) has been beaten about the face and neck soundly in the last six months. Not being able to properly corroborate such a damning story does automatically make it bullshit...especially when you're dealing with Russia. Not publishing it without substantial corroboration makes them responsible.

So, you're going with the whole "when did you stop beating your wife" defense? Really?

Again, you're making the same mistake a number of others are making: that this is a new allegation and, thus, warrants investigation to discern if it's true or not. It's not new -- it's been around since at least August (according to Carl Bernstein)...when it was given to an FBI agent in Rome.

This has been presented to a number of anti-Trump parties and entities since then....common sense would dictate that they looked into it.

So, at what point in time, and after what level of investigation, does "we can't prove this" become "this is bullshit"? Or does it always just hang out there as something that might or might not be true....but, either way, is unsubstantiated?

Of all people, Glenn Greenwald seems to get this better than most. I particularly agree with this:

Beyond all that, there is no bigger favor that Trump opponents can do for him than attacking him with such lowly, shabby, obvious shams, recruiting large media outlets to lead the way. When it comes time to expose actual Trump corruption and criminality, who is going to believe the people and institutions who have demonstrated they are willing to endorse any assertions no matter how factually baseless, who deploy any journalistic tactic no matter how unreliable and removed from basic means of ensuring accuracy?
​

What Greenwald is missing is that it's January 11th -- and January 20th is still 9 days away. The people pushing this stuff aren't so much attacking Trump as trying to prevent his presidency from ever coming into existence.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

So, at what point in time, and after what level of investigation, does "we can't prove this" become "this is bullshit"? Or does it always just hang out there as something that might or might not be true....but, either way, is unsubstantiated?

You're missing my point. It may very well be bullshit, but the fact that it hasn't been corroborated doesn't destine it to be so. And I agree with you re: Greenwald.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

You're missing my point. It may very well be bullshit, but the fact that it hasn't been corroborated doesn't destine it to be so. And I agree with you re: Greenwald.

Oh, at some point it does -- that's precisely what I'm getting at. If this whole thing were actually as brand new as it seems to most of us, then I would be the one sitting here saying (as I almost always do) "wait for the facts to avail themselves", etc.

It hit the public ether last night -- so it appears to be a "breaking" type of thing. But it's been bouncing around the world of news and politics for months. What that means is that people have been looking into it -- and probably not apathetically. In most cases, these people weren't just random people, either -- they were people (like David Corn, to throw out one name) who would love nothing more than to nail Trump.

But it just didn't go anywhere, which is almost certainly why it didn't make it into the public view until yesterday.

Case in point: Aleksej Gubarev (who owns XBT, which operates a number of Internet related businesses...including Webzilla, out of Dallas) was mentioned by name in this "dossier." XBT was accused of “using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct ‘altering operations’ against the Democratic Party leadership” -- and that he did this due to threats by the FSB.

In addition to denying the accusation, he's puzzled as to how he and his company got in there, said he's perfectly willing to talk to investigators, and said that he's never even been so much as contacted by intel officials.

So, how much of what's in there has to fall apart before it's moved from the "unsubstantiated" column to the "bullshit" column?

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

Shorter CNN: "You didn't hear this from us, but Buzzfeed says..."

It was literally 62 seconds long. You couldn't even bother to watch it.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Oh, at some point it does -- that's precisely what I'm getting at. If this whole thing were actually as brand new as it seems to most of us, then I would be the one sitting here saying (as I almost always do) "wait for the facts to avail themselves", etc.

It hit the public ether last night -- so it appears to be a "breaking" type of thing. But it's been bouncing around the world of news and politics for months. What that means is that people have been looking into it -- and probably not apathetically. In most cases, these people weren't just random people, either -- they were people (like David Corn, to throw out one name) who would love nothing more than to nail Trump.

But it just didn't go anywhere, which is almost certainly why it didn't make it into the public view until yesterday.

Case in point: Aleksej Gubarev (who owns XBT, which operates a number of Internet related businesses...including Webzilla, out of Dallas) was mentioned by name in this "dossier." XBT was accused of “using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct ‘altering operations’ against the Democratic Party leadership” -- and that he did this due to threats by the FSB.

In addition to denying the accusation, he's puzzled as to how he and his company got in there, said he's perfectly willing to talk to investigators, and said that he's never even been so much as contacted by intel officials.

So, how much of what's in there has to fall apart before it's moved from the "unsubstantiated" column to the "bullshit" column?

But he did go somewhere. It went to Obama and Trump and the gang of eight. Obviously there still looking into it, perhaps a greater resources now, and I'm sure the whole comment on whether or not it is bullshit what is fine. I don't see what you jumping to this conclusion provides to you.

You were also convinced that the reports of Russia hacking the DNC were bullshit, and Trump as much as admitted today that he believes them now. How about if you let this situation develop a little bit? Or are you using this report hitting the public as proof that any investigations are now over and the claims have been debunked?

 

[HillzHoozier]

It was literally 62 seconds long. You couldn't even bother to watch it.

I watched Jake Tapper say, "we begged all morning for someone from the transition team to comment, to deny there was a memo..." blah blah blah. Bite me.

 

[crazed_hoosier2]

You were also convinced that the reports of Russia hacking the DNC were bullshit

Can you show me where I said this? I don't ever recall thinking it -- so I can't imagine a context where I'd have said it.

All I've ever said is that it should be investigated before we make recriminations.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

I watched Jake Tapper say, "we begged all morning for someone from the transition team to comment, to deny there was a memo..." blah blah blah. Bite me.

You can't even make it through a minute of video. That's fine. So you have a short attention span. It happens.

But you feel the need to comment on the video, anyway, and it's a huge swing and a miss (hint: Tapper was BLASTING Buzzfeed, just as WaPo did this morning and Chuck Todd did about an hour ago). That's not fine. That's...well, bad for America, really. You're bad for America.

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Can you show me where I said this? I don't ever recall thinking it -- so I can't imagine a context where I'd have said it.

All I've ever said is that it should be investigated before we make recriminations.

You stated that believing the IC without them showing us the hard evidence essentially means it's bullshit. Well they showed the evidence to those with need to know (Trump) and he believes them.

The same standard applies here.

 

[HillzHoozier]

You can't even make it through a minute of video. That's fine. So you have a short attention span. It happens.

But you feel the need to comment on the video, anyway, and it's a huge swing and a miss (hint: Tapper was BLASTING Buzzfeed, just as WaPo did this morning and Chuck Todd did about an hour ago). That's not fine. That's...well, bad for America, really. You're bad for America.

I listened to him bad mouth Buzzfeed then justify their involvement in the story. Stop being an elitist prick.

 

[TheOriginalHappyGoat]

I listened to him bad mouth Buzzfeed then justify their involvement in the story. Stop being an elitist prick.

Can you honestly not tell the difference between what CNN reported and what Buzzfeed reported?

 

[BCCHoosier]

I listened to him bad mouth Buzzfeed then justify their involvement in the story. Stop being an elitist prick.

Can you stop coming off as the typical poorly educated Trump supporter?

 

[anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa]

Can you honestly not tell the difference between what CNN reported and what Buzzfeed reported?

He can't. And neither can Trump.