Cont: Breaking: Mueller Grand Jury charges filed, arrests as soon as Monday pt 2

[Stacko]

The dirtiest of tasks can only be trusted to the innermost, dirtiest circle. That's why Stone and Cohen are the most likely conduits, especially Stone.

Stone has both weakly denied, to CNN, and confirmed, to ABC, that he is the US person mentioned in the indictment.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Spoiler spoiler: Probably not.

For starters, I don't think Stone was a Congressional candidate, mysterious or otherwise.

I misread the post I was replying to.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1017870864786903040

One final thought on today's indictment: It's hard to capture just how quickly and thoroughly Mueller's team is moving for a federal investigation. Any one of these indictments would be a solid accomplishment for a one-year federal probe. ALL OF THEM? Amazing.

 

[Fudbucker]

Spoiler spoiler: Probably not.

For starters, I don't think Stone was a Congressional candidate, mysterious or otherwise.

The Daily Cos offered this suggestion.

​

Seems more likely, especially in view of Gaetz' fervent support of Trump since he has been elected to Congress, and his dogged efforts to torpedo any and all investigation into Russian involvement in the election.

Not to mention that he actually was a Congressional candidate at the time.

Why do people keep misreading my post? Must be a problem on my end.

There are a couple of people wrapped up in this. One is the mysterious congressional candidate who asked for and got stolen emails. That's NOT Roger Stone. Whoever this person is will certainly get indicted.

The other is the person who "was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump". THAT's probably Roger Stone. My question is, suppose Stone was shown a sample of stolen emails as a precondition for a possible deal, and then didn't make a deal. Would that be illegal?

 

[BobTheCoward]

https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1017870864786903040

Isn't there a saying about being able to indict a ham sandwich? If you are indicting ham sandwiches you will never be accountable for arresting and putting on trial, that removes a separate barrier associated with personal reputation.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The other is the person who "was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump". THAT's probably Roger Stone.

The "other" is more than one person. Stone is confirmed. One of the others may be Don Jr. ("I love it"). We don't know whether there are any more than that.

 

[quadraginta]

Why do people keep misreading my post? Must be a problem on my end.

<snip>

I wasn't misreading your post. If anything I was offering a response to it via Squeegee's post.

I was disagreeing with Squeegee's post. But not misreading it, either.

 

[Aridas]

While there are obvious references to Stone in the document, the unnamed congressional candidate isn't one of them.

Spoiler spoiler: Probably not.

For starters, I don't think Stone was a Congressional candidate, mysterious or otherwise.

I misread the post I was replying to.

I took to be a suggestion about who the unnamed congressional candidate was getting the information from, rather than who the candidate was. Looks like I may have been incorrect to do so?

 

[Bob001]

NATO members, including Germany, made a promise to increase their spending. They are breaking their promise. If the claim is really that there is no chance that they will increase their spending to meet their promise, then what does that mean? It means that they are not actually partners in defense, they are mooches who do not themselves take the threat from Russia seriously.
....

NATO is increasing its defense spending, as it agreed previously. Trump is unilaterally demanding more faster. Trump has fundamental misconceptions that NATO cannot overcome.

And contrary to Trump’s declarations at his news conference Thursday that NATO defense spending has increased because of his demands, the reality is that the alliance’s members have been increasing spending since 2014, when they agreed to a target of 2 percent defense spending by 2024. So far, spending has increased by $46 billion.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...es-right-and-the-crisis-is-him/?noredirect=on

 

[Bob001]

I'm sure there are complexities, but there's also some simplicities: Germany is helping Russia by buying so much gas from them, and more importantly they are making themselves incredibly vulnerable to Russia. This is a major strategic mistake, but again, it points to Germany not taking the threat from Russia seriously.
.....

The Germans themselves have debated the Russia gas policy. But Germany is not dependent on Russia for most of its energy.

But that does not mean that 60% of Germany's energy comes from Russia - Germany's energy mix for power production is about 40% coal, more than 30% renewables, less than 20% gas and 10% nuclear, according to Marex Spectron.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44794688

And dependence works both ways. Russia doesn't have much to sell. Cutting its income from Germany would hurt Russia as much as Germany. Germany could find other energy sources more easily than Russia could find other customers.

 

[Ziggurat]

And dependence works both ways. Russia doesn't have much to sell. Cutting its income from Germany would hurt Russia as much as Germany. Germany could find other energy sources more easily than Russia could find other customers.

Yes, it might take Russia longer to build up infrastructure to ship that gas to China (who would certainly buy it) than for Germany to build up the infrastructure to import gas from, say, the US. But if the gas stops flowing, Germany suffers immediately, while Russia's pain can be delayed, because money (what Russia gets out of the deal) is more fungible than gas (what Germany gets out of the deal).

 

[Ziggurat]

NATO is increasing its defense spending, as it agreed previously. Trump is unilaterally demanding more faster. Trump has fundamental misconceptions that NATO cannot overcome.

Yes, Trump is demanding more faster. But even under the previous 2% by 2024 target, Germany is behind. In fact, Germany only plans on reaching 1.5% by 2024.

 

[quadraginta]

Yes, Trump is demanding more faster. But even under the previous 2% by 2024 target, Germany is behind.

How can they be behind if the target date is six years from now?

If you mean that they aren't increasing their defense spending at some uniform rate which would accomplish 2% of their GDP by then, I don't think that is the same thing.

In fact, Germany only plans on reaching 1.5% by 2024.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to see what they are actually doing by 2024? It's a bit premature to start criticizing them now for something that hasn't happened yet.

What you're really saying is that the current people in power say they only plan on that much. An election or two could change all that.

 

[CapelDodger]

Yes, Trump is demanding more faster.

And nobody cares, least of all Putin.

 

[Fudbucker]

And nobody cares, least of all Putin.

Right. Putin could care less what NATO spends because Putin's goal is not to tangle with NATO. He knows he would lose. Putin wants to make sure that if he moves like a bitch on some Eastern European country, the member states wouldn't honor an article V declaration. And Trump is doing a great job on that front.

 

[BobTheCoward]

How can they be behind if the target date is six years from now?

If you mean that they aren't increasing their defense spending at some uniform rate which would accomplish 2% of their GDP by then, I don't think that is the same thing.



Wouldn't it be more accurate to see what they are actually doing by 2024? It's a bit premature to start criticizing them now for something that hasn't happened yet.

What you're really saying is that the current people in power say they only plan on that much. An election or two could change all that.

The 2024 target set in 2014 was because everyone sucked when 2% was proposed in 2004. Getting a deadline because you suck does not mean you are now ahead of schedule.

 

[CapelDodger]

The dirtiest of tasks can only be trusted to the innermost, dirtiest circle. That's why Stone and Cohen are the most likely conduits, especially Stone.

Let's not discount Manafort. All three were familiar to the Russians, and would have come quickly to mind if and when the plot was first hatched.


I think all three will look back and realise their mistake was to attract more than the usual amount of scrutiny, which their long sleazy careers had previously evaded. So would Trump were he actually capable of admitting error.

 

[CapelDodger]

The 2024 target set in 2014 was because everyone sucked when 2% was proposed in 2004. Getting a deadline because you suck does not mean you are now ahead of schedule.

Nor does it mean anything else.


If Russia does invade Western Europe defene spending will rocket overnight. That's not in prospect, though.

 

[CapelDodger]

The Germans themselves have debated the Russia gas policy. But Germany is not dependent on Russia for most of its energy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44794688

Nor is it "run by Russia" as the orange retard claims. What a dotard.


Merkel, of course, can remember when Western Europe was faced by the entire Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact (which she was brought up in). Russia alone is fit for marches through Georgia and a thoroughly bogged-down "popular uprising" in the Donbass. It'd be pathetic if it wasn't so tragic.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

"These Russian individuals did their work during the Obama years. Why didn’t Obama do something about it? Because he thought Crooked Hillary Clinton would win, that’s why. Had nothing to do with the Trump Administration, but Fake News doesn’t want to report the truth, as usual!"