anyone think THIS is a good idea?

[callmeslick]

optics are terrible. I swear these folks wish to destabilize the entire Western world. Why? On whose bidding?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39339431

[Tunnelcat]

Which makes me wonder why he's still forging ahead with this BS, even after the FBI revealed during yesterday's hearings that the Trump campaign apparatus was a little too cozy with Russia and that the FBI still has an ongoing investigation concerning the whole mess. What chutzpah. I say "impeach" Trump and toss his butt in jail for treason because they're still up to their armpits in Russian muck and seem to like it there despite the overwhelming stink.

You know what? If Hillary had won the election, or even another Democrat, and he or she was involved with Russia in the EXACT SAME WAY Trump's campaign was, (and still is apparently) the Republicans would be throwing around the words "treason" or "impeach" in the same sentence as "Democrat". Absolutely NO integrity.

[callmeslick]

that much has been obvious for a while. Can you IMAGINE if so much as a HINT of this sort of thing was coming from the Obama camp over the past 8 years? They wanted him hung for treason for no real reason.

[Flatlander]

Yeah, hypocrisy = Republican party, pretty much.

[woodchip]

I see you lefties are once again grasping at straws. Missing a nato meeting in order to bolster diplomatic relations with Russia? On My! The sky is falling. I guess you have to latch on to something after Comey categorically said Russia did nothing to hack or control the outcome of the election. Can't wait to hear the next bit of drivel you dig up on the lefts continued drive to have Trump impeached. Trump will go down as one of the best presidents this country's has ever had.

[callmeslick]

did you understand the word 'optics'? I used it for a reason, and yes, optics matters.

[woodchip]

optics define by the left are not optics, rather they are fake news.

[Vander]

Missing a nato meeting in order to bolster diplomatic relations with Russia? On My! The sky is falling.

I agree with you here and don't see this as necessarily being a big deal. It's only when you apply the context of collusion that it becomes problematic.

I guess you have to latch on to something after Comfe categorically said Russia did nothing to hack or control the outcome of the election.

You've split this hair very fine. Russia didn't hack ballots, but that doesn't mean they didn't interfere.

ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you so much Mr. Chairman.

It's never acceptable, we can all agree, for any foreign power to interfere with our electoral process and this committee has long been focused on Russia's reprehensible conduct. And we will remain focused on the threat emanating from Moscow. And I agree with you Director Comey, when you say this investigation that is ongoing, we will follow the facts wherever they lead on a bipartisan level and there will be no sacred cows.

There are many important issues at stake, as you gentlemen have heard. There is bipartisan agreement on the danger of illegal leaks and our ability to reauthorize important programs upon which our intelligence community relies. But I want to assure the American people that there's also bipartisan agreement on getting to the bottom of Russian meddling in our election which must remain the focus of this investigation and yours.

So Admiral Rogers, I agree in what you said that a public acknowledgement of this foreign meddling to be a problem is important as we move forward. And following on Congressman LoBiondo's questions and based on this theme, I'd like to ask you gentlemen if you could describe what, if anything, Russia did in this election that to your knowledge they did or they didn't do in previous elections, how -- how it was -- were their actions different in this election than -- than in previous ones.

ROGERS: I'd say the biggest difference from my perspective was both the use of cyber, the hacking as a vehicle to physically gain access to information to extract that information and then to make it widely, publicly available without any alteration or change.

COMEY: The only thing I'd add is they were unusually loud in their intervention. It's almost as if they didn't care that we knew what they were doing or that they wanted us to see what they were doing. It was very noisy, their intrusions in different institutions.

ROS-LEHTINEN: And what specifically based on this loudness did the FBI or the NSA do to prevent or counter this Russian active measure that we read about in the intelligence community assessment? As loud as they were, what did we do to counter that?

COMEY: Well, among other things, we alerted people who had been victims of intrusions to permit them to tighten their systems to see if they couldn't kick the Russian actors out. We also, as a government, supplied information to all the states so they could equip themselves to make sure there was no successful effort to affect the vote and there was none, as we said earlier.

And then the government as a whole in October called it out. And I believe it was Director Clapper and then-secretary Jeh Johnson issued a statement saying this is what the Russians are doing, sort of an inoculation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... 46250574a2

[Tunnelcat]

I see you lefties are once again grasping at straws. Missing a nato meeting in order to bolster diplomatic relations with Russia? On My! The sky is falling. I guess you have to latch on to something after Comey categorically said Russia did nothing to hack or control the outcome of the election. Can't wait to hear the next bit of drivel you dig up on the lefts continued drive to have Trump impeached. Trump will go down as one of the best presidents this country's has ever had.

Where there's smoke, there's fire woody. Don't forget Paul Manifort, who WAS deep inside the Trump campaign running things for months and who was up to his neck in Russian who-knows-what dirty Russkie business. Now it's really coming to light that the U.S. was being deluged by Russian "bots" for several years before the election, either using artificial intelligence or just plain old human military trolls sitting at keyboards, all with the intent of discrediting Hillary Clinton. Director Comey even verified on Monday that Putin absolutely hated Clinton and was willing to do anything to trash her reputation by spreading as much fake news as possible. Most of this fake news was sprayed at lefty sites, since many lefties were divided and were rooting for Bernie. But the real kickers is that the FBI is now investigating Breitbart and InfoWars for some connection to all this, and guess who's sitting in the White House with Trump's ear? Why Breitbart's old chief slimeball, Steve Bannon.

I'm also beginning to wonder if Issac was right with his "joke" assessment that sigma is and was a military bot.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politic ... 95453.html

http://portside.org/2017-03-18/bernie-s ... id-it-come

[woodchip]

And lets not forget that when Trump said he'd fight the results if he lost as he thought the elections would be rigged, Hillary and the Dems pooh poohed that idea quite vigorously. The bigger issue was the collusion between the Clinton campaign and the DNC to rig the primaries in Hillary's favor. Of course you do not hear much about that.

[Vander]

He WON and he's complaining about millions of illegal votes. A sore loser, I can relate. A sore winner? Get bent.

[Top Gun]

Trump will go down as one of the best presidents this country's has ever had.

It's amazing that people like you manage to remember how to breathe in the morning.

[Ferno]

I don't understand when someone says that he'll be the best president ever when they have to A) surmount their 37% approval rating and B) perform better than Lincoln.

Very tall order.

[Top Gun]

And/or the absolute clusterfuck of incompetence that the first two months have brought us.

[Ferno]

He's either the craziest person alive or a brilliant manipulator.

[Tunnelcat]

Or at least, damned lucky.