Trump and Russiagate - Page 92 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Political issues and parties in the USA and Canada.

Moderator: PoFo North America Mods

Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#14889751
President Donald Trump says his election campaign "did nothing wrong" as the FBI brought charges against 13 Russians for alleged election meddling.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller also named three companies in the indictment - seen as a major development his continuing probe into the 2016 poll.
Three of the people named have also been accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five have been accused of aggravated identity theft.
Russia denies trying to sway the poll.
In a tweet on Friday evening, Mr Trump repeated that there had been "no collusion" between his campaign and Russia.
However, he did appear to concede that Russia had sought to influence the election. The president has previously disputed US intelligence agency assessments suggesting this.

What does the indictment say?
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said there was no allegation that any American was "a knowing participant in this illegal activity" nor was it alleged that the meddling altered the election outcome.
The 37-page indictment says a group of Russians:
■ Posed as Americans, and opened financial accounts in their name
■ Spent thousands of dollars a month buying political advertising
■ Purchased US server space in an effort to hide their Russian affiliation
■ Organised and promoted political rallies within the United States
■ Posted political messages on social media accounts that impersonated real US citizens
■ Promoted information that disparaged Hillary Clinton
■ Received money from clients to post on US social media sites
■ Created themed groups on social media on hot-button issues, particularly on Facebook and Instagram
■ Operated with a monthly budget of as much as $1.25m (£890,000)
■ Financed the building of a cage large enough to hold an actress portraying Hillary Clinton in a prison uniform
The indictment says those involved systematically monitored the success of their internet posts.
■ The tactics of the Russian 'troll farm'
■ Trump Russia affair: Key questions answered
■ Who's who in Russia scandal?
It also says those named in the indictment had visited the US posing as American citizens and had begun discussing how to affect the election as early as 2014.
"By 2016, defendants and their co-conspirators used their fictitious online persons to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election," the indictment continues.
"They engaged in operations primarily to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump."
One of the companies targeted is the Internet Research Agency, based in St Petersburg, which the indictment said "had a strategic goal to sow discord in the US political system, including the 2016 US presidential election".
How has Russia reacted?
It called the allegations "absurd".
"Thirteen people interfered with the US elections?" said Maria Zakharova, a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman. "Thirteen against the billion-dollar budgets of the security services? Against espionage and counter-espionage, against new developments and technologies? Absurd? Yes."
One of the men named in the indictment - Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is known as "Putin's chef", denied election tampering.
"The Americans are very impressionable people, they see what they want to see," he was quoted as saying by Russian news agency Ria Novosti on Friday. "I have great respect for them. I'm not at all upset that I'm on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see him."
Mr Prigozhin has been a friend of Mr Putin since the 1990s. He has built up a business empire and has been accused of using companies to diffuse pro-Kremlin opinions via fake internet identities.
Heat of investigation is increasing...
Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington
On Friday, Robert Mueller's team released a slate of indictments that lays bare what it asserts is the full shape of the Russian meddling apparatus.
And what an apparatus it was. In the run-up to the US presidential election "Project Lakhta", as it was called, had an operating budget of more than $1m a month.
Russians associated with the organisation travelled to the US, posed as Americans and gathered information on where best to target its attempts to "sow discord" in the US political process. Swing states were identified and efforts, according to the indictment, were made to boost the prospects of Republican Donald Trump and undermine Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Although the indictment does not suggest collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, it says the meddling effort may have been aided by "unwitting individuals" associated with the Republican nominee.
The White House may breathe a sigh of relief with that particular revelation. But the heat is increasing, and the investigation isn't over yet. At the very least, if Mr Mueller's allegations hold up in court, it will become increasingly difficult for the president to argue that Russian meddling on his behalf is an unsubstantiated hoax.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43095881


Image


.
Last edited by anarchist23 on 17 Feb 2018 11:41, edited 3 times in total.
#14889752
The Russia collusion theory is a bust.

However, the same laws under which Mueller indicted 13 Russians for interfering in "U.S. political and electoral processes ... through fraud and deceit" apply with equal force to David Brock's corrupt Shareblue troll farm -- which has ties to foreign governments and pays non-US political activists to post derogatory information, disparage candidates, and generally sow discord in the US political system.

Mueller has simply further polarized the establishment with these double standards on public display. Excellent.

As I keep saying, care packages in the upcoming civil war for all. Together, we will make the infighting last as long as possible. :)
User avatar
By colliric
#14889755
As far as I'm concerned Australians had more direct impact on the 2016 elections than the Russians did. Our Melbourne boy under house arrest in London delivered the greatest October Surprise of all time...

The Podesta Emails.

He didn't get them from the Russians. Zero evidence. Got them from someone else.... Still looks like he got them from Seth Rich.
User avatar
By Hong Wu
#14889761
Mueller is coming for you Igor and PoFos Dems will finally get to notch a win :O

Anyway, I guess the new argument is Trumpeters unknowingly colluded with an operation that didn't interfere with the outcome. In-peach!
#14889763
Igor Antunov wrote:However, the same laws under which Mueller indicted 13 Russians for interfering in "U.S. political and electoral processes ... through fraud and deceit" apply with equal force to David Brock's corrupt Shareblue troll farm -- which has ties to foreign governments and pays non-US political activists to post derogatory information, disparage candidates, and generally sow discord in the US political system.

There are many millions of illegal aliens from Central America who do exactly the same thing. Why aren't they being charged?

colliric wrote:As far as I'm concerned Australians had more direct impact on the 2016 elections than the Russians did. Our Melbourne boy under house arrest in London delivered the greatest October Surprise of all time...

The Podesta Emails.

He didn't get them from the Russians. Zero evidence. Got them from someone else.... Still looks like he got them from Seth Rich.

That's very likely the case. It's also interesting there is zero interest from the press in the Democrats killing off one of their defectors.

Hong Wu wrote:Anyway, I guess the new argument is Trumpeters unknowingly colluded with an operation that didn't interfere with the outcome.

Now we can file criminal charges against DACA people and "Si se puede" marchers, because they are trying to sway US elections as they are breaking our laws. We simply must get all the illegal aliens out of the United States so they don't interfere in our election process.
User avatar
By 4cal
#14889766
Can you imagine how the pervert's family feels? Either the porn star's accusations were true or false. If true...it's confirmed that the cheeto is a piece of shit. However even if it was all made up, he's sleazy enough on his own to give the story plausibility and hush money had to be paid. :eek:
Last edited by 4cal on 17 Feb 2018 19:11, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By 4cal
#14889767
Hong Wu wrote:So yeah, Mueller has basically said now that there's no evidence of collusion. Although a Bloomberg article I read said that there might be "unwitting collusion". If we're lowering the bar to unwitting collusion that's probably not criminally punishable. Does this mean that it's over? It usually takes 48 hours for new narrative orders to come out...


The investigation into the many scandals of the pervert continue. Have a nice weekend
User avatar
By jimjam
#14889809
blackjack21 wrote:As for posting my tax returns, why the hell would I do that?


I like you #21. You are very smart and also took the time to help me out . But, perhaps, you can work on your sense of humor a bit.
User avatar
By jimjam
#14889824
After more than a dozen Russians and three companies were indicted on Friday for interfering in the 2016 elections, President Trump’s first reaction was to claim personal vindication: “The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!” he wrote on Twitter.

No comment on the far more important conclusion that America is UNDER ATTACK by a foreign enemy and no leadership whatsoever as how to respond to this attack. Could it be , in Donald's addled mind, that his personal well being trumps ( :lol: ) the well being of the nation? Donald's dereliction of duty to America is astounding and mind boggling.
#14889826
Jimjam

It blows me away how these Trump supporters can still support blowing away over a billion dollars plus maintenance on a wall over top 750 tunnels to stop a declining number of undocumented, lawn mower wannabes and ignore cyber security that isn't limited by passport to Russians, but includes Chinese, probably ISIS and others who are growing more sophisticated by the day.
User avatar
By Hong Wu
#14889827
Apparently the strategy is to ignore the part where Mueller's spokesman said that the Russian trolls were ineffective, then act wounded that Trump isn't doing more against Russia.

Like I've been saying, the only explanation for this inanity that makes sense is that powerful people in the DNC are worried about that FISA wiretap thing and won't let people move on from the Russian scare to real issues no matter how lame it gets.
User avatar
By Hong Wu
#14889833
You can't tell from PoFo but the saturation some of these terrible arguments are getting on Reddit gives me the impression that domestic troll farms like Shareblue predicted this and had already decided to keep moving forward with the Russian thing despite everything. Sad!
#14889836
jimjam wrote:After more than a dozen Russians and three companies were indicted on Friday for interfering in the 2016 elections, President Trump’s first reaction was to claim personal vindication: “The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!” he wrote on Twitter.

No comment on the far more important conclusion that America is UNDER ATTACK by a foreign enemy and no leadership whatsoever as how to respond to this attack. Could it be , in Donald's addled mind, that his personal well being trumps ( :lol: ) the well being of the nation? Donald's dereliction of duty to America is astounding and mind boggling.


''Foreign enemy''? Give me a break. There's no reason-except maybe to some kind of crypto-fascist-that our two nations can't work together for the good of all. And America having a sane foreign policy would be a great start.
User avatar
By jimjam
#14889841
Hong Wu wrote:Apparently the strategy is to ignore the part where Mueller's spokesman said that the Russian trolls were ineffective, then act wounded that Trump isn't doing more against Russia.

Russian trolls were ineffective? I guess i'll believe that when I see it but, in the meantime, let us pretend it is true.
"Oh, the trolls were ineffective so ..... what's the big deal. We'll do nothing until they are effective and, in the process remain the world's laughingstock. "

Look Junior, when the very foundation of America's government is under attack I'm OK with erroring on the safe side. And,hey, this has nothing to do with Trumpie. Hopefully America will be doing well long after he is rotting in his solid gold coffin.
User avatar
By Beren
#14889844
jimjam wrote:Hopefully America will be doing well long after he is rotting in his solid gold coffin.

I'm sure Republicans will be doing well as long as they get their tax cuts regardless of whether United Russia or Likud, both of which could be their fraternal parties, appoints their president.
By skinster
#14889868
What We’ve Learned in Year 1 of Russiagate
The relentless pursuit of this narrative above all else has had dangerous consequences

The publication of a House Republican memo alleging surveillance violations in the Russia probe has prompted President Trump to declare that he is “totally” vindicated. As many have pointed out, that is not true. While the memo makes a plausible case that a surveillance warrant of campaign volunteer Carter Page was obtained on questionable grounds, it also acknowledges that it was another campaign aide, George Papadopolous, who triggered the opening of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation three months earlier. Whether or not Page should have been monitored in the first place, the status of his surveillance warrant will not be what resolves this investigation.

That said, the memo is not necessarily the disaster for Trump and the Republicans that it is widely considered to be. Many of Trump’s political opponents remain tethered to the eventual emergence of proof that his campaign colluded with the Russian government in order to win the presidency. But the evidentiary basis so far for Russiagate is thin, to say the least. Meanwhile, the relentless pursuit of this narrative above all else has had dangerous consequences.

THE CURIOUS CAST
As high-level officials and investigators have repeatedly acknowledged, there is still no evidence so far of coordination between the Trump orbit and the Russian government over the release of stolen e-mails or any other campaign matter. There is only a curious cast of characters that makes for an unlikely conspiracy.

At a London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos reportedly told an Australian diplomat that that the Russian government had damaging information on Hillary Clinton. In his plea document, Papadopoulos says that an obscure professor, Joseph Mifsud, had told him that “the Russians” had obtained “thousands of emails” containing “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. Mifsud has denied making the claim. The Washington Post noted that, had the Trump campaign “undertaken even a cursory vetting of Papadopoulos” before hiring him, “they would have found that much of his already-slim résumé was either exaggerated or false.” But if Papadopoulos is telling the truth about Mifsud, it is quite possible that the professor had similar qualities. By April 2016, the time of Mifsud’s alleged statement, the controversy over Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server was already three years old.

It is possible that Mifsud was using a public talking point to impress his American intermediary for the purpose of career advancement. Indeed, he even pitched himself as a Trump campaign surrogate, proposing to “write op-eds under the guise of a ‘neutral’ observer…and follow Mr. Trump to his rallies as an accredited journalist while receiving briefings from the inside the campaign.”

The other rendezvous that fuels collusion speculation is the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower arranged by Rob Goldstone between a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and top campaign members. Goldstone, a former tabloid journalist turned music publicist with a proclivity for funny hats, informed Trump Jr. that Veselnitskaya had incriminating information on Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Often ignored is what information Goldstone said was on offer: “official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia.” While Mifsud’s purported overture to Papadopoulos at least made mention of stolen e-mails, Goldstone floated something totally different—and on its face immaterial to the election results, since the embarrassing disclosures that supposedly damaged Clinton’s campaign have nothing to do with “her dealings with Russia.”

Furthermore, as NBC News notes, “no evidence has emerged publicly to contradict Veselnitskaya’s account that she wanted to press a case about U.S. Magnitsky Act sanctions, and that she did not possess significant derogatory information about Clinton,” notwithstanding Goldstone’s pitch. “Moreover, no evidence has emerged publicly that connects the Russians in the meeting with the Russian intelligence effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”

NEITHER “PROVEN NOR DISPROVEN”
Both scenarios also call into question another foundation of Russiagate, the series of Clinton-campaign-funded intelligence reports written by former British spy Christopher Steele. The premise of the Steele dossier is of a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” in which Russia has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for at least five years,” beginning back when Trump was hosting The Apprentice. Russia gives Trump “and his inner circle…a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” As an insurance policy, Steele contends, at least two years after their conspiracy began, the Russians collected a videotape of Trump hiring and watching prostitutes “perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show,” in a Moscow Ritz-Carlton hotel room.

This questionable narrative is perhaps why, according to the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, after one year and multiple investigations, the dossier’s allegations remain neither “proven nor, conversely, disproven”—in other words, not proven. According to Fox News, “when pressed [in recent congressional testimony] to identify what in the salacious document the bureau had actually corroborated…[then–FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe cited only the fact that Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had traveled to Moscow.” It would not have been difficult for the FBI—or Steele—to figure that out, given that it was reported in The Washington Post and Russian media in early July. (Steele reports it only on July 19.)

“MISSING…HARD EVIDENCE”
The shaky evidentiary basis for collusion extends to Russiagate’s other central pillars. It has been over a year since the release, shortly before Trump’s inauguration, of a US intelligence report alleging a Russian-government campaign to elect Trump through e-mail hacking and covert propaganda. Amid the ensuing uproar, some quietly noted at the time that the public version of the report “does not or cannot provide evidence for its assertions” (The Atlantic); contained “essentially no new information” (Susan Hennessy, Lawfare); and was “missing…what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims” (The New York Times).

If “hard evidence” is what “many Americans most eagerly anticipated” in January 2017, they have continued to wait in vain. The Russian government may well have hacked Democratic Party e-mails, but evidence of it beyond unsubstantiated claims has yet to arrive.

In its place is a bipartisan fearmongering campaign that recalls the height of the Cold War. The nation is said to face “an ongoing attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors directly acting to intervene and influence our democratic process” (Democrats Representative Adam Schiff and Senator Dianne Feinstein); in which “Russia continues…to disseminate propaganda designed to weaken our nation” (former acting CIA director Michael Morell and former Republican Representative Mike Rogers); which means that we cannot “simply sit back and hope that we do not face another attack by a hostile foreign power” (Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen).

A credulous national media has helped disseminate the panic. When news of Russian-linked Facebook ads (in reality, Russian troll farms) broke open, The Daily Beast calculated that the “Russian-funded covert propaganda posts…were likely seen by a minimum of 23 million people and might have reached as many as 70 million,” meaning that “up to 28 percent of American adults were swept in by the campaign.” National audiences were soberly informed of covert Russian attempts to dupe them via Pokemon Go. CNN reported—and multiple outlets repeated—that “highly sophisticated” Russian Facebook ads targeted “the states that turned out to be pivotal,” including “Michigan and Wisconsin, two states crucial to Donald Trump’s victory last November.” The New York Times consulted with “analysts” to ponder over the mysterious significance of a Russian-linked “Facebook group for animal lovers with memes of adorable puppies”:

The goal of the dog lovers’ page was more obscure. But some analysts suggested a possible motive: to build a large following before gradually introducing political content. Without viewing the entire feed from the page, now closed by Facebook, it is impossible to say whether the Russian operators tried such tactics.

We may never know if vulnerable American dog-lovers were compromised by the Russian puppy-gandists. But “analysis” and “exclusives” like these have drowned out the actual evidence. In brief, more than half of the relatively paltry $100,000 in Facebook ads bought by “Russian-linked” accounts ran after the election. They were mostly related not to the election but to social issues and were often juvenile and written in broken English. Those that were “geographically located” came mostly during the primaries. The ads that ran in battleground states were, as one study noted, “microscopic”: Fewer than a dozen ran in Michigan and Wisconsin combined, and the majority were seen fewer than 1,000 times. Purported Russian ad spending amounted to $1,979 in Wisconsin—all but $54 of that during the primary—$823 in Michigan, and $300 in Pennsylvania.

Summarizing available data, The Washington Post’s Philip Bump concludes: “what we actually know about the Russian activity on Facebook and Twitter: It was often modest, heavily dissociated from the campaign itself and minute in the context of election social media efforts.”

“THEORIES WITH VIRTUALLY NO FACT”
The impact of Russiagate panic has been magnified by a preponderance of influential exponents wading into imaginative territory. And their audience happens to be millions of people aggrieved by Trump’s presidency and seeking hope that it can be reversed.

Rachel Maddow, the top-rated cable-news host who covers Russiagate more than all other issues combined, has speculated that Putin was responsible for the hiring of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson; is inducing Trump to “weaken” the State Department and “bleed out” the FBI; and, via the infamous “pee tape” alleged by Steele, may blackmail Trump into withdrawing US forces near Russia’s border.

The Russian influence theory is so ingrained that Democrats see no irony in invoking it to dismiss the conspiracy theories of Republicans. Denouncing the current right-wing uproar over alleged anti-Trump bias at the FBI, Senator Chuck Schumer cautioned that in pushing “conspiracy theories with virtually no fact,” the Republicans “wittingly or unwittingly are acting as allies of Russia’s disinformation campaigns,” ultimately “playing right into Putin’s hands.”

Such is our Trump-era political spectrum: a Republican Party that has graduated from birtherism to now pushing fears of an anti-Trump FBI “secret society,” versus a Democratic Party whose counterattack is to accuse its foes of doing Putin’s bidding.

While Trump ascended to the White House with open xenophobia and “America First” chauvinism, the perception he did so with Russia’s help has fueled a brand of xenophobia and chauvinism of its own. Prominent outlets explore the alarming phenomenon of Russian anchor babies. Liberal pundits decry Trump’s reliance on “Soviet propaganda outlets,” and wonder if Trump-friendly Republican lawmakers are being blackmailed with hacked Russian e-mails or are even a directly working as a “Russian agent.” In the inaugural ad for the Committee to Investigate Russia, an alliance of Hollywood liberals and Washington neoconservatives, the actor Morgan Freeman informs the nation that “We have been attacked. We are at war.” Echoing Trump’s catchphrase, Democrat Ron Wyden, known as one of the Senate’s most liberal members, declares: “With the current fascist leadership of Russia enthusiastically undermining our democracy, America must defend the values that made us great.”

The media has also found common ground. Before “Make America Great Again,” on the campaign, Trump was synonymous with another defining catchphrase on network reality television: “You’re fired.” Now that he’s in the White House, a top preoccupation for the news outlets that cover him is speculation over whom he may fire next.

RUSSIAGATE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
One consequence of the Trump-Russia fixation is the overshadowing of the far-right agenda that Trump and his Republican allies are carrying out, including, inexorably, policies that undermine the narrative of Trump-Russian collusion. But as that narrative is also used as a cudgel against Trump’s presidency, it is worth asking if some of those policies are now even a direct result.

In December, Trump authorized the sale of new weapons to Ukraine for its fight against Russian-backed separatists. President Obama had rejected the arms shipments, “fearing that it would only escalate the bloodshed,” as The New York Times noted in 2015. Trump had also opposed such a move during the campaign, but was swayed by lobbying from advisers and congressional neoconservatives. “Overall,” observed Andrew Weiss, a Russia expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “I see this discussion [on Trump-Russia] as fitting within a broader effort by people within the national security bureaucracy to box Trump in on Ukraine.”

The new weapons for Ukraine coincides with an increase in US troop deployments in the Baltic region on Russia’s border, prompting Russia to accuse the United States of violating the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, and position nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in response.

As it ramps up its armed presence near Russia, the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy declares that the US military advantage over Russia and China is “eroding,” and that reversing it is now more of a priority than stopping ISIS or Al Qaeda. “Great power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of U.S. national security,” Defense Secretary James Mattis declared. Russia is the top threat invoked in Trump’s Nuclear Posture Review. The plan’s centerpiece is the development of smaller, so-called “low-yield” nuclear weapons, small enough to ensure that Russia fears their actual use. The review attributes this to the “deterioration of the strategic environment”—“a nod toward existing tensions with Russia in particular,” The Washington Post observes.

Tensions between the world’s two major nuclear powers have helped lead the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to move its Doomsday Clock to its highest point since 1953. “Nuclear risks have been compounded by US-Russia relations that now feature more conflict than cooperation,” the Bulletin warns. “Coordination on nuclear risk reduction is all but dead.… For the first time in many years, in fact, no US-Russian nuclear arms control negotiations are under way.”

The nuclear risks may also be compounded by a US opposition party that has made “more conflict than cooperation” a defining trait. “Never before has a U.S. president so clearly ignored such a grave threat, and a growing threat, to U.S. national security,” declares Senator Ben Cardin. In not imposing new sanctions, Trump has “let Russia off the hook yet again,” says Representative Eliot Engel. In releasing the House Republican memo, Trump has “Vladimir Putin there smiling…like he gave Donald Trump the script” (Representative Jackie Speier) and has “just sent his friend Putin a bouquet” (Representative Nancy Pelosi). It is difficult to imagine Democrats leading the charge to reduce nuclear tensions with Russia when they expend more energy urging Trump to be confrontational.

With Trump’s actual Russia policies receiving less attention than Russiagate, it also makes sense that his administration has begun to take advantage of the opportunities that the distraction provides. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has warned that there are “initial signs” of Russian “subversion and disinformation and propaganda” in Mexico’s upcoming presidential election. McMaster did not cite any evidence, but perhaps he had in mind the multiple polls that show leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador as the front-runner so far.

TOP PRIORITIES
The focus on still-absent evidence of Trump-Russia collusion while ignoring increasing US-Russia tensions coincides with the indifference that has greeted the most concrete case of Trump collusion with a foreign government so far: the Trump transition’s effort to undermine President Obama’s abstention on a United Nations Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlements in December 2016. Undertaken at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “derailing the vote was Mr. Trump’s top priority at that time,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

But for Democrats and thought leaders to oppose the Trump transition’s “top priority” would mean challenging one that they uphold. “While [the UN effort] might have otherwise given the Democrats a welcome political opportunity to underscore the perfidy of the Trump team,” Stephen Zunes observes, “they are hindered by the fact that the majority of Congressional Democrats opposed Obama and supported Trump’s position on the vote.”

It is here that Russiagate performs a critical function for Trump’s political foes. Far beyond Israelgate, Russiagate allows them to oppose Trump while obscuring key areas where they either share his priorities or have no viable alternative. Democrats can claim to be Trump’s opposition without having to confront many of the failings that handed them one of the most stunning defeats in US political history.

In focusing on a foreign villain, there is also little need for Democrats to challenge the powerful sectors of US society that many Trump voters were duped into thinking that they were voting against—and whose interests many Democrats have deftly served. In fact, the outside enemy offers Democrats new opportunities to cater to powerful donors: increased militarism towards a nuclear power is a boon for the military-security establishment, and lawmakers who promote it have been duly rewarded.

Less understandable is how Democrats and partisan media outlets can continue to prioritize Russiagate over factors that likely cost their party far more votes than any stolen e-mails or Facebook ads: gerrymandering, voter suppression, declining unionization, exhaustive Trump media coverage, and the unregulated, worsening “dark-money” takeover of political campaigns. Or any number of domestic outrages around which large segments of the population, not just liberals, could be mobilized.

After more than one year of its engulfing our politics, perhaps that could be Russiagate’s most helpful contribution: guiding us to the challenges that it helps us avoid.
https://www.thenation.com/article/what- ... ussiagate/
#14889879
jimjam wrote:Russian trolls were ineffective? I guess i'll believe that when I see it but, in the meantime, let us pretend it is true.
"Oh, the trolls were ineffective so ..... what's the big deal. We'll do nothing until they are effective and, in the process remain the world's laughingstock. "

Look Junior, when the very foundation of America's government is under attack I'm OK with erroring on the safe side. And,hey, this has nothing to do with Trumpie. Hopefully America will be doing well long after he is rotting in his solid gold coffin.


The foundation of America's government isn't ''under attack'', it's rotting from within because of the contradictions of a Capitalist society and disguised rule by the Rich through a managerial technocratic elite, an elite that pays more or less lip service to liberty and the rule of law, but denudes it of meaning. The Liberals are deluded by faux left Identity politics and the Right are deluded by appeals to God and country. Politicians are bought and sold by the Corporations while the central fact of political life is cheerfully and willingly ignored; there are no political rights without economic rights. People are turned into consumers and credit slaves to keep the wheels of the economy turning, greased by fiat money and debt bought by foreign capitalist interests, while America serves as the world's policeman and professional busybody as it's own people lives lives of spiritual anomie....
#14889923
13 Rooskies bought 100K in Bernie Facebook Covfefe while a couple of Saudi officials plunked down $120 million for Crooked Hillary. And the media focus is on...

This is a feeble coup attempt, but it will weaken the country. Soros is pleased.
#14889925
Igor Antunov wrote:13 Rooskies bought 100K in Bernie Facebook Covfefe while a couple of Saudi officials plunked down $120 million for Crooked Hillary. And the media focus is on...

This is a feeble coup attempt, but it will weaken the country. Soros is pleased.


Indeed the hypocrisy is sickening. Israel and the Oil Sheikdoms among others do far more, while a Russia ( that is directly on the trajectory of a new Cold War by ''Neoconservative'' warmongers and Liberal Chickenhawks,) acting to preserve it's national security and indeed the interest of America itself as a bastion of world order, is subject to witch hunt.
  • 1
  • 90
  • 91
  • 92
  • 93
  • 94
  • 266
I (still) have a dream

Because the child's cattle-like parents "fol[…]

As president, he can certainly stop it. Why sho[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

@skinster Hamas committed a terrorist attack(s) […]

Europeans and Russians are educated, this makes t[…]