Things that make you go hmmm

[*michaelsean*]

(01-28-2019, 01:23 PM)jj22 Wrote: I think it was emotions over 9/11 that allowed that to happen.

I understand what happened I just always got a chuckle when they said he tricked them. Maybe it wasn’t in those words but that’s what it came across as.

[*michaelsean*]

(01-28-2019, 01:36 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I believe the Office of Special Plans was Cheney's handiwork.

Just vague enough to be sinister.

[Dill]

(01-28-2019, 01:04 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Well you have to remember that the dumbest guy to ever sit in the Oval Office managed to trick a lot of very smart Democrat Senators to vote for the Iraq War.  

Sort of.  He got them to vote on a RESOLUTION which would give him the power to go to war if necessary, when rumors were swirling and he had just provided them with a White Paper of cooked intel.  (E.g., before the vote, Bush ordered the Dept. of Energy to stay silent for two weeks about their dispute of the claim Saddam was gathering aluminum tubes to build a reactor. That was more bold than smart.)

Then he invoked the resolution 5 months later, as that intel was unraveling. That doesn't get all those Dem senators off the hook. (Many Dem representatives did their due diligence in October 2002 and voted against the resolution.) But it's not like there was a straight up vote in March 2003 on whether we should invade now and they all said "Aye!"

WAS the dumbest guy. Would switch Trump for him in a second.

[fredtoast]

(01-26-2019, 12:25 AM)Stonyhands Wrote: From 2001 to 2005 there was an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation. A Grand Jury had been empanelled.

Governments from around the world had donated to the "Charity". Yet, from 2001 to 2003 none of those "Donations" to the Clinton Foundation were declared.

Link?

I can't seem to find the results of any Grand Jury investigation of the Clinton Foundation from '01-'05.

And what do you mean by "declared"?  To whom are a non-profit like the Clinton Foundation required to "declare" donations?

[fredtoast]

(01-28-2019, 01:42 PM)michaelsean Wrote: I just always got a chuckle when they said he tricked them.

Why would you chuckle about a President manipulating intelligence to start a war.

Do you really not care what any Republican does?

[fredtoast]

(01-28-2019, 01:43 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Just vague enough to be sinister.

Nothing vague about the Office of Special Plans.  It was specifically created to lie about intelligence in order to justify a war.

Don't know if I can blame Cheny 100% but it was a sinister action on whoever was behind it.

[*michaelsean*]

(01-28-2019, 02:00 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Why would you chuckle about a President manipulating intelligence to start a war.

Do you really not care what any Republican does?

As long as there is an R

[*michaelsean*]

(01-28-2019, 02:02 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Nothing vague about the Office of Special Plans.  It was specifically created to lie about intelligence in order to justify a war.

Don't know if I can blame Cheny 100% but it was a sinister action on whoever was behind it.

The name is just vague enough to be sinister  

[Stonyhands]

(01-28-2019, 01:41 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Still calling the dossier "made up" after so much of it has been confirmed as true?

Nothing makes the echo chamber crowd look sillier than this.

Haha...True...which parts Fred?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2017/01/13/the-trump-dossier-is-false-news-and-heres-why/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2018/01/10/the-trump-dossiers-credibility-is-collapsing/amp/

[GMDino]

(02-01-2019, 02:04 AM)Stonyhands Wrote: Haha...True...which parts Fred?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2017/01/13/the-trump-dossier-is-false-news-and-heres-why/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2018/01/10/the-trump-dossiers-credibility-is-collapsing/amp/

These parts:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/steele-dossier-retrospective

(Note:  My link is from December, 2018...more recent that your two links.  Things change as more information comes out.)

Quote:The dossier is actually a series of reports—16 in all—that total 35 pages. Written in 2016, the dossier is a collection of raw intelligence. Steele neither evaluated nor synthesized the intelligence. He neither made nor rendered bottom-line judgments. The dossier is, quite simply and by design, raw reporting, not a finished intelligence product.


In that sense, the dossier is similar to an FBI 302 form or a DEA 6 form. Both of those forms are used by special agents of the FBI and DEA, respectively, to record what they are told by witnesses during investigations. The substance of these memoranda can be true or false, but the recording of information is (or should be) accurate. In that sense, notes taken by a special agent have much in common with the notes that a journalist might take while covering a story—the substance of those notes could be true or false, depending on what the source tells the journalist, but the transcription should be accurate. 


With that in mind, we thought it would be worthwhile to look back at the dossier and to assess, to the extent possible, how the substance of Steele’s reporting holds up over time. In this effort, we considered only information in the public domain from trustworthy and official government sources, including documents released by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office in connection with the criminal cases brought against Paul Manafort, the 12 Russian intelligence officers, the Internet Research Agency trolling operation and associated entities, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos. We also considered the draft statement of offense released by author Jerome Corsi, a memorandum released by House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Adam Schiff related to the Carter Page FISA applications and admissions directly from certain speakers.



These materials buttress some of Steele’s reporting, both specifically and thematically. The dossier holds up well over time, and none of it, to our knowledge, has been disproven.

But much of the reporting simply remains uncorroborated, at least by the yardstick we are using. Most significantly, the dossier reports a “well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between [Trump and his associates] and the Russian leadership,” including an “intelligence exchange [that] had been running between them for at least 8 years.” There has been significant investigative reporting about long-standing connections between Trump, his associates and Kremlin-affiliated individuals, and Trump himself acknowledged that the purpose of a June 2016 meeting between his son, Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-connected lawyer was to obtain “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. But there is, at present, no evidence in the official record that confirms other direct ties or their relevance to the 2016 presidential campaign. With that caveat, here are excerpts from the dossier that correspond with details contained in official documents.

...


Read and learn at your own risk.