Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

Let me chime in on this troll discussion.

 

It seems to me that hard-core Trump supporters have an inability to discuss. Instead, they rely on regurgitation of talking points relayed by right-wing media. I have no problems with people holding a conservative viewpoint who use reason and legitimate data to support their positions. I do have problems with professional wrestling fans who crow wildly about their "victories" over arch rivals.

 

To think or even suggest that it was not McFredo but the Clinton campaign that colluded with the Russians and the FBI is so unrelated to reality as to be viewed as the processes of a diseased or totally biased and evil mind. All one need do is the tiniest bit of research to know that turning the accusation back against the accuser is a classic Roy Cohn/McFredo tactic.

 

Had I found out that Obama used those tactics to deflect outrageous behavior I would have voted against him and his ilk. That the McFredo supporters cannot bring themselves to even criticize his repeated attacks on the democratic norms of free speech and the rule of law is enough to make anything they say unworthy of legitimate consideration.

[kenberg]

If I get rid of the trolls, will there be any discussion at all?

 

I have been disappointed in the way the thread has gone lately but I am not suggesting that you banish anyone.

Long ago someone, I think it was Cherdano, suggested that everyone list a columnist that they might not agree with but generally found to be worth reading. As I recall I mentioned Robert Samuelson and Michael Gerson. I thought this was a good idea. Of course neither of these two are hard right. Samuelson often, too often for my comfort, mentions that all these old people are an economic hardship for the country. Actually, there is some truth to this but I think the solution might be pretty subtle. Gerson was a speech writer for GWB and is religious I did not vote for Bush and I walked away from religion some 60 years ago, but I still find Gerson's columns well worth reading.

 

I think we could use a bit of this approach. There are a lot of things I don't know and so I find the opinions of others are often useful.

 

Anyway, I am not for banning anyone. That's not the same as saying I don't find some posts over the top. Or under the floor, whatever.

[Winstonm]

Perhaps the solution is a moderator "ignore" button where the post does not display unless someone wants to view it?

[y66]

I don't understand why anyone would object to banning trolls except that it puts a burden on mods to use judgment or why people don't put trolls on ignore.

[Al_U_Card]

Isn't the purpose of the discourse to give you alternate perspectives such that their integration into your perception improves your understanding? If it is only to "correct" faulty impressions then determining whose impressions are "faulty" becomes the point and that explains a lot of the back and forth...

[MrAce]

I ♥ this bar!

 

We have 233 pages of "He is bad" "No he is good" "You are an idiot" "No I am not" "He is racists" "No he is not" copy- paste copy- paste materials from the net, cherry picked from biased sources of the view one is defending/supporting.

A lot of trolling.

A moderator who unfortunately says "if i get rid of trolls, will there be any discussion at all?"

 

And speaking of trolls, who can possibly blame this moderator for saying what he said? When we have people who called another "a troll" but looking at the amount of typing, replying, quoting and their engagement with so called trolls, the amount of time (this topic started in 2015 and there are others older but similar to this) they spend with their lovely trolls, one starts to ask himself 'which one is actually worse?' The trolls or those troll magnets? Once you call someone a troll, to me it means you are done with him, period. It means you decided that this person is not here to make an intelligent argument or discussion and looking for people to get under their skin! If you are not done with him/her after calling him/her a troll, then you either don't think they are a troll but said anyway, or you are also a troll who love this environment. Which one is it?

 

As you all know I do not write in this topic a lot but I follow it. And I find some really helpful/smart arguments which helps me to look at things from the shoe of others, or replies which I think is expressed the way i feel, with better words than I would and you can see this from my +1 likes now and then. But it is really frustrating to see the trolls and those who pretend like they complain about trolls when they actually love it!

[jjbrr]

I don't understand why anyone would object to banning trolls except that it puts a burden on mods to use judgment or why people don't put trolls on ignore.

 

As has been said many times, the ignore feature doesn't actually ignore posts. It's an awful feature.

[Winstonm]

Mark Mazzetti, The Times’s Washington investigations editor, will be discussing the Russia inquiry in New York on Tuesday evening with fellow Times reporters Michael Schmidt and Scott Shane, and Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at The New School. To join the conversation, tune in to the live stream below at 7 p.m.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/reader-center/russia-investigation-questions.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

[MrAce]

As has been said many times, the ignore feature doesn't actually ignore posts. It's an awful feature.

 

 

http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif

 

Yeah! It's been said many times and we get it! There are some people who can not ignore someone in forums unless there is a properly working ignore button!

For some reason this tells me more about the person than the "ignore button"

How do you actually ignore someone in real life? Do you literally blindfold yourself so you won't see anything about him/her and close your ears so you won't hear anyone talking,replying to him/her? Because this is exactly what you are asking for the ignore button to perform in forums.

[Winstonm]

More Republican fallout due to McFredo. The story is here.

[kenberg]

As has been said many times, the ignore feature doesn't actually ignore posts. It's an awful feature.

 

I have recently downloaded update 5.73 into my 1939 brain. This comes with an ignore feature. Of course I still have to follow its recommendations. I sometimes do, but probably not as often as I should.

[jjbrr]

http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif

 

Yeah! It's been said many times and we get it! There are some people who can not ignore someone in forums unless there is a properly working ignore button!

For some reason this tells me more about the person than the "ignore button"

How do you actually ignore someone in real life? Do you literally blindfold yourself so you won't see anything about him/her and close your ears so you won't hear anyone talking,replying to him/her? Because this is exactly what you are asking for the ignore button to perform in forums.

 

Stop, that's incredibly dishonest. If I'm having a conversation with a group of people and someone continues to spew nonsense and interrupt others, you're so clever as to suggest a blindfold? Nice troll.

[jjbrr]

Since I'm apparently the problem here, I've written a script that does what the ignore feature should do, imo. I might tweak further, but it's good enough.

 

Thanks for the inspiration.

[barmar]

More active moderation of this forum would require more resources than we're really willing to devote. Moderating the forums is a sideline activity for me and Diana, my main job is programming, hers is marketing. I ended up as the de facto moderator simply because I've been using the Internet for 4 decades, and I've had experience on a number of online forums (I even used some BBSes before the Internet). We don't have time to read everything, I spend at most an hour each day checking the forums. This is simply the reality of how the forums fits into BBO's operation.

 

I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that makes me naive and a poor choice for moderator. When I see statements like "The problem with Trump supporters is....", I try to imagine that from the perspective of those supporters. To them, this is just as close-minded as we see their parrotting of Trump's accomplishments. "How many times do I have to point out how great the economy is before those libtards will realize that Trump is doing what we elected him to do?"

 

And calling Trump names like McFredo is certainly not a way to invite serious debate from his supporters. I'm tempted to quote Trump when he decided not to condemn the white supremacists -- both sides seem to have some guilty here.

 

I personally share many of these opinions of Trump supporters. I also feel similarly about climate change deniers and religious fundamentalists. But as a moderator I need to be somewhat impartial. If ldrews is a troll, then so is Fox News -- they're both saying pretty much the same things. Of course, the difference is that I can't do anything about Fox News. But he's hardly alone -- NPR sometimes goes out to do stories on Republican communities, they sound very much the same. Samantha Bee and Sarah Silverman both did segments on their shows where they spent time with Trump supporters -- not mocking them, trying to get to know them. They're just ordinary people who've drunk the Kool-Aid and bought into the red mind-set.

 

Trump can be very charismatic, his lies sound convincing. He's also convinced his base about "fake news", so when the mainstream media points out these blatant falsehoods, they're innoculated against this. This is an extremely tough time for political debate. I'm not sure that muzzling some of the posters is the way to improve it -- the muzzled will just see it as confirmation of their conspiracy theories.

 

Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm just trying to rationalize our minimalist approach to moderation.

[Winstonm]

More active moderation of this forum would require more resources than we're really willing to devote. Moderating the forums is a sideline activity for me and Diana, my main job is programming, hers is marketing. I ended up as the de facto moderator simply because I've been using the Internet for 4 decades, and I've had experience on a number of online forums (I even used some BBSes before the Internet). We don't have time to read everything, I spend at most an hour each day checking the forums. This is simply the reality of how the forums fits into BBO's operation.

 

I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that makes me naive and a poor choice for moderator. When I see statements like "The problem with Trump supporters is....", I try to imagine that from the perspective of those supporters. To them, this is just as close-minded as we see their parrotting of Trump's accomplishments. "How many times do I have to point out how great the economy is before those libtards will realize that Trump is doing what we elected him to do?"

 

And calling Trump names like McFredo is certainly not a way to invite serious debate from his supporters. I'm tempted to quote Trump when he decided not to condemn the white supremacists -- both sides seem to have some guilty here.

 

I personally share many of these opinions of Trump supporters. I also feel similarly about climate change deniers and religious fundamentalists. But as a moderator I need to be somewhat impartial. If ldrews is a troll, then so is Fox News -- they're both saying pretty much the same things. Of course, the difference is that I can't do anything about Fox News. But he's hardly alone -- NPR sometimes goes out to do stories on Republican communities, they sound very much the same. Samantha Bee and Sarah Silverman both did segments on their shows where they spent time with Trump supporters -- not mocking them, trying to get to know them. They're just ordinary people who've drunk the Kool-Aid and bought into the red mind-set.

 

Trump can be very charismatic, his lies sound convincing. He's also convinced his base about "fake news", so when the mainstream media points out these blatant falsehoods, they're innoculated against this. This is an extremely tough time for political debate. I'm not sure that muzzling some of the posters is the way to improve it -- the muzzled will just see it as confirmation of their conspiracy theories.

 

Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm just trying to rationalize our minimalist approach to moderation.

 

I'm sorry, but after the way Obama was attacked (You lie! screamed out during his SOTU address, accused of not being legitimately American), it seems disingenuous to complain about calling this president by names he has surely earned: Fredo Corleone: "I'm really smart." Donald Trump: "I'm a smart person."

When one side supports personality instead of the rule of law and democracy there can be do legitimate debate.

[Winstonm]

Perhaps this would help discussions.

 

Most political stances can be understood in terms of an equilibrium. For instance, some people might believe that access to abortion in a conservative state is too restricted under the status quo, and favor relaxing the rules regulating abortion clinics. That is, they might favor shifting the equilibrium in a “pro-choice” direction.

 

But ask those same voters, "Should there be any limits on legal abortion?" and they might declare that the procedure should be banned in the last trimester of pregnancy unless the mother's health is threatened. Insofar as the abortion debate is framed around the equilibrium, they will align with the pro-choice movement; but insofar as it is framed around limits, they will align with the pro-life movement.

[MrAce]

I have recently downloaded update 5.73 into my 1939 brain. This comes with an ignore feature. Of course I still have to follow its recommendations. I sometimes do, but probably not as often as I should.

 

http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif

[MrAce]

Since I'm apparently the problem here, I've written a script that does what the ignore feature should do, imo. I might tweak further, but it's good enough.

 

Thanks for the inspiration.

 

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/uploads/monthly_04_2016/post-10935-0-65788600-1459919556.jpg

 

http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif

 

 

Joke aside, you are not the problem here at all, JJbrr. In fact your replies are the ones I follow mostly in this topic. All I try to say is that you are really wasting your time with the people you call troll and get in unnecessary exchange with them. And that you can actually ignore them w/o the ignore button and keep on doing the smart contribution to the topic that we are used to. All i see is that...as this topic came a long way, you started to sound more like one of them.

[Al_U_Card]

When the Dems get back the Presidency, will our Trump-bashers be vindicated? If he is re-elected, will they be "proved" wrong? When the globe stops "warming" (fewer adjustments perhaps?) Will the deniers be vindicated? If the next decade continues to warm the 0.3 deg. C already expected, is that proof of [CO2] as a climate driver?

Every coin has 2 sides, which you choose to bet on can't change the laws of probability but might affect your pocket-book. Remaining skeptical AND open-minded means respecting and even accepting the existence (if not validity) of opposing viewpoints. Being right does not mean that left does not exist... ;)

[Winstonm]

And the hits just keep on coming:

 

Margaret Good won a special election for state representative in Florida’s 72nd district on Tuesday night, the Democratic party’s 36th legislative flip since President Donald Trump’s inauguration last year.

 

Meanwhile, the Doubter-in-chief keep doubting:

 

 

Trump still unconvinced Russia meddled in 2016 election

Jeremy Herb

By Sara Murray and Jeremy Herb, CNNUpdated 6:08 PM ET, Tue February 13, 2018

President Donald Trump still isn't buying that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

 

Even as his intelligence chiefs unanimously told a Senate panel Tuesday that Russia meddled in 2016 and is planning to do so again in 2018, three sources familiar with the President's thinking say he remains unconvinced that Russia interfered in the presidential election.

[rmnka447]

The point is an acknowledgement that unless criminality can be proven, there is no way to impeach and convict in the Senate by politics alone; however, what you seemed to have missed is that the Russia part of the criminality investigation is about conspiracy with crimes that have already been proven to have been committed.

 

First, here are the crimes:

 

 

And here is an explanation of criminal conspiracy for juries:

 

 

Although I agree that until the investigation is over we will not get the big picture, I also think it ludicrous to ignore the administration's attempts to sidetrack or kill the investigation or to ignore the public domain facts that demonstrate attempts to hide contacts or otherwise mislead the public.

 

When you understand that there already have been crimes committed by Russian hackers, and you see and understand the criminal conspiracy jury instructions, it gives a better understanding of why the president and this White House are so adamant about stopping the investigation into its behavior concerning Russia and Russians.

 

Only presidential parrots still chirp about campaign collusion with the Russians; no one else cares.

The genuine question is whether or not there was a conspiracy by the president or his advisers with a known crime or crimes, either before or after that crime or those crimes were committed.

 

Once you have that understanding, the meeting by McFredo Jr., Manafort, and Kushner with Russians to discuss "dirt" collected by the Russians whose government supported McFredo looks much more ominous.

 

The last I heard that "ominous" meeting didn't result in any dirt being offered or in any agreement tacit or otherwise about dirt on Hillary or the Dems. Likewise, Pappadoupilous' offer to set up meeting with the Russkis was turned down. So where's the conspiracy? If Mueller turns up something that reasonably contradicts what we've heard so far, that would be another story.

 

Did the Russians commit a crime by hacking the DNC? Yes, if we could lay our hands on the individuals that did it -- try them, send them to jail and throw away the key. But Putin has enough animus toward Clinton that it is certainly assured the leaks of e-mails would have occurred in any case and in such manner to provide maximum damage to Clinton. There's no doubt that the leaks helped Trump because they revealed the Dems to be considerably less than as pure and wonderful and morally superior as they claimed to be. They also revealed a preoccupation with special interests and a fatal disdain for everyday people. So, I'll agree that the Russians interfered in the election to the extent that they revealed information that would have been otherwise unavailable. But I don't see any proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Putin acted as he did only because of any understanding unstated, tacit, or otherwise with the Trump campaign. Indeed, I think it's entirely reasonable to think he'd have acted as he did in any case.

 

So the American electorate had to deal with an imperfect election where "unauthorized information" was provided. They had to decide how to take it. Unlike Bridge, it was up to each voter to decide how they processed that information or not in deciding how to vote. They may not be fair in your eyes, but it's just a fact we have to accept. Had Hillary won, this all would be gone now. But she didn't win, so we've been going through a long kabuki theater about "collusion" to undermine the result of the election.

[Winstonm]

The last I heard that "ominous" meeting didn't result in any dirt being offered or in any agreement tacit or otherwise about dirt on Hillary or the Dems. Likewise, Pappadoupilous' offer to set up meeting with the Russkis was turned down. So where's the conspiracy? If Mueller turns up something that reasonably contradicts what we've heard so far, that would be another story.

 

Did the Russians commit a crime by hacking the DNC? Yes, if we could lay our hands on the individuals that did it -- try them, send them to jail and throw away the key. But Putin has enough animus toward Clinton that it is certainly assured the leaks of e-mails would have occurred in any case and in such manner to provide maximum damage to Clinton. There's no doubt that the leaks helped Trump because they revealed the Dems to be considerably less than as pure and wonderful and morally superior as they claimed to be. They also revealed a preoccupation with special interests and a fatal disdain for everyday people. So, I'll agree that the Russians interfered in the election to the extent that they revealed information that would have been otherwise unavailable. But I don't see any proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Putin acted as he did only because of any understanding unstated, tacit, or otherwise with the Trump campaign. Indeed, I think it's entirely reasonable to think he'd have acted as he did in any case.

 

So the American electorate had to deal with an imperfect election where "unauthorized information" was provided. They had to decide how to take it. Unlike Bridge, it was up to each voter to decide how they processed that information or not in deciding how to vote. They may not be fair in your eyes, but it's just a fact we have to accept. Had Hillary won, this all would be gone now. But she didn't win, so we've been going through a long kabuki theater about "collusion" to undermine the result of the election.

 

You are wrong. What this president wants you to think is that it is kabuki theater - and maybe it will turn out that way. Right now, though, it is a serious criminal investigation coupled with a counter-intelligence investigation, and the criminal investigation has already had two convictions and two other arrests made.

 

Maybe you are right. Maybe there was no criminal conspiracy. Still, what was the cause of all the secrecy, then, about contacts with Russians? Why all the denials and lies? Why did this administration immediately start working on overturning the Russia sanctions? Why won't they even now impose new sanctions on Russia that was mandated by Congress? Why don't they produce the list of oligarchs they were supposed to provide? Why does the American public hear about calls from the president to Putin only when Russia releases their information?

 

And on and on...

[rmnka447]

Let me chime in on this troll discussion.

 

It seems to me that hard-core Trump supporters have an inability to discuss. Instead, they rely on regurgitation of talking points relayed by right-wing media. I have no problems with people holding a conservative viewpoint who use reason and legitimate data to support their positions. I do have problems with professional wrestling fans who crow wildly about their "victories" over arch rivals.

 

Ridiculous when the bulk of the reporting on collusion uses unattributed stories to fan the collusionist fury on a continuing basis.

 

To think or even suggest that it was not McFredo but the Clinton campaign that colluded with the Russians and the FBI is so unrelated to reality as to be viewed as the processes of a diseased or totally biased and evil mind. All one need do is the tiniest bit of research to know that turning the accusation back against the accuser is a classic Roy Cohn/McFredo tactic.

 

Or it is a complete blindness on your part that the Russians aren't just for one side or the other, but will use both sides of the body politic here to spread chaos in order to undermine our democracy. So far, Putin has to be pleased with what's happening.

 

Russia will use any means or anyone available to try to achieve its aims. So going to the Russians to obtain dirt on Donald Trump is ludicrous. There is a logical purpose for the Russians to spread disinformation about Trump in order to further weaken faith in our democracy. And as much as you'd like to paint it as opposition research, it's essentially doing the same thing as you claim of the Trump campaign -- a political campaign going to a foreign government for dirt about another candidate.

 

BTW, something that really disturbs me is Fusion GPS's role in the Trump dossier. It's probably not in a manner you'd suspect. Fusion GPS was doing business with the Russians in creating a disinformation campaign to overturn the Magnitzky Act. This relates to the testimony by British Financial Analyst William Browder before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the Foreign Agent Registration Act. Browder claimed that Glenn Simpson had pitched a false story about him and his Russian associate Magnitzky to discredit them as part of that campaign. Browder also asserted that he was aware that as late as Spring 2016 Fusion was still getting money indirectly from the Russian government. What's troubling is that this coincides with the time that Fusion was working on opposition research against Trump. Now, Fusion GPS claims that they can keep clients information strictly confidential. But if the Russians got any whiff of what Fusion GPS was working on, they'd be sophisticated enough to plan a devious seemingly credible disinformation campaign about Trump.

 

As for the Cohn reference, interesting. I recall back in the McCarthy days that at one point, the HUAC discussed whether preferring Strawberry Ice Cream made you a Communist sympathizer. Yet, the current predilection of the Russian collusionist cult with the fact that anyone meeting with a Russian was proof of collusion seemed to be of the same ilk.

 

Had I found out that Obama used those tactics to deflect outrageous behavior I would have voted against him and his ilk. That the McFredo supporters cannot bring themselves to even criticize his repeated attacks on the democratic norms of free speech and the rule of law is enough to make anything they say unworthy of legitimate consideration.

 

But then again, it seems strangely beyond coincidental that during "scandals" that came up, the government kept denying the existence of information that might shed light on what was being investigated. Then when it was found to exist very visibly slow-walked any potential release of it. Even worse key technology components with potential evidence were destroyed. Eventually, through litigation in the federal courts and judicial threats of contempt of court if it was not provided, some of the information has become available.

 

How did the Obama administration try to portray these investigations? -- "phony scandals".

 

Well, the information about the "phony" IRS scandal did eventually reveal that the IRS had acted for political purposes towards conservative organizations. In fall 2016, they settled a suit with those affected and admitted guilt. What disturbed me most during that investigation was that at one point some potential evidence of the political connections of the IRS' actions that seemed to have disappeared was traced to 6 PCs. It was reported back that the computer disk drives that potentially had that information had all failed and were destroyed. Having spent 25+ years in computer infrastructure support, I knew such an occurrence was virtually impossible for that many computers. So, I'm of the opinion that someone was getting away with obstruction of justice by destroying potential evidence of political wrongdoing.

 

Then there was --

 

Benghazi

Fast and Furious

Clinton e-mail investigation

 

Throughout the Administration used the same MO, stonewalling any investigation -- the information wasn't available, then if found to exist release was delayed, backups destroyed, etc.

 

Heck, if Trump did such a thing you'd be screaming for impeachment. I can abide Trump's diatribes about the press and whatever as his BS. Everyone recognizes it as such and that makes it less of a threat to democracy than you see. But I really believe that the Obama administration got away with a more pernicious threat to our democracy by politicizing the government. I'm firmly against anything like that by Presidents of either party. Fortunately, some evidence of potential government wrongdoing has surfaced and appears like it may lead to a lot more revelations coming out. The toothpaste is out of the tube. Stay tuned.

 

BTW, the Trump administration has pretty forthcoming in supplying any information or witnesses requested by the Special Counsel which is in stark contrast to the Obama administration in similar matters.

[Winstonm]

Ridiculous when the bulk of the reporting on collusion uses unattributed stories to fan the collusionist fury on a continuing basis.

 

 

 

Or it is a complete blindness on your part that the Russians aren't just for one side or the other, but will use both sides of the body politic here to spread chaos in order to undermine our democracy. So far, Putin has to be pleased with what's happening.

 

Russia will use any means or anyone available to try to achieve its aims. So going to the Russians to obtain dirt on Donald Trump is ludicrous. There is a logical purpose for the Russians to spread disinformation about Trump in order to further weaken faith in our democracy. And as much as you'd like to paint it as opposition research, it's essentially doing the same thing as you claim of the Trump campaign -- a political campaign going to a foreign government for dirt about another candidate.

 

BTW, something that really disturbs me is Fusion GPS's role in the Trump dossier. It's probably not in a manner you'd suspect. Fusion GPS was doing business with the Russians in creating a disinformation campaign to overturn the Magnitzky Act. This relates to the testimony by British Financial Analyst William Browder before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the Foreign Agent Registration Act. Browder claimed that Glenn Simpson had pitched a false story about him and his Russian associate Magnitzky to discredit them as part of that campaign. Browder also asserted that he was aware that as late as Spring 2016 Fusion was still getting money indirectly from the Russian government. What's troubling is that this coincides with the time that Fusion was working on opposition research against Trump. Now, Fusion GPS claims that they can keep clients information strictly confidential. But if the Russians got any whiff of what Fusion GPS was working on, they'd be sophisticated enough to plan a devious seemingly credible disinformation campaign about Trump.

 

As for the Cohn reference, interesting. I recall back in the McCarthy days that at one point, the HUAC discussed whether preferring Strawberry Ice Cream made you a Communist sympathizer. Yet, the current predilection of the Russian collusionist cult with the fact that anyone meeting with a Russian was proof of collusion seemed to be of the same ilk.

 

 

 

But then again, it seems strangely beyond coincidental that during "scandals" that came up, the government kept denying the existence of information that might shed light on what was being investigated. Then when it was found to exist very visibly slow-walked any potential release of it. Even worse key technology components with potential evidence were destroyed. Eventually, through litigation in the federal courts and judicial threats of contempt of court if it was not provided, some of the information has become available.

 

How did the Obama administration try to portray these investigations? -- "phony scandals".

 

Well, the information about the "phony" IRS scandal did eventually reveal that the IRS had acted for political purposes towards conservative organizations. In fall 2016, they settled a suit with those affected and admitted guilt. What disturbed me most during that investigation was that at one point some potential evidence of the political connections of the IRS' actions that seemed to have disappeared was traced to 6 PCs. It was reported back that the computer disk drives that potentially had that information had all failed and were destroyed. Having spent 25+ years in computer infrastructure support, I knew such an occurrence was virtually impossible for that many computers. So, I'm of the opinion that someone was getting away with obstruction of justice by destroying potential evidence of political wrongdoing.

 

Then there was --

 

Benghazi

Fast and Furious

Clinton e-mail investigation

 

Throughout the Administration used the same MO, stonewalling any investigation -- the information wasn't available, then if found to exist release was delayed, backups destroyed, etc.

 

Heck, if Trump did such a thing you'd be screaming for impeachment. I can abide Trump's diatribes about the press and whatever as his BS. Everyone recognizes it as such and that makes it less of a threat to democracy than you see. But I really believe that the Obama administration got away with a more pernicious threat to our democracy by politicizing the government. I'm firmly against anything like that by Presidents of either party. Fortunately, some evidence of potential government wrongdoing has surfaced and appears like it may lead to a lot more revelations coming out. The toothpaste is out of the tube. Stay tuned.

 

BTW, the Trump administration has pretty forthcoming in supplying any information or witnesses requested by the Special Counsel which is in stark contrast to the Obama administration in similar matters.

 

You obviously get your information from Hannity or Breitbart and thus are so far into denial as to be unwilling to see what is in front of you. Sad! For your conspiracy theories to be valid, "the government" would have to be a single gigantic entity that acted in concert - but all you have to do is look at Congress's actions and you would know that is a ridiculous assumption.

 

It's O.K. to favor one side over another; it is not O.K. to buy in to a single side to the exclusion of the other. At some point you have to use your own intelligence to determine if what you are reading or being told sounds possible or likely.

 

If you are still buying into the Clinton's conspiracy theories keep in mind they have been around since the 1990s and have changed from Whitewater to Vince Foster murder to Benghazi to Foundation and more - do you really think all of those can be true? The one thread of truth that runs through Clinton is Bill's propensity to look for sex outside his marriage - and, if you care to notice, the mainstream media reported on those scandals.

 

Anyone who claims information false because a newspaper cannot reveal a source is a human who has allowed himself to be deceived - or conned. Instead of regurgitating right-wing spin why don't you stand on your own two feet and think for yourself? Woodward and Bernstein did the same thing - used unnamed sources - and their information was so accurate it caused a president to resign. Yet, you believe Hannity or the Washington Post?

 

It just occurred to me that the only people who can still support this president ARE the people who live in a non-reality bubble and are thus incapable of seeing the world in any but a skewed and artificial manner. It is like trying to convince a schizophrenic that what he sees isn't real.

 

I will leave you to your fantasies about the evil left and the superheros on the right. Only the one being duped can decide when he can no longer believe the con.

[barmar]

But I don't see any proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Putin acted as he did only because of any understanding unstated, tacit, or otherwise with the Trump campaign. Indeed, I think it's entirely reasonable to think he'd have acted as he did in any case.

Just because he would have done the same thing without colluding doesn't mean they didn't collude, nor does it lessen the criminality of such collusion if it occurred. You don't get a pass on driving the getaway car because the bank robbers would have found someone else to drive if you refused. People are responsible for the results of their actions, even if the same results would have occurred without their actions.