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President Donald Trump disclosed highly classified information to Russia's foreign minister about a planned Islamic State operation, two U.S. officials said on Monday, plunging the White House into another controversy just months into Trump's short tenure in office.
The intelligence, shared at a meeting last week with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, was supplied by a U.S. ally in the fight against the militant group, both officials with knowledge of the situation said.
The White House declared the allegations, first reported by the Washington Post, incorrect.
[...] One of the officials said the intelligence discussed by Trump in his meeting with Lavrov was classified "Top Secret" and held in a secure "compartment" to which only a handful of intelligence officials have access.
After Trump's disclosure of the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with a number of allied intelligence services around the world, and informed them what had happened.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-idUSKCN18B2MX
Also at The Washington Post and The New York Times.
[Update.] According to Ars Technica, President Trump then proceeded to Tweet information about this meeting:
Statements from President Trump on Twitter and from White House National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster did not directly contradict details initially reported by the Washington Post late on Monday. McMaster said that no sources or methods were exposed in the conversation. However, the unnamed officials cited in the Post report were concerned that Trump's citing of the exact location "in the Islamic State’s territory where the US intelligence partner detected the threat" could expose the source. Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted:
As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
Trump also lashed out at the intelligence community for leaking about his actions:
I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:16PM (35 children)
That's not the issue here, IMHO.
The issue is whether or not he compromised any sources and/or methods [definedterm.com] by giving the intel to the Russians.
The risk is, of course, made worse because now *everyone* knows the basics of what was revealed to the Russians.
This could very well reveal how ISIS communications are being monitored, or even get people killed.
All in all, this is a cluster fuck for just about everyone (well, except the Russians and ISIS).
Good job, Cheeto Jesus! You're making us all so proud of you! Sigh.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:22PM (34 children)
I would once have agreed with you. When George W. Bush and Dick Cheney outed CIA officer Valerie Wilson to punish her husband, who was contradicting the narrative they were pushing to justify invading Iraq, namely that Saddam Hussein was trying to build nuclear weapons, I said that it was treasonous behavior and that they should be punished accordingly. But apparently I was the only one who thought that, because nobody else gave a fuck and were perfectly happy to invade a country we had already bottled up with sanctions, and which had nothing to do with 9/11.
So now I know that I'm the one who is wrong. Rule of law and the Constitution and treaties and rules and such do not matter. The President can do whatever he wants, anytime he wants, to whomever he wants, without repercussions. He can, say, order drones to assassinate American citizens from the air. He can give his three letter agencies a free pass to violate any part of the American Constitution or international law they like. He can fabricate and lie all he likes and nothing. will. ever. happen.
Next to that, sharing "classified" information with a foreign power is small potatoes. We're not supposed to get outraged about all the stuff that happened before, that I listed, but we're supposed to now scream bloody murder over this? Because?
Maybe it's because a portion of the audience are Millenials who have only come to political consciousness in the last 6 months, and who think that all significant history began at that moment, but this is merely the latest episode in a long trend.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Wednesday May 17 2017, @01:39PM (25 children)
You know Phoenix, you get more and more cynical every day.
It's kind of sad to watch.
I know a lot of people who were, have been and still are up in arms and screaming bloody murder about the abuses/excesses of the US Military/Intelligence/Political combine.
As I recall, *millions* protested in advance of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I happened to be out of the country during the largest protests (15 February, 2003) [wikipedia.org], and I saw many *thousands* marching in Amsterdam.
There were hundreds of thousands back home in New York [wikipedia.org] too. Where were you?
So if you've given up, fine. But don't paint all of us with your broad brush, just because you're frustrated.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:38PM (9 children)
I don't think Phoenix666 is any more cynical than I am. If he has given up, he's not the only one.
I don't believe our system can be fixed. Just watching and waiting for it to implode. I believe not only will the Trump administration spiral out of control, but the whole system will. Nobody with the means to fix it is going to step up and do so because party and pointing fingers is more important. And that applies equally to whichever party is in power.
How many times now have the people voted for a complete change of government? Bush senior to Clinton. Then Clinton to Bush. Then Bush to Obama. Then Obama to Trump. Have the core problems of corruption and the great wealth divide been fixed? Nope. At some point the people are going to realize that voting does nothing to change things. Heck, some congress people now openly disregard their constituents and are unwilling to hear from them. That sends a message loud and clear.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:29PM (1 child)
Horatius at the Bridge [bartleby.com] (fragment)
Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay (1800–1859)
For Romans in Rome’s quarrel
Spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life,
In the brave days of old.
Then none was for a party—
Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great;
Then lands were fairly portioned!
Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.
Now Roman is to Roman
More hateful than a foe,
And the tribunes beard the high,
And the fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction,
In battle we wax cold;
Wherefore men fight not as they fought
In the brave days of old.
So like the old Roman Empire, the U.S. of A. starts to decline... waxing hot in faction and all for the party, not for the state.
SAD
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:00PM
> So like the old Roman Empire, the U.S. of A. starts to decline... waxing hot in faction and all for the party, not for the state.
It was nice when we had the soviets to keep us focused.
A bunch of reactionary militants who don't even own a single fighter jet just isn't cutting it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:18PM (6 children)
How many times now have the people voted for a complete change of government? Bush senior to Clinton. Then Clinton to Bush. Then Bush to Obama. Then Obama to Trump.
Say whaaaa? Change? Where? They see-sawed between two factions of a single party. Real change would require dropping the reelection rate below 70%. And it will also require removal of the dem/rep monolith that is monopolizing the narrative so successfully.
All people have to do is be conscious when they vote. This automatic *one or the other* will just keep dragging us down.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:54PM (1 child)
Have you looked at either the Libertarian Party or the Greens? This last election convinced me that they were both as bad, or worse, then the Democrats, if not in quite the same way. I dislike the Republicans more because they don't give two shits about what happens to most people, where the Democrats at least make a half-hearted attempt to make things better, even if that's not their main interest. And a few Democrats actually seem to spend most of their time working for the public good...not the powerful ones, but some. (I haven't really followed Bernie Sanders. He might be OK, but he also doesn't have real hold of the levers of power.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @06:26PM
> Have you looked at either the Libertarian Party or the Greens?
The libertarians have a nazi problem. [twitter.com]
I gave Ron Paul a pass when he published those newsletters that had a couple of racist columns [washingtonpost.com] in them because he wasn't the author and they probably had a shoe-string budget which makes it easy for things slip by. But not any more. Combine that with the party being a tool of the Koch's [blogspot.com] and no thank you.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:54PM (3 children)
You correctly identify the problem, as I pointed it out. The people voted for change, because they believed it could happen. You and I point out that no change has happened. What you conclude should be obvious that we have a two headed monster that dominates the narrative and keeps the people divided. And divide is getting more bitter. At some point maybe even violent. I had suggested that maybe people might wake up and recognize their vote seems to change nothing.
It is a nice fantasy of people being conscious when they vote. Just thinking about statistics, in any large group of many millions of people, half will be below average intelligence. Also, there are plenty of people who are ignorant and proud of it. People are not going to think outside the box. The box was constructed for them to feel safe voting for one or the other.
Don't try to think outside the box, for that is impossible. Only try to realize the truth. There is no box.
So I don't know. Will people eventually figure out how to change things? One big problem is Lesterville. (Google for: lawrence lessig lesterville ted talk) So how do you fix that? Can it be fixed? I think not, sadly.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 17 2017, @06:40PM (1 child)
Correction: The box was constructed [by] them to feel safe voting for one or the other.
So how do you fix that? Can it be fixed?
Start by recognizing that the woulds are self inflicted. But that won't happen either. The human path is evolutionary, not revolutionary. All the old natural instinctive forces still dominate. All our fancy tech and 'philosophy' do not belie our most basic animal motivations, on the contrary, it is all done to fortify and rationalize them.
Solution? Try not to think about it :-)
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 17 2017, @06:43PM
woulds?
Let me come in again
wounds...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:07PM
Well, are you talking median or mean? 'Cause if it's the latter, it could be a few really stupid people skewing the results. In my home state, we call them, "North Dakotans." (I kid! I kid!)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:54PM (12 children)
Hanging around this site is part of the problem. Too many persistent voices pushing garbage narratives, it can be easy to feel like the country has lost hope but in reality the negative voices here are just a vocal minority. We do have a problem with 10-30% of the US population being "true believers" who bend over backwards for their ideologies, but it is entirely possible to strap them into the backseat and let them yell their heads off. Meanwhile the adults can steer the car safely back home.
Now, what it will take to get real changes back on track? I don't know, but probably massive civil unrest and millions of people marching like back in the days of the Civil Rights movement. Right now is the perfect time to take the Ghandi approach, as thousands of innocents get abused and locked up the spotlight will shine on the heart of America and the blind conservatives will finally get a good look. Most will pull back in horror as they realize what is actually going on, and they will finally see their KKK peers for what they are. I do hope for a time of healing, for US citizens to be brought out of the miasma of propaganda and fear to see what their country has truly become.
PS: Liberals already know about their crazy extremist counterparts, but conservatives still seem quite blind to the KKK shenanigans. If they won't be dragged into the 21st century then they'll have to watch their children and families get dragged into various horrors until they open their eyes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:21PM (6 children)
Now, what it will take to get real changes back on track?
After the year from hell, it takes a while to rebuild basic infrastructure, but things do get better.
By 2033 or so, there is a semblance of living in civilization again. Things are different. Instead of "Googling" for information, there are librarians who will consult the global information network and get you the information you're seeking in the most objective way possible. I realize that the word "librarian" doesn't mean quite the same thing it means here before N-day, but we felt that there was an essential function with real economic value we wanted people to provide in a civilization. The word seemed fitting. I suppose "programmer" or "network administrator" might be closer to what they do from your perspective.
There is no Facebook, either. Instead people are more interested in getting to know their neighbors and community and accepting their neighbors for who they are instead of using trivialities such as somebody's religion or the gender of the person they're married to or what medicine they need when they get sick as a partisan wedge. Everybody had to pull together during the year from hell, and we greatly value the skills that a person acquires over a lifetime of experience above all else.
It is clear to everyone who survived that the mistakes that led to N-day must never be repeated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:35PM (2 children)
"N-Day" stands for...?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:44PM (1 child)
The day every major city was reduced to irritated rubble. That morning some 3 billion people died over the span of a few hours. Summer never came that year.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:12PM
Two AC's answered for the price of one.
It's classified, unless Trump leaks it.
Nuclear Winter is Trump's solution to Global Warming. Oh, wait. I just leaked the answer to the previous question. Nevermind.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:16PM (2 children)
Yes, this has been foretold by many. Heinlein called it, "The Year They Killed All the Lawyers." Fight Club imagined people pounding corn on freeway overpasses. I think of it as the day we all finally had had enough, piled into our pickups, and descended on DC and Wall Street with axe handles to 'redecorate.'
It will be tough at first to get by without Amazon Prime, but I think we can do it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @10:58PM
> Yes, this has been foretold by many.
And for millenia people have been 'foretelling' the end of the world.
Those prophets were just as big asshats as you are.
I mean, JFC you cited a sci-fi short story and a movie.
WORKS OF ENTERTAINMENT.
How deluded do you have to be to think that shit is even remotely like reality?
I remember reading that Rupert Murdoch hated Fight Club because he thought it was nihlistic [theatlantic.com] but he published it anyway because money.
At the time I thought he was an idiot because nobody could be so stupid to mistake a movie for real life.
But pepes like you have convinced me he was right, it is nihilistic and you trumptardians have embraced that nihilism instead of recognizing it as escapsim.
You think you can destroy a society and the survivors will build something better from the ashes?
When has that EVER worked in real life? Never. At best it takes dedicated and enlightened outside help to make things work out (like Germany after WWII).
If you get your wish the USA goes the way of Rome, not Germany.
What will happen is that the elite will be get 100x more powerful and the rest of us will be fucked 100x worse than we are now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @01:48AM
It could be even easier than that.
I have already noted in this (meta)thread that over 41 percent of the electorate didn't bother to cast a vote last time around.
Doing the arithmetic, that left less than 30 percent each for the Big 2.
If that 41 percent (plus the folks who were voting defensively) could be presented with a platform/candidate that was pro-worker, pro-consumer, pro-family, pro-community, then their apathy might be turned around, giving a plurality--if not a majority--to that platform/candidate.
These days, Bernie is often called "The most popular politician in the USA".
Jill's platform mirrored Bernie's in most significant ways.
...and after the (embarrassing) performance of the Blues at their convention, Jill offered Bernie the top spot on the Green ticket.
...but, hey, look who I'm talking to: a guy who thought that the dude with ZERO EXPERIENCE and a giant personality disorder was the one who might be an improvement.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:30PM (2 children)
10-30%? Try 60+%. Either party running a turd in a hotdog bun would get thirty percent as was absolutely proven this election cycle. No, there is no coming back from this.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @06:06PM (1 child)
Buy ammo? Gold? Christ, I remember getting this end-of-world messaging on Fox news for about 8 years. Dude, anyone who was not already persuaded to be fully in gold by now is just not buying.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 17 2017, @11:01PM
Ammo, canned goods, rice, beans, gold, a hardcopy porn stash, tons and tons of fishing lures. You know, the necessities.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:25PM (1 child)
You seem to be an optimistic voice. Status quo going well for you, then? Do tell us what makes you an adult, and everyone else children. Are you a Wall Street banker whose bonus for running spreadsheets whose macros somebody else programmed for you was better than ever this Christmas? Perhaps you're a JTRIG staffer who's really responding to the wellness check-ins Ft. Mead has been running since that whole Snowden thing. Maybe you went to Brown, landed your first job working at a food bank, and just, like, really totally love everyone right naw and just know that everything would be alright, if, like, everybody stopped being so cynical and, like, just loved each other and helped each other, and stuff.
What this site has is really smart people who come from every part of the political and philosophical spectrum. Even the rather weird ones. I love that you can't say a goddamned thing about a goddamned thing without people eviscerating you. Keeps you on your toes.
I will grant you that we could do with more comity, but baby steps, baby steps.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:41AM
Most of the users here I would consider intelligent adults, with a few who are intelligent but suffer from massive disorders of varying sorts. There are a few children as well who can't deal with actual evidence, let hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance run wild, and don't have the capability to recognize it. The real children of the US are the ones who blindly parrot back talk show points, or go to festivals and ask if you have fiiiilterred water or just taaaap? I'll settle for whatever water doesn't make me shit my pants for days thank you!
I try to be optimistic, it's the only thing keeping me from blowing out my brains. I am smart, but I don't claim to have all the answers by any means. I do appreciate the knowledge even some of the worst users occasionally share, even EF can have something legit to add, but I liken such as them to be the teenagers in the very back just lashing out with their teen angst. They are the people in the process of waking up, they know things are very very wrong but they haven't really found their own path through the bullshit.
Phoenix666 you seem to be the adult who hasn't had a personal day in six years. Go run a bath, or set up a hammock, get a nice bottle of wine and enjoy the evening / morning / day. Whatever slides the jenga piece back into place. Me? I'll try to do better and stop responding to stuff, one day I'll be able to read some bullshit and just shutdown the computer realizing there are better things to do than waste time on digital babysitting.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @07:58PM (1 child)
Then you need to zoom in, because I was on 3rd Ave between 46th and 47th for most of it. Couldn't get close to the UN because the cops boxed out all the intersections with riot gear and horses. And it was far more than hundreds of thousands of people. It was millions. 3 million people fill Grant Park during Taste of Chicago, and the NYC protests against the invasion of Iraq were like that on every avenue starting on Avenue of Americas, going east to the UN. People as far as the eye could see, and that was from the vantage of the top of a rise.
Sorry about that, but my cynicism is bounded by a system that is totally, fatally broken. I think I'm not alone in that, judging from the last election and general state of angst in the world. It's a subject that comes up frequently around here, so I can't help myself.
We're witnessing a sea change in history. Systems of control that have retarded human genius for 150 years+ have been outpaced by technological progress, and are losing their grip. But they're not going without a fight. Eventually revolution will depose them (whatever form that takes), but right now it sucks.
For what it's worth, (and really, who cares?) I have a very happy life otherwise. I have a beautiful wife and beautiful children. I have enough to eat (from 100+ cultures!). I have health insurance and broadband. I live in a wonderful, family-friendly, progressive neighborhood in the capital of the world (yes, I know many will dispute that). I get to interact with amazing people on a daily basis. In them I see a bright future, and I really want for them all to realize their full potential because that would make for an amazing world.
So I haven't given up on them, but I have given up on the Republicans, Democrats, DC, Wall Street, CNN, Fox, MBAs, the Whitehouse, Congress, the Judiciary, on Cable, and on shopping our way to happiness. I mean no offense to you personally if you still believe any of those named parties care about you and want the best for you.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:46PM
Couldn't get close to the UN because the cops boxed out all the intersections with riot gear and horses
As I mentioned, I was in Amsterdam that day. Amsterdam is, of course a much, much smaller city, but there were thousands *marching through the streets*. The Dutch police were on hand, but didn't interfere with anyone.
Later that day, I saw footage of the New York protest with the barricades and the cops with riot gear and was ashamed of my home.
Land of the free and home of the brave, indeed.
I won't get into the whole manufactured left vs. right thing except to give the following analogy:
You're walking through an underground tunnel with sewer pipes above your head. In the D world, the pipes are cracked and oozing and dripping raw sewage on your head. In the R world, the pipes are completely broken open and drowning you in that same raw sewage.
Not a very appealing set of choices. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the main ones are legalized bribery (lobbying) and privately funded elections.
Remove the money from the political system and you've addressed at least 40% of the problem.
Alternative voting systems, lowering the bar for candidacies, and modified term limits (e.g., if a representative or senator, having been elected twice gets less than 75% of the vote in subsequent elections, they may not stand for that office again) might help too.
There are a lot of really smart people out there who actually want a functioning system that will prioritize the ideals of "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." I hear that some other folks thought that those were good ideas too.
I don't pretend to have all (many? some?) the answers (okay I do pretend that I know them, but I don't :) ), however, it's pretty clear (at least to me) that throwing up our hands in disgust or tearing it all down will likely make things much, much worse.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:10PM
The reasons that our government can do what it does is because we the people authorize it to do so. That's what politics is: representing and/or manipulating public sentiment to support you and your actions. Trump "won" an election by doing exactly that, and "his" party in Congress only supports him because it helps them politically.
So if you want this "long trend" to end, the people need to change our sentiments. We need to expect better of our politicians, because as long as we don't we won't get better. We need more "Millenials who have only come to political consciousness in the last 6 months" because those are the people that will expect something better for lack of knowing what to expect.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 17 2017, @05:14PM (6 children)
I am pretty sure I have already corrected you once for this one so you are just a goddamned liar at this point for still repeating it.
When George W. Bush and Dick Cheney outed CIA officer Valerie Wilson to punish her husband
Richard Armitage, a lifer in the swamp working for Sec State Powell at the time is the one who 'outted' Plame and her husband's seditious activity to Robert Novak. Plame was no longer covert, she was a desk jockey. Armitage told the Special Prosecutor he was the one who did the deed, which was not a crime. But the persecutions continued because a Special Prosecutor knows their actual mandate isn't to discover the truth and write a report, his job was to indict somebody as close to the President as possible, Bush, Cheney or Rove were his targets. Failing that he settled for Cheney's top minion and tossed his life on zero pretext. You did know that Libby has been entirely exonerated and even got his law license back. Now where does he get his life back, his reputation? Rove's marriage was ruined in the whole affair.
Armitage tipped Novak because Plame and her husband were working with other Democrat apparatchiks to undermine Bush's foreign policy. The whole CIA still needs to be fumigated over the events of that time.
Absolutely nothing I wrote above is a fact still in dispute. But you scum continue to repeat the lie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @06:01PM (1 child)
> Richard Armitage, a lifer in the swamp working for Sec State Powell at the time is the one who 'outted' Plame
He was chief of staff to vice president cheney. His nickname was "Dick Cheney's Dick Cheney" [nbcnews.com]
The rest of your "correction" is similarly accurate.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 17 2017, @07:41PM
What a f*cking moron. Do you even Google? "Scooter" Libby was Chief of Staff for Cheney, he was railroaded into serving a prison term and later entirely exonerated and restored to the bar. Richard Armitage was the leaker and worked for Secretary of State Powell. Armitage told the Special Prosecutor in the first week of the investigation because he knew he had committed no crime. None of these facts are in dispute, even the Special Prosecutor's official final report admits this is the reality.
But the lesson learned from the sad affair is NO MORE SPECIAL PROSECUTORS. EVER. No Democrat need worry about one because the swamp protects its own and now any Republican who allows one is a moron who deserves what will happen.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:12PM (3 children)
And now for your second act, you'll prove how Hitler was framed? I know you're itching to smack down us goddamned liars for that, too.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:59PM (2 children)
You truly are impervious to facts and reality aren't ya. Every single fact I asserted is fully documented in every major news source you can find, even the enemy ones like the NYT and WaPo, and you simply ignore all of that and continue on with your alternate reality. Literally nobody seriously argues the position that Libby outted Plame outside the Kos and DU fever swamps. I think this is the point where I link to How to Know You Won A Political Debate On The Internet [dilbert.com] and move on because you are ticking most of the boxes now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:02AM (1 child)
You piqued my curiosity with the statement that people are ignoring easily verified facts. After googling around a lot the clearest info seems to be from Wikipedia:
Libby's voting rights were restored in 2013 by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. Three years later, on November 3, 2016, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals granted Libby's petition for reinstatement to the D.C. Bar.
His prison sentence was commuted, and Bush considered a full pardon but that didn't seem to happen. The only story here is that it pays to have friends in high places. I've wasted enough time on this to judge it 90% bullshit from you, but if you add any links I will read them and give my thoughts. Basically it must be something beyond an alt-right news site making bold emotionally charged claims. If you can't provide the "fully documented in every major news source" stories then your dilbert link is jumping the gun.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday May 18 2017, @10:40PM
Really? Your GoogleFu is so poor you couldn't find the Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org]? For a Wikipedia page about a politicized topic it is actually pretty complete for a change. Guess competition improves everything? It answers all of your questions and confirms that without a doubt the original charge of Phoenix666 being a "goddamned liar" is legit. But if you prefer a more #FakeNews source, CNN [cnn.com] has you covered too.