Comments

1

What do you suppose Ms. Hill thinks of the National Security Council reports that list Prezirapist Ru$$ian Asset as our #1 national security threat?

Seth Meyers on Devin Nunes:
“Wow, look at his face! He looks like he just walked in on his parents having sex — with someone else’s parents.
There’s only two explanations for that face, either he just heard lengthy testimony detailing a criminal scheme so shocking to bring down the presidency of Dotard Tr666p. Or he sharted, and he’s trying to remember how far away his back-up pants are.”

“Even the White House janitor was like, ‘Am I going to jail?’”

2

RepubliKKKans are allies with Putin and spouting Kremlin propaganda against US because they want their own totalitarian kleptocracy just like Ru$$ia—it’s so obvious that there’s no other explanation.
They hate us more than they love their country.

3

The continued denial of wrongdoing by Trump and his supporters reeks more and more and more of a cult that will only be brought down by total destruction or death. I simply cannot comprehend the continued refusal to face reality.

4

@3: It's rather simple actually, that despite the sleaze, bad manners, and crime, they see Trump's reelection as far more preferable than to have an administration run by micromanaging leftists nagging us about climate change, political correctness, and drowning the economy with excessive taxation and regulation.

6

"...It's rather simple actually, that despite the sleaze, bad manners, and crime..."

And treason. And bribery. And racism. And wanton corruption.

But heaven forbid you be asked to help kids with cancer get healthcare or not dump lead in the water and air!

You fucking piles of worthless dog shit.

9

@4 Indeed: burn it all down/smash it all up basically sums up the prevailing attitude on the right. I've said this before: your average deplorable would cut off his left testicle to spite the supercilious urban leftists. We should put the idea out there that gravity is a leftist hoax. Go to the nearest bridge and jump off it! That'll show 'em!

10

@4,

Is that how you perceived your existence from 2008-2016?

11

@3 Look no further than the loser douchebag trolls and sockpuppets that spend all day, everyday in here. Trump is the Troll president. He offers an illusion that validates their shitty lives.

12

@11

Et tu, projection?

13

@12: Oh honey. That's one terrific self own ya posted right there, but thanks for serving as Exhibit A!

14

@13

It's a projection within a projection!

15

@5 and @6: You boys are so trigger happy that you don't read before you type. Here's what I said:

" It's rather simple actually, that despite the sleaze, bad manners, and crime, they …"

Note the pronoun: they

@9 got, why didn't you?

16

@10: A little of that to some extent, but we'd be far better off today had Romney won in 2012. Trump would still be just a celeb.

17

@11 -- 'Trump is the Troll president.'
< Yep.

Kinda 'cute,' ain't he?

18

@14: WE'RE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS NOW!!!
;)

19

@16 Romney didn't win though, did he? Your choice is between someone who will use taxes to help the poor on the one hand, and Trump on the other. And you've decided you'll take the grifter every time, when faced with that prospect.

Your whole comment history of the past few years is built on the Big Lie that there's a Respectable Republican candidate out there somewhere, representing the Respectable Republican party consisting of raindrop, a couple token pundits, and not a single voter.

You then use the Big Lie to pretend the choice you face is between a tax-and-spend Democrat and a Respectable Republican, and thus to justify your support for the crooks with mommy issues who actually control and represent the GOP today.

And nobody's buying it, raindrop. Not even the right-wingers you seem to think are behind you.

20

I just want to comment here to express my appreciation for the utter kick-ass awesomeness of Fiona Hill and her gutsy remarks. Wow.

Also, to look back nostalgically on those distant days in 2012 when the Republican standardbearer Mitt Romney described Russia as our greatest geopolitical foe and the Democratic standardbearer Barack Obama dismissed him. This is maybe the one issue where Romney was right and Obama was--well, not wrong, but not AS right.

As for Russia policy, Obama was too fainthearted about providing Ukraine with military assistance, but boy, he really did put Putin over the barrel with the sanctions. Even if it came at a cost: you can draw a straight line from our sanctions on Russia to the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

Just, who could have imagined that in such a short time the GOP would have gone from Cold War hawkishness on Russia to utter fealty to Trump and, by extension, to his puppetmaster Vladimir Putin? I'm sure in a private moment Mitt Romney sheds a tear at what has become of his party and his country. Now if he only has the guts to do something about it in public.

You just can't make this shit up.

21

"Accuse the other side of that which you are most guilty."

22

@19: There is a wide assortment Republican politicians ranging in respectability. I'd be glad to evaluate them individually with you instead of sophomorically slipping into generalizations and hyperbole. Hence there is no "Big Lie" because it's just your pathetic attempt to gimmick yourself into thinking you finally owned the raindrop.

23

@22 I notice you haven't offered a counterargument.

If all you've got is a pile of insults and a promissary note for a rebuttal to be collected at some later date, I think my little theory stands for now.

25

@20 Eh, no he was not right. Russia, a country with an economy that I believe is still smaller than that of France (?) was not and is not our 'greatest geopolitical foe'. This is one area where the left at times almost gets as nutty as the deplorable mob, all because of the Trump-Putin bromance.

26

@23: You didn't present an argument. But, I'll give you another chance. Please present your argument without hyperbole so I have something to work with.

27

@25

Be wary of those who make more do with less. We are getting our assess handed to us in the cyber-security realm on a budget.

28

@15 come on now, we all know you were using the royal we when referring to "they". As a prolific commentator on here, everyone knows where you stand. Nice back peddle though.

29

Pedal*

30

@25 Russia isn't our greatest threat, but it's probably sinking a greater percentage of its capabilities into destabilizing the US than anyone else. Whether or not that constitutes "greatest foe" is a semantic debate.

Russia doesn't have economic weight to throw around. It does have a military capability, albeit diminished. More than anything, though, it has an undiminished Intelligence apparatus. Putin's roots are in the KGB, and the FSB is still his primary tool in foreign relations.

If anything, the lack of economic power and atrophy of military might are all the more reason for Putin to use the intelligence services, and to take big gambles with them. When the USSR had more influence to wield through overt means, it had far less reason to gamble on, for example, a chancy scheme to radicalize disaffected American bigots via sad frog cartoons.

In the US, Russian intelligence services have been systematically attacking American politicians with histories or polices of Russian containment (Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, etc) and even more so, promoting opposing politicians with policies of Russian appeasement or disengagement (Trump, Bernie Sanders, etc). I don't think it's the biggest threat to American interests at present, but it's the largest foreign campaign to influence domestic US politics by manpower, at least (the House of Saud may well be pouring more money into their effort).

31

@26 You pretend that the political choice in front of you is not Democrats vs. Trump or Tea Party candidates, but rather Democrats vs. Respectable Republicans. This is not the choice you or anyone else actually faces.

You do this because it allows you to pretend your rejection of Democrats is principled, and does not support Trump and Tea Party bigots. This is a lie. You are lying to yourself, and to everyone else who hears you. Nobody believes you, not even other people who reject Democrats.

Respectable Republicans are effectively ghosts in the contemporary political landscape. They have no power block left, anywhere. They have no popular support, anywhere. When you vote against Democrats, you are not voting for Respectable Republicans. You are supporting Trump and Tea Party bigots.

32

@31: Don't stop, carry on.

33

" Eh, no he was not right. Russia, a country with an economy that I believe is still smaller than that of France (?) was not and is not our 'greatest geopolitical foe'."

Oh fer... Christ sake. Why do people keep saying this stupid shit? No. YOU'RE WRONG. Russia is a super power. Not France.

GDP is not the measure. For fucks sake this has been studied and studied by strategic analysts for fifty years. You think every foreign policy institute in the west has got it all wrong and you and a few internet cranks that can churn some GDP numbers have it right?

Russia (and China) are certainly our most pressing geopolitical strategic concern.

You know what France doesn't have? France doesn't have thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at US populations.

France doesn't have the world's second largest military with a globally present modern advanced navy and airforce.

France has a population of only 67 million. Russia has a population of 142,122,776.

And France hasn't aggressively invaded a neighboring European country or had expansionist aims since the late 19th century. I'll be shocked in Russia doesn't invade someone next Tuesday.

Russia doen; t need a GDP. All it needs is a stable of nukes and the most advanced intelligence network in it's hemisphere to throw its weight around and completely destabilize American and western interests.

France, Saudi Arabia and Germany can toss money around but they can't invade or totally intimidate a modern state with almost total impunity. Russia can.

34

@30 Yeah that whole overheated stuff about how Russia is 'destabilizing' this country is what I was talking about when I mentioned the nuttiness on the left. I think this boils down to needing a bogeyman to deflect from the obvious: the US is 'destabilizing' itself from within. I never have bought and continue to not buy this theory that Russia swung the 2016 election, or really has all that much of an impact with their ham-fisted efforts at information warfare. The stupids in this country, of which there are far too many, gave us Trump. To the extent that information warfare has an impact, it is mostly that waged by the network that said stupids are tuned into 24/7.

35

@33 Russia is a 'superpower' because of the size of its population? They have a lot of nuclear weapons, there's that. A superpower they no longer are however. Sure, troublemakers, a geo-political 'concern'. France still does plenty of meddling abroad by the way.

36

All the history professors I ever know loved to discuss the subject. And when someone said something that wasn't accurate, they loved the chance to inform and educate and never with condescension or rage.

37

@35 You have no idea what you're talking about. You base this on a sophomoric understanding of what our strategic goals and vulnerabilities are at best.

But yes. Almost every other professional military and policy analyst who study this 24/7/365 in the world is wrong and you, anonymous internet dude, are magically right based only on the strength of your Wikipedia skimming abilities.

Next you'll be telling us about how global warming isn't that big a deal either based upon your appreciation of the fine clear weather.

38

@35

Russia's entire objective is to use their influence over the corrupt former USSR to destabilize NATO and gain strategic nuclear parity. They do not operate alone, but through a number of international alliances, North Korea, China, and the corrupt former USSR through to Macedonia. They employ a number of cyber mercenaries, and since their people are so suppressed by the state in what they are allowed to do and say by design, they are able to hand pick better hackers from their populace who can overcome the restrictions in place; they make use of such people to infiltrate our own networks because they have already learned from doing. And they work for peanuts. Those that aren't AI-automated by now, at least.

39

Sorry, I meant Iran as well. They are all working in concert to FUBAR NATO.

40

@37 You are full of shit sorry. 'Almost every other professional military and policy analyst '? This is laughably false perfesser. Russia's relevance and how effective their efforts at cyber warfare are is debatable at best (they hacked the DNC email server!). Military and policy analysts debate this. There isn't even close to a consensus behind your assertions.

41

@40

Correct, Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0 et al gained access to the DNC server straight to Wikileaks on command from Trump, in an instant extracting emails and getting making public more than what a phony House Committee on Benghazi subpoenas could get after hours of marathon testimony from Clinton herself because they were so concerned about dead Ambassador Stevens in Libya (now they smear our other ambassadors lol).

This had a telling impact on the election and the October surprise, and they were able to create a schism in the democratic party by forming a schism of talking points between Hillbots and Bernie Bros etc. They simply had to lead the way with an empathetic phony Facebook profile frothing duckspeak, and the layman identify politics would join the flame war and reopen historical lines of social division with common spoon-fed madlibs talking points, swapping content based on country and respective social issues.

Clinton was put in the hot seat for using a BlackBerry and a private email server. Obama could never even use a personal phone, but Trump refused to give up his personal iphone during the initial year of his presidency for a secured one. He was on the call with Sondland on an unsecured cell phone in Ukraine where Russian hackers and telecom intelligence have access to this data. If they can listen in, they can share intelligence and strategically sabotage our national security efforts as long as they do so when it is easiest to cover their tracks.

42

So raindrop has just resorted to "sealioning" now? Interesting.

43

@41 The full fake-moon-landing conspiracy theory is rubbish, but there really are hundreds to thousands of young Russians in the suburbs of St. Petersburg being paid full-time to post carefully organized messaging* to American internet outlets. This is well-documented, nobody disputes it, and enough of the content has been identified to clearly reveal at least some of the goals of the program**. And nobody disputes the proposition that Glavset is only the most visible, least-clandestine arm of Russia's intelligence efforts in the US.

You can pooh-pooh the whole thing if you like, but clearly someone with a ton of funding and power thinks the results have been good enough to keep paying everyone, and even expand the program.

(*) or "propaganda," if you want to be old-fashioned about it.

(**) For instance: defend annexation of Crimea, support ethnic Russians in the Ukraine civil war, support the Asad government in Syria, support Iran, counter US allies in the middle east like Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, counter US politicians favoring Russian containment, support US politicians favoring isolationism or Russian appeasement, etc etc. You don't even have to read the whole boring Mueller Report to learn about this, there are plenty of more readable, carefully-sourced news articles about it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/us/politics/russia-mueller-election.html

44

Rhizome @25, now that I think about it, you're right that Romney was literally wrong in 2012. Russia was not then, and probably is not now, our greatest geopolitical foe. That would have to be China, right?

But I have to think Russia ranks a strong second there. Yeah, they have a small economy—I've seen it said that they have an economy the size of Italy's—but they punch way above their weight. The Russian government today is essentially a state Mafia that controls nuclear weapons and a vast landmass full of natural resources.

At least I give Romney credit for raising the alarm. A far cry from where the Republicans are now.

45

@32 Your turn, raindrop. I've laid out the argument without insults.

46

@43 I wouldn't go pooh poohing the assertion that they are trying to meddle. How effective the meddling is sure is debatable however. Most indications are: nowhere near as effective as the fringe left imagines. Keep in mind this is a regime that deploys agents that resemble characters from a bad James Bond parody, armed with perfume bottles filled with polonium, to take out its turncoat exiles.

47

@42: Consider where this started, I gave an explanation of Tump thinking (@14) and hypothesize that a Romney victory would have prevented Trump (@16).

Then, out of the blue, robotslave demands that I refute a "Big Lie" that there are "Responsible Republicans".

Why the presumption that I must counter such an argument on something I never said but only subjectives surmised from a supposed review of my comment history?

Sorry fellas, maybe if we narrow the scope we might have a more interesting debate.

48

You're only making fools out of yourselves when you try to debate a conservative into a liberal.

It causes wrinkles too.

49

@46 And I don't think the program is quite as ineffective as your critics of the fringe left would have it, either.

Effective propaganda doesn't necessarily lose its effect when it's revealed to be propaganda. The experienced propagandist (and Russia is nothing if not experienced in propaganda) works mainly by twisting the truth, and relies on wholesale invention only to supplement the primary effort.

And like I said before, we do know that somebody in St. Petersburg is pleased enough with the results to keep paying for and even expand the program.

As to those turncoat exiles, well, last I checked they were still dead. The fact that everyone seems to know exactly how they died and who killed them suggests that maybe that part of it was meant to be the very opposite of clandestine-- to publicly send a message, if only to other exiles who might consider turning coat.

50

@49 Actually the Keystone KGB only succeeded in killing a homeless woman. There was that guy whose food was 'seasoned' but that's not who I was referring to.

51

Oh, and of course Syria and Turkey and the house of Saud. The OPEC moguls are moving the resources around and hoarding rocket fuel so they can keep polluting the orbit into a gigantic homemade dyson sphere of TOTAL ROCKET SHIT that will all one day rain firey hell down on us and smash houses until we stop dumping all this fucking wasted oil and single use plastic around the fucking neck and habitat of all the other life on this Earth that survived for millions of years before we fucked shit up for instant gratification.

Stop these multinational molebrained mercenary lords and private prison slavers from holding the reigns of power over the Constitution our ancestors of all lands and peoples fought to defend for us. We must pay it forward by believing on our own values and not surrendering to the love of money and unsustainable release.

52

Hill's testimony was a bombshell! This is definitely a tipping point and the beginning of the end for Trump! Remember this date as a huge turning point! I expect Trump to resign immediately! If Pence isn't on the way to Walter Reed to confirm his health then surely the appointment is being made. Today changed everything! The walls have finally closed in on Trump! Woo hoo! Finally!!!

53

MY FEET ARE SOAKED BUT MY CUFFS ARE BONE DRY

54

@52 My sarcasm meter broke. Lol :)

MAGA

55

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU

56

@51 You don't score any extra points by beating the corpse harder.

It's 2019 and someone's still paying Glavset, old friend.

57

@50 Litvinenko is a bit less than entirely alive today, and he wasn't exactly killed in a plausibly deniable case of maybe-food-poisoning.

How much do you think you'd know about the Skripals today if someone had run them off the road, or pushed them off the roof of a parking garage, or used any method at all to attack them than wasn't very much meant to be noticed, and very clearly attributable to Russia?

58

@47 @48 Sorry old pal, but you said you had a counterargument if only I'd present my case without insults. I did. Your promised rebuttal hasn't materialized.

I'm not interested in trying to convert a conservative into a liberal. I'm interested in converting a conservative who is dishonest with himself (and everyone around him) into an honest conservative.

59

@56. I don't play for points. Just for keeps.

60

@59 That's exactly right. We all get to keep our blog-comments, sweetie. Forever. And we get to keep them no matter what name we post them under, too.

61

Critical Hit!!

62

@61 Ah, but we remember our blog-posts a hell of a lot longer than we remember our Pokemon battles. And whether we want to or not, mon cher.

63

Fiona Hill, liar:
Ukraine interference in the 2016 election "is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services."

Facts beg to differ with Trump's former Russia adviser:
https://politi.co/2pFUj1b

64

@63 "carefully censored Republican propaganda" is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the same thing as "facts." We have far, far more evidence that Russia has attempted to sway American foreign policy via propaganda, and at a far larger scale, than any evidence that Ukraine might have been meddling in internal US affairs.

Come back when you've got anything -- anything at all -- to say about the extensive, well-documented Russian intelligence operations targeting American elections and domestic politics.

65

Fire Aim Ready @63 knows full well that the Ukrainians rightfully freaking out in 2016 over the possibility of Trump getting elected is a very different thing from the conspiracy theory that the Russians have cooked up about them. There's an easy way to distinguish these two things, and it's the way bookstores file titles: non-fiction vs. fiction.

The people who accuse Fiona Hill of being a liar are kinda like the people accusing Alexander Vindman of being a spy. They know what they're saying is untrue. You could say, they know that they themselves are liars. But hey, at least they're doing it for a good cause.


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