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Rumor is that the person the Russians were working with in the recently charges was Paul Erickson, conservative political operative.
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In the background in the frame of the doorway, this is the meeting the WH barred American Reporters and only Russians were allowed in. The Spy that was just arrested.
Jesus christ.
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On July 17 2018 19:12 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2018 11:56 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:43 TheFish7 wrote:On July 17 2018 11:29 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:21 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:16 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 10:51 TheFish7 wrote:On July 17 2018 10:43 Introvert wrote:It be nice to have some sort of evidence to justify having a special counsel, instead we get hopes, and guesses, going on for months and months now, that this is building towards something.
Mueller’s Politicized Indictment of Twelve Russian Intelligence Officers
If the idea was to give Vladimir Putin and his thug regime a new way to sabotage the United States, nice work.
So, is Russia now presumed innocent of hacking the 2016 election?
If not, it is difficult to understand any proper purpose served by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of twelve military officers in the Kremlin’s intelligence services for doing what everybody in America already knew that they did, and has known since before Donald Trump took office — indeed, since before the 2016 election.
Make no mistake: This is nakedly politicized law enforcement. There is absolutely no chance any of the Russian officials charged will ever see the inside of an American courtroom. The indictment is a strictly political document by which the special counsel seeks to justify the existence of his superfluous investigation.
Oh, and by the way, the answer to the question posed above is, “Yes, it is now the official position of the United States that Russia gets our Constitution’s benefit of the doubt.” Here is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announcing the Friday the 13th indictment: “In our justice system, everyone who is charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.”
Of course, the indicted Russians are never going to be proven guilty — not in the courtroom sense Rosenstein was invoking.
As is so often the case in today’s politicized Justice Department, Rosenstein was trying to make a different political point. As he went on to note, if people whom we have formally charged are presumed innocent, then, a fortiori, people who have not been accused — implicitly, Rosenstein was talking about President Trump — must also be presumed innocent. But, see, you can’t make that point without stepping on the political purpose of Friday’s charade: We have taken the not only pointless but reckless step of indicting operatives of a hostile foreign power who cannot be prosecuted and whose schemes could easily have been exposed — and, in fact, have been exposed, multiple times — in public government reports; so now, due-process rules oblige us to caution you that we must presume the Russians did not do what we have formally accused them of doing. They are entitled to that presumption unless and until we convict them in court . . . which is never going to happen.
Rosenstein made another telling remark at his big press conference. The Justice Department, he explained, will now “transition responsibility for this case to our Department’s National Security Division while we await the apprehension of the defendants.”
Now, stop giggling over that last part — the bit where we hold our breath until Russian dictator Vladimir Putin extradites his spies into the FBI’s waiting arms. I’m talking about the first part: Mueller’s case, the definitive case about what Russia did to interfere in the 2016 election, is no longer Mueller’s case. It is being “transitioned” — i.e., buried — in the Justice Department unit that deals with counterintelligence matters that do not result in public trials.
This underscores what we have been arguing here since before Mueller was appointed: There was no need and no basis in federal regulations for a special counsel.
in the rest of the article McCarthy goes into more detail. So far there isn't any obvious reason why a SC needed to be appointed besides as a butt-covering maneuver. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/muellers-latest-indictments-russians-politicized-pointless/ Have you read the Maria Butina or the "12 Russians" indictments? Lots of unnamed U.S. persons referenced in those documents. Wait and see. I'm sure we'll be finding out who some of these persons are soon enough. that's not McCarthy's point though. and it speaks badly of both Rosenstein and Mueller to be putting our what are essentially political documents. Isn’t every document produced by the government political by nature? Including criminal indictments? I gather you didnt read the article. they filed an indictment they will will never amount to anything then said they are handing it off to the FBI, the organization supposedly incapable of conducting an impartial investigation. this happened last time he indicted Russian government workers. it's a stunt. like when they indicted those Russian entities and didn't expect one to show up in court for real. I reject two assumptions McCarthy makes in the article. First, he says "There is no known evidence that Trump-campaign officials had any involvement in hacking by the Russian intelligence services.". We don't actually know that yet; Rosenstein and Mueller might have a better idea. And just because it's taken this long doesn't mean that they have nothing; that's a talking point. Second he says what these political documents might create "is a new international order in which nation-states are encouraged to file criminal charges against each other’s officials for actions deemed to be provocative" That's just a load of nonsense - what should we do, sit on our hands and not even call them out for bad behavior? Even working on the assumption that there was no collusion, which I'm willing to accept as an assumption, doesn't that still mean that what Trump just did in Helsinki was really stupid, instead of meaning that Putin has him by the balls? The first statement you have issue with is objectively true "There is no known evidence that Trump-campaign officials had any involvement in hacking by the Russian intelligence services." As to your second point, and this applies to Plansix as well, why think this is all we can do. This is a foreign policy issue with a foreign power. What does Mueller do? Bring indictments in American courts that will go nowhere. What Mueller did is nothing. This has been an issue for the past few weeks espeically. Somehow everyone goes way off track, immediately jumping to what they want to talk about and attacking what they perceive to be some point someone else somewhere else is making. On July 17 2018 11:45 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:29 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:21 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:16 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 10:51 TheFish7 wrote:On July 17 2018 10:43 Introvert wrote:It be nice to have some sort of evidence to justify having a special counsel, instead we get hopes, and guesses, going on for months and months now, that this is building towards something.
Mueller’s Politicized Indictment of Twelve Russian Intelligence Officers
If the idea was to give Vladimir Putin and his thug regime a new way to sabotage the United States, nice work.
So, is Russia now presumed innocent of hacking the 2016 election?
If not, it is difficult to understand any proper purpose served by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of twelve military officers in the Kremlin’s intelligence services for doing what everybody in America already knew that they did, and has known since before Donald Trump took office — indeed, since before the 2016 election.
Make no mistake: This is nakedly politicized law enforcement. There is absolutely no chance any of the Russian officials charged will ever see the inside of an American courtroom. The indictment is a strictly political document by which the special counsel seeks to justify the existence of his superfluous investigation.
Oh, and by the way, the answer to the question posed above is, “Yes, it is now the official position of the United States that Russia gets our Constitution’s benefit of the doubt.” Here is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announcing the Friday the 13th indictment: “In our justice system, everyone who is charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.”
Of course, the indicted Russians are never going to be proven guilty — not in the courtroom sense Rosenstein was invoking.
As is so often the case in today’s politicized Justice Department, Rosenstein was trying to make a different political point. As he went on to note, if people whom we have formally charged are presumed innocent, then, a fortiori, people who have not been accused — implicitly, Rosenstein was talking about President Trump — must also be presumed innocent. But, see, you can’t make that point without stepping on the political purpose of Friday’s charade: We have taken the not only pointless but reckless step of indicting operatives of a hostile foreign power who cannot be prosecuted and whose schemes could easily have been exposed — and, in fact, have been exposed, multiple times — in public government reports; so now, due-process rules oblige us to caution you that we must presume the Russians did not do what we have formally accused them of doing. They are entitled to that presumption unless and until we convict them in court . . . which is never going to happen.
Rosenstein made another telling remark at his big press conference. The Justice Department, he explained, will now “transition responsibility for this case to our Department’s National Security Division while we await the apprehension of the defendants.”
Now, stop giggling over that last part — the bit where we hold our breath until Russian dictator Vladimir Putin extradites his spies into the FBI’s waiting arms. I’m talking about the first part: Mueller’s case, the definitive case about what Russia did to interfere in the 2016 election, is no longer Mueller’s case. It is being “transitioned” — i.e., buried — in the Justice Department unit that deals with counterintelligence matters that do not result in public trials.
This underscores what we have been arguing here since before Mueller was appointed: There was no need and no basis in federal regulations for a special counsel.
in the rest of the article McCarthy goes into more detail. So far there isn't any obvious reason why a SC needed to be appointed besides as a butt-covering maneuver. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/muellers-latest-indictments-russians-politicized-pointless/ Have you read the Maria Butina or the "12 Russians" indictments? Lots of unnamed U.S. persons referenced in those documents. Wait and see. I'm sure we'll be finding out who some of these persons are soon enough. that's not McCarthy's point though. and it speaks badly of both Rosenstein and Mueller to be putting our what are essentially political documents. Isn’t every document produced by the government political by nature? Including criminal indictments? I gather you didnt read the article. they filed an indictment they will will never amount to anything then said they are handing it off to the FBI, the organization supposedly incapable of conducting an impartial investigation. this happened last time he indicted Russian government workers. it's a stunt. like when they indicted those Russian entities and didn't expect one to show up in court for real. I completely disagree which is why I asked the question in an effort to analyze the term “political” as a vector to summarily dismiss some government action as a stunt. All activity by the government is inherently political. Furthermore, calling the indightment a stunt implies there is no merit to the charges or publicly setting out the charges against the Russian agents. I would say the author has a poor understanding of criminal law, or is just making an argument in bad faith. The charges brought last week are the foundation to further charges in the investigation and lays out the case against the Russian actors and hackers. Once this is present, the FBI and attornies for the SC can then charge the accomplices, aka, American citizens with aid these Russian agents in their efforts along side the Russia agents. Without these charges against the Russians, there is no foundation to any further indictments. The article makes a good effort, but to often conservative publications try to dismiss things as “political”, as if there are some pure, non political actions that the government takes. This type of reasoning lack substance. The author is a former federal prosecutor of 19 years, much of it spent in SDNY. As such he worked on terrorism cases, which are also counter intelligence operations. You both are missing that this is a counter intelligence issue. They could gather facts in secret, present reports, etc. Instead, they file indictments they know will amount to nothing. In fact The charges brought last week are the foundation to further charges in the investigation and lays out the case against the Russian actors and hackers. is an admission of the political nature of these charges. They are never going to actually make it in front of a court, to be used. it's not for the law, it's for the public. It's to continue justifying his own work when apparently the Justice Department doesn't think it actually needs an outside, impartial actor. Or else they could handle it. If the author was a federal prosecutor, I can’t understand why he wrote this peice. I’ve heard numerous former Justice department members and prosecutors talk about how this is standard for any large scale investigation. Start at the outside and work there way inwards. This author seems more interested in towing the conservative line and attacking the current justice department.
Nah, he's already discussed the "moving inwards" bit, I've posted that before. In short, If there's collusion then it's with entirely new people, because you don't give softball charges to people like Papadopoulos. You make them fess up to the actual conspiracy. Other (former) prosecutors have said this too. It weakens your case for all sorts of reasons to let them off on the thing you are trying to prove.
But that wasn't even the point, not quite. The point is that these charges will stop here. They won't be used for anything ever again.
Rosenstein made another telling remark at his big press conference. The Justice Department, he explained, will now “transition responsibility for this case to our Department’s National Security Division while we await the apprehension of the defendants.”
They are never going to be apprehended, and everyone knows it.
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On July 17 2018 22:07 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2018 19:12 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:56 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:43 TheFish7 wrote:On July 17 2018 11:29 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:21 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:16 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 10:51 TheFish7 wrote:On July 17 2018 10:43 Introvert wrote:It be nice to have some sort of evidence to justify having a special counsel, instead we get hopes, and guesses, going on for months and months now, that this is building towards something.
Mueller’s Politicized Indictment of Twelve Russian Intelligence Officers
If the idea was to give Vladimir Putin and his thug regime a new way to sabotage the United States, nice work.
So, is Russia now presumed innocent of hacking the 2016 election?
If not, it is difficult to understand any proper purpose served by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of twelve military officers in the Kremlin’s intelligence services for doing what everybody in America already knew that they did, and has known since before Donald Trump took office — indeed, since before the 2016 election.
Make no mistake: This is nakedly politicized law enforcement. There is absolutely no chance any of the Russian officials charged will ever see the inside of an American courtroom. The indictment is a strictly political document by which the special counsel seeks to justify the existence of his superfluous investigation.
Oh, and by the way, the answer to the question posed above is, “Yes, it is now the official position of the United States that Russia gets our Constitution’s benefit of the doubt.” Here is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announcing the Friday the 13th indictment: “In our justice system, everyone who is charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.”
Of course, the indicted Russians are never going to be proven guilty — not in the courtroom sense Rosenstein was invoking.
As is so often the case in today’s politicized Justice Department, Rosenstein was trying to make a different political point. As he went on to note, if people whom we have formally charged are presumed innocent, then, a fortiori, people who have not been accused — implicitly, Rosenstein was talking about President Trump — must also be presumed innocent. But, see, you can’t make that point without stepping on the political purpose of Friday’s charade: We have taken the not only pointless but reckless step of indicting operatives of a hostile foreign power who cannot be prosecuted and whose schemes could easily have been exposed — and, in fact, have been exposed, multiple times — in public government reports; so now, due-process rules oblige us to caution you that we must presume the Russians did not do what we have formally accused them of doing. They are entitled to that presumption unless and until we convict them in court . . . which is never going to happen.
Rosenstein made another telling remark at his big press conference. The Justice Department, he explained, will now “transition responsibility for this case to our Department’s National Security Division while we await the apprehension of the defendants.”
Now, stop giggling over that last part — the bit where we hold our breath until Russian dictator Vladimir Putin extradites his spies into the FBI’s waiting arms. I’m talking about the first part: Mueller’s case, the definitive case about what Russia did to interfere in the 2016 election, is no longer Mueller’s case. It is being “transitioned” — i.e., buried — in the Justice Department unit that deals with counterintelligence matters that do not result in public trials.
This underscores what we have been arguing here since before Mueller was appointed: There was no need and no basis in federal regulations for a special counsel.
in the rest of the article McCarthy goes into more detail. So far there isn't any obvious reason why a SC needed to be appointed besides as a butt-covering maneuver. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/muellers-latest-indictments-russians-politicized-pointless/ Have you read the Maria Butina or the "12 Russians" indictments? Lots of unnamed U.S. persons referenced in those documents. Wait and see. I'm sure we'll be finding out who some of these persons are soon enough. that's not McCarthy's point though. and it speaks badly of both Rosenstein and Mueller to be putting our what are essentially political documents. Isn’t every document produced by the government political by nature? Including criminal indictments? I gather you didnt read the article. they filed an indictment they will will never amount to anything then said they are handing it off to the FBI, the organization supposedly incapable of conducting an impartial investigation. this happened last time he indicted Russian government workers. it's a stunt. like when they indicted those Russian entities and didn't expect one to show up in court for real. I reject two assumptions McCarthy makes in the article. First, he says "There is no known evidence that Trump-campaign officials had any involvement in hacking by the Russian intelligence services.". We don't actually know that yet; Rosenstein and Mueller might have a better idea. And just because it's taken this long doesn't mean that they have nothing; that's a talking point. Second he says what these political documents might create "is a new international order in which nation-states are encouraged to file criminal charges against each other’s officials for actions deemed to be provocative" That's just a load of nonsense - what should we do, sit on our hands and not even call them out for bad behavior? Even working on the assumption that there was no collusion, which I'm willing to accept as an assumption, doesn't that still mean that what Trump just did in Helsinki was really stupid, instead of meaning that Putin has him by the balls? The first statement you have issue with is objectively true "There is no known evidence that Trump-campaign officials had any involvement in hacking by the Russian intelligence services." As to your second point, and this applies to Plansix as well, why think this is all we can do. This is a foreign policy issue with a foreign power. What does Mueller do? Bring indictments in American courts that will go nowhere. What Mueller did is nothing. This has been an issue for the past few weeks espeically. Somehow everyone goes way off track, immediately jumping to what they want to talk about and attacking what they perceive to be some point someone else somewhere else is making. On July 17 2018 11:45 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:29 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:21 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:16 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 10:51 TheFish7 wrote:On July 17 2018 10:43 Introvert wrote:It be nice to have some sort of evidence to justify having a special counsel, instead we get hopes, and guesses, going on for months and months now, that this is building towards something.
Mueller’s Politicized Indictment of Twelve Russian Intelligence Officers
If the idea was to give Vladimir Putin and his thug regime a new way to sabotage the United States, nice work.
So, is Russia now presumed innocent of hacking the 2016 election?
If not, it is difficult to understand any proper purpose served by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of twelve military officers in the Kremlin’s intelligence services for doing what everybody in America already knew that they did, and has known since before Donald Trump took office — indeed, since before the 2016 election.
Make no mistake: This is nakedly politicized law enforcement. There is absolutely no chance any of the Russian officials charged will ever see the inside of an American courtroom. The indictment is a strictly political document by which the special counsel seeks to justify the existence of his superfluous investigation.
Oh, and by the way, the answer to the question posed above is, “Yes, it is now the official position of the United States that Russia gets our Constitution’s benefit of the doubt.” Here is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announcing the Friday the 13th indictment: “In our justice system, everyone who is charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.”
Of course, the indicted Russians are never going to be proven guilty — not in the courtroom sense Rosenstein was invoking.
As is so often the case in today’s politicized Justice Department, Rosenstein was trying to make a different political point. As he went on to note, if people whom we have formally charged are presumed innocent, then, a fortiori, people who have not been accused — implicitly, Rosenstein was talking about President Trump — must also be presumed innocent. But, see, you can’t make that point without stepping on the political purpose of Friday’s charade: We have taken the not only pointless but reckless step of indicting operatives of a hostile foreign power who cannot be prosecuted and whose schemes could easily have been exposed — and, in fact, have been exposed, multiple times — in public government reports; so now, due-process rules oblige us to caution you that we must presume the Russians did not do what we have formally accused them of doing. They are entitled to that presumption unless and until we convict them in court . . . which is never going to happen.
Rosenstein made another telling remark at his big press conference. The Justice Department, he explained, will now “transition responsibility for this case to our Department’s National Security Division while we await the apprehension of the defendants.”
Now, stop giggling over that last part — the bit where we hold our breath until Russian dictator Vladimir Putin extradites his spies into the FBI’s waiting arms. I’m talking about the first part: Mueller’s case, the definitive case about what Russia did to interfere in the 2016 election, is no longer Mueller’s case. It is being “transitioned” — i.e., buried — in the Justice Department unit that deals with counterintelligence matters that do not result in public trials.
This underscores what we have been arguing here since before Mueller was appointed: There was no need and no basis in federal regulations for a special counsel.
in the rest of the article McCarthy goes into more detail. So far there isn't any obvious reason why a SC needed to be appointed besides as a butt-covering maneuver. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/muellers-latest-indictments-russians-politicized-pointless/ Have you read the Maria Butina or the "12 Russians" indictments? Lots of unnamed U.S. persons referenced in those documents. Wait and see. I'm sure we'll be finding out who some of these persons are soon enough. that's not McCarthy's point though. and it speaks badly of both Rosenstein and Mueller to be putting our what are essentially political documents. Isn’t every document produced by the government political by nature? Including criminal indictments? I gather you didnt read the article. they filed an indictment they will will never amount to anything then said they are handing it off to the FBI, the organization supposedly incapable of conducting an impartial investigation. this happened last time he indicted Russian government workers. it's a stunt. like when they indicted those Russian entities and didn't expect one to show up in court for real. I completely disagree which is why I asked the question in an effort to analyze the term “political” as a vector to summarily dismiss some government action as a stunt. All activity by the government is inherently political. Furthermore, calling the indightment a stunt implies there is no merit to the charges or publicly setting out the charges against the Russian agents. I would say the author has a poor understanding of criminal law, or is just making an argument in bad faith. The charges brought last week are the foundation to further charges in the investigation and lays out the case against the Russian actors and hackers. Once this is present, the FBI and attornies for the SC can then charge the accomplices, aka, American citizens with aid these Russian agents in their efforts along side the Russia agents. Without these charges against the Russians, there is no foundation to any further indictments. The article makes a good effort, but to often conservative publications try to dismiss things as “political”, as if there are some pure, non political actions that the government takes. This type of reasoning lack substance. The author is a former federal prosecutor of 19 years, much of it spent in SDNY. As such he worked on terrorism cases, which are also counter intelligence operations. You both are missing that this is a counter intelligence issue. They could gather facts in secret, present reports, etc. Instead, they file indictments they know will amount to nothing. In fact The charges brought last week are the foundation to further charges in the investigation and lays out the case against the Russian actors and hackers. is an admission of the political nature of these charges. They are never going to actually make it in front of a court, to be used. it's not for the law, it's for the public. It's to continue justifying his own work when apparently the Justice Department doesn't think it actually needs an outside, impartial actor. Or else they could handle it. If the author was a federal prosecutor, I can’t understand why he wrote this peice. I’ve heard numerous former Justice department members and prosecutors talk about how this is standard for any large scale investigation. Start at the outside and work there way inwards. This author seems more interested in towing the conservative line and attacking the current justice department. Nah, he's already discussed the "moving inwards" bit, I've posted that before. In short, If there's collusion then it's with entirely new people, because you don't give softball charges to people like Papadopoulos. You make them fess up to the actual conspiracy. Other (former) prosecutors have said this too. It weakens your case for all sorts of reasons to let them off on the thing you are trying to prove. But that wasn't even the point, not quite. The point is that these charges will stop here. They want be used for anything every again. Show nested quote +Rosenstein made another telling remark at his big press conference. The Justice Department, he explained, will now “transition responsibility for this case to our Department’s National Security Division while we await the apprehension of the defendants.” They are never going to be apprehended, and everyone knows it.
You continue on this argument the charges have no merit because they will not lead to putting the Russian agents in a US prison. I disagree, and have stated that the cases have merit in building towards further charges. Furthermore, we have charged and convicted people in absentia numerous times throughout history. And there is merit to bringing the case out publicly to show exactly the process the Russia agents used.
Finally, collusion is not a crime. Conspiracy to commit another criminal act, like assisting an unregistered foreign agent is.
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On July 17 2018 22:15 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2018 22:07 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 19:12 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:56 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:43 TheFish7 wrote:On July 17 2018 11:29 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:21 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:16 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 10:51 TheFish7 wrote:On July 17 2018 10:43 Introvert wrote:It be nice to have some sort of evidence to justify having a special counsel, instead we get hopes, and guesses, going on for months and months now, that this is building towards something. [quote] in the rest of the article McCarthy goes into more detail. So far there isn't any obvious reason why a SC needed to be appointed besides as a butt-covering maneuver. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/muellers-latest-indictments-russians-politicized-pointless/ Have you read the Maria Butina or the "12 Russians" indictments? Lots of unnamed U.S. persons referenced in those documents. Wait and see. I'm sure we'll be finding out who some of these persons are soon enough. that's not McCarthy's point though. and it speaks badly of both Rosenstein and Mueller to be putting our what are essentially political documents. Isn’t every document produced by the government political by nature? Including criminal indictments? I gather you didnt read the article. they filed an indictment they will will never amount to anything then said they are handing it off to the FBI, the organization supposedly incapable of conducting an impartial investigation. this happened last time he indicted Russian government workers. it's a stunt. like when they indicted those Russian entities and didn't expect one to show up in court for real. I reject two assumptions McCarthy makes in the article. First, he says "There is no known evidence that Trump-campaign officials had any involvement in hacking by the Russian intelligence services.". We don't actually know that yet; Rosenstein and Mueller might have a better idea. And just because it's taken this long doesn't mean that they have nothing; that's a talking point. Second he says what these political documents might create "is a new international order in which nation-states are encouraged to file criminal charges against each other’s officials for actions deemed to be provocative" That's just a load of nonsense - what should we do, sit on our hands and not even call them out for bad behavior? Even working on the assumption that there was no collusion, which I'm willing to accept as an assumption, doesn't that still mean that what Trump just did in Helsinki was really stupid, instead of meaning that Putin has him by the balls? The first statement you have issue with is objectively true "There is no known evidence that Trump-campaign officials had any involvement in hacking by the Russian intelligence services." As to your second point, and this applies to Plansix as well, why think this is all we can do. This is a foreign policy issue with a foreign power. What does Mueller do? Bring indictments in American courts that will go nowhere. What Mueller did is nothing. This has been an issue for the past few weeks espeically. Somehow everyone goes way off track, immediately jumping to what they want to talk about and attacking what they perceive to be some point someone else somewhere else is making. On July 17 2018 11:45 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:29 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:21 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:16 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 10:51 TheFish7 wrote:On July 17 2018 10:43 Introvert wrote:It be nice to have some sort of evidence to justify having a special counsel, instead we get hopes, and guesses, going on for months and months now, that this is building towards something. [quote] in the rest of the article McCarthy goes into more detail. So far there isn't any obvious reason why a SC needed to be appointed besides as a butt-covering maneuver. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/muellers-latest-indictments-russians-politicized-pointless/ Have you read the Maria Butina or the "12 Russians" indictments? Lots of unnamed U.S. persons referenced in those documents. Wait and see. I'm sure we'll be finding out who some of these persons are soon enough. that's not McCarthy's point though. and it speaks badly of both Rosenstein and Mueller to be putting our what are essentially political documents. Isn’t every document produced by the government political by nature? Including criminal indictments? I gather you didnt read the article. they filed an indictment they will will never amount to anything then said they are handing it off to the FBI, the organization supposedly incapable of conducting an impartial investigation. this happened last time he indicted Russian government workers. it's a stunt. like when they indicted those Russian entities and didn't expect one to show up in court for real. I completely disagree which is why I asked the question in an effort to analyze the term “political” as a vector to summarily dismiss some government action as a stunt. All activity by the government is inherently political. Furthermore, calling the indightment a stunt implies there is no merit to the charges or publicly setting out the charges against the Russian agents. I would say the author has a poor understanding of criminal law, or is just making an argument in bad faith. The charges brought last week are the foundation to further charges in the investigation and lays out the case against the Russian actors and hackers. Once this is present, the FBI and attornies for the SC can then charge the accomplices, aka, American citizens with aid these Russian agents in their efforts along side the Russia agents. Without these charges against the Russians, there is no foundation to any further indictments. The article makes a good effort, but to often conservative publications try to dismiss things as “political”, as if there are some pure, non political actions that the government takes. This type of reasoning lack substance. The author is a former federal prosecutor of 19 years, much of it spent in SDNY. As such he worked on terrorism cases, which are also counter intelligence operations. You both are missing that this is a counter intelligence issue. They could gather facts in secret, present reports, etc. Instead, they file indictments they know will amount to nothing. In fact The charges brought last week are the foundation to further charges in the investigation and lays out the case against the Russian actors and hackers. is an admission of the political nature of these charges. They are never going to actually make it in front of a court, to be used. it's not for the law, it's for the public. It's to continue justifying his own work when apparently the Justice Department doesn't think it actually needs an outside, impartial actor. Or else they could handle it. If the author was a federal prosecutor, I can’t understand why he wrote this peice. I’ve heard numerous former Justice department members and prosecutors talk about how this is standard for any large scale investigation. Start at the outside and work there way inwards. This author seems more interested in towing the conservative line and attacking the current justice department. Nah, he's already discussed the "moving inwards" bit, I've posted that before. In short, If there's collusion then it's with entirely new people, because you don't give softball charges to people like Papadopoulos. You make them fess up to the actual conspiracy. Other (former) prosecutors have said this too. It weakens your case for all sorts of reasons to let them off on the thing you are trying to prove. But that wasn't even the point, not quite. The point is that these charges will stop here. They want be used for anything every again. Rosenstein made another telling remark at his big press conference. The Justice Department, he explained, will now “transition responsibility for this case to our Department’s National Security Division while we await the apprehension of the defendants.” They are never going to be apprehended, and everyone knows it. You continue on this argument the charges have no merit because they will not lead to putting the Russian agents in a US prison. I disagree, and have stated that the cases have merit in building towards further charges. Furthermore, we have charged and convicted people in absentia numerous times throughout history. And there is merit to bringing the case out publicly to show exactly the process the Russia agents used. Finally, collusion is not a crime. Conspiracy to commit another criminal act, like assisting an unregistered foreign agent is.
This is the second time you have acknowledged that this is a public display. iamthedave understood the point though, when he asked "sure, maybe this is Mueller justifying his existence, but isn't that better in the long run?" At least that's my interpretation 
A much better question.
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On July 17 2018 22:29 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2018 22:15 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 22:07 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 19:12 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:56 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:43 TheFish7 wrote:On July 17 2018 11:29 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:21 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:16 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 10:51 TheFish7 wrote:
[quote]
Have you read the Maria Butina or the "12 Russians" indictments? Lots of unnamed U.S. persons referenced in those documents. Wait and see. I'm sure we'll be finding out who some of these persons are soon enough. that's not McCarthy's point though. and it speaks badly of both Rosenstein and Mueller to be putting our what are essentially political documents. Isn’t every document produced by the government political by nature? Including criminal indictments? I gather you didnt read the article. they filed an indictment they will will never amount to anything then said they are handing it off to the FBI, the organization supposedly incapable of conducting an impartial investigation. this happened last time he indicted Russian government workers. it's a stunt. like when they indicted those Russian entities and didn't expect one to show up in court for real. I reject two assumptions McCarthy makes in the article. First, he says "There is no known evidence that Trump-campaign officials had any involvement in hacking by the Russian intelligence services.". We don't actually know that yet; Rosenstein and Mueller might have a better idea. And just because it's taken this long doesn't mean that they have nothing; that's a talking point. Second he says what these political documents might create "is a new international order in which nation-states are encouraged to file criminal charges against each other’s officials for actions deemed to be provocative" That's just a load of nonsense - what should we do, sit on our hands and not even call them out for bad behavior? Even working on the assumption that there was no collusion, which I'm willing to accept as an assumption, doesn't that still mean that what Trump just did in Helsinki was really stupid, instead of meaning that Putin has him by the balls? The first statement you have issue with is objectively true "There is no known evidence that Trump-campaign officials had any involvement in hacking by the Russian intelligence services." As to your second point, and this applies to Plansix as well, why think this is all we can do. This is a foreign policy issue with a foreign power. What does Mueller do? Bring indictments in American courts that will go nowhere. What Mueller did is nothing. This has been an issue for the past few weeks espeically. Somehow everyone goes way off track, immediately jumping to what they want to talk about and attacking what they perceive to be some point someone else somewhere else is making. On July 17 2018 11:45 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:29 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 11:21 Plansix wrote:On July 17 2018 11:16 Introvert wrote:On July 17 2018 10:51 TheFish7 wrote:
[quote]
Have you read the Maria Butina or the "12 Russians" indictments? Lots of unnamed U.S. persons referenced in those documents. Wait and see. I'm sure we'll be finding out who some of these persons are soon enough. that's not McCarthy's point though. and it speaks badly of both Rosenstein and Mueller to be putting our what are essentially political documents. Isn’t every document produced by the government political by nature? Including criminal indictments? I gather you didnt read the article. they filed an indictment they will will never amount to anything then said they are handing it off to the FBI, the organization supposedly incapable of conducting an impartial investigation. this happened last time he indicted Russian government workers. it's a stunt. like when they indicted those Russian entities and didn't expect one to show up in court for real. I completely disagree which is why I asked the question in an effort to analyze the term “political” as a vector to summarily dismiss some government action as a stunt. All activity by the government is inherently political. Furthermore, calling the indightment a stunt implies there is no merit to the charges or publicly setting out the charges against the Russian agents. I would say the author has a poor understanding of criminal law, or is just making an argument in bad faith. The charges brought last week are the foundation to further charges in the investigation and lays out the case against the Russian actors and hackers. Once this is present, the FBI and attornies for the SC can then charge the accomplices, aka, American citizens with aid these Russian agents in their efforts along side the Russia agents. Without these charges against the Russians, there is no foundation to any further indictments. The article makes a good effort, but to often conservative publications try to dismiss things as “political”, as if there are some pure, non political actions that the government takes. This type of reasoning lack substance. The author is a former federal prosecutor of 19 years, much of it spent in SDNY. As such he worked on terrorism cases, which are also counter intelligence operations. You both are missing that this is a counter intelligence issue. They could gather facts in secret, present reports, etc. Instead, they file indictments they know will amount to nothing. In fact The charges brought last week are the foundation to further charges in the investigation and lays out the case against the Russian actors and hackers. is an admission of the political nature of these charges. They are never going to actually make it in front of a court, to be used. it's not for the law, it's for the public. It's to continue justifying his own work when apparently the Justice Department doesn't think it actually needs an outside, impartial actor. Or else they could handle it. If the author was a federal prosecutor, I can’t understand why he wrote this peice. I’ve heard numerous former Justice department members and prosecutors talk about how this is standard for any large scale investigation. Start at the outside and work there way inwards. This author seems more interested in towing the conservative line and attacking the current justice department. Nah, he's already discussed the "moving inwards" bit, I've posted that before. In short, If there's collusion then it's with entirely new people, because you don't give softball charges to people like Papadopoulos. You make them fess up to the actual conspiracy. Other (former) prosecutors have said this too. It weakens your case for all sorts of reasons to let them off on the thing you are trying to prove. But that wasn't even the point, not quite. The point is that these charges will stop here. They want be used for anything every again. Rosenstein made another telling remark at his big press conference. The Justice Department, he explained, will now “transition responsibility for this case to our Department’s National Security Division while we await the apprehension of the defendants.” They are never going to be apprehended, and everyone knows it. You continue on this argument the charges have no merit because they will not lead to putting the Russian agents in a US prison. I disagree, and have stated that the cases have merit in building towards further charges. Furthermore, we have charged and convicted people in absentia numerous times throughout history. And there is merit to bringing the case out publicly to show exactly the process the Russia agents used. Finally, collusion is not a crime. Conspiracy to commit another criminal act, like assisting an unregistered foreign agent is. This is the second time you have acknowledged that this is a public display. iamthedave understood the point though, when he asked "sure, maybe this is Mueller justifying his existence, but isn't that better in the long run?" A much better question.
Yes. Public disclosure is an important part of what the Justice Department does. The waving of the term “political” in front of the charges is an attempt to dismiss them as lacking is substance or merit. Or designed to damage one side or another for political gain. I dismiss that critique, as the public deserves to know about the substance of these investigations and charges.
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I thought this was an okay post over on reddit, in reply to someone accusing the left of being useful idiots for Russia. I've lightly edited it.
+ Show Spoiler +- We don't like Trump any more than you do. We might actually like him less. However...
- We don't think Trump is that different than your garden variety Republican, except since his brain is leaking from his ears he is unable to put the 'dignified' veneer of civility on his ghoulishness that we've come to expect from most Republican politicians. Trump says the quiet parts loud. But we also don't think that Trump is that different than your garden variety Democrat: from drone striking innocent goat herders in Afghanistan, to making it difficult for poor Americans to get access to the social services they need (be it through wanton service cuts or over-complicated gate keeping and means testing), to overtly being in the pockets of Wall Street and the military industrial complex, they're not that different -- again, except for the brain melting through the ears part
- That all being said we, for the most part, agree that Trump was up to some shady shit with Russia in the election, and most of us do not doubt any assessment by the intelligence community that that happened. We don't really care that much, though, because
a) Hillary forgot to campaign in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,
b) she was literally the worst person the Democrats could have picked to run for President in 2016, and
c) even with all of the Russian help in the world, Trump was the worst candidate for President in American history and the Democrats still managed to lose to him -- so, in our minds, no matter how much you want to scream into the void about an external force making a ghoul the President you can't escape the fact that it is your fellow American citizens who made Trump the president, not Vladimir Putin. Also, Hillary won the popular vote anyway and Trump won through that anti-democratic fluke of our system called the electoral college. Also, Bernie would have won
- We also don't really care to venerate the intelligence community for their harrumphing over Trump not believing their assessments and reports about Russia. These are the same people who started wars in Latin America to prop up the profits of fruit companies, the same people who wiretapped MLK and tried to convince him to kill himself, and the same people who have LITERALLY INTERFERED IN AT LEAST DOZENS OF ELECTIONS AND ELECTED GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD BECAUSE THEY OPPOSED THE INTERESTS OF CAPITAL
Because we recognize all of the horrific shit American imperialism has wrought, shit far worse than any Russian interference in the 2016 election amounts to (some shitty memes on Facebook vs. the CIA literally pursuing assassination plots against anti-capitalist leaders around the world), we don't really care to get worked up about supposed #treason, et al. It's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. The proverbial chickens have just come home to very, very lightly roost.
- We're deeply suspicious of the weird nationalism and Russophobia this obsession is generating among establishment Democrats. We don't care to have the Cold War re-ignited over someone as fucking ridiculous as Donald Trump. If the DNC was capable of telling their asshole from a hole in the ground and could fight an election effectively, they could wipe Trump & Co. from Washington in 2018 and 2020 easily -- except we'd still be left with all the ghouls like David Frum who have been welcomed by the #resistance for saying Trump is a Meanie Head and would then go ahead with their new re-admittance to the human race to start a sequel to their greatest hits like the Iraq War.
Screaming about WHATABOUTISM and other supposed fallacies makes you sound like Ben Shapiro. Comparing situations and drawing distinctions is a useful way to determine relative importance. You screaming about Russiagate and someone saying "OK, but what about when [America toppled these three duly elected governments in Latin America because they weren't sufficiently pro-Washington]" is not Russian propaganda. It is literally how humans make sense of the world.
I think it's a good insight into how the average, er, "anti-Democratic Party leftwinger" thinks (what's a better description for that?)
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On July 17 2018 22:39 Grumbels wrote:I thought this was an okay post over on reddit, in reply to someone accusing the left of being useful idiots for Russia. I've lightly edited it. Show nested quote ++ Show Spoiler +- We don't like Trump any more than you do. We might actually like him less. However...
- We don't think Trump is that different than your garden variety Republican, except since his brain is leaking from his ears he is unable to put the 'dignified' veneer of civility on his ghoulishness that we've come to expect from most Republican politicians. Trump says the quiet parts loud. But we also don't think that Trump is that different than your garden variety Democrat: from drone striking innocent goat herders in Afghanistan, to making it difficult for poor Americans to get access to the social services they need (be it through wanton service cuts or over-complicated gate keeping and means testing), to overtly being in the pockets of Wall Street and the military industrial complex, they're not that different -- again, except for the brain melting through the ears part
- That all being said we, for the most part, agree that Trump was up to some shady shit with Russia in the election, and most of us do not doubt any assessment by the intelligence community that that happened. We don't really care that much, though, because
a) Hillary forgot to campaign in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,
b) she was literally the worst person the Democrats could have picked to run for President in 2016, and
c) even with all of the Russian help in the world, Trump was the worst candidate for President in American history and the Democrats still managed to lose to him -- so, in our minds, no matter how much you want to scream into the void about an external force making a ghoul the President you can't escape the fact that it is your fellow American citizens who made Trump the president, not Vladimir Putin. Also, Hillary won the popular vote anyway and Trump won through that anti-democratic fluke of our system called the electoral college. Also, Bernie would have won
- We also don't really care to venerate the intelligence community for their harrumphing over Trump not believing their assessments and reports about Russia. These are the same people who started wars in Latin America to prop up the profits of fruit companies, the same people who wiretapped MLK and tried to convince him to kill himself, and the same people who have LITERALLY INTERFERED IN AT LEAST DOZENS OF ELECTIONS AND ELECTED GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD BECAUSE THEY OPPOSED THE INTERESTS OF CAPITAL
Because we recognize all of the horrific shit American imperialism has wrought, shit far worse than any Russian interference in the 2016 election amounts to (some shitty memes on Facebook vs. the CIA literally pursuing assassination plots against anti-capitalist leaders around the world), we don't really care to get worked up about supposed #treason, et al. It's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. The proverbial chickens have just come home to very, very lightly roost.
- We're deeply suspicious of the weird nationalism and Russophobia this obsession is generating among establishment Democrats. We don't care to have the Cold War re-ignited over someone as fucking ridiculous as Donald Trump. If the DNC was capable of telling their asshole from a hole in the ground and could fight an election effectively, they could wipe Trump & Co. from Washington in 2018 and 2020 easily -- except we'd still be left with all the ghouls like David Frum who have been welcomed by the #resistance for saying Trump is a Meanie Head and would then go ahead with their new re-admittance to the human race to start a sequel to their greatest hits like the Iraq War.
Screaming about WHATABOUTISM and other supposed fallacies makes you sound like Ben Shapiro. Comparing situations and drawing distinctions is a useful way to determine relative importance. You screaming about Russiagate and someone saying "OK, but what about when [America toppled these three duly elected governments in Latin America because they weren't sufficiently pro-Washington]" is not Russian propaganda. It is literally how humans make sense of the world.
I think it's a good insight into how the average, er, "anti-Democratic Party leftwinger" thinks (what's a better description for that?)
Ooh did you just quote a post that said "Bernie would have won?"
I can hear zlefin thundering over here now you'd better be prepared to defend this.
In all seriousness, this pretty much sums up my feelings on Trump. He's the worst president ever, but if the dems had won the US would probably still have ended up with the worst president ever.
The democrats need to stop trying to change republicans and start looking at where they went wrong and actually changing their message instead of hoping that Trump is so bad that their message becomes acceptable again (or change their behaviour to align more neatly with their message).
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I think the critique of the US intelligence community interfering with elections in other countries is completely valid. But I can’t endorse the stance that the current findings about Russia don’t matter or shouldn’t be taken seriously. The goal of the interference is to assure we never have a functional government, which is not limited to the two current parties. If Bernie got into office, the Russians would try to undercut him too.
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On July 17 2018 22:54 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2018 22:39 Grumbels wrote:I thought this was an okay post over on reddit, in reply to someone accusing the left of being useful idiots for Russia. I've lightly edited it. + Show Spoiler +- We don't like Trump any more than you do. We might actually like him less. However...
- We don't think Trump is that different than your garden variety Republican, except since his brain is leaking from his ears he is unable to put the 'dignified' veneer of civility on his ghoulishness that we've come to expect from most Republican politicians. Trump says the quiet parts loud. But we also don't think that Trump is that different than your garden variety Democrat: from drone striking innocent goat herders in Afghanistan, to making it difficult for poor Americans to get access to the social services they need (be it through wanton service cuts or over-complicated gate keeping and means testing), to overtly being in the pockets of Wall Street and the military industrial complex, they're not that different -- again, except for the brain melting through the ears part
- That all being said we, for the most part, agree that Trump was up to some shady shit with Russia in the election, and most of us do not doubt any assessment by the intelligence community that that happened. We don't really care that much, though, because
a) Hillary forgot to campaign in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,
b) she was literally the worst person the Democrats could have picked to run for President in 2016, and
c) even with all of the Russian help in the world, Trump was the worst candidate for President in American history and the Democrats still managed to lose to him -- so, in our minds, no matter how much you want to scream into the void about an external force making a ghoul the President you can't escape the fact that it is your fellow American citizens who made Trump the president, not Vladimir Putin. Also, Hillary won the popular vote anyway and Trump won through that anti-democratic fluke of our system called the electoral college. Also, Bernie would have won
- We also don't really care to venerate the intelligence community for their harrumphing over Trump not believing their assessments and reports about Russia. These are the same people who started wars in Latin America to prop up the profits of fruit companies, the same people who wiretapped MLK and tried to convince him to kill himself, and the same people who have LITERALLY INTERFERED IN AT LEAST DOZENS OF ELECTIONS AND ELECTED GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD BECAUSE THEY OPPOSED THE INTERESTS OF CAPITAL
Because we recognize all of the horrific shit American imperialism has wrought, shit far worse than any Russian interference in the 2016 election amounts to (some shitty memes on Facebook vs. the CIA literally pursuing assassination plots against anti-capitalist leaders around the world), we don't really care to get worked up about supposed #treason, et al. It's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. The proverbial chickens have just come home to very, very lightly roost.
- We're deeply suspicious of the weird nationalism and Russophobia this obsession is generating among establishment Democrats. We don't care to have the Cold War re-ignited over someone as fucking ridiculous as Donald Trump. If the DNC was capable of telling their asshole from a hole in the ground and could fight an election effectively, they could wipe Trump & Co. from Washington in 2018 and 2020 easily -- except we'd still be left with all the ghouls like David Frum who have been welcomed by the #resistance for saying Trump is a Meanie Head and would then go ahead with their new re-admittance to the human race to start a sequel to their greatest hits like the Iraq War.
Screaming about WHATABOUTISM and other supposed fallacies makes you sound like Ben Shapiro. Comparing situations and drawing distinctions is a useful way to determine relative importance. You screaming about Russiagate and someone saying "OK, but what about when [America toppled these three duly elected governments in Latin America because they weren't sufficiently pro-Washington]" is not Russian propaganda. It is literally how humans make sense of the world.
I think it's a good insight into how the average, er, "anti-Democratic Party leftwinger" thinks (what's a better description for that?) Ooh did you just quote a post that said "Bernie would have won?" I can hear zlefin thundering over here now you'd better be prepared to defend this. In all seriousness, this pretty much sums up my feelings on Trump. He's the worst president ever, but if the dems had won the US would probably still have ended up with the worst president ever. The democrats need to stop trying to change republicans and start looking at where they went wrong and actually changing their message instead of hoping that Trump is so bad that their message becomes acceptable again (or change their behaviour to align more neatly with their message).
the notion that hillary would've been a worst president ever; I assume you've little to actually back that up with? (unless you provide some)
a more reasonable estimate would probably put her at around 25th.
re: grumbels it's interesting to see a summation of their mindset. as with many mindsets it contains considerable flaws. thanks for the list.
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On July 17 2018 22:39 Grumbels wrote:I thought this was an okay post over on reddit, in reply to someone accusing the left of being useful idiots for Russia. I've lightly edited it. Show nested quote ++ Show Spoiler +- We don't like Trump any more than you do. We might actually like him less. However...
- We don't think Trump is that different than your garden variety Republican, except since his brain is leaking from his ears he is unable to put the 'dignified' veneer of civility on his ghoulishness that we've come to expect from most Republican politicians. Trump says the quiet parts loud. But we also don't think that Trump is that different than your garden variety Democrat: from drone striking innocent goat herders in Afghanistan, to making it difficult for poor Americans to get access to the social services they need (be it through wanton service cuts or over-complicated gate keeping and means testing), to overtly being in the pockets of Wall Street and the military industrial complex, they're not that different -- again, except for the brain melting through the ears part
- That all being said we, for the most part, agree that Trump was up to some shady shit with Russia in the election, and most of us do not doubt any assessment by the intelligence community that that happened. We don't really care that much, though, because
a) Hillary forgot to campaign in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin,
b) she was literally the worst person the Democrats could have picked to run for President in 2016, and
c) even with all of the Russian help in the world, Trump was the worst candidate for President in American history and the Democrats still managed to lose to him -- so, in our minds, no matter how much you want to scream into the void about an external force making a ghoul the President you can't escape the fact that it is your fellow American citizens who made Trump the president, not Vladimir Putin. Also, Hillary won the popular vote anyway and Trump won through that anti-democratic fluke of our system called the electoral college. Also, Bernie would have won
- We also don't really care to venerate the intelligence community for their harrumphing over Trump not believing their assessments and reports about Russia. These are the same people who started wars in Latin America to prop up the profits of fruit companies, the same people who wiretapped MLK and tried to convince him to kill himself, and the same people who have LITERALLY INTERFERED IN AT LEAST DOZENS OF ELECTIONS AND ELECTED GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD BECAUSE THEY OPPOSED THE INTERESTS OF CAPITAL
Because we recognize all of the horrific shit American imperialism has wrought, shit far worse than any Russian interference in the 2016 election amounts to (some shitty memes on Facebook vs. the CIA literally pursuing assassination plots against anti-capitalist leaders around the world), we don't really care to get worked up about supposed #treason, et al. It's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. The proverbial chickens have just come home to very, very lightly roost.
- We're deeply suspicious of the weird nationalism and Russophobia this obsession is generating among establishment Democrats. We don't care to have the Cold War re-ignited over someone as fucking ridiculous as Donald Trump. If the DNC was capable of telling their asshole from a hole in the ground and could fight an election effectively, they could wipe Trump & Co. from Washington in 2018 and 2020 easily -- except we'd still be left with all the ghouls like David Frum who have been welcomed by the #resistance for saying Trump is a Meanie Head and would then go ahead with their new re-admittance to the human race to start a sequel to their greatest hits like the Iraq War.
Screaming about WHATABOUTISM and other supposed fallacies makes you sound like Ben Shapiro. Comparing situations and drawing distinctions is a useful way to determine relative importance. You screaming about Russiagate and someone saying "OK, but what about when [America toppled these three duly elected governments in Latin America because they weren't sufficiently pro-Washington]" is not Russian propaganda. It is literally how humans make sense of the world.
I think it's a good insight into how the average, er, "anti-Democratic Party leftwinger" thinks (what's a better description for that?)
The shit is a grey wolf supposed to be politically? Google is giving me an ultra-nationalist group in Turkey and when I focus on the US I'm only getting the actual animal and how government policy is affecting it.
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I'm going to try and respond to this in brief:
1. If you're on the left and think Democrats are just as bad a Republicans, sorry, you're an actual certifiable idiot.
2. Hillary did not "forget" to campaign in those states. Right after announcing Kaine as the VP pick, they did a tour through the Midwest. This was largely uncovered due to what I think was the pussygrabbing tape, or some other media-grabbing shenanigans. You can find plenty of coverage about her, Kaine and others in those states in 2016. Anecdotally, I had a high school friend who spent probably close to 2 years in various offices in WI, and there were a ton of field offices in every single state. Here's a link about where the candidates spent time in 2016. Could the candidates have made more in person trips? Yes. But the notion that the Democrats conveniently forgot about 3 states is fucking idiotic.
3. You're gonna need some facts for "Hillary was the worst candidate ever" and the Dem platform was bad. She had warts, but in the worst case she was probably average-ish as far as history goes. Were there plenty of mistakes made? Yes. Was the DNC kind of a fucking mess? Yes. But if you look at the policies they were pushing, they were campaigning on pretty much the most progressive platform put out by a major party. Unfortunately, 2016 was not an election about policy.
4. 2016 was a weird election. The Democratic party largely ran a a traditional campaign. I don't think it was meaningfully less bad or better than any other. They didn't account for, or didn't properly account for a million things, some of which were out of control and some of which were not. But assuming Comey doesn't drop a letter about the email investigation being reopened (can we take a moment to appreciate how absurd the ruckus about the email investigation was?) right before the election, President Clinton wins by probably ~4m votes and a fairly convincing EC majority, though with a narrower than expected margin in several states.
5. There's a lot of effort to downplay or delegitimize Russian interference in the election and the intelligence community's investigation. Sure the IC has done bad things, but it doesn't mean they are wrong.
6. I kind of wonder about what a Clinton presidency would like. Likely Republican obstruction at every turn and probably Benghazi parts 7,8 and 9. Maybe Merrick Garland is still sitting around unconfirmed, even. But at a very bare minimum we don't have kids being put into concentration camps, the healthcare system being gutted, regulatory capture and aren't a joke on the world stage. Seeing how much damage the Republicans can do while barely passing any legislation is it possible that the Clinton administration pushes various things through executive fiat while Democrats in Congress (with Sanders as a leading voice) push for progressive legislation? I think so.
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Also, Hillary is a bad candidate, but people need to look at Nixon and Reagan’s election results if they want to see the true worst results in modern history. She at least came close.
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While it's certainly a complicated issue, I can say with anecdotal authority that Hillary's campaign was very poorly run. Running the whole thing out of New York was a huge mistake, and my phone call with a campaign rep was one of the most discomforting conversations I've ever had with someone supposedly on "my side."
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I don’t have a lot of patience for the argument that Republicans and Democrats are equally bad. I am unwilling to flatten political discussion to the point where all nuance is effectively dead. It is no more compelling an argument that the standard democrat argument about how bad the Republicans are and should be treated as such.
But we shouldn’t call people idiots, that also isn’t a way to change minds.
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On July 17 2018 23:32 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2018 23:21 ticklishmusic wrote:I'm going to try and respond to this in brief: 1. If you're on the left and think Democrats are just as bad a Republicans, sorry, you're an actual certifiable idiot. 2. Hillary did not "forget" to campaign in those states. Right after announcing Kaine as the VP pick, they did a tour through the Midwest. This was largely uncovered due to what I think was the pussygrabbing tape, or some other media-grabbing shenanigans. You can find plenty of coverage about her, Kaine and others in those states in 2016. Anecdotally, I had a high school friend who spent probably close to 2 years in various offices in WI, and there were a ton of field offices in every single state. Here's a link about where the candidates spent time in 2016. Could the candidates have made more in person trips? Yes. But the notion that the Democrats conveniently forgot about 3 states is fucking idiotic. 3. You're gonna need some facts for "Hillary was the worst candidate ever" and the Dem platform was bad. Were there plenty of mistakes made? Yes. Was the DNC kind of a fucking mess? Yes. But if you look at the policies they were pushing, they were campaigning on pretty much the most progressive platform put out by a major party. Unfortunately, 2016 was not an election about policy. 4. 2016 was a weird election. The Democratic party largely ran a a traditional campaign. They didn't account for, or didn't properly account for a million things, some of which were out of control and some of which were not. But assuming Comey doesn't drop a letter about the email investigation being reopened (can we take a moment to appreciate how absurd the ruckus about the email investigation was?) right before the election, President Clinton wins by probably ~4m votes and a fairly convincing EC majority, though with a narrower than expected margin in several states. 5. There's a lot of effort to downplay or delegitimize Russian interference in the election and the intelligence community's investigation. Sure the IC has done bad things, but it doesn't mean they are wrong. 6. I kind of wonder about what a Clinton presidency would like. Likely Republican obstruction at every turn and probably Benghazi parts 7,8 and 9. Maybe Merrick Garland is still sitting around unconfirmed, even. But at a very bare minimum we don't have kids being put into concentration camps, the healthcare system being gutted, regulatory capture and aren't a joke on the world stage. Seeing how much damage the Republicans can do while barely passing any legislation is it possible that the Clinton administration pushes various things through executive fiat while Democrats in Congress (with Sanders as a leading voice) push for progressive legislation? I think so. Your post is part of the problem. Calling a large portion of possible supporters of your party certifiable idiots doesn't help. They may not be exactly the same, but people thinking there is a marginal difference is defendable. Not to mention later you talk about the DNC being a mess, part of that is the viscous attacks of themselves. Which you lead with!
I have held my tongue for the most part, but saying both sides are the same demonstrates a shocking level of ignorance which I am not particularly interested in working to correct. Idiot is shorthand, and obviously not the most tactful way to put it. I am willing to have a good faith conversation, but if you're starting with the premise that I am just as bad as a Republican (which is pretty darn bad) that's not happening. These are the people who insist to me Medicare for All is the cure-all for healthcare but don't know what a premium is. Or that Stalin would be better than Clinton or Trump.
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On July 17 2018 23:36 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2018 23:32 JimmiC wrote:On July 17 2018 23:21 ticklishmusic wrote:I'm going to try and respond to this in brief: 1. If you're on the left and think Democrats are just as bad a Republicans, sorry, you're an actual certifiable idiot. 2. Hillary did not "forget" to campaign in those states. Right after announcing Kaine as the VP pick, they did a tour through the Midwest. This was largely uncovered due to what I think was the pussygrabbing tape, or some other media-grabbing shenanigans. You can find plenty of coverage about her, Kaine and others in those states in 2016. Anecdotally, I had a high school friend who spent probably close to 2 years in various offices in WI, and there were a ton of field offices in every single state. Here's a link about where the candidates spent time in 2016. Could the candidates have made more in person trips? Yes. But the notion that the Democrats conveniently forgot about 3 states is fucking idiotic. 3. You're gonna need some facts for "Hillary was the worst candidate ever" and the Dem platform was bad. Were there plenty of mistakes made? Yes. Was the DNC kind of a fucking mess? Yes. But if you look at the policies they were pushing, they were campaigning on pretty much the most progressive platform put out by a major party. Unfortunately, 2016 was not an election about policy. 4. 2016 was a weird election. The Democratic party largely ran a a traditional campaign. They didn't account for, or didn't properly account for a million things, some of which were out of control and some of which were not. But assuming Comey doesn't drop a letter about the email investigation being reopened (can we take a moment to appreciate how absurd the ruckus about the email investigation was?) right before the election, President Clinton wins by probably ~4m votes and a fairly convincing EC majority, though with a narrower than expected margin in several states. 5. There's a lot of effort to downplay or delegitimize Russian interference in the election and the intelligence community's investigation. Sure the IC has done bad things, but it doesn't mean they are wrong. 6. I kind of wonder about what a Clinton presidency would like. Likely Republican obstruction at every turn and probably Benghazi parts 7,8 and 9. Maybe Merrick Garland is still sitting around unconfirmed, even. But at a very bare minimum we don't have kids being put into concentration camps, the healthcare system being gutted, regulatory capture and aren't a joke on the world stage. Seeing how much damage the Republicans can do while barely passing any legislation is it possible that the Clinton administration pushes various things through executive fiat while Democrats in Congress (with Sanders as a leading voice) push for progressive legislation? I think so. Your post is part of the problem. Calling a large portion of possible supporters of your party certifiable idiots doesn't help. They may not be exactly the same, but people thinking there is a marginal difference is defendable. Not to mention later you talk about the DNC being a mess, part of that is the viscous attacks of themselves. Which you lead with! I have held my tongue for the most part, but saying both sides are the same demonstrates a shocking level of ignorance which I am not particularly interested in working to correct. Idiot is shorthand, and obviously not the most tactful way to put it. I am willing to have a good faith conversation, but if you're starting with the premise that I am just as bad as a Republican (which is pretty darn bad) that's not happening. These are the people who insist to me Medicare for All is the cure-all for healthcare but don't know what a premium is. Or that Stalin would be better than Clinton or Trump.
Which people are those? It seems like you have characterized anyone who thinks badly of the democrats as an extremist leftist who wants communism now. This is lazy thinking.
The democratic party is bad in a completely different way than the Republicans. They are worse in some ways, better in others. Note I am not talking about voters here but the political party itself.
I agree that they are not the same - I suppose you could call that shorthand..
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EPT
