I thought this might be interesting as it's own post. And the events of this morning tie into my answer.
Let's start with re-stating my basic position. Pre-election, I probably politically identified more closely with you than all but one or two other guys on this board. Libertarian leaning, social liberal, small government Constitutional conservative. I hate the democratic party. I hate the republican party. There are few things more corrosive than the current GOP establishment. They say some of the right things, but in reality are simply the neocon flip side to the neo-libs of the same globalist big government coin.
I was not a Trump guy. I was a Rand Paul guy. Then, I became briefly enamored with Fiorina. But by the time the primaries rolled around, it was Trump, Cruz and some other guys. I voted Cruz but planned to vote for Johnson in the general.
Johnson became very weird, and I became more and more concerned about the specter of a Hillary presidency. The closer the election got, the more unnerving it was to see the media openly carry her water and minimize her email server scandal.
In the end, on election day, I woke up not knowing if I would vote Trump or Johnson - but held my nose and went Trump in hopes that if nothing else he could:
1. Not be Hillary (i.e. an installed globalist shill with the full support of international corporations, Wall Street, uniparty establishment and the elite MSM media.
2. Actually draw form his list of judges and make Constitutional appointments.
3. Create havoc and move people's cheese in the swamp.
To that end, I'm satisfied with 1&2 but need more swamp draining to be happy with 3.
Everything else - including the wall and who pays for it is gravy.
I view him as an employee who I have hopes for but am not emotionally personally invested in. However.... My personality is such that I react to obvious bullshit by rooting for the target of that bullshit in most cases. And in this case, Trump Derangement Syndrome has made me root for the guy and defend the guy in situations where I would be more ambivalent or even critical - which I was during the missile attack on Syria.
I believe the immediate "resistance" narrative of marches, riots, etc was to some extent, orchestrated. And I think that the Trump/Russia story in general was and remains a plain attempt to brand him as a traitor and an illegitimate president. 93% of NYT stories on him are negative. 87% of CNN stories are. Half of democrats polled believe he personally colluded with Russia to hack the election.
The two terms used to this point almost interchangeably have been "Hacked" and "Collusion" by every talking head and useful idiot on the internet.
Interestingly, after Comey's testimony clarified that Trump was not under FBI investigation, I predicted accurately that a couple of board personalities were absent and likely finding new angles on the Russia thing before posting again.
Sure enough, @davidallen misquoted me yesterday saying I "denied Russian hacking and coordinated influence." And then wanted clarification that I still see no likelihood of Russian interference via disinformation, leaking information and active cyber attacks in the 2016 election.
He is distancing himself on cue from "collusion" while introducing new emphasis on previously underused terms like "influence" and "disinformation" Which I don't think ever even came up, and if they had, I would never have denied that Russia dealt in those things. Collusion is potentially treasonous. It should not be conflated with "Russia" floating fake clickbait garbage on social media.
So the longer this had gone on, the more concerned I've been about the whole "resistance" marketing the DNC is engaging in while the GOP congress sits with it's thumbs up it's collective ass.
My concern has been these ANTIFA riots, the fanning of the flames by the MSM and the top level leadership of the DNC searching for anything Russia related to attach an impeachment cloud to. Hillary Clinton claims to be part of the "resistance" which is a terrible insult to actual historical resistance movements but is purposeful language designed to view Trump as a fascist usurper.
It needs to be said that this Russian collusion BULLSHIT has played right into the mentality that triggered this idiot in Virginia to try to massacre the republican baseball team. It is not politics as normal and the republic will NOT survive the path we are on.
So, back to your original question. I want to make my Russia stance simple. These are my opinion and if I'm ever proven wrong, I'll own up to it.
1. The claims of Trump/Russia collusion are garbage and have always been garbage floated to undermine his legitimacy. Period.
2. I believe the goal is to keep the water muddy right into mid-terms as part of a strategy. Ends justify the means.
3. I believe Seth Rich was specifically the DNC leaker. I really want some answers on this instead of political posturing.
I believe Russia along with dozens of other countries (including us) tries to influence elections and spread disinformation. I find this completely unremarkable.
A recent story said Russia hacked voter registration records - THAT is a Russia story to look into. Beyond that, I've seen nothing offered up to show Russia has hacked or been involved in anything beyond "fake news" links. To that end, I fully support Mueller's investigation and think Trump is merely trolling when he leaks the idea he may dismiss him. I think that's dumb and would not support that at this point. But I don't understand how Meuller is not redundant to the FBI.
I think it would be very helpful if Meuller would make some kind of statements ASAP on the scope of what is being looked at and what is and is not of legitimate concern. And I would like to see him interview Kim Dotcom - whom I agree is a sketchy character but if he's got proof that the DNC leaker was not Russia, it would change everything about this entire story.
I'm open minded to any proof of Russian mischief, but if actual votes were not hacked, and Trump himself did not collude with or have knowledge of collusion with Russia - especially for the purpose of winning the election - then the hysteria over this story needs to GTFO.
Question - what legislation has been proposed by our esteemed congress to thwart future election "hacking" ? The focus has been almost exclusively on the Trump-Russia-"collusion" mythology. Comey put serious holes in that, and so the focus is now on conflating all things Russia. I reject that.
Sorry for the long reply. Hopefully it was worth posting.
I'm primarily referring to what has been the MSM and DNC inference which is #1. The idea that Donald Trump wouldn't be aware of anyone in his campaign working with the Russian government to help him win the presidential election is unlikely and it wouldn't matter if he didn't. he's the boss. So primarily the point I am addressing is the idea that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to hack the election. It's horse shit and I've called it such since Hillary and Podesta shat it out during her post-election hangover.
#2 I don't see this as likely, but would be open to this if Mueller finds evidence of it. I think it would need to be made clear this is a separate question from hacking a legitimate election, because delegitimizing his actual election is the point.
#3 Likely. Also likely is that if you crawled up every admin's ass with a microscope over the last 200 years, you would find all kinds of unsavory associations and influences. If they are going to investigate this, I would REALLY like to know more about the last two guys' admins and what their foreign influences were too, because F*CK those guys.
Let's start with re-stating my basic position. Pre-election, I probably politically identified more closely with you than all but one or two other guys on this board. Libertarian leaning, social liberal, small government Constitutional conservative. I hate the democratic party. I hate the republican party. There are few things more corrosive than the current GOP establishment. They say some of the right things, but in reality are simply the neocon flip side to the neo-libs of the same globalist big government coin.
I was not a Trump guy. I was a Rand Paul guy. Then, I became briefly enamored with Fiorina. But by the time the primaries rolled around, it was Trump, Cruz and some other guys. I voted Cruz but planned to vote for Johnson in the general.
Johnson became very weird, and I became more and more concerned about the specter of a Hillary presidency. The closer the election got, the more unnerving it was to see the media openly carry her water and minimize her email server scandal.
In the end, on election day, I woke up not knowing if I would vote Trump or Johnson - but held my nose and went Trump in hopes that if nothing else he could:
1. Not be Hillary (i.e. an installed globalist shill with the full support of international corporations, Wall Street, uniparty establishment and the elite MSM media.
2. Actually draw form his list of judges and make Constitutional appointments.
3. Create havoc and move people's cheese in the swamp.
To that end, I'm satisfied with 1&2 but need more swamp draining to be happy with 3.
Everything else - including the wall and who pays for it is gravy.
I view him as an employee who I have hopes for but am not emotionally personally invested in. However.... My personality is such that I react to obvious bullshit by rooting for the target of that bullshit in most cases. And in this case, Trump Derangement Syndrome has made me root for the guy and defend the guy in situations where I would be more ambivalent or even critical - which I was during the missile attack on Syria.
I believe the immediate "resistance" narrative of marches, riots, etc was to some extent, orchestrated. And I think that the Trump/Russia story in general was and remains a plain attempt to brand him as a traitor and an illegitimate president. 93% of NYT stories on him are negative. 87% of CNN stories are. Half of democrats polled believe he personally colluded with Russia to hack the election.
The two terms used to this point almost interchangeably have been "Hacked" and "Collusion" by every talking head and useful idiot on the internet.
Interestingly, after Comey's testimony clarified that Trump was not under FBI investigation, I predicted accurately that a couple of board personalities were absent and likely finding new angles on the Russia thing before posting again.
Sure enough, @davidallen misquoted me yesterday saying I "denied Russian hacking and coordinated influence." And then wanted clarification that I still see no likelihood of Russian interference via disinformation, leaking information and active cyber attacks in the 2016 election.
He is distancing himself on cue from "collusion" while introducing new emphasis on previously underused terms like "influence" and "disinformation" Which I don't think ever even came up, and if they had, I would never have denied that Russia dealt in those things. Collusion is potentially treasonous. It should not be conflated with "Russia" floating fake clickbait garbage on social media.
So the longer this had gone on, the more concerned I've been about the whole "resistance" marketing the DNC is engaging in while the GOP congress sits with it's thumbs up it's collective ass.
My concern has been these ANTIFA riots, the fanning of the flames by the MSM and the top level leadership of the DNC searching for anything Russia related to attach an impeachment cloud to. Hillary Clinton claims to be part of the "resistance" which is a terrible insult to actual historical resistance movements but is purposeful language designed to view Trump as a fascist usurper.
It needs to be said that this Russian collusion BULLSHIT has played right into the mentality that triggered this idiot in Virginia to try to massacre the republican baseball team. It is not politics as normal and the republic will NOT survive the path we are on.
So, back to your original question. I want to make my Russia stance simple. These are my opinion and if I'm ever proven wrong, I'll own up to it.
1. The claims of Trump/Russia collusion are garbage and have always been garbage floated to undermine his legitimacy. Period.
2. I believe the goal is to keep the water muddy right into mid-terms as part of a strategy. Ends justify the means.
3. I believe Seth Rich was specifically the DNC leaker. I really want some answers on this instead of political posturing.
I believe Russia along with dozens of other countries (including us) tries to influence elections and spread disinformation. I find this completely unremarkable.
A recent story said Russia hacked voter registration records - THAT is a Russia story to look into. Beyond that, I've seen nothing offered up to show Russia has hacked or been involved in anything beyond "fake news" links. To that end, I fully support Mueller's investigation and think Trump is merely trolling when he leaks the idea he may dismiss him. I think that's dumb and would not support that at this point. But I don't understand how Meuller is not redundant to the FBI.
I think it would be very helpful if Meuller would make some kind of statements ASAP on the scope of what is being looked at and what is and is not of legitimate concern. And I would like to see him interview Kim Dotcom - whom I agree is a sketchy character but if he's got proof that the DNC leaker was not Russia, it would change everything about this entire story.
I'm open minded to any proof of Russian mischief, but if actual votes were not hacked, and Trump himself did not collude with or have knowledge of collusion with Russia - especially for the purpose of winning the election - then the hysteria over this story needs to GTFO.
Question - what legislation has been proposed by our esteemed congress to thwart future election "hacking" ? The focus has been almost exclusively on the Trump-Russia-"collusion" mythology. Comey put serious holes in that, and so the focus is now on conflating all things Russia. I reject that.
When you say "Trump collusion", are you referring to:
1. DJTJr....the individual...himself...colluding with Russia to influence the election on his behalf;
Or
2. Anyone in the Trump election and/or administration (with or without DJTJr knowledge) taking benefits from Russian reps/officials with either an implicit or explicit expectation/intention that they would attempt to influence DJTJr favorably towards Russia or Russian objectives/desires;
Or
3. Anyone in the Trump election and/or administration (with or without DJTJr knowledge) taking benefits from ANY foreign government (not just Russia...like Turkey) reps/officials with either an implicit or explicit expectation/intention that they would attempt to influence DJTJr favorably towards that foreign government's desires;
Or
4. Something else?
Personally, I find:
#1 Highly, HIGHLY unlikely....
#2 Possible (Manafort, Page, Flynn)....
#3 Very possible, bordering on likely (Flynn and Turkey).
Thanks in advance.
Sorry for the long reply. Hopefully it was worth posting.
I'm primarily referring to what has been the MSM and DNC inference which is #1. The idea that Donald Trump wouldn't be aware of anyone in his campaign working with the Russian government to help him win the presidential election is unlikely and it wouldn't matter if he didn't. he's the boss. So primarily the point I am addressing is the idea that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to hack the election. It's horse shit and I've called it such since Hillary and Podesta shat it out during her post-election hangover.
#2 I don't see this as likely, but would be open to this if Mueller finds evidence of it. I think it would need to be made clear this is a separate question from hacking a legitimate election, because delegitimizing his actual election is the point.
#3 Likely. Also likely is that if you crawled up every admin's ass with a microscope over the last 200 years, you would find all kinds of unsavory associations and influences. If they are going to investigate this, I would REALLY like to know more about the last two guys' admins and what their foreign influences were too, because F*CK those guys.
Last edited: