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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHillary Clinton just retweeted this.
Retweet if you agree its totally crazy to suggest that the FBI having helped sink Hillarys campaign by revealing that she was under investigation while concealing that Trump was being investigated has secretly been anti-Trump all along.
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
dalton99a
(81,636 posts)Heartstrings
(7,349 posts)+1000
Botany
(70,614 posts)Watch Fox News and you wouldn't know that Mueller is a war hero and a republican.
Raster
(20,998 posts)...the infallible Son of God. I believe there is more in play than just Republicans trying to protect their fake president.
I think Russia/FSB/Putin*:
1. Have given large amounts of "dark money" campaign cash to Rethugs, and they are trying to make sure that never sees the light of day.
2. The RNC servers were also hacked, as were Rethug "dark" servers. I think Putin* and Co. are sitting on a huge amount of embarrassing data on many Rethug pols.
3. I also think Russia has "the receipts" showing just how much "assistance" they have given various Rethug pols in their various races. The good news is that Russia is going to give a Rethug financial assistance for their campaign. The bad news is that ONCE YOU TAKE A DIME, THEY OWN YOU.
Botany
(70,614 posts)Paul Ryan Keeps It All in the Family
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/paul-ryan-keeps-it-family-kevin-mccarthy-russia-trump
Theres two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump, McCarthy said, according to Entous, a superb reporter who heard a tape recording of the colloquy. Swear to God.
snip
In the Post piece, McCarthys remark is met with laughter, and Ryan cautions his colleagues, This is an off the record . . . No leaks! . . . All right?
And then, amid more laughter, Ryan says, This is how we know were a real family here.
Thats how you know that were tight, Steve Scalise, the House Majority Whip, says.
*********
And how did McConnell know that by blocking Garland for the SCOTUS he would get
somebody he liked better after the election?
dalton99a
(81,636 posts)Beware the dark art of Russian blackmail
By Christian Caryl | January 11
Blackmail exists everywhere, of course. But nowhere else has it become such a prominent part of political life as in post-Soviet Russia. In the wild 1990s, the gray men of the old KGB sold their talents to the highest bidders, and plenty were willing to bid: newly minted millionaires, would-be politicians, mobsters. Countless private security services competed to see who could produce the dirtiest dirt, and journalists another feature of a strange new world of turbulent freedom were happy to publish what they dug up.
Putin learned well. As president he soon cracked down on both the freelance spies and the journalists, but he never forgot his early lessons about the uses of kompromat, from the Russian for compromising material. Discrediting an enemy, he realized, can be far more effective than throwing them in jail, so the culture of kompromat has continued to thrive under his rule though its now primarily deployed in the services of the Russian state.
A liberal political rival wants to be president? Have the evening news show an interview with members of a gay club singing his praises (a great way to discredit him in the eyes of a homophobic public). A billionaire oligarch challenges your power? Dig into his seamy financial dealings and share them with muckrakers. An elderly dissident criticizes you from the safety of British exile? Have your hackers covertly plant child pornography on his computer and notify the relevant authorities. As these examples show, kompromat is best viewed as a form of information warfare, sometimes true, sometimes not. More often its an artful mixture all the better to intimidate and confuse.
Donald Trump actually seems to know all this quite well. During his extraordinary news conference Wednesday, he claimed to be well aware of the particular risks of operating in Putin territory. I was in Russia, years ago, with the Miss Universe contest, which did very well, he said. Moscow, the Moscow area. Did very, very well. And I told many people, Be careful. Because you dont wanna see yourself on television. Cameras all over the place. He hastened to add, though, that he doesnt really see Russia as exceptional in that respect.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)They targeted her over and over again. Comey made it impossible for her to win.
Irish_Dem
(47,518 posts)itcfish
(1,828 posts)had a hand in this too
Gothmog
(145,666 posts)WOW. Prof Tribe and I are DUers and on the same page!
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)Tribe should at least know that much!
brush
(53,924 posts)repug hack do it, thinking his hands would be clean.
That was a slight miscalculation as it came back to him but the dirty deed was done and it torpedoed Hillary's campaign.
Comey made other, more significant miscalculations as well the first, helping to install trump was huge; the second, seeking redemption with his investigation of trump after realizing the magnitude of his fuck-up in installing trump in the first place.
He got fired for that one hoisted, as they say, on his own petard, and deservedly so.
yodermon
(6,143 posts)brush
(53,924 posts)for swinging the election to the least prepared and worse ever occupant of the WH.
That's what you were trying to say, right?
yodermon
(6,143 posts)Rudy said so on live tv, with his own mouth.
Comey sent the letter as a pre-emptive CYA measure, *still assuming Hillary would win*.
Had she won, he would have been criticized for "suppressing evidence" of her email "scandal".
Just saying "hes a repuke who threw the election to the repuke" is a vast oversimplification but whatever floats it for ya.
Maybe when he testifies against trump in his treason trial you'll get it.
brush
(53,924 posts)A fact you're ignoring just as Comey did.
You got that?
disndat
(1,887 posts)Correct me if I am I wrong, but didn't H.C. win by the largest margin ever, outside of the Rust Belt?
brush
(53,924 posts)for allegedly "new" emails but he didn't disclose that trump was also being investigated at the same time for possible Russian collusion.
And in so doing Comey violated the Hatch Act.
Clinton's poll numbers immediately dropped and trump's went up.
If Comey had been fair he would've released info that both were being investigated.
He wasn't interested in being fair or not interfering with an election (Hatch Act), he was interested in swinging the election to his fellow repug, trump.
As it was, there were no new emails and the trump investigation is still on-going with guilty pleas, several indictments with more probably coming.
So yeah, Comey is to blame for changing the course of history.
disndat
(1,887 posts)Would Hillary have won the Rust Belt States except for what you say was the dip in the polls, after Comey's disclosure?
I am not sure if H.C. won the most popular votes ever in a presidential election, but I am not sure if the popular vote changed
after the Comey's disclosure which was a few days before the election. The polls, I think, still had HC way ahead.
brush
(53,924 posts)didn't influence some rust belt voters (reflected by her drop in the polls immediately after) and thus, the electoral college vote.
You paragraph about the popular vote is not clear. Hillary won the popular vote by 3 million. That is not in dispute.
Comey has to live with the damage to the country the imbecile he help gain the WH has done.
joshcryer
(62,277 posts)But by the same token Obama knew that the FBI was investigating Russian ties to Trump and kept a tight lip on the whole thing. Democrats on the intelligence committee probably knew, as well, and they didn't leak.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)lunamagica
(9,967 posts)Jakes Progress
(11,123 posts)There is no evidence that they can do that. There is ample evidence that they avoid doing so with a rabid avoidance. If I behaved like them, I wouldn't want to look in the mirror either.
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)The FBI was loyal to Mr. Comey. He appointed many Republicans and few Democrats into the power sharing circle. Like most Americans, we are disgusted with this attempt to smear our democracy and make it seem like a Russian puppet nation is the way to go.