So...now seeing the extent of Russia and Putin's involvement...how could someone truly support Trump going forward?

[Danny Bateman]

 

 

 

So help me understand how someone, at this point, knowing what our intelligence community has discovered/assessed, can still support Trump and claim to be supporting America and American Interests?

First let me start by saying this is not in support of Trump in anyway.

 

How do people make the logic leap by equating what Russia did to a position of not supporting Trump because of it? I really don't understand the connection. Is the claim that they did this at Trump's behest or with his direct knowledge and approval? Why should anyone hold what Putin and Russia did against Trump?

 

Here's an analogy of how I see this. I am a Mike Riley supporter (really want him to be our coach) and I go out and discover a tape where Bo Pelini is bad mouthing NU fans. I release that tape and people discover my motives of wanting MR to be the coach. BP is subsequently fired and MR is hired. Are you telling me that all NU fans should hold that against MR and not support him?

 

BTW- I do see plenty of other reasons for a person to not support Trump. This just isn't one of them IMO.

There's an argument that Trump people were at best complicit and at worst colluded with the Russian government in doing this.

 

The other part where your analogy breaks down, though it is a rather good one, is that Mike Riley never stood up and said "Hey Eichorst, I hope you find a tape of Bo Pelini cussing out his fans so you can fire him and hire me."

 

I think people have a very easy time holding it against him because he encouraged a hostile foreign power to attack us.

Did I miss this? When/where/how did Trump request that Russia or Putin do this before it happened?

 

 

 

Basically to me that reads as a fool talking out of both sides of his mouth. King on top of a mountain of BS.

 

But that's about as direct an incitement as you're going to get.

[JJ Husker]

 

 

So help me understand how someone, at this point, knowing what our intelligence community has discovered/assessed, can still support Trump and claim to be supporting America and American Interests?

 

First let me start by saying this is not in support of Trump in anyway.

 

How do people make the logic leap by equating what Russia did to a position of not supporting Trump because of it? I really don't understand the connection. Is the claim that they did this at Trump's behest or with his direct knowledge and approval? Why should anyone hold what Putin and Russia did against Trump?

 

Here's an analogy of how I see this. I am a Mike Riley supporter (really want him to be our coach) and I go out and discover a tape where Bo Pelini is bad mouthing NU fans. I release that tape and people discover my motives of wanting MR to be the coach. BP is subsequently fired and MR is hired. Are you telling me that all NU fans should hold that against MR and not support him?

 

BTW- I do see plenty of other reasons for a person to not support Trump. This just isn't one of them IMO.

I do think he or his team was involved in some direct or indirect way - not sure that there is (or will be) proof of that however.

 

My issue honestly is that he's trying to portray to the American people that we shouldn't trust our own intelligence, and that even if we did that this simply isn't a big deal because they didn't influence the election (which can be debated of course) ... the bigger issue for me is the greater idea that he's giving the impression that whatever happened, however big or small is ok. You know there would be no end to this dialogue if he had lost the election.

I agree that the issue is his now downplaying it and questioning our intelligence agencies. But I take that as his typical anti government shtick.

 

Is there any real evidence that he or his people were involved? I really haven't been paying much attention to the whole deal.

[Danny Bateman]

Here's a couple of pieces examining whether there was contact between the Trump campaign and Russia during the campaign:

 

 

[NM11046]

 

 

 

So help me understand how someone, at this point, knowing what our intelligence community has discovered/assessed, can still support Trump and claim to be supporting America and American Interests?

First let me start by saying this is not in support of Trump in anyway.

 

How do people make the logic leap by equating what Russia did to a position of not supporting Trump because of it? I really don't understand the connection. Is the claim that they did this at Trump's behest or with his direct knowledge and approval? Why should anyone hold what Putin and Russia did against Trump?

 

Here's an analogy of how I see this. I am a Mike Riley supporter (really want him to be our coach) and I go out and discover a tape where Bo Pelini is bad mouthing NU fans. I release that tape and people discover my motives of wanting MR to be the coach. BP is subsequently fired and MR is hired. Are you telling me that all NU fans should hold that against MR and not support him?

 

BTW- I do see plenty of other reasons for a person to not support Trump. This just isn't one of them IMO.

I do think he or his team was involved in some direct or indirect way - not sure that there is (or will be) proof of that however.

 

My issue honestly is that he's trying to portray to the American people that we shouldn't trust our own intelligence, and that even if we did that this simply isn't a big deal because they didn't influence the election (which can be debated of course) ... the bigger issue for me is the greater idea that he's giving the impression that whatever happened, however big or small is ok. You know there would be no end to this dialogue if he had lost the election.

I agree that the issue is his now downplaying it and questioning our intelligence agencies. But I take that as his typical anti government shtick.

 

Is there any real evidence that he or his people were involved? I really haven't been paying much attention to the whole deal.

 

I'm kinda in the same boat - need to do some reading up, but I know that his campaign manager that was fired did have ties they exposed right after he left. Not sure if it amounted to much. The fact that Giuiani knew about the email releases a day in advance and content is suspicious but i don't know that much more was looked into about that either.

[JJ Husker]

Here's a couple of pieces examining whether there was contact between the Trump campaign and Russia during the campaign:

 

https://twitter.com/PolitiFact/status/816415097329434625

 

https://twitter.com/bwhough/status/811263371299397633

Interesting. I guess I'm pretty much still in the same boat but a little more troubled that there is at least some possible trail that may link Trump, or somebody representing him, to the Russian efforts. However, they made almost the same link to the Clinton campaign as well. It all just seems odd. I mean, other than the remote possibility that Trump enlisted their aid to find and release dirt on Hillary and the DNC, what is the worst we think could happen if Trump and Putin actually may talk and have some rapport with each other? I understand there are some that want to doubt all of Trump's intentions but is the thought that he might actually cause some serious damage somehow to our national interests as Russia is concerned? I'm failing to see the worst case scenario here. Trump may be a lot of undesirable things but I don't see him willfully exposing the US to harm from a sovereign power. I'd be much more worried about his loud mouth or actions accidently leading to armed conflict with some other nation. I find the fact that he seems to desire even the slightest dialog with a wildcard like Putin, rather than trying to bully or talk down to him, a little reassuring that maybe we won't end up lobbing ICBM's at each other. All we can do is hope he doesn't really trust Putin or Russia any farther than he can throw them.

[zoogs]

The Daily Beast: How the U.S. Hobbled Its Hacking Case Against Russia and Enabled Truthers

 

“At every level this report is a failure,” says security researcher Robert M. Lee. “It didn’t do what it set out to do, and it didn’t provide useful data. They’re handing out bad information to the industry when good information exists.”

And:

 

The consequences of the over inclusive list became apparent last week, when a Vermont utility company, Burlington Electric Department, followed DHS’s advice and added the addresses to its network monitoring setup. It got an alert within a day. The utility called the feds, and The Washington Post soon broke the distressing news that “Russian hackers penetrated [the] U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont.”

 

The story was wrong. Not only was the laptop in question isolated from the utility’s control systems, the IP address that triggered the alert wasn’t dangerous after all: It was one of the Yahoo servers on the DHS list, and the alert had been generated by a Burlington Electric employee checking email. The Post article was later corrected, but not before Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy issued a statement condemning the putative Russian attack.

I remember reading quite a few headlines on this Russian intrusion in a U.S. utility company. If I hadn't gotten so far into this article, I would not have heard anything to the contrary. And that's concerning. We should be concerned chiefly with accuracy and truth.

 

More coverage on this from The Intercept.

[BigRedBuster]

it is very very very concerning to me that we have a president elect who refuses to take briefings and publicly ridicules our intelligence community. The only guy with intelligence experience has left his team.

 

Clinton neutered much of the Intel community and that played a part in 9/11 and then the bad Intel going into Iraq.

 

I fear something similar can easily happen in the future.

[JJ Husker]

it is very very very concerning to me that we have a president elect who refuses to take briefings and publicly ridicules our intelligence community. The only guy with intelligence experience has left his team.

Clinton neutered much of the Intel community and that played a part in 9/11 and then the bad Intel going into Iraq.

I fear something similar can easily happen in the future.

I agree. By far, this is the biguest concern and issue to come out of this deal.

[Moiraine]

And it's all due to Trump's ego; he thinks it makes his win look less legitimate. He has a big enough ego to think they're fabricating this because they don't like him. He will spend all his energy trying to get revenge on the CIA, FBI, NSA because they personally wronged him.

This is how he operates, it's been obvious the entire time, and why I still don't understand why anyone in their right mind could defend their vote for him with anything other than "he isn't Clinton" (although I can't understand thinking Clinton would've been worse with this but we've had that discussion many times). This is like having an 8 year old oversensitive bully as president.

[VectorVictor]

Don't see where it's been mentioned, but there's been a lot of coverage re: Trump's debt (which Trump supposedly understated by ~$1.5b) and who it belongs to. And we know that Trump, in recent years, has been working closely on investment deals with Russian businessmen who have direct links to Putin. Plus, don't forget when looking into Russian hacking how there were multiple Russian IPs associated with banks and financial institutions communicating with Trump's campaign.

 

The thing is...if there's nothing to hide, then why is Trump and his cronies continually obfuscate? If this were Clinton doing this obfuscation dance, the zealots that voted for Trump would have already burned her at the stake or hung her by now (literally--I fully expect Trump supporters to support and engage in this bulls*** on account of the rhetoric and violence they support, tacitly or otherwise).

 

Also, tax returns--where are Trump's tax returns? These would show a trail that folks could follow to Russian financial institutions...were Trump ever to grow cojones and release them. Or full details and disclosure from his 'charitable' organization that's currently under indictment.

 

Some of Trump's ties here:

 

http://time.com/4433880/donald-trump-ties-to-russia/

[BIGREDIOWAN]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-accepts-u-intelligence-russia-hacking-chief-staff-150842378.html

[Danny Bateman]

Unfortunately, this seems to be one of the key tenets of the MO of the current GOP. They're going to try to overload us so we don't have time to react to everything they're doing.

 

The less you know the better. With our first move, we'll try to destroy a non-partisan ethics office. His cabinet picks aren't completing their ethics requirements for that very same office and good old turtle McConnell is poised to let it slide instead of the requesting rigorous requirements he himself asked for in 2009. They're trying to cram six cabinet hearings (w/o ethics work finished), Trump's first press conference since the summer, and a bunch of ACA repeal legislation all into one day.

 

It's so transparently intentional anyone could see it. I will say this for them -- the GOP operates with frightening clockwork precision on planning things and carrying out their plans. I just wish I agreed with what they fought for. For guys with a "mandate", they sure are trying to bury a lot of their actions in news cycles. It's almost like they KNOW they have unpopular, crappy plans and they want to implement them anyway.

 

On tax returns, we'll never, ever see them... from him. He's invoked every single deflection in the book to avoid it:

• I'm under audit -- I'll release them when it's done
• You don't learn anything from them anyway
• I released a financial disclosure form instead
• Not paying my taxes makes me smart
• It's not my fault, why didn't politicians close the loopholes
• Владимир не позволит мне.

I'd wager he'll never release them. He doesn't want us seeing his net worth, and he doesn't want us seeing his seedy entanglements. But who knows. Maybe we'll see them yet ala that one someone sent to the NYTimes.

[Fru]

If the person I voted for was supported by the Kremlin and the Klan... I think I'd be rethinking some things in my life.

[VectorVictor]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-accepts-u-intelligence-russia-hacking-chief-staff-150842378.html

 

From the article:

 

In a statement, he [Trump] acknowledged that "Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat(ic) National Committee."

 

 

The article's headline indicates that Trump acknowledged Russia's role in the election hacking, but it really doesn't indicate a) that he accepted the full (or even part) of the intelligence report offered and signed off by multiple groups, or b) address how he's still trying to cozy up to Putin.

 

At least there are folks like McCain that actually remember that Putin can't be trusted and that, not too long ago, we had some rather frosty diplomatic relations with them (for reasons both good and bad).

[NM11046]

The ONLY way this is excusable is if our agencies are chasing down some very good info that would be sacrificed if it was shared with members of the government outside of Comey and his immediate staff. Otherwise this is just bs. Are they not demanding his resignation simply because they think Trump will replace him with worse?

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/spy-agency-briefing-contentious-233602