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Doctors from TX attending Kavanaugh hearing saw ‘protesters’ being paid cash for planned disruption
shermann7: Absolutely disagree! Are you considering the employer part of social security of 7.65% for a total of 13.85% per employee per year? The self-employed part 12.4%? The amount of social security withheld for 200,000 income would be $27,700 per year.
That would equal approximately 10 years of the maximum paid social security benefits of $2,788. Nice ponsi-scheme retirement plan. It would hurt employee wages, small businesses, and self-employed. If you want to raise taxes then raise taxes, don't call it a retirement plan. Social security used to be for retirement, now it should be called a federal income tax. I think you may be coming down with a touch of liberal disease.
Thanks, crazy horse. I found the complete interview. If you watched part 1, the rest of the interview starts at approximately 13:45.
Analysis of the Modern Liberal Mind - Shelby Steele & Mark Levin
Author Shelby Steele on race relations, equality in America. Mark Levin interview.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5809625503001/?#sp=show-clips
cjstocksup: Mark Levin was on Hannity tonight on Fox news.
Now, that was funny! Thanks!
Stephen Cohen on the Hysterical Reaction to the Trump-Putin Summit
back2basics, The article addresses America's fault for poor relations with Russia for at least the prior eight years.
The article doesn't seem to address America's fault for poor relations with Russia.
back2basics, Here are some examples of mistakes the west has made concerning Russia.
Does anyone have any thoughts about where Trump thought the US was at fault?
Don’t rehabilitate Obama on Russia
Benjamin Haddad and Alina Polyakova
Monday, March 5, 2018
Editor's Note: We should not slip into collective amnesia over the Obama administration’s weak and underwhelming response to Russian aggression, argue Benjamin Haddad and Alina Polyakova. This piece originally appeared in The American Interest.
Last week, President Trump, pushing back against persistent accusations of collusion, ignited yet another controversy on Twitter by
claiming he had been “much tougher on Russia” than President Obama. The White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doubled down on those comments by
saying that President Trump “has been tougher on Russia in the first year than Obama was in eight years combined.” This comment was widely ridiculed in the media; CNN ran one of its cheeky fact-checking chyrons: “He isn’t.”
Authors
B
Benjamin Haddad
Research Fellow - Hudson Institute
Alina Polyakova, David M. Rubenstein Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe, The Brookings Institution
Alina Polyakova
David M. Rubenstein Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe
apolyakova
Not so fast.
Whatever the results of the Mueller investigation, the Special Counsel’s bombshell indictment last week erased any doubts about the reality of Russian interference in the U.S. elections. This attack deserves a strong and decisive response. And beyond that, much
still needs to be done to shore up our vulnerabilities ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. American citizens of all political persuasions ought to be concerned that their president, focused on preserving his own electoral legitimacy, has appeared largely complacent in the face of such brazen provocations. The fact that Trump, as candidate and then as president, has consistently heaped praised on Russian President Vladimir Putin is peculiar, to say the least.
Throughout his presidency, Obama consistently underestimated the challenge posed by Putin’s regime.
But not everything is relative; we should not slip into collective amnesia over the Obama administration’s weak and underwhelming response to Russian aggression. Throughout his presidency, Obama consistently underestimated the challenge posed by Putin’s regime. His foreign policy was firmly grounded in the premise that Russia was not a national security threat to the United States. In 2012, Obama disparaged Mitt Romney for exaggerating the Russian threat—“the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Obama
quipped. This breezy attitude prevailed even as Russia annexed Crimea, invaded eastern Ukraine, intervened in Syria, and hacked the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Obama’s response during these critical moments was cautious at best, and deeply misguided at worst. Even the imposition of sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine was accompanied by so much propitiation and restraint elsewhere that it didn’t deter Russia from subsequent aggression, including the risky 2016 influence operation in the United States. Obama, confident that history was on America’s side, for the duration of his time in office underestimated the damaging impact Russia could achieve through asymmetric means.
Obama’s cautious Russia policy is grounded in three conceptual errors: a failure to grasp the true nature of the Russian threat, most clearly visible in his administration’s restrained response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014; a “long view” of historical trends which in his view inexorably “bent” toward liberalism; and the perception that formidable domestic political obstacles stood in his way when it came to crafting a response to Putin’s assault on the elections in 2016.
The Obama administration viewed Russia as a declining economy and, at best, a regional player and spoiler. According to a strict “spreadsheet” analysis of the situation, this was not a crazy read. Despite its sprawling geographic reach, Russia’s GDP is roughly that of Spain (about $1.2 trillion); it contributes less than 1.5 percent to global GDP, compared to the U.S.’ 25 percent. Without a jump in oil prices to shore up its petrostate model, Russia’s economic outlook looks grim. Furthermore, Russia’s population is literally disappearing: the country is facing major demographic challenges due to declining birth rates, low life expectancy (especially for men), and emigration. And while Russia is still a nuclear superpower, its military is no match for the United States and NATO. For all these reasons, the Obama administration concluded that, despite divergent views on international order, Moscow could still be a potential (junior) partner on areas of mutual interest. This set of beliefs proved incredibly sticky despite Russian actions that should have set off alarm bells.
Related Content
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends an exhibition on information technology as he visits the company ER-Telecom Holding in Perm, Russia September 8, 2017. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS
Cybersecurity
The future of political warfare: Russia, the West, and the coming age of global digital competition
Alina Polyakova and Spencer Phipps Boyer
March 2018
Obama’s much-ballyhooed “Reset” with Russia, launched in 2009, was
in keeping with optimistic attempts by every post-Cold War American administration to improve relations with Moscow out of the gate. Seizing on the supposed change of leadership in Russia, with Dmitry Medvedev temporarily taking over the presidency from Vladimir Putin, Obama’s team quickly turned a blind eye to Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia, which in retrospect was Putin’s opening move in destabilizing the European order. Like George W. Bush before him, Obama vastly overestimated the extent to which a personal relationship with a Russian leader could affect the bilateral relationship. U.S.-Russia disagreements were not the result of misunderstandings, but rather the product of long-festering grievances. Russia saw itself as a great power that deserved equal standing with the U.S. What Obama saw as gestures of good will—such as the 2009
decision to scrap missile defense plans for Poland and the Czech Republic—Russia interpreted as a U.S. retreat from the European continent. Moscow pocketed the concessions and increasingly inserted itself in European affairs. The Kremlin was both exploiting an easy opportunity and reasserting what it thought was its historic prerogative.
Though Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was the final nail in the coffin of the Reset, President Obama remained reluctant to view Moscow as anything more than a local spoiler, and thought the whole mess was best handled by Europeans. France and Germany spearheaded the Minsk ceasefire process in 2014-2015, with U.S. support but without Washington at the table. The Obama administration did coordinate a far-ranging sanctions policy with the European Union—an important diplomatic achievement, to be sure. But to date, the sanctions have only had a middling effect on the Russian economy as a whole (oil and gas prices have hurt much more). And given that sanctions cut both ways—potential value is destroyed on both sides when economic activity is systematically prohibited—most of the sacrifice was (and continues to be) born by European economies, which have longstanding ties to Russia. In contrast, the costs of a robust sanctions policy have been comparatively minor in the United States; Obama spent little political capital to push them through at home.
A soldier stands guard near a tank position close to the Russian border near the Ukranian city of Kharkiv March 24, 2014. REUTERS/Dmitry Neymyrok (UKRAINE - Tags: POLITICS MILITARY) - GM1EA3P010O01
A soldier stands guard near a tank position close to the Russian border near the Ukranian city of Kharkiv March 24, 2014. REUTERS/Dmitry Neymyrok.
The Obama administration also sought to shore up NATO’s eastern flank through the European Reassurance Initiative (ERI), which stationed rotating troops in Poland and the Baltics while
increasing the budget for U.S. support. Nevertheless, the president
resisted calls from Congress, foreign policy experts, and his own cabinet to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine that would have raised the costs on Russia and helped Kyiv defend itself against Russian military incursion into the Donbas. As Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg, he viewed any deterrent moves by the United States as fundamentally not credible, because Russia’s interests clearly trumped our own; it was clear to him they would go to war much more readily that the United States ever would, and thus they had escalatory dominance. Doing more simply made no sense to Obama.
This timid realpolitik was mixed up with a healthy dose of disdain. Obama
dismissed Russia as a “regional power” that was acting out of weakness in Ukraine. “The fact that Russia felt it had to go in militarily and lay bare these violations of international law indicates less influence, not more,” Obama said at the G7 meeting in 2014. This line has not aged well. Obama’s attitudes on Russia reflected his administration’s broadly teleological, progressive outlook on history. Russia’s territorial conquest “
belonged in the 19th century.” The advance of globalization, technological innovation, and trade rendered such aggression both self-defeating and anachronistic. The biggest mistake for America would be to overreact to such petty, parochial challenges. The 2015 National Security Strategy favored “strategic patience”. But was it patience… or passivity? As its actions in 2016 proved, Russia is very much a 21st century power that understands how to avail itself of the modern tools available to it, often much better than we do ourselves.
The same intellectual tendencies that shaped Obama’s timid approach to Ukraine were reflected in his administration’s restrained response as evidence of Russian electoral interference began to emerge in the summer of 2016. Starting in June, intelligence agencies began reporting that Russian-linked groups hacked into DNC servers, gained access to emails from senior Clinton campaign operatives, and were working in coordination with WikiLeaks and a front site called DCLeaks to strategically release this information throughout the campaign cycle. By August, Obama had received a highly classified file from the CIA detailing Putin’s personal involvement in covert influence operations to discredit the Clinton campaign and disrupt the U.S. presidential elections in favor of her opponent, Donald Trump. That fall through to his departure from the White House, the president and his key advisers struggled to find an appropriate response to the crime of the century. But out of all the possible options, which included a cyber offensive on Russia and ratcheted up sanctions, the policy that was adopted in the final months of Obama’s term was, characteristically, cautious. Obama approved additional narrow sanctions against Russian targets, expelled 35 Russian diplomats, and shut down two Russian government compounds.
It’s true that Obama faced a difficult political environment that constrained his ability to take tougher measures. Republican opponents would have surely decried any loud protests as a form of election meddling on Hillary Clinton’s behalf. Donald Trump was already flogging the narrative that the elections were rigged against him. And anyway, Clinton seemed destined to win; she would tend to the Russians in her own time, the thinking went.
But just as with the decision to not provide weapons to Ukraine, the Obama administration also fretted about provoking Russia into taking even more drastic steps, such as hacking the voting systems or a cyber attack on critical infrastructure. In the end, the administration’s worries proved to be paralyzing. “I feel like we sort of choked,” one Obama administration official
told the Washington Post.
Much ink has been spilled over President Trump’s effusive praise for Putin and his brutal regime. “You think our country’s so innocent?” candidate Trump famously
replied to an interviewer listing the many human rights abuses of Putin’s Russia, including the harassment and murder of journalists. Obama, on the other hand, never had any ideological or psychological sympathy for Putin or Putinism. By the end of his second term, the two men were barely on speaking terms, the iciness of their encounters in full public view. For most of Obama’s two terms, however, this personal animosity did not translate into tougher policies.
For most of Obama’s two terms…this personal animosity did not translate into tougher policies.
Has the Trump administration been tougher on Russia than Obama, as the president claims? Trump’s own boasting feels like a stretch, especially given how he seems to have gone out of his way to both disparage NATO and praise Putin during the course of his first year in office. Still, many of his administration’s good policies have been obscured by the politics of the Mueller investigation and the incessant furor kicked up by the president’s tweets. As Tom Wright has
noted, the Trump administration seems to pursue two policy tracks at the same time: the narrow nationalism of the president’s inflammatory rhetoric openly clashing with the seriousness of his administration’s official policy decisions.
These tensions are real, but all too often they become the story. Glossed over is the fact that President Trump has appointed a string of competent and widely respected figures to manage Russia policy—from National Security Council Senior Director Fiona Hill to Assistant Secretary of State for European affairs Wess Mitchell to the Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker. The Trump administration is, in fact, pursuing concrete policies pushing back on Russian aggression that the Obama administration had fervently opposed. The National Security Strategy of 2017, bringing a much-needed dose of realism to a conversation too often dominated by abstractions like the “liberal world order”, singles out both China and Russia as key geopolitical rivals. During Trump’s first year, the administration approved the provision of lethal weapons to Ukraine, shut down Russia’s consulate in San Francisco as well as two additional diplomatic annexes, and rather than rolling back sanctions, Trump signed into law additional sanctions on Russia, expanded LNG sales to a Europe dependent in Russian gas imports, and increased the Pentagon’s European Reassurance Initiative budget by 40 percent. (A president who berated U.S. investments for European defense has actually dramatically increased American military presence on Europe’s threatened borders.) While many of these policies may have been implemented despite rather than because of the president—on the expansion of sanctions in particular, Trump faced a veto-proof majority in Congress—credit should be given where credit is due.
Related Books
Mr. Putin
By Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy
2015
The Trump administration’s sober policy decisions should not excuse the president’s praise for Vladimir Putin, nor his reckless undermining of America’s stated commitment to enforcing Article 5 during his first speech in front of NATO. But the fact remains that the U.S. is taking concrete steps to strengthen Europe against Russian aggression. And let’s not be coy about it: if the president’s strident complaining about unequal burden-sharing in NATO finally snaps European allies out of their complacency and helps spur military investment on the continent, this won’t be good news for Russia either. Indeed, he will have succeeded in moving the needle on an issue that has frustrated every one of his predecessors since 1989. Has Trump’s bluster, especially on Article 5, been cost-free? Hardly. Nevertheless, talking to diplomats around town suggests that after initial months of uneasiness, most Europeans have learned to deal with the Trump administration in a dispassionate and pragmatic manner that stands in stark relief with much of the hysteria that passes for commentary in the U.S.
Each administration should be judged on what it has achieved. At the end of the Obama’s two terms, Putin had elevated Russia to a credible revisionist power on the international stage. Russia annexed Crimea and occupied much of Eastern Ukraine; by successfully propping up the degenerate Assad regime, the Kremlin gained a veto on any possible political solution to Syria, and got a meaningful foothold in the broader region for the first time since Sadat threw Soviet advisors out; and its populist allies and fellow-travelers were on the rise in Europe, fueling both anti-Americanism and illiberalism; and most damning of all, it managed to meddle, almost unopposed, in U.S. politics—all on Obama’s watch.
There is plenty left to criticize in how the Trump administration has done things in its first year. The Trump administration’s apparent unwillingness to take steps to deter hostile foreign powers from meddling in American politics is inexcusably irresponsible. And in the Middle East, the Trump administration seems hell-bent on following Obama’s myopic policy of retreat and narrow preoccupation with fighting ISIS to the exclusion of all else. But despite the president’s campaign promises, his administration has been the first in the post-Cold War era to not try for a “Reset” with Moscow. If Vladimir Putin wanted to sow chaos and confusion in Washington, he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. If he wanted a pliant ally in America, he has abjectly failed.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/03/05/dont-rehabilitate-obama-on-russia/
Mark Levin to the MEDIA "WE'VE GOT SOME REAL PSYCHOPATHS OUT THERE!"
Link:
cjstockup, here is the link.
Putin, in Fox News interview, denies having dirt on Trump, calls meddling charge 'utterly ridiculous'
Here is the link: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/07/16/putin-in-fox-news-interview-denies-having-dirt-on-trump-calls-meddling-charge-utterly-ridiculous.html
Fmr. Attorney General Michael Mukasey
Very interesting theory about why Clinton emails hacked toward end of video.
Fmr. Attorney General Michael Mukasey: "If the point is to rain on @POTUS's parade and Mr. Putin's parade, that may be a laudable thing to do... But that's not Mueller's function." #Cavuto pic.twitter.com/ZYsnz0PtJm
— Neil Cavuto (@TeamCavuto) July 14, 2018
What do you have against a girl trying to make a buck? Are you trying to start a war on women? I think your google search was a little off. Keep trying!
Keep going. You're getting closer. You can do it. See how much fun it is to learm.
Yours must be non-existing.
It's called Google.
Again you're the dumb ass. Not suppose to touch the queen.
You should be the one embarrassed. If you follow the thread back, you are the first to bring up Clinton's emails. I was discussing the FBI's access to the DNC server. Or maybe you don't understand the difference.
and that is significant to trump's collusion with russia how?
you are embarrassing yourself with the constant hillary email deflection.
Trump was smart enough to defeat 16 republican candidates and 1 democrat candidate to become President of the United States of America. Not too shabby.
And don't be surprised if those missing Clinton emails aren't on a CD sitting in Putin's, Xi Jinping's , or Kim Jong Un's, desk drawer. It doesn't appear the Dems are very good at cyber security.
DesertDrifter: Yeah, usually someone colluding or breaking the law, don't do so so openly in public or yell it from a mountain top.
yadda yadda yadda, hillary's emails. how about trump's collusion when he asked the russians to hack the dnc and they did, the very same day? got a spin on that?
DesertDrifter, I have not found any instances documenting the FBI ever gained access to the servers. Comey explained, in the link I provided, that the FBI was not allowed access to the servers. The information provided in the indictments would only be discernible with forensic access to the servers.
They are the best and competent at what they do. For you and your kind to question their competency is basically just smokescreen for trying to discredit mueller to protect your fuehrer. Did you think your gang of fools did a great job on strzok yesterday? They were SNL-level incapable of even pulling off their charade. And got their heads handed to them... in true republican fashion, they accomplished nothing but making themselves look stupid.
I hope the FBI isn't handing out indictments based soley on hearsay evidence and findings provided by a private firm associated with the DNC.
Trump: Why didn't DNC hand over hacked server to FBI?
By Jacqueline Thomsen - 05/20/18 10:24 AM EDT
President Trump went after Democrats in a pair of tweets Sunday morning, questioning why the Democratic National Committee (DNC) didn’t hand over a hacked server to the FBI.
“What ever happened to the Server, at the center of so much Corruption, that the Democratic National Committee REFUSED to hand over to the hard charging (except in the case of Democrats) FBI?” Trump tweeted.
Then-FBI Director James Comey said last year that the DNC had denied the bureau’s requests to examine the breached servers.
Comey said at the time that the FBI and DNC agreed to let a private firm access the servers and share the findings with investigators.
Trump also targeted Tony Podesta, a longtime D.C. lobbyist who left his firm last year, asking why he hasn’t “been charged and arrested.”
“Is it because he is a VERY well connected Democrat working in the Swamp of Washington, D.C.?” the president tweeted.
Podesta, whose brother, John Podesta, led Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, left the lobbying firm he founded after special counsel Robert Mueller reportedly began investigating the lobbyist and Podesta Group.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/388507-trump-why-didnt-dnc-hand-over-hacked-server-to-fbi
That's good to know. My Dad hated the VA hospital close to him.
I am a 70 year old vet. I could use my Medicare Card and go to a local hospital, but I prefer going to my VA clinic and the VA Hospital, when practicable. They have always treated me courteously and with respect. They have good doctors and a caring staff. Nothing wrong with the VA in my neck of the woods (Northern Michigan).
Doesn't appear I am the one sweating. What about all the American citizens having their babies ripped away when they break the law every day? I thought you liberals/progressives/quacks like criminals.
Quite frankly, I could care less if you have a good night and I hope your dreams are filled with screaming Trump babies being ripped away from their mamas.
Suffer in sweat!
Oh, sugar. The format won't change the truth. Good, night!
Since I find your formatting too annoying to follow, I won't even bother to engage you. Go pester someone else.
My goodness you are uninformed.
Now you're just being funny! Referencing the constitution, I would argue the snow plows are more socialist than our service personnel's medical care.
So is paying government employees socialism?
That has nothing to do with the VA. Snow plows may be run by the government, but that doesn’t make them socialist.
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought all the scandals were with the VA. I'm glad Obama didn't cause any casualties in the real war in Afghanistan.
Bullshit!
Doctors say VA care is a model of efficiency
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2009/08/17/va-clinic-care
That is until another clueless republican, Bush, overwhelmed the system with his idiot and illegal wars.
So is paying government employees socialism?
I believe the VA should be abolished and all Vets allowed to be treated at the medical provider of their choice. The private sector is much more efficient and convenient.
What is paying government employees wages and benefits, called?
SoxFan: The simple fact is we don't need to breed nearly so much, due to your beloved judicial legislation. Where have all the liberals gone?
You voted for him so how could you say you don't support those things? Is this Alice in the looking glass? How could you vote for someone like that and say you have any values that remotely are American values? I only hope you didn't breed. We need people who ignore those issues in their elected representatives to die off sooner rather than later. You must be orgasmic about the separation of the children from their parents.
CDC reports nearly 44.5 million legal induced abortions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_United_States
arizona1: So you don't believe our veterans deserve health benefits for their service? In my opinion we as a country signed a contract with them to provide security for our country's citizens. Unbelievable! You probably spat on the Vietnam vets when they returned.
Give up your government VA benefits then. Lazy slacker.
arizona1: "The 2015 incident happened after Goodman had left Jordan’s office."
I'm surprised at your lack of outrage. This poor gay gentleman has rights. I didn't see any mention of his conviction for breaking any laws.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/former-jordan-staffer-and-protege-had-history-of-harassment-and-assault
I love America!
Believe me it's not gone.
Ok, So you shouldn't ask for secrets.
fuagf: Why is this so important to you? I really want to help. I know you are a foreigner and I don't know if I should give you this kind of information. I'm sorry to be so naive. I'm getting a little unconfortable.
CC Writer, out of consideration for anyone reading all this, and out of consideration
for the time you are wasting, why don't you just answer the question. Yes or no.
Or leave the conversation.
fuagf: Have you or arizona1 ever taken anything close to a college level logic course? My guess, no.
You're right. CC Writer, hasn't answered it yet. Curious to say the
least. I think his reluctance to suggests some element of guilt.
Not sure if he has left the conversation as was made clear he was always free to do.