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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On February 15 2018 08:30 On_Slaught wrote:
Fuck me... fatalities up to 17 according to CNN.
But they at least have him in custody? The only places I am finding details on this guy are places I would never trust. Oh well, just gotta hold out and see wtf happened.
Then again, my desire to know more probably makes these situations worse. All I need to know is that we desperately need better mental health preventative care. Mental states probably deteriorate faster than dental health, yet here we are seeing a dentist at least once a year. Meanwhile, as soon as the idea of seeing a psychologist comes up, modern day America says "WHOA, I AM NOTTTT CRAZY HOW DARE YOU I DON'T HAVE SCHIZOPHRENIA OR SOMETHING"
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On February 15 2018 08:34 Logo wrote:This thread was already a bit iffy, but it's pretty sad that over the last few pages it's given into complete Russia hysteria where any implication seems to be acceptable so long as it involves Russia somehow. Show nested quote +Putin's favoritism towards Trump and vice-versa were well-known during the campaign itself Show nested quote +Putin is a very smart, calculated man. Major countries have entire teams dedicated purely to political theorizing and wargame scenarios. Russia is clearly one of them. Nothing Putin says or does is without purpose. Show nested quote +Lets say there's 15% chance that releasing it gets you what you want, but there's an 80% chance that you could get something else you want - repeatedly over the course of 4(?) years - by threatening to release it. Maybe its a good idea to keep it. Fair enough (see pee tape). Though it wouldnt help as much if the Republicans lost... Show nested quote +The Trump admin wanted to lift sanctions right away. This is a fact, and it tells you a lot. Like this is all crazy. There's plenty of things going on that we actually know about that aren't sourced as "officials said X tried to do Y" all of this is unnecessary and ridiculous.
some of the stuff you cite isn't crazy; therefore your overall conclusion seems suspect. and your categorization of it all as russia hysteria, when only a modest portion of it is, seems off, and such usually say more about the person making the conclusion than about the actual validity of the conclusion.
on the topic of the shooting, I hereby give my usual spiel on the topic, and assume that's sufficient as we've seen it all before.
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On February 15 2018 08:24 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 08:09 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 07:48 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 07:40 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 07:27 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 07:25 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 07:09 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 06:40 On_Slaught wrote:On February 15 2018 06:33 LegalLord wrote:
[quote]
I’m not at all sure what you’re getting at. The issue is, assuming the goal is to cause discord, would it make sense to release RNC leaks?
Why exactly is it “obvious” that it would be? There’s an argument that could be made either way. But if the only argument is, “it’s obvious!” as with On_Slaught, the reality is more akin to that there isn’t too much of a justification for why it’s the case. Just conjecture.
Which is fine - as you say, people can speculate if they like. But it also means there’s nothing further to discuss.
[quote]
Your immaturity on full display is much appreciated. Because I'm bored I'll throw out one more point you can immediately dismiss. Let's say there is only a 15% chance releasing the RNC leaks accomplishes what they want. Fuck, let's make it 5%. What reason is there to hold on to it if there is any chance it helps you? If it flops who cares, just move on since, like you said, there was so much else going on. There is only upside to releasing. There's also a few other tidbits directly out of Russia that made that "wanted Trump to win" narrative weaker. Putin has said in the past that the unstable nature of Trump might not be good for cooperation. Medvedev said directly after Trump won that they expected no changes on sanctions policy. So on and so forth. So because Putin and Medvedev said so, we are left to assume Russia had no preference? If politician A says “our government’s policy priorities are Y” what is your take on that proclamation? Depends who is saying it and what is said. In the instance you are referring to, saying an unstable nature might be bad for cooperation isn't really policy or anything really. And Medvedev saying what he expects doesn't really mean anything. He could also have expected sanctions to go away, but didn't want to cause resistance in the US by Russia being so bold as to say "yeah we got this rofl". So the context was in talking to business leaders, Russian or otherwise, who are interested in knowing what the business climate is going to look like in the coming years. Not a particularly bold proclamation or one that garners much attention (not exactly posted in every news outlet) but more of a simple statement on what the coming 2017 was going to look like. In essence, it was a way to tell the business leaders, "we're not expecting Trump's administration to be different than Obama's on sanctions, so plan your business ventures accordingly." And actual policy that followed was quite consistent with precisely that position. Hell, why not look at Trump? He says his priorities include trade deals, rebuilding the military, tackling immigration, tax reform, repealing Obamacare, and so on. And that's exactly what he focused on. Results may vary but generally "this is our government's policy" means "this is our government's policy" for stuff like that. If Putin wanted Trump to win, he certainly has insufficient incentive to make that clear in the situation you are describing. This is all still entirely public. If Putin said he expected Trump to remove sanctions, Trump would have been under 10x as much pressure to keep sanctions. Putin is correctly viewed as an awful human being by a lot of people. Those people hearing Putin say he expects Trump to help his friends get rich would not go well. To be clear, that one was Medvedev's statement on about Nov 9th. Putin's statement was at a completely different time in a completely different situation, as updated in my other post. And it's true, maybe it might be lying and there's an expectation that sanctions are going away soon. But more likely it's an analysis consistent with many before it in both the Russian and the English speaking policy research circles: that Trump would not represent any meaningful shift in the US FP, and that even if there were a grand overture that it would quickly return to the status quo. That is exactly what happened and the policy promoted in Russia properly reflected that in how it went about with its economic planning and military work. Sure, that doesn't exactly constitute incontrovertible proof, and I didn't say it was either (you singled that point out when it was clearly more of a side-point). But in the context of how policy was actually conducted, and in terms of how events actually played out, it seems fairly reasonable to assume that the statement was a reasonable description of policy. Note that the events don't have to be mutually exclusive - no expected change in sanctions and Trump was the desired result - but then you have to make a better, more reasonable narrative than that hacking was a stunt for sanctions relief.
Your counterargument consists mostly of "Putin is a meanie-poo" and irrelevant whining, which is not unexpected. For that there is little more to say than, "bless your heart." I said nothing like this, but nice straw man. If this is all you've got, I'll consider that a concession. Have a nice day ^^
Hmm.
On February 15 2018 07:48 Mohdoo wrote:
Putin is correctly viewed as an awful human being by a lot of people. Those people hearing Putin say he expects Trump to help his friends get rich would not go well.
I suppose I'll take your blatant lie as a surrender.
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On February 15 2018 08:34 Logo wrote:This thread was already a bit iffy, but it's pretty sad that over the last few pages it's given into complete Russia hysteria where any implication seems to be acceptable so long as it involves Russia somehow. Show nested quote +Putin's favoritism towards Trump and vice-versa were well-known during the campaign itself Show nested quote +Putin is a very smart, calculated man. Major countries have entire teams dedicated purely to political theorizing and wargame scenarios. Russia is clearly one of them. Nothing Putin says or does is without purpose. Show nested quote +Lets say there's 15% chance that releasing it gets you what you want, but there's an 80% chance that you could get something else you want - repeatedly over the course of 4(?) years - by threatening to release it. Maybe its a good idea to keep it. Fair enough (see pee tape). Though it wouldnt help as much if the Republicans lost... Show nested quote +The Trump admin wanted to lift sanctions right away. This is a fact, and it tells you a lot. Like this is all crazy. There's plenty of things going on that we actually know about that aren't sourced as "officials said X tried to do Y" all of this is unnecessary and ridiculous.
We can all get a bit silly, but the Trump administration 100% did want to lift Russian sanctions asap.
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-white-house-secret-efforts-lift-russia-sanctions-putin-619508
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/former-diplomats-trump-team-sought-lift-sanctions-russia-n767406
And lots of other actual sources.
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On February 15 2018 08:37 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 08:34 Logo wrote:This thread was already a bit iffy, but it's pretty sad that over the last few pages it's given into complete Russia hysteria where any implication seems to be acceptable so long as it involves Russia somehow. pro bernie ads were sponsored or outright stated by russians Putin's favoritism towards Trump and vice-versa were well-known during the campaign itself Putin is a very smart, calculated man. Major countries have entire teams dedicated purely to political theorizing and wargame scenarios. Russia is clearly one of them. Nothing Putin says or does is without purpose. Because your talking to LL. A Russian shill living the US Lets say there's 15% chance that releasing it gets you what you want, but there's an 80% chance that you could get something else you want - repeatedly over the course of 4(?) years - by threatening to release it. Maybe its a good idea to keep it. Fair enough (see pee tape). Though it wouldnt help as much if the Republicans lost... The Trump admin wanted to lift sanctions right away. This is a fact, and it tells you a lot. Like this is all crazy. There's plenty of things going on that we actually know about that aren't sourced as "officials said X tried to do Y" all of this is unnecessary and ridiculous. some of the stuff you cite isn't crazy; therefore your overall conclusion seems suspect. and your categorization of it all as russia hysteria, when only a modest portion of it is, seems off, and such usually say more about the person making the conclusion than about the actual validity of the conclusion.
Which ones specifically aren't either full blown crazy or at least using dubious sourcing to make an argument?
The implication that someone in this thread is actively trying to spread pro-Russia propoganda, that Bernie supports were influenced by Russia, that Putin's every word is some result of a complex methodology, the implication that an unseen tape is definitely real and may be being held to eventually exort the POTUS, or that Trump definitely wanted to do something because officials said he did even though he ended up not doing it.
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On February 15 2018 08:42 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 08:34 Logo wrote:This thread was already a bit iffy, but it's pretty sad that over the last few pages it's given into complete Russia hysteria where any implication seems to be acceptable so long as it involves Russia somehow. pro bernie ads were sponsored or outright stated by russians Putin's favoritism towards Trump and vice-versa were well-known during the campaign itself Putin is a very smart, calculated man. Major countries have entire teams dedicated purely to political theorizing and wargame scenarios. Russia is clearly one of them. Nothing Putin says or does is without purpose. Because your talking to LL. A Russian shill living the US Lets say there's 15% chance that releasing it gets you what you want, but there's an 80% chance that you could get something else you want - repeatedly over the course of 4(?) years - by threatening to release it. Maybe its a good idea to keep it. Fair enough (see pee tape). Though it wouldnt help as much if the Republicans lost... The Trump admin wanted to lift sanctions right away. This is a fact, and it tells you a lot. Like this is all crazy. There's plenty of things going on that we actually know about that aren't sourced as "officials said X tried to do Y" all of this is unnecessary and ridiculous. We can all get a bit silly, but the Trump administration 100% did want to lift Russian sanctions asap. http://www.newsweek.com/trump-white-house-secret-efforts-lift-russia-sanctions-putin-619508https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/former-diplomats-trump-team-sought-lift-sanctions-russia-n767406And lots of other actual sources.
Are there any sources that go beyond an outgoing official saying something happened?
Like I don't think it's wrong to take it as the most likely thing that happened but you can't extrapolate these outgoing comments into "this is fact and is a fact in a specific way with strong implications"
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On February 15 2018 08:38 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 08:24 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 08:09 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 07:48 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 07:40 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 07:27 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 07:25 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 07:09 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 06:40 On_Slaught wrote:
[quote]
Because I'm bored I'll throw out one more point you can immediately dismiss. Let's say there is only a 15% chance releasing the RNC leaks accomplishes what they want. Fuck, let's make it 5%. What reason is there to hold on to it if there is any chance it helps you? If it flops who cares, just move on since, like you said, there was so much else going on. There is only upside to releasing. There's also a few other tidbits directly out of Russia that made that "wanted Trump to win" narrative weaker. Putin has said in the past that the unstable nature of Trump might not be good for cooperation. Medvedev said directly after Trump won that they expected no changes on sanctions policy. So on and so forth. So because Putin and Medvedev said so, we are left to assume Russia had no preference? If politician A says “our government’s policy priorities are Y” what is your take on that proclamation? Depends who is saying it and what is said. In the instance you are referring to, saying an unstable nature might be bad for cooperation isn't really policy or anything really. And Medvedev saying what he expects doesn't really mean anything. He could also have expected sanctions to go away, but didn't want to cause resistance in the US by Russia being so bold as to say "yeah we got this rofl". So the context was in talking to business leaders, Russian or otherwise, who are interested in knowing what the business climate is going to look like in the coming years. Not a particularly bold proclamation or one that garners much attention (not exactly posted in every news outlet) but more of a simple statement on what the coming 2017 was going to look like. In essence, it was a way to tell the business leaders, "we're not expecting Trump's administration to be different than Obama's on sanctions, so plan your business ventures accordingly." And actual policy that followed was quite consistent with precisely that position. Hell, why not look at Trump? He says his priorities include trade deals, rebuilding the military, tackling immigration, tax reform, repealing Obamacare, and so on. And that's exactly what he focused on. Results may vary but generally "this is our government's policy" means "this is our government's policy" for stuff like that. If Putin wanted Trump to win, he certainly has insufficient incentive to make that clear in the situation you are describing. This is all still entirely public. If Putin said he expected Trump to remove sanctions, Trump would have been under 10x as much pressure to keep sanctions. Putin is correctly viewed as an awful human being by a lot of people. Those people hearing Putin say he expects Trump to help his friends get rich would not go well. To be clear, that one was Medvedev's statement on about Nov 9th. Putin's statement was at a completely different time in a completely different situation, as updated in my other post. And it's true, maybe it might be lying and there's an expectation that sanctions are going away soon. But more likely it's an analysis consistent with many before it in both the Russian and the English speaking policy research circles: that Trump would not represent any meaningful shift in the US FP, and that even if there were a grand overture that it would quickly return to the status quo. That is exactly what happened and the policy promoted in Russia properly reflected that in how it went about with its economic planning and military work. Sure, that doesn't exactly constitute incontrovertible proof, and I didn't say it was either (you singled that point out when it was clearly more of a side-point). But in the context of how policy was actually conducted, and in terms of how events actually played out, it seems fairly reasonable to assume that the statement was a reasonable description of policy. Note that the events don't have to be mutually exclusive - no expected change in sanctions and Trump was the desired result - but then you have to make a better, more reasonable narrative than that hacking was a stunt for sanctions relief.
Your counterargument consists mostly of "Putin is a meanie-poo" and irrelevant whining, which is not unexpected. For that there is little more to say than, "bless your heart." I said nothing like this, but nice straw man. If this is all you've got, I'll consider that a concession. Have a nice day ^^ Hmm. Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 07:48 Mohdoo wrote:
Putin is correctly viewed as an awful human being by a lot of people. Those people hearing Putin say he expects Trump to help his friends get rich would not go well. I suppose I'll take your blatant lie as an admission that you were wrong.
This was me saying a lot of people have very negative opinions of Putin (McCain etc) and that Putin saying he expects Trump to dismantle sanctions would cause McCain etc to throw a huge fit. I think you may be misreading my original post. I wasn't saying Putin is a meanie. And while I do also believe Putin is a very unethical person, my point was that declaring Russia's economy can expect sanctions lifted would have sounded a lot of alarms over here.
The sanctions that Trump refuses to impose were approved 98-2. It can be assumed that if those 98 people wanted additional sanctions, they would likely not be comfortable with removing existing sanctions. Putin/Medvedev or whoever saying sanctions would be removed would signal to those 98 people that their interests are going to be opposed. Knowing their interests would be opposed would make them escalate. Instead, by Trump letting everything happen, then just kinda not signing it, he accomplished all the same tasks without needing to be particularly public about it. And because of that, the fact that a part of your argument relied on "But Putin/Medvedev said to expect things to remain the same!" wasn't valid because it would be strategically inferior to declare victory preemptively.
Is it that you take issue with the idea that Putin is an unethical person?
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On February 15 2018 08:43 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 08:37 zlefin wrote:On February 15 2018 08:34 Logo wrote:This thread was already a bit iffy, but it's pretty sad that over the last few pages it's given into complete Russia hysteria where any implication seems to be acceptable so long as it involves Russia somehow. pro bernie ads were sponsored or outright stated by russians Putin's favoritism towards Trump and vice-versa were well-known during the campaign itself Putin is a very smart, calculated man. Major countries have entire teams dedicated purely to political theorizing and wargame scenarios. Russia is clearly one of them. Nothing Putin says or does is without purpose. Because your talking to LL. A Russian shill living the US Lets say there's 15% chance that releasing it gets you what you want, but there's an 80% chance that you could get something else you want - repeatedly over the course of 4(?) years - by threatening to release it. Maybe its a good idea to keep it. Fair enough (see pee tape). Though it wouldnt help as much if the Republicans lost... The Trump admin wanted to lift sanctions right away. This is a fact, and it tells you a lot. Like this is all crazy. There's plenty of things going on that we actually know about that aren't sourced as "officials said X tried to do Y" all of this is unnecessary and ridiculous. some of the stuff you cite isn't crazy; therefore your overall conclusion seems suspect. and your categorization of it all as russia hysteria, when only a modest portion of it is, seems off, and such usually say more about the person making the conclusion than about the actual validity of the conclusion. Which ones specifically aren't either full blown crazy or at least using dubious sourcing to make an argument? The implication that someone in this thread is actively trying to spread pro-Russia propoganda, that Bernie supports were influenced by Russia, that Putin's every word is some result of a complex methodology, the implication that an unseen tape is definitely real and may be being held to eventually exort the POTUS, or that Trump definitely wanted to do something because officials said he did even though he ended up not doing it.
your statements, to which I responded and objected, was "this is all crazy" and mentioned "russia hysteria", your statement was NOT "this is dubiously sourced and quite doubtful".
I am pedantic; I respond to the words people actually wrote; so I require clarification whether you're retracting your claim of crazy/hysteria; or if you're holding to it and hence retracting the latter part of the quoted post where you say "or at least using dubious sourcing to make an argument?".
it matters an awful lot which argument your'e making; so please be clear on which one you're making, and don't try to subtly switch between two very different ones as you did in your response.
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On February 15 2018 08:22 hunts wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2018 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:
I for one think Russian ads didn't do much of squat. They were like .1% of just the campaigns internet advertising budgets. They were neither prevalent or effective.
As far as improperly altering voter roles, it was Democrats in New York that did that, not Russian hackers. Then you have Ohio for Republicans and Arizona where it was apparently a ghost.
If we want to restore faith in our elections we need to start with the idiots running them not faceless Russians. sorry I'm lat here, but given how you turn rabid at the mention of Hillary, and how many anti Hillary and pro bernie ads were sponsored or outright stated by russians, I think they may have had an effect on at least you and some of the other people on this very board.
As much as I disagree with GH in general, you gotta give him more credit than suggesting his opinions on Bernie and Hillary are in any way shaped by campaign ads. Ads aren't for people that are passionate about the subject in question.
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On February 15 2018 08:49 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 08:38 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 08:24 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 08:09 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 07:48 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 07:40 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 07:27 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 07:25 LegalLord wrote:On February 15 2018 07:20 Mohdoo wrote:On February 15 2018 07:09 LegalLord wrote:
[quote]
There's also a few other tidbits directly out of Russia that made that "wanted Trump to win" narrative weaker. Putin has said in the past that the unstable nature of Trump might not be good for cooperation. Medvedev said directly after Trump won that they expected no changes on sanctions policy. So on and so forth. So because Putin and Medvedev said so, we are left to assume Russia had no preference? If politician A says “our government’s policy priorities are Y” what is your take on that proclamation? Depends who is saying it and what is said. In the instance you are referring to, saying an unstable nature might be bad for cooperation isn't really policy or anything really. And Medvedev saying what he expects doesn't really mean anything. He could also have expected sanctions to go away, but didn't want to cause resistance in the US by Russia being so bold as to say "yeah we got this rofl". So the context was in talking to business leaders, Russian or otherwise, who are interested in knowing what the business climate is going to look like in the coming years. Not a particularly bold proclamation or one that garners much attention (not exactly posted in every news outlet) but more of a simple statement on what the coming 2017 was going to look like. In essence, it was a way to tell the business leaders, "we're not expecting Trump's administration to be different than Obama's on sanctions, so plan your business ventures accordingly." And actual policy that followed was quite consistent with precisely that position. Hell, why not look at Trump? He says his priorities include trade deals, rebuilding the military, tackling immigration, tax reform, repealing Obamacare, and so on. And that's exactly what he focused on. Results may vary but generally "this is our government's policy" means "this is our government's policy" for stuff like that. If Putin wanted Trump to win, he certainly has insufficient incentive to make that clear in the situation you are describing. This is all still entirely public. If Putin said he expected Trump to remove sanctions, Trump would have been under 10x as much pressure to keep sanctions. Putin is correctly viewed as an awful human being by a lot of people. Those people hearing Putin say he expects Trump to help his friends get rich would not go well. To be clear, that one was Medvedev's statement on about Nov 9th. Putin's statement was at a completely different time in a completely different situation, as updated in my other post. And it's true, maybe it might be lying and there's an expectation that sanctions are going away soon. But more likely it's an analysis consistent with many before it in both the Russian and the English speaking policy research circles: that Trump would not represent any meaningful shift in the US FP, and that even if there were a grand overture that it would quickly return to the status quo. That is exactly what happened and the policy promoted in Russia properly reflected that in how it went about with its economic planning and military work. Sure, that doesn't exactly constitute incontrovertible proof, and I didn't say it was either (you singled that point out when it was clearly more of a side-point). But in the context of how policy was actually conducted, and in terms of how events actually played out, it seems fairly reasonable to assume that the statement was a reasonable description of policy. Note that the events don't have to be mutually exclusive - no expected change in sanctions and Trump was the desired result - but then you have to make a better, more reasonable narrative than that hacking was a stunt for sanctions relief.
Your counterargument consists mostly of "Putin is a meanie-poo" and irrelevant whining, which is not unexpected. For that there is little more to say than, "bless your heart." I said nothing like this, but nice straw man. If this is all you've got, I'll consider that a concession. Have a nice day ^^ Hmm. On February 15 2018 07:48 Mohdoo wrote:
Putin is correctly viewed as an awful human being by a lot of people. Those people hearing Putin say he expects Trump to help his friends get rich would not go well. I suppose I'll take your blatant lie as an admission that you were wrong. This was me saying a lot of people have very negative opinions of Putin (McCain etc) and that Putin saying he expects Trump to dismantle sanctions would cause McCain etc to throw a huge fit. I think you may be misreading my original post. I wasn't saying Putin is a meanie. And while I do also believe Putin is a very unethical person, my point was that declaring Russia's economy can expect sanctions lifted would have sounded a lot of alarms over here. The sanctions that Trump refuses to impose were approved 98-2. It can be assumed that if those 98 people wanted additional sanctions, they would likely not be comfortable with removing existing sanctions. Putin/Medvedev or whoever saying sanctions would be removed would signal to those 98 people that their interests are going to be opposed. Knowing their interests would be opposed would make them escalate. Instead, by Trump letting everything happen, then just kinda not signing it, he accomplished all the same tasks without needing to be particularly public about it. And because of that, the fact that a part of your argument relied on "But Putin/Medvedev said to expect things to remain the same!" wasn't valid because it would be strategically inferior to declare victory preemptively. Is it that you take issue with the idea that Putin is an unethical person?
I'm going to write something a bit longer on Putin in the near future, since Russian presidential elections are coming up. I don't expect to convince you of anything (you seem mostly set on believing whatever narrative is most convenient and that is unlikely to change) but if you're interested you can read it when I do finish. You can think whatever you like of Putin; I have no intention of convincing anyone right now.
However, I do stand by that it is irrelevant whining - "Putin is evil so it doesn't matter what he says" - because rather than any genuine analysis of the situation that is a knee-jerk dismissal for the purpose of convenience (for one, it's Medvedev who said "don't expect changes to sanctions policy"). You ignored the rest of my post because you didn't like that comment, but I do stand by it. Answer it or don't but I already gave a response to your objection about why that isn't relevant.
Also: that legislation you cite, you misunderstand its content. Wikipedia's page gives a good outline:
Countering Russian Influence in Europe and Eurasia Act of 2017
The President must submit for congressional review certain proposed actions to terminate or waive sanctions with respect to the Russian Federation.[11]
Specified executive order sanctions against Russia shall remain in effect.[11]
The President may waive specified cyber- and Ukraine-related sanctions.[11]
The bill provides sanctions for activities concerning: (1) cyber security, (2) crude oil projects, (3) financial institutions, (4) corruption, (5) human rights abuses, (6) evasion of sanctions, (7) transactions with Russian defense or intelligence sectors, (8) export pipelines, (9) privatization of state-owned assets by government officials, and (10) arms transfers to Syria.[11]
The Department of State shall work with the government of Ukraine to increase Ukraine's energy security.[11]
The bill: (1) directs the Department of the Treasury to develop a national strategy for combating the financing of terrorism, and (2) includes the Secretary of the Treasury on the National Security Council.[11]
As much about legislating current sanctions as, if not more than, about new ones. And this commentary talks about how "illegal" not issuing new ones actually was.
And as I said before. Besides everything else that I wrote earlier in the longer post, the Russian stated policy and implemented policy throughout 2017 was one that did not anticipate changes in the status of sanctions. That gives reasonably good support to the idea that "hacking the election" wasn't really about sanctions, even if that is a pretty compelling narrative. And again, that doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't have favored a Trump presidency for other reasons.
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On February 15 2018 08:57 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 08:22 hunts wrote:On February 14 2018 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:
I for one think Russian ads didn't do much of squat. They were like .1% of just the campaigns internet advertising budgets. They were neither prevalent or effective.
As far as improperly altering voter roles, it was Democrats in New York that did that, not Russian hackers. Then you have Ohio for Republicans and Arizona where it was apparently a ghost.
If we want to restore faith in our elections we need to start with the idiots running them not faceless Russians. sorry I'm lat here, but given how you turn rabid at the mention of Hillary, and how many anti Hillary and pro bernie ads were sponsored or outright stated by russians, I think they may have had an effect on at least you and some of the other people on this very board. As much as I disagree with GH in general, you gotta give him more credit than suggesting his opinions on Bernie and Hillary are in any way shaped by campaign ads. Ads aren't for people that are passionate about the subject in question.
Not his own, but the type that consider themselves revolutionaries ide today strongly with the cause and generally consider themselves as people with an elevated understanding. Non-revolutionaries don't understand how the REAL world works and only these very liberated individuals understand.
These types get very concerned with the size and widespread appeal of their message. When it becomes clear their numbers were overstated due to foreign powers trying to cause division, they are quick to compensate by insisting all of the breadth of their movement is totally real.
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On February 15 2018 08:57 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 08:22 hunts wrote:On February 14 2018 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:
I for one think Russian ads didn't do much of squat. They were like .1% of just the campaigns internet advertising budgets. They were neither prevalent or effective.
As far as improperly altering voter roles, it was Democrats in New York that did that, not Russian hackers. Then you have Ohio for Republicans and Arizona where it wants apparently a ghost.
If we want to restore faith in our elections we need to start with the idiots running them not faceless Russians. sorry I'm lat here, but given how you turn rabid at the mention of Hillary, and how many anti Hillary and pro bernie ads were sponsored or outright stated by russians, I think they may have had an effect on at least you and some of the other people on this very board. As much as I disagree with GH in general, you gotta give him more credit than suggesting his opinions on Bernie and Hillary are in any way shaped by campaign ads. Ads aren't for people that are passionate about the subject in question.
I think he is suggesting that GH is as biased at anyone else on this topic. Any creditably to the idea that Russia’s efforts changed minds about Clinton undercuts the idea that she lost due to being terrible. And the same goes for the hacks on the DNC, which validated a lot of people’s views on the DNC. And most of them turned out to be completely justified. But if people start to question how they came to hate the democrats and if maybe they were being manipulated, it undercuts the very comfortable narrative GH has enjoyed since the election.
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I mean, as the lawfare blog you link points out it's not really clear how legal State's approach of saying they didn't need to impose sanctions on anyone dealing with the target groups because their overall revenue was down was when the law itself seemed to be saying "you need to sanction each person unless they're dealing with the target groups less."
It is tough to decide whether this is malice, incompetence, or both though (I lean towards a heap of incompetence with a small side of self-interested malice somewhere along the line). To me it sounds like whichever it was, not giving individualized reports is subverting the legislation in a way legislators didn't intend.
Unfortunately I doubt we'll get any more reporting on the issue of whether the reports were individualized beyond the admin spokespeople's ambiguous statements.
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On February 15 2018 09:19 TheTenthDoc wrote:
I mean, as the lawfare blog you link points out it's not really clear how legal State's approach of saying they didn't need to impose sanctions on anyone dealing with the target groups because their overall revenue was down was when the law itself seemed to be saying "you need to sanction each person unless they're dealing with the target groups less."
It is tough to decide whether this is malice, incompetence, or both though.
Unfortunately I doubt we'll get any more reporting on the issue of whether the reports were individualized beyond the admin spokespeople's ambiguous statements.
The explanation certainly does sound contrived. Let's not throw around "illegal" "unprecedented" "constitutional crisis" "impeach" without merit, though.
For what it's worth, though, I do remember Tillerson saying something akin to, "we should tread carefully with sanctions because we want room to negotiate with Russia." Which isn't exactly an unreasonable position by any stretch.
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Not implementing things congress passes in bills is a bit of a constitutional crisis. A tiny one, but one where congress either stands up for itself or is the presidents’s bitch. Like Andrew Jackson “enforce the order yourselves” sized.
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Was it brought up that the 19 year old shooter was running around with an AR-15? As it stands currently, he pulled the fire alarm to get kids out of their classes and hurried down the corridor pulling the trigger on his semi automatic assault rifle as fast as possible. He's also a former student that got thrown out.
The walking down the corridor part is me, in a video i saw (nothing to see, but to hear) you can hear the gun shots moving down the corridor quickly away from the camera guy.
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Of course it was an AR-15. And I bet we will find out there were overwhelming warning signs and this kid should not have been anywhere near guns.
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On February 15 2018 09:31 Plansix wrote:
Of course it was an AR-15. And I bet we will find out there were overwhelming warning signs and this kid should not have been anywhere near guns.
He was thrown off campus because of aggressive behaviour and not allowed to bring a backpack to school when he was attending.
As far as i understand.
edit:
as usual the general stance: some people in the US must be beyond retarded if they think that ownership of a military style assault rifle, modifiable with drum mags, silencers, scopes of all varieties, armor piercing, tracer, incendiary rounds, bayonett etc needs to be legal. And no, the fact that it's semi automatic doesn't mean jack shit, that's how every single soldier fires his rifle too (apart from machine gunners).
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EPT
