My thought was that she wanted to enter the US to attend the Prevezon case, but was initially denied. They later approved her entry on the pretense that she would meet with Trump Jr. and claim to have access to the leaks.

but idk, it's too speculative for me at this point

2/7/2018 12:35:36 PM

^^My apologies - the inclusion of the "we do it too" comment was not to convey acceptance on my part. It should certainly be met with equal parts retaliation/defense.

2/7/2018 12:36:50 PM

You know, oppo firms aren't hired to makeup garbage. Anyone can do that, for a lot less money. The whole premise that because something was sourced from an oppo firm hired by a political opponent it should be ignored doesn't even make a whole lot of sense. Oppo isn't valuable if it isn't true and the fact something in it was used to help obtain a FISA warrant makes it more credible, not less. We're still waiting for anything in the dossier to be disproven.

2/7/2018 12:37:35 PM

I’m very puzzled why Republicans think that info gathered for political groups is invalid.

Any asshole can send anonymous tips to the fbi and they’ll look into it and eventually get a warrant if it’s credible, doesn’t matter where a tip comes from if the legal process to vet it is followed.

This entire line of attack is moronic which is probably why Ryan keeps trying to frame it as secret courts being corrupt (after they all voted to maintain the secret court system with no changes).

This is all very obvious just a guilty person and his cronies grasping at straws and muddying the waters for what will likely ending up in more criminal indictments for trump and friends.

2/7/2018 12:45:53 PM

i would love for this to cause the FISA court to go away or be radically fixed, but the fact that all these people just voted for it again make it clear they don't think there was actually a problem with the fisa warrant

2/7/2018 12:48:09 PM

If this was a legitimate oversight of the FISA process most on the left would be fine with that. But it so clearly isn’t.

^^ didn’t really FBI use, in part, a Mercer/Bannon book to open a Clinton Foundation investigation??

2/7/2018 12:55:22 PM

yep

2/7/2018 1:02:41 PM

I don't see how you guys can keep up with all this stuff.

2/7/2018 1:04:12 PM

Since a lot of the recent shit is about Page I just wanted to link you to two articles that together pretty much convinced me Steele's Intel was pretty much 100% true.

http://www.businessinsider.com/carter-page-trump-russia-igor-sechin-dossier-2017-1

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/27/mystery-death-ex-kgb-chief-linked-mi6-spys-dossier-donald-trump/

2/7/2018 1:12:58 PM

Quote :

"i would love for this to cause the FISA court to go away or be radically fixed, but the fact that all these people just voted for it again make it clear they don't think there was actually a problem with the fisa warrant"

they also voted FISA through after the NSA mass spying

before that, when warrant-less wiretapping was discovered under the Bush administration, congress voted to EXPAND FISA retroactively to protect them

they consistently vote to give intelligence agencies near-unlimited spying power, even under an administration as dangerous as this one.

[Edited on February 7, 2018 at 1:18 PM. Reason : .]

2/7/2018 1:17:20 PM

It is entirely disingenuous to say it's nearly unlimited.

2/7/2018 1:23:42 PM

https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/warrantless-surveillance-under-section-702-fisa

Quote :

"Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the U.S. government engages in mass, warrantless surveillance of Americans’ and foreigners’ phone calls, text messages, emails, and other electronic communications. Information collected under the law without a warrant can be used to prosecute and imprison people, even for crimes that have nothing to do with national security. Given our nation’s history of abusing its surveillance authorities, and the secrecy surrounding the program, we should be concerned that Section 702 is and will be used to disproportionately target disfavored groups, whether minority communities, political activists, or even journalists. Section 702 is set to expire at the end of 2017. The Trump administration wants Congress to make the law permanent. We strongly oppose those efforts and call on Congress to significantly reform the law, or allow it to sunset."

And Congress just renewed it.

[Edited on February 7, 2018 at 1:27 PM. Reason : .]

2/7/2018 1:26:39 PM

Republicans are framing this memo as showing that the FISA judges were "tricked" into approving the surveillance. This way, their approval of 702 is vindicated.

2/7/2018 1:47:07 PM

Yeah, judges never read footnotes.

Never ever.

2/7/2018 3:25:55 PM

Quote :

"I don't see how you guys can keep up with all this stuff. "

For me, it's obsessive amounts of reading twitter...

If you follow a few credible journalists, you essentially get a real-time, constantly updating feed of what's going on. It's not necessarily a good thing but you get a much more fuller picture of things than seeing a few minutes on the news.

This is also a great way to stay on top of any highly specialized field (if you're an engineer or scientist or whatever)

[Edited on February 7, 2018 at 3:41 PM. Reason : ]

2/7/2018 3:40:48 PM

I could definitely see how the average citizen could have difficulty keeping up with everything, especially with the recent congressional attempts to muddy the waters.

2/7/2018 4:52:03 PM

Absolutely. It's what scares me most.

2/7/2018 5:07:34 PM

People aren’t supposed to have to follow the minutiae that’s why we elect representatives. It was even impossible for people to follow the minutiae when the gov was formed.

The problem we have now is that we don’t have real representation anymore. When 50% of NC voters choose democrats but democrats only have 10% of the seats, it puts democrats in a position to constantly be fighting.

When you have congresspeople not interested in enforcing the emoluments clause or separation of powers, that’s a distortion of our democracy.

I would love to not feel the need to check the news constantly, knowing my viewpoints are somewhat fairly represented, but this is just not the case.

2/7/2018 9:33:41 PM

Quote :

"Let me get this straight, Hillary’s campaign used a foreign spy, in contact with Russian sources, to gather information used by the Obama administration to spy on the Trump team? And it’s Trump being accused of collusion? We must be living in Bizarro Superman land. "

2/8/2018 6:17:16 AM

No

2/8/2018 6:53:46 AM

^^critical reading and thinking skills lacking greatly with the individual that posted that initially (unless it was sarcasm)

2/8/2018 8:46:28 AM

Quote :

"I could definitely see how the average citizen could have difficulty keeping up with everything, especially with the recent congressional attempts to muddy the waters."

Don't forget Russian disinformation campaigns.

https://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/

2/8/2018 8:50:02 AM

Quote :

"I could definitely see how the average citizen could have difficulty keeping up with everything, especially with the recent congressional attempts to muddy the waters."

We're in an age now where facts don't matter. People don't look at the facts and use them to determine their feelings, they use their feelings to determine the facts.

2/8/2018 2:08:46 PM

^^
https://www.thenation.com/article/our-russia-fixation-is-devolving-into-an-assault-on-political-discourse/

Quote :

"The ASD, which according to a GMF spokesperson is “funded by a group of American private individuals and small family foundations,” is, in reality, an alliance between longtime Republican neocons and Democratic war hawks such as William Kristol, David Kramer, former CIA acting director Michael Morell, Hillary Clinton foreign-policy adviser Jake Sullivan and former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul."

Quote :

"The specific criteria GMF uses when deeming an account “meaningfully linked” to Russian “disinformation campaigns” was left unstated. And GMF will not name the 600 accounts on its radar because, “We prefer to focus on the behavior of the overall network rather than get dragged into hundreds of individual debates over which troll fits which role.”"

Quote :

"So the question is: Why does GMF cite tweets linking to stories on police brutality and a widely bellicose pronouncement by Senator Lindsey Graham? The import of GMF’s project is clear: Reporting on anything that might put the United States in a bad light is now tantamount to spreading Russian propaganda. Perhaps this shouldn’t be at all surprising. After all, the January 6 declassified intelligence report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Russia’s alleged campaign to influence the outcome of the election asserted that RT’s reporting on Occupy Wall Street and fracking helped tilt the election to Donald J. Trump."

2/8/2018 2:20:31 PM

I’ve never looked at that site but I’m well aware of Greenwald’s thoughts on it.

That’s said, I don’t care what that site says. I saw with my own two eyes a massive disinformation campaign with #releasethememo on a scale I was amazed with. Hundreds of bots (Russian? Who knows... and who cares?) all saying the exact same thing to the comma with the only apparent goal of sowing distrust.

[Edited on February 8, 2018 at 2:33 PM. Reason : And most were MAGAs]

2/8/2018 2:33:08 PM

that entire opinion is based on the false premise that the tweets they list are "highlighted." this is wrong, they are just the top tweets of followed accounts, it's called "Top Tweets of the Past 24 Hours"

2/8/2018 2:35:34 PM

Quote :

"I’ve never looked at that site but I’m well aware of Greenwald’s thoughts on it."

You realize I read a lot more than Greenwald? And Greenwald isn't the only one who is suspicious of US intel organizations?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nation

It's so surprising to see this whitewashing of prominent war-mongers because it fits the current narrative. I hope y'all remember all this when it comes back around to the punishing the progressive left.

Quote :

"that entire opinion is based on the false premise that the tweets they list are "highlighted." this is wrong, they are just the top tweets of followed accounts, it's called "Top Tweets of the Past 24 Hours""

That article was written back in August, so maybe the site has changed, but it's still extremely questionable how they choose who to follow.

[Edited on February 8, 2018 at 2:41 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2018 2:39:45 PM

I’m saying I’m aware of the website because I’ve seen him talk about it. I wasn’t insinuating that is all you read (as your link isn’t even from him).

Regarding the second part, I’ve seen this way too much. I think W, Kristol, Frum et al are terrible people and should continue to be treated as such. But that doesn’t mean every opinion they have is wrong and invalid.

2/8/2018 2:42:40 PM

Quote :

" That article was written back in August, so maybe the site has changed"

i just checked, it was still top tweets of the last 24 hours on august 2 per wayback. you've been misinformed.

2/8/2018 2:53:32 PM

Both Twitter and Facebook in recent months have reported bots/Russian-linked accounts on their products that absolutely swamp the estimates mentioned in that Nation article. Keep in mind that twitter and Facebook have the largest incentive to downplay social media meddling (except maybe the actual guilty parties), their value is literally derived from the number of eyeballs that view their product on a daily basis, reporting that x% are fake or propaganda hurts their bottom line and invites regulation. Yet every time they return to the media or authorities to report what their "investigations" have found, the number of accounts and the number of real users that interacted with those accounts goes up exponentially.

2/8/2018 2:53:44 PM

^^

Quote :

"The 600 accounts are monitored in real time, and the output from their accounts is analyzed to produce the dashboard. There are three primary categories of data, each of which is analyzed in two different ways. The categories are: Hashtags Topics (terms used in tweets excluding hashtags) Links (including top-level domains and specific URLs) Each of these categories are then analyzed in the following ways: Top items (most-tweeted over the last 48 hours) Trending items (content with the highest percentage increase over the last 48 hours)"

http://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/publications/methodology-hamilton-68-dashboard

So the top tweets actually are highlighted based on secret criteria decided on by neocons. How do you think they got to the list from the Nation article?

Quote :

"Regarding the second part, I’ve seen this way too much. I think W, Kristol, Frum et al are terrible people and should continue to be treated as such. But that doesn’t mean every opinion they have is wrong and invalid."

No, but they should be heavily scrutinized, especially when they're dumping money into something.

Quote :

"Both Twitter and Facebook in recent months have reported bots/Russian-linked accounts on their products that absolutely swamp the estimates mentioned in that Nation article. Keep in mind that twitter and Facebook have the largest incentive to downplay social media meddling (except maybe the actual guilty parties), their value is literally derived from the number of eyeballs that view their product on a daily basis, reporting that x% are fake or propaganda hurts their bottom line and invites regulation. Yet every time they return to the media or authorities to report what their "investigations" have found, the number of accounts and the number of real users that interacted with those accounts goes up exponentially."

Well it's a proven fact that a multitude of public and private organizations push their own narratives via paid accounts and bots. I just don't trust this particular website run by a bunch of neocon garbage people to show me what that narrative is.

[Edited on February 8, 2018 at 3:45 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2018 3:42:19 PM

Securing Democracy tracks 600 twitter accounts, meanwhile twitter reported to congress that it found 2700 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency (an arm of the FSB allegedly) and another 36,000 automated accounts they also thought were Russian linked.

You have to consider the possibility that Securing Democracy is just scraping the surface of Russian linked social media meddling.

2/8/2018 4:29:27 PM

I'm 100% sure you're right. They'd be fools not to, considering all the major powers (most likely) are.

The issue comes in when we accept "reporting" by politically motivated organizations based on data and methodology secret to the outside user. We don't know all of the accounts they follow or what filters they use to narrow down the data.

The other issue I have is related to something NyM wrote:

Quote :

"I saw with my own two eyes a massive disinformation campaign with #releasethememo on a scale I was amazed with. Hundreds of bots (Russian? Who knows... and who cares?) all saying the exact same thing to the comma with the only apparent goal of sowing distrust."

If you were someone with political motivations, a lot of money, and zero morals, how easy would it be to manipulate this situation? I can guarantee you the Russian bot army is not only coming from Russia.

There are so many factors at play here.

[Edited on February 8, 2018 at 4:47 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2018 4:40:41 PM

Quote :

"The issue comes in when we accept "reporting" by politically motivated organizations based on data and methodology secret to the outside user. "

I get it. It's similiar to why I don't believe a word Wikileaks has published since the middle of 2016.

2/8/2018 4:55:51 PM

[Edited on February 8, 2018 at 4:59 PM. Reason : Bizarro double post, I'm blaming Russians!!!!!]

2/8/2018 4:58:35 PM

Why not? I can understand avoiding Assange's Twitter, but their releases have been publicly verified as accurate.

2/8/2018 5:00:40 PM

It's not the accuracy, it's the blatant biases shown in the 'information' leaked.

2/8/2018 5:04:41 PM

I mean you're free to plug your ears, but it's verified accurate information. Not the same as my point before about Securing Democracy.

[Edited on February 8, 2018 at 5:15 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2018 5:15:21 PM

The twitter face of WL is garbage and deserves scorn. FFS, they have a retweeted Cassandra Fairbanks tweet from The Gateway Pundit on their last five tweets.

WikiLeaks the entity has, to my knowledge, never released fake things but they have maximized political impact which I personally think is a form of major bias.

2/8/2018 5:22:02 PM

Quote :

"Why not? "

Because they're a politically motivated organization whose methodology, curation, and sources are a secret to the outside user.

2/8/2018 5:26:32 PM

Still missing the point dude. This is a dumb diversion.

Wikileaks releases verifiable information from anonymous sources. Same as any investigative journalist.

Securing Democracy is taking a list of 600 twitter accounts, asking us to trust that they're all Russian, and applying unknown filters to show "trends".

[Edited on February 8, 2018 at 5:40 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2018 5:27:52 PM

I'm miffed that someone so wrapped up in Securing Democracy's biases seems oblivious to Wikileaks' biases. Perhaps you're not as savvy about bias as you think. Or, perhaps you have some serious biases of your own.

2/8/2018 5:44:49 PM

Wikileaks was only able to verify 1/3 of Marcon's emails during the French Election. Macron claimed there were a lot of forgeries and fakes. Wikileaks posted them all anyways.

Maybe Securing Democracy won't post its filters so that programmers can't game them. In the same way that a journalist might not reveal its clandestine sources, maybe Securing Democracy can't post its methods because it will reduce their effectiveness.

2/8/2018 5:45:23 PM

Quote :

"I'm miffed that someone so wrapped up in Securing Democracy's biases seems oblivious to Wikileaks' biases. Perhaps you're not as savvy about bias as you think. Or, perhaps you have some serious biases of your own."

They have a consistent anti-imperialist bias. The recent slant toward heavy conspiracy is unfortunate.

Quote :

"Wikileaks was only able to verify 1/3 of Marcon's emails during the French Election. Macron claimed there were a lot of forgeries and fakes. Wikileaks posted them all anyways."

I haven't kept up to date with Wikileaks, honestly. I agree that this particular release is dubious, but they are very transparent about DKIM and allow you to filter non-verified emails out.

I can't believe I'm having to defend myself to a bunch of Democrats for not trusting these pieces of shit

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-cia-deputy-director-michael-morell-i-want-to-scare-syrian-president-bashar-al-assad/

Quote :

""The Iranians were making us pay a price. We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. We need to make the Russians pay a price." He went on to explain making them "pay the price" would mean killing Russians and Iranians, and said he wants to make Syrian president Bashar al-Assad uncomfortable."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/war-weariness-excuse/article/784895#

Quote :

"A war-weary public can be awakened and rallied. Indeed, events are right now doing the awakening. All that’s needed is the rallying. And the turnaround can be fast. Only 5 years after the end of the Vietnam war, and 15 years after our involvement there began in a big way, Ronald Reagan ran against both Democratic dovishness and Republican détente. He proposed confronting the Soviet Union and rebuilding our military. It was said that the country was too war-weary, that it was too soon after Vietnam, for Reagan’s stern and challenging message. Yet Reagan won the election in 1980. And by 1990 an awakened America had won the Cold War."

[Edited on February 8, 2018 at 6:09 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2018 6:03:12 PM

Regarding your last quote in that post, there are some interesting parallels to today and Trump. Just sucks that he seems to want to lose the current cold war whereas Reagan wanted to win his.

[Edited on February 8, 2018 at 6:14 PM. Reason : a]

2/8/2018 6:14:18 PM

Do you mean Kristol or Trump? Trump is doing the same thing Reagan did...

[Edited on February 8, 2018 at 6:41 PM. Reason : not that i think either of them are/were right]

2/8/2018 6:31:27 PM

Quote :

" So the top tweets actually are highlighted based on secret criteria decided on by neocons. How do you think they got to the list from the Nation article? "

there is no secret criteria, it's literally the top tweeted (most tweeted) in the last 24 hours. which part is tripping you up? are you unfamiliar with twitter?

2/8/2018 7:34:21 PM

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/08/carter-page-steve-bannon-fbi-communications-398992

2/8/2018 7:59:34 PM

Rachel Brand, next in line at the Justice Department to succeed Rod Rosenstein, just resigned. Any thoughts on what that’s about? She apparently held the position for nine months.

2/9/2018 5:52:52 PM

It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with trump or Russia!

2/9/2018 5:59:58 PM