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@GH
I'd say most people aren't primarily worked up abotu the russian interference per se, but about the possibility that some factions in America collaborated with the Russians to tilt the election, since that has far more worrying implications.
It's rare for foreign powers to have anything which would appear to be significant success in messing with an American election, so people take note when they think it might have actually occurred. It's one thing for them to try to mess with us, that's kinda expected, it's quite another for them to have possibly had some success at it.
It's a principled position of "don't mess with us" to some extent, as a guess, I'd say it's 30% principle, 40% politics, 30% cognitive biases; but I don't think it changes anyone's general principles on election interference, the standard rationalization effects means they're far more willing to do to others than what they're willing to accept themselves. There were already a fair number of americans who didn't like it when america messed with others' elections. And quite a lot of americans who disapprove when foreign powers interfere with democracies' elections. America stays out of the elections of its allies/friends. messing with minor 3rd world nations is of course another story in practice; America also doesn't interfere near as much as it used to, at least in the hard-core kind of ways. now it's more democracy-building work much of which is actually legitimate (and not candidate focused but more on the nuts and bolts of making democracies work).
During cold war, we of course messed with the soviets a lot and they messed with us. Post cold-war, there was a period of rapproachment wherein some hoped russia could be shifted from enemy to friendlyish neutral (and non-evil) nation, and there was at any rate a decline in tension animosity. At that time I'm not sure the US was doing anything to mess with russian elections, so i'm not sure how it'd be a tit for tat on their part.
on a more general note, americans tend to react to stuff down to the US in a disproportionate manner.
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On October 30 2017 10:08 zlefin wrote:
@GH
I'd say most people aren't primarily worked up abotu the russian interference per se, but about the possibility that some factions in America collaborated with the Russians to tilt the election, since that has far more worrying implications.
It's rare for foreign powers to have anything which would appear to be significant success in messing with an American election, so people take note when they think it might have actually occurred. It's one thing for them to try to mess with us, that's kinda expected, it's quite another for them to have possibly had some success at it.
It's a principled position of "don't mess with us" to some extent, as a guess, I'd say it's 30% principle, 40% politics, 30% cognitive biases; but I don't think it changes anyone's general principles on election interference, the standard rationalization effects means they're far more willing to do to others than what they're willing to accept themselves. There were already a fair number of americans who didn't like it when america messed with others' elections. And quite a lot of americans who disapprove when foreign powers interfere with democracies' elections. America stays out of the elections of its allies/friends. messing with minor 3rd world nations is of course another story in practice; America also doesn't interfere near as much as it used to, at least in the hard-core kind of ways. now it's more democracy-building work much of which is actually legitimate (and not candidate focused but more on the nuts and bolts of making democracies work).
During cold war, we of course messed with the soviets a lot and they messed with us. Post cold-war, there was a period of rapproachment wherein some hoped russia could be shifted from enemy to friendlyish neutral (and non-evil) nation, and there was at any rate a decline in tension animosity. At that time I'm not sure the US was doing anything to mess with russian elections, so i'm not sure how it'd be a tit for tat on their part.
on a more general note, americans tend to react to stuff down to the US in a disproportionate manner.
I'd be curious if anyone here would say that accurately describes their interpretation of their own position?
EDIT: It would be easier to follow the conversation if you quote what you're responding to.
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I'll try to do that about quoting, but please don't include different people's posts in your post then; otherwise it causes the post chains to get very unwieldy and complicated. (i.e. I don't like to quote posts that have responses to two different people in them, as it causes the quote chains to merge and get far bigger, as well as be more disjointed and harder to parse through for people like me who had to disable the script stuff, and it's very hard to find the right spots to snip to cut them out of the quotechain)
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On October 30 2017 09:56 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2017 09:53 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 30 2017 09:44 zlefin wrote:On October 30 2017 09:33 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 30 2017 09:24 zlefin wrote:
@GH
Well, I can try to come up with an answer that will make sense for you then.
but there's a lot of similar questions which have different answers, and i'm not sure which exact one(s) you're asking.
can you (re)state your exact questions for the record so I can work off those? Why is this instance in particular so significant for people? Is this a principled position that means they equally or more disturbed by the US's consistent and ongoing colluding with foreign political groups up to and including assassinating democratically elected leaders? Why wouldn't Russia respond to our interfering in their politics by interfering in ours? I suppose those would be a good start. which "this instance" are you referring to? there's been a whole bunch of different related stuff in thread, and i'm not sure which part(s) you're talking about. I mean, there's trump/russia stuff, clinton/russia stuff, trump subordinate/russia stuff, other russia election actions not linked with any particular campaign. this will seem slow and pedantic, but I operate best when using precision. Rough summary of GH's opinion is: 1) Everyone in politics does this all the time, everyone is hypocrites for caring about Trump doing this. 2) The entire system is broken, burn it down and replace it. And my rebuttal to that is these rules and regulations may have loopholes and doublespeak, but that's why you build and improve on them. Any replacement system is going to be just as flawed, or worse, in the beginning. But if you don't actually enforce the laws and rules that do exist, it's meaningless to even talk about making new ones. Maybe I missed all the calls from Russiagaters about putting an end to the US interfering in foreign politics? Selective rule enforcement is kinda our shit. Going all the way back to ignoring that the Constitution made slavery illegal before the 13th amendment (which actually legalized slavery).
Other countries are free to change and enforce their laws to secure their elections from foreign influence just as the US is. If other countries want to call for punitive measures against the US for their undue influence, then by all means go ahead. This is why congress voted for additional sanctions against Russia, it was their way of saying, "Fuck off and don't do it again."
Laws were broken when Russia decided to meddle. I just want to see our own laws faithfully enforced, and strengthened where necessary. I wouldn't criticize other countries for doing the same, so I don't see it as being hypocritical.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/us/politics/paul-manafort-indicted.html
WASHINGTON — Paul Manafort surrendered to federal authorities Monday morning, after a person close to the case said the first charges were filed in a special counsel investigation.
The charges against Mr. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, were not immediately clear but represent a significant escalation in a special counsel investigation that has cast a shadow over the president’s first year in office. Also charged was Mr. Manafort’s former business associate Rick Gates, who was also told to surrender on Monday, the person said.
Mr. Manafort walked into the F.B.I.’s field office in Washington at about 8:15 a.m. with his lawyer.
Mr. Gates is a longtime protégé and junior partner of Mr. Manafort. His name appears on documents linked to companies that Mr. Manafort’s firm set up in Cyprus to receive payments from politicians and businesspeople in Eastern Europe, records reviewed by The New York Times show.
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Manafort is center front on the Fox website. Not like they are hiding it.
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RIP Manafort. If Trump decides to pardon him, he's still probably screwed since they're slamming him with state charges.
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On October 30 2017 22:07 Gorsameth wrote:Manafort is center front on the Fox website. Not like they are hiding it.
There are some pretty stark differences between the website and televised news at Fox; the latter is almost always crazier and tends to cater to the crowd that's still relatively unfamiliar with computers.
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Well, Manafort is the unsurprising result. He’s the only one against whom a real case had been built, rather than just a collection of somewhat suspicious behavior. We’ll see if more will come.
The fuck? All those candies suck ass.
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Like fine wine
On October 30 2017 22:17 LegalLord wrote:Well, Manafort is the unsurprising result. He’s the only one against whom a real case had been built, rather than just a collection of somewhat suspicious behavior. We’ll see if more will come. The fuck? All those candies suck ass.
There's also Rick Gates, who didn't get booted out until Trump got inaugurated. Also rumours floating around that Flynn is in trouble too.
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Pretty sure this means Manafort didn't take a deal, so now we're waiting on what the charges are to see if they related to the campaign (unlikely).
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On October 30 2017 22:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
Pretty sure this means Manafort didn't take a deal, so now we're waiting on what the charges are to see if they related to the campaign (unlikely).
"The indictment contains 12 counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts."
Mostly financial stuff. But hey money laundering, now we know which xDaunt kept using that phrase yesterday. 
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On October 30 2017 22:22 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2017 22:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
Pretty sure this means Manafort didn't take a deal, so now we're waiting on what the charges are to see if they related to the campaign (unlikely). "The indictment contains 12 counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts." Mostly financial stuff. But hey money laundering, now we know which xDaunt kept using that phrase yesterday.
So basically a dead end unless Trump leaves him hanging?
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On October 30 2017 22:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
Pretty sure this means Manafort didn't take a deal, so now we're waiting on what the charges are to see if they related to the campaign (unlikely).
None of the charges is related to the campaign or Trump. It's all pre-Trump stuff relating to various types of fraud against the US government.
Source.
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i would describe the charges filed thus far as getting the low hanging fruit. there's probably more - maybe not with manafort but maybe with flynn or others - which will come later. this investigation is gonna go on for awhile i bet.
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On October 30 2017 22:26 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2017 22:22 ticklishmusic wrote:On October 30 2017 22:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
Pretty sure this means Manafort didn't take a deal, so now we're waiting on what the charges are to see if they related to the campaign (unlikely). "The indictment contains 12 counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts." Mostly financial stuff. But hey money laundering, now we know which xDaunt kept using that phrase yesterday. So basically a dead end unless Trump leaves him hanging?
Mayhaps they will try to see if he knows anything.
Hey, if he’d spent an entire lifetime serving foreign governments for money, why not just tattle on Trump as well? Assuming he actually has something worth sharing.
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On October 30 2017 22:26 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2017 22:22 ticklishmusic wrote:On October 30 2017 22:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
Pretty sure this means Manafort didn't take a deal, so now we're waiting on what the charges are to see if they related to the campaign (unlikely). "The indictment contains 12 counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts." Mostly financial stuff. But hey money laundering, now we know which xDaunt kept using that phrase yesterday. So basically a dead end unless Trump leaves him hanging?
Maybe, but the indictment is pretty specific. The charges are basically all financial, presumably since that's basically what the state of New York can smack Manafort with, but the indictment specifically targets money laundering with Cypriot bank accounts (which Kushner seems to have done a fair bit of in the past) and Manafort being an illegal foreign agent working on behalf of a pro-Russia political organisation.
I guess Manafort can fall on the sword and take one for the team. But at the end of the day they're pretty serious charges that are pretty related to the allegations thrown at Trump's campaign staff. Not the big man himself but specifically but his staff.
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On October 30 2017 22:42 doomdonker wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2017 22:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 30 2017 22:22 ticklishmusic wrote:On October 30 2017 22:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
Pretty sure this means Manafort didn't take a deal, so now we're waiting on what the charges are to see if they related to the campaign (unlikely). "The indictment contains 12 counts: conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts." Mostly financial stuff. But hey money laundering, now we know which xDaunt kept using that phrase yesterday. So basically a dead end unless Trump leaves him hanging? Maybe, but the indictment is pretty specific. The charges are basically all financial, presumably since that's basically what the state of New York can smack Manafort with, but the indictment specifically targets money laundering with Cypriot bank accounts (which Kushner seems to have done a fair bit of in the past) and Manafort being an illegal foreign agent working on behalf of a pro-Russia political organisation. I guess Manafort can fall on the sword and take one for the team.
He'd have talked already if he was going to. It would appear Manafort was betting they didn't have anything on the campaign through him and it looks like he was right. I see this heading toward a plea with little to no jail time.
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On October 30 2017 22:27 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2017 22:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
Pretty sure this means Manafort didn't take a deal, so now we're waiting on what the charges are to see if they related to the campaign (unlikely). None of the charges is related to the campaign or Trump. It's all pre-Trump stuff relating to various types of fraud against the US government. Source.
You could say Trump doesn't choose his people well, but we already knew that from Corey Lewandowski to Anthony Scaramucci. That part isn't a change. What will probably happen now is some narrative about Trump knowing, or not firing soon enough, or trying to paint a cloud of suspicion over all campaign operations.
It will be interesting to see if Carter Page and Michael Flynn get grand jury indictments in the coming months.
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EPT
