That description doesn’t quite track.
@quaro posted this in the CIA thread
https://mobile.twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/997302219178500096
This seems to be referencing the same thing. WaPo describes this person as “an FBI informant and top-secret, longtime intelligence source”, so this isn’t someone who was just an ordinary citizen in the campaign and became an informant at that time.
Hmmm, interesting. Ok let’s see what comes out here.
Weird question:
We know why they want to reveal the name of the source, but does any legitimate justification need to be provided when they make the request?
I’m guessing the informant in question is Felix Sater. That would explain why revealing his identity could put his life in danger. (Russian mafia ties.)
Which of course makes Trumps tweet all the more ridiculous. “Wow. Word coming out that the Obama FBI embedded my friend, business partner, convicted criminal and known FBI informant, into my campaign circle. If so this is bigger than Watergate.”
I don’t know why Trump is surprised. The FBI has a history of placing informants in criminal organizations.
Another Bill Gates related story.
Imagine you are Bill Gates, who actually is intelligent, and having to have an audience with that cretin.
The idea that the daughter of Bill Gates would be impressed by a helicopter is hilarious in the first place. Her father is BILL GATES. I’m sure she’s seen plenty of helicopters up close.
ftfy
was missing a little bit
I’m positive Bill & Melinda have given away and donated more than Trump’s ever been worth.
“Whataboutism” seems to be the new buzzword, but I am not sure it applies here. I am not suggesting that (a) it’s okay that Trump nominated a torture-supporter to be CIA director because Obama did it; nor am I saying (b) both Obama and Trump are making a mistake, and that this somehow lessens the mistake of either president.
I am responding to an initial post by @CraigM (“Once more, with feeling, fuck the GOP”) that strongly, and incorrectly, implied only one party nominates torture-supporters to lead the CIA. This post inherently includes a comparison of two parties, and unless you are suggesting those kind of posts must always remain unchallenged, I am not sure why you are saying I am guilty of “whataboutism.”
Perhaps your comment is reasonable in the context of Craig’s Fuck the GOP bit, but I find it annoying when any critique of Republican behavior is immediately met by ‘Obama did it too’ as though that makes it OK, or as if the speaker is blowing everyone’s minds with an expose of astonishing hypocrisy.
Obama lost my vote for a number of reasons, including his failure to shut down Gitmo, his assassination without due process of U.S. Citizen Anwar al-Awlaki (+ teenage son), his kill list & expansion of drone warfare with minimal oversight, etc. I only had the luxury of voting against him because I lived in a blue state; I had no faith that Romney would have been any better on my national security gripes and likely would have been worse. I had to hold my nose in '16 to vote for Hillary, not for all the spurious reasons spewed by right wing media during the campaign, but because she voted in favor of the Iraq war, which is by far the most damning item in her public record.
Plenty of other folks on this forum will likely have had similar critiques of the Obama administration. Responding to a critique of GOP practices with ‘but Obama’ implies that all Democrats are OK with everything Obama did and never critique their own ‘team.’ It feels like a gotcha trick.
However, if you like, we can append to ‘Fuck the GOP,’ ‘fuck all Democrats who played along with the post-9/11 insanity that dragged our country in the direction of barbarism.’ I can get behind that.
It is true that the firmest opponent of torture in the past 17 years has been a Republican – John McCain – but he largely seems to stand alone, and people pat him on his head and say nice things while muttering under their breath ‘who cares, he’s dying anyway.’
Yes I agree with you. Probably the only place for “Obama did it too” comments is for when it appears someone is implying Obama did not do it, which is a factual issue that needs to be corrected, which is what I tried to do. It’s not really an argument so much as a correction.
Rand Paul for example has also come out strongly in support of the 2005 amendment that bans the use of waterboarding, and he has also strongly opposed any use of force without Congressional authorization, so I would not say McCain is the only Republican who has consistently opposed the use of torture or extra-legal warfare.
Interesting point about Rand Paul. Glad to hear it.
I will grant the Obama nominee, however also append that at this current time it is unlikely, though perhaps not impossible, that a Democratic President could make such a nominee today, and garner the support of the party. Because 2018 is not 2009, or even 2013. And while it is certainly a mark against President Obama, no argument there, it was also a product of the political time. For good or ill, the Democratic party did not spend political capital overturning those gross abuses of power that came post 9/11. The will of the people was not so firmly against such measures yet. The reports exposing the inefficiencies as well as the moral failures of the intelligence apparatuses, vis a vis torture, had not yet become full public.
So for a bunch of reasons good and bad, though I’d argue mostly bad, at the time supporting the torture practices was not automatic disqualification in the mind of the party. Today it is. It is to our nations eternal shame it took this long to get to the point where even half the political spectrum would take this stand but there you have it.
And if a Democratic executive proposed such measures, or supported a nominee who did? I’d do the same thing I did in 2012, vote against them*.
*though, like @Gordon_Cameron I live in a strongly blue state where my vote for national maters has never, well, mattered. So this is easy for me to do. Since it is symbolic only. Had I been pressed and forced to vote for Obama or Romney, it would have been Obama by a wide margin.
EDIT: and I will add that, again to the American people’s discredit, that part of the reason such things are now important issues is because it is no longer Obama at the helm. The never ending War on Terror enters year 17. With President Obama people, for perhaps understandable but somewhat misguided reasons, they expected intelligence and judgment to be exercised in avoiding the moral pitfalls. So there was a lack of urgency from some corners when it came to rewinding and renouncing such programs. Basically ‘we trust he won’t do these bad things, so focus on the present rather than litigate the past’. But then the thought, and reality, of someone far less temperamentally sound and judgmentally challenged leading scared the shit out of people.
Which, yeah, duh. If you’re not ok with someone like Trump running those things, take a stronger stand before he becomes president you nitwits! So someone like Brennan who, while on qualifications, is fit for the job, his past regarding such extrajudicial actions is questionable at best? That’s a time to take a stand. But with the full blown congressional intransigence of the time it was not a high priority for his administration to make those programs a political issue.
And that failure to repudiate the worst aspects of the Bush administration is one of my harshest criticisms of the Obama administration.
To be honest the Obama Administration didn’t exactly shine in their handling of Iraq and Afghanistan. Sure, they were left a mess, but they didn’t to a great job of cleaning it up either.
Okay…at least there wasn’t another 9-11.
Other than all the torture stuff, Brennan’s biggest flaw these days seems to be his overwrought/ sanctimonious tweets that lend themselves a bit too easily to meme-ification: https://twitter.com/smod4real/status/998554821312462848
Which reports in particular are you referring to, post-Brennan’s confirmation?
Hmm, this is some interesting new information come to light. Seems we all should probably
GOOGLE RON RAND PAUL
Rand Paul has plenty of nutty ideas, but he does tend to stand by them, even when they aren’t popular with, well, anyone.
Yeah, like how he was going to filibuster Pompeo.
He always caves.