The Dunces Have Elected A Dunce

Seems pretty damn convincing to me.

 

Report: National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigns

UPDATE: National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigns, CNN says
This is a breaking news update. Check back later for more.

EARLIER: The Justice Department warned the White House weeks ago that national security adviser Michael Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail for contacts with Russian officials before President Donald Trump took power, a U.S. official said on Monday.
Trump is evaluating the situation surrounding Flynn and talking to Vice President Mike Pence about it, Trump's spokesman said, in a pointed refusal to make a public show of support for his embattled aide.

The U.S. official confirmed a Washington Post report that Sally Yates, the then-acting U.S. attorney general, told the White House late last month that she believed Flynn had misled them about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
She said Flynn might have put himself into a compromising position, possibly leaving himself vulnerable to blackmail, the official said. Yates was later fired for opposing Trump's temporary entry ban for people from seven mostly Muslim nations.
Flynn had told Pence he had not discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Russian officials in the weeks before Trump took office on Jan. 20, prompting Pence to defend him in subsequent television interviews.

In recent days, Flynn has acknowledged he might have discussed sanctions with the Russians but could not remember with 100 percent certainty, which officials said had upset Pence, who felt he had been misled.
Officials said Flynn apologized to Pence twice, including in person on Friday.
"The president is evaluating the situation. He is speaking to ... Vice President Pence relative to the conversation the vice president had with General Flynn and also speaking to various other people about what he considers the single most important subject there is, our national security," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.
EARLY TRUMP SUPPORTER
Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, was an early supporter of Trump and shares his interest in shaking up the establishment in Washington. He has frequently raised eyebrows among Washington's foreign policy establishment for trying to persuade Trump to warm up U.S. relations with Russia.
Top White House officials have been reviewing Flynn's contacts with the Russians and whether he discussed the possibility of lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia once Trump took office.
That would potentially be in violation of a law banning private citizens from engaging in foreign policy, known as the Logan Act.
"He's not out of the woods," said a U.S. official who is familiar with the transcripts of intercepted communications between Flynn and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, in late December.

This official said Flynn "did discuss sanctions."
While Flynn did not make any promises about lifting them, he did indicate that sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama on Russia for its Ukraine incursion "would not necessarily carry over to an administration seeking to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia," the official said.

An hour before Spicer read his statement, Kellyanne Conway, one of Trump's closest aides, had told reporters that Flynn had the full confidence of the president.
It was notable, however, that Trump did not use the opportunity of a joint news conference with visiting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday to make a public show of support for Flynn.

Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer told reporters he wanted an independent investigation of Flynn's discussions with the Russians.
"His security clearance ought to be withdrawn until that independent investigation is completed. And if he has violated any law or ethical precept, he ought to be fired," Schumer said.

Flynn was going about his business despite the cloud hanging over him, participating in national security meetings.
He was at Trump's side at the president's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida on Saturday when word reached the presidential entourage that North Korea had launched a ballistic missile at the same time Trump was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
While Trump left Flynn's status pending, he appeared to close the door on another source of speculation, as to whether Priebus might be replaced.

Appearing briefly before reporters in the West Wing of the White House, Trump said Priebus was doing a "great job." (Additional reporting by John Walcott; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

 

Yeah but about those emails......

 

And shutting down the New York Times, I suppose?

 

The first lamb has been slaughtered for doing exactly what his boss wanted him to do.

 

If you believe that China is our biggest economic competitor and threat to become the next superpower and you believe that radical Islam is our biggest ideological competitor and threat to national security and you believe that Latino immigrants represent our biggest cultural threat, well it's easy to decide that Russia is the lesser of big evils that the US is confronting at this point in time.

I'm guessing that's Trump's worldview at this point.

He is fighting too many battles elsewhere to maintain that position for long given the hostility towards Putin's Russia that permeates our national security community.

Note however that this is 4 Presidents in a row that have come into the office looking to improve ties with Russia and the last 3 of them were looking to improve ties with Putin specifically in the process.

W was trying to get on Putin's good side but got blindsided by the invasion of Georgia that was sparked (in all probability) by NATO allowing the Baltic Republics to join in 2004.

Obama was trying to reset relations but got blindsided by the Ukraine conflict that led to the annexation of Crimea - a possible result of Georgia and the Ukraine both looking to the West and possible NATO membership. The Syria sideshow may have been related to both of the above but maybe not also, the Russians did have their only base in the Med involved.

You have to wonder what Trump is going to get blindsided by at this point.

 

Trump is the Ryan Fitzpatrick/Rex Ryan of presidents. You vote for him in the hope that he won't be shit even though half the fanbase/country warns you about him. Then he takes the reigns and is shit. I realized I was wrong about Fitz after the Arizona game. How long till Trump supporters do the same?

 

Is Flynn the same idiot the previous administration nominated as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency?

.

 

The Russian ship needs to be blown the fuck up. Why not? It's in or was in our waters yes? If Russian ships cross our shit they need to be blown the fuck up. Step it Trump, we know you like Putin cock but you have to have boundaries.

 

I don't understand this sentence, but I love it. If a better sentence exits on the internet, I'd like to see it! Well played, sir!

 

Thanks ass . the "kneejerk wingnut / lockstep moon bat" is actually pretty simple:

knee jerk & lockstep = both mean "blind, and without thinking"
wingnut = right winger
moonbat = left winger

I quoted (in bold) Waterboy who called out Ron on his one-sided partisanship: . ("while he ignores the fact the Democratic Party is just as full of shit") and I was only adding to it by saying that for every blind partisan on the left, there's a blind partisan on the right" (the respective kneejerk/lockstep adjectives were a 'related' little play on words). .

 

the previous administration fired Flynn joe

 

Russia sends spy ship near US coast, deploys banned missiles at home, officials say



A Russian spy ship was spotted patrolling off the East Coast of the United States on Tuesday morning, the first such instance during the Trump administration -- and the same day it was learned the Kremlin had secretly deployed controversial cruise missiles inside Russia and buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials told Fox News.

The Russian ship was in international waters, 70 miles off the coast of Delaware and heading north at 10 knots, according to one official. The U.S. territory line is 12 nautical miles.

It was not immediately clear where the ship is headed.

Later Tuesday, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that Russia had deployed ground-launched cruise missiles to two locations inside the country in December. The New York Times first reported that the Obama administration had previously seen the missiles -- then in a testing phase -- as a violation of a 1987 treaty between the U.S. and Russia that banned ground-launched intermediate-range missiles.

But Russia has pressed ahead with its program, apparently testing a Trump administration which has sought better ties with Moscow -- but is also fresh off the loss of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned Monday night in the wake of a scandal surrounding his communications with Russia.

Adding to the aggressive actions, Fox News confirmed a report from The Washington Free Beacon that four Russian jets buzzed the USS Porter on Friday.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/02/14/russian-spy-ship-off-east-coast-us-officials-say.html

 

I was aware of it Browning, thanks.

Supposedly (according to Flynn), the reason for his dismissal was because he called out "radical Islam" too much for Obama's taste and that the Intel arena had become way too politicized esp. in the Defense Dept. .

edit: . mute, lemme borrow your binoculars.

 

his reasoning was an example of "Flynn Facts"

 

Trump has all those leaks for two big reasons:

1. He's at war with his own Intel community for some reason.

2. He's got a flat hierarchy in the White House at this point with a whole bunch of people who all think that they're the Grand Poobah who stand behind the President because Trump makes them feel that way individually every time he talks to them.

Fluffing your underlings isn't such a bad thing but when none of them know what the pecking order is... Well you may think you're the boss at that point but they're all leaking to undercut the other guys at the same level.

Trump badly needs a Leo McGarry and instead he has 6 Toby Zieglers all trying to be that person.

 

The Russian ship was in international waters, RIF.