GustavBahler wrote:

holfresh wrote:

GustavBahler wrote:

A Spy Coup in America?

From Consortium News

As Official Washington's latest "group think" solidifies into certainty -- that Russia used hacked Democratic emails to help elect Donald Trump -- something entirely different may be afoot: a months-long effort by elements of the U.S. intelligence community to determine who becomes the next president.

I was told by a well-placed intelligence source some months ago that senior leaders of the Obama administration's intelligence agencies -- from the CIA to the FBI -- were deeply concerned about either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump ascending to the presidency. And, it's true that intelligence officials often come to see themselves as the stewards of America's fundamental interests, sometimes needing to protect the country from dangerous passions of the public or from inept or corrupt political leaders.

It was, after all, a senior FBI official, Mark Felt, who -- as "Deep Throat" -- guided The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their Watergate investigation into the criminality of President Richard Nixon. And, I was told by former U.S. intelligence officers that they wanted to block President Jimmy Carter's reelection in 1980 because they viewed him as ineffectual and thus not protecting American global interests.

It's also true that intelligence community sources frequently plant stories in major mainstream publications that serve propaganda or political goals, including stories that can be misleading or entirely false.

What's Going On?

So, what to make of what we have seen over the past several months when there have been a series of leaks and investigations that have damaged both Clinton and Trump -- with some major disclosures coming, overtly and covertly, from the U.S. intelligence community led by CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey?

Some sources of damaging disclosures remain mysterious. Clinton's campaign was hobbled by leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee -- showing it undercutting Clinton's chief rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders -- and from her campaign chairman John Podesta -- exposing the content of her speeches to Wall Street banks that she had tried to hide from the voters, and revealing the Clinton Foundation's questionable contacts with foreign governments.

Clinton -- already burdened with a reputation for secrecy and dishonesty -- suffered from the drip, drip, drip of releases from WikiLeaks of the DNC and Podesta emails although it remains unclear who gave the emails to WikiLeaks. Still, the combination of the two email batches added to public suspicions about Clinton and reminded people why they didn't trust her.

But the most crippling blow to Clinton came from FBI Director Comey in the last week of the campaign when he re-opened and then re-closed the investigation into whether she broke the law with her sloppy handling of classified material in her State Department emails funneled through a home server.

Following Comey's last-minute revival of the Clinton email controversy, her poll numbers fell far enough to enable Trump to grab three normally Democratic states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin -- enough to give him a victory in the Electoral College.

Taking Down Trump

However, over the past few weeks, the U.S. intelligence community, led by CIA Director Brennan and seconded by FBI Director Comey, has tried to delegitimize Trump by using leaks to the mainstream U.S. news media to pin the release of the DNC and Podesta emails on Russia and claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally trying to put Trump into the White House.

Russian President Vladimir Putin during a state visit to Austria on June 24, 2014.Russian President Vladimir Putin during a state visit to Austria on June 24, 2014.
(image by (Official Russian government photo)) License DMCA Details
This remarkable series of assessments from the CIA -- now endorsed by the leadership of the FBI -- come on the eve of the Electoral College members assembling to cast their formal votes to determine who becomes the new U.S. president. Although the Electoral College process is usually simply a formality, the Russian-hacking claims made by the U.S. intelligence community have raised the possibility that enough electors might withhold their votes from Trump to deny him the presidency.

A Spy Coup in America?

If on Monday enough Trump electors decide to cast their votes for someone else -- possibly another Republican -- the presidential selection could go to the House of Representatives where, conceivably, the Republican-controlled chamber could choose someone other than Trump.

In other words, there is an arguable scenario in which the U.S. intelligence community first undercut Clinton and, secondly, Trump, seeking -- however unlikely -- to get someone installed in the White House considered more suitable to the CIA's and the FBI's views of what's good for the country.

Who Did the Leaking?

At the center of this controversy is the question of who leaked or hacked the DNC and Podesta emails. The CIA has planted the story in The Washington Post, The New York Times and other mainstream outlets that it was Russia that hacked both the DNC and Podesta emails and slipped the material to WikiLeaks with the goal of assisting the Trump campaign. The suggestion is that Trump is Putin's "puppet," just as Hillary Clinton alleged during the third presidential debate.

But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has publicly denied that Russia was the source of the leaks and one of his associates, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, has suggested that the DNC leak came from a "disgruntled" Democrat upset with the DNC's sandbagging of the Sanders campaign and that the Podesta leak came from the U.S. intelligence community.

Although Assange recently has sought to muzzle Murray's public comments -- out of apparent concern for protecting the identity of sources -- Murray offered possibly his most expansive account of the sourcing during a podcast interview with Scott Horton on Dec. 13.

Murray, who became a whistleblower himself when he protested Britain's tolerance of human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, explained that he consults with Assange and cooperates with WikiLeaks "without being a formal member of the structure."

But he appears to have undertaken a mission for WikiLeaks to contact one of the sources (or a representative) during a Sept. 25 visit to Washington where he says he met with a person in a wooded area of American University. At the time, Murray was at American University participating in an awards ceremony for former CIA officer John Kiriakou who was being honored by a group of former Western intelligence officials, the Sam Adams Associates, named for the late Vietnam War-era CIA analyst and whistleblower Sam Adams.

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, a founder of the Sam Adams group, told me that Murray was "m-c-ing" the event but then slipped away, skipping a reception that followed the award ceremony.

Reading Between Lines

Though Murray has declined to say exactly what the meeting in the woods was about, he may have been passing along messages about ways to protect the source from possible retaliation, maybe even an extraction plan if the source was in some legal or physical danger.

Murray has disputed a report in London's Daily Mail that he was receiving a batch of the leaked Democratic emails. "The material, I think, was already safely with WikiLeaks before I got there in September," Murray said in the interview with Scott Horton. "I had a small role to play."

Murray also suggested that the DNC leak and the Podesta leak came from two different sources, neither of them the Russian government.

"The Podesta emails and the DNC emails are, of course, two separate things and we shouldn't conclude that they both have the same source," Murray said. "In both cases we're talking of a leak, not a hack, in that the person who was responsible for getting that information out had legal access to that information."

A Spy Coup in America?

Reading between the lines of the interview, one could interpret Murray's comments as suggesting that the DNC leak came from a Democratic source and that the Podesta leak came from someone inside the U.S. intelligence community, which may have been monitoring John Podesta's emails because the Podesta Group, which he founded with his brother Tony, served as a registered "foreign agent" for Saudi Arabia.

"John Podesta was a paid lobbyist for the Saudi government," Murray noted. "If the American security services were not watching the communications of the Saudi government's paid lobbyist in Washington, then the American security services would not be doing their job. ... His communications are going to be of interest to a great number of other security services as well."

Leak by Americans

Scott Horton then asked, "Is it fair to say that you're saying that the Podesta leak came from inside the intelligence services, NSA [the electronic spying National Security Agency] or another agency?"

"I think what I said was certainly compatible with that kind of interpretation, yeah," Murray responded. "In both cases they are leaks by Americans."

In reference to the leak of the DNC emails, Murray noted that "Julian Assange took very close interest in the death of Seth Rich, the Democratic staff member" who had worked for the DNC on voter databases and was shot and killed on July 10 near his Washington, D.C., home.

Murray continued, "WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the capture of his killers. So, obviously there are suspicions there about what's happening and things are somewhat murky. I'm not saying -- don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that he was the source of the [DNC] leaks. What I'm saying is that it's probably not an unfair indication to draw that WikiLeaks believes that he may have been killed by someone who thought he was the source of the leaks ... whether correctly or incorrectly."

Though acknowledging that such killings can become grist for conspiracy buffs, Murray added: "But people do die over this sort of stuff. There were billions of dollars -- literally billions of dollars -- behind Hillary Clinton's election campaign and those people have lost their money.

"You have also to remember that there's a big financial interest -- particularly in the armaments industry -- in a bad American relationship with Russia and the worse the relationship with Russia is the larger contracts the armaments industry can expect especially in the most high-tech high-profit side of fighter jets and missiles and that kind of thing.

"And Trump has actually already indicated he's looking to make savings on the defense budget particularly in things like fighter [jet] projects. So, there are people standing to lose billions of dollars and anybody who thinks in that situation bad things don't happen to people is very naive."

An Intelligence Coup?

There's another possibility in play here: that the U.S. intelligence community is felling a number of birds with one stone. If indeed U.S. intelligence bigwigs deemed both Clinton and Trump unfit to serve as President -- albeit for different reasons -- they could have become involved in leaking at least the Podesta emails to weaken Clinton's campaign, setting the candidate up for the more severe blow from FBI Director Comey in the last week of the campaign.

Further, the Russia-bashing that is all the rage in the mainstream U.S. media will surely encourage the Congress to escalate the New Cold War, regardless of Trump's desires, and thus ensure plenty more money for both the intelligence agencies and the military contractors.Then, by blaming the leaks on Russian President Putin, the U.S. intelligence leadership could set the stage for Trump's defeat in the Electoral College, opening the door to the elevation of a more traditional Republican. However, even if that unlikely event -- defeating Trump in the Electoral College -- proves impossible, Trump would at least be weakened as he enters the White House and thus might not be able to move very aggressively toward a de'tente with Russia.

Official Washington's "group think" holding Russia responsible for the Clinton leaks does draw some logical support from the near certainty that Russian intelligence has sought to penetrate information sources around both Clinton and Trump. But the gap between the likely Russian hacking efforts and the question of who gave the email information to WikiLeaks is where mainstream assumptions may fall down.

As ex-Ambassador Murray has said, U.S. intelligence was almost surely keeping tabs on Podesta's communications because of his ties to Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments. So, the U.S. intelligence community represents another suspect in the case of who leaked those emails to WikiLeaks. It would be a smart play, reminiscent of the convoluted spy tales of John LeCarre', if U.S. intelligence officials sought to cover their own tracks by shifting suspicions onto the Russians.

But just the suspicion of the CIA joining the FBI and possibly other U.S. intelligence agencies to intervene in the American people's choice of a president would cause President Harry Truman, who launched the CIA with prohibitions against it engaging in domestic activities, and Sen. Frank Church, who investigated the CIA's abuses, to spin in their graves.

http://www.consortiumnews.com
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at
(more...)

Couple of thing...17 intelligence agencies confirmed it was Russia..Russia all but bragged it was them..They were popping bottles Champaign post Trump victory..

"Slam Dunk"?

Ha..Remember that..I never thought the CIA had anything to do with that..They just took the fall for Bush, Cheney and the neo-cons..

holfresh wrote:Hey Nix, this is in tribute towards your effort bringing a historical perspective to the discussion...

Policies on Slaves’ Lives Helped Build Today’s Companies

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/us/insurance-policies-on-slaves-new-york-lifes-complicated-past.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Thx holfresh!!! That was a great article. There is SO MUCH untold historical information about how much Slavery and the Jim Crow Era helped the U.S. to become wealthy. That this country never came to grips with this or took measures to correct the harm done is a stain on this country and allows the inequalities to continue to this day.

Rather than truly addressing this it's treated like a nuisance and we're told to get over it like it's something small and insignificant. IMO by not teaching children fully about the truth of this country it only hurts race relations and bitter feelings. Especially since a lot of the vestiges of Slavery and Jim Crow are impacting us today but since they've mostly ignored this period in the school History books in much of White America then we never acknowledge the truth. Ignoring Cancer rarely has good outcomes.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-vampire-squid-occupies-trumps-white-house-w456225

Some of it...

Chaired by Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the PSI scrupulously detailed the efforts by Goldman to get out from under the mortgage crash by dumping its disastrous mortgage investments on its own clients as it simultaneously bet against them.

This maneuver, colloquially described since as the "Big Short" episode, was perhaps the most lurid example of Wall Street iniquity during the crash years. And Trump's new economic adviser, Cohn, played a central role.

In the run-up to the "Big Short" story – in the years leading up to 2007 – Goldman had joined other banks in helping cause the financial crisis. They'd done so by creating masses of toxic mortgage instruments and selling them to unsuspecting investors, who were (often falsely) told the loans met underwriting standards. Goldman, like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, would later pay billions to settle claims by its infuriated customers, which included state and federal housing authorities.

At the tail end of 2006, Goldman execs saw that a) the subprime mortgage market was in serious trouble, and b) the bank itself was dangerously overinvested in it. So they made a frenzied, often deceptive effort to induce their clients to eat what should naturally have been their own losses.
On December 14th, 2006, mortgage chief Daniel Sparks proposed: "Distribute as much as possible on bonds created from new loan securitizations and clean previous positions." Translation: Let's create new mortgage-backed products to dump on others, and use them to "clean" our toxic portfolio.

In one mortgage-based deal called Hudson 1 securities, Goldman helped sell its toxic holdings by saying the bank's interests were "aligned" with those of potential clients, because it would own a tiny, $6 million slice of the deal.

The bank left out the fact that it had a $2 billion bet against the same deal.
In the same deal, Goldman told clients that the mortgage products in Hudson had been "sourced from the Street," i.e., that this stuff did not come from Goldman's own inventory. When Senate investigators later pressed Goldman executives on this question, they hilariously claimed this wasn't a lie, because Goldman was part of "the Street."

"They were like, 'We are the Street,'" one investigator told me, laughing.
Through deals like this, Goldman within months went from having a $6 billion bet on mortgages to having a $10 billion bet against them – a "big short."

All of these moves were made with the assent of the Firmwide Risk Committee, which included Goldman CFO David Viniar, Blankfein and Cohn. They would go on to fleece other clients. In the summer, an Australian hedge fund called Basis Capital was induced to buy $100 million of a mortgage-based Goldman deal called "Timberwolf." They told the Aussies to expect a return of "over 60 percent."
Meanwhile, in private, Goldman execs were saying things like, "Boy, that timberwof [sic] was one ****ty deal."

The sales rep who got Basis to buy was so elated that the subject line of his email read "Utopia." He told other execs he'd found the ultimate sucker. "I found white elephant, flying pig and unicorn all at once," he crowed. Basis Capital later claimed it lost $56 million in six weeks. It filed for bankruptcy within months of the Timberwolf deal.

Getting back to the Times story about how Goldman's smarts and humility saved them during the crash: One of the documents the Senate investigators discovered was an email from Goldman press flack Lucas van Praag to a group of senior Goldman executives that included Blankfein, Cohn and Viniar.
Van Praag wanted to warn the leadership that there was a Times piece coming that would examine why Goldman managed to prosper at a time when everyone else was being wiped out. Van Praag did not, of course, tell The Times that Goldman had survived by making sure that its clientele bought up what Blankfein called the "cats and dogs" of its toxic inventory.

What van Praag instead said was more Trumpian: that Goldman just had a winning culture.
"We spent a lot of time on culture as a differentiator," van Praag told his bosses, when describing his interactions with apparently gullible reporter Jenny Anderson. "She was receptive."
In response to van Praag's email, Blankfein wrote, "Of course we didn't dodge the mortgage mess. We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts."
This is the same Lloyd Blankfein who testified years later in the Senate: "We were not consistently or significantly net-short the market in residential mortgage-related products in 2007 and 2008."
He added, "We didn't have a massive short against the housing market, and we certainly did not bet against our clients."

When Sen. Levin heard Blankfein say he didn't have a "massive short" during 2007, he was furious. "Heck, yes, I was offended," he told Rolling Stone. "Goldman's CEO claimed the firm 'didn't have a massive short,' when the opposite was true."

We know the "opposite was true" because of the extensive email record these arrogant yutzes left behind. One of the smoking guns involved Cohn. On July 25, 2007, Viniar sent Cohn an email pointing out the huge losses and writedowns that other banks were experiencing.
"Tells you what might be happening to people who don't have the big short," Viniar told Cohn.

In the heat of the meltdown, there was some gallows humor between Cohn and Blankfein. At one point the two men seemed to be trying to figure out where they were with their mortgage strategy, and what to do going forward. "We are marking both sides," Cohn says. "There is a net short."

"Bet all the dads at camp are talking about the same stuff," Blankfein joked.
Goldman's higher-ups ended up having a great year. While the whole financial world was collapsing due in large part to behaviors like that of his own bank, Blankfein made $68.5 million, a record for a Wall Street executive. Cohn made $67.5 million. The two were the McGwire and Sosa of the profiting-off-others'-misery era. The bank, meanwhile, would lay off 3,200 lower-level employees within a year.
Goldman probably should have gone out of business in 2007-2008. Two little-discussed acts of government welfare in September of 2008 helped save the company.

First, there was the infamous emergency granting of Commercial Bank Holding Company status to Goldman. Have you ever seen a Goldman branch or a Goldman ATM? Probably not, because it isn't a commercial bank. But on September 21st, 2008, the government gave it permission to call itself one.
This move, so desperately needed that it was executed on a Sunday night, allowed Goldman access to mountains of life-saving cash from the Federal Reserve.

The other key move was a decision by the SEC to ban short-selling of financial stocks. This nakedly anticapitalist maneuver allowed Goldman to fend off attacks by speculators who correctly sensed the company was in deep trouble.

Apart from the SEC order, major shareholders like pension funds in New York and California also agreed to stop lending shares of Goldman and Morgan Stanley to short-sellers, essentially protecting these two banks in particular from the forces of the market. Notably, they were the two top-five investment banks that survived 2008.

Blankfein was initially opposed – "I'm for markets," he reportedly said – but as things worsened, he agreed with Morgan Stanley chief John Mack that they needed their government Daddy to save them.
"You're right. We have to do something about this," he said. He later called the decision "tricky."
Yet even with the SEC ban on short-selling, Goldman's stock price continued to plunge, from $207.78 in February 2008 to $47.41 in November. Cohn claims not to have been worried. "It wasn't scary at all," he said.

Vanity Fair found a colleague who scoffed at Cohn's assessment. "Complete and utter nonsense," the person said. For all their brains and humility, these geniuses needed the government to halt the free market on their behalf to survive.

Goldman deserves its villainous reputation. The bank symbolizes all the worst aspects of the modern "financialized" economy. The crash era was the ultimate example.

Banks like Goldman mostly didn't create anything of value during this time. Mostly what they did was engineer new ways to create credit that led to millions of people buying homes they couldn't afford, creating the mother of all financial bubbles.

When it all went bust, as it necessarily had to, they scrambled by hook or crook to dump the damage on other people. Clients ate their losses and they ran weeping to the taxpayer for rescue – Goldman got $12.9 billion alone just from the AIG bailout, which of course was engineered by former Goldman chief Hank Paulson. In the middle of all of this, people like Blankfein and Cohn paid themselves record amounts of compensation. They are scum, and it's absolutely fitting that so many of them will end up serving the Trump administration.

Donald Trump made a lot of political hay out of the iniquity of people like Cohn during his campaign. But his recent appointments are absolute proof that his "populist" message was a crock all along – not that we couldn't have guessed anyway.

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:

djsunyc wrote:

nixluva wrote:The Dems are something else! They RAN from Obama in the last Mid Term Election when they should've stuck by him! They didn't listen to him or his people this election and screwed the pooch!!! They didn't use the same methods Obama's Campaign did in reaching out to White Working Class Voters or Minorities.

This Russia thing was a mess but Obama was in a tough spot! He's damned if he went hard on Russia and damned if he didn't. He's a professional and tries to do things the right way. IMO Obama is not the one to really bash over this. This is on EVERYONE including the Republicans in Congress that KNEW the Russians were interfering and blocked telling the American people cuz it benefited them!!!

i agree obama was in a tough spot. there were choices though - he took the high road trying to work with people that had no real intention of working with him. this country is showing us that the high road is not necessarily the right way to go. i think there needs to be some recognition by the dems regarding that and to not give too much credit to the american people.

a tough option would've been to expose the republican party the past 4 years but i understand why he didn't go that route. but with the benefit of hindsight, it's would've probably been the better road to take.

i'm trying to figure out why the republican party are so united and don't always take the high road when working with dems while the dems come off as a bit weak and disjointed. i have a few hypothesis...and it's just me spitballing...but it seems the republicans have 2 strong common characteristics between their government officials...they are mostly white and they are mostly christian. i think there is a built in bond there, even if it's not openly acknowledged. the dems are a bit more racially diverse with diverse religious backgrounds...combine that with historic systemic oppression for people of color and it's tougher to unite and build a cohesive attack.

now i'm not sure i believe any of that but it's just some thoughts in my head trying to understand. does anybody else have an ideas or theories?

I've tried to make it clear to people like arkrud that the Republican Party is basically the descendants of the old Dixiecrats from the original Democratic Party. The guys who have ALWAYS been organized to protect the status quo of a racist system that also protects the rich and could give a crap about the poor! They represent businesses and social conservatives. They have ties that run deep and they are VICIOUS!

These were the people against the Civil Rights movement and back in the day they had no problem resorting to violence. They used KKK Terrorism to keep power. So to me it's clear why Trump went with the Southern Strategy in this election. It's worked for the Republicans for a long time.

I think this will be the last time it's effective in this country tho. It's a dying strategy and it only worked this time cuz Hillary was such a flawed candidate. The Rural strongholds are weakening as the racial demographics keep changing. This election was the last hurrah for the old order.

Nixluva--do you dislike white people? I mean listen to your own words? They used KKK Terrorism to keep power. So to me it's clear why Trump went with the Southern Strategy in this election. It's worked for the Republicans for a long time.

These comments make no sense--theyre racist.

I just now saw this post. I have no idea what you're talking about!!! My KKK reference is based in FACT and I was clearly talking about the Civil Rights Era! It's clear in the context of the sentence I wrote. Surely you're not going to try and argue with me about the Terrorist actions of the KKK?

Regarding the "Southern Strategy" just look it up for yourself! Perhaps you just don't know what that is but it's a very real tactic.

Your question about me disliking White People is ridiculous. Talking about Racism doesn't make you a racist. That's a Republican mind trick. Just so you know there is more comfort with White People in the Black community than there is comfort with Blacks in White Communities. There are more Blacks with some White ancestry than Whites with Black ancestry. I have LOTS of White relatives!

Nix. Nothing personal but almost everyone of your posts are filled with racial proclamations. If you need to scream RACE as much as you do it just seems like you may have an outstanding issue I hope not you seem Like avery decent guy. Maybe it's time to put down the race stuff

Put down the race stuff??? What do you know about it??? I know FIRST HAND that this so called "race stuff" is still a huge problem in this country and this last 8 years plus this election have exposed the truth that it's still a big problem!!!

I have children and now a grandchild so you better believe this "race stuff" is gonna be important to me! Race and class are the 2 massive issues in this country as they've always been. My talking about Systemic Racism doesn't mean I have a problem with Race!!! You and the Republicans who love to try and flip this will not silence those who see the inequities of this system.

I can tell that you haven't really read a thing I've posted. All you do is key in on the fact that I'm pointing to racial injustice, which is a proven FACT in this country since it's inception. If it's not an issue anymore I'd LOVE to see your proof of this belief. Why don't you lay out your argument for the case that this is a post racial society and an equal system!!!

People like Nix are in the golden list of KKK and other white supremacist.
They want divisive people to do their thing to aid their agenda.
I had a Zionist schoolmate who was going on and on about supremacy of Jews and was very educated and argumentative about it.
Antisemitic dudes in my school including some teaches, principal, and such loved this dude.
He was making their life so easy. Just let him talk and the job is done.
I hated the dude...

“Dear President-Elect Trump,

For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has stood as this nation’s premier defender of freedom and justice for all.

As you assume the nation’s highest office, we must ask you now as president-elect to reconsider and change course on certain campaign promises you have made.

Specifically, you promised to:

amass deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants
ban the entry of Muslims and institute aggressive surveillance programs targeting them
restrict a woman’s right to abortion services
reauthorize waterboarding and other forms of torture
change our nation’s libel laws and restrict freedom of expression”

“These proposals are not simply un-American and wrong-headed. They are unlawful and unconstitutional, and would violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, as well as other statutes and international treaties.”

“Many of our country’s most cherished rights are the result of ACLU litigation and advocacy. They include the Scopes trial (the right to teach evolution in public science classrooms) and the following Supreme Court cases: Korematsu (challenging Japanese American internment); Miranda (the right to remain silent); Griswold (the right to contraception); Loving (the right of interracial couples to marry); Gideon (the right to a court-appointed attorney if you can’t afford one); Windsor (striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act); and Obergefell (the right of same-sex couples to marry) and others. We have worked with and battled American presidents of both parties to ensure that our country makes good on it’s founding premise as the land of the free.”

“If you do not reverse course and endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at your every step. Our staff of litigators and activists in every state, thousands of volunteers, and millions of supporters stand ready to fight against any encroachment on our cherished freedoms and rights.”

“One thing is certain: We will be vigilant every day of your tenure as president. And when you ultimately vacate the Oval Office, we will do likewise with your successor.”

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:

djsunyc wrote:

nixluva wrote:The Dems are something else! They RAN from Obama in the last Mid Term Election when they should've stuck by him! They didn't listen to him or his people this election and screwed the pooch!!! They didn't use the same methods Obama's Campaign did in reaching out to White Working Class Voters or Minorities.

This Russia thing was a mess but Obama was in a tough spot! He's damned if he went hard on Russia and damned if he didn't. He's a professional and tries to do things the right way. IMO Obama is not the one to really bash over this. This is on EVERYONE including the Republicans in Congress that KNEW the Russians were interfering and blocked telling the American people cuz it benefited them!!!

i agree obama was in a tough spot. there were choices though - he took the high road trying to work with people that had no real intention of working with him. this country is showing us that the high road is not necessarily the right way to go. i think there needs to be some recognition by the dems regarding that and to not give too much credit to the american people.

a tough option would've been to expose the republican party the past 4 years but i understand why he didn't go that route. but with the benefit of hindsight, it's would've probably been the better road to take.

i'm trying to figure out why the republican party are so united and don't always take the high road when working with dems while the dems come off as a bit weak and disjointed. i have a few hypothesis...and it's just me spitballing...but it seems the republicans have 2 strong common characteristics between their government officials...they are mostly white and they are mostly christian. i think there is a built in bond there, even if it's not openly acknowledged. the dems are a bit more racially diverse with diverse religious backgrounds...combine that with historic systemic oppression for people of color and it's tougher to unite and build a cohesive attack.

now i'm not sure i believe any of that but it's just some thoughts in my head trying to understand. does anybody else have an ideas or theories?

I've tried to make it clear to people like arkrud that the Republican Party is basically the descendants of the old Dixiecrats from the original Democratic Party. The guys who have ALWAYS been organized to protect the status quo of a racist system that also protects the rich and could give a crap about the poor! They represent businesses and social conservatives. They have ties that run deep and they are VICIOUS!

These were the people against the Civil Rights movement and back in the day they had no problem resorting to violence. They used KKK Terrorism to keep power. So to me it's clear why Trump went with the Southern Strategy in this election. It's worked for the Republicans for a long time.

I think this will be the last time it's effective in this country tho. It's a dying strategy and it only worked this time cuz Hillary was such a flawed candidate. The Rural strongholds are weakening as the racial demographics keep changing. This election was the last hurrah for the old order.

Nixluva--do you dislike white people? I mean listen to your own words? They used KKK Terrorism to keep power. So to me it's clear why Trump went with the Southern Strategy in this election. It's worked for the Republicans for a long time.

These comments make no sense--theyre racist.

I just now saw this post. I have no idea what you're talking about!!! My KKK reference is based in FACT and I was clearly talking about the Civil Rights Era! It's clear in the context of the sentence I wrote. Surely you're not going to try and argue with me about the Terrorist actions of the KKK?

Regarding the "Southern Strategy" just look it up for yourself! Perhaps you just don't know what that is but it's a very real tactic.

Your question about me disliking White People is ridiculous. Talking about Racism doesn't make you a racist. That's a Republican mind trick. Just so you know there is more comfort with White People in the Black community than there is comfort with Blacks in White Communities. There are more Blacks with some White ancestry than Whites with Black ancestry. I have LOTS of White relatives!

Nix. Nothing personal but almost everyone of your posts are filled with racial proclamations. If you need to scream RACE as much as you do it just seems like you may have an outstanding issue I hope not you seem Like avery decent guy. Maybe it's time to put down the race stuff

Put down the race stuff??? What do you know about it??? I know FIRST HAND that this so called "race stuff" is still a huge problem in this country and this last 8 years plus this election have exposed the truth that it's still a big problem!!!

I have children and now a grandchild so you better believe this "race stuff" is gonna be important to me! Race and class are the 2 massive issues in this country as they've always been. My talking about Systemic Racism doesn't mean I have a problem with Race!!! You and the Republicans who love to try and flip this will not silence those who see the inequities of this system.

I can tell that you haven't really read a thing I've posted. All you do is key in on the fact that I'm pointing to racial injustice, which is a proven FACT in this country since it's inception. If it's not an issue anymore I'd LOVE to see your proof of this belief. Why don't you lay out your argument for the case that this is a post racial society and an equal system!!!

People like Nix are in the golden list of KKK and other white supremacist.
They want divisive people to do their thing to aid their agenda.
I had a Zionist schoolmate who was going on and on about supremacy of Jews and was very educated and argumentative about it.
Antisemitic dudes in my school including some teaches, principal, and such loved this dude.
He was making their life so easy. Just let him talk and the job is done.
I hated the dude...

You haven't been here being oppressed for most of the last 258 years as my family has been!!! I have a Multiracial family!!! Perhaps you'd learn something from speaking with my Parents, Aunts and Uncles or my Grandmothers who are in their 90's. Ask them if my complaints have any validity.

I'd put the same questions I asked BRIGGS to you. If i'm wrong about the Systemic Racism that is still pervasive in this country then prove me wrong!!! Let us see your evidence that things are equal and just in this country for everyone. Otherwise let me continue to expose the inequities and explain why so many more people are unhappy with the Trump Campaign which used so much racial hate and dog whistles.

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:

djsunyc wrote:

nixluva wrote:The Dems are something else! They RAN from Obama in the last Mid Term Election when they should've stuck by him! They didn't listen to him or his people this election and screwed the pooch!!! They didn't use the same methods Obama's Campaign did in reaching out to White Working Class Voters or Minorities.

This Russia thing was a mess but Obama was in a tough spot! He's damned if he went hard on Russia and damned if he didn't. He's a professional and tries to do things the right way. IMO Obama is not the one to really bash over this. This is on EVERYONE including the Republicans in Congress that KNEW the Russians were interfering and blocked telling the American people cuz it benefited them!!!

i agree obama was in a tough spot. there were choices though - he took the high road trying to work with people that had no real intention of working with him. this country is showing us that the high road is not necessarily the right way to go. i think there needs to be some recognition by the dems regarding that and to not give too much credit to the american people.

a tough option would've been to expose the republican party the past 4 years but i understand why he didn't go that route. but with the benefit of hindsight, it's would've probably been the better road to take.

i'm trying to figure out why the republican party are so united and don't always take the high road when working with dems while the dems come off as a bit weak and disjointed. i have a few hypothesis...and it's just me spitballing...but it seems the republicans have 2 strong common characteristics between their government officials...they are mostly white and they are mostly christian. i think there is a built in bond there, even if it's not openly acknowledged. the dems are a bit more racially diverse with diverse religious backgrounds...combine that with historic systemic oppression for people of color and it's tougher to unite and build a cohesive attack.

now i'm not sure i believe any of that but it's just some thoughts in my head trying to understand. does anybody else have an ideas or theories?

I've tried to make it clear to people like arkrud that the Republican Party is basically the descendants of the old Dixiecrats from the original Democratic Party. The guys who have ALWAYS been organized to protect the status quo of a racist system that also protects the rich and could give a crap about the poor! They represent businesses and social conservatives. They have ties that run deep and they are VICIOUS!

These were the people against the Civil Rights movement and back in the day they had no problem resorting to violence. They used KKK Terrorism to keep power. So to me it's clear why Trump went with the Southern Strategy in this election. It's worked for the Republicans for a long time.

I think this will be the last time it's effective in this country tho. It's a dying strategy and it only worked this time cuz Hillary was such a flawed candidate. The Rural strongholds are weakening as the racial demographics keep changing. This election was the last hurrah for the old order.

Nixluva--do you dislike white people? I mean listen to your own words? They used KKK Terrorism to keep power. So to me it's clear why Trump went with the Southern Strategy in this election. It's worked for the Republicans for a long time.

These comments make no sense--theyre racist.

I just now saw this post. I have no idea what you're talking about!!! My KKK reference is based in FACT and I was clearly talking about the Civil Rights Era! It's clear in the context of the sentence I wrote. Surely you're not going to try and argue with me about the Terrorist actions of the KKK?

Regarding the "Southern Strategy" just look it up for yourself! Perhaps you just don't know what that is but it's a very real tactic.

Your question about me disliking White People is ridiculous. Talking about Racism doesn't make you a racist. That's a Republican mind trick. Just so you know there is more comfort with White People in the Black community than there is comfort with Blacks in White Communities. There are more Blacks with some White ancestry than Whites with Black ancestry. I have LOTS of White relatives!

Nix. Nothing personal but almost everyone of your posts are filled with racial proclamations. If you need to scream RACE as much as you do it just seems like you may have an outstanding issue I hope not you seem Like avery decent guy. Maybe it's time to put down the race stuff

Put down the race stuff??? What do you know about it??? I know FIRST HAND that this so called "race stuff" is still a huge problem in this country and this last 8 years plus this election have exposed the truth that it's still a big problem!!!

I have children and now a grandchild so you better believe this "race stuff" is gonna be important to me! Race and class are the 2 massive issues in this country as they've always been. My talking about Systemic Racism doesn't mean I have a problem with Race!!! You and the Republicans who love to try and flip this will not silence those who see the inequities of this system.

I can tell that you haven't really read a thing I've posted. All you do is key in on the fact that I'm pointing to racial injustice, which is a proven FACT in this country since it's inception. If it's not an issue anymore I'd LOVE to see your proof of this belief. Why don't you lay out your argument for the case that this is a post racial society and an equal system!!!

People like Nix are in the golden list of KKK and other white supremacist.
They want divisive people to do their thing to aid their agenda.
I had a Zionist schoolmate who was going on and on about supremacy of Jews and was very educated and argumentative about it.
Antisemitic dudes in my school including some teaches, principal, and such loved this dude.
He was making their life so easy. Just let him talk and the job is done.
I hated the dude...

No one really cares about the Civil Rights era--in fact its an embarrassment to compare eras. You live your life you work hard you take care of your family have friends try to to the right thing and color/race means little to nothing

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

holfresh wrote:

markvmc wrote:

holfresh wrote:

markvmc wrote:Has anyone seen any actual evidence that it was Russia?

Would you know how to recognize a hack by a specific entity if you were offered evidence?

No, but others who could, for example, write articles or appear on tv, to explain what happened, could. By way of comparison, I also couldn't recognize predatory financial mortgage manipulations, but I know that others can, and they can explain the evidence to me on tv/in the paper. In a way that picks up on actual evidence, as opposed to suspicion.

I'm committed to apportioning belief to the evidence. That's been the overall trend in this thread (and it's predecessor) regarding claims that illegals voted, for example. No evidence was forthcoming, so, rightly, people didn't accept those claims. But now the shoe is on the other foot. There are abundant claims, and lots of circumstantial evidence that Russia hacked into the Democrat's server, but there's no actual evidence. So why should we believe it? The CIA said so, of course, but it's not like they've been the guardians of honesty in the past. If it served some realpolitik interest they perceived, of course they would lie.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying Russia isn't behind this. They have interests that conflict with ours, and I'm sure they aren't squeamish about their methods, no more than are we. I'm just saying, if we're going to apportion our beliefs to the evidence, there hasn't been any.

I saw an interview on Friday on CNBC..It was an indepednat cyber security firm, Crowdstrike that first found the hacking..The guy that actually found it said the hack had the same cyber footprints, for lack of a better term, that he recognized to be Russian..He escalated it up to the intelengence agencies..

If I find a link for the on air interview, I'll post...

When one of CTIO I worked for accidentally send to all company employees the spreadsheet with salaries of all IT personal he immediately blamed Russian hackers in hacking his mail account and sending this e-mail on his behalf.
He was let go anyways as how stupid one can be to blame hackers in hacking resources he himself is responsible for as excuse?
Even if Russian hackers under Putin command did it this is a shame for all our intelligence and executive services.
It does not matter who influences the weak minds of gullible group of voters. Russians or whatever.
Weak people after loss are looking for excuses, strong people are taking lessons and work to win next time.
This what Dems should focus on not on some distractions like hackers making themselves even more of a joke in the process.
Even Obama pointed this out but a lot of delusional Democrats keep crying and looking for excuses instead.

Turns out that Dems weren't the gullible ones or the ones allowing themselves to believe the fake news piped in from abroad...What Dems like myself are complaining about is an electoral system which allows the gullible to have more say so in our electoral process. Politicians have exploited this system for their own gains for decades and now foreign powers have circumvented this political cow that kept republicans in office over the years...Now Putin possibly has his puppet running this country and you think it's a Dem problem...

Dems problem is contributing greatly to man like Trump running the country.
The electoral process crying is another example of helpless part of Democrats looking for excuses.
It is no way to know how elections will turn out if rules of the game will be set differently.
Every voter and candidates will approach elections differently then.
Also most country will be unhappy if elections will be decided by 4+ millions California Hillary popular votes overrunning 1.7 millions advantage of Trump popular votes in the rest of the states. Regardless of this both candidates only get about 27% of all registered voters votes.
So all this is mute point.
Stop looking for excuses. Ship is sailed. Start working on future elections.