US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[Buddahaid]

Okay, that's how you see it but I don't buy it.

[August]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

Okay, that's how you see it but I don't buy it.

That's fine. I don't buy anything you say either.

[Buddahaid]

Cheers!

[Skybird]

Six revelations in Senate intel report on 2016 Russian interference

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...rence-n1237184

[Bilge_Rat]

Gregg Jarrett: Trump didn’t collude with Russia to get elected, Senate panel belatedly concludes
The whole Trump-Russia collusion narrative was a deviously contrived

It took the committee three years to figure out the obvious. Its report released Tuesday said there is “absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election.”

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trum...-gregg-jarrett

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trum...-gregg-jarrett

Republican Senators Misrepresent Their Own Russia Report
https://www.lawfareblog.com/republic...-russia-report

The report, write six of the GOP members, “exhaustively reviews the counterintelligence threats and vulnerabilities to the 2016, but never explicitly states the critical fact: the Committee found no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government in its efforts to meddle in the election” (emphasis in original). The current acting chairman of the committee, Marco Rubio, went further in a statement of his own: “We can say, without any hesitation, that the Committee found absolutely no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to meddle in the 2016 election.”

Really? Absolutely no evidence? Sen. Rubio can say that without even a moment’s hesitation?

Rubio should take a moment to hesitate over his own report. Reading the whole thing would, admittedly, take a while. But it doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect him and his colleagues to have a rudimentary understanding of the findings section at the beginning, which is a kind of executive summary.

Here are some of the committee’s own findings about Trump campaign engagement with the Russian electoral interference—findings subscribed to by each and every one of the senators who protests that they did not find “collusion”:

• "The Committee found that Manafort’s presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. Taken as a whole, Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services . . . represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”
• "While [Russian military intelligence] and WikiLeaks were releasing hacked documents, the Trump Campaign sought to maximize the impact of those leaks to aid Trump’s electoral prospects. Staff on the Trump Campaign sought advance notice about WikiLeaks releases, created messaging strategies to promote and share the materials in anticipation of and following their release, and encouraged further leaks. The Trump Campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian election interference effort.”
• “Trump and senior Campaign officials sought to obtain advance information about WikiLeaks’s planned releases through Roger Stone.”
• “The Committee further found that Papadopoulos’s efforts introduced him to several individuals that raise counterintelligence concerns, due to their associations with individuals from hostile foreign governments, as well as actions these individuals undertook. The Committee assesses that Papadopoulos was not a witting cooptee of the Russian intelligence services, but nonetheless presented a prime intelligence target and potential vector for malign Russian influence.”

It goes on. And on. And on.

I have only scanned the full document so far and don’t pretend to have read it thoroughly. Nor do I have any desire to argue with Rubio over what patterns of conduct do and do not constitute “collusion”—a term with no adequately specific meaning to be of any use. Life is short.

I will, however, venture three initial observations on the report.

First, the Senate Republicans—however they may characterize their findings—have knifed the president in the back. They have, as an initial matter, validated the major findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. They have, in important respects, gone beyond them; they are more aggressive in some of their findings than Mueller was. For example, they assert confidently that Konstantin Kilimnik, the business associate of one-time Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is a Russian intelligence officer, whereas Mueller did not go that far. Where Mueller was confined to that which he could prove in court beyond a reasonable doubt, the Intelligence Committee could be a little laxer in reporting its findings. It could also focus on counterintelligence questions, where Mueller by regulation and perhaps by preference chose to confine himself to the criminal law.

The result is that where Mueller would often stop short of certain conclusions because they could not be “established”—meaning proven with admissible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt—the Senate Intelligence Committee report is more open to findings on bases short of criminal law standards.

One of them involves what we might colloquially call “collusion.” Did Manafort participate in some material respect in the Russian hacking and dumping operation? The Senate Intelligence Committee, notwithstanding Rubio’s and his colleagues’ protestations, concludes that the matter is unclear. “Manafort’s involvement with the GRU hack-and-leak operation is largely unknown,” the committee writes.

Oh.

“Kilimnik was in sustained contact with Manafort before, during and after the GRU cyber and influence operations, but the Committee did not obtain reliable, direct evidence that Kilimnik and Manafort discussed the GRU hack-and-leak operation.”

Oh.

“Two pieces of information, however, raise the possibility of Manafort’s potential connection to the hack-and-leak operations.”

Oh.

The two pieces of information in question are substantially redacted, so it’s impossible to tell how suggestive they might be. But it’s hard to read passages like this one and come away thinking that the major takeaway here is that there is absolutely no evidence of collusion.

Yet that is the point Republican senators want you to take away regarding their findings. It’s as though every Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee had a hand in writing Volume I of the Mueller Report but wanted to make sure the president wasn’t upset at them about their own findings. The result is a set of highly suggestive, even devastating, sections and hundreds upon hundreds of pages about the conduct of the president’s campaign, staff, transition, and family. But the Republican members have stamped the report with a big red “No Collusion Found!” stamp, as though that will change the meaning of the words they have written.

Second, they have also knifed Attorney General William Barr in the back. Barr has been on a year-long campaign to discredit the Mueller findings and argue that the Russia investigation should never have taken place. He has disparaged the whole thing as “political spying” and intimated darkly that some conspiracy lies behind it all.

Yet here is the unanimous Senate Intelligence Committee calling “grave” the counterintelligence threat posed by the Trump campaign chairman, calling another advisor “a prime intelligence target and potential vector for malign Russian influence,” and describing the candidate himself as seeking advance notice of the disclosure of Russian-stolen emails by WikiLeaks. It is one thing for Mueller to make such findings. It is quite another for the Republican senators themselves to do so—all the while acting as though they are not accusing Trump of anything untoward.

How exactly could the FBI not investigate such things? If and when Barr comes forward with his theory of how the FBI’s Russia investigation was born in some kind of original sin, he will now be arguing not just with former FBI Director Jim Comey and with Bob Mueller and the Justice Department inspector general, he’ll be arguing as well with all of the Republican members of the Intelligence Committee—all of whom have now publicly taken the position at great length and in neurotic detail, that the Trump campaign was replete with counterintelligence vulnerabilities.

Third, while I have contempt for the rhetoric of these Republican senators and I find it almost mind-boggling to try to reconcile the text of this report with their votes in the impeachment only a few short months ago, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the public service they have done here. Yes, they are lying about having done it—pretending they found things other than what they found and did not find the things they actually found. And yes, they are almost religiously evading the moral, legal, and democratic consequences of what they found.

But unlike their counterparts in the House of Representatives, they allowed this investigation to take place. They ran a bipartisan, serious investigation. They worked with their Democratic colleagues to insulate it from an environment rife with pressures. And they produced a report that is a worthy contribution to our understanding of what happened four years ago.

Now all they need to do is tell the truth about what they found.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Hawk66

Well said. I have the feeling that emotions irrationally have taken over rational behavior. Instead of debating who has better recipes for managing the issues within the country. My impression is that this does not happen, since a lot of people seem to have lost the ability to listen and argue on base of facts and science and not emotions. No democracy will last for ever with this mindset. A constitution does not help here either on the long run. A democracy has to be lived (good example is Switzerland) by the people, not by some ink on paper...

Although I do not view Trump as Republican... he is not a conservative by any means and I guess most Republican share this view although they might not admit it, especially those who need him currently.

I guess those veterans/group express it quite well: [].

Although much more Reps. would need to rise up to make a change now IMHO. Before they do not get rid of Trump , they will not manage to go back to the roots of Ronald Reagan and find their soul again...

Those vets are right, Trump was a draft dodger, no doubt. The problem for the Republican party is, the GOP lets their members decide who the candidate will be and they selected Trump. The Democratic party picks the candidate for the members, that's why Bernie was screwed over twice.

If the Dems had not sabotaged Tulsi gabbard, I'll be lining up behind her. To vote.

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Those vets are right, Trump was a draft dodger, no doubt. The problem for the Republican party is, the GOP lets their members decide who the candidate will be and they selected Trump. The Democratic party picks the candidate for the members, that's why Bernie was screwed over twice.

If the Dems had not sabotaged Tulsi gabbard, I'll be lining up behind her. To vote.

This generate another question has it ever happened that a party have chosen another candidate then their president.

I seem to recall what a Swedish journalist once said

It's common here in the State, that the President is chosen as their candidate
I think he said this when Obama was President and the election was not far away.

Secondly isn't it so, that the opposition have to find a candidate and they do so by holding type of election in different States-if not all of them until they have found one ?

Markus

[mapuc]

Interesting.

Have just read this in a Danish article

(Translated)

Viral photo claims to show Trump's sabotage, but the truth is another

A picture of Wisconsin-deposited mailboxes went viral and was used as evidence of Trump's 'sabotage' of the election campaign. But the picture is fake news.

In recent days, a picture of deposited mailboxes in the US state of Wisconsin has gone viral.

According to the sender, the context was clear: The mailboxes will be removed in Wisconsin - which is an important swing state in the autumn presidential election - because President Donald Trump and his new postmaster are in the process of sabotaging the possibility of postal voting in a coordinated attempt to undermine American democracy .

There is only one problem with using the image in this context: it is so-called fake news.

Fact checkers from the American Politifact unequivocally state that the image from Wisconsin cannot be related to the debate about an undermining of the postal votes. According to the postal service, this is a routine relocation and renewal of the mailboxes, and the mailboxes in question have been deposited with a permanent subcontractor in Wisconsin because they need to be renovated.

Facebook has now removed a similar post from the same sender as part of social media's fight against misinformation.

Twitter, on the other hand, still lets the user spread misinformation. At the time of writing, the above tweet has been shared more than 82,000 times.

(This is what I find interesting-while they remove things from Trump, if they see it as fake news or similar. They let fake news stay if it goes against Trump)

The image has also been used by many media and commentators both in the United States and internationally in connection with the discussion about President Trump and the United States Post Office. Including Danish TV 2, which has now added a correction to the article where the picture is included.

The case shows how important it is that the media, commentators and everyone else show the necessary source criticism.

Another problem in this context is that the sender was also not declared clearly and distinctly. Thomas Kennedy is a left-wing activist who has previously worked for Bernie Sanders, making him a party source.

It is also important to keep in mind that it is still an unsubstantiated claim that the mailboxes should generally be removed in a systematic attempt by Trump to sabotage the election. An allegation made against the President of the United States by his political opponents.

The examples highlighted in this context include the states of Oregon and New York. In other words, states that Republicans have not won since 1984 and where Trump received less than 40 percent of the vote in 2016.

Therefore, one should first ask oneself: Does it sound realistic to start a large-scale sabotage of the electoral process in arch-democratic states that Trump has no realistic chance of winning?

The postal service itself has been out and explain that these are routine procedures where non-frequently used mailboxes are removed or moved, just as there are ongoing renovations of mailboxes across the country.

Incidentally, this was (of course) also the case under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, and the postal service's financial problems, rigid rules and inability to adapt its operations to the digital transformation are thus a story that goes back many years.

The images of the removed mailboxes therefore serve as an important learning on the way into the crucial phase of the US election campaign, for it is neither the first nor the last time that anyone will try to influence the election campaign with false information.

End of article

Markus

[Skybird]

The Dems need to keep AOC under volume control. She could really ruin Biden's chances if sounding too left sand so makign the party look even leftier, and ultimately too left for too many voters. Even Sanders understood this and bit into cotton wool balls before speaking at the convention. I am not so convinced that AOC did understand this.



I am certainly not concerned about lefty chances in US elections. I only worry about Trump getting another term. So please, Democrats: do not spoil it.



Once you have won and Trump is gone, I am looking forward to give you hell as well!

[August]

[August]

The Democrats put Elizabeth Warren on the Native American Caucus!

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The Dems need to keep AOC under volume control. She could really ruin Biden's chances if sounding too left sand so makign the party look even leftier, and ultimately too left for too many voters.

Biden is just the Trojan horse, inside it's all AOC. The democratic party has moved lock, stock, and barrel way to the left. They hate America, it just took electing Trump for them to let us see it. Somehow they think that the America they hate can "do" communism better than those who have tried it before.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by em2nought

Biden is just the Trojan horse, inside it's all AOC. The democratic party has moved lock, stock, and barrel way to the left. They hate America, it just took electing Trump for them to let us see it. Somehow they think that the America they hate can "do" communism better than those who have tried it before.

A vote for Biden is a vote for Harris to be the next potential POTUS

Nobody seems to see anything wrong with this

Pelosi wins too if the democrats retain the House majority

Let that sink in ...

Oh I forgot Skybird can't vote ... just think like the others that bad mouth Trump

[Gerald]

DNC 2020: Biden running mate Harris savages Trump 'failure'

Kamala Harris has accepted her historic nomination as the US Democratic party's vice-presidential candidate, running with Joe Biden for the White House.

The California senator, the first US black running mate on a major-party ticket, assailed US President Donald Trump's "failure of leadership".

She said the Republican leader "turns our tragedies into political weapons".

Mr Biden and Ms Harris will challenge Mr Trump and his Vice-President Mike Pence in the election on 3 November.

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53844037