Ret. Army Military Intell. and Fmr. Fox Analyst thinks Trump is Putin's Agent

[Terry]

Most ironic thing about that? That's Abby Huntsman, daughter of Jon Huntsman, who is currently employed as Cheeto's ambassador to Russia.

You might remember Jon Huntsman as the "Republican who was far too rational for his party" in the 2012 Presidential primaries. Apparently he lost some of that rationality in the years since, or he wouldn't be working for the Orange Imbecile.

Part of my thinking is along the lines of Trump should have the same access to as wide a variety people with experience in government as any other president would.

As to Huntsman working for Trump now when [Huntsman] was seen as too conventional a candidate himself in 2012, I can't recall Huntsman saying anything specifically about Trump one way or the other in the 2016 campaign. I mean, he may well have, but I haven't even so much as seen Huntsman on tv since 2012. So, for me Huntsman working/shilling for Trump doesn't have QUITE the same hypocritical ring that it does for someone like Romney or Cruz.

I mean, who cares who the official US Ambassador to Russia is, anyway? It's not as if Trump has a lack of available means to contact Putin and his cronies outside of the normal State Department channels.

[Seshmeister]

Trump hasn't even appointed ambassadors to a bunch of countries including some pretty important ones like Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Australia and the ones he has are often just ridiculous just look up the fuckwit he has in Germany.

Or even better the guy he sent to the Czech Republic.

http://www.newsweek.com/2017/12/29/donald-trump-watergate-stephen-king-martha-mitchell-richard-nixon-john-744823.html

[Nitro Express]

Trump's main concern is keeping his approval rating up and he's doing that by focusing on growing the economy. Filling US embassies with ambassadors is apparently low down on the priority list. Really how important are these positions? Past presidents have made their political enemies ambassadors just to get them out on Washington. I know people who have worked in intelligence view our embassies and their staff as jokes. Having had to deal with the US embassy in Hong Kong I can confirm this.

[Nitro Express]

You lost me at this - his whole business since the banks stopped lending to him years ago has been selling himself.

The Russians probably didn't win the election for him, Hilary and Comey did that, but the guy is dodgy as fuck. You are always obsessed with money and this is another case of just following it. How much of the Trump business is tied up in laundering Russian oligarch money?

I do agree there is some massive stupidity in the media worrying about the wrong things, how a bill removing so many controls on the banks just 10 years after the last disaster got through while people worry about the tweets of a mentally unstable comic is ludicrous.

Try doing anything in the world without money. It's pretty important everywhere. Yeah I spend most my time dealing with money as do most people on the planet. The car payment needs to be paid. The rent needs to be paid. The mortgage needs to be paid. The grocery store wants money for food. The waiter at the restaurant wants a tip. If money wasn't so important then I guess just stop paying wages, salaries, and welfare payments. Yeah money is so unimportant that people would riot if you cut it off.

Trump is a political outsider. He had no political career. Who launders oligarch money is countries like Switzerland. The Trump Organization is small potatoes. Russian oligarchs might buy an apartment from Trump. Trump like most real estate people make their money by selling leases. Trump also sells his name. Some of the buildings with his name on them aren't even owned by him. They pay Trump for the franchise. He sells his name and he sold his way into the White House with very little money compared to what Hillary spent. Hillary was the sure bet and this guy from Queens with bad hair wins. It made the establishment shit their pants. Who's going to cover our ass? Our criminal activity might be found out. We might go to jail!

[Nitro Express]

Well, televised media here in the US - traditional big 3 networks or cable - is just a joke. These outlets will chase any shiny object thrown at them. The politically-oriented panel shows, and I'm talking EVERY network (not just Fox)...it's all just stimulus/response, stimulus/response. And I get that these news networks are ratings-oriented vs. content-oriented, so they have to play up the drama and have guests and hosts yelling and indulging in hyperbole to get eyeballs watching. Even when you do get a thoughtful guest on one of these shows who isn't acting like a drama queen, they are drowned out in the cacophony.

There still are some useful periodicals that, probably by being published weekly or monthly, have the time to research various stories and aren't diverted by, say, whatever ridiculous Trump lie Sarah Sanders tried to put pants on in a press conference. These outlets are looking at the broader implications rather than concentrating on Rudy Giuliani's latest wide-eyed babble.

Nothing new. Just read Miles Copeland's book The Game Player. He was Stewart Copeland's (Police drummer) father and a founder of the CIA. He said most of what is in the public media is bullshit. Most people have no clue how the real world works. In fact, intelligence agencies will have their people work in a foreign news agency and run stories to influence the people back home. All sorts of physiological games are played. This is nothing new. We never had real news and today it's split into left wing and right wing propaganda. We basically have partisan echo chambers and less and less people are paying attention to it. People are just burnt out on politics and all the noise so they just shut it out.

[Nitro Express]

I also find the whole Russia situation puzzling... Clearly we (USA) have to deal with them on a global basis and in many differing arenas where we oppose each other and some where we are allied toward some common goal. None of this crap aligns neatly into one angle or diplomatic approach. It all seemed much simpler when they were just an enemy...

What clouds things is Trumps approach to deal making... he likes to personally align with other power brokers to leverage negotiation elements. Historically US diplomatic relations placed the personal connections secondary or even lower below the policy positions. Trump completely flips that engagement model and it makes the diplomatic folks very nervous and also seems somewhat confusing to the general public because that's not what we are conditioned to expect.

Were Trumps comments on bringing Russia back into the G7/8 deal due to Trump admiring Russia or was it just a negotiation tactic to rattle the other nations because the US was being portrayed as the bad guy at this years conference due to tariff threats..?

In some cases, we're seeing surprising results from this nontraditional approach. For the current big items in play it will be very interesting to see where things play out. Especially the North Korea situation and the trade war brewing. While many are distracted by Russian bullshit... what's playing out with China..?

We have always had an interesting relationship with Russia. Even during the cold war a lot went on behind the scenes. To understand Trump is you have to read his book The Art of the Deal. He explains his negotiation style in that book. He see's the traditional way of doing things in politics as a failure so he's doing it his way. I always thought the swamp needed to be stirred up. If anything Trump is doing that and letting us all see the sludge and smell the stink. Even if he's a bit stinky himself. After the stiring the system needs an enema. If you think it's messy now, wait until the bowels of Washington let go.

[Nickdfresh]

Maybe we'd better understand him if we actually read a book he wrote?

Or of he ever read a book...

[FORD]

Nothing new. Just read Miles Copeland's book The Game Player. He was Stewart Copeland's (Police drummer) father and a founder of the CIA. He said most of what is in the public media is bullshit. Most people have no clue how the real world works. In fact, intelligence agencies will have their people work in a foreign news agency and run stories to influence the people back home. All sorts of physiological games are played. This is nothing new. We never had real news and today it's split into left wing and right wing propaganda. We basically have partisan echo chambers and less and less people are paying attention to it. People are just burnt out on politics and all the noise so they just shut it out.

The BCE/CIA infiltration into the media is often implied. but in some cases, it's literally in plain sight.....

Prescott Bush was involved in the early days of the CBS network (back when it was radio.... which was also about the same time he was funding old Uncle Adolf). ABC's parent company before Disney was Capitol Cities Communications, a CIA front group owned by Poppy Bush's friend Bill Casey. Disney themselves made propaganda cartoons during World War II (the one with Donald Duck vs the Nazis is actually kind of funny) And of course there's the whole scenario where Clear Channel radio was the by-product of Chimpy's brief "ownership" of the Texas Rangers. Though it's currently owned by Willard Mittens Romney's Bain Capital - which itself is a frequent business partner with the BCE/CIA affiliated Carlyle Group. And AOL has long been rumored to be a CIA front company, and acquired CNN through a takeover of Time Warner

Miles Copeland was old school BCE/CIA so he was probably well aware of most of these above. And Copeland's kids had enough humor about their dad's spy career to name their first company "Illegal Records", which issued the first Police single, before the label turned into IRS, conveniently satirizing another government entity rather than the one that employed their father.



Fortunately, (and unlike the BCE) Copeland's kids didn't follow him into the "Company" business in Langley and chose music instead. On the other hand, if Stewart had been in the CIA, maybe he would have put out a hit on Sting once his solo albums became intolerable?

[Nitro Express]

Yup. Entertainment is a powerful force. Rock and Roll was used to soften up the Soviet Union. The Police went to places like Egypt and India to sell western capitalism over communism which the KGB was pushing in those countries. Sting was a bit riffed when he found out they were being operationalized by the CIA and it was never discussed with him. Yngwie Malmsteen was asked by his father to do some shows in the Soviet Union. He later found out his father worked in intelligence. As far as the Copelands go both parents worked in intelligence. The father was OSS and CIA and the mom was British intelligence. Miles Copeland Sr. once said HW Bush was a fabulous administrator. Maybe he was but he also was one hell of a crook.

[Nitro Express]

Maybe we'd better understand him if we actually read a book he wrote?

Or of he ever read a book...

Trump was a talented cocky jock growing up. He was good enough to play professional baseball but turned that down because it didn't pay well enough. His dad sent him to military school because his cockiness made him a discipline problem. That being said the guy did manage to graduate from the Wharton School of Finance which is the best financial school in the US. Better than Harvard if you want to study finance. To Trump the world is deals. What real estate people really sell is leases. Sure the property plays a part but what you really are developing and selling is leases. To build a lease and make the most profit requires some good negotiating skills. To sell it requires some salesmanship. To get the most return requires cutting costs in a way that doesn't ruin the deal. That's Trump's world. He's brought it to Washington. You can see it in the current negotiations with North Korea. Right out of Art of the Deal. Trump's strategy is to keep his approval rating up to win a second term by keeping consumer confidence and the economy up. He wanted tax cuts his first year. North Korea was his current focus. Can Trump really grow the economy. Many say no.

[Nitro Express]

[Nickdfresh]

...That's Trump's world. He's brought it to Washington. You can see it in the current negotiations with North Korea....

You mean giving up everything with nothing concrete in return? He's an idiot that reads on a sixth grade level and has no attention span. He's a "salesman" in the vein of a lying used car salesman. You can swallow his bullshit hook line and sinker, but most think he's a lazy buffoon riding what was already a strong economy....

"The Art of the Deal" was ghostwritten and the author thinks Trump is a fucking dumbshit...

[Nitro Express]

You mean giving up everything with nothing concrete in return? He's an idiot that reads on a sixth grade level and has no attention span. He's a "salesman" in the vein of a lying used car salesman. You can swallow his bullshit hook line and sinker, but most think he's a lazy buffoon riding what was already a strong economy....

"The Art of the Deal" was ghostwritten and the author thinks Trump is a fucking dumbshit...

I think you have to have more than a 6th grade education to get into the Wharton School of Finance.

[Nickdfresh]

I think you have to have more than a 6th grade education to get into the Wharton School of Finance.

Yeah, um, there's probably a lot of bullshit there too:

During Trump’s rise to the top of the real estate development world, various news publications exaggerated his academic achievements at Wharton, according to a 2011 Salon magazine article.

Reports of Trump’s grades at Wharton vary. The New York Times reported in 1973 and 1976 that he graduated first in his class. But in a 1985 biography of Trump, Jerome Tuccille wrote that he was not an honor student and “spent a lot of time on outside business activities.”

Another biographer, Gwenda Blair, wrote in 2001 that Trump was admitted to Wharton on a special favor from a “friendly” admissions officer. The officer had known Trump’s older brother, Freddy.

Trump’s classmates doubt that the real estate mogul was an academic powerhouse.

“He was not in any kind of leadership. I certainly doubt he was the smartest guy in the class,” said Steve Perelman, a 1968 Wharton classmate and a former Daily Pennsylvanian news editor.

Some classmates speculated that Trump skipped class, others that he commuted to New York on weekends.

“Four years — including lots of required classes — is a long time never to hear of a classmate, especially with such a distinctive name,” wrote 1968 Wharton graduate Larry Krohn, another one of Trump’s classmates, in an email.

http://www.thedp.com/article/2015/08/donald-trump-wharton-classmates