Who Meddled more Putin or Trump? The Collusion Thread visits Venezuela
drummerboy said:
You're deflecting.
As I asked before, once Fusion received the documents from Steele (a very respected intel guy), what exactly were they supposed to do with it? Bury it?
Instead, they showed it to the FBI, as they should have. This "dissemination" is not suspicious - it is expected and responsible.
Answer the question - what should they have done with the dossier upon receipt?
paulsurovell said:
drummerboy said:
Paul, you have yet to make anything close to a case for Fusion behaving suspiciously. You're just repeating right wing nonsense.
And I'm not quite sure why you're doing that.
I'm not OK with the disinformation produced and disseminated by Fusion. You are. That's the difference between you and me. (Edited at 9:48 pm)
Here you go:
Steele and Simpson should have told their employers, "Unfortunately, apart from some items in the public record, the reports we received from alleged Russian sources are patently false. Therefore we must disavow them and cannot disseminate them further without compromising our professional integrity."
Of course in reality, the last two words are unknown to Steele and Simpson.
paulsurovell said:
the reports we received from alleged Russian sources are patently false
Please provide proof.
I see. And how were they to know it was false?
And if it was "patently false", why did the FBI feel it necessary to brief Trump on its contents? Is the FBI too stupid to recognize something as patently false?
paulsurovell said:
drummerboy said:
You're deflecting.
As I asked before, once Fusion received the documents from Steele (a very respected intel guy), what exactly were they supposed to do with it? Bury it?
Instead, they showed it to the FBI, as they should have. This "dissemination" is not suspicious - it is expected and responsible.
Answer the question - what should they have done with the dossier upon receipt?
paulsurovell said:
drummerboy said:
Paul, you have yet to make anything close to a case for Fusion behaving suspiciously. You're just repeating right wing nonsense.
And I'm not quite sure why you're doing that.
I'm not OK with the disinformation produced and disseminated by Fusion. You are. That's the difference between you and me. (Edited at 9:48 pm)
Here you go:
Steele and Simpson should have told their employers, "Unfortunately, apart from some items in the public record, the reports we received from alleged Russian sources are patently false. Therefore we must disavow them and cannot disseminate them further without compromising our professional integrity."
Of course in reality, the last two words are unknown to Steele and Simpson.
drummerboy said:
I see. And how were they to know it was false?
And if it was "patently false", why did the FBI feel it necessary to brief Trump on its contents? Is the FBI too stupid to recognize something as patently false?
Wouldn't be the first time:
jamie said:
paulsurovell said:
the reports we received from alleged Russian sources are patently false
Please provide proof.
I've posted several times that the FBI, after 20 months, has not been able to confirm a single allegation in the dossier, except for what is in the public record. Neither Steele nor Simpson has said the allegations are true, they've admitted nothing was verified. The dossier was written to find dirt, not to publish the truth.
After 20 months of 90% of the media devoting vast resources to this, scouring every intelligence source they've got and coming up empty, I think it's reasonable to conclude from this that the reports in the dossier are false.
paulsurovell said:
jamie said:
paulsurovell said:
the reports we received from alleged Russian sources are patently false
Please provide proof.
I've posted several times that the FBI, after 20 months, has not been able to confirm a single allegation in the dossier, except for what is in the public record. Neither Steele nor Simpson has said the allegations are true, they've admitted nothing was verified. The dossier was written to find dirt, not to publish the truth.
After 20 months of 90% of the media devoting vast resources to this, scouring every intelligence source they've got and coming up empty, I think it's reasonable to conclude from this that the reports in the dossier are false.
And you have seen all of the classified information that can’t be made public? Should they give up sources and methods to make you happy?
jamie said:
paulsurovell said:
jamie said:
paulsurovell said:
the reports we received from alleged Russian sources are patently false
Please provide proof.
I've posted several times that the FBI, after 20 months, has not been able to confirm a single allegation in the dossier, except for what is in the public record. Neither Steele nor Simpson has said the allegations are true, they've admitted nothing was verified. The dossier was written to find dirt, not to publish the truth.
After 20 months of 90% of the media devoting vast resources to this, scouring every intelligence source they've got and coming up empty, I think it's reasonable to conclude from this that the reports in the dossier are false.
And you have seen all of the classified information that can’t be made public? Should they give up sources and methods to make you happy?
For this case, these are the only sources and methods that can help:
Granted your argument is that after 20 months, you can conclude that claims reported in the dossier are false.
How could Fusion and Steele have known that 20 months ago, when they were trying to decide whether to tell the FBI what Steele had been told?
paulsurovell said:
jamie said:
paulsurovell said:
jamie said:
paulsurovell said:
the reports we received from alleged Russian sources are patently false
Please provide proof.
I've posted several times that the FBI, after 20 months, has not been able to confirm a single allegation in the dossier, except for what is in the public record. Neither Steele nor Simpson has said the allegations are true, they've admitted nothing was verified. The dossier was written to find dirt, not to publish the truth.
After 20 months of 90% of the media devoting vast resources to this, scouring every intelligence source they've got and coming up empty, I think it's reasonable to conclude from this that the reports in the dossier are false.
And you have seen all of the classified information that can’t be made public? Should they give up sources and methods to make you happy?
For this case, these are the only sources and methods that can help:
The cash (from Clinton) for trash method of gathering the stories is the first problem. And that it wasn't even Steele himself paying the prostitutes directly is the second. He subcontracted with a john in Russia. And it was the john who actually paid the prostitutes to talk dirty. Easiest money they ever made.
paulsurovell said:
drummerboy said:
I see. And how were they to know it was false?
And if it was "patently false", why did the FBI feel it necessary to brief Trump on its contents? Is the FBI too stupid to recognize something as patently false?
Wouldn't be the first time:
The continued resort to pointing at what some officials did to push the Iraq War is tiresome. It's not an all-purpose reason or response to every question. Mueller wasn't even a foreign intelligence official, so whatever he said in the 24 seconds of that clip, as an intro to his actual point, doesn't prove your case. If your answer depends on a snippet out-of-context, your answer is lousy.
I keep asking the basis for your claim that Fusion is "suspicious" for agreeing to provide the information to the FBI. You keep refusing to answer that question, and have several times accused me of lying about what my question was. That's what partisan stooges on television interview shows do, they insult the questioner while trying to dodge the question.
You're familiar with the term "tautology", I presume. Your whole argument about not trusting Fusion is a tautology.
nohero said:
paulsurovell said:
drummerboy said:
I see. And how were they to know it was false?
And if it was "patently false", why did the FBI feel it necessary to brief Trump on its contents? Is the FBI too stupid to recognize something as patently false?
Wouldn't be the first time:
The continued resort to pointing at what some officials did to push the Iraq War is tiresome. It's not an all-purpose reason or response to every question. Mueller wasn't even a foreign intelligence official, so whatever he said in the 24 seconds of that clip, as an intro to his actual point, doesn't prove your case. If your answer depends on a snippet out-of-context, your answer is lousy.
Calling this video "tiresome" insults the memory of thousands of Americans killed and the plight of hundreds of thousands of Americans seriously injured, as well as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and millions seriously injured, as a result of the lies of the Bush administration which the video exemplifies.
The video and the comment "Wouldn't be the first time" succinctly and accurately answer drummerboy's question: "Is the FBI too stupid to recognize something as patently false?"
nohero said:
I keep asking the basis for your claim that Fusion is "suspicious" for agreeing to provide the information to the FBI. You keep refusing to answer that question,
Asked and answered, twice. Scroll up.
nohero said:
and have several times accused me of lying about what my question was.
You misunderstand the meaning of "obfuscate," which doesn't mean lie, but if it helps, I'll say it directly: I don't think you lied about what your question was.
nohero said:
That's what partisan stooges on television interview shows do, they insult the questioner while trying to dodge the question. You're familiar with the term "tautology", I presume. Your whole argument about not trusting Fusion is a tautology.
Your analogy fails as it is not consistent with the facts.
South_Mountaineer said:
Granted your argument is that after 20 months, you can conclude that claims reported in the dossier are false.
How could Fusion and Steele have known that 20 months ago, when they were trying to decide whether to tell the FBI what Steele had been told?
Simpson's testimony and Steele's answers to British court interrogatories suggest to me that the two knew when they were written that the reports were false. Both men emphasize that they made no effort to verify the reports. Scott Ritter has suggested that the reports may not have been produced by "field reporting" as claimed by Steele and Simpson, which if true, raises additional questions about the pair's veracity. Ritter, who served as a Marine intelligence officer in the USSR, notes:
Mr. Steele was contracted by Fusion GPS sometime after June 17; less than three days later, he was able to produce a report that made use of no fewer than seven named senior sources, as well as making use of a “company ethnic Russian operative” to conduct an investigation inside Russia. This time frame is unrealistically short, suggesting that Steele himself was spoon fed a pre-packaged storyline—in short, “Kremlin disinformation.”
Excuse me, are you claiming that Ritter is claiming that the entire dossier was produced in "less than 3 days"?
That's absurd.
Also, his first sentence makes no sense.
"sometime after June 17; less than three days later, he was able to produce a report"
How can he not know the exact day of contract, but know that the report was produced (less than) 3 days later? (I assume less than is either 2 or 1)
Think about it.
Ritter may have been good about Iraq , but he's lost his mojo here.
Also, Nohero's comment about your continual fallback to Iraq is completely correct. Plus, we can safely assume for every instance of Muller being wrong about something, there are a thousand where he was right. So, what's your point?
paulsurovell said:
...
Mr. Steele was contracted by Fusion GPS sometime after June 17; less than three days later, he was able to produce a report that made use of no fewer than seven named senior sources, as well as making use of a “company ethnic Russian operative” to conduct an investigation inside Russia. This time frame is unrealistically short, suggesting that Steele himself was spoon fed a pre-packaged storyline—in short, “Kremlin disinformation.”
drummerboy said:
Excuse me, are you claiming that Ritter is claiming that the entire dossier was produced in "less than 3 days"?
That's absurd.
The dossier consists of 16 of 17 reports, the first one is dated June 20.
drummerboy said:
Also, his first sentence makes no sense.
"sometime after June 17; less than three days later, he was able to produce a report"
How can he not know the exact day of contract, but know that the report was produced (less than) 3 days later? (I assume less than is either 2 or 1)
Think about it.
Ritter may have been good about Iraq , but he's lost his mojo here.
Per Ritter's article, Simpson called Steele after reading a June 17 WaPo article.
drummerboy said:
Also, Nohero's comment about your continual fallback to Iraq is completely correct.
Like nohero, in addition to being disrespectful to the millions who've suffered from the lies told by the CIA, FBI Dir Mueller, Bush et al, your head is in the sand.
What is the purpose of this thread? You all keep repeating the same "arguments" which have become arguments about the arguments.
OTOH I guess you three can do whatever you wish and I should just ignore this thread.
LOST said:
What is the purpose of this thread? You all keep repeating the same "arguments" which have become arguments about the arguments.
OTOH I guess you three can do whatever you wish and I should just ignore this thread.
One purpose of this thread is to provide a forum on whether establishment calls for greater hostility toward nuclear-armed Russia are justified by the facts. In so doing, history matters toward understand what is happening today.
Liberal media watch-dog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) documents MSNBC's obsessive coverage of Russia and absent coverage of the US-supported catastrophe in Yemen:
Except that your back-and-forth with Nohero and Drummerboy has probably turned off anyone who would bother to read this thread.
Further, maybe even more importantly, the thread title doesn't accurately reflect the discussion you wish to have.
LOST said:
Except that your back-and-forth with Nohero and Drummerboy has probably turned off anyone who would bother to read this thread.
Further, maybe even more importantly, the thread title doesn't accurately reflect the discussion you wish to have.
I think that this thread provides a good resource for anyone who cares about the subject -- on either side. The rest is secondary.
I didn't get that it was a "john" or a pimp that Steele was getting information from. What's the source of that claim?
breal said:
The cash (from Clinton) for trash method of gathering the stories is the first problem. And that it wasn't even Steele himself paying the prostitutes directly is the second. He subcontracted with a john in Russia. And it was the john who actually paid the prostitutes to talk dirty. Easiest money they ever made.
The word "suggest" is in both explanations you give, which means that's a judgment not based on anything definite. I know who Ritter is, and I've read what he's written about the case (or lack of a case) for the Iraq war. He's someone to listen to about that, because of his own experience there. He's not a Russia expert.
Apparently, Steele is a Russia expert, and has experience there so that he's someone to listen to about how its intelligence service works. He's described as someone who "knows people". It's plausible that if he was hired to "ask around" about Trump, he'd know how to get feedback quickly. It's the service he sells, no matter what the answer might be. He's paid to find out things and explain how he found them out, which is in the dossier notes. I assume he told the FBI what he wrote down, as a "tip" to look into, not a final conclusion.
paulsurovell said:
South_Mountaineer said:
Granted your argument is that after 20 months, you can conclude that claims reported in the dossier are false.
How could Fusion and Steele have known that 20 months ago, when they were trying to decide whether to tell the FBI what Steele had been told?
Simpson's testimony and Steele's answers to British court interrogatories suggest to me that the two knew when they were written that the reports were false. Both men emphasize that they made no effort to verify the reports. Scott Ritter has suggested that the reports may not have been produced by "field reporting" as claimed by Steele and Simpson, which if true, raises additional questions about the pair's veracity. Ritter, who served as a Marine intelligence officer in the USSR, notes:
Mr. Steele was contracted by Fusion GPS sometime after June 17; less than three days later, he was able to produce a report that made use of no fewer than seven named senior sources, as well as making use of a “company ethnic Russian operative” to conduct an investigation inside Russia. This time frame is unrealistically short, suggesting that Steele himself was spoon fed a pre-packaged storyline—in short, “Kremlin disinformation.”
Whenever I see this thread roll to the top of the forum list, I feel like I rolled "Bankrupt" on Wheel of Fortune. It's beyond bizarre already. The 3 people who want to argue about whether one journalist's take on another journalist's take on a government agent's dis of another agent's dossier about whether an unamed source blah blah blah blah blah should have their own web site at this point.
LOST said:
Except that your back-and-forth with Nohero and Drummerboy has probably turned off anyone who would bother to read this thread.
Further, maybe even more importantly, the thread title doesn't accurately reflect the discussion you wish to have.
South_Mountaineer said:
The word "suggest" is in both explanations you give, which means that's a judgment not based on anything definite. I know who Ritter is, and I've read what he's written about the case (or lack of a case) for the Iraq war. He's someone to listen to about that, because of his own experience there. He's not a Russia expert.
Apparently, Steele is a Russia expert, and has experience there so that he's someone to listen to about how its intelligence service works. He's described as someone who "knows people". It's plausible that if he was hired to "ask around" about Trump, he'd know how to get feedback quickly. It's the service he sells, no matter what the answer might be. He's paid to find out things and explain how he found them out, which is in the dossier notes. I assume he told the FBI what he wrote down, as a "tip" to look into, not a final conclusion.
The brief bio at the end of Ritter's article notes that before he served in Iraq he served as a Marine intelligence officer in the Soviet Union.
paulsurovell said:
South_Mountaineer said:
The word "suggest" is in both explanations you give, which means that's a judgment not based on anything definite. I know who Ritter is, and I've read what he's written about the case (or lack of a case) for the Iraq war. He's someone to listen to about that, because of his own experience there. He's not a Russia expert.
Apparently, Steele is a Russia expert, and has experience there so that he's someone to listen to about how its intelligence service works. He's described as someone who "knows people". It's plausible that if he was hired to "ask around" about Trump, he'd know how to get feedback quickly. It's the service he sells, no matter what the answer might be. He's paid to find out things and explain how he found them out, which is in the dossier notes. I assume he told the FBI what he wrote down, as a "tip" to look into, not a final conclusion.
The brief bio at the end of Ritter's article notes that before he served in Iraq he served as a Marine intelligence officer in the Soviet Union.
Yes, in his book about weapons inspections in Iraq, "Iraq Confidential", he writes that he was "instrumental in carrying out weapons inspections in the former Soviet Union". He was stationed there as part of the INF Treaty to "oversee the implementation of that treaty." So I could have been more precise, when I wrote "He's not a Russia expert." He's an expert on arms control inspections in Russia. It is correct to say that he is not an expert in the current Russian government, businesses and spies.
paulsurovell said:
One purpose of this thread is to provide a forum on whether establishment calls for greater hostility toward nuclear-armed Russia are justified by the facts. In so doing, history matters toward understand what is happening today.
Or whether we ought to be concerned about an anti-democratic despot who murders journalists and supports Syrian dictators ought to be coddled.
dave23 said:
paulsurovell said:Or whether we ought to be concerned about an anti-democratic despot who murders journalists and supports Syrian dictators ought to be coddled.
One purpose of this thread is to provide a forum on whether establishment calls for greater hostility toward nuclear-armed Russia are justified by the facts. In so doing, history matters toward understand what is happening today.
These statements are not mutually exclusive.
South_Mountaineer said:
paulsurovell said:
South_Mountaineer said:
The word "suggest" is in both explanations you give, which means that's a judgment not based on anything definite. I know who Ritter is, and I've read what he's written about the case (or lack of a case) for the Iraq war. He's someone to listen to about that, because of his own experience there. He's not a Russia expert.
Apparently, Steele is a Russia expert, and has experience there so that he's someone to listen to about how its intelligence service works. He's described as someone who "knows people". It's plausible that if he was hired to "ask around" about Trump, he'd know how to get feedback quickly. It's the service he sells, no matter what the answer might be. He's paid to find out things and explain how he found them out, which is in the dossier notes. I assume he told the FBI what he wrote down, as a "tip" to look into, not a final conclusion.
The brief bio at the end of Ritter's article notes that before he served in Iraq he served as a Marine intelligence officer in the Soviet Union.
Yes, in his book about weapons inspections in Iraq, "Iraq Confidential", he writes that he was "instrumental in carrying out weapons inspections in the former Soviet Union". He was stationed there as part of the INF Treaty to "oversee the implementation of that treaty." So I could have been more precise, when I wrote "He's not a Russia expert." He's an expert on arms control inspections in Russia. It is correct to say that he is not an expert in the current Russian government, businesses and spies.
You could say that about Stephen Cohen who agrees with Ritter.
paulsurovell said:
South_Mountaineer said:
paulsurovell said:
South_Mountaineer said:
The word "suggest" is in both explanations you give, which means that's a judgment not based on anything definite. I know who Ritter is, and I've read what he's written about the case (or lack of a case) for the Iraq war. He's someone to listen to about that, because of his own experience there. He's not a Russia expert.
Apparently, Steele is a Russia expert, and has experience there so that he's someone to listen to about how its intelligence service works. He's described as someone who "knows people". It's plausible that if he was hired to "ask around" about Trump, he'd know how to get feedback quickly. It's the service he sells, no matter what the answer might be. He's paid to find out things and explain how he found them out, which is in the dossier notes. I assume he told the FBI what he wrote down, as a "tip" to look into, not a final conclusion.
The brief bio at the end of Ritter's article notes that before he served in Iraq he served as a Marine intelligence officer in the Soviet Union.
Yes, in his book about weapons inspections in Iraq, "Iraq Confidential", he writes that he was "instrumental in carrying out weapons inspections in the former Soviet Union". He was stationed there as part of the INF Treaty to "oversee the implementation of that treaty." So I could have been more precise, when I wrote "He's not a Russia expert." He's an expert on arms control inspections in Russia. It is correct to say that he is not an expert in the current Russian government, businesses and spies.
You could say that about Stephen Cohen who agrees with Ritter.
I don't have any of his books, so I couldn't say what he knows or who he agrees with about how to get information about Russian business and spying today.
Post edited to add - I forgot about the need for double-checking when you describe what's in an article or video. Turns out that you left out the part in Ritters bio in that article, where he describes his work in the Soviet Union as "implementing arms control treaties". So I should have looked at the bottom of the article instead of spending time looking at his book.
paulsurovell said:
dave23 said:
paulsurovell said:Or whether we ought to be concerned about an anti-democratic despot who murders journalists and supports Syrian dictators ought to be coddled.
One purpose of this thread is to provide a forum on whether establishment calls for greater hostility toward nuclear-armed Russia are justified by the facts. In so doing, history matters toward understand what is happening today.
These statements are not mutually exclusive.
Progress. Welcome!
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You're deflecting.
As I asked before, once Fusion received the documents from Steele (a very respected intel guy), what exactly were they supposed to do with it? Bury it?
Instead, they showed it to the FBI, as they should have. This "dissemination" is not suspicious - it is expected and responsible.
Answer the question - what should they have done with the dossier upon receipt?