"Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion" (herrquattro)
02/02/2018 at 17:57 • Filed to: Politics
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"Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion" (herrquattro)
02/02/2018 at 17:57 • Filed to: Politics | 0
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Heres a Viper, a purebred American car. Now onto politics. I know this is oppositelock, but this community seems to have an awesome ability to be openminded and level headed.
Anyway, the release of the memo has me all confused now.
To give some context, I wind up agreeing with liberal social policies, but conservative economic and foreign policies (where the two collide, I tend to favor Liberal idealogy). That being said, I still I have liberal bias. Especially when it comes to Trump. So instead of reading CNN, I wind up reading Fox news to help challenge my beliefs. But at this point the information related to the memo is so convulted, its impossible to form an accurate idea of whats going on.
My understanding is the Steele Dossier was produced by a independent moderate group. However, it was funded by Hillary Clinton, and Steele had acknowledged severe bias against Trump.
Essentially making the dossier resembled more of a smear campaign against Trump then an actual factual report on Trumps campaign collusion with Russia. In particular, references to prostitues giving Trump a “golden shower” are pretty obviously BS.
I think the big issue the memo brings up is, that the FBI/DOJ, instead of verifying the dossier first, used it as critcal evidence to gain a warrant for the Mueller Investigation.
The other issue according to the memo, is that the FBI abused FISA to spy on the Trump Campaign.
My personal opinion, is that something doesn’t add up on both sides. The Dossier was way to biased and made claims way to wild for the FBI to take seriously. It almost feels like the FBI used the dossier as an excuse to get a warrant, abusing the whole DOJ system in the process. Not only did the FBI possibly use this to get a warrant, but also acquired a FISA warrant against Trumps team.
In all, the FBI appears to very liberal leaning, which would make sense after 8 years of democratic influence.
However, if the dossier is as unsubsitated as the conservatives say it is, why hadn’t the Mueller investigation ended? I’m very well aware that the Mueller Investigation is biased towards democrats, but that shouldn’t matter when it comes to evidence and truth.
It’s like the (ironicly enough Conservative) argument for the PATRIOT Act. If you have nothing to hide, why worry? I can’t exactly tell if the conservatives are using the memo to say that the Mueller Investigation is completely unfounded, or that the warrants were achieved in an illegal matter. And that anything coming out of the investigation should be disregarded as the evidence was acquired in an illegal fashion.
But, if the Mueller investigation was not turning up anything, especially in relations to the Russia investigation, then why has it continued?
And more importantly, if the entire dossier was fake and their was no collusion with the Russian government, why did Michael Flynn resign?
So many questions, but few answers...
JeepJeremy
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/02/2018 at 18:47 |
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NPR gave me a new phrase the other day: “Truth decay”
I can’t help but feel that the Trump administration’s main goal is to muddy the waters so badly that nobody in America will believe ANYTHING anymore. Nothing is the “truth”, nothing is “fact”.
They had a former FBI guy on in an interview and he was just dumbfounded how a Republican administration, in control of the House and Senate, using an FBI agency headed by a Conservative appointee, and a conservative led Dept of Justice can basically come out and release a memo criticizing the whole thing.
It’s like that card trick where you’re supposed to watch one of the cards while the huckster moves all three. You know there’s some trick. You know you aren’t going to guess the correct card. You know you’re being duped. Why are we all so willingly participating in this lie?
It’s a scary time to be an American right now. It’s a scary time to be a responsible adult.
We’re still at the dawn of the Information Age (maybe?) with the entirety of human knowledge just a click away. And yet so many, many, many people are just not seeing the trick, are actively ignoring it, or willingly ignorant of it.
My history professor and academic advisor in college always harped on the Nazis capitalizing on the German people’s “ethics of sensibility” vs what every human being should know as an adult: “an ethic of responsibility”
Going along with Trump is irresponsible. “Making America Great Again” is a terrifying rhetoric that has very loaded, evil consequences.
I’m scared to death.
I want off of this ride.
I want to leave this carnival.
gettingoldercarguy
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/02/2018 at 18:55 |
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Politics to car ratio is out of whack.
Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/02/2018 at 18:57 |
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Except that the Steele dossier isn’t what started this whole thing nor was it the bases of the FISA warrants, the FISA stuff started years before when it became clear that Carter Paige was a Russian contact.
DipodomysDeserti
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/02/2018 at 19:09 |
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You seem to be completely out of the loop with quite a few matters involved with this whole thing. Might want to do some reading before trying to have a worthwhile conversation. Some of the assertions you make are just plain wrong.
DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/02/2018 at 19:10 |
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I kind of doubt Trump actually colluded with the Russians, just because it doesn’t make any sense for the Russians to risk actually colluding with him.
I can only imagine the primary reason the Russian’s didn’t want Hilary to win, was because of her stance on Syria going all the way back to when she was Sec of State.
Trump was already against getting involved in Syria so why would they collude with him? They could get just as much what they wanted without Trump knowing than if he did collude with them, but if Trump was caught colluding with Russians and removed from office. Then Pence would be President and it’s not so obvious what he would do about Syria if he was President.
SVTyler
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/02/2018 at 19:40 |
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Few things:
1. The Steele dossier was originally funded by the conservative Washington Free Beacon news site as opposition research for other Republican candidates against Trump . It was not a liberal hitjob like the right is framing it as.
2.
Carter Page was under FBI surveillance for his contact with Russia all the way back in 2013, way before he joined the Trump campaign
. The dossier was only a small part of the reason the FISA warrant was OK’d by a federal judge.
3. The FBI is not magically some liberal bastion of bias after eight years of a Democratic president. The right has taken out-of-context texts from a single
guy who was a critical component of re-opening the investigation into Clinton
and spun it into some bizarro world where every single person at the most prestigious, unbiased, professional law enforcement agency in the country is somehow conspiring against Trump (despite the fact that law enforcement is one of the most conservative professions in the country) to discredit it.
4. The memo has so many problems I don’t even know where to start.
This is the best summary of it I found in like two minutes of searching
, there’s a whole bunch of articles from extremely reputable sources that dissect exactly why it’s a) not as big of a deal as Republicans are trying to make it out to be and b) horribly biased and cherry-picking. Additionally, the Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer who has seen the classified intelligence Nunes hasn’t, have a counter-memo all ready to go that rebuts the bullshit in Nunes’s memo, but have been blocked by Republicans from releasing it.
TL;DR: Read more about it from places that aren’t Republican propaganda like Fox News, the memo is just the latest attempt for the Republicans to cover their own asses and discredit the only people that can make them answer for their crimes.
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Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
> SVTyler
02/02/2018 at 19:53 |
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I completely understand that Foxnews is Trump propaganda, and you raise extremely good points. I only follow Foxnews just to challenge my own biases. I hate the college democrats for straight up rejecting conservative clubs. (Excluding Milo- screw that racist pig) I disagree with just about everything they have to say, but they have the same right to their opinions I do.
In fact I have to click off fox because I wind up getting so fed up with the BS.
I try not to become a puppet to either media, but as some of what you point out bothers me.
I just can’t help but wonder, if the dossier is not related to democrats, then why has it become to focal point to the Mueller investigation? (Unless the conservatives have spun it to discredit the investigation)
And the fact that is played ANY role in the FISA warrant bothers me....
But thank you for responding with facts. That’s all I want, and I’m sick of both sides spewing BS.
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SVTyler
> DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time
02/02/2018 at 20:00 |
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I’m not entirely endorsing this theory (reads like a shitty spy movie), but the purported reason is that Trump is heavily in debt to Russian oligarchs and organized crime, who bailed him out of his financial issues in the 80's and 90's in exchange for him helping them launder money through his casinos and hotels. When the Magnitsky Act, which allowed the U.S. to freeze Russian assets if they could be tied to organized crime, was passed, the Russians called on Trump to run as President as he had in the past, this time to undo the sanctions against them. Best-case scenario, he wins and they have a Russian asset as the most powerful man in the world. Worst-case, they delegitimize the election and the Clinton Administration and sow discord and chaos. Again, kind of hard to believe, but honestly it’s more believable than the FBI and CIA and Special Counsel are making up the mountains of evidence very reputable news sources are saying they’re finding.
sources:
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Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
> DipodomysDeserti
02/02/2018 at 20:04 |
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I didn’t mean to make any assertions, this was just about my understanding of what I have so far figured out is going on.
I did not mean to state those that I truely believed in them.
For example, I know that the FBI is not liberal leaning after 8 years of Obama. But I understand why that would make it all the more suspicious that the dossier was involved at all as a credible source in the investigation.
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SVTyler
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/02/2018 at 20:09 |
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If you want decent conservative news sources check out the Economist, National Review, and Wall Street Journal, they’re my go-to for an alternate perspectives. I try not to get caught up in the liberal spin either but honestly it’s getting harder to find right-wing sources that are factual. They’re out there, they’re just far fewer in number than their liberal equivalents.
John Norris (AngryDrifter)
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/02/2018 at 20:10 |
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It’s pretty clear that Hilary Clinton and the DNC we playing Nixon level dirty politics. Regarding your question on why the Mueller investigation is ongoing it could be that they indeed have something, or think they are getting close to having something, on Trump. Neither candidates appear very morally grounded to me, unfortunately. As my Mother use to say, two wrongs don’t make a right. If they deserve it, I’m just fine with them all getting outed.
The FBI problems occurred during the Obama administration. It doesn’t reflect well on him either.
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SVTyler
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/02/2018 at 20:59 |
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Just saw the edit about the dossier. You have to understand two thing about it: one, the author, Christopher Steele, isn’t just some random dude, he’s an ex-MI6 agent who headed the agency’s Russian station and a world-renowned expert on Russia and the Kremlin. The information in the dossier was collected from trusted sources he’d met over the course of decades of intelligence work, many of whom were members of the Russian government and intelligence communities, sources that had time and time again come through for him in the past. He had no partisan leanings, no grudge, no bias, he was just an extremely experienced, well-connected individual doing a job he was paid to do, which was collect info for the RNC on Trump. It was only after he realized exactly what he was finding out that he passed it on to the FBI.
The second thing is that the dossier is what’s called ‘raw intelligence’, meaning that while the information within the dossier is believed by its author and sources to be truthful, it’s ultimately unverified but is considered by the intelligence and law enforcement communities as probable cause for further investigation, hence why Steele passed it off to McCain for the Senate to investigate and why the Special Counsel was formed. Mueller’s so interested in it because a) it gives them a starting point for the investigation and b) several of the accusations in the dossier have been verified, granting it legitimacy. The thing about FISA warrants is that they’re granted by a judge based on probable cause and a I mentioned, Carter Page was already on the FBI’s radar so the dossier was just a small part evidence presented to obtain the warrant, not its sole reason for it.
I can’t cite all my sources because that’s just what I remember reading over the course of the year, however Vanity Fair had a great writeup on the Steele dossier that’s worth reading:
WilliamsSW
> SVTyler
02/02/2018 at 21:17 |
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Thank you-
BaconSandwich is tasty.
> JeepJeremy
02/02/2018 at 22:15 |
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I think we are beyond the “information age” and well into the “misinformation age”. Like you say, the waters are so muddied it’s impossible to tell truth from fiction.
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Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
> SVTyler
02/02/2018 at 22:32 |
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My issue is, Christopher Steele himself has said he is extremely anti-Trump.
(Albeit, I could only find a single quote from him confirming that On Fox, and I’m trying to leave that out of it. I don’t want you to think of me as a Fox goon)
But I did find it briefly mentioned here:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/1/16956290/nunes-memo-release-the-memo-fbi-russia
Overall, I do beleive the memo used cherry picked examples that were skewed in the worse possible light to undermine the investigation.
But something on the entire investigation just seems off. Their seems to be bias at play, it’s just a matter of figuring how much Bias ultimately played into it, from none to the entire thing is BS.
I wasn’t alive at the time, but this entire thing seems be throwing a lot of watergate flags. I can’t figure out who Nixon is...
But Im extremely wary to believe that the Nunez memo is completely without value.
I am a passionate believe that inbetween all these conflicting stories there is grey zone in which lies the truth.
I was hoping a healthy conversation that doesn’t involve screaming would help educate me. The last thing I want is to become a puppet to either side....
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JeepJeremy
> BaconSandwich is tasty.
02/02/2018 at 22:38 |
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Yes. But a “misinformation age” is an active choice.
What bothers me is that there is so much WILLINGNESS to ignore facts and truths and simple common sense.
The institution doesn’t scare me. It’s the participants that scare me.
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Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
> John Norris (AngryDrifter)
02/02/2018 at 22:40 |
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I wouldn’t go straight to just the democrats being Nixon levels of shady. The fact that the democrats have a conflicting memo (that was barred) tells me that the republicans cherry picked information to cover the RNCs ass.
I think both parties have pretty much reached Nixon levels of shady. But, Im realizing the fact that the DNC funded the dossier doesn’t negate the fact that some of the dossiers contents have been verified.
And that’s part of what bothers me about the memo is, that it seems to only say that the information from the dossier is invalid, even though the investigation has validated some of the claims.
For a guy who said he was going to drain the swamp, I feel like the “swamp” has multiplied in size on both sides.
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Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
> Bman76 (no it doesn't need a WS6 hood) M. Arch
02/02/2018 at 22:50 |
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I thought the dossier was what led up to the investigation?
And I thought that Carter was simply on the FBIs radar back in 2013. According to the Times, the FISA warrant for Carter wasn’t issued until October 2016.
http://time.com/5128614/carter-page-gop-memo-fisa-warrant/
I’m not sure when the dossier was formally submitted into the FBI, but most sources seem to say that the dossier did play some varying role in the Judges decision to issue the FISA warrant.
So the dossier must have been part of the start of the investigation
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DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time
> SVTyler
02/02/2018 at 23:55 |
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The thing with that though, is that the Magnitsky Act is a law which apparently passed: 365-43 In the house and 92-4 in the Senate. Legally Trump can’t repeal it and it would seem nigh impossible to get congress to. Since I doubt congress’ attitude towards the bill will have changed much, even with more Republicans in.
But even if he could; I still think Russia would be more concerned about the U.S. getting involved in Syria than than the money they have tied up in the U.S. since I doubt they’d have a large percentage of their money in America at any given time.
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SVTyler
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/03/2018 at 19:03 |
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I haven’t heard that about Steele; not saying it isn’t true, but I can’t find anything on his own personal opinions apart from some that Vox article and some other FoxNews articles released after the dossier which alleges those biases. Even if he is anti-Trump, so what? It’s not like it’s impossible have an opinion and still act impartially. It’s called being a professional and adult and millions of people in the government have done it since the beginning of the United States. Honestly I think it says more about Republicans’ mindsets than the Mueller investigation’s because they think that since they can’t separate their actions from their own partisan hackery, no one else can either.
If you think the investigation is biased, I honestly don’t know what to tell you. Mueller is a highly respected former head of the FBI who was unanimously praised as head of the special counsel on both sides of the aisle , and his team includes arguably the most experienced and respected experts from the justice system and intelligence communities ever assembled . many of whom quit cushy multi-million dollar jobs to come work for the counsel. You literally could not assemble a better team if you tried, they’re the real-life equivalent of the Justice League. It was only after they started finding things that the Republicans suddenly started throwing accusations of bias around trying to muddy the waters. I try to stay impartial but considering there’s rumors that a large part of the Republican Party might be compromised by Russian interference, not just Trump, it’s looking more and more like the Republicans are using the accusations of bias to discredit the probe and protect themselves.
Trump is Nixon here. He’s doing the exact same thing as Nixon did forty-five years ago: firing a whole bunch of people investigating him , publicly accusing them of bias, you could go on. Hell, the memo is probably a pretext to him attempting to repeat his own Saturday Night Massacre. That’s what’s so amazing about this whole thing, it’s already happened before, and recently too, and Trump’s either too stupid or too arrogant to think it’ll go just as badly for him as it did for Nixon.
I don’t think the Nunes memo is entirely worthless either despite how much of a hack Nunes is (look into his actions after ‘recusing’ himself from the investigation), but as of right now it is because we can’t see its Democratic counterpart. It’s a bipartisan committee and just having one side’s view of it isn’t enough, especially when the Democrats have more information they’re not being allowed to share.
I used to think like that the truth’s in the middle too but that really only works if both sides are acting in good faith. Judging by the last year of politics I can’t say either side are really doing that, Republicans especially. All I can do is find reputable sources and form my own opinion about all of this.
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SVTyler
> DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time
02/03/2018 at 19:23 |
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I’m not entirely sure about the process for repealing a law but considering the Trump Jr.-Russia meeting
was supposedly about repealing the law in exchange for dirt on Clinton
, I imagine either the Trump Administration isn’t sure either or it is actually possible. Given their current track record of not only ignoring, but defending how many
theoretically impeachable offenses Trump has committed
I wouldn’t put it past them to keep being his sycophants in the event he tries to repeal the Magnitsky Act.
While the Syrian Civil War is undoubtedly a concern for Russia (apparently Assad is Putin’s only ally in the MIddle East), from my understanding Russia’s interest in the region is secondary to other interests, notably related to foreign assets; e
ssentially the government functions as an oligarchy with Putin as its figurehead
, and those oligarchs have a huge amount of their money, supposedly billions of dollars, over here in the US in the forms of shell companies and real estate that could potentially be seized under the Magnitsky Act.
Bill Browder’s testimony is a great insight into how Russian money and the Magnitsky Act are related, bit of a long read but definitely compelling
.
gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/04/2018 at 18:24 |
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Seems to be a bit more than just their radar. I don’t think once something like a FISA warrent, gets dropped off your record quickly. I imagine 2 trips to russia in 2016, probably sent red flags.
Also the FBI began investigating after the Australians came forward with information in May 2016.
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Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
> SVTyler
02/04/2018 at 23:52 |
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Well my issue with him being biased is the fact that the dossier, in my opinion, was not completely true.
I am starting to think that the things inside the dossier where based off hearsay or things that he knew was true but he couldn’t do it at the time, and was not backed up by any substantial evidence.
I don’t think the actual investigation is truely biased, but I think they’re were dubious claims made in the dossier that allowed for the investigation to be made.
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SVTyler
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/05/2018 at 00:40 |
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the things inside the dossier where based off hearsay or things that he
knew was true but he couldn’t do it at the time, and was not backed up
by any substantial evidence
Hence the subsequent investigations to find substantial evidence and determine whether they
are
true or not. I doubt the dossier is 100% true either but just because a few things haven’t been proven (and to my knowledge nothing in the dossier has been
dis
proven yet) doesn’t discredit it entirely, intelligence reports based on highly secretive information (for example, a sitting President being a Russian asset) are largely hearsay and are sometimes wrong. Doesn’t mean there’s malicious intent, it’s just the nature of intelligence gathering when you’re dealing with thousands and thousands of reports per day, of which the Steele dossier is a small part of total U.S. intelligence. Either way its well worth the effort for the countries or individuals collecting and receiving the intelligence to properly follow up on said reports to assess their veracity, which in the case of Trump and Russia meant the HIC and SIC and Special Counsel. I should also note that FISA warrants aren’t all that rare, the
FISC approves tens of thousands of warrants a year
so it’s not like someone going out of their way to start a witch hunt for Trump, it’s standard operating procedure for this kind of intelligence. You never hear about the other ones because there’s no public mechanism in which the specifics of these warrants are normally revealed, it’s only because the Special Counsel and Intelligence Committees are publicly-known bodies that this is even an issue.
I think they’re were dubious claims made in the dossier that allowed for the investigation to be made.
Trey Gowdy, Devin Nunes’ second-in-command on the House Intelligence Committee and the
only Republican
to see the actual FISA warrant
said today there would still be a Russia investigation even without the dossier
, and he’d know better than anyone. I’d keep an eye on Gowdy,
Less than a week ago he was on Fox News hardcore shilling for the whole ‘biased FBI’ narrative
, now he’s
defending the investigation
after abruptly a
nnouncing his retirement
at an extremely young age, in an extremely safe district? I hate to be a conspiracy theorist but something’s up and it’ll be interesting to see what.
Dogapult
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/05/2018 at 01:02 |
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This has been an interesting read. (including the comments) Thank you.
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Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
> SVTyler
02/05/2018 at 01:03 |
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Perhaps, and I did hear about Gowdy. I think your absolutely right to say something is going down.
That’s going to be interesting.
I guess my entire issue with the memo, is something with the line claiming trump received a “golden shower” from Russian prostitues gives doubt over the whole thing.
And while the investigation might have still happened, I still feel the FBI used a yet unverified source as a springboard into Trump.
Which, while making sense, bothers me.
I very well know that this is comparing apples to oranges, but jsut for example, If the FBI used everything some conservative Nut Job (ahem Alex Jones ahem) made, the FBI would eventually find out a single truth in a web of other lies.
And, I know Steele is a highly respected member of the intelligence community, compared to Alex Jones, but a claim along the lines of “Golden Showers” is the type of claim someone like Alex Jones would make about a democratic president.
And that bothers me.
Even without the memo, I think Trump is guilty of having connections to Russia. I just don’t know why...
I saw your comment regarding the theory behind Trumps need for Russian interference (which, I have to disagree, would made a kickass Spy book). But that still seems too far fetched. If anything it’s just the RNC being dirty, and no other reason then the reasons Nixon stole documents from the DNC.
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SVTyler
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/05/2018 at 02:14 |
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I think the whole ‘golden showers’ thing is bullshit too but honestly the ridiculousness of the accusation almost makes it more believable to me. Like, ignore the money laundering and quid-pro-quo for the DNC hacks and everything else in the dossier, all of which are monumental allegations of corruption that, if true, would enough to take down Trump by themselves, what purpose would including something like that in the dossier possibly have if Steele and his sources believed it was anything less than 100% true? If you’re going to make up some damning accusation, you could at least make it be believable, not one that’s so insane that it actually sounds made up. It’ll just make people laugh and dismiss the rest of the dossier by association and completely undermine its purpose. Then again, Trump’s said some really gross sexual shit about all kinds of things, including his own daughter , before so while I don’t believe it, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the golden shower thing ended up being true.
Like I mentioned before, this kind of intelligence is never taken as gospel but is normally followed up on by the appropriate authorities who then verify it themselves, which in this case it’s the FBI and Intelligence Committees and Special Counsel, which is why we the public are aware of it. if I’m honest I’m not completely comfortable with the idea that there’s some super-secret intel that’s (potentially) not 100% true being used in this investigation either, but I trust Mueller and his Special Counsel and the FBI to do their jobs fairly and impartially and to protect and uphold the laws and Constitution of this country, at least more than I trust Trump and Co. to be acting in good faith.
In the interest of full disclosure I’m not 100% convinced on the whole ‘Trump’s in debt to the Russians’ theory but I will say it’s an extremely compelling story that has shreds of truth attached to it (see
this article from WaPo that details his past business dealings in Russia
) and questions that haven’t been answered yet. See also the
story of Trump’s Palm Beach mansion
; again, nothing overtly criminal, but man is it shady.
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gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
> Herr Quattro - Has a 4-motion
02/06/2018 at 22:46 |
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“And more importantly, if the entire dossier was fake and their was no collusion with the Russian government, why did Michael Flynn resign?”
I think Fareed Zakaria had some good points, in that 45 was scrapping up the remnants to run his campaign got a lot of shady charecters. What makes no sense is his entire life his only consistant belief is that the world is screwing over the US. So why is russia our friend?