What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[garbon]

Well and they got a lot of money.

[The Brain]

It cracks me up that CNN is referring to these incidents as "affairs."  They're clearly prostitution.

How are they clearly prostitution?

Yi doesn't think anyone would have sex with Trump without a clear financial gain.

Financial gain from sex isn't automatically prostitution.

[Razgovory]

It cracks me up that CNN is referring to these incidents as "affairs."  They're clearly prostitution.

How are they clearly prostitution?

Yi doesn't think anyone would have sex with Trump without a clear financial gain.

I certainly wouldn't.  Would you?

[Liep]

It cracks me up that CNN is referring to these incidents as "affairs."  They're clearly prostitution.

How are they clearly prostitution?

Yi doesn't think anyone would have sex with Trump without a clear financial gain.

I certainly wouldn't.  Would you?

I'm not disagreeing with Yi. I don't think anyone would.

[jimmy olsen]

Trump fueding with his cabinet again.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/17/586803847/mcmaster-says-evidence-of-russia-meddling-incontrovertible

...

General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!

...

On Saturday, McMaster did not equivocate. He used forceful language to convey American strength against what the indictment describes as a coordinated Russian disinformation campaign, waged largely online, meant to sway American voters in Trump's favor.

   
"The United States will expose and act against those who use cyberspace, social media and other means to advance campaigns of disinformation, subversion and espionage," McMaster said.

He emphasized the need for the West to come together to defend itself against such scourges.

"We are already improving our ability to defeat these pernicious threats," McMaster added, citing as an example The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, of which the U.S. is a member.

In responding to a question from a Russian politician about the U.S. and Russia potentially working together on cyber security, McMaster seemed to dismiss the notion.

"I'm surprised there are any Russian cyber experts available, based on how active most of them have been in undermining our democracies in the West," he said to chuckles from the audience. He added, "we would love to have a cyber dialogue when Russia is sincere about curtailing its sophisticated form of espionage."

McMaster's remarks came in sharp contrast to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who spoke minutes earlier from the same stage, and brushed off the indictment, calling it through an interpreter "just blabber."

[jimmy olsen]

Fighting Russians abroad, while Trump does nothing to protect American democracy at home from Russian interference. For shame

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-16/russia-attacked-u-s-troops-in-syria

Don't Be Fooled: Russia Attacked U.S. Troops in Syria

Mattis gave Putin "plausible deniability" for a military assault that went badly awry. 

by
Eli Lake

If you've been listening just to the Kremlin and the Pentagon, you probably didn't know that Russia attacked American forces and their allies in Syria last week, suffering heavy casualties.

Yes, all sides admit that there was an incident at a U.S. base in Deir Ezzor. And that elements of the Syrian regime and Shiite militias participated in the assault. The Pentagon and Kremlin both acknowledge that Russian "mercenaries" participated, too. But the line for now is that those contractors had gone rogue, and Moscow didn't know anything about it.

When reporters asked U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis about the incident, he called the whole thing perplexing. "I have no idea why they would attack there, the forces were known to be there, obviously the Russians knew," he said. "We have always known that there are elements in this very complex battle space that the Russians did not have, I would call it, control of."

Now, it should be said that Mattis, a retired four-star Marine Corps general, is a very smart man. His perplexity in this case is probably what Plato called a "noble lie," a falsehood spoken by a leader to achieve a greater social good. If Mattis acknowledges the obvious -- that the Kremlin authorized a direct assault on a U.S.-sponsored base by non-uniformed personnel -- he risks an escalation spiral in Syria. Better to express bewilderment and give Russian President Vladimir Putin a chance to back down and deny culpability, which he ended up doing despite the heavy casualties suffered by his mercenaries.

But make no mistake: There is overwhelming evidence that those Russian contractors were working at the behest of the Kremlin. What's more, the Russians knew U.S. military personnel were in Deir Ezzor, which has been part of successive agreements to separate, or "deconflict," forces fighting in Syria.

Let's start with the fine reporting of my colleagues at Bloomberg News who discovered that the wounded mercenaries were flown out of Syria and treated at military hospitals in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

U.S. officials who monitor Syria tell me that there is no doubt that the Russian military knew all about the attack in Deir Ezzor. Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia during the Obama administration, told me Thursday: "Any Russian mercenaries, whether they are in Ukraine or Syria, work for the Russian government."

This is not an accident, particularly for the contractor in question, Wagner. One of its leaders, Dmitry Utkin, is a former lieutenant colonel in Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU. He and the firm have been closely tied to the oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as "Putin's chef" because he owns the Kremlin's food-service providers.

Contractors like Wagner are a key part of Russia's broader strategy of "hybrid warfare," a mix of kinetic and information aggression to advance Russian interests -- such as the deployment of fighters without uniforms that helped take Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

"They help Russia obfuscate Russia's role in Syria," Matti Suomenaro, a researcher for the Institute for the Study of War told me this week. "In eastern Syria, the Russian Ministry of Defense can say, 'We don't know they were doing this.' But it's very likely this had some kind of direction from higher-ups in the Kremlin."

Finally, there is the strategic argument for why Russia would participate in the attack at Deir Ezzor. U.S. policy at the moment is a bit confusing. When Mattis and other U.S. officials publicly discuss the U.S. mission in Syria, they say only that it is to fight the Islamic State. So far, there is no official policy on whether the U.S. military's role includes countering Russian-Iranian efforts to help the Bashar al-Assad regime retake territory it lost in the civil war.

Add to this the mixed messages sent by the U.S. last month when it failed to stop Turkey from bombing the Kurdish-controlled city of Afrin. While the U.S. has attempted to end the Turkish assault through diplomacy, it has not offered to protect Kurdish fighters aligned with the People's Protection Group, or YPG, who remain in the city. The YPG are key U.S. partners in the campaign against the Islamic State. Indeed, Kurdish fighters stationed in Deir Ezzor in recent weeks have traveled to Afrin for the fighting, making the enclave a more attractive target for the Russo-Iranian alliance in Syria.

For a cynic like Putin, whose air force has bombed other enclaves of U.S.-supported rebels in Syria, the inability of the U.S. to stop a NATO ally, Turkey, from attacking another ally in Afrin is a sign of weakness. The assault last week on Deir Ezzor with mercenaries was a chance to again probe for a U.S. response.

The good news is that the U.S. response was swift and brutal. While there are no hard figures on casualties, some Russian press outlets reported that more than 200 Russian mercenaries were killed.

This brings us back to Mattis, and why he declined to directly blame Russia for the incident. "My guess is he said he was perplexed because he was sending a signal to the Russians: 'I am willing to give you a little time to cut this out, but don't do it again,'" Farkas told me. "And the Russians know they are playing with fire, if you look at how they are responding."

There is a downside, though, to this kind of noble lying. Considering that mercenaries like Wagner are a key part of Russia's broader strategy and tactics, it's also important for the U.S. to deny Moscow its plausible deniability. Russia needs to be told, going forward, that an attack by its mercenaries will be treated as an attack by its armed forces.   

[Razgovory]

Looks like our boys killed 100 Russians.

[derspiess]

Again?

[dps]

Again?

Doubtful, usually you can't kill the same people more than once.

[Razgovory]

Again?

Nope.  We just a clearer number.


Trump just endorsed Romney. I suppose he'll try to take credit for Romeny's victory now.

[jimmy olsen]

This could swing several seats

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pennsylvania-redistricting-20180219-story.html

Democrats could get a boost in Pennsylvania after court issues new congressional district map
By Associated Press 

Feb 19, 2018  |  4:15 PM  | HARRISBURG, Pa.
Democrats could get a boost in Pennsylvania after court issues new congressional district map

Pennsylvania's high court issued a new congressional district map for the state's 2018 elections on Monday, potentially giving Democrats a boost in their quest to capture control of the U.S. House unless Republicans are able to stop it in federal court.

The map of Pennsylvania's 18 congressional districts is to be in effect for the May 15 primary and substantially overhauls a congressional map widely viewed as among the nation's most gerrymandered. The map was approved in a 4-3 decision, with four Democratic justices backing it and one Democratic justice siding with two Republicans against it.

Most significantly, the new map probably gives Democrats a better shot at winning seats in Philadelphia's heavily populated and moderate suburbs, where Republicans had held seats in bizarrely contorted districts, including one labeled "Goofy Kicking Donald Duck."

Democrats quickly cheered the new map, which could dramatically change the predominantly Republican, all-male delegation elected on a 6-year-old map.

"It remedies the outrageous gerrymander of 2011, and that's the important thing, that the gerrymander be over," said David Landau, the Democratic Party chairman of Delaware County, which was ground zero for the "Goofy Kicking Donald Duck" district. "All that zigging and zagging is all gone, and it makes Delaware County a competitive seat now."

Republican lawmakers are expected to quickly challenge the map in federal court, arguing that legislatures and governors, not courts, have the constitutional responsibility to draw congressional maps.

Mark Harris, a Pittsburgh-based GOP campaign consultant, echoed the reaction of Republicans in bashing the new product.

"It's a straight Democratic gerrymander by a Democratic Supreme Court to help Democrats," Harris said.

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who had backed the court's decision to throw out the 6-year-old map, lauded the court's "effort to remedy Pennsylvania's unfair and unequal congressional elections," and said his administration would work to update elections systems for congressional races.

The Democratic-majority state Supreme Court ruled last month in a party-line decision that the district boundaries unconstitutionally put partisan interests above neutral line-drawing criteria, such as keeping districts compact and eliminating municipal and county divisions.

The decision is the first time a state court threw out congressional boundaries in a partisan gerrymandering case. Registered Democratic voters and the League of Women Voters originally sued last June.

Republicans appear to face an uphill battle in federal court.

Michael Morley, a constitutional law professor at Barry University in Florida, said federal courts were normally reluctant to undo a state court decision.

"I think it will be major obstacle and a major challenge to get around it," Morley said.

Pennsylvania's Republican delegation has provided a crucial pillar of support for Republican control of the U.S. House since 2010.

Republicans who controlled the Legislature and the governor's office after the 2010 census crafted the now-invalidated map to elect Republicans and succeeded in that aim: Republicans won 13 of 18 seats in three straight elections even though Pennsylvania's statewide elections are often closely divided and registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

Meanwhile, sitting congressmen, dozens of would-be candidates and millions of voters were beginning to sort out which district they live in barely a month before the candidates' deadline to submit paperwork to run.

Some races are wide open: There are six incumbents elected in 2016 not running again, the most in four decades. There also is a surge in interest in running for Congress, with Democrats vehemently opposing President Trump.

None of the 12 incumbents was booted into a district with another incumbent, but the new map has immediate implications for some incumbents. Republican Rep. Ryan Costello, whose suburban Philadelphia district was narrowly won by Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, is in even more dire straits now that his district would add the heavily Democratic city of Reading.

The new map will not apply to the March 13 special election in the 18th Congressional District between Republican Rick Saccone and Democrat Conor Lamb for a seat left vacant by Republican Tim Murphy's resignation amid an abortion scandal.

However, Saccone now lives in a new Pittsburgh-area district with Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle, and Lamb lives in another one with Republican Rep. Keith Rothfus. Neither Lamb nor Saccone then would live in the newly redrawn district representing the southwestern-most corner of Pennsylvania.

[garbon]

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/374723-white-house-security-clearance-review-wont-affect-kushner

White House: Security clearance review won't affect Kushner

[jimmy olsen]

Dems flip a Kentucky State House seat that Trump won by 49 points. They won it 68-32

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/dem-takes-kentucky-seat-in-district-trump-won-by-49-points.html

[garbon]

That instance, as I read the background investigation article that lead to the suicide that opened up that seat, seems a little less about the Dem 'story' and more on the fact that she was against the nutty wife of the deceased. After all, the Dem winner had been in place before and only lost it to the now deceased.

[Admiral Yi]

Yup.

I don't think a bunch of Kentucky seats are going to flip in the midterm.