2018 American Political Scene

[Officer of Engineers]

recall that the rocket tests went into overdrive in spring-summer 2017. the US-led pressure campaign did impose significant costs on NK, but of course did not do a single thing to end the nuclear program.

Without further testing, the NK ICBM program is effectively dead. I would not call their last ICBM launch a success.

moreover the US, thanks to Trump, has stepped away from the demands that the North Koreans already consented to with the Agreed Framework, and now SK is going into overdrive to make nice to NK.

Oh come on, Eric! Clinton, Japan, and SK killed the Agreed Framework long before this. Japan and SK are not going to build civilian nuclear reactors in NK.

[astralis]

col,

Old Dinosaurs like me would not have thought of that, on how trolls and bots can affect a campaign but I considered DNC hacks through Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0 to be nothing more than whistle blowers. The DNC servers are NOT government servers and hence, all of their info are UNCLAS. No different than reporting a company's wrongdoing to the NYT and the WaPo.

just because something is not government-classified doesn't mean that hacking them is legal. that still constitutes interference in the US political process.

I agree but this should now be a counter-intel op instead of legal procedure.

it can be both, and indeed it is both. both efforts support each other. one discourages the Russkis from playing this game again, the other discourages Americans from assisting that effort.

Without further testing, the NK ICBM program is effectively dead. I would not call their last ICBM launch a success.

Oh come on, Eric! Clinton, Japan, and SK killed the Agreed Framework long before this. Japan and SK are not going to build civilian nuclear reactors in NK.

as i said, there's no good solution to the NK problem set. NK capabilities have increased over the last 25 years. does anyone doubt they have nuclear capability now? heck, as you mention, the issue is whether or not they have the targeting capability to hit Guam or CONUS. they've already demonstrated the ability to hit Japan.

Trump and KJU's little dance is just a defacto concurrence that NK has nuclear capability but that the US can tolerate this nuclear capability as long as KJU doesn't actively threaten the US or her allies. this is more than halfway to North Korea's bottom-line. Trump is essentially bragging that he has solved the NK problem by....agreeing to most of what NK wants.

[Officer of Engineers]

just because something is not government-classified doesn't mean that hacking them is legal. that still constitutes interference in the US political process.

Hacking of whatever sort is illegal, even of APPLE, AMAZON, etc but it does not rise to the level of treason.

it can be both, and indeed it is both. both efforts support each other. one discourages the Russkis from playing this game again, the other discourages Americans from assisting that effort.

As I stated, without access to Russian intel assets, it would be near impossible to know what kind of co-ordination took place. After all, you had Trump openly asked for hacked emails on National TV and that was not enough to be charged with a crime. From the get go, this was a Russian operation and there is zero intel stating any input from the Trump camp.

as i said, there's no good solution to the NK problem set. NK capabilities have increased over the last 25 years. does anyone doubt they have nuclear capability now?

I do. The descrepencies between claimed yield and measured yield more than state that NK designs do not meet specs. Warhead reliability is still a big question.

heck, as you mention, the issue is whether or not they have the targeting capability to hit Guam or CONUS. they've already demonstrated the ability to hit Japan.

SCUD level accuracy. Of course with nukes, that is still scary but hardly a Japan killer.

Trump and KJU's little dance is just a defacto concurrence that NK has nuclear capability but that the US can tolerate this nuclear capability as long as KJU doesn't actively threaten the US or her allies. this is more than halfway to North Korea's bottom-line. Trump is essentially bragging that he has solved the NK problem by....agreeing to most of what NK wants.

Agreeing to what? Cancelling a 60,000 man exercise but keeping a 300,000 man exercise designed to kill the entire NK army? The NK ICBM program is dead and it's not just about range, it's about reliability. NK rocket test have a 50-50 chance of exploding before it land on its targets.

[DOR]

The point ism't about a President being compromised by a foreign government.

The point is that an American President was incapacitated by criminal acts.

However, as I think about this, Mueller got nothing and he is going to get nothing because he's fishing in the wrong waters. What do we know? Some Russian mob boss told a Saudi Prince he had some dirty email to sell. No such dirt exchanged hands, not even as a sample. To prove Trump of any wrong doing, he would have to know the nature of the crime. He didn't. There is zero evidence to suggest anyone in the Trump camp knew the DNC servers have been hacked. As far as the Trump camp knew, those emails could have been from a disgruntled client of the Clinton Foundation client wishing to protect himself.

While you may think Trump the fool, you should not make that mistake with Putin. He has assets to protect himself. Trump could very well compromised Putin's agents if he lost the election and do recall that everyone, including Trump himself, thought he was not going to win.

Putin used his own assets to hurt Clinton by using a Russian hacker group to release the info.

Mueller has to prove that Trump knew of the emails and he has to prove that Trump knew that Putin was going to release them. That's why he indicted 8 Russian Officers. He's not going the chance.

Even thinking this through. Trump is not a compromised President. Think about this. Would Putin trust a Trump who was going to lose an election with the secrecy of an intelligence operation? Trump was the last one I would trust with SIGSEC and OPSEC, not that we have much choice in the matter right now. A former Berlin Spycheif could not be so dumb.

I hate to quote myself, but that is exactly the topic I wrote about. If you wish to write about another, different topic, please do not do it as a reply to what I write. It's confusing.

Col.,
Is Trump compromised? Have we ever had to ask that question about a sitting leader in the free world, let alone the supposed leader of the free world? Just contemplating the question brings us to an entirely new level of concern. Serious contemplation, not just back-and-forth politics, is beyond mere 'concern.' It enters into the realm of, “What has made us even ask such a question?”

Is Trump compromised? The suspicion in Washington grows
By Lawrence Martin, The Globe and Mail, July 17, 2018
More: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opin...hington-grows/
. . .

Fact-checking Donald Trump: What the law says on collusion
Robert Farley, Factcheck.org (USA Today, Aug 9, 2018)

More: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ion/953326002/

. . .

Collusion Happened
by David A. Graham, The Atlantic, May 23, 2018
More: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...ppened/560894/

And, to your point, the crime that was committed was the intent – conspiracy – to accept donations (dirt) from non-US citizens for the purpose of a US political campaign. That's illegal.

As for Putin trusting The Trumpet, that may not be the objective. Sowing doubt and confusion seems to me to be quite sufficient. Maybe even stirring up some Nazi white supremacists…

[Officer of Engineers]

I hate to quote myself, but that is exactly the topic I wrote about. If you wish to write about another, different topic, please do not do it as a reply to what I write. It's confusing.

To the extent that a President can be compromised has been asked and answered by Nixon. It is by what we're talking about now.

And, to your point, the crime that was committed was the intent – conspiracy – to accept donations (dirt) from non-US citizens for the purpose of a US political campaign. That's illegal.

And the point remains that without access to Russian intelligence operatives, there is no way to prove or disprove donations (dirt). Putin's intent was and remained to damage a Clinton Presidency, not to help a Trump Campaign.

And again, Trump already asked the Russians on National TV for emails and he was not charged. I don't know how much more nudge-nudge-wink-wink can you get. This was an outright asking Russia to show him Clinton's emails on National TV. If that was not a crime, then the standards must cross into the co-ordination area. The Trump camp must know what the Russians were offerring and no matter how you want to word it, the Russians were offerring nothing.

This was and always have been a Russian operation. There is absolutely zero doubt about that. It was their intelligence gathering. Their releasing of the information. At no time did the Trump campaign got any insight to what the Russians have nor what they were going to do.

As for Putin trusting The Trumpet, that may not be the objective. Sowing doubt and confusion seems to me to be quite sufficient. Maybe even stirring up some Nazi white supremacists…

Then your claims about Trump even being possibly compromised is out the window.

[Versus]

Russia, again? Really???

It is not. Russian meddling into a US political system is not the issue, what is the issue is the exsistence of the US Communist agenda, the secret, well estabilished web of interests with the communist agenda. The thing you call "the deep state". Ever since Frankfurt school fleed Germany and infiltrated Columbia university, you have that problem. The Mcharty was right, there was inflitration of communists into the US establishment but they didn't came from Russia, they came from Germany. They both infiltrated Russia and US from Germany and were playing both sides so well for far too long. England as well. Do you really buy a story that UK exported NENE engines over a lost billiard match? C'mon. In the US, they started a "long march" trough institutions and their primary target was the FBI wich they sucsessfully took over, turining them into a US version of "secret police". That is why you have Mueller. Because if you take down him, you have open road to Clinton's and Hillary. The purge must happen and swamp must be drained if you want to get back in the saddle. If not, US is doomed forever.

It is that bad.

US communists are willing to go to war with Russia in order to propagate their agenda further. They have no boundaries, no compassion, no ethics, no conscience and they will stop at nothing in pursuit of their goal.

It was really an ingenious plan. Pumping up their secret army of low iq third worlders that are pouring now, all the way from Africa, South America or various Rapestans arround the world. They are their "humane" army that is suppose to take over the system. They invested so much in making all those places unstable so that they could have permanent pull of new votes.

Through out the 90es I saw that link, that sick desire of the left to merge with the underdog, their love towards anti social elements, their deep, passionate connection with the crime and criminal behaviour and I see it now, on the much larger scale in the West. Communists love, trully love and desire criminals and terrorists and they will uphold them and protect them always, because they enjoy chaos and havoc. And they enjoy it simply...because they are stupid. Their ideology is actually an absence of ideology, their core is like a black hole that sucks everything in and brings in to a singularity, the ultimate form of relativism where nothing matters, nothing can be defined, distinguished, measured. The ultimate state of entropy. Death itself.

[astralis]

col,

Hacking of whatever sort is illegal, even of APPLE, AMAZON, etc but it does not rise to the level of treason.

for that matter, hacking of US government classified stuff (usually) does not rise to the level of treason either. regardless, the extent to which there was coordinated (if any) malfeasance needs to be revealed.

in terms of complexity of coordination, it could be as involved as quid-pro-quo understanding (unlikely), a one-off see-what-they-can-provide (the Trump Tower meeting), or simply just parallel operations (for instance, the online troll campaign). i'll wait for Mueller to wrap up and summarize; the indictments he's issued already tell me that this more than a "nothingburger".

The NK ICBM program is dead and it's not just about range, it's about reliability. NK rocket test have a 50-50 chance of exploding before it land on its targets.

that's still moving the goal-posts. the initial US goal-post was no DPRK nukes and no delivery capability. now it's OK, stop doing your rocket tests and we'll let you keep your inaccurate nukes.

the DPRK used to just be able to threaten Seoul via artillery, now they can credibly threaten Tokyo. let's say there's only a 25% chance that KJU can hit Tokyo-- that still represents a massive escalation in the threat, and one that the US President -must- consider. and of course, next up is Guam, but that will require another considerable step up in DPRK targeting.

[astralis]

Russia, again? Really???

It is not. Russian meddling into a US political system is not the issue, what is the issue is the exsistence of the US Communist agenda, the secret, well estabilished web of interests with the communist agenda. The thing you call "the deep state". Ever since Frankfurt school fleed Germany and infiltrated Columbia university, you have that problem. The Mcharty was right, there was inflitration of communists into the US establishment but they didn't came from Russia, they came from Germany. They both infiltrated Russia and US from Germany and were playing both sides so well for far too long. England as well. Do you really buy a story that UK exported NENE engines over a lost billiard match? C'mon. In the US, they started a "long march" trough institutions and their primary target was the FBI wich they sucsessfully took over, turining them into a US version of "secret police". That is why you have Mueller. Because if you take down him, you have open road to Clinton's and Hillary. The purge must happen and swamp must be drained if you want to get back in the saddle. If not, US is doomed forever.

It is that bad.

US communists are willing to go to war with Russia in order to propagate their agenda further. They have no boundaries, no compassion, no ethics, no conscience and they will stop at nothing in pursuit of their goal.

tin foil hat is not enough. must...up-armor.

[Officer of Engineers]

i'll wait for Mueller to wrap up and summarize; the indictments he's issued already tell me that this more than a "nothingburger".

And 8 of those indictments are for Russian Officers. What are the odds that Putin will send them to the US for trial?

that's still moving the goal-posts. the initial US goal-post was no DPRK nukes and no delivery capability. now it's OK, stop doing your rocket tests and we'll let you keep your inaccurate nukes.

We lost that chance when the famine hit NK and everyone, including China, was waiting for the Kims to fail. We could have helped the NKs through the famines while instituting ourselves into North Korea. The past has come back to bite us.

the DPRK used to just be able to threaten Seoul via artillery, now they can credibly threaten Tokyo. let's say there's only a 25% chance that KJU can hit Tokyo-- that still represents a massive escalation in the threat, and one that the US President -must- consider. and of course, next up is Guam, but that will require another considerable step up in DPRK targeting.

The goal must still be total disarmament. Trump is touting a Non-Agression Pact in exchange but this is still early on. I do not expect anything fruitful until after the next election. Look at the NAFTA mess and this was between three "friends." If I was Kim, I'd be a fool to give up my bargining chip for vague promises. Look at what the Agreed Framework did to his father.

[Versus]

tin foil hat is not enough. must...up-armor.

[ATTACH]47067[/ATTACH]

I hope you are right, I trully do. Problem is, I saw them in action. No matter how hard is to accept that they exist, they are real.

[GVChamp]

Right now the Russian investigation is a Rorshach test. Mueller didn't have anything provable on anyone or else that's what Manafort would have been charged with. It's possible the investigation might have turned up more information, but there's nothing to conclude that right now.

[tbm3fan]

"Surrendered in service to the Left" Really? You think I've surrendered to the Left.

Me.

Wow...

So criticism of Donald Trump is surrendering to the Left. Got it.

Are you that far gone? Is this what drinking Trump's Kool-Aid does to someone? Seriously, what in the actual f--k is wrong with you man?

Oh yeah, take a look at that hyperlink I posted and take note of who the author was...then tell me that author was also "surrendering to the Left"

Are you surprised? I wasn't when I read that earlier. Either you are a communist, or failing that connection, you are a leftist. Sounds so straight out of the '50s. Retro never dies. Ironic coming from a Libertarian. Well that is what he says although I think Z is somewhat confused on the terms after all these years.

Personally you are as centrist as they come after reading years of your posts vs his.

[tbm3fan]

Interesting bit of video for TH.

Two things catch my attention.

First, if moderate is the middle then by this fellow's research on "tribes" 25% are to the right of moderate and 60% are left of moderate.

Second is the two extremes in media where it seems we are at war. The reason this works so well is because it makes so much money for the media companies. Once again the dollar and always the dollar.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/30/opini...dup/index.html

[TopHatter]

Are you surprised? I wasn't when I read that earlier. Either you are a communist, or failing that connection, you are a leftist. Sounds so straight out of the '50s. Retro never dies. Ironic coming from a Libertarian. Well that is what he says although I think Z is somewhat confused on the terms after all these years.

I'm not surprised when I get that sort of unimaginative tripe from the usual breed of random Internet drone.

Debunk the Obama Birther conspiracy theory or criticize Trump? I'm automatically a liberal leftist.
Express my disgust Hilary Clinton or the Democrats? I'm automatically a right-wing Nazi.

It's beyond predictable. Happens all the time. You can practically set your watch by it.

But coming from someone on this board? Someone that's been around since 2006 like Zraver?
Yeah, I was surprised. Shocked even. As you said, years of my posts, opinions, etc....and he thinks I've surrendered to the Left.

I thought people's worship of Obama was mindless and disgusting. I had no idea what was to come with Trump. It's like people have switched their brains and any sense of morality or logic off like a light switch. That's probably the scariest part about the cancer sitting in the Oval Office right now: What's he's done to people's tolerance for vile and reprehensible behavior. Every week Trump seems to hit a new low...and his supporters simply don't care.

Personally you are as centrist as they come after reading years of your posts vs his.

Thank you, that's probably the finest compliment I've received in a long time.

[TopHatter]

Interesting bit of video for TH.

Two things catch my attention.

First, if moderate is the middle then by this fellow's research on "tribes" 25% are to the right of moderate and 60% are left of moderate.

Second is the two extremes in media where it seems we are at war. The reason this works so well is because it makes so much money for the media companies. Once again the dollar and always the dollar.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/30/opini...dup/index.html

That's an excellent article and video. I particularly agree with Penn Gilette's op-ed