y Russian ambassador told Moscow that Kushner wanted secret communications channel with Kremlin

Um, no.

That was a single item from a long Time interview, pulled out merely because it was fun, not because it was important. Its the "dog birthday party" side of the news industry.

And it never traveled much past Time and CNN, except in conservative media, which decided to act as if it was meant as dead-serious reporting of a scandal.

You are certainly free to have that opinion, but you appear to be mixing up your sources. Which suggests you aren't doing a very careful job of separating credible sources from non-credible ones.

 

#1, the second set of sources was described as "current and former U.S. intelligence officials."
#2, they weren't the sources who made the initial disclosure. They were people the Post contacted for comment/analysis of the disclosure, to see if it made sense or fit with their understanding of things.

So I'm not sure what your point is. The available evidence does not support your theory that this is some kind of sting operation to unmask leakers.

 

Imagine that you have to actually explain that.........it's obvious the poster never read the original article.

 

Endless repetition of the Trump playbook doesn't really make it valid.

 

Yes, personal integrity is a missing commodity in this administration.

 

What happened with the polls in 2016 was within standard statistical error.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-just-a-normal-polling-error-behind-clinton/

And indeed, on a national level, they were eerily accurate: Clinton won the popular vote by a solid 2.1 percentage points.

The problem was polling in individual states. The quality of state-level polling is typically poorer than national-level polling, and it was worsened by a cutback in polling due to cutbacks at newspapers and institutions that traditionally perform the bulk of state-level polling.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...alyze-what-went-wrong/?utm_term=.945328ab14bf

That led to pollsters missing late movement toward Trump, among other things.

Here's a good analysis from FiveThirtyEight, from which I drew the above links:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-real-story-of-2016/

 

They were always within the margin of error and many Trump supporters were too ashamed to admit they supported him.........I wonder why?

 

Just my opinion, but part of the problem was overconfident Clinton voters staying home.

 

Has any new administration not relied on back channel intelligence? That is the better question. Research that one and you will have a better clue than you have now.

 

What are you talking about dude? I'm not an trump supporter. That doesn't mean that constantly unnamed sources become hard evidence somehow. You partisans need to take a Xanax or something, you're seeing each other behind every corner.

 

Do you know of any administrations that have not created back channel intelligence sources?

 

In fact, the polls blew it. Hence all the shock, awe, hair pulling and hissing fits post election.

 

Read the links. The REPORTING about the polls tended to take the topline number as gospel, which meant headline after headline showing Clinton ahead -- which was true. But the actual results of the polling were within standard error ranges.

Remember, FiveThirtyEight -- whose model uses polling data as its input -- gave Trump a 29% chance of winning. Was Clinton the favorite, according to the data? Yes. Did Trump have a meaningful chance of winning, according to the data? Yes. That's what "margin of error" MEANS.

Polling in 2016 was actually MORE accurate than in 2012. It's just that in 2012, the error was to underestimate Obama's margin. So they predicted an Obama win, just a smaller margin than he actually got. Everyone remembers the polls predicting an Obama win, and Obama won, so "polls were accurate." When in fact they were LESS accurate than in 2016.

 

There is no such thing as the national popular vote. There's part of your problem right there.

 

How is that "part of my problem" when discussing polling accuracy? Jeebus.

Stop with the irrelevancies, focus on the actual claims and data.

 

The polls were wrong from start to finish. The LAT/USC daily tracker which could not adjust its sample got it it right start to finish.

“The first evidence of the party’s polling blind spot surfaced in a governor’s race, the 2015 contest in Kentucky. Both public and private polls going into the election showed Democrat Jack Conway and Republican Matt Bevin running neck-and-neck — Conway had a 3-point lead in the final RealClearPolitics average — but Bevin won by a comfortable, 9-point margin.” …

“We projected Clinton to lose Ohio by 200,000 votes,” said Hagner, “and she lost by 450,000.”
Democrats’ polling problems might not only be voters hiding their intentions from pollsters — some voters may have been hiding altogether.

That bias against responding covers a number of different elements, including geography. One top Democratic strategist who requested anonymity to discuss candidly what went wrong with the 2016 polls pointed to difficulty in reaching voters in more rural districts because of spotty cellphone service.

The same strategist added that many of these voters also may choose not to participate in polls “because they don’t like the establishment and they don’t want to take a survey.”
POLITICO, Democrats burned by polling blind spot, By STEVEN SHEPARD 03/27/17.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/democrats-trump-polling-236560

 

Well Well Well


WIKILEAKS: Obama Transition Team Initiated ‘Confidential Policy Consultations’ with Foreign Actors in Nov. 2008

 

That's the same question that Ran Blather his career!

 

The Pollsters claim they "really" got the election right.
Dems claim that, "really" they won!

They haven't hit bottom yet.

 

Wow! WikiLeaks really is a source for 'inconvenient truth'.

 

Correct. They are not even on step one, and it will probably take more than 7 for them to recover fully.

 

And now you deflect to something completely unrelated to the point under discussion. WTF? Your inability to respond to what I posted is noted.

As far as your deflection goes, you cited Gateway Pundit, which is an almost guaranteed fail. They cite a SINGLE LINE from an attachment to an August 2008 email, outlining a suggested high-level timeline for the transition. The line they quote simply says "President elect and senior officials begin confidential policy consultations with key actors in U.S. and abroad."

Nowhere does "confidential" suggest "hidden from U.S. intelligence agencies by making use of another country's secure communications network." It just means talking to them privately, out of public view.

You seem to think that the issue here is "OMG! Trump's people talked to the Russians!"

It's not.

The issue is, "We have evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Coincidentally(?), Trump's people have an unusual number of connections to Russia. Further, Trump's people have repeatedly LIED about their contacts with the Russians, and have tried to establish communications with the Russians in ways that suggest espionage, not policy discussions."

 

It's part of the problem because you're citing something that doesn't actually exist as if it matters.

 

The furious backpedaling once you discover
Obama Transition Team Initiated ‘Confidential Policy Consultations’ with Foreign Actors in Nov. 2008.

And they INITIATED THEM!


Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Brother Steven Wasserman Accused of Burying Seth Rich Case.

 

I wonder if they are capable of a rigorous honest self-assessment?