a quick poll about Russia and Donald Trump

i hope daddy has enough rubles to bail ivanka out of this shit : )

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/this-is-amazing-6

enormous untapped resource

It was so weird seeing Taibbi tweet out a Washington Times link yesterday.

maybe he owes putin bigly too? the eXile was not without its fans

curious if comrade combover called to congratulate his fellow putin puppet on the crackdown

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39716631

#MAGA#DUKESTILLSUCKS :)

I'm not saying Taibbi is compromised by Russia or anything I don't really believe that, it's just weird. Has he ever done that before? How often do you see anyone cite the WT?

maybe he owes putin bigly too?

qualmsley is Louise Mensch? or just Mordy?

the krazy kiddie table is over there ---------------->

neither louise mensch nor mordy, morbius. the table for the children of emmy award winning dad stans is probably not the best seat in the house

Shouldn't need pointing out Taibbi and Ames were harassed out of Russia by the government for their work critical of the rich and powerful.

The WT seems to be one of the only semi-legit publications reporting the pre-trial hearings beyond the cute title of the legal submission.

for sure, totally down with sun myung moon's semi-legit unification church. how many edward r. murrow awards did your dad win?

Moonies not over their hammy

god qualmsley's patter itt is rank

it is poorly ranked in terms of socioeconomic background. go trump!

internet kinda goin absolutely bananas over the Flynn thing rn

i hope they keep at it

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/11/forget-comey-the-real-story-is-russias-war-on-america-215245

that was fun to read

that was ridiculous

"An isolationist America that is softer on Russia and more in favor of authoritarian traits in leaders fits right into the narratives that the Kremlin nurtures and spends billions to promote."

Pretty cray

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/12/how-russia-targets-the-us-military-215247

Oliver Stone on his imminent Putin interview series:

http://www.vulture.com/2017/06/oliver-stone-putin-interviews-conversation.html

Russia has had ambitions as a hegemonic power since at least Peter the Great. Under the current US global hegemony, such ambitions mean the USA is your primary foe. It's not complicated to grasp.

read that as Peter the Gabriel

its about as complicated as your average G.I. Joe cartoon

will wonders never cease

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/17/trump-white-house-russia-sanctions-deal-239636

The eight people who voted nothing: where are they now?

still waiting on that evidence

if there is the Russian conspiracy equivalent of the Bill Clinton semen dress let's see it

monica lewinsky was still in college when the whitewater investigation began iirc

Without rehashing the same arguments over again, any sanctions regime that has NATO allies hinting at imposing penalties on the US, rather than Russia, might need rethinking.

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_50090.htm

I am 98% against the legislature meddling in foreign policy since they've given up on declaring war but keep appropriating massive war budgets

However, if your argument sounds similar to something Rex Tillerson and Donald J are promulgating you maybe should check that stopped clock and make sure it doesn't read 24:11

sharivari, i get that germany is concerned about their companies' involvements with russian pipelines and such

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions-germany-idUSKBN197156

but the ongoing denial of our president regarding russian interference in our election is totally and completely fucked up

I assume the German argument would be that sanctions have already been imposed for the alleged election interference and that putting one over on Trump isn't worth what they see as an unacceptable intrusion into European energy policy.

As a general rule of thumb, for every Euro Russia loses through sanctions, someone else - usually in Europe - is estimated to lose up to two, which is why they have been seen as a necessity, but a painful one. Arbitrarily imposing new ones without consensus with allies, or any clear additional casus belli, isn't going to go down well, particularly given that these are designed to tank a specific deal hugely important to German, Austria and others.

It isn't just Russia, bipartisan support for new Iran sanctions has gone down terribly in Europe.

it isn't alleged, and it isn't about putting one over on trump, no, but proven, and about curtailing future russian interference in sovereign elections?

Punitive sanctions for this specific thing were imposed by Obama. Congress can make the argument that they don't trust Trump to control when they are lifted or eased but there doesn't seem to be a clear reason for imposing additional ones at this time.

If you want to look at it cyncially, you could make the argument that it's being done both as a general power grab and to basically dare Trump into using a veto - reinforcing the idea he is too soft on Russia. Either way, it is a policy with pretty serious potential ramifications for US government allies, US business and three hundred million people across Europe, leaving aside the constitutional questions, so to pretend it boils down to Donald <3 Russia when Tillerson or whoever expresses reservations is silly.

'alleged election interference' wtf?

Feel free to sub in any word that you like, it doesn't make a difference to the issue of whether trying to derail Nordstream 2 against the wishes of half of Europe is an unquestionably good thing.

Do you think Russia interfered with the US election, SV?

And please don't be concern trolling on the part of 'half of Europe', Shari.

Lol @ calling me "silly" on this topic when your standing position is "Russia is deserving of trust, because that is in the short-term interests of gigantic corporations, and Putin is not really that scary, so maybe Trump's administration isn't wrong on this issue"

the continued downplaying of just how insane it is that RUSSIA interfered in our election has the makings of a major historic irony, on par with the father of the #1 donors to the GOP (mr. and mr. koch) inheriting a fortune their father began by building stalin's oil pipelines and hitler's oil refineries. how many decades did Republicans red-scare up the wazoo only to pooh pooh concern that RUSSIA interfered in the 2016 election? it's nuts!

the nature of the interference is still kind of abstract though. the hacked and leaked emails were only damaging because they played into larger narratives that were being disseminated on the right about hillary being a criminal, covering things up, etc. "russia" played a role, it seems, in further disseminating this narrative via fake news and twitter bots and things but it didn't start with them.

with or without russia, trump would have run a similar campaign, i think. breitbart and infowars reached more people than sputnik, RT, or the pop up fake news sites, most of which seem to have been profit driven.

russia also hacked the voter roles, it seems, but from what i have read they didn't do anything with that information. i'm fairly certain the NSA regularly penetrates foreign governments' data as well.

i'm not saying i'm not disturbed by the russian interference, but i think some people might be making a mistake in focusing so much on this issue, as if "russian ties" was the essential source of trump's illegitimacy.

increased sanctions and election interference aside, the pipeline is problematic: the deal was concluded post-Crimean annexation, funds Putin's regime, and has a host of environmental issues. it is not supported by half of Europe en bloc.

Do you think Russia interfered with the US election, SV?

Yep. The extent of that interference is up for debate but there was definitely an online propaganda effort, probably a behind-the-scenes attempt to influence the thinking of Trump allies and highly likely to have been government participation in the release of sensitive information, etc.

Lol @ calling me "silly" on this topic when your standing position is "Russia is deserving of trust, because that is in the short-term interests of gigantic corporations, and Putin is not really that scary, so maybe Trump's administration isn't wrong on this issue"

What's silly is viewing government reservations about a major foreign policy move that binds the hands of the executive and has triggered an immediate threat of reprisals from some of the US' closest allies as nothing more than a data point in a collusion narrative. You can think the sanctions are a good thing and it's worth any complications but pretending it's remotely straightforward is daft, as you well know.

Do you think Russia hacked and leaked? Released the oppo research on Trump, leaked info from DNC, and from Podesta?

Hacked the DNC, yes. Leaked - probably. The evidence presented on both is thinner than I would like but on the balance of probabilities, yes. I would assume there is more that hasn't been released by the US. Podesta seemed less clear from what I recall but I am not sure I looked at it in much detail.

Lol. It's kinda remarkable what you look into in detail, considering your interests in these sanctions.

And again, stop concern trolling on behalf of 'some of the US' closest allies'. We get that you're much more pro-Russia than most of us, and fine with that, but don't pretend it's because you're concerned about continental European interests. Which are fairly divided on Nordstream, and much more united on fear of Putin and distrust of Trump.

Yep.

thanks, SV. i respect your perspective and insights, especially on this topic, even if i don't always agree with your posts.