russia interference, trump, collusion, etc

[Saz]

No it was disgraceful. A personal act of cowardice and a national act of submission. I’m just not sure there is a real policy implication here, and I think the fact we are even at this stage reflects the severe failures of our institutions over a number of years. We want to throw this at the feet of trump but really this has been building for years. Surprisingly rand Paul has made some good points on this speech. Kind essentially accuse him of collusion and so he rightly gets defensive. He is also not off the mark about aiming for better relations with Russia. I’m not sure what everyone else’s plan is but if it really is to step to the Russians then we need a national conversation about that, it can’t be a reflexive reaction to a handful of Russians hacking a Gmail account and buying Facebook ads. That said, trump struck the complete wrong tone, which is surprising to me because usually he has the right instinct about this sort of stuff. It was just embarrassing all around and he made the country look like it was run by pussies and hypocrites (which it is but again that’s something we discuss at home, not while standing next to the president of Russia). Putin must be laughing all the way home, he has had a hell of a good week.

[Saz]

And I will elaborate (two beers later), it was an incredible mistake to accuse trump of collusion. I can’t and won’t defend the embarrassment of Helsinki, but at the same time you have accused him of colluding with a foreign power to steal an election. This not only undermines the legitimacy of the entire process, it’s a direct political attack on trump and the Republican Party. You cannot be surprised that he fights back against this in every way he can. Of course the Russians tried to tamper in our elections, and personally I think that’s obviously out of bounds...but I don’t think it swayed the election result. He legitimately won and trying to undercut that by blaming the Russians puts the whole country in a tough position. For trump to admit there was interference is one step away from admitting treason or admitting the illigayimacy of his presidency. It’s clear why he will not cede an inch when you frame the issue like that. And I don’t think that is fair to him or the country - he didn’t collide, the Russians didn’t swing the election (they tried though). Like I said I won’t defend the embarrassment of Helsinki but at the same time democrats made a national security issue into a partisan issue and trump is obviously running with it. We need to think these things through, it’s clear no one on the left thought about the implications of accusing the president of treason or calling his election illegitimate. Democrats opened the door to this and unfortunately trump is runnning right through that door. It’s hard to respect him as a president or as a leader after this fiasco, but it’s even harder to respect the opposition or the intelligence community who made this political to begin with. I don’t respect the man I respect the office and the democrats undercut the office in an attempt to undermine the man. This is bigger than trump and reflects a fundamental issue in our political culture and in our institutions. And it will happen again unless these truths are acknowledged now. Again, he is the legitimate democratic leader of the nation - our institutions should and must manage him in the same way putin or Kim or do would. The fact that they have not, and instead chose to go for a political win, is a true disgrace and ultimately will be out undoing. In the same way 12 GRU agents and some Facebook ads shouldn’t embarrass our democracy, a reality tv president shouldn’t undermine our government and our nation in the way that just happened. In short, I didn’t expect any better from trump, he is just a guy that won an election. I expected better from the professionals that surround him and populate the government, because they should be capable of dealing with whoever the American people vote for.

[spacemonkey]

With all the corruption at the highest level of some of our institutions, can they be trusted? They were wrong about WMD's in Iraq. A lot of blood and treasure lost on that mistake. All the meddling or what ever apparently had no impact on a single vote, so its really a non issue. Btw, we do a little meddling ourselves. Its my guess we are responsible for more regime changes in other countries, then any country in history. Both installing and removing. Just my opinion. MAGA .

[exploited]

The man went on national television and asked Russians to provide him with emails that had been stolen, and has denied Russian interference since well before he was elected, despite being briefed on it by numerous agencies.

Had he shut the f**k up for once in his life, upon taking office, this wouldn't be the problem it is for him. But he can't or won't shut up, and he is acting in ways that are so obviously in line with Putin's goals, that no sane person can possibly not be at least slightly suspicious of his motives.

This was made into a political matter precisely because of how Trump has behaved. That is a very basic fact of the matter, and no amount of humming and hawing about how "unfair" his treatment has been is going to change that.

[spacemonkey]

Actually what he is doing is exposing the top layer of scum in the swamp. The scum is getting a bit rattled, because they felt secure with a Clinton win. But guess what.lol

[Kane]

[John Galt]

[Saz]

[Kane]

[Kane]

If anything that Marcy Wheeler portends comes true - the entire notion that "collusion" was a false premise is going to blow away in the wind.