Why does Russia want The Rump to be POTUS so badly?

[Julio3000]

I think that the general contours of the narrative as I understood and presented it contemporaneously in these early threads—based what was publicly know-able about Trump, Russsia, and 2016–has held up pretty well, and has tended to coalesce into something more coherent. There was a broad and multi-pronged Russian effort to engage, assist, and actually co-opt the Trump campaign, which achieved a degree (admittedly hard to define) of success. This seemed obvious to me at the time, but has since been proven beyond a doubt. So let’s start there. Some people vigorously denied even this much, despite mounting evidence.

Did anyone in the campaign trip a wire that’s going to open up to broader charges of criminal conspiracy or espionage? I don’t know. I didn’t know then, and I still don’t. I do know that the campaign was shot through with grifters and crooks (I remember taking some stick for that phrase) and that their public accounts of the events have been untruthful and misleading to say the least. So that colors my perception of the likely outcome, but it doesn’t make it any more clear.

I think I’ve argued my bit in good faith (and nsacpi certainly has), and I’ll continue to acknowledge that my personal bias (that Trump is a crook surrounded by opportunists and other crooks) tends to color my opinion. I think sturg has taken a step towards some clarity by simply acknowledging that the primary issue is that he doesn’t care.

[thethe]

I think that the general contours of the narrative as I understood and presented it contemporaneously in these early threads—based what was publicly know-able about Trump, Russsia, and 2016–has held up pretty well, and has tended to coalesce into something more coherent. There was a broad and multi-pronged Russian effort to engage, assist, and actually co-opt the Trump campaign, which achieved a degree (admittedly hard to define) of success. This seemed obvious to me at the time, but has since been proven beyond a doubt. So let’s start there. Some people vigorously denied even this much, despite mounting evidence.

Did anyone in the campaign trip a wire that’s going to open up to broader charges of criminal conspiracy or espionage? I don’t know. I didn’t know then, and I still don’t. I do know that the campaign was shot through with grifters and crooks (I remember taking some stick for that phrase) and that their public accounts of the events have been untruthful and misleading to say the least. So that colors my perception of the likely outcome, but it doesn’t make it any more clear.

I think I’ve argued my bit in good faith (and nsacpi certainly has), and I’ll continue to acknowledge that my personal bias (that Trump is a crook surrounded by opportunists and other crooks) tends to color my opinion. I think sturg has taken a step towards some clarity by simply acknowledging that the primary issue is that he doesn’t care.

All of the crimes that have been levied against campaign officials still speak nothing to collusion. Do you want to make the leap that if they demonstrate 'criminal' behavior then why not collude with Russia? Sure, I guess that is your prerogative. But ultimately there has never been proof of collusion. Trump reading wikileaks dumps to campaign crowds or joking about getting Hillaries deleted e-mails (still confused why nobody thinks the act of deletion implied guilt) does not make your case.

Sturg has said he 'doesn't care' if Trump collusion is not proven. He has clearly said that Trump deserves to go to jail if it is proven so that means he does care if a crime was committed with a treasonous act. What he doesn't care about is that Russia acted as a bad actor. Should we be surprised? Feeling should not change that Russia did something that we and every nation around the world does.

The real question is why don't you guys care about the content of the information?

[The Chosen One]

Lol. I knew the second Trump tweeted about Isikoff and ISIS the usual suspects would come out from hiding.

[sturg33]

Lol. I knew the second Trump tweeted about Isikoff and ISIS the usual suspects would come out from hiding.

I don't get it...

Liberals should love:

- tariffs
- bump stock bans
- criminal justice reform
- ending a war in Syria
- support for marijuana legalization

But your hatred for a man has completely clouded objectivity with regards to actual policy change

[The Chosen One]

I don't get it...

Liberals should love:

- tariffs
- bump stock bans
- criminal justice reform
- ending a war in Syria
- support for marijuana legalization

But your hatred for a man has completely clouded objectivity with regards to actual policy change

Trump's tariffs make no sense.
Bump stock ban is going to get challenged in court and overturned. Trump just doing it because he sees how bad his numbers are sliding.
I've already said I'm happy about the criminal justice reform. But once again, the guy has been campaigning on being tough on crime and such, if a Dem President passed this he would have been totally against it. He's only signing it now because he knows he's not going to get many political victories in the next year or two.
The war in Syria isn't going to be ending anytime soon.
Marijuana legalization is good. Trump threw it out there a few weeks before the mid-terms and never heard from it again. I would like to see him be tougher on big pharma that's helping cause the opioid epidemic but I'm not going to hold my breathe.

The funny thing is most of his base is against marijuana legalization and reforming these federal sentences. The guy is desperate for any political victories because he knows hes going to need independents to vote for him again if he wants to try and avoid going to jail for another 4 years.

[thethe]

Lol. I knew the second Trump tweeted about Isikoff and ISIS the usual suspects would come out from hiding.

I've mentioned numerous times the Dossier was bunk and now you have people like Isikoff now questioning it. So it had nothing to do with Trumps tweet actually but the left finally waking up and realized they were bamboozled into thinking the election was stolen from them by a conspiring Trump campaign.

Just admit everything you guys were pushing for 2+ years was fake and then we can move on and talk about how stupid Trump is but the country is having positive change. You guys have been so blinded that you can't even celebrate parts of your agenda passing for the first time in decades.

[Julio3000]

All of the crimes that have been levied against campaign officials still speak nothing to collusion. Do you want to make the leap that if they demonstrate 'criminal' behavior then why not collude with Russia? Sure, I guess that is your prerogative. But ultimately there has never been proof of collusion. Trump reading wikileaks dumps to campaign crowds or joking about getting Hillaries deleted e-mails (still confused why nobody thinks the act of deletion implied guilt) does not make your case.

Sturg has said he 'doesn't care' if Trump collusion is not proven. He has clearly said that Trump deserves to go to jail if it is proven so that means he does care if a crime was committed with a treasonous act. What he doesn't care about is that Russia acted as a bad actor. Should we be surprised? Feeling should not change that Russia did something that we and every nation around the world does.

The real question is why don't you guys care about the content of the information?

Couple things. First, shrinking the bullseye to “treason” strikes me as kinda silly. It’s more or less just someone who doesn’t want to lose an argument staking out a safe position.

Also, this:
Do you want to make the leap that if they demonstrate 'criminal' behavior then why not collude with Russia?

Um, no. But if you’re committing a crime during the investigation, relating to that investigation, one might think that is more reason to believe that other crimes exist. Like, if I’m being investigated for fraud, and I get charged with witness tampering and perjury during that fraud investigation, it doesn’t mean that I’m guilty of fraud. But do you think it makes the prospect of my guilt more or less likely?

[thethe]

Couple things. First, shrinking the bullseye to “treason” strikes me as kinda silly. It’s more or less just someone who doesn’t want to lose an argument staking out a safe position.

Also, this:
Do you want to make the leap that if they demonstrate 'criminal' behavior then why not collude with Russia?

Um, no. But if you’re committing a crime during the investigation, relating to that investigation, one might think that is more reason to believe that other crimes exist. Like, if I’m being investigated for fraud, and I get charged with witness tampering and perjury during that fraud investigation, it doesn’t mean that I’m guilty of fraud. But do you think it makes the prospect of my guilt more or less likely?

Fair assumption to make but if you are 'assumed' to be guilty as part of the investigation, which lets face it that is what happened, I don't know how forthcoming I would be in those situations. There has to be some real proof. You can't just say they didn't tell me everything. That is not how our system works and to just assume someone is guilty is dangerous. But to answer your question, I do think it should lead a reasonable person to believe more that the accused is guilty. However, the default position you guys took was guilt was already assured. But you ignored the following:

1) No indictment of Trump campaign personal had anything to do with collusion
2) Steele never wanted to give the Dossier to the FBI because he didn't believe it was verified
3) FISA warrents were issued on unverified information
4) The original person that had a FISA case opened up against has faced NO CHARGES
5) Papa D information source was effectively a Western Intelligence source and what essentially happened was a replay of planted evidence to assign guilt
6) Dossier was sourced from unknown Russian sources

And you guys just ran with it as if it was a lock and shut case. Why? I have no clue. Despite our differences I believe you to be an intelligent person. Maybe the feeling isn't mutual and thats cool but that doesn't change my opinion. You have let your hatred of Trump (hatred from very valid reasons) completely impair your astute ability to reason. I just don't get it.

[Julio3000]

I’m not assuming anyone’s guilt. I’m not on the jury. I don’t have to attach courtroom evidentiary standards to my opinions. But please recall, in my previous post and going back a ways, that I’ve always attached qualifiers and caveats about my opinions.

The gist of my OP was that publicly available knowledge seemed to point to a Russian influence operation, which had appeared to have some degree of success. My point was that you and others disputed even this much, though it’s now confirmed. I don’t pretend to have any special insight or judgement, but in this case it looks like I was right.

Pointing out the fact that the convictions so far haven’t directly implicated people in collusion-y activity is fine, but you also have to concede that some of them have to do with lying about potentially collusion-y matters, which doesn’t convict anyone, but certainly doesn’t advance the theory of innocence or witch hunts.

Poking holes in the dossier is also fine, but it’s quite an achievement of hand-waving to make the validity of the entire thing hinge on the dossier.

As for my critical thinking skills and my biases, I appreciate your concern. I’m reflective about my own reasoning and biases, but I’m pretty comfortable with my reasoning in this case. You’re saying it’s because I hate Trump, in essence. Well, I certainly don’t like him. I didn’t like him when he was a real-estate blowhard or a reality tv host or a conspiracy-mongering wanna-be politician. But my view of him wrt Russia is through this lens:

1. He is personally corrupt, which is an understatement and not really subject to question.
2. His campaign was staffed with people who had either deep connections to Russia, business interests in the region, or unorthodox political views on the subject.
3. His campaign was led for a time by a guy, in fact, who was a oligarch-connected power-player for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine.
4. His campaign showed an unusual interest (relative to mainstream discourse in either party) in Russian sanctions policy, cooperation with Russia, etc.
5. There were obvious attempts by Russian intelligence services to undercut his opponent
6. There were numerous reciprocal attempts to collaborate which were publicly denied, then proven to have happened.
7. Trump’s businesses have likely served as vehicles for laundering Russian money.
8. The early push in the Admin for sanctions relief and the reports that Flynn, Kushner, and others supported some kind of grand bargain involving sanctions relief, Ukraine, and Syria, without any real indication what the upside for the US was.

All of that was before we knew about the Trump Tower meeting, before we knew that there was a Trump Tower Moscow project (see item 1, corruption), etc.

So none of this adds up to guilt or conspiracy charges or whatever. But I think it’s a pretty solid foundation on which to set the idea that there was ****ery afoot. Even if you can Occam’s Razor it down to “Trump wanted to build a hotel in Moscow so he sucked up to Putin,” you’re left having to credibly explain how that wasn’t an obvious attempt to compromise him and consider the ramifications of that.

A long time ago I speculated that maybe the easiest way out for them was to play the victim card...to say, hey, the Russians were doing all kinds of shady stuff to create chaos and mess with the election, they kept trying to set up backchannels and offer us assistance cause, you know, they hate HRC, but we’re just as much the victim here.

The fact that they didn’t do that, and haven’t found any viable strategy other than to deny until the truth comes out, then spin deep state conspiracy stories, is probably indicative of the fact that there are some skeletons still to be unearthed. I’m frankly not sold that the Mueller investigation is going to end with high-profile smoking gun criminal charges. I am inclined to doubt it, actually. Mostly because though I feel like some of the folks are legit dumb, they’re not that dumb. But I feel certain that there’s more—a lot more—to the story, and none of it is going to be complimentary to Trump, his family, his businesses, and his associates.

[thethe]

What political party / campaign doesn't have people within that have ties to Russia? Are ties to Russia any better or worse than ties to China? How about Iran? What is so dead focused about Russia where that is the line that is drawn here? Don't you think all countries are running influence campaigns in our Country?

The Trump Tower meeting is always a hot topic? How did the Russian lawyer get in to the country? Do you know one of the representatives at the meeting from the lawyers side have ties to US intelligence? We can play this game all day poking sides in your 'sure fire' arguments.

And yes, if you want to build a hotel in a place with an autocrat you better offer that autocrat a sweet deal. This seems to be so obvious I'm just not sure why this was the next 'big' thing. Its funny how that died as fast as the rest of the stuff.

Listen, the whole basis of the Russia collusion was the Dossier. The Dossier stated that Cohen met with Russian operatives that represented Putin to discuss payment to hackers for the dirt. That didnt' happen. The whole FISA case was build off of this.

Do you want to comment on Misfuds allegiance at all? That doesn't sound fishy to you now that we are learning the details? Everything comes out as a 'HERE IS COLLUSION PROOF'. Then when the proof actually gets looked at we never hear of it again.

[57Brave]

I for one have never said "here is proof of collusion"

there is an investigation pertaining to Russian influence in the 2016 election.
Local state and federal

So far ?

The Grand Jurys and guilty pleas are bearing out my suspicions circa fall 2016

Collusion is a Fox term
you do read don't you ?

[57Brave]

please understand Al Capone went away for tax evasion
Not murder not racketeering not bootlegging.
Tax evasion

Trump owes Russians
.........

to tell the truth under the fog of everything that has happened the last two weeks
I forgot all about the Steele Dossier

I dont think Mueller gives 2 ****s.
He has Flynn,Gates, Manafort,Cohen and the National Enquirer guy.
What does he need with an incomplete assessment ?

You came back sounding like Rudy