Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s choice for national security adviser, cultivates close Russian contacts. He has appeared on Russia Today and received a speaking fee from the cable network, which was described in last week’s unclassified intelligence briefing on Russian hacking as “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.”
According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated? The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Smiling Mortician
You’d think they’d be getting faster at the gaslighting by now.
schrodingers_cat
Its ironic that the bestest constitution in the world has no way to stop this train wreck in motion.
hellslittlestangel
@Smiling Mortician: You’d think they’d have the “we’ll answer that question next Wednesday” response ready to go.
Patricia Kayden
@Smiling Mortician: The Trump people will never respond to media inquiries unless it is from Fox News. You all saw the brawling behavior and contempt that Trump displayed at the “press conference” yesterday. This is his norm.
Jeffro
You beat me to it, Doug.
@schrodingers_cat: it does, it just takes some time and effort (to call our MoCs constantly and harass the media into doing their jobs and writing op-eds and organizing boycotts and then registering new voters for 2018 and really pounding these shits into the ground.
Also, Flynn is clearly working for the Russians, along with Manafort, Page, and Cohen. Karma’s coming soon…
Gin & Tonic
Well, I posted about this a couple of threads down, as it was a slow night, and now we’ve gotten like three new threads in a half-hour. Feast or famine here.
Anyway, is this a Logan Act violation?
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: @Jeffro: of course it has a *way*, but in reality you need republicans to do what’s best for the country, so the way never gets used.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: A realistic way, then.
Jeffro
@Major Major Major Major: There are carrots and sticks in there…and then there are other carrots and sticks in modern times. Getting things to move is all about leverage and pressure.
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat: Everything I described is realistic, but it’s not comprehensive. What do you suggest?
Timurid
@schrodingers_cat:
Events/scandals that would have instantly ended the campaign of Hillary, any other Democrat and probably many Republicans:
1. Beauty Queen/Fatshaming
2. The Khans
3. Trump U.
4. The rape case (even if it never got to trial)
5. Debate #1
6. Debate #3
7. Pussygate
8. Russia (hacking)
9. Russia (Pissgate/collusion)
10. Conflicts of interest
It appears that once elites are sufficiently invested in their champion, rules, institutions and public sentiment no longer matter.
Timurid
Edit: it’s fixed
Timurid
@efgoldman:
They have 7 days to get something done.
They’ll be ordered to down tools at 12:01 on 1/20.
Wish them luck…
Suzanne
@schrodingers_cat: We’re so fucked.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Constitutionally, the two other co-equal branches of the government — legislative and judicial — should be vehemently opposing Trumpism. But since Republicans dominate those as well, we’re basically screwed.
Mothra
So Flynn’s under surveillance?
Major Major Major Major
@Timurid: What was so great about debate #2?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mothra: Of course. And he should know it.
GregB
In other news:
Fascist, the gathering. Marine LePen visits Trump Tower.
Israel reportedly fires missiles into Syria.
US sends troops/tanks into Poland.
Incoming Iran hawks indicate renewed hostility in hearings.
Jeffro
@Mothra: you could say that…
The Flynn thing is blowing up big time…hey, just another day in Trumplandia…
FlipYrWhig
@Timurid: Add “Stiffing veterans groups on promised charitable contributions” and “Having a foundation that used other people’s money to pay for oversized portraits of himself, twice” and “Killing an entire football league.”
Omnes Omnibus
@GregB:
For whatever reason, that one bothered the fuck out of me. She is more appalling than her dad who was more appalling than the guy for whom her dad was security chief.
Mike J
@Timurid: You left out making fun of the disabled reporter.
Suzanne
@GregB:
So why is this happening? A coworker with whom I often discuss current events was asking me, but I was out of town all day and wasn’t reading the news. Would appreciate more info.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: Poland is in NATO.
MisterForkbeard
@Timurid: They can’t shut it down – it’s being run by the IG, whom Trump can’t touch. Though they can ignore and stonewall.
rikyrah
traitor
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: Poland is very nervous after Putin’s attack on Ukraine,
dm
I think it’s time to start talking to our representatives in the House about impeachment. I don’t know that they have to wait until the inauguration, even. The resolution won’t get out of committee before then, anyway.
We sure seem to have more substantial peril to the nation’s wellbeing than a blowjob in the oval office.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That was my guess. I know the little Baltics are scared, too. But was there any specific threat or a move or any intel?
Timurid
@MisterForkbeard:
Yes, there are rules about that. But rules don’t appear to be working right now.
hilts
Doug!,
It’s the end of the world as we know it and, unlike REM, I don’t feel fine.
Between now and Inauguration Day, please post more music, comedy, and other uplifting topic threads to promote good mental health before Trumpenstein is sworn in.
cbear
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s curious. She at least resides in another country and we aren’t confronted with her image or words on a regular basis.
I have a positively visceral reaction every fucking time I see, or hear, anything regarding the human shit-stain that is Rudy Giuliani or his fellow traveler Christie. Peter Thiel, cretin extraordinaire, is also high on my list.
Timurid
@Major Major Major Major:
It was just a run of the mill poor performance, not REDRUM! REDERUMMMMMMMM!!!
Timurid
@FlipYrWhig: @Mike J:
Yes, that list could probably be 20 items long. It shows just how invested elites are in the Donald.
lamh36
Lordt…we all gonna have to learn Russina aren’t we…smh…I hope it is an easy language to learn
Calouste
@schrodingers_cat: The bestest constitution in the world also had a train wreck in 1860, plus some near misses in 1804 and iirc 1824.
Redshift
@Suzanne: It’s a joint military exercise, not a response to anything immediate. It’s been in the works for a while.
Omnes Omnibus
@cbear: I am sorry that my reaction to something doesn’t meet your standards. You do know that she is a full on fascist and is funded by Putin, right? It bothers me a bit. You be you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Calouste: Don’t tease. What is better? And how do we get there?
bmoak
@Suzanne:
Russia has been moving a lot of troops, planes and missiles into the Kaliningrad Enclave on the Poland-Lithuania border over the past year or so.
cbear
@Omnes Omnibus: @Omnes Omnibus: WTF?
You said:
And, I relied “That’s curious.” because I was genuinely curious.
Other than that, go fuck yourself.
Mai.naem.mobile
This whole lot should be hung for treason. They’re going to make the Rosenberg’s,Robert Hansen and the other 90s spy all combined look like pikers.
Mai.naem.mobile
@lamh36: nyet nyet nyet.das vidanya.
Omnes Omnibus
@cbear: I don’t like the fact that the next POTUS will have weird relationships with foreign assholes. Are you Okay with that?
hilts
Great painting of Donald Trump with a Crown of Roadkill
h/t http://media.salon.com/2017/01/CARA-DEANGELIS-Donald-Trump-with-a-Crown-of-Roadkill-THE-UNTITLED-SPACE-UPRISE-_-ANGRY-WOMEN-EXHIBIT.jpg
Origuy
@lamh36: Three genders, six noun cases (and the adjectives inflect with the nouns), two verb aspects, and a different alphabet. I wouldn’t say it’s the hardest language, but….
Major Major Major Major
@Origuy: I see you’ve never met Sanskrit.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Timurid: As I understand it, the Inspector General isn’t a political appointment, and he doesn’t answer to anybody political, so this is going to go on, whether Trump or Sessions or any other shitstain wants it to or not.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Comic Sanskrit, the second most reviled font.
;)
cbear
@Omnes Omnibus: Allow me to expand on my previous comment: Go fuck yourself with a rusty shovel, you supercilious asshole.
There was absolutely nothing in my comment that was in any way, shape, or form, an attack on you or your thoughts regarding Le Pen, who I also find repulsive.
Btw, being a lawyer AND a humorless asshole ain’t no way to go through life, son.
Omnes Omnibus
@cbear: Thank you for that insight.
cbear
@Omnes Omnibus: No worries, bud. Drive on.
Miss Bianca
@lamh36: Da, tovarisch!
ETA: Man, and here I was thinking that studying Russian was going to be less relevant after the fall of the Soviet Union…good times!
Elie
I dunno, but I feel a very dark time is on us…. I am starting to feel, though, that by the various “leaks” or hints of information, that some of the bigs are onto a fair amount of it. Something big might happen… Unfortunately, the Manchurian Yam must be sworn in before you can get real traction… it does not exist for a private citizen — he has a lot more freedom in that role. He may not be prepared for no matter what power he has assumed, he will be in a glass box from which escape for a person like him is just not likely– no matter how many sycophants want to carry his slippers. And while Putin has been doing good lately, he had better watch out on his luck…. We got a lot of spooks in the west riled up and Lord knows, to throw in a curve ball or two, probably great interest from China. if my ass and those of the people I love were not at risk, I could almost enjoy waiting to see what happens… but too much at stake here.
cmorenc
@cbear:
It’s hard to take much satisfaction from the fact that none of the four truly horrible people I initially feared had an inside track have so far been nominated for positions in the Trump Administration: Giuliani, Christie, Gingrich, or John Bolton – because the ones he has nominated are equally or more horrible people, each in their own way. However, it’s going to be hard to not take perverse satisfaction when Ted Cruz will inevitably turn to making a pain in the ass out of himself to the Trump administration and his GOP Senate colleagues.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
If I lived closer to NY I would have been there today to spit on that evil woman. It bothered me too.
There should be some way to trigger holding a new election. Our whole country has been compromised.
cbear
@cmorenc: Yep.
Although Trump just gifted Rudy with what probably amounts to millions of $ from the public trough for services rendered.
I think we can be sure that Christie, Gingrich, John Bolton et al., aren’t far behind.
It’s a veritable grift-orama for all these fucks/
JordanRules
@MomSense:
QFT
Redshift
@Major Major Major Major:
Or Finnish.
NotoriousJRT
@Mothra:
So Flynn’s under surveillance?
Who isn’t?