If you were in charge of a Democratic Party committee scheming to get rid of President Trump, what would be the low-hanging fruit? Most likely you’d start with his bizarre personality. The Founding Fathers created impeachment as a way to get rid of a mentally incompetent president. You’d certainly consider his sleazy businesses. How many laws has he broken there? What you almost certainly would not do would be to gin up a conspiracy theory in which he enlisted a foreign country to hack Democratic Party computers to obtain information to discredit his opponent.
Russia Russia Russia Never Mind Russia
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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The US has been at war with Russia/Soviet Union for over a century since it it invaded Russia to attempt to halt the 1917 revolution.
Why stop now?
At the very worst, we will be completely relieved of having to ponder our mortality!
That’s FUNNY. *Ted* of all people, complaining about “Russia, Russia, Russia…” In the last three years, he hasn’t gone 24 hours without bringing it up. Of course, Ted’s mantra goes “Hillary, Russia, Russia, Hillary, Russia, Russia, Hillary, Hillary, Russia, Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, Russia, Hillary, Hillary, HILLLAAAARRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!,” but it’s still as annoying as cicadas. (anticipating comments from the peanut gallery: an examination of the record will show that I *responded* far more often than I initiated the discussion.)
> What you almost certainly would not do would be to gin up a conspiracy theory in which he enlisted a foreign country to hack Democratic Party computers to obtain information to discredit his opponent.
YES! Agreed. 100% correct. And yet here you are espousing exactly that. One of the biggest bits of evidence against you, yet you seem to think it *proves* the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy Theory. This, in spite of the fact that you can produce not one, single, solitary shred of evidence to support it. In spite of the fact that a foreign country DID hack the Democratic Party computers to obtain information to discredit his opponent. In spite of the fact that Mueller just blew 95% of it out of water. (excuse me: 90.9091%) Don’t you find it just a little bit odd that a man who was in on the conspiracy would try to debunk it? Since he’s lying anyway, why didn’t he make up a few lies that would “prove” the VLWC?
Yeah, Ted, you shoulda taken that job with the right-wing rag, you defend Trump as shrilly as any right wing pundit ever could. But maybe a “respectable” rag would find your ludicrous Carollian Conspiracy Theory too much to swallow; perhaps InfoWars would take you on.
You do realize you’ve been retreating since day one, right? You started with a ginormous straw man, it’s been bleeding hat all along, now you’re clinging to one sad wilted stalk, and you STILL won’t even consider a much less convoluted conspiracy theory which has the advantage of a little something I like to call “evidence”
Let’s recap:
It didn’t happen
Okay, it happened but Russia didn’t do it
Okay, Russia did it but it’s no big deal
Okay, it’s a big deal but there is no evidence of collusion
Okay, there is evidence of collusion but it is insufficient to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government on a Tuesday
Okay, the tape does show Trump conspiring with Putin under a golden shower on a Tuesday, but it doesn’t count ‘cuz he had his fingers crossed.
“bleeding hay“
Actually, this one is worth breaking out on it’s own. Mueller “employed 19 lawyers who were assisted by a team of approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, and other professional staff. The Special Counsel issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses.”
And in all that, he didn’t find one, single, solitary shred of evidence to support the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy Theory? How likely is that? I mean there has to be thousands of people in on it, they all know they’re lying, the cybersecurity agencies are faking hacks and Zuckerberg is lying and all this sneaky stuff is being perpetrated by people with no experience in spy craft, and the experts never got a whiff of it? REALLY??
Mueller and Comey are both registered Republicans. Cop shops tend to attract right-wing authoritarian types. Yet out of 19 lawyers and 40 agents … not a one them even considered that someone might be pulling their leg? Cops get *pissed* if someone files a false report – it’s not like an ordinary crime which harms ordinary people, cops’ reputations have been besmirched. That’s intolerable! They come down hard, as do judges. Mueller’s team? Not so much.
Oh, forgive me, I forgot that everyone in the FBI and DoJ are in on the hoax, because even though they are registered Republicans and right-wing authoritarians who get off on punishing the guilty, they are still Very Sad Hillary Lost.
Anyone up for a game of Three Card Monte? Don’t worry, I’ll give you a chance to win your money back.
A hard wind is spinning up a storm in this teacup the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the OTHER PARTY OF THE RIGHT couldn’t believe that there were no WMDs in Iraq.
Forecast says Hurricane Crazy will continue unleashing its spinning fury, still in denial that he has been hoaxed by those he trusted most.
Good idea!
Imagine an alternate universe in which Red Tall spends three years screaming that there bloody well were WMDs in Iraq and if you heard anything else it’s just a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy made up by the DNC because they were Very Sad Gore Lost.
In which Red Tall spends three years screaming that Iran-Contra was just a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy made up by the DNC because they were Very Sad Carter Lost.
In which Red Tall spends three years screaming that Watergate was Vast Left Wing Conspiracy made up by the DNC because there were Very Sad McGovern Lost.
Would that have any impact on your opinion of Tall’s “Journalistic Integrity”? Or would you continue sucking on the blue pill?
You, wouldn’t, by the way have any evidence to back up this RubeGoldbergian Conspiracy Theory? Anything? Anything at all? This is approximately my 4,096th time asking, still waiting for an answer.
Aw, fess up Ted – you KNOW that Russia, Russia, Russia, etc, etc, put its puppet Mr Trump in the office of president of the United States, just as China, China, China de-industrialised that country and caused the opoid epidemic which seems to be currently sweeping it. Nothing bad (depending, of course, upon one’s point of view) that happens in there is ever the fault or the responsibility of its inhabitants, least of all the politicians of its two war parties, and everything bad is due to Johnny Foreigner’s «interference». That, I suggest, is what truly makes it the exceptional, not to say essential country…. 😉
Henri
To Hurricane Crazy (aka “CrazyH”):
Here’s the information you asked for 4093 times before, or thereabouts, by your reckoning.
The Democratic Money Behind Russia-Gate
It’s explains the situation as I have before. The article summary: “the Democratic Party-led Russia-gate offensive was intended not only to explain away Clinton’s defeat but to stop Trump — possibly via impeachment or by inflicting severe political damage — because he had talked, insincerely it is turning out, about detente with Russia. That did not fit in well with the plan at all.”
It’s a conspiracy all right: the VPWMC – the Vast Perpetual War Machine Conspiracy. Not newly concocted just for His Hairness but having geared up steadily since WWII and NOT about to experience impediments that HH’s “insincere talk about detente with Russia” seemed might place in the way of its obscene funding and free exercise of power.
Have a grand time pompously pissing on the it – for the 4094th time.
That’s an opinion piece, speculating about already-known facts.
It doesn’t actually add anything worthy of being called ‘evidence’. I thought you read Barr’s book report. Did you miss the part where THE RUSSIANS HACKED THE ELECTION? Didja see that? It’s no longer about rumors and speculation, THE RUSSIANS HACKED THE ELECTION.
Yes, the dems paid for the Steele dossier – but at this point it’s been largely borne out. Yes, the dems paid CrowdStrike, but again, their conclusions have been borne out. Did the R’s pay the cyber firm which backed the [Republican Majority] Senate Intelligence Committee’s conclusions? Does that mean that the Republicans are in on the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy too? And who paid off the FBI and DOJ? Or are they all in on the conspiracy as well? Do you have any hard evidence that they’re Very Sad Hillary Lost? How much money do you think it takes to bribe Gates and Zuckerberg *both* and do you have receipts?
We now know THE RUSSIANS HACKED THE ELECTION, you need to supply evidence that the Russians did so at the Dems request or that the Dems hacked their own server (or something like that – you deniers are awfully reluctant to state exactly what it is you do believe)
Earlier, I enumerated the types of evidence you might present. Here’s a reprint in case your goldfish has forgotten:
Does Mueller confess that his entire investigation has been a scam? That he knew from the beginning it was a ginormous hoax perpetrated by Hillary Clinton and the reanimated corpse of Joseph McCarthy? Does he have pictures of the secret underground bunker where the heads of all the world’s spy agencies met to coordinate their stories? (And did they, like, wear robes and chant Satanic verses?) Did he get schematics for the time machine Hillary used to go back and hack the DNC servers? Receipts for all the bribes paid to all the cybersecurity agencies? Don Jr’s signed confession that he lied about the Trump Tower Meeting? Mueller’s own confession he lied about all the Trumpions who lied about their dealings with Russia, and that they will subsequently receive full pardons?
(4,099th time asking…)
Hurricane Crazy,
Opinion? Well, it’s a review … really no different except fewer in number and many few in number of words than your reviews that have earned you the moniker “Hurricane.”
Let’s just hypothetically say “the Russians hacked the election,” presuming, of course, 1) US intelligence agencies ALWAYS tell US citizens the truth and that 2) said agencies actually have no cyber warfare infrastructure – like Vault 7 (contrary to public reports) by which they can mimic Russian actors in those US agencies’ false flag cyber operations.
Given THAT
1) Mueller, as quoted by Barr, found no collusion by His Hairness nor by any member of his campaign in the HYPOTHETICAL Russian hack
2) all reports as to any measurable effect of the HYPOTHETICAL Russian election hack concede that there is NONE discernible.
I ask, again: (the last time you having conceded “NOTHING”)
A) What will be done about it by those who have the power to do anything?
B) What do YOU propose be done about it,
if your opinion ruled the US?
What remains after our having surrounded Russia with military bases and, as Obumma proudly and arrogantly boasted in the 2015 SOTU address, (paraphrased). “the ‘hard work’*** of US sanctions has crushed the Russian economy”?
It appears we can only teach those Russki bastards by annihilating them, and perhaps ourselves, in the great nuclear gambit that also constitutes your program to combat catastrophic climate change.
Then you can refute, OR JUSTIFY, every single one the myriad instances in which the US has done exactly what you suggest was attempted by Russia, i.e., meddled in the sovereign affairs of another country but WITH INTENDED EFFECT … in countries across the globe, for the last century, with a death toll worthy of consideration as a tectonic holocaust.
You can start with the 1996 election of Boris Yeltsin (in Russia.)
———-
*** presaging his “the Bushes are good people” horseshit
@falco –
The dated opinion piece you referenced is about how the Ds paid for DastardlyRussiansGate. It’s meaningless in light of the “new” information provided by Barr’s Book Report.
Are you aware of how bribes work? You bribe people to lie, or you bribe them to keep silent, but you don’t bribe them to tell the truth. i.e. Neither CloudStrike nor Steel were bribed – they were hired to find information, and they did.
> the HYPOTHETICAL Russian hack
I thought you read Barr’s Book Report. That’s not what it says at all. It makes it clear that the Dastardly Russians really did hack the DNC servers and mount a cyber psyops campaign. They made multiple offers to TrumpCoInc to help Trump get elected.
(what was that you said about ‘spin’? I think the letter means what it says, you’re trying really hard to make it say something else. Where I come from, we call that ‘spin’)
> Then you can refute, OR JUSTIFY, every single one the myriad instances in which the US has done exactly what you suggest was attempted by Russia…
No. Of course not. That’s one of the big differences between our viewpoints. I think interfering with other countries’ internal affairs is A Bad Thing. It doesn’t matter who does it to whom, it’s still A Bad Thing. That’s because I have “values” and “ethics” – you, on the other hand, have neither. You’re perfectly willing to overlook treason ‘cuz Hillary. You’ll decry the US efforts to fuck with other countries, but overlook other countries fucking with the place you live, ‘cuz stupid.