Michael Flynn in frequent contact with Russia's ambassador to U.S.

ModerateGOP said:

One of the worst picks for his cabinent IMO policy wise is General Michael Flynn. Of course, most anybody associated with RTV is a bad egg in my book, so when he first started on the campaign trail for Trump, I didn't like it one bit.

Michael Flynn in frequent contact with Russia's ambassador to U.S. - CBS News

Russian Ambassador Invited Trump Administration to Syria Peace Talks as US Issued Sanctions - ABC News

Trump adviser had five calls with Russian envoy on day of sanctions: sources | Reuters


Top Trump Adviser Talks More Than Once With Russian Ambassador : NPR

Don't believe me? Here's a story from August: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-putin-and-why-russia-today-is-just-like-cnn/

You can't pretend now that it's all nicety nice... But of course the Trump supporters will fail to make the connections staring at them right in the face.

Click to expand...

Why was it ok, in fact "the right" was excoriated for daring to denounce Obama's administration having talks with Iran on a deal, (that sucked btw, and will be removed) and we were told that "we must speak to our enemies" as though we were stupid or something...But now, 'aw hell no!' it's some giant conspiracy? Explain that without hypocrisy if you can.

Tangmo said:

Right wing spam eventually leads to run of the mill tripe.

You're really a lost soul. Let's just hope you're not to Stephen Bannon's level yet.

Palmer Report btw was and remains accurate. It reported the subtraction of almost 75,000 Trump bonus votes combined, in PA, MI, WI immediately after Dr. Stein announced she'd seek a recount. Excising the Trump Bonus Votes under the threat of recounting left Trump with a winning margin of only 100,000 votes in the three states combined. That's a Super Bowl sized crowd, nothing more. (And they saw their winner of the Potus Super Bowl do it with his own inflated Brady balls.)

Click to expand...

LOL, knew it wouldn't take much. They did the recounts, HRC lost, get over it.

Tangmo said:

Interesting terminologies and rationales for a violent secession based on a legitimate election result.

In the Philippines during Reagan's day getting rid of Marcos was done by a thingy called "People Power." However, removing a Putin puppet who reneged on every campaign promise suddenly gets called a "coup." As if the Ukraine military had done it overnight instead of people power doing it and over extended protests in the streets.

In the vast number of instances, dissenting provinces in nations that have a legit democratic election do not secede, nor is there encouragement for the provinces on the one side by a lopsided vote to up and secede. There is even much less practice or pattern to secede while accepting if not soliciting incursion from a neighboring country's Army to boot. What can be called the "little green men" secession. And the little green Russian regular Army men literally parachuting into Crimea to seize it.

Hey, in Trudeau's election win last year Alberta and Saskatchewan voted for the loser, so maybe USA should send in some U.S. Army little orange men to the two Canadian provinces to foment secession and start blowing up cities, which is what Putin did in areas of Ukraine.

The major event in Ukraine however was not an election, it was that Yanukovich reneged on a major campaign promise to sign a cooperative agreement with EU. Probably worse, Putin's actions violated the 1994 Budapest Memorandum nuclear weapons agreement signed by Russia, Ukraine, UK, USA, to guarantee Ukraine's borders and territorial integrity in return for it giving over Soviet nuclear weapons and missiles. (North Korea has taken notice of the failed guarantee and so has Iran.)

Click to expand...

The western powers miscalculated the level of support they would receive, they've miscalculated the wishes of the people.
They try to claim that the Crimean referendum was illegitimate, with 95-97 percent of people saying “We want to be part of Russia.”
And they are trying to bring democracy to the wide world but condemn it when other peoples want their own democracy.

Maybe the big brains in the EU and US should have asked themselves a question before antagonizing Russia by
spending $5 billion funding the "pro-democracy" groups that ultimately overthrew the elected government in the Ukraine.

Did they really think Putin would do nothing? Are they really that stupid? I guess the answer is yes.

slick said:

The western powers miscalculated the level of support they would receive, they've miscalculated the wishes of the people.
They try to claim that the Crimean referendum was illegitimate, with 95-97 percent of people saying “We want to be part of Russia.”
And they are trying to bring democracy to the wide world but condemn it when other peoples want their own democracy.

Maybe the big brains in the EU and US should have asked themselves a question before antagonizing Russia by
spending $5 billion funding the "pro-democracy" groups that ultimately overthrew the elected government in the Ukraine.

Did they really think Putin would do nothing? Are they really that stupid? I guess the answer is yes.

Click to expand...

No outside party spent any money funding "pro-democracy" groups in Ukraine. That's the Putinist lie hidden in this post.

slick said:

The western powers miscalculated the level of support they would receive, they've miscalculated the wishes of the people.
They try to claim that the Crimean referendum was illegitimate, with 95-97 percent of people saying “We want to be part of Russia.”
And they are trying to bring democracy to the wide world but condemn it when other peoples want their own democracy.

Maybe the big brains in the EU and US should have asked themselves a question before antagonizing Russia by
spending $5 billion funding the "pro-democracy" groups that ultimately overthrew the elected government in the Ukraine.

Did they really think Putin would do nothing? Are they really that stupid? I guess the answer is yes.

Click to expand...

If Putin did nothing, the Russians would have kicked him out of the office.

These fools, who call themselves "experts on Russia" do not understand, that Putin is neither a Tsar nor a Dictator, he is more moderate than most of his voters who think that Putin sells the interests of Russians and is not radical enough.

Jack Hays said:

No outside party spent any money funding "pro-democracy" groups in Ukraine. That's the Putinist lie hidden in this post.

Click to expand...

Check out these Victoria Nuland spots on You Tube & I'm sure you'll have a better take on these matters they
have nothing to do with Putin:

1)Victoria Nuland's Admits Washington Has Spent $5 Billion to "Subvert Ukraine

2) Nuland admits to neo Nazis in Ukraine - YouTube
Some say that neo-Nazis are not involved in Ukraine. This video clip puts an end to that fantasy

3)Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call - BBC News

Putin was hosting the Olympics in Sochi, whilst EU and US diplomats were in the Maidan Square protesting
against the democratically elected government. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and of course Victoria Nuland
were prominently involved.

Recently Nuland and her collegues among western politicians have been shouting at the top of their voice for a
year now that Putin is a tyrant and that he is raping the Ukraine. The self-annointed "Queen of Ukraine" who
was tasked with the destabilization of Ukraine ( given 5 billion to do so) and even picked who should be
Ukraine' sleader prior to the coup,

Nuland is a neocon lunatic. When someone curses peace agreements you are wise
to ignore their opinion. She is a disgrace to everything real diplomacy stands for, and a horrible example
to women who want to become diplomats. She still hasn't recovered after Putin slapped
her on the face with Crimea changing hands quicker that one can say peninsula. Something she
never thought her silliness would lead to.

With Nuland being involved it is never a bad idea to be pessimistic about Ukraine.

OpportunityCost said:

LOL, knew it wouldn't take much. They did the recounts, HRC lost, get over it.

Click to expand...

Another false construct of the right that keeps trying to deflect from Michael Flynn the Putin sycophant. Flynn is another odd-off guy who wants to wage global war for peace. Flynn is one more manifestation of what happens to a democracy that wages endless war. We get crackpot warmongers rising higher and higher in Washington in the belief that more war is the answer.

slick said:

The western powers miscalculated the level of support they would receive, they've miscalculated the wishes of the people.
They try to claim that the Crimean referendum was illegitimate, with 95-97 percent of people saying “We want to be part of Russia.”
And they are trying to bring democracy to the wide world but condemn it when other peoples want their own democracy.

Maybe the big brains in the EU and US should have asked themselves a question before antagonizing Russia by
spending $5 billion funding the "pro-democracy" groups that ultimately overthrew the elected government in the Ukraine.

Did they really think Putin would do nothing? Are they really that stupid? I guess the answer is yes.

Click to expand...

Interesting to put in your post the 95%-97% of the Crimea vote conducted by Putin to say they wanted to be a part of Russia. Admittedly that is a highly unusual referendum and it is even more exceptional given it is a vote on national alignment.

In most countries that vote reasonably legitimately it requires two-thirds or three-quarters to amend the constitution, nevermind to secede from the extant country. While 95% or so voting to go with Putin and Russia is spectacular, anyone knows any dictator worth his salt should be able to get 120% of the popular vote on almost anything.

It might have helped Putin's purposes in holding the referendum that there were no voter registration rolls on voting day. Anyone could vote, they could vote anywhere and the word from observers is that many voters voted early and often and here and there.

It probably helped Putin also that his hooded little green men were standing inside the polling stations bearing fully loaded weapons for all to see. It also helped no doubt that as Stalin liked to say, it's not who voted for who that counts, it's who counts the votes that counts (paraphrasing).

Given the post then, it needs reiterating that Putin violated the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 signed by Russia, Ukraine, UK, USA, guaranteeing Ukraine borders in return for Kiev handing over its nuclear weapons and missiles left over from its dayze as a Soviet republic.

After the (inevitable) collapse of the USSR, Ukraine had found itself a sovereign nation state with the world's third largest nuclear arsenal...still controlled from Moscow. Ukrainians themselves were eager to hand off the hot stuff they'd never liked anyway. (Had the Cold War gone nuclear Ukraine would have disappeared into China.) Whatever actions the United States took in Ukraine, it did not violate the Budapest Memorandum. Putin did violate it...several times over.

North Korea and Iran btw have taken categorical notice of Ukraine's fate.

Fishking said:

Sorry, most rational people don't believe Russia is the boogie man and that we need to have better relations so this dog isn't going to hunt.

Click to expand...

didn't Romney and the GOP call Russia Americas biggest threat just 4 years ago?

slick said:

Check out these Victoria Nuland spots on You Tube & I'm sure you'll have a better take on these matters they
have nothing to do with Putin:

1)Victoria Nuland's Admits Washington Has Spent $5 Billion to "Subvert Ukraine

2) Nuland admits to neo Nazis in Ukraine - YouTube
Some say that neo-Nazis are not involved in Ukraine. This video clip puts an end to that fantasy

3)Ukraine crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call - BBC News

Putin was hosting the Olympics in Sochi, whilst EU and US diplomats were in the Maidan Square protesting
against the democratically elected government. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and of course Victoria Nuland
were prominently involved.

Recently Nuland and her collegues among western politicians have been shouting at the top of their voice for a
year now that Putin is a tyrant and that he is raping the Ukraine. The self-annointed "Queen of Ukraine" who
was tasked with the destabilization of Ukraine ( given 5 billion to do so) and even picked who should be
Ukraine' sleader prior to the coup,

Nuland is a neocon lunatic. When someone curses peace agreements you are wise
to ignore their opinion. She is a disgrace to everything real diplomacy stands for, and a horrible example
to women who want to become diplomats. She still hasn't recovered after Putin slapped
her on the face with Crimea changing hands quicker that one can say peninsula. Something she
never thought her silliness would lead to.

With Nuland being involved it is never a bad idea to be pessimistic about Ukraine.

Click to expand...

Your post is merely a regurgitation of false Russian propaganda themes. The $5B claim can easily be shown to be laughably false.

Our ruling
Contrary to claims, the United States did not spend $5 billion to incite the rebellion in Ukraine.
That’s a distorted understanding of remarks given by a State Department official. She was referring to money spent on democracy-building programs in Ukraine since it broke off from the Soviet Union in 1991.
We rate the claim Pants on Fire.

The United States spent $5 billion on Ukraine anti-government riots ...

www.politifact.com/punditfact/.../united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/


Mar 19, 2014 - President Barack Obama spent "$5 billion paying Ukrainians to riot and ... Nuland had returned days earlier from her third trip to Ukraine in five ...

Tangmo said:

Another false construct of the right that keeps trying to deflect from Michael Flynn the Putin sycophant. Flynn is another odd-off guy who wants to wage global war for peace. Flynn is one more manifestation of what happens to a democracy that wages endless war. We get crackpot warmongers rising higher and higher in Washington in the belief that more war is the answer.

Click to expand...

Nothing false about Hillary losing. Flynn was in contact with Russia because he was going to need to talk to Russian counterparts to do his job. You are seeing bogeymen where there aren't any. But you usually do.

Higgins86 said:

didn't Romney and the GOP call Russia Americas biggest threat just 4 years ago?

Click to expand...

Well, Romney did, I'm not sure about the rest of the GOP. He was laughed at for being super stupid when he said that and now all of them are super duper crying about Russia now. Regardless of that, we can work with Russia, if we would just be reasonable in our foreign policies. Russia isn't the upcoming threat, China is. And dealing with a future threat of China won't help if we drive Russia even more into their arms.

Tangmo said:

Interesting to put in your post the 95%-97% of the Crimea vote conducted by Putin to say they wanted to be a part of Russia. Admittedly that is a highly unusual referendum and it is even more exceptional given it is a vote on national alignment.

In most countries that vote reasonably legitimately it requires two-thirds or three-quarters to amend the constitution, nevermind to secede from the extant country. While 95% or so voting to go with Putin and Russia is spectacular, anyone knows any dictator worth his salt should be able to get 120% of the popular vote on almost anything.

It might have helped Putin's purposes in holding the referendum that there were no voter registration rolls on voting day. Anyone could vote, they could vote anywhere and the word from observers is that many voters voted early and often and here and there.

It probably helped Putin also that his hooded little green men were standing inside the polling stations bearing fully loaded weapons for all to see. It also helped no doubt that as Stalin liked to say, it's not who voted for who that counts, it's who counts the votes that counts (paraphrasing).

Given the post then, it needs reiterating that Putin violated the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 signed by Russia, Ukraine, UK, USA, guaranteeing Ukraine borders in return for Kiev handing over its nuclear weapons and missiles left over from its dayze as a Soviet republic.

After the (inevitable) collapse of the USSR, Ukraine had found itself a sovereign nation state with the world's third largest nuclear arsenal...still controlled from Moscow. Ukrainians themselves were eager to hand off the hot stuff they'd never liked anyway. (Had the Cold War gone nuclear Ukraine would have disappeared into China.) Whatever actions the United States took in Ukraine, it did not violate the Budapest Memorandum. Putin did violate it...several times over.

North Korea and Iran btw have taken categorical notice of Ukraine's fate.

Click to expand...

Not wanting to rain on your parade but If you think Putin tampered with thr Crimean referendum consider that
Ukraine's allegiance is geographically split around the Dneiper with Eastern areas identifying strongly with
Russia & Western Ukraine with Europe. In the last legitimate election (Carter was a watchdog there)
with all regions participating the Eastern provinces voted accordingly:

For Yanukovich
Crimea 78.24%
Donetsk region 90.44%
Luhansk region 88.96%

After the coup it's no wonder Crimea upped it's percentages to the 90's thus immitating
the pluraity of Donetsk & Luhansk the 2 breakaway provinces. By the way there are other
eastern regions with strong Russian ties maybe they eventually will rise up against the Kiev Junta
Kharkiv region 71.35%
Zaporizhzhia region 71.50%
Odesa region 74.14%
Mykolaiv region 71.53%

In western Ukraine the voting was strikingly different with Tymoshenko who opposed Russian influence
receiving equally dominant support:

Volyn region 81.85%
Ivano-Frankivsk region 88.89%
Lviv region 86.20%
Ternopil region 88.39%

This so-called country is as split as the US was in 1861, Russia & Putin didn't influence
the last legit election in Ukraine nor the Crimean referendum after the disastrous
for Ukraine Kiev Maidan. Anyone with a rudemntary application of common sense should accept that.
In every Uke election since nominal independence in the 90's except 1,
the Russian leaning candidate won. How the Lviv element of Poles & Lithuanians managed control
even a piece of this mostly Slavic country is astonishing.

Apparently some think the Galician culture have to be the only culture allowed in Ukraine?

slick said:

Not wanting to rain on your parade but If you think Putin tampered with thr Crimean referendum consider that
Ukraine's allegiance is geographically split around the Dneiper with Eastern areas identifying strongly with
Russia & Western Ukraine with Europe. In the last legitimate election (Carter was a watchdog there)
with all regions participating the Eastern provinces voted accordingly:

For Yanukovich
Crimea 78.24%
Donetsk region 90.44%
Luhansk region 88.96%

After the coup it's no wonder Crimea upped it's percentages to the 90's thus immitating
the pluraity of Donetsk & Luhansk the 2 breakaway provinces. By the way there are other
eastern regions with strong Russian ties maybe they eventually will rise up against the Kiev Junta
Kharkiv region 71.35%
Zaporizhzhia region 71.50%
Odesa region 74.14%
Mykolaiv region 71.53%

In western Ukraine the voting was strikingly different with Tymoshenko who opposed Russian influence
receiving equally dominant support:

Volyn region 81.85%
Ivano-Frankivsk region 88.89%
Lviv region 86.20%
Ternopil region 88.39%

This so-called country is as split as the US was in 1861, Russia & Putin didn't influence
the last legit election in Ukraine nor the Crimean referendum after the disastrous
for Ukraine Kiev Maidan. Anyone with a rudemntary application of common sense should accept that.
In every Uke election since nominal independence in the 90's except 1,
the Russian leaning candidate won. How the Lviv element of Poles & Lithuanians managed control
even a piece of this mostly Slavic country is astonishing.

Apparently some think the Galician culture have to be the only culture allowed in Ukraine?

Click to expand...

I'd suppose that's nice stuff to anyone who inexplicably might be interested but it has nothing to do with the United States in 1861. Or in 2017.

In the present times Yankovich reneged on his campaign promise to sign an agreement already worked out to cooperate more with EU member states across a broad range of policies and programs the implementation of which would have propelled Ukraine even further past Russia in the vital matters of standard of living and quality of life. So envy and destruction are powerful factors as Putin demonstrated in Ukraine and as he continues to demonstrate.

Putin himself did moreover set the standard for Trump and his Make America Grate Again with Putin's own campaign to make Russia Grate Again. Anyone who sees a common ground to this vainglorious ego trip approach by each leader and each electorate is sitting comfortably in one of two trains barrelling along on the same track from oppposite directions. (Either that or youse are inside a Trojan Horse stamped with Made in Russia on its hind quarter.)

The post also fails to address Putin violating blatantly and shamelessly the 1994 Budapest Memorandum signed by Russia, Ukraine, UK, USA, to guarantee the borders of Ukraine in return for Ukraine giving over the massive nuclear arsenal it inherited after the collapse of the Russian Soviet Union. At the time, the Ukraine nuclear arsenal was the third largest of the world.

North Korea and Iran have taken categorical note of the shredding of the Budapest Memorandum. By Russia. Putin. The Budapest Memorandum dealt with the control and reduction of nuclear weapons and secure national borders as interrelated and inextricable. Russia turned around to tear up the Memorandum. This is a major point and development of the post Cold War international order and its implications are global and negative in the extreme to all efforts to contain nuclear weapons proliferation. Thanks singlehandedly to Vlad and to only Vlad. And Mother Russia.

It is also the first time since World War II that the borders of Europe have been changed by armed force...aggression to be ever more specific about it. Shamelessly so and by Putin. By Russia the mother. Putin has done nothing to earn his way out of condemnation and isolation for the malevolence displayed by him as leader of the Mother Russia.

Update on this thread. It has been enough for the FBI to look into this:

US investigating Flynn calls with Russian diplomat - CNNPolitics.com