Democrats have extremely high hopes for the special counsel probe into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election. They hope that Robert Mueller will lead to the impeachment or resignation of President Trump based on what he finds. However, Nancy Pelosi says Democrats will not impeach him even if they take back the House of Representatives. And there is a lot of doubt that Mueller will find enough information about Trump anyway. Plus there is considerable controversy over whether a sitting president can be indicted anyway. So in the end, after all this drama, we may be left with nothing more than a report.
In the End, All We May Get Out of Robert Mueller is a Big Fat Report
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But Ted, given that public politics in the US are a TV show, an element like Mr Mueller is a dramatic necessity. Surely you don’t want take such vital entertainment away from people ? In their desperation they might then turn to things like reading about the Bush-Cheney adminstration’s disastrous policy towards the DPRK (which, nota bene, remained unchanged under Mr Obama) and which constitutes an important background to the situation obtaining today in East Asia. Surely you don’t want ordinary people to possess real knowledge about such matters and use it on which to base their judgements ; that’s just not the way things are done in the good old US of A….
Henri
A Big Fat Report because there is nothing there!
Do you know how many times American Teacher has been investigated? And they keep the investigation open as long as possible, looking for needles in haystacks!
President Trump needs some labor law protections!
Jim Lahey: Did you ever hear the story about the shitfisher?, Julian?
Ricky: Jesus Christ!
Jim Lahey: Have a seat Julian
Julian: I don’t want to take a seat.
Jim Lahey: This old Shitfisher took his bagpipes down to the river and he played his pipes in hopes that the shitfish would rise up out of the water. But not one shitfish rose, Julian. So he took a shitnet and threw it in the river and, lo, soon he drew it forth filled with shitfish. Then he took his bagpipes and then he played them again and all the shitfish jumped up in the shitnet. ‘Oh, you dance now when I play, said the Shitfisher. And then the little old shitfish spoke up in the end and he said, when your in a man’s power, you must do as he bids you. Shitnets, Julian, and Shitpower.
Julian: What the fuck are you talking about?
This is the Epic Shit Talk…
Bubbles: On second thought, maybe I will go with you guys. I don’t wanna stay here with that drunk bastard.
Mr. Lahey: What’d you call me, Bubbles?
Bubbles: Nothin’.
Mr. Lahey: Do you know what a Shit Barometer is, boy?
Bubbles: What?
Mr. Lahey: Measures the Shit Pressure in the air. When the Barometer rises, and you’ll feel it too, your ears will implode with the Shit Pressure. I tried to warm you, Bubs, but you picked the wrong side! Beware, the Shit Winds are a-comin’.
Congrats, gym teacher – you will find many, many like-minded Trump supporters here.
I just love all the wonderful things that Trump is doing to straighten this country out.
1. Boxes of food staples instead of EBT cards
2. Separating “families” who break into this country. That’s a beautiful message to send those criminals.
3. Rescinding green cards for foreign moochers on welfare.
I’m going to write him and ask to be made deputy minister of public education. I can help Betsey make the world right.
Oh, yeah, tearing children away from their mothers’ breast is a fine example of family values. Maybe we should dash their heads against rocks as per Psalm 137:9, or eat them as per Leviticus 26:29. That will show the world how precisely advanced whites are!
So – Hair Furor mit dem kleinen Schwanzstucker practiced the fart of the deal on Kim Young’un and immediately gave up a major concession for nothing in return. If he keeps going, he’ll give away all the white power the country has to offer. While that will be good for the world in general, our quality of life will suffer.
MAGA!
My quality of life suffers when hordes stream across the border and it becomes my job to teach them.
If we pulled the 30,000 troops off the Korean peninsula and put them on the Southern border, my quality of life would improve tremendously.
You can’t commit to peace when you are playing war games on the DMZ. Have you gone Neocon or are you just opposed to anything AT says?
Let the two Koreas reunite. Let China take take of Kim.
> My quality of life suffers when hordes stream across the border and it becomes my job to teach them.
Why, yes, it is your job to teach the hordes of northern Europeans which have streamed across the border in the last few hundred years, as well as all the others which have come in much smaller streams. You obviously believe that you quality of life suffers as a direct result of your career choice. However, you seem completely oblivious to the fact that your students’ quality of life suffers from your … uh … “teaching” far more.
On a completely unrelated note, lately Hispanics & Latinos have been streaming OUT of the country far faster than they’ve been streaming in.
> You can’t commit to peace when you are playing war games on the DMZ.
We might be able to agree on that, if you hadn’t already shown a propensity towards violence and threats of violence. I find it hard to believe you’ve suddenly become a dove.
But the big take away is that your big, tough-talking president got totally owned by the rocket man.
Your third paragraph has brought a big grin to my face. Excellent news.
On a serious note, I do not understand how they can cry foul when they commit a criminal act by coming here.
I actually have doves. They are among my favorite birds. And as the good Lord said, “Blessed are the Peacemakers.”
Trump is exhibiting good faith. Let the Koreans take care of their own peninsula.
@gym teacher:
> Your third paragraph has brought a big grin to my face.
Excellent news, indeed. Now that you’ve learned you don’t have to fear “hordes” of Mexican Rapists “streaming”, you won’t need those 30,000 troops to protect you. 🙂
Trump is exhibiting a complete lack of common sense, let alone deal making expertise.
Let’s recap: He promised to rain fire and fury down upon the heads of the Koreans if they didn’t shape up. He publicly hurled childish insults at a world leader. He went over there bragging about how he would make them toe the line.
After making all that noise, he immediately capitulated on a substantial bargaining chip while getting nothing in return.
He humiliated the entire USA. Bush showed the world that we were a paper tiger in the field, Trump just demonstrated we’re a ball-less tiger at the negotiating table.
MAGA!
It’s the feral Guatemalan and Honduran hordes that are on my radar right now. As Margaret Thatcher once famously said, “You can’t bring Calcutta to London and still have London”
I want those my troops home and shooting on sight.
But the traitor Ryan ‘Amnesty’ plan makes me sick. No Amnesty. Enough parasites are feeding off the trough. My man Trump will veto it.
As Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of traitors.”
I am truly surprised at you. I suspect you are not a committed leftist, just a contrarian.
How can an aggressive nation show a commitment to peace when they play soldier on another nation’s border?
> Enough parasites are feeding off the trough.
Oh, I couldn’t agree more. :: snicker :: :: cough :: …
BWAHAHAHAHAhahahahaahahahah.giggle snort teeheehee.
> “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of traitors.”
That’s “patriots & tyrants” and I fail to see how a ten-year-old girl fleeing for her life is either.
You misunderstood.
Ryan is a traitor.
The ten year old is not a refugee. She is a migrant. The UN defines refugee so loosely that it can be anyone who wants to leave their shithole of a.country and come to a white majority country. If you support that you are a traitor as well.
Trump Forever!
Most people think vile decisions by either government, business, or TPTB are done with evil intent and gleeful hand-wringing.
Factually they are simply a mundane comparison of statistics.
Mueller probe and all the public winging was designed to accomplish nothing.
Except to keep a statistically insignificant amount of the base upset and angry.
One’s vote is only significant when a politician needs to use the excuse that they were elected by “the people” otherwise they do as their masters demand.
Their masters ain’t we the people.
I can hardly wait for the AI’s to take control of this shit show.
“They’re shit flowers Randy, from here they look like regular flowers but when you get down and poke your nose in them you realise they’re shit flowers, and theres a whole fucking bouquet of them!”
Jim Lehey
Lahey
My bad.
The Dems’ (the self-avowed “resistance”) incompetence in 1) nominating the absolutely wrong candidate 2) still losing to the thug Herr Hair thus promoting him to the title of His Hairness 3) blaming #2 on Russia, is superseded (no mean feat, to be sure!!) by
4) sincerely (apparently) expecting a definitive result, in their favor, of an investigation by the administration a) to which it recently lost the general election b) that it continually condemns, however accurately and c) that controls ALL branches and investigative institutions of the government.
It’s right down there with “we demand you prove our servers were hacked by Russia BUT you keep your hands OFF those servers” or “cripe, that electoral college stuff is soo….ooo last century … 4 million Californians can’t be wrong!!!”
uhhh, falco – you do realize that the election was in 2016, right? It’s now 2018. Maybe it’s time to stop focusing on Hillary and catch up with current events, eh?
But at least you’ve gained an ally in the gym teacher, valiantly defending herr hair against all charges.
Uhh, Crazy H,
Yes, it IS 2 years later and 1) there is Mueller ONLY because of HRC and 2) HRC is STILL on her “blame anyone/anything but me world tour.”
I said His Hairness’s crime was hiring Cambridge Analytica to do the meddling generally ascribed to, and fervently hoped to be pinned on, Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin.
Mueller and HRC seem to have ignored the confession of its CEO and his identification of his paymaster (HH) for the project, as have you.
That is NOT a defense of HH. Mueller will bring charges if charges are to be made. I have simply commented on baseless hysteria.
1) there is Mueller ONLY because of HRC
Yes, I am quite aware that you believe that to be true.
It’s ridiculous on its face: requiring a conspiracy larger than 9/11, the faked moon landing, and the Kennedy assassination all rolled into one.
It also requires the secret police to be closet liberals, using strong-arm tactics against a president who is in favor of strong-arm police tactics. While I certainly wish that were true, I’m pretty sure it’s not.
> seem to have ignored the confession of its CEO
No I haven’t. I acknowledged it last time you made the same baseless accusation. I’m acknowledging it now. It happened. If anything, it strengthens the case against Komrade Trumpinov. We now *know* for a fact that he cut deals to play dirty. Is it such a stretch to believe that he cut other dirty deals?
You seem to have ignored the fact that we’ve got T. Rump Jr. dead to rights on influence peddling and his daddy on obstruction of justice. (Didja see where the ‘lawyer’ Jr. met with has confessed to being a Russian spy? Does that not arouse your curiosity just a little bit?)
> That is NOT a defense of HH.
It is an ongoing attempt to disprove, deflect, and/or counter accusations against Trump. If that’s not defense, then the difference it negligible.
Lastly, you’re on the same side as the gym teacher. Does that not suggest that you’re on the wrong side?
«I said His Hairness’s crime was hiring Cambridge Analytica to do the meddling generally ascribed to, and fervently hoped to be pinned on, Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin.» Now, now, falco ; surely you must know that Gospodin Putin is responsible for all the evil in this world (when those dastardly Chinese aren’t behind it), that Facebook ads – all of which were personally ordered by Putin himself – to the tune 100000 USD (out of the 6.8 thousand million USD said to be spent on the 2016 federal election campaigns in total), which indicates that those Russians really know how and where to spend their money ! – determined the election results, and that no sins of either omission or commission on the part of Ms Clinton or the DNC contributed to her loss. Just up and admit it and get it over with !… 😉
Henri
Yes, Henri, I am fully aware.
I understand that a good fraction those Facebook ads (comprising, by your numbers, 0.0015% of the total spent*** on the US election) were placed AFTER the election.
This is in a kind of “bookend” contrast to the erstwhile Rall poster, “Proletariat,” (or some such) identified by the ever vigilant CrazyH as likely our OWN Russki meddler, who, by CH’s assessment “stopped posting here about two months BEFORE the election.” (rough quote My emphasis.)
Maybe this is all to portray Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin to be as stupid as “we” would like to think he is?
*** Does the $6.8 billion figure include an estimate of the hour after hour FREE media coverage given to the then, Herr Hair, by US corporate outlets, a representative of which explained to Jill Stein that THEY are entitled to influence elections because “we aren’t Russians”?
Well, falco, all I can say is that I am glad that I don’t use Facebook – wouldn’t touch it with the proverbial 3m pole (or as we say here ,ta i det med tång) – for otherwise I might have dear Mr Mueller knocking on/breaking down my door and accusing me of interfering in your elections….
Perhaps I should append to every statement I make here on Ted’s commentary threads or on those of the New York Times, etc, etc, a disclaimer to the effect that the above is not to be construed as interference in the political life of the United States. Do you think that would provide me with some sort of judicial immunity ?…
In any event, I doubt very much that my government would shield me from extradiction to your country were your government to request it ; in matters of real interest to the latter, our laws seem to be draughted at Dag Hammarskjölds väg 31 here in Stockholm. Hope they don’t have a supply of Novichok (Новичо́к) !… 😉
Henri
@falco – too bad we don’t have a psychiatrist posting here. He might be able to tell us about the link between dopamine and addictive behaviors. He might be able to explain the cult groupthink phenomenon that can make people believe that mass suicide is a good idea.
Lastly, he might be able to tie these things together to explain how a Facebook user could actually believe that Hillary was running a child prostitution ring out of a pizza parlor.
But the only reason he might do such a thing was if he was very sad Hillary lost.
To CrazyH,
I, too, have been very skeptical as how a Facebook user could be influenced regarding a electoral candidate.
However, I will still have to report to Mueller for obstruction of justice for undermining the logical basis of his “hottest” connection of Russians to election influence.
@falco –
I’m not sure I’m parsing your post correctly. Is that ‘irony’ or ‘whiff’?
Do you seriously think that pizzagate was faked? I suppose that the VLWC could conceivably have hired an actor to carry an assault rifle into Comet Pizza, thereby risking his life for the cause (unless the cops were in on it too… the plot thickens!)
Are you aware that the owners and employees were harassed by multiple parties? It wasn’t just a lone whacko – thousands of people bought into it, and only a fraction of those bothered to walk over the parlor to express their opinions.
Are you aware of Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown? A cult echo-chamber can easily convince people to do otherwise unimaginable things …
… or to believe otherwise unimaginable things. Here, let me choose an example at random:
Some people believe in a giant, multi-national conspiracy comprising the entire international intelligence community, every cybersecurity agency in the country, Facebook, Google, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, mainstream journalists, independent journalists, the D.C. cops, and The Boy Scouts of America. Putting aside their differences and destroying their careers because they are all Very Sad Hillary Lost.
Is that silly, or what?
To CrazyH
My reference to Facebook was about what the Mueller investigation has reported and was mentioned by Henri, above, on June 16, 2018 at 11:09 AM.
That is all. It is about 13 Russian national hackers in a troll farm/factory that allegedly bought Facebook ads to influence the 2016 election. That is the only tidbit revealed by Mueller, of which I am aware, that directly addresses the central issue of Russian meddling. PERIOD, FULL STOP.
I made NO reference to the issue involving Facebook, pizza parlors and a grand conspiracy, to which you referred, and, I now realize, to which you have referred several times and which seems to consume you. Apparently it is the same conspiracy you accused me of being a part of, above, on June 15, 2018 at 2:20 PM. I am not talking about that, I have never talked about that and will not again spend time untangling for you the confusion in your head that your obsession with it has caused.
So, above, your reference to Facebook was different from mine. When you said, in an effort to denigrate the alleged Facebook/pizza conspiracy that so concerns you, that you did not believe Facebook postings could influence any reader, I agreed with you. But, of course, if that is your actual intellectual stance, then you are making irrelevant the Mueller example of Facebook trolls and, therefore, helps undermine all that YOU would like Mueller to show.
I guess that pretty well defines “irony.” (I don’t know what you mean by “whiff” but I assume it is not flattering.)
@falco – “whiff” means it that the comment obviously went right over your head.
Let me remind you that you started out once again asserting that Mueller is all about Hillary.
Yes, you can pick ONE strand out of the whole morass that is DastardlyRussiansGate and try to disprove it. The next step is to say, “Look! See? Because I don’t believe this one little piece that means the whole shebang is false.”
Besides being a fallacy of composition – that one strand does not exist in a vacuum. It is tangled up with many others which certainly look like they’re all connected.
Here is my reasoning:
[ IF ] it’s all about Hillary:
[ THEN ] we either have a worldwide conspiracy on our hands
[ OR ] there has been a ludicrous string of coincidences tantamount to buying the winning lottery ticket from Bigfoot just before being struck by lightning and subsequently revived by Elvis.
I’d be happy to discuss any other alternate explanations, but in a year and a half of asking, no one has yet been able to supply one.
I’m not the one with the obsession here. You’re so obsessed with HRC that you are incapable of evaluating Trump on his own questionable merits. He could be photographed fellating Putin on top of Mueller’s dead body and you would STILL insist it was all about Hillary.
> that you did not believe Facebook postings could influence any reader, I agreed with you.
180% backwards.
I *DO* believe that Facebook posting can influence readers. That was my whole point (whiff?). The pizzagate dude was influenced by Facebook. Many people were influenced by the same ridiculous story.
I brought it up to prove that FB can and does influence people, as a way of refuting your assertion that it couldn’t.
Think this through, if FB can influence someone that far – is it such a stretch to believe it could influence someone else to a some lesser degree?
Before you answer, you should be aware that several top guys at FB have admitted that they built a cybernetic conditioning system.
To CrazyH
1) So what is YOUR interpretation as to the essential motivating force that lead to the existence of the investigation in question?
2) I’ve repeatedly said that Herr Hair’s crime is clearly Cambridge Analytica. Therefore, I have, contrary to your repeated, baseless accusations, evaluated HH on THE, single (to date) irrefutable example of his pre-election***, “questionable merits.”
That neither you, nor the media (nor Mueller, to date) deem this primarily relevant, suggests that you (plural) are concerned NOT with claims of election interference, the purported justification for this investigation but, rather, to basking in the warm glow of obsessive, 24/7365 Russia-hate††† that has consumed the US since the decision making process to drop two nuclear weapons on Japan to show, essentially, that the USSR had the US quaking in its boots.
This applies also to your favorite example: the belatedly, self-avowed Russian spy. (one wonders what that breathtaking revelation cost … and from whose slush fund it was paid.) Well, HRC/DNC bought Steele, a British ex-spy, to probe his Russian connections to get dirt on HH. But Steele is from Great Britain, so see, all-encompassing paralyzing Russia/RTP-hate, above.
3) Facebook. OK, I misunderstood.
So now we have your (much clearer) position of Facebook: it CAN influence voters.
Of course, Cambridge Analytica thinks exactly the same. It gleaned FB data to tailor and feedback to voters deemed critical, ten-times more electronic “impressions or views,” meant to influence their votes, than the total number of votes cast for all US presidential candidates in 2016. Presumably many of these “impressions or views” were sent to FB accounts. (see Russia/RTP-hate, above and below.)
4) Why hasn’t the DNC included Cambridge Analystica as defendant in its omnibus civil suit against Russia, His Highness campaign and Wikileaks? Can’t wait for the two-way discovery process mandated there.
5) Why hasn’t the DNC turned over its allegedly hacked servers, that, I contend are THE basis of the issue at hand, to the appropriate federal authorities, that, the DNC otherwise has insisted, successfully, must investigate the alleged hack?
6) This entire fiasco reminds me of the nation’s response to 9/11. Of course, here, we are dealing with the “correct” side, that is: good, obedient servile establishment Democrats.
After 9/11, instead of arresting Bush and his puppet master Cheney for, at least, gross dereliction of duty, the nation accepted the plan of these two, generally forgotten (but in some circles^^^ praised and remembered fondly) criminals, to a) gut the constitution and b) escalate the US policy of perpetual war that had caused whatever actual blow back could be attributed to the motivation for the attacks.
In 2016, during her primary run for the DNC presidential nomination, HRC, was concurrently under investigation, by the executive branch, then controlled by her own party, for allegations of potential sedition regarding an unencrypted system for emails she used for her official government business as Secretary of State.
When DNC emails were published by Wikileaks, showing in gory detail, the process by which the DNC/HRC had essentially committed election fraud against her primary opponent, the furor, was NOT about adding charges of possible election fraud to the ongoing sedition investigation BUT about the STILL unsupported, much less proven, accusations by DNC/HRC that Russia had hacked the emails.
Of course, the FBI director’s pronouncement, prior, that HRC was quite “reckless” but did not commit any crime could NOT have turned off any of her potential voters!
7) Obsessed? You betcha!!!
Read: “Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution” by Meeropol
ISBN 9780472109524
She and hubby ran a self-proclaimed, shared presidency for 8 years that did exactly as Meeropol shows. In 2008, she clearly demonstrated her inability to succeed in a high-level political campaign. In 2016 she returned as the entitlement nominee with such compelling campaign memes as a) I like Kissinger, neo-cons and country club Republicans b) $15/hr minimum wage is TOO much for you shlubs, but MY minimum, at least among the swamp kings, is $330,000/hr
c) don’t bore me with talk of Dem majorities in congress, I can work with Republicans°°°
d) kids being shot in the streets is YOUR problem …. come to think of it, until evidence to the contrary is forthcoming, it was probably some super predator who deserved it and had to brought to heel one way or another.
As I have said, if half of His Hairness’s supporters are deplorable then the country has at least 95 million deplorables, the others being those who voted for the political insult, HRC.
8) I’ll accept contributions, through Ted, if he agrees, to pay for a chromosome test for Jill Stein so she, too, can be recognized as a candidate seeking to serve as the first woman president.
9) When can we expect the beginning of an investigation into the purported robbery- motivated murder, shortly after the publishing of the DNC emails, of DNC staffer Seth Rich (whose unrobbed computer was found next to his corpse)?
————————
*** politically he is really not significantly worse than any other of the GOP possibilities for the post. HH DOES have a unique condition that might be called “political Tourette syndrome” since he lacks the soft-spoken, gentle manner by which “acceptable” professional politicos charmingly smile and coo as they coldly ram their political shiv deep into your liver.
††† now, of course, 24/7/24 Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin-hate has supplanted the Russia-hate.
His “crime” being to insist that Russia, too, has its own interests. This. of course, violates imperial rule #1: “only the USA has ‘interests’ and it reserves the right to take any and all subsequent actions to realize them, especially waging economic and/or military war”
^^^ B.H Obumma has reportedly called the Bush family “good people.”
°°° the ONLY benefit of having had HRC elected would have been to see the investigations brought against her by those she supremely naively thought would have any inclination to do anything “with” her but impeach, convict and banish her.
@falco –
I think that the investigation is was inspired by real-world evidence (not “proof” – *evidence*) that:
A) Russia mounted a series of sophisticated online psy-ops campaigns designed to interfere with our election.
B) Hacked or attempted to hack the DNC servers and spearphished DNC personnel.
C) Trumpco was in on it.
You keep bringing up CA. Yep, they did a bad thing. We agree.
You didn’t actually answer my big, unanswerable question. Would you like to try? You could be the first.
wrt hacking, spearphishing, and social media psy-ops: The FBI, CIA, NSA, Interpol, MI5, a half-dozen independent cyber-security firms, Google, Twitter, Facebook, investigative journalists and industry observers & insiders ALL point their fingers at Russia, while congress sanctioned them for same.
WHAT IS *THEIR* MOTIVATION?
I’m not asking about *my* motivation. I’m not asking for absolute concrete proof that Russia did any of those things. I’m asking why all those qualified people *SAY* they did those things.
100 words or less.
To CrazyH,
Re: Your answer
And WHY was this alleged evidence (see note, below) sought? Because of the claims of the DNC/HRC, because they lost the election and because being then, and STILL, unable face their miserable ineptitude, they had to blame someone else.
My answer:
The 24/7/365 Russia/RTP hate, as in post, above, and the underlying reasons for it.
The most recent escalation, and set up, if unintentional, being under the Obumma administration as in, a) “we have destroyed Russia’s economy” (rough quote, 2015 SOTU, and as clear a war crime as any committed, not to mention boasted about, by the only Nobel Peace prize winner to bomb another) and b) proclamations by then Sec Sate HRC excoriating Russia (and China) for horning in our OUR war in Syria (“they will pay the price.”)
One of HRC’s premier loss-producing strategies was to concentrate heavily on voters involved in high tech industries, as in, two, blue coasts. But said industries were, of course, hardly audiophile electronics but, rather, the industry researching and producing all manner of electronics-controlled/dependent arms and intelligence gathering systems. This covers all the acronym agencies you mentioned and another couple dozen you didn’t. It was a guarantee of significant fattening of their budgets. And “journalists”? With the fattening of the alphabet-soup agency budgets of the perpetual war + STASI-West complex, the sycophants (er, journalists) have even more of their basic motivation, placing big, wet kisses on the ample, collective ass of obvious power.
Note: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity has reported that no technology in any location in the world could have hacked the emails the DNC claims were taken in that manner.
The speed with which it was accomplished is attributable only to copying the files onto a portable memory device. One can still implicate Russia via Rich but, for some “strange” reason that avenue has not been explored.
@falco:
> The 24/7/365 Russia/RTP hate …
Didn’t you get the memo? The cold war’s been over for nearly thirty years. But okay, let me see if I understand your reasoning …
Google hates Russia, Facebook hates Russia, and Twitter hates Russia. Even though they were all founded by Gex X’ers after the collapse of the Soviet Union, even though Russia has never done them a lick of harm, even though they do business in Russia – They hate Russia so much that they’re willing to lie about them, thereby threatening their revenue stream. Moreover – they are willing to make fools of themselves in front of the entire international engineering community just because they hate Russia.
A half-dozen independent cyber-security firms also hate Russia. They hate Russia so much that they’re willing to lie about it, even though those lies would destroy their businesses and their careers if they were caught. They are willing to make fools of themselves in front of the entire international engineering community just because they hate Russia.
Independent journalists hate Russia because … well, I dunno … why *do* independent journalists hate Russia? Didn’t that kind of thing die when the Berlin Wall fell? Couldn’t they make more money exposing the lies?
The CIA, the FBI, and the NSA all hate Russia. That at least has a shred of credibility – but there’s a lot more federal money and glory available for fighting “Terrorism” [tm] than the cold war.
Industry observers & insiders all hate Russia, they hate Russia so much they’re willing to destroy their own careers just to poke them in the nose.
So, basically, we have hundreds or thousands of people lying even though they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. They’ve coordinated their stories remarkably well – even though there is no conspiracy.
oka-a-a-a-a-ay. Let’s just say I have trouble swallowing all that. You did make a stab at answering, so that’s an E for Effort, but I’m afraid that’s still not a passing grade. Better luck next time.
To Crazy H
I’ll concede that your breezy smugness is exceeded only by your aggressive political blindness, rivaling that of the conservative turds you so seem to enjoy battling here.
The Russia hate is created and promulgated for the populace, not the entities you mention. Those entities are primarily concerned with increased budgets that can more easily be provided by a congress just doing the will of citizens terrified by it own leaders.
The cold was over only as long as USSR/Russia was ruled by persons willing to suck the imperial cock without question or whimper. Well, Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin doesn’t do that and the cold war is hotter than ever.
You haven’t heard of Ukraine?
You’re unaware of the US/NATO missile batteries installed in Poland + Romania to defend against the non-existent “Iranian threat”? This in total violation of the pappy Bush verbal “promise” made to a gullible Gorbachev (a bona fide empire fellator) that once the USSR split up, there would be no more pressure on Russia from NATO/US recruitment of Eastern European nations into the West’s alliance.
You are unaware that the US is making war in Syria on the side OPPOSITE that supported by in-country Russian troops and weapons?
You haven’t heard of the continuous anti-Russia rantings of the alleged liberal bastion Rachel Maddow?
You completely passed over the quotes of the last Democratic Party president and its last two presidential candidates. You’re unaware of the context of Obumma’s quote, i.e. economic sanctions against Russia?
You seem not to have heard that Amazon has a $600 million contract with the CIA and that its CEO owns the Washington Post? With the vast amounts of personal information collected by Google, Facebook & Twitter you are SURE that none of it finds its way to the alphabet soup intel agencies?
The half-dozen cyber security firms are private, for profit companies. They do what they are paid to do. For Clinton they corroborate her Russia hacking claims, for Herr Hair they collect social media information and feed it back to influence an election.
Finally, your entire “conspiracy” analysis is essentially overblown to the point of irrelevance. Only a small fraction of the vast number intel community alphabet soup agencies have said anything about the issue and those that have are clear inconclusive at best. Clapper has said so.
To the Democrats advantage, they have avoided alienating their major financial support by avoiding real issues that plague the majority of US citizens.
These investigations have served Democrat’s interests well by keeping them from going completely silent and disappearing because of their lack of any relevancy at all, while still posing as the opposition party.
Nice play, useless Ds.
Well, now – it’s nice to see Ted progressing, if slowly. He’s gone from “there is no there there” to “may.” So that’s a step in the right direction.
Hey, Manafort got thrown in jail for witness tampering and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Even though there can be no witnesses to that which never happened, and therefore no justice to obstruct.
Heh. My bet is that both he and Consigliori Cohen will sing. Cohen, especially – he never dreamed he’d be caught. He thought he could hide behind attorney-client privilege just as he did when he was merely protecting a dirty real estate developer.
The rules are different when you’re protecting a treasonous president. I would have loved to have seen the expression on his face when he learned that the feds were raiding his office.
Ted says: “Nancy Pelosi says Democrats will not impeach him (His Hairness) even if they take back the House of Representatives.”
Did she really say THAT … AGAIN !?!?!
There is nothing more disturbing than watching a failed, over-the-hill politico do a satire on her/him-self.
Here, falco, a report from Vox on a recent so-called CNN «town hall», which confirms what Ted writes above. To my mind, Ms Pelosi has some points going for her, not all of which are mentioned in the above report : 1) even were the Democrats to obtain the simple majority needed to impeach Mr Trump in the US House of Representatives, that is, as we know, only the first step in removing him from office ; to do so would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate. If I interpret the situation aright, the seats of 24 Democratic Senators, 9 Republican Senators, and 2 Independents will be up for grabs on 6 November ; even were the Democrats and Independents (who caucus with the Democrat)s to win everywhere – which strikes me as most unlikely – that would give them only 58 votes in that chamber (if all were to vote to impeach Mr Trump, hardly a given) ; i e, a further 9 votes for impeachment from the Republicans would be required. Unless a really major scandal, sufficient to make even the staunchest Trump supporters turn away – and keep in mind that hitherto, Mr Trump has made good old «teflon» Ronald Wilson Reagon look sticky as glue when it comes to the effects scandals have on his base – how likely are the Republicans to vote to remove him from office ? And what would be the reaction of Democratic voters, who in this scenario, had poured out in millions to see Mr Trump impeached and removed from office were the attempt to fail ? Ms Pelosi is perhaps wise to concentrate on other matters….
Secondly, even were Mr Trump to be impeached and removed from office, the consequences would be that Michael Richard Pence would assume the office. The Democrats could hardly mount an impeachment campaign against him immediately ; being an utter arsehole is not, as I understand it, included in the list of «high Crimes and Misdemeanors» mentioned in Article II, Section 4 of the US Constitution. To my mind, Ms Pelosi is on the right track when she emphasizes economic development (and, understood, 2020). The problem, of course, is that the DNC-approved Democrats whom Ms Pelosi wishes to see elected in November are hardly going to do anything to improve the economy for ordinary people – their principals, otherwise known as «campaign contributors», would have objections – so it’s likely to be business as usual : neither impeachment nor an economic lift for the majority. How much longer the US can hold together under these circumstances – or whether, in desperation, it will intiate a war which quickly escalates to a global thermonuclear conflagration, rendering the whole issue moot – is another matter….
We live in interesting times….
Henri
Yes, Henri.
I went through the simple impossibility of the senate conviction numbers the last time the issue came up here.
At that time I suggested that the Dems would probably need something like 80 seats to guarantee removal of anyone a Dem House might (but WON’T we are assured) impeach.
This because there are 13-15 consistent, virtual (and one publicly declared, Manchin) Republicans who are somehow included in the “Dem” caucus.
The reality of the notion of “economic recovery” (along with the major part of the Bill of Rights ) went out the window in the administration of Bush the Severely Impaired.
The former with his declaration of a “jobless recovery” the latter with the eager, bipartisan help of the likes of Pelosi.
[thread’s getting too long – moving to top]
falco sez, “The Russia hate is created and promulgated for the populace, not the entities you mention.”
But my question isn’t about the populace. It is about those very entities. It’s actually a very simple question, it does not require thousands of words to answer. You said it was all about Hillary, then you said it was all about Russophobia, then you said it wasn’t either of those things … so what is it?
Allow me to refresh your memory:
wrt hacking, spearphishing, and social media psy-ops: The FBI, CIA, NSA, Interpol, MI5, a half-dozen independent cyber-security firms, Google, Twitter, Facebook, investigative journalists and industry observers & insiders ALL point their fingers at Russia, while congress sanctioned them for same.
WHAT IS *THEIR* MOTIVATION?
@falco – so you can’t answer my simple question? Don’t feel bad – nobody else has been able to do so either. And therein lies your problem.
You have such strong opinions on DastardlRussiansGate that you will fling your own feces at anyone who disagrees with you. But you have no explanation of your own. None, nada, zero, zip. Nothing. You can’t even explain those facts which are publicly available.
You state unequivocally that “Mueller is all about Hillary” – where is *your* evidence? Where is the rock-solid PRUF you demand of those of us who can count to twenty-one with our shoes on? Do you have some secret knowledge the rest of us don’t have? Then please share!
Otherwise, you’re just blowing smoke – it’s a very thin smoke at that.