President Donald J. Trump

[Meister_000]

The thing is, this doesn't pass the smell test.  If anyone has offered a reason the Russians would prefer a fairly unknown (in terms of policy) Trump to an incompetent, corrupt, easily played Hilary Clinton, I haven't heard it.

But since you post about this almost daily, surely you have an explanation.  Please share it - and try to be persuasive.

From the vault . . .

"A defector from the KGB, Yuri Bezmenov, gave a series of lectures on KGB recruitment strategies and precisely whom the organization targeted for recruitment by its officers.

To some it may come as a surprise that the KGB considered extremist leftists, communists, and so forth ill-suited to divulge the secrets the KGB wanted, or to gain the highest levels of government clearance. After the 1950s it was KGB policy to always try to recruit the highest level spies from circles that were unexpected; they specifically targeted Westerners from conservative ideological profiles. Bezmenov said: My KGB instructors specifically made a point. Never border with leftists. Forget about these political prostitutes. Aim higher. Try to get into wide circulation, established conservative media. The rich. Filthy rich movie makers. Intellectuals. So-called academic circles. Cynical egocentric people who can look into your eyes with an angelic expression and tell you a lie.

If there were ever a candidate for recruitment by hostile intelligence agency then Trump would be moved to the head of the class. When he came onto the political scene, FSB officers must have surely remembered this lesson about recruiting the rich, the egomaniacs, and the liars. The record is patently clear that Donald Trump misleads and deceives with impunity. Trump’s methodology of denial, deception, misdirection, tacit victim-blaming, and outright fabrication has come to permeate every aspect of his campaign. Trump has proven time and again he cannot keep the truth straight when it comes to claiming prestige and high level associates.

At the end of the year the political fact-checking group POLITIFACT categorized virtually everything the Trump campaign said in 2015 as “Lie of the Year.” It was bold and audacious to just let lies, innuendo, and fabrications be the main thrust in seizing a nomination, but it was a strategy the spies of the Kremlin could appreciate. To them, Trump would not only fit the bill of a potential asset, but he seemed to have adoptedâ€"or learned through guileâ€"the fundamental tenets of Russian psychological and information warfare’s “active measures”: Deny, Deceive, and Defeat.

In discussions with confidential sources, I have learned that the FSB still maintains the policies and techniques that have worked for over a century in recruiting agents to be unwitting suppliers of information. They will either find a willing asset who voluntarily works with them for personal, financial, or ideological reasons, or they will find a suitable candidate and “develop” him or her into a useful asset, whether that asset discovers his or her role. This is called an “unwitting” asset or agent.

When recruiting spies or other types of useful propaganda assets (which could include apologists, sympathizers, and even opponents) the officer is trained to observe and hone in on the personal and psychological flaw or flaws that make the asset vulnerable: flattery for the vain, cash to the indebted gambler, adventure for the thrill junkie, sex for the hideous; it is the officer’s job to size up the potential subject and make him or her eager to work for the officer. The skilled intelligence officer would have applied one of the universal agent recruitment evaluating tools on a potential recruit like Trump. The US government uses a system called MICE. It is an acronym used by the CIA which stands for Money, Ideology, Coercion (or Compromise), and Ego or Excitement.

Although a more in-depth alternative to this system called RASCLS (Reciprocation, Authority, Scarcity, Commitment/Consistency, Liking, Social proof) exists, we shall use MICE for this assessment. The FSB’s chief spy-recruiting officers assigned to the SVRâ€"the foreign intelligence collection directorate (or the GRU if it was military intelligence operation)â€"are trained to play to the desires of their potential assets. They watch carefully before ever making the approach. If the subject wants to feel important, then importance is stressed in all discussions. Money is an incredible inducement for a potential recruit.

Ego or Excitement (or both) is the last of the categories of basic recruitment. Bezmenov emphasized that there is an archetype of potential asset in the West that the service desired most of all â€" Egocentric narcissists, like Trump. “Ego-centric people who lack moral principlesâ€"who are either too greedy or who suffer from exaggerated self-importance. These are the people the KGB wants and finds easiest to recruit."

[Kidnostad3]

Rep. Mo Brooks: People who 'live good lives' should pay less for health insurance

"My understanding is that (the new proposal) will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool," Brooks said. "That helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they're healthy, they've done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now, those are the people--who've done things the right way--that are seeing their costs skyrocketing."

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/05/rep_mo_brooks_people_who_live.html

Yet another example of a clueless politician who thinks he can reduce Americans' healthcare needs to those who "lead good lives", or who've done things "the right way", and dole out care accordingly. The blame the victim game.

What about the hard-working, healthy-living 33 y/o mom of 2 young children dying of breast cancer? Perhaps he wants to lecture the person crippled in a car accident, or injured on the job about leading "a good life". My best friend is terrified of losing her health coverage because she developed a serious life-threatening heart condition from a virus which qualifies her as having a "a pre-existing condition". Prior to her illness she was a picture of health: a young, non-drinking, non-smoking, regular exercising, healthy-eating, low-maintenance poster child for the health insurance industry.

Indeed there are certain behaviors that we know hasten an early demise. But it sets a dangerous precedent if we allow our government to sit in judgement while writing healthcare policy, as Rep. Brooks has attempted to do. He should be held accountable by his constituents for his comments, and reminded that he works for them, not the other way around.

So, no penalty, or at least no incentive to change, for people with self destructive habits (alchoholics, drug users, chronically obese, and even smokers) that result in chronic diseases and injuries.  You as an ER nurse know damn well that their are plenty of people in that category that show up on a regular basis demanding care that have no intention of making a change in their lifestyles.  How about those that abuse the system such as hypochondriacs, malingerers and, in rarer cases those with Munhausen Syndrome, or Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.  How many new livers, boob jobs and sex change operations can we afford.  I have a cousin who did a residency in San Diego and he has some stories about this type of thing that are truly amazing.  I have no doubt that you could add to those stories.

Trump has stated that he will veto any bill that does not provide for people with preexistíng conditions.  Now you want to make everyone responsible for the medical care of the entire population to include, no doubt, even for those who are in this country illegally.  As usual you support anything and everything that's source is government largess and the only recommendation you have for covering the cost is to charge persons who are better off financially more for their healthcare.  That is confiscatory and unconstitutional but you obviously see it as necessary redistribution of wealth as any good socialist would.   

[NowhereInTime]

From the vault . . .

"A defector from the KGB, Yuri Bezmenov, gave a series of lectures on KGB recruitment strategies and precisely whom the organization targeted for recruitment by its officers.

To some it may come as a surprise that the KGB considered extremist leftists, communists, and so forth ill-suited to divulge the secrets the KGB wanted, or to gain the highest levels of government clearance. After the 1950s it was KGB policy to always try to recruit the highest level spies from circles that were unexpected; they specifically targeted Westerners from conservative ideological profiles. Bezmenov said: My KGB instructors specifically made a point. Never border with leftists. Forget about these political prostitutes. Aim higher. Try to get into wide circulation, established conservative media. The rich. Filthy rich movie makers. Intellectuals. So-called academic circles. Cynical egocentric people who can look into your eyes with an angelic expression and tell you a lie.

If there were ever a candidate for recruitment by hostile intelligence agency then Trump would be moved to the head of the class. When he came onto the political scene, FSB officers must have surely remembered this lesson about recruiting the rich, the egomaniacs, and the liars. The record is patently clear that Donald Trump misleads and deceives with impunity. Trump’s methodology of denial, deception, misdirection, tacit victim-blaming, and outright fabrication has come to permeate every aspect of his campaign. Trump has proven time and again he cannot keep the truth straight when it comes to claiming prestige and high level associates.

At the end of the year the political fact-checking group POLITIFACT categorized virtually everything the Trump campaign said in 2015 as “Lie of the Year.” It was bold and audacious to just let lies, innuendo, and fabrications be the main thrust in seizing a nomination, but it was a strategy the spies of the Kremlin could appreciate. To them, Trump would not only fit the bill of a potential asset, but he seemed to have adoptedâ€"or learned through guileâ€"the fundamental tenets of Russian psychological and information warfare’s “active measures”: Deny, Deceive, and Defeat.

In discussions with confidential sources, I have learned that the FSB still maintains the policies and techniques that have worked for over a century in recruiting agents to be unwitting suppliers of information. They will either find a willing asset who voluntarily works with them for personal, financial, or ideological reasons, or they will find a suitable candidate and “develop” him or her into a useful asset, whether that asset discovers his or her role. This is called an “unwitting” asset or agent.

When recruiting spies or other types of useful propaganda assets (which could include apologists, sympathizers, and even opponents) the officer is trained to observe and hone in on the personal and psychological flaw or flaws that make the asset vulnerable: flattery for the vain, cash to the indebted gambler, adventure for the thrill junkie, sex for the hideous; it is the officer’s job to size up the potential subject and make him or her eager to work for the officer. The skilled intelligence officer would have applied one of the universal agent recruitment evaluating tools on a potential recruit like Trump. The US government uses a system called MICE. It is an acronym used by the CIA which stands for Money, Ideology, Coercion (or Compromise), and Ego or Excitement.

Although a more in-depth alternative to this system called RASCLS (Reciprocation, Authority, Scarcity, Commitment/Consistency, Liking, Social proof) exists, we shall use MICE for this assessment. The FSB’s chief spy-recruiting officers assigned to the SVRâ€"the foreign intelligence collection directorate (or the GRU if it was military intelligence operation)â€"are trained to play to the desires of their potential assets. They watch carefully before ever making the approach. If the subject wants to feel important, then importance is stressed in all discussions. Money is an incredible inducement for a potential recruit.

Ego or Excitement (or both) is the last of the categories of basic recruitment. Bezmenov emphasized that there is an archetype of potential asset in the West that the service desired most of all â€" Egocentric narcissists, like Trump. “Ego-centric people who lack moral principlesâ€"who are either too greedy or who suffer from exaggerated self-importance. These are the people the KGB wants and finds easiest to recruit."

Now that you have thoroughly refuted Papes with a documented response that disembowels his assertion, he will ignore it and move on to some other tangential point of contention.

Papes still doesn't know Google exists.

[NowhereInTime]

For god's sakes, we've been over this. 

Amplify what benefits the ''progressives'' and Big Government in general, ignore and downplay anything that benefits anyone else or doesn't fit the narrative.  In other words, if it's not objective it's Fake News.  I would have thought mentioning this and providing examples of some of the different techniques 1000 times would have been plenty.

You have never substantiated your assertions with anything other than "Alinsky", or "Leftist McCarthyite".
DOCUMENT it for once you fraud.

But it was all likely dismissed and forgotten, because

...you never bothered to offer proof...

.. like I said - people decide in advance Big Media is fair, honest, and even handed, and simply aren't open to evidence to the contrary, - especially when it negatively affects what they've been told earlier that day about their pet issues.

You conveniently build in an excuse for your laziness and inability to persuade: you blame EVERYONE ELSE for having preconceived notions. This absolves your ineffective arguments though, in fact, its because your claims are myopic and baseless.

Obama said stupid stuff all the time -

That one time 'Bam did say: "Paper Boy, seems like a bright guy!"

Yeah, that was STUPID!

how often did any of it make the headlines, let alone weeks of headlines? 

This right here. Classic Paper Boy. Use unsubstantiated thesis as foundation for whiny assertion.

Evidence? He don't need no stinkin' evidence!

I'll grant you Obama is a lot more slick (especially when staying with the tele-prompter), but let's not pretend he didn't.  The guy stuttered badly at times, got facts wrong, mispronounced words, and lost his place. All. The. Time.  And regardless of speeches and tweets, his world view was wrong, and his policies sucked.

Soooo, this was yet another tangential assault to wholly invalidate Obama. Got it.

You Bukov soaked fraud.

[GravitySucks]

Look, BOTH OF YOU idiots. That Russia interfered with the 2016 Presidential Election is AGREED FACT, by *BOTH SIDES* OF THE ISLE and by *ALL* U.S. Intelligence Agencies. The only person in Washington DC who questions this FACT is Donald Trump. THAT is the only reason the topic arose again -- because of Trump's tweets.

The extent of conflicts-of-interest, misrepresentation (lies) or/and collusion with Russian "persons" by Trump or his personel has not yet been completely investigated, has hardly even begun, but that is a *separate and second* issue. It remains a FACT however that Russia interfered with the 2016 Presidential Election. PERIOD. If you are the "patriots" you claim to be, that should bother you a whole lot! That's not a partisan issue. Grow the fuck up, get some spine and some gray-matter too. Quickly please.

Define "interfere". From what I can tell the election happened as planned. All polling locations were open, votes were cast, results tallied and winner was announced. What interference kept that from happening?

I don't remember finding any broadcasts of "Radio Free America" dishing out propaganda on the radio.

I only remember the DNC collaborating with the MSM to ensure Trump got nominated since he would be so easy to beat. They got what they asked for and now you can't live with the results.

#MAGA

[NowhereInTime]

Define "interfere". From what I can tell the election happened as planned. All polling locations were open, votes were cast, results tallied and winner was announced. What interference kept that from happening?

I don't remember finding any broadcasts of "Radio Free America" dishing out propaganda on the radio.

I only remember the DNC collaborating with the MSM to ensure Trump got nominated since he would be so easy to beat. They got what they asked for and now you can't live with the results.

#MAGA

Then your memory is as faulty as your logic.

Even now, testimony is being given that Russia has (and continues to)  influenced the course of our democracy in nefarious ways (false news stories, coordinated hacks of private servers).

The fact that HRC was a lousy candidate riven with hubris is a big reason why she lost.  But far from the only reason. Russian involvement in our national affairs clearly (and quite possibly in coordination with the Trump campaign) is a large (threatening) reason.

The greater threat to our national security comes from the way Putin is (successfully) destabilizing western democracies by using false narratives and preying upon the insecurities of the conservative mind.

Grand juries have been impaneled to investigate coordination of campaign activity. This may lead nowhere, (as it did when grand juries subpoenaed HRC emails) but it does beg the question, why?

Mike "only the guilty seek immunity" Flynn is seeking immunity to tell his story. Carter ( Male 1) Page was recruited by and interacted with Russian intelligence ( the full extent to which we  do not know) & Paul ("campaign manager but barely associated with campaign") Manafort has retroactively registered as a foreign agent  ( in the employ of since deposed and discredited pro-Putin  President Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych). This, plus Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III's office meetings with Russian Ambassador  Kislyak (and now has to recuse himself from all Russia/ Trump matters) & Devin (Here Daddy!) Nunes' recent Bellgab-style clownshow resulting in his disgrace and recusal.

There is more "fire" in three months since Trump took office than in the years conservatives spent trying to find the vaguest puff of "smoke" about Benghazi! (piously rend shirt here) yet you would dismiss the machinations and skullduggery of an enemy power in our internal affairs because "what interference kept that from happening"?

Anything. Anything at all to "cut taxes". "Build a wall" "Law and order in our inner cities."

Even treason. Please reconsider.

[PB the Deplorable]

From the vault . . .

"A defector from the KGB, Yuri Bezmenov, gave a series of lectures on KGB recruitment strategies and precisely whom the organization targeted for recruitment by its officers.

To some it may come as a surprise that the KGB considered extremist leftists, communists, and so forth ill-suited to divulge the secrets the KGB wanted, or to gain the highest levels of government clearance. After the 1950s it was KGB policy to always try to recruit the highest level spies from circles that were unexpected; they specifically targeted Westerners from conservative ideological profiles. Bezmenov said: My KGB instructors specifically made a point. Never border with leftists. Forget about these political prostitutes. Aim higher. Try to get into wide circulation, established conservative media. The rich. Filthy rich movie makers. Intellectuals. So-called academic circles. Cynical egocentric people who can look into your eyes with an angelic expression and tell you a lie.

If there were ever a candidate for recruitment by hostile intelligence agency then Trump would be moved to the head of the class. When he came onto the political scene, FSB officers must have surely remembered this lesson about recruiting the rich, the egomaniacs, and the liars. The record is patently clear that Donald Trump misleads and deceives with impunity. Trump’s methodology of denial, deception, misdirection, tacit victim-blaming, and outright fabrication has come to permeate every aspect of his campaign. Trump has proven time and again he cannot keep the truth straight when it comes to claiming prestige and high level associates.

At the end of the year the political fact-checking group POLITIFACT categorized virtually everything the Trump campaign said in 2015 as “Lie of the Year.” It was bold and audacious to just let lies, innuendo, and fabrications be the main thrust in seizing a nomination, but it was a strategy the spies of the Kremlin could appreciate. To them, Trump would not only fit the bill of a potential asset, but he seemed to have adoptedâ€"or learned through guileâ€"the fundamental tenets of Russian psychological and information warfare’s “active measures”: Deny, Deceive, and Defeat.

In discussions with confidential sources, I have learned that the FSB still maintains the policies and techniques that have worked for over a century in recruiting agents to be unwitting suppliers of information. They will either find a willing asset who voluntarily works with them for personal, financial, or ideological reasons, or they will find a suitable candidate and “develop” him or her into a useful asset, whether that asset discovers his or her role. This is called an “unwitting” asset or agent.

When recruiting spies or other types of useful propaganda assets (which could include apologists, sympathizers, and even opponents) the officer is trained to observe and hone in on the personal and psychological flaw or flaws that make the asset vulnerable: flattery for the vain, cash to the indebted gambler, adventure for the thrill junkie, sex for the hideous; it is the officer’s job to size up the potential subject and make him or her eager to work for the officer. The skilled intelligence officer would have applied one of the universal agent recruitment evaluating tools on a potential recruit like Trump. The US government uses a system called MICE. It is an acronym used by the CIA which stands for Money, Ideology, Coercion (or Compromise), and Ego or Excitement.

Although a more in-depth alternative to this system called RASCLS (Reciprocation, Authority, Scarcity, Commitment/Consistency, Liking, Social proof) exists, we shall use MICE for this assessment. The FSB’s chief spy-recruiting officers assigned to the SVRâ€"the foreign intelligence collection directorate (or the GRU if it was military intelligence operation)â€"are trained to play to the desires of their potential assets. They watch carefully before ever making the approach. If the subject wants to feel important, then importance is stressed in all discussions. Money is an incredible inducement for a potential recruit.

Ego or Excitement (or both) is the last of the categories of basic recruitment. Bezmenov emphasized that there is an archetype of potential asset in the West that the service desired most of all â€" Egocentric narcissists, like Trump. “Ego-centric people who lack moral principlesâ€"who are either too greedy or who suffer from exaggerated self-importance. These are the people the KGB wants and finds easiest to recruit."

I guess you missed the part where I asked you to be persuasive. 

You do realize the Soviet Union fell, the secret files were opened, and it wasn't conservatives who were revealed to be spies, right?  It was people like Alger Hiss who had been suspected all along, and who the Fake News Media had denied was a spy for decades.  Which is why the stories were dropped and we don't hear very much about them.

It may well be true that conservatives were targeted.  The part about 'aiming higher' and preferring them to left-wing kooks certainly rings true.  It's just that the files don't show they were successful in recruiting them. 

The part that is accurate is using unwitting media outlets as conduits for propaganda and fake news.  The Soviets were experts at that.  This piece shows the mainstream media no longer needs outsiders to generate fake news for them, and it's no longer unwitting.

It's also quite correct they used Hollywood, academia, and certain intellectuals.  I've been telling you that all along.  Where this really goes off the rails is the author inserting Trump, then implying - with zero proof or evidence - that he's a Russian agent.  Turns out the whole piece was written in order to smear Trump, with no justification at all.   You want Fake News, this is a not particularity clever example.  But it doesn't have to be clever or well done to suck in the easily led idiots like you and NitWit.

Here are a few problems with the information in your post:

1) The comments that are claimed to have been made by a defector regarding the recruitment of Conservatives don't agree with what was found in the Soviet archives.
2) The information relates to the 1960s. 
3) The author of the piece claims to have confidential sources the FSB still uses the same techniques to recruit spies
4) The ''defector'' speaks of recruiting those who would come across as honest, the author goes on to talk about how dishonest Trump is and that everyone knows it
5) The author then states Trump would fit the profile of someone they would try to recruit

Do I have that about right?  Because if I do, thanks for showing how weak and absurd this whole 'Trump is a Russian asset' witch hunt is.

[PB the Deplorable]

You have never substantiated your assertions with anything other than "Alinsky", or "Leftist McCarthyite".
DOCUMENT it for once you fraud.

...you never bothered to offer proof...

I've provided example after example.  I get that you don't want to accept the fact that you've been lied to your whole life by the Left.

I don't usually bother linking articles or websites, because there aren't any everyone accepts, and the Fake News Media rarely screw up and publish the truth about themselves and their accomplices.  So I have to speak in general terms on certain issues, and debunk Fake News narratives on others.  You're angry because it has the ring of truth, and because you can't refute it other than with smears and name calling.

[PB the Deplorable]

Then your memory is as faulty as your logic.

Even now, testimony is being given that Russia has (and continues to)  influenced the course of our democracy in nefarious ways (false news stories, coordinated hacks of private servers).

The fact that HRC was a lousy candidate riven with hubris is a big reason why she lost.  But far from the only reason. Russian involvement in our national affairs clearly (and quite possibly in coordination with the Trump campaign) is a large (threatening) reason.

The greater threat to our national security comes from the way Putin is (successfully) destabilizing western democracies by using false narratives and preying upon the insecurities of the conservative mind.

Grand juries have been impaneled to investigate coordination of campaign activity. This may lead nowhere, (as it did when grand juries subpoenaed HRC emails) but it does beg the question, why?

Mike "only the guilty seek immunity" Flynn is seeking immunity to tell his story. Carter ( Male 1) Page was recruited by and interacted with Russian intelligence ( the full extent to which we  do not know) & Paul ("campaign manager but barely associated with campaign") Manafort has retroactively registered as a foreign agent  ( in the employ of since deposed and discredited pro-Putin  President Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych). This, plus Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III's office meetings with Russian Ambassador  Kislyak (and now has to recuse himself from all Russia/ Trump matters) & Devin (Here Daddy!) Nunes' recent Bellgab-style clownshow resulting in his disgrace and recusal.

There is more "fire" in three months since Trump took office than in the years conservatives spent trying to find the vaguest puff of "smoke" about Benghazi! (piously rend shirt here) yet you would dismiss the machinations and skullduggery of an enemy power in our internal affairs because "what interference kept that from happening"?

Anything. Anything at all to "cut taxes". "Build a wall" "Law and order in our inner cities."

Even treason. Please reconsider.

Yes, the Russians sow mischief around the world, and even try to destabilize the West.  Republicans and Conservatives have been telling the Libs this for a century, and until recently have been met with smears, name calling, and denial.  About time you woke up but you're a little late to be of much help.

We've been telling you the Clintons were crooks for decades.  After presenting her as a presidential candidate, you want to throw her under the bus because she lost.  Gee, thanks.

In a highly politicized environment, you feign shock and suspicion because someone wants immunity before testifying.  Like that's something new and unique.  You certainly seem to understand the reasons for this when it's some Democrat lowlife hack asking for immunity, but you want to portray it as evidence of guilt this time.  No one's buying it.

There is zero evidence at all Trump was in any way a Russian agent.  Just saying he was is laughable.  But here you are comparing that unfavorably to Hilary and Obama cowardly abandoning our people in Benghazi then lying about it.  Shameful.

[smccomas69]

Then your memory is as faulty as your logic.

Even now, testimony is being given that Russia has (and continues to)  influenced the course of our democracy in nefarious ways (false news stories, coordinated hacks of private servers).

The fact that HRC was a lousy candidate riven with hubris is a big reason why she lost.  But far from the only reason. Russian involvement in our national affairs clearly (and quite possibly in coordination with the Trump campaign) is a large (threatening) reason.

The greater threat to our national security comes from the way Putin is (successfully) destabilizing western democracies by using false narratives and preying upon the insecurities of the conservative mind.

Grand juries have been impaneled to investigate coordination of campaign activity. This may lead nowhere, (as it did when grand juries subpoenaed HRC emails) but it does beg the question, why?

Mike "only the guilty seek immunity" Flynn is seeking immunity to tell his story. Carter ( Male 1) Page was recruited by and interacted with Russian intelligence ( the full extent to which we  do not know) & Paul ("campaign manager but barely associated with campaign") Manafort has retroactively registered as a foreign agent  ( in the employ of since deposed and discredited pro-Putin  President Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych). This, plus Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III's office meetings with Russian Ambassador  Kislyak (and now has to recuse himself from all Russia/ Trump matters) & Devin (Here Daddy!) Nunes' recent Bellgab-style clownshow resulting in his disgrace and recusal.

There is more "fire" in three months since Trump took office than in the years conservatives spent trying to find the vaguest puff of "smoke" about Benghazi! (piously rend shirt here) yet you would dismiss the machinations and skullduggery of an enemy power in our internal affairs because "what interference kept that from happening"?

Anything. Anything at all to "cut taxes". "Build a wall" "Law and order in our inner cities."

Even treason. Please reconsider.

For the love of god serious.
Do the Russians try and hack our shit: Yes Do they want things beneficial to them: Yes
Do we try and hack there shit: Yes Do we want things beneficial to us: Yes

There are a plethora of instances where the previous administration blatantly attempted to influence elections to the point of sending MONEY over seas. Stop with the indignation and the but but the Russian's it is freaking embarrassing.

The FBI the FBI well yeah lets talk about that http://nypost.com/2017/05/01/fbi-translator-married-isis-terrorist-she-was-supposed-to-investigate-report/   

This FBI? This is an instance where the head lines do not do justice, the bitch had a top secret security clearance.

If there was anything to the coordination horse shit we would already know it. When President Trump said that the previous admin had "wire tapped" his shit every one got all indignant. Well they have been investigating every swinging dick around him BUT we are to believe they have not been watching him? Bullshit.   

[NowhereInTime]

I've provided example after example.  I get that you don't want to accept the fact that you've been lied to your whole life by the Left.

You provide assertion after assertion. For example, one of my all time favorites is when you asserted Obama's economic plan would drive interest rates through the roof, debase the dollar, and strip the dollar away as both a global currency and the world's  greatest reserve currency. Still waiting for this to happen, and nothing but crickets from you.

I don't usually bother linking articles or websites,

Try "never". I know you never strive for accuracy, but just this once...

...because there aren't any everyone accepts,

You mean sources like "out of your ass"? Yes, you're right. No one would accept that.

...and the Fake News Media rarely screw up and publish the truth about themselves and their accomplices.

Right. Then they end up as senior adviser to the President.

So I have to speak in general terms on certain issues,

Well how 'bout that! Papes justifies his laziness by blaming "fake news"!

...and debunk Fake News narratives on others.

You've debunked nothing and no one here. Ever.

You're angry because it has the ring of truth, and because you can't refute it other than with smears and name calling.

I'm angry that you've crawled out from under your rock to infect these threads with your half-ass, half-baked political positions and that feel no obligation to support any of them with facts.

[Dr. MD MD]

Then your memory is as faulty as your logic.

Even now, testimony is being given that Russia has (and continues to)  influenced the course of our democracy in nefarious ways (false news stories, coordinated hacks of private servers).

The fact that HRC was a lousy candidate riven with hubris is a big reason why she lost.  But far from the only reason. Russian involvement in our national affairs clearly (and quite possibly in coordination with the Trump campaign) is a large (threatening) reason.

The greater threat to our national security comes from the way Putin is (successfully) destabilizing western democracies by using false narratives and preying upon the insecurities of the conservative mind.

Grand juries have been impaneled to investigate coordination of campaign activity. This may lead nowhere, (as it did when grand juries subpoenaed HRC emails) but it does beg the question, why?

Mike "only the guilty seek immunity" Flynn is seeking immunity to tell his story. Carter ( Male 1) Page was recruited by and interacted with Russian intelligence ( the full extent to which we  do not know) & Paul ("campaign manager but barely associated with campaign") Manafort has retroactively registered as a foreign agent  ( in the employ of since deposed and discredited pro-Putin  President Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych). This, plus Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III's office meetings with Russian Ambassador  Kislyak (and now has to recuse himself from all Russia/ Trump matters) & Devin (Here Daddy!) Nunes' recent Bellgab-style clownshow resulting in his disgrace and recusal.

There is more "fire" in three months since Trump took office than in the years conservatives spent trying to find the vaguest puff of "smoke" about Benghazi! (piously rend shirt here) yet you would dismiss the machinations and skullduggery of an enemy power in our internal affairs because "what interference kept that from happening"?

Anything. Anything at all to "cut taxes". "Build a wall" "Law and order in our inner cities."

Even treason. Please reconsider.

Someone's got a case of the vapors...or they just started drinking as soon as they hauled their pathetic carcass out of bed. 

[smccomas69]

I guess you missed the part where I asked you to be persuasive. 

You do realize the Soviet Union fell, the secret files were opened, and it wasn't conservatives who were revealed to be spies, right?  It was people like Alger Hiss who had been suspected all along, and who the Fake News Media had denied was a spy for decades.  Which is why the stories were dropped and we don't hear very much about them.

It may well be true that conservatives were targeted.  The part about 'aiming higher' and preferring them to left-wing kooks certainly rings true.  It's just that the files don't show they were successful in recruiting them. 

The part that is accurate is using unwitting media outlets as conduits for propaganda and fake news.  The Soviets were experts at that.  This piece shows the mainstream media no longer needs outsiders to generate fake news for them, and it's no longer unwitting.

It's also quite correct they used Hollywood, academia, and certain intellectuals.  I've been telling you that all along.  Where this really goes off the rails is the author inserting Trump, then implying - with zero proof or evidence - that he's a Russian agent.  Turns out the whole piece was written in order to smear Trump, with no justification at all.   You want Fake News, this is a not particularity clever example.  But it doesn't have to be clever or well done to suck in the easily led idiots like you and NitWit.

Here are a few problems with the information in your post:

1) The comments that are claimed to have been made by a defector regarding the recruitment of Conservatives don't agree with what was found in the Soviet archives.
2) The information relates to the 1960s. 
3) The author of the piece claims to have confidential sources the FSB still uses the same techniques to recruit spies
4) The ''defector'' speaks of recruiting those who would come across as honest, the author goes on to talk about how dishonest Trump is and that everyone knows it
5) The author then states Trump would fit the profile of someone they would try to recruit

Do I have that about right?  Because if I do, thanks for showing how weak and absurd this whole 'Trump is a Russian asset' witch hunt is.

I think what you are talking about is the Venona project

[smccomas69]

Someone's got a case of the vapors...or they just started drinking as soon as they hauled their pathetic carcass out of bed. 

Can not drink all day unless you start in the morning, true story.

[NowhereInTime]

If there was anything to the coordination horse shit we would already know it.

Really? With an ongoing investigation that has already revealed lies by Manafort, Flynn, Page, and Sessions? Because yes, they're not at all impeding or obstructing the infestigation. Your assertion is without merit.

When President Trump said that the previous admin had "wire tapped" his shit every one got all indignant. Well they have been investigating every swinging dick around him BUT we are to believe they have not been watching him? Bullshit.

You conflate two issues:

One, Trump's tweet clearly stated that Obama ordered invasive surveillance of Trump Tower (let's be kind and not get myopic about "wiretapping"). Obama never had (indeed Trump does not have) the authority to order any such surveillance. It is undisputed Trump was wrong about this claim.

Two, it does turn out that at least the FBI (possibly other law enforcement) persued a FISA court warrant to track correspondence between servers in Trump Tower and Moscow. FBI Director James Comey confirmed today that there continues to be an investigation into Russian involvement in the election and collusion with the Trump campaign.

You might want to repack your indignation and save it for the big reveal.

[PB the Deplorable]

You provide assertion after assertion. For example, one of my all time favorites is when you asserted Obama's economic plan would drive interest rates through the roof, debase the dollar, and strip the dollar away as both a global currency and the world's  greatest reserve currency. Still waiting for this to happen, and nothing but crickets from you...

Our nation, currency, and economy are strong.  But if you think we can have trillion dollar plus annual deficits, $20 trillion national debt outstanding, and $150 trillion plus in unfunded liabilities - at the federal level alone, never mind the states, counties, cities, and water/school/park/fire/etc districts - and avoid complete disaster, well, keep dreaming.

No one said the collapse would come on Obama's watch, but since half the debt was accumulated under his regime - with nothing to show for it - he will deserve much of the blame.  And you know it

[NowhereInTime]

Someone's got a case of the vapors...or they just started drinking as soon as they hauled their pathetic carcass out of bed. 

Great. Precious oxygen wasted supplying you with breath.

[NowhereInTime]

Our nation, currency, and economy are strong.  But if you think we can have trillion dollar plus annual deficits, $20 trillion national debt outstanding, and $150 trillion plus in unfunded liabilities - at the federal level alone, never mind the states, counties, cities, and water/school/park/fire/etc districts - and avoid complete disaster, well, keep dreaming.

No one said the collapse would come on Obama's watch, but since half the debt was accumulated under his regime - with nothing to show for it - he will deserve much of the blame.  And you know it

Revisionist bullshit, Papes.

And you know it.

[Dr. MD MD]

Great. Precious oxygen wasted supplying you with breath.

Yep! I'm trying to use up as much of yours as I can. You don't need it anyway. You just need booze and plenty of it to fuel your paranoid Russia fantasies. I bet in your mind you're a real James Bond type of guy. 

[PB the Deplorable]

And you know it.

 

[The King of Kings]

Great. Precious oxygen wasted supplying you with breath.

Actually oxygen is an abundant element in our atmosphere.

*The more you know....

[The King of Kings]

Is it weird to think that the dog looks more attractive than "Mike" Obama?

[Dr. MD MD]

So, is pud on vacation or what? 

[Billy Joe Mulgreavey]

So, is pud on vacation or what? 

Maybe he got busted for spreading his toast (done on one side) butter with a plastic knife.

[The King of Kings]

So, is pud on vacation or what? 

I think Pud's wife's Arab Muslim bull grounded him from bellgab because Pud was praying in the wrong direction towards Mecca.

[Dr. MD MD]

I think Pud's wife's Arab Muslim bull grounded him from bellgab because Pud was praying in the wrong direction towards Mecca.

Silly twit! He should know better than that. I just hope that Britain is able to make it up to the Muslim community...one day. 

[Juan]

Pud is obviously busy applying for the government permits now required to prepare a rare hamburger.

[mikuthing01]

So, is pud on vacation or what? 

Hard times at the Pud residence I heard from his wifes son that he could not afford the Internet license this month after paying his Refugee resettlement tax.

[smccomas69]

Maybe he got busted for spreading his toast (done on one side) butter with a plastic knife.

Man I hope not

[PB the Deplorable]

From the vault . . .

"A defector from the KGB, Yuri Bezmenov, gave a series of lectures on KGB recruitment strategies and precisely whom the organization targeted for recruitment by its officers.

To some it may come as a surprise that the KGB considered extremist leftists, communists, and so forth ill-suited to divulge the secrets the KGB wanted, or to gain the highest levels of government clearance. After the 1950s it was KGB policy to always try to recruit the highest level spies from circles that were unexpected; they specifically targeted Westerners from conservative ideological profiles. Bezmenov said: My KGB instructors specifically made a point. Never border with leftists. Forget about these political prostitutes. Aim higher. Try to get into wide circulation, established conservative media. The rich. Filthy rich movie makers. Intellectuals. So-called academic circles. Cynical egocentric people who can look into your eyes with an angelic expression and tell you a lie.

If there were ever a candidate for recruitment by hostile intelligence agency then Trump would be moved to the head of the class. When he came onto the political scene, FSB officers must have surely remembered this lesson about recruiting the rich, the egomaniacs, and the liars. The record is patently clear that Donald Trump misleads and deceives with impunity. Trump’s methodology of denial, deception, misdirection, tacit victim-blaming, and outright fabrication has come to permeate every aspect of his campaign. Trump has proven time and again he cannot keep the truth straight when it comes to claiming prestige and high level associates.

At the end of the year the political fact-checking group POLITIFACT categorized virtually everything the Trump campaign said in 2015 as “Lie of the Year.” It was bold and audacious to just let lies, innuendo, and fabrications be the main thrust in seizing a nomination, but it was a strategy the spies of the Kremlin could appreciate. To them, Trump would not only fit the bill of a potential asset, but he seemed to have adoptedâ€"or learned through guileâ€"the fundamental tenets of Russian psychological and information warfare’s “active measures”: Deny, Deceive, and Defeat.

In discussions with confidential sources, I have learned that the FSB still maintains the policies and techniques that have worked for over a century in recruiting agents to be unwitting suppliers of information. They will either find a willing asset who voluntarily works with them for personal, financial, or ideological reasons, or they will find a suitable candidate and “develop” him or her into a useful asset, whether that asset discovers his or her role. This is called an “unwitting” asset or agent.

When recruiting spies or other types of useful propaganda assets (which could include apologists, sympathizers, and even opponents) the officer is trained to observe and hone in on the personal and psychological flaw or flaws that make the asset vulnerable: flattery for the vain, cash to the indebted gambler, adventure for the thrill junkie, sex for the hideous; it is the officer’s job to size up the potential subject and make him or her eager to work for the officer. The skilled intelligence officer would have applied one of the universal agent recruitment evaluating tools on a potential recruit like Trump. The US government uses a system called MICE. It is an acronym used by the CIA which stands for Money, Ideology, Coercion (or Compromise), and Ego or Excitement.

Although a more in-depth alternative to this system called RASCLS (Reciprocation, Authority, Scarcity, Commitment/Consistency, Liking, Social proof) exists, we shall use MICE for this assessment. The FSB’s chief spy-recruiting officers assigned to the SVRâ€"the foreign intelligence collection directorate (or the GRU if it was military intelligence operation)â€"are trained to play to the desires of their potential assets. They watch carefully before ever making the approach. If the subject wants to feel important, then importance is stressed in all discussions. Money is an incredible inducement for a potential recruit.

Ego or Excitement (or both) is the last of the categories of basic recruitment. Bezmenov emphasized that there is an archetype of potential asset in the West that the service desired most of all â€" Egocentric narcissists, like Trump. “Ego-centric people who lack moral principlesâ€"who are either too greedy or who suffer from exaggerated self-importance. These are the people the KGB wants and finds easiest to recruit."

Now that you have thoroughly refuted Papes with a documented response that disembowels his assertion, he will ignore it and move on to some other tangential point of contention.

Papes still doesn't know Google exists.

I just have to come back to this again.  This is exactly what I mean when I say people like NITwit and Miser OOO are easily led and have their thinking done for them by others. 

That the author could so easily lay out selected comments from a ''KGB defector'', then simply insert Trump's name and say he fits the comments and thus must be working for the Russians is stunning.  Talk about Fake News.  Editors doing their jobs be damned, as long as it fits the current narrative Big Media is pushing.  That someone would take this piece as fact and post it as ''proof'' is jaw-dropping.  Truly.  And these are the people who smugly roll out the term ''critical thinking'' and apply it to themselves. 

That NITwit jumped in right after and proclaimed it as documented truth demonstrates his level as well.