I think Russia is overtly and covertly involved in an effort to weaken western unions. And it seems like it's been a remarkably successful campaign.

We are living through the modern equivalent of when Guthenberg's technology allowed people to print their own bibles. You might remember how that one turned out: a huge religious schism, civil wars, large-scale terrorism, new laws enshrining religious discrimination which lasted for centuries...

I'm not saying this is what will happen; I think we've just underestimated the chaos the internet might have unleashed. It will certainly be worth it, in the long run; but at the moment it doesn't feel that great.

There was a really good Hardcore History episode that told the story of one town that was an intense focal point of religious/cultural fervor and violence during that time period. The entire city was overtaken by multiple waves of extremely radical Anabaptists, and then was literally besieged by an army for multiple months as the guy in charge of the city tried to regain control. It was a spectacular story, with lots of juicy details. Dan Carlin does a great job of contextualizing and providing perspective, as usual.

P.S. I had to retype this comment as I accidentally deleted it while attempting to copy part of it... It's amazing (and frustrating​) that Android chrome hasn't implemented text edit undo yet.

I think the real culprit is that the masters of the universe who crashed the economy have not been able to put humpty dumpty back together again. And only managed to make the upper 1% fabulously wealthy why the rest of the population has a sinking standard of living and lower long term wealth prospects.

Even tho its ugly what we have now its the best thing that could happen. If the states and regions reassert there rights and set there own policy independent of federal government the result is more power to the state citizens. And a smaller circle of corruption with more accountability.

And if the Russians are involved then they have complete control of both federal parties because the main source of friction comes directly out of the ideology of both parties that use division to try to segregate the electorate and practice scorched earth on the other side.

What's much more interesting is evidence of collusion: money changing hands in undisclosed ways, policies changing dramatically after secret meetings, means of blackmail, etc. The first two wouldn't surprise me at all at this point.

The point being: if a foreign - hostile - state has substantial, non-disclosed power over US executive branch, that's a very big deal, and there's a number of laws meant to prevent exactly that sort of thing. The speculation is that at least one of these laws has been broken - that's much more damning than evidence of troll armies trying to sway votes.

Did you want all this in writing from Trump and notarized that he did this? Because that's not how it works. His job is to say he didn't do this.

The left is throwing a temper tantrum, at the same time hand waving away any possible wrongdoing by their members.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell has stated that he has seen no evidence of collusions between Trump and the Kremlin. "On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all," Morell said.[156]

James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence under President Obama, said there was no evidence of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives as of January 2017 when the intelligence community issued its report on the subject.[157]

Here are the facts of today:

Trump was elected President of the United States on November 9th, 2016

The Dow Jones is up 2800+, since Nov 9th.

Trump has issued 19 Executive Orders, 16 Presidential memoranda, 11 Presidential proclamations, and 1 Presidential notice.

None of those three facts are remotely relevant to whether or not Trump colluded with Russians, you are again being partisan and even mentioning those unrelated facts proves you're too partisan to have a real discussion. And smoke is more than enough to justify a proper investigation.

Pot meet kettle.

Hillary Clinton appreciates your support and making it clear that Trump is the problem now.

Let's now focus on Trump, since he is the government official that is being investigated for corruption now.

What other problems do you think Trump will show?

The Democrats can't handle losing an election they thought they had in the bag. So they are going to throw a fit and look for a scapegoat. All the while shifting more and more to the regressive left, abandoning the hardworking blue collar Americans in the middle.

There is a reason the Rust Belt voted Trump, and it wasn't Russia.

Edit: And graft vs treason, which can be a hard call.

The major allegation on the table right now is that the Russian government offered Trump a sizeable share of Rosneft, the Russian national petrochemical corporation, in exchange for dropping the sanctions against Russia due to the conflict in Ukraine, and both parties followed through with the deal. The sanctions were relaxed by the Trump administration within the first month of coming into office while a stake in Rosneft has been sold to an anonymous buyer behind a cayman islands holding company.

Secondly, the claim that the Russian government offered Trump a share of Rosneft came from a really dodgy dossier. Supporters of the dossier touted the fact that it correctly predicted the percentage of Rosneft share sold as proof the source had inside knowledge, but it was in fact public knowledge that the Russian government wanted to sell that percent of Rosneft and had been reported in Bloomberg a few weeks before the supposed source mentioned it. So it's all too plausible that the source was merely combining public information with what the person paying them wanted to hear.

What? Where are you getting that from (that it's "the major allegation")? It was just one of many claims in the Steele Dossier.

IIRC, in the Steele dossier, that stake in Rosneft (~15% or something?) was offered to Trump and he turned it down. That stake continued to be shopped around and recently was bought by a joint venture between Qatar and others, and some of the buyers can't be identified.

TBH, I'm not really sure why Trump would need to relieve sanctions in order to get a stake in this, as it's clear they've been shopping it around for a while.

Well, it's probably cheaper.

Do you have a source?

Edit: If you're downvoting because I'm wrong please correct me. If it's just because you don't like what I said then carry on I guess.

Collusion between Trump/team and Russia. It's one thing for Russia to mess with an election, it's a vastly different thing if the campaign coordinated with them to do it.

Who would have thought so many Americans would have a love affair with a KGB Agent that is responsible for murder and oppression and for his entire life worked to undermine America and has accomplished that to some extent with this Administration.

Maybe it's just me but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of journalists are in some part motivated by their displeasure with the President's demeanor and public behavior. But that motivation doesn't mean they're dishonest, it just means that they will follow through on every lead in an investigation regarding POTUS corruption.

Of all the terrible things the government has done in the past 1 / 10 / 100 years, I don't think that a candidate coordinating with Russia about which fake news to publish is even worth mentioning.

If Congress has the guts to investigate the Steele dossier (which alleged Trump traded eased regulations for oil interests) then that's great. And if he is impeached on that basis, that's great too, although it leaves us with a probably worse Mike Pence. Better yet is if the entire government falls.

I'm not defending Trump or his conduct; I'm just saying this is a distraction.

It's weird. Hearing people talk like this is weird, and reminds me of the run-up to Iraq, except that at least then there were claims to evidence.

Have you read Igor Panarin's work? He and Putin are both "ex"-KGB.

But hey, it's just a hypothesis. Let's see what evidence comes out.

Edit: http://perezhilton.com/2016-12-29-russia-donald-trump-electi...

Sorry your preferred candidate lost the election. Next time don't let violent, intolerant, elitist, smug liberals and celebrities take over your political party. Democrats used to be about Unions and the working family. Appears that era is over.

As noted in previous comments... There is a reason the Rust Belt voted for Trump, and it has nothing to do with Russia.

You really need to learn to have a discussion with someone, without blaming them for all of the perceived faults of the democrats. You don't know my political party, nor my preferred candidate, you're just assuming everything as if everyone who doesn't like Trump is the same.

> There is a reason the Rust Belt voted for Trump, and it has nothing to do with Russia.

No one thinks it does; the Rust Belt is just gullible and fell for a con man promising them things that cannot occur, those jobs cannot come back, they no longer exist. They heard what they wanted to hear because they're unable to hear the truth.

And hey, even W liked Putin. He's a regular sort of manly man. Like the current President seems to idealize, in his own cokehead yuppie way.

Former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell has stated that he has seen no evidence of collusions between Trump and the Kremlin. "On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all," Morell said.[156]

James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence under President Obama, said there was no evidence of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives as of January 2017 when the intelligence community issued its report on the subject.[157]

It's like you don't even read the links you post

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

There's plenty right there in your own source that warrants investigation into Trump simply from the already proved contacts that have occurred between the Russians and Trump's associates. That they have not found direct evidence of Trump's involvement yet is not a reason to stop an investigation who's purpose is simply to find out what did actually happen.

This also keeps the Democrats from addressing real issues in their party. They ran a bad campaign. Instead of owning it and finding ways to address issues with American voters, they have found a scapegoat in Russia. Good Job!

Time will tell, but at least some Democrats are starting to address the real issue, and not placing all the blame on the boogeyman (Russia):

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/30/politics/joe-biden-donald-trum...

A bit like throwing wild unfounded accusations of blaming your predecessor of "tapping" your wires and when that doesn't fly try to redefine the meaning of words.

Or from the moment that the media writes something you don't like call them "fake" or threaten them with stronger libel laws.

Or when you are getting under fire blame somebody else or cry "this is unfair, look what the other one did".

The only time in my life that I personally witnessed this kind of behavior was when I was in Kindergarten. And I'm not trying to make a joke, I'm very serious about this.

I don't think your POTUS is the physical representation of well-considered mature views or standing, not by a long shot. I was always raised under the impression that all old people had a lot of wisdom in them, but there is one 70 years old one that changed my views on that dramatically.

It's never about the topic at hand but there always seem to be some deflection to things or persons which (honestly) doesn't matter anymore. And what I find particularly strange is that it can be perfectly be the case that there is no "treason", it's the weird behavior shown (and sorry a bit dishonesty) that makes it so damn compelling to believe it.

And no, Clinton's campaign is not the real issue. She lost, that's over, no one is questing that. The issue is whether Trump and team were involved or not with the Russian interference with the election. No amount of deflecting back to Clinton will change the issue.

Yes, it is.

> How is it any different than hiring a PR firm based in another country?

One is treason, one is not.

"messed with" means hacking and possible criminal coordination between a campaign and russian officials. if it came out that the clinton campaign had coordinated with [insert historic rival] intelligence, people would be calling for executions.

...not sure which Clinton you mean here, but if you meant Bill, it's quite likely that he did indeed coordinate with Saudi Intelligence in a reasonably similar fashion.

...and so did the man he defeated, George H.W. Bush.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/23/world/clinton-and-his-ties...

The Tea Party goes back before Obama. It grew out of the RJR-funded fight against smoking restrictions.

Yes, did Russia hackthe DNC.

More importantly. Who knew what, and when. Members of Trumps team had contact with Russia. Flynn already resigned over this. Sessions has had to recuse himself because of this. Nunes has engaged in questionable behaviour over this. Manafort had some sort of business relationship with a powerful Russian close to Putin.

There is a dossier from a "credible" source that indicates the Russians have dirt on Trump.

realistically, the question seems to be if Trump (or his team) encouraged Russian influence in the election in exchange for reducing sanctions or other favours.

That is a big deal.

The vast surveillance apparatus of the deep state have crawled everything they have on Donald Trump and all they could come up with was some locker room banter from 11 years ago. The man is straight as an arrow and has been for decades.

> Now: other than bluster, what is there actually about this "Russia" probe? What exactly are we investigating? Whether Russia was involved in "fake news" stories? Whether Russia was involved in releasing emails from the DNC? Emails which revealed terrible, immature, anti-democratic conduct? The "Russia hacked the election" narrative doesn't include, AFAIK, accusations that they stuffed ballot boxes or anything, right?

Stop asking questions. RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION! That's all you need to know. Quite how they subverted the voting apparatus of nearly 3000 counties is not a question you need to ask right now.

The issue under investigation is if there was collusion between members of Trump's campaign and foreign operatives to, e.g. time releases or coordinate messaging, not attack the voting apparatus. The fact that the national security advisor lied to the VP about discussions with Russia (for which he was fired) and now will only testify under oath with immunity suggest that there indeed may be something worth investigating there.

I didn't introduce it - the parent did. I'm being downvoted because this is a left-leaning board. Shrug.

> The fact that the national security advisor lied to the VP about discussions with Russia (for which he was fired) and now will only testify under oath with immunity suggest that there indeed may be something worth investigating there.

He resigned but yes, he should be investigated.