Russian interference with the 2016 election

[oxmixmudd]

And one current reason they should

Attachment 28816

Attachment 28817

Yeah - that's a bit of an issue. The policy has been to keep both Germany and Japan 'declawed' due to their past attempts at world domination. Germany has gone for it each time that could in the 20th century. Not sure it's even possible though for them to gain sufficient strength for #3 in today's world.

Jim

[lilpixieofterror]

And if there were 'proof' the investigation would be over and impeachment proceedings would have begun. They never proved the bad stuff on Hoffa either.

Interesting that you bring up Hoffa since he was convicted and sent to prison. It’s been nearly two years, can you show me a list of charges and crimes, with proof, of the crimes of Trump?

like Hoffa the 'would be gangster'

Hoffa was convicted of a crime. Do you have evidence of a crime yet or just wide eyed conspiracy theories?

That first one is yet to be seen. So far most of what Trump has done is damage relations between the US and its allies.

Like getting fairer trade deals or getting NATO to pay for its defense? Trump has also been going after Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea too or did you forget about that?

There is this thing called the congress and the senate. Trump can't last long if he doesn't do something. What he 'does' however is the bare minimum, what is necessary to prevent a revolt in his own party and subsequent impeachment.

Do you have any evidence that a crime happened that you can link to specificly Trump? See whenever evidence is brought up against your conspiracy theory you say, “He’s just trying to throw them off!” How wonderful that evidence against your theory is evidence for your theory, just like all good wide eyed conspiracy theorist, no evidence will ever be enough of a detour from a belief in the conspiracy.

I don't know what universe you live in, but the ties from Trump to Russia are major and numerous. I'll grant you nothing is proven against Trump directly(yet). But only the naive could possibly believe there is not an unholy connection there. Manafort, Flynn, Papodopolous, Trump jr, Yanokovych, Polpnskya and this list goes on and on and on and on! With no small number of them awaiting trial and jail time. You can act like I'm stupid if it helps you live in your fantasy world, but there is no way this fella's not as dirty as they come on that front.

And you can act like guilt by association is a crime all you want, but the evidence is against you here and you have yet to explain how your fantasy works in light of the fact that damaging Russia’s energy business in Germany would do real damage to the Russian economy. You also have yet to explain how getting NATO nations to rebuild their military is playing into Putin’s hands either. What I see is conspiracy theories and guilt by association, but nothing else. Evidence, now do you have evidence of a crime or not?

[oxmixmudd]

Interesting that you bring up Hoffa since he was convicted and sent to prison. It’s been nearly two years, can you show me a list of charges and crimes, with proof, of the crimes of Trump?



Hoffa was convicted of a crime. Do you have evidence of a crime yet or just wide eyed conspiracy theories?



Like getting fairer trade deals or getting NATO to pay for its defense? Trump has also been going after Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea too or did you forget about that?



Do you have any evidence that a crime happened that you can link to specificly Trump? See whenever evidence is brought up against your conspiracy theory you say, “He’s just trying to throw them off!” How wonderful that evidence against your theory is evidence for your theory, just like all good wide eyed conspiracy theorist, no evidence will ever be enough of a detour from a belief in the conspiracy.



And you can act like guilt by association is a crime all you want, but the evidence is against you here and you have yet to explain how your fantasy works in light of the fact that damaging Russia’s energy business in Germany would do real damage to the Russian economy. You also have yet to explain how getting NATO nations to rebuild their military is playing into Putin’s hands either. What I see is conspiracy theories and guilt by association, but nothing else. Evidence, now do you have evidence of a crime or not?

Your hopeful constructs are noted. I expect we'll know for sure soon enough. Amazing how willing you are to dismiss Trumps 'associations'. Are you as generous with candidates whose political leanings you oppose?


Jim

[Leonhard]

I'll believe Trump is a russian agent or whatever the establishment democratic party in the US wants their voter base to believe when I see hard firm evidence for it. If they roll out the convictions and evidence, then I'm all ears, but until then Trump got elected and Hillary actually just lost to him.

Why is it so farfetched a belief that Trump won because people voted for him?

[Tassman]

You make a superb conspiracy theorist.

There is good reason to take it seriously. The Senate Intelligence Committee backed the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to aid Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton. We’ve yet to hear from Mueller but already a number of people with Russian connections have been charged, including Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Richard Gates and George Papadopoulos. So let's wait and see.

[Starlight]

I'll believe Trump is a russian agent or whatever the establishment democratic party in the US wants their voter base to believe when I see hard firm evidence for it.

There's a lot of evidence that's in the public domain. I find a lot of it pretty convincing. They've already indicted many people and companies.

If they roll out the convictions and evidence, then I'm all ears, but until then Trump got elected and Hillary actually just lost to him.

I don't think anyone's denying this.

Why is it so farfetched a belief that Trump won because people voted for him?

Again, I don't think anyone's denying this.

The concerns are:
1. Groups outside America, predominantly Russian, actively attempted to affect the opinions of US voters and thus the outcome of the election by illegal means (stealing data from the Democratic party and Hillary's campaign manager and releasing it, and funneling money to Trump's campaign) and semi-legal but deceptive means (online ads / posts / bots supporting Trump that pretended to be American in origin etc, that may have convinced Americans to vote for Trump without realizing the origins of these). I consider this largely proven at this point from the evidence in the public domain. Whether their actions resulted in a different outcome to the election than would otherwise have occurred is impossible to know and immaterial.

2. Trump and his team knowingly, and in absolute violation of US electoral law, communicated with such groups outside America during the campaign and sought and requested and accepted their help and assistance (outside of the legal framework available to campaigns for sub-contracting and declaring it). I consider this largely proven at this point from evidence in the public domain, but the full extent of it is as-yet unknown.

3. That Trump personally and/or his family and/or his businesses have had criminal business relationships with powerful Russians for many years, and that he has used proceeds from money-laundering done for them to help him prop up his failing business empire, and that this provides outside actors (e.g. Putin) with blackmail material and leverage over the US president. This is speculative but a rational concern rather than a crazy conspiracy theory given Trump's business history.

4. That foreign entities may hold blackmail material on the US president. e.g. the pee-pee tape. They have something personally compromising on Trump that he is afraid they will release and is acting as their puppet as a result. This is speculative, but the reasonably-substantiated-as-this-point Steele Dossier says people in Russia believe Putin has this tape. Another compromising tape that may exist is that Trump-friend and pedophile-ring operator Jeffrey Epstein was known to keep tapes of men having sex with his girls for blackmail material if he needed it, however it seems doubtful anyone other than Epstein has this tape.

Trump's public behavior towards Russia and Putin has been extremely favorable to the point of being extremely suspicious. The question at this point is whether it's just a good personal friendship and Trump idolizing Putin as a strong leader, or whether it goes further than that into illegal territory.

[Roy]

The Thirty Years' War and the Franco-Prussian War?

Teutoberg and Abritus.

[oxmixmudd]

I'll believe Trump is a russian agent or whatever the establishment democratic party in the US wants their voter base to believe when I see hard firm evidence for it. If they roll out the convictions and evidence, then I'm all ears, but until then Trump got elected and Hillary actually just lost to him.

Why is it so farfetched a belief that Trump won because people voted for him?

Because he lost the popular vote and the margin for an electoral college victory with less than a majority vote was so narrow. He was elected by essentally a technicality and by a minority of the us population. In those circumstances the not insignificant influence of the russian tactics can't be ignored. Not to mention the effect those same tactics are having in europe.

And it truly was surprising that such a man could muster that much. And a sad testimony to both the moral and political state of this country.

It was in effect a perfect storm of errors on both sides that
Coupled with the constant pressure of russian misinformation fed to a short sighted but angry segment of the population that gave him the win. He is not and never will be a legitimate majority choice for the leadership of this country.

Jim

[Cow Poke]

There is good reason to take it seriously.

"I hate Trump" is not a valid reason.

[One Bad Pig]

Trump's public behavior towards Russia and Putin has been extremely favorable to the point of being extremely suspicious. The question at this point is whether it's just a good personal friendship and Trump idolizing Putin as a strong leader, or whether it goes further than that into illegal territory.

Meh. You're already so convinced of your position that Trump could show nothing but hostility towards Putin and Russia, and you'd claim he was just pretending.