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The Russia scandal has gone from phony war to heavy shelling Gone are the days when we need to debate about what constitutes ‘collusion’ and whether that’s any standard to judge the Trump campaign Richard Wolffe, The Guardian Indictments do strange things inside a White House. They twist the minds of an already neurotic nest of frenemies, turning suspicions into paranoia, press leaks into prosecutorial intelligence and financial concerns into colossal legal bills. Normal life ceases (if it ever existed) for everyone from the president down, as the indictments grow in number, the grand juries call ever more witnesses, and impeachment looms ever closer. Welcome to the first year of the Trump presidency, in which our protagonists have already proved themselves wholly incompetent in a succession of crises. There may be Black Sea ferries that leak as much the Trump White House, but they still run a tighter ship than this gang. Lest we forget, this is a president who wanted Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci to run his clean-up operation. So who cleans up now that the Trump campaign is the subject of so many investigations? The indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, along with the guilty plea of George Papadopoulos, have now taken the whole Russia scandal from phony war to heavy shelling. Gone are the days when we need to debate about what constitutes “collusion” and whether that’s any standard to judge the rogues’ gallery that peopled the upper ranks of the Trump campaign. We just moved far beyond the false equivalence with Hillary Clinton’s private email server, which so dominated the media coverage of her campaign, the final days of the election and a significant proportion of presidential tweets forevermore. It turns out that “mistakes” on legal disclosure forms, “misremembering” facts in front of federal agents, and distracting “stories” on Fox News do not constitute much of a legal case against the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and its former director Robert Mueller, who now enjoys the title of special counsel. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t such a great idea to try to stop the Russia investigation by firing the FBI director who succeeded Mueller. Across the street from the White House, at FBI headquarters, they might consider that obstruction of justice. But first, the facts we learned today. Papadopoulos is not a janitor-like figure in this enterprise, even though we barely knew his name. Here’s one Donald J Trump describing his foreign policy aide, at the point in his campaign when unkind souls were suggesting he didn’t have any foreign policy aides. “George Papadopolous, he’s an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy,” Trump told the Washington Post editorial board, alongside four more names that represented his foreign policy team. “We have many other people in different aspects of what we do, but that’s a representative group.” This excellent guy was, according to his guilty plea, tasked with improving US-Russia relations. With that mission in mind, he pursued meetings with a Kremlin-connected professor in London, who promised that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails”. Over several months, Papadopoulos was diligent in working his Russian contacts, including the Kremlin’s ministry of foreign affairs, as he tried to organize a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Within a month of Trump calling him an excellent guy, Papadopoulos was emailing not just his fellow Trump aides but also a “high-ranking campaign official” with a very kind offer for Trump himself. To wit: “Putin wanting to host him and the team when the time is right.” A few months later came an alternative offer: if a trip was too difficult, perhaps “a campaign rep” could make a meeting? If not, Papadopoulos kindly offered to make the trip himself in an “off the record” capacity. His unnamed “campaign supervisor” told him he should go ahead, but the trip never happened. For some reason, Papadopoulos lied to FBI agents about the “extent, timing and the nature of his communications” with the Russians, according to his guilty plea. Now, instead of a five-year prison term and a $250,000 fine, Papadopoulos is looking at less than six months in prison and less than $9,500 in fines. There are many ways you could describe this sequence of events. Collusion would be the mildest word. There are also many ways that Trump and his inner circle have flatly lied about such collusion. In addition to being tired of winning, America might now be tired of hearing such lies. “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING,” screamed the president-elect on Twitter, just nine days before his inauguration. Just in case you didn’t catch that the first couple of dozen times, President Trump tweeted on Monday morning: “Also, there is NO COLLUSION!” Tweeting in ALL CAPS doesn’t quite match a couple of federal indictments and a guilty plea. But when that’s all you’ve got left, you may as well let loose. Trump attempted to claim that the news about Manafort and Gates was so much blah blah “before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign”. Nice try, Mr President. Let’s set aside the 12 counts of the indictments, including “conspiracy against the United States”, money-laundering, tax evasion and failing to register as a foreign agent. Let’s set aside the alleged $75m in payments through offshore accounts, laundered by Manafort into property to hide the income from the prying eyes of the US government. Let’s even ignore the fact that Manafort ran the Trump campaign as its chairman, for no salary. During that time, he fended off a potentially disastrous delegate challenge at the nominating convention in Cleveland, where he also oversaw the rewriting of the party platform to be solidly pro-Russia and astonishingly anti-Ukraine. For now, let’s just focus on the essential promise of the Trump campaign. Even more than making America great again, Trump talked endlessly about his corrupt opponent. He trashed Clinton at every turn for her emails, warning gravely that her presidency would be crippled by FBI investigations, especially in the closing days of the contest. “Lock her up” was the rallying cry of his entire general election, based on this supposedly serious FBI inquiry. Only now, the shackles are on the other foot. We always knew that Trump accused others of his own failings. Even Lyin’ Ted Cruz, in a rare moment of honesty, accurately described Trump as a pathological liar and a serial philanderer. Now Trump can serve out the remainder of this presidency living the life he predicted for Hillary Clinton. Making his final case to the voters before his election, Trump said the FBI investigations would trigger “an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis” because of “a criminal massive enterprise and cover-ups like probably nobody ever before”. He’s rarely been so right and so wrong at the same time. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/30/russia-scandal-phony-war-heavy-shelling

Alcohol (in excess) does loosen my inhibitions, just before I go to sleep. Best regards, RA1

It's got a good beat and you can dance to it

Hustler site: https://mx.mileroticos.com/escorts-gay/nuevo-leon/monterrey/ A whorehouse, so to speak...they have different guys at different times or can reserve one ahead of time: http://elparaelmonterreynl.blogspot.mx/ A Map of places: https://www.gaymexicomap.com/monterrey.php GoGo bar: https://twitter.com/diosa_club?lang=en Rouge club/colorina https://www.facebook.com/stage.433/?rf=196321310488526 Then there is the sauna, sex club, bookstores, apps....there is a lot there to offer....

Oh my god! My hero Tomcal has noticed me! I am only well prepared thanks to your many writings, my dear Sir! I respectfully ask permission to follow in your footsteps. I will do my best to make as few of the bad mistakes as possible, and as many of the good mistakes as possible.

These 2 are on my google map as hotspots, but not sure about being up so late and having sex in a dark room. I am getting old and I like some comfortable area for sex, don’t want to pull a muscle. And privacy. Actually thinking about it, it could be hot not to have privacy for sex for once in my life.

I believe Rapp spoke about this numerous times before the recent revelation. Quite frankly, I've heard the very numerous rumors of Spacey's "indiscretions" in England. I think he's guilty and don't appreciate him being part of our family.

you are definitely way ahead of where I was in my first(or 2nd, 3rd trips!) and as far as doing 4 or 5 guys a day in Rio or SP or PA it is definitely doable, depending on your preferences! :-)

You know, that wouldn't be a bad name for a new, timely & topical R&B act... * The Indictments *

You are going to have a great time, @Tartegogo!! If you are interested in exploring the gay night in Buenos Aires, which means you are willing to go out at 2 AM, I recommend you two places to go to. One is Contramano, the oldest gay bar in the city, and the place for older gentlemen and their admirers to go. It would be to Buenos Aires what The Monster is for NYC, allow me a raw analogy. The other one is AmeriKa, a mega disco en Palermo.On Saturdays they have open bar (you better don't drink that cheap alcohol) and the place gets really wild. Many heteros and bi show up that night, and anything can happen. They have a dark room in the second floor, very dark, where you can have sex. I have. The crowd here is young, average in the low 20s, but older gentlemen are always around. Of course.

Today's Wall Street Journal: Rio Police Killing of Spaniard Spotlights Perils of Slum Tourism A fatal police shooting in Rio recently of a Spanish woman who was taking a guided favela tour is a potent reminder of their perils at a time of resurgent violence in this world-famous city. (The Journal is a subscription outlet.)

With regard to Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Montevideo (Mvd)is a tiny Buenos Aires (BsAs), population is x10. Even so, you can find 2 saunas in Mvd and 3 gay saunas in Bs As. Unlike Brazilian saunas, there's no boys for rent in bathhouses. Trust Soytuyo y Leonos better than street "chongos" or "taxis" (slang for escorts). I wouldn't trust www.escortwiz for escorts in MVD. Uruguay is not the best place for rent boys. I would choose Buenos Aires. Grindr always help. As for shuttle to and from airports, in Mvd. (aeropuerto de Carrasco) take a taxi and also in Bs As (Aeroparque - AEP); but if in Bs As (Ezeiza - EZE) you can take a bus (www.tiendaleon.com) which is cheaper and safe.

Well if I behave like a 22 yo, I say good for me! , means I am still young in my head. As for the 3 wallets, it is more of an old man’s OCD : I don’t like mixing currency and then wasting time finding and pulling out the right banknotes. 2 of the wallets stay in the safe anyway.

You may be right about China but it is amazing how you have been on this Forum for 2 weeks and a member for 2 weeks and you are an expert on everything. And with all your expertise you are one of 2 members who managed to get themselves attacked in Brazil. Don't think I'll be taking any advice from you on anything!