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General Category => General Forum => Topic started by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 17, 2018, 05:38:52 pm



Title: Donald J. Trump and the puppet-master Putin who controls him by blackmail…
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 17, 2018, 05:38:52 pm

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYbwXOMVwAEOtaW.jpg) (https://twitter.com/artleytoons/status/974730739827855360)


Title: Re: Donald J. Trump and the puppet-master Putin who controls him by blackmail…
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on March 18, 2018, 03:22:38 pm
 ::)


Title: Re: Donald J. Trump and the puppet-master Putin who controls him by blackmail…
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 22, 2018, 06:45:02 pm

from the Los Angeles Times....

As Trump fumes over leak about his congratulatory call
to Putin, word is ‘there's going to be a scalp over this’


By NOAH BIERMAN and TRACY WILKINSON | 2:30PM PDT — Wednesday, March 21, 2018

(http://www.latimes.com/resizer/8dWlCNSfVcMbaTZUXm-EEXFWQ-w=/1400x0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/WSNQNLWIYNHV3N6R2I2T2AOZVU.jpg) (http://www.latimes.com/resizer/8dWlCNSfVcMbaTZUXm-EEXFWQ-w=/1400x0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/WSNQNLWIYNHV3N6R2I2T2AOZVU.jpg)
President Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, in July 2017.
 — Photograph: Evan Vucci/Associated Press.


PRESIDENT TRUMP and some aides were furious on Wednesday after the leak of sensitive notes for briefing the president before a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to aides and a close associate.

The leak appeared designed to embarrass Trump for congratulating rather than confronting Putin — contrary to the notes' recommendation.

“If this story is accurate, that means someone leaked the president's briefing papers,” said a senior White House official not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. “Leaking such information is a fireable offense and likely illegal.”

Trump spoke with Putin on Tuesday and was criticized afterward, including by Republican lawmakers, for congratulating the Russian leader on his re-election Sunday. The president did so despite widespread outrage, including among other administration officials, that Putin's government has subverted democracy in Russia, continues to try to disrupt U.S. elections, is committing atrocities in Syria and recently carried out an assassination attempt in Britain using a military-grade nerve agent.

The Washington Post reported late on Tuesday (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-national-security-advisers-warned-him-not-to-congratulate-putin-he-did-it-anyway/2018/03/20/22738ebc-2c68-11e8-8ad6-fbc50284fce8_story.html), citing unnamed officials, that Trump ignored a warning in his briefing materials, written in capital letters, that said “DO NOT CONGRATULATE.” It is unclear whether the president saw the material, sources said.

Leaking such materials is an extraordinary step, given the level of sensitivity in contacts between the president and a foreign leader, especially a geopolitical rival. The disclosure about the Putin call, however, is especially fraught, underscoring Trump's much-criticized insistence on warm relations with Putin despite national security concerns, as well as the president's own political and legal vulnerability amid a special counsel's probe of Russia's election interference.

Significantly, the leak also suggests that dismay with Trump's stance extends to his inner circle.

Trump faced similar, but far less consequential embarrassments early in his term after the leak of transcripts of his confrontational calls with two allies, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Those leaks seemed intended to portray Trump as naïve and undiplomatic. One person who speaks regularly with White House officials said the most recent leak seemed particularly geared toward “infantilizing” Trump, who has ignored numerous suggestions that he rebuke Putin.

“He doesn't like it,” the person said of Trump. “He doesn't like to be herded. The people that try to herd Trump don't do well.”

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly also is said to be infuriated — “on a warpath,” according to the person in close contact with national security officials. The leak further undercuts Kelly, who has prided himself on bringing more order to the White House since arriving last summer, and on ensuring that Trump has high-quality briefing material.

“Trump's mad enough and Kelly's embarrassed to some extent that this is happening,” the person said. “And I'm pretty sure there's going to be a scalp over this.”

People with knowledge of how the White House operates said the number of people who see Trump's briefing materials is relatively small, perhaps 12 to 20 people, depending on the topic. They cautioned, however, that a wider circle could have learned that information secondhand.

Ned Price, a former CIA analyst and Obama administration national security advisor, said that the leak was just one problem, and that the call itself was concerning. He cited the fact that the president reportedly made the call from the White House residential quarters rather than the Oval Office, where more advisors can be on hand; that Trump's preparation with national security advisor H.R. McMaster was apparently done over the phone; and that the written material consisted of handwritten notecards.

“It really paints a picture of sloppiness, of lack of care, a lack of precision on the part of the president and on the part of the staff who went along with this,” Price said.

Normally, such calls would involve extensive preparation, with up-to-date intelligence insights, mounds of written materials and precise talking points discussed with the president in person, he said.

“The fact that it was leaked suggests that there is grave concern on the part of White House insiders about this offer of congratulations and what it means about the relationship between President Trump and President Putin,” Price added.

The senior White House official restricted his anger to the leaker, given the president's need for confidentiality. “For him to be unable to get candid advice for fear of leaking is a real problem for government,” the official said.


(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Tribune%20Images/latimes_20180322twdjta_TwitterDonaldJTrump_zps5vgbyfzg.jpg~original) (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/976532956557737984)

(http://i378.photobucket.com/albums/oo227/Kiwithrottlejockey/Tribune%20Images/latimes_20180322twdjtb_TwitterDonaldJTrump_zps1qrhwz4f.jpg~original) (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/976535330835836929)

Trump has ignored advice from many advisors to be more confrontational with Putin, believing he can better influence the Russian president through personal rapport. Administration policies, including sanctions announced last week, are more confrontational than the president's rhetoric would imply. And some advisors contend that the administration is pushing back against Russia's aggression with behind-the-scenes actions, particularly in Syria.

Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday afternoon to respond to the controversy over the call: “The Fake News Media is crazed because they wanted me to excoriate him. They are wrong! Getting along with Russia (and others) is a good thing, not a bad thing.”

Trump wrote that Putin could be helpful in solving problems related to North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, Islamic State, Iran and “even the coming Arms Race.” He once again assailed his predecessors for failing to get along with Russia, saying that President George W. Bush lacked the “smarts” while Presidents Clinton and Obama “didn't have the energy or chemistry.”

Trump also noted that Obama congratulated Putin after the Russian's 2012 election, which at the time elicited some criticism. Yet the circumstances were different in several respects. Russia had yet to annex Crimea and further intervene in Ukraine, a U.S. ally, commit alleged atrocities in Syria and seek to disrupt U.S. elections.

Trump's reluctance this week to criticize Russia's widely disparaged election fits with a general shift in his foreign policy, away from America's longstanding efforts to promote democracy in other countries.

“We don't get to dictate how other countries operate,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Tuesday.

Many in the national security community want a tougher public approach from Trump, however, and think that Putin, a canny operative who built his reputation at the KGB, has gotten the better of the relationship. The issue is particularly sensitive for Trump, who has been furious with U.S. intelligence agencies' conclusions that Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 presidential election, as well as the investigations into whether his campaign colluded.

“An American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections,” said Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, said of Putin on Tuesday, “Calling him wouldn't have been high on my list.” The assistant Republican leader, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, said, “I haven't heard anybody in the legislative branch say they think it's a great idea,” and Senator Charles Grassley (Republican-Iowa) said simply, “I wouldn't have a conversation with a criminal.”

In contrast to the White House, the State Department was critical of the Russian election, citing numerous efforts by Putin to silence opposition and repress political freedoms.

Endorsing a preliminary report by election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the election was clearly neither free nor fair, a description the White House refused to make.

“We saw on the news over the weekend that some people were paid to turn out to vote,” Nauert said during a briefing on Tuesday, hours after Sanders sidestepped the issue at the White House. “We've seen that opposition leaders have been intimidated, jailed and other things of the sort.”

Nauert, however, defended Trump's call to Putin as standard protocol and suggested he might have been more critical of the Russian leader in private than was revealed publicly, although there is no evidence of that. It was Trump himself who described the call to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, after it had been disclosed by the Kremlin.

“Whether folks like it or not, we have a relationship with the Russian government,” Nauert added. “That is just a part of the world. That is just simply a reality. That does not mean that we agree with them on everything.”


__________________________________________________________________________

Staff writer Christi Parsons contributed to this report.

• Noah Bierman covers the White House in Washington, D.C. for the Los Angeles Times. Before joining the newspaper in 2015, he worked for The Boston Globe in both Boston and Washington, covering Congress, politics and transportation in the immediate aftermath of the Big Dig. He has also reported on higher education, crime, politics and local government for the Miami Herald, the Palm Beach Post and the Duluth (Minnesota) News-Tribune. Bierman is a native of Miami who attended Duke University.

• Tracy Wilkinson has covered wars, crises and daily life on three continents for the Los Angeles Times and other news organisations. Her career began with United Press International, where she covered the Contra war in Nicaragua. She moved to the L.A. Times in 1987, first as a writer on the Metro staff, then as a foreign correspondent based in San Salvador. In 1995, she moved to Vienna, where she covered the war in the Balkans, winning the George Polk Award in 1999, and then to Jerusalem. From there, she went to Rome, where she covered two popes and did several stints in Iraq. In 2008, she became Mexico bureau chief, where her coverage was part of a team Overseas Press Club Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. Wilkinson was also the 2014 winner of the Maria Moors Cabot Award for coverage of Latin America. She earned her bachelor's degreefrom Vanderbilt University. Her book The Vatican's Exorcists: Driving Out the Devil in the 21st Century (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0446578851) has been translated into a dozen languages. She joined the Los Angeles Times' Washington, D.C., bureau in 2015 to cover foreign affairs.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-russia-20180321-story.html (http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-russia-20180321-story.html)


Title: Re: Donald J. Trump and the puppet-master Putin who controls him by blackmail…
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 22, 2018, 06:45:31 pm

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYy0j0XVQAE2l9r.jpg) (https://twitter.com/davidhorsey/status/976353766533312512)


Title: Re: Donald J. Trump and the puppet-master Putin who controls him by blackmail…
Post by: Kiwithrottlejockey on March 22, 2018, 06:46:02 pm

Well....if one joins the dots, it appears the rumours that were circulating more than a year ago must be true. To spell it out, Donald J. Trump paid a Russian prostitute to urinate on his face and Russian intelligence agents got video footage of it, which Putin now has and is using to blackmail Trump and turn him into a Putin-controlled puppet. Can you possibly think of any other explanation for Trump's behaviour regarding Putin? I can't. Hilarious, eh? The Prez of the USA is being blackmailed because of “golden showers!”



from The New York Times....

Ex-Chief of C.I.A. Suggests Putin May Have
Compromising Information on Trump


John O. Brennan said Russia may have compromising information on President Trump, setting off
furious speculation about whether the former spy chief was basing that assertion on inside information.


By MATTHEW ROSENBERG | 8:01PM EDT — Wednesday, March 21, 2018

(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/03/22/us/politics/22dc-brennan-1-sub/merlin_135808710_87d8717b-4572-49fb-b219-1d86eb15963c-jumbo.jpg) (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/03/22/us/politics/22dc-brennan-1-sub/merlin_135808710_87d8717b-4572-49fb-b219-1d86eb15963c-superJumbo.jpg)
John Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, saw signs of Russian election meddling. Are his suggestive public statements signs that he knows
information that he can't divulge? — Photograph: Al Drago/The New York Times.


WASHINGTON — John O. Brennan, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said on Wednesday that he thought Russia may have some kind of compromising information on President Trump, setting off furious speculation about whether the former spy chief was basing that assertion on inside information.

In an appearance on Wednesday on MSNBC's “Morning Joe (http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/former-cia-director-says-russia-could-have-something-on-trump-1191147075556?playlist=associated&v=a), Mr. Brennan, who served as C.I.A. director from 2013 to 2017, speculated that Russians “may have something on him personally” when he was asked if he thought Mr. Trump was afraid of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“The Russians, I think, have had long experience with Mr. Trump, and may have things that they could expose,” he added.

Mr. Brennan was running the C.I.A. when a salacious dossier (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/us/politics/steele-dossier-trump-expained.html) surfaced in 2016 that claimed the Russians had compromising information on Mr. Trump. If there were any current or former American officials who might know if there was truth behind the allegations in the dossier, Mr. Brennan would most likely be one of them. And his comments came the day after a phone call Mr. Trump made to Mr. Putin congratulating him (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/us/politics/trump-putin-russia.html) for winning an election raised new questions about the president's relationship with Russia.

As C.I.A. director, Mr. Brennan was never known as particularly chatty around the news media or in public. And since leaving office, Mr. Brennan has taken to starting conversations with journalists by telling them, “I'm not going to be an anonymous source for any stories.”

But last weekend, Mr. Brennan — in response to Mr. Trump's praise for the firing of the former deputy director of the F.B.I. (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/us/politics/andrew-mccabe-fbi-firing-explained.html), Andrew G. McCabe — issued a remarkable condemnation of the president. “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history,” Mr. Brennan wrote on Twitter (https://twitter.com/JohnBrennan/status/974978856997224448).

Mr. Brennan’s pointed criticism of Mr. Trump on MSNBC and on Twitter was hardly unique. From the outset of the Trump presidency, a litany of retired intelligence officials — the kind of people who have traditionally shied away from criticizing presidents, even in retirement — have come forward to criticize Mr. Trump.

The former officials have included those like Mr. Brennan who served under Democrats and others who served under Republicans, such as Michael Hayden, who ran both the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency under President George W. Bush. Nearly all insist they have no desire to wade into partisan politics, but are genuinely alarmed by what they see as Mr. Trump's fundamental disregard for the rule of the law and his impetuous approach to nation's security.

So Mr. Brennan's latest accusations on Wednesday quickly became fodder for news articles, social media conspiracy theories and hours of speculation on cable news channels. And his remarks seemed to go beyond what he had said publicly in January 2017, five days before he stepped down as C.I.A. director, when he had said the dossier was “unsubstantiated” and his criticism of Mr. Trump was relatively mild.

“I don't think he has a full appreciation of Russian capabilities, Russia's intentions, and actions that they are undertaking in many parts of the world,” Mr. Brennan said then in an appearance on Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2017/01/15/mike-pence-on-rep-lewis-comments-us-russia-relation-brennan-on-russia-dossier.html).

But later in the day on Wednesday, Mr. Brennan explained that his comments were speculation based on Mr. Trump's words and deeds, as well as how Mr. Putin's government has operated at home and abroad — but not on any inside knowledge.

“I do not know if the Russians have something on Donald Trump that they could use as blackmail,” he said in a written response to questions from The New York Times.

“When asked the question, I have pointed out the perplexing submissiveness of Mr. Trump toward Mr. Putin — despite continued evidence of malign Russian activities,” Mr. Brennan added. “I do not know why he refuses to call out Russia; that is a question that can only be answered by Mr. Trump.”

Along with Mr. Brennan, who is a paid contributor to NBC and MSNBC, other retired officials with contributor deals included James Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; Steven L. Hall, the former director of Russia operations at the C.I.A.; and Jeremy Bash, a former C.I.A. and Pentagon official.

Mr. Hayden, in an interview, made the case for former intelligence officials becoming talking heads of a sort, saying he believed that it was important for Americans to understand what the country's intelligence agencies did and did not do. He also said he tries to bring the skills he learned as an intelligence officer to his public appearances, providing analysis based on facts.

“Lord knows CNN has enough people just throwing opinions,” said Mr. Hayden, who is a paid contributor to the network. “I try not working backward from assumption but build forward from data.”

He added, “John has a right to say what he says — I also have trouble explaining events with regard to the president and Russia.”


__________________________________________________________________________

• Matthew Rosenberg covers intelligence and national security for The New York Times in Washington. He previously spent 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and was expelled from Afghanistan (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/22/world/asia/afghanistan-matthew-rosenberg-expelled.html) in 2014 because of his reporting. In Afghanistan, Mr. Rosenberg's reporting exposed how the C.I.A. had made monthly cash drops (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/world/asia/cia-delivers-cash-to-afghan-leaders-office.html) at the office of President Hamid Karzai for more than a decade and provided a rare detailed account (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/world/asia/trained-by-the-us-led-coalition-some-afghan-allies-turn-enemy.html) of an attack by Afghan soldiers on American troops.  He also dubbed the country's first international boxing match (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/world/asia/kabul-boxing-match-draws-cheering-throngs.html) the “Squabble in Kabul” (like the fight, the name has not gone down in the annals of boxing history). In between trips to the front lines and stints in the press boxes of Afghan sporting events, Mr. Rosenberg managed to slip in a few fly fishing trips to the mountains in northeastern Afghanistan. There, he was thoroughly outdone by Afghan kids who used bamboo sticks for poles and hooked fish after fish. Mr. Rosenberg previously worked for The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. He has won the George Polk Award for military reporting and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting as part of a team of New York Times reporters covering the Islamic State. Mr. Rosenberg was born in New York and graduated from McGill University in Montreal.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • EDITORIAL: Why Is Trump So Afraid of Russia? (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/opinion/donald-trump-russia-putin.html)

 • Trump, Defending Call With Putin, Attacks ‘Crazed’ Media and His Predecessors (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/us/politics/trump-putin-congratulate.html)


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/us/politics/john-brennan-trump-putin.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/us/politics/john-brennan-trump-putin.html)


Title: Re: Donald J. Trump and the puppet-master Putin who controls him by blackmail…
Post by: Im2Sexy4MyPants on March 24, 2018, 11:48:46 am
Quote
Can you possibly think of any other explanation for Trump's behaviour regarding Putin?
maybe he is smart enough to understand putin could destroy the planet with his state of art hypersonic missiles
that may not be stopped
one of putin's missiles can destroy a whole country
but we must not talk to this boogeyman

we must trust brennan

because he tells the truth hahahahahahaahhahahahahahahah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVI_kNH2Hl8