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>"It’s hard to claim Trump’s illegitimate or “stole” the election"

But that isn't the only claim. My analogy still stands. Just because you attempt something and fail, doesn't mean you get away with no problems. Attempting to do something illegal is illegal.

You are looking at this incredibly too narrowly.

Knock knock
It's reality!


I'd recommend you start looking at real issues.

66% of americans see the Russian investigation as serious http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trumps-handling-of-russia-investigations-weighs-on-approval-ratings/

That's including the 27% who said "Serious, but not as serious as other issues". You just hurt your own argument.

>"You just hurt your own argument."

How, exactly?

What? No he didn't. That 27% still consider it serious.

It's an accurate statement. It is biased, but it specifically does say "serious" for that answer. And even if not, 40% of the respondents do say it's a matter of national security.

I think the better argument is to discredit the respondents. What does the general public know about national security? But it is a bad look.

Human beings and governments are able to give attention to multiple issues at once, and do so regularly. If they categorize issues as "serious", they likely will devote some time to it, regardless off how many other issues there are, due to the common accepted meaning of "serious". Humans and human structures do not tend to pound away at the most serious issue constantly until it's gone and then move on to the next issue, but with on them simultaneously. This is a core function of modern society, with its division of labor.

Okay I'm very out of touch here, why was the US Election had anything to do with Russians to begin with? This seems stupid to have them involved that has nothing to do with them

"I actually still can’t believe someone is actually saying we shouldn’t thrown criminals in jail because it might cause some chaos. Actually, when has chaos ever happened from not jailing someone? Riots happen when people aren’t jailed or faced consequences."

Yes, when that chaos can lead to actual conflict in very volatile parts of the world right now that seeks American intervention and influence, and can actually lead to actual war. I know right, how effin' crazy, let's just throw the entire country in months of political uncertainty while we figure out constitutionally how to hold snap-elections in the US, who's running, how deep it goes etc, who anyone looks up towards legitimizing treaties, and leading. Meanwhile, I'm sure that the South East Asian countries which are threatened as all hell by a Chinese hegemony over South China Sea, essentially crippling their economies, if not forcing them into major conflicts, will just go swimmingly. Or keep essentially signaingl to the Middle East that right now the US will not and cannot intervene in any major conflict in Syria, no assistance to our Pashmerga allies, no support for the KSA (love it or hate it), and gulf state, giving free reign to Iran to do what they will. Oh, that's okay, those Europeans are going to come in and do something – all with their total growing disunity, armies that are largely untested, and uncertainty as to how to handle the two places which are growing hostile to them but also providing them with all the energy they need. Not to mention yet another round of North African Middle East refugee waves to swam the European countries that would result from these conflicts erupting into actual war.

What. Can. Go. Wrong.

But yes, I agree, all of that, all of those things and more of what I haven't even bothered to mention, like singing budgets into law, etc. are all irrelevant as long as put Trump in jail, or delegitimize the entire election. For Justice after all.

But you may think, oh hey, well we've had impeachments before – right? Yes, we did, and that's what the Vice Presidency is for – except that the very same people that are pushing the Russian hacking narrative's major goal isn't to just get Trump out of office but to DE-LEGITIMIZE THE ENTIRE DAMN ELECTION.

How far do they want to go, and how far do they think they will go? That's what I want to know. What is the ultimate objective here?

Again, I understand dude, I'm principled, and I hate the idea that any one is above the law. But I also am pragmatic about the reality of the world, and our role in it. I suggest you do the same.

"Tell me the alternative."

Sure. How about completely changing the intent behind this act. How about switching from deligitimizing the Trump election we see how far the Russians have actually gone into influencing the election for the purposes of preventing this from happening again. Or to even hold Russia accountable for such interference, by numerous methods.

How about actually trying to understand the differences between: Influence, Hacking, or Manipulation. Because right now, all three are blended together, and the reality is Russia did try to influence the US election. They did it for numerous reasons, some of which include getting vengeance on Hillary Clinton doing the same to Putin's election.

Personally my favorite method would involve doing something simple: launch a Federal investigation into properties owned by the biggest Russian oligarchs in places like NY, San Francisco and Los Angeles? Investigate all their dealings in the US, because ultimately, Putin is the oligarch-in-chief, and he is propped up and given political power by other oligarchs – many of which continue to own summer homes and property in the US. But that's just you know, my method.

"I had no clue people where that desperate. I guess that shows how serious this scandal is when people literally start suggesting that continuing an investigation would cause chaos."

I know right. It's not like there are a lot of major conflicts brewing in all parts of the world that are reliant on how the Americans react. Or how many treaties, laws, budgets, etc are actually signed by the President.

I do not at all want to get personal here man. But I seriously have a hard time understanding how utterly simplistic and naive people have about global politics.

Teddy の Sadcat:
"Okay I’m very out of touch here, why was the US Election had anything to do with Russians to begin with? This seems stupid to have them involved that has nothing to do with them"

Numerous reasons. Hillary Clinton got herself involved in the Russian elections, trying to influence them by supporting the opposition to Putin, and then supporting the unrest afterwards. In a way this is Putin saying "you want to play this game? Fine. We can do it too".

Another is that Trump is far more of a wild-card, and Hillary is not, she is very predictable. With Clinton there would be increased pressure on Russia, and more barriers to Russia's ultimate goals. Clinton would have continued the same policies – where as Trump was more isolationist/nationalist – which would get the US less involved in global affairs, thus allowing for Russia's influence to grow.

Another still is that it gives Putin leverage in his own country, and the image abroad: essentially he can say that he can control how the most powerful country in the world makes it's decisions.

Another still is that Putin has been behind a lot of US and European unrest, regardless of where it is coming from. A destabilized country that is hostile to his policies, is one which is significantly weaker and cannot act as strongly.

Don't believe me? Right after Trump's victory, there was a huge Calexit hashtag being pushed by the anti-Trump folk and surprise surprise, they were funded by the Russians.

Hell Jill Stein of the Green Party herself was in a dinner with Putin.

You think that the Republicans are going to benefit from this? wait until Putin releases his info on McCain and other Republicans when they decide to go against the Iran deal.

@Teddy の Sadcat
I think this is what started it https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-clinton-emails.html
Trump literally asking Russia to hack Clinton's emails.

It didn't become big until a month or two ago when Trump fired Comey for the investigation. Seem weird that Trump would fire Comey for continuing an investigation if there was nothing to it. Not to mention that him doing that is most likely illegal. Not to mention trump has now started ranting on twitter that Russians were involved, but it was Obama's fault.

Basically, this is 100% Trump. If he completely ignored the entire thing, we might not even be talking about it.

Except that timeline of yours is wrong. The DMC and Clinton emails were hacked before Trump was even a nominee. The investigation into it lead to a lot of the evidence, the emails hacked on Clinton's computer via a fishing scheme, being "missing", which itself was very shady. Trump said what he said to both rub salt in the wound of Clinton's campaign, and to try and continue to cement himself as a grassroots, populist candidate who wasn't afraid to say what the people were thinking. No additional hackings of Clinton or the DMC occurred after the first one, the only new batch being emails from Podesta which had already been acquired and then released by the same hackers later. Comey was given a second chance after bumbling the Clinton investigation, but instead chose to be indecisive with the president. The man who "didn't want to confirm something and go back on it later" in terms of saying whether Trump was being investigated publicly, had no problems doing so previous with Clinton. I'm it was a conflict of interest, but in reality it was likely he was fired not for his investigation but his refusal to publicly acknowledge Trump's narrative, despite privately doing so, as was demonstrated in both his statement and testimony just last week.

So are we going to ignore the fact that Putin holds Clinton directly responsible for the 2011-2013 Russian riots?

"Hillary Clinton has refused to back down in a row with Vladimir Putin after the Russian prime minister accused her of deliberately encouraging his political opponents to take to the streets in Moscow and St Petersburg."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8943416/Russia-Hillary-Clinton-refuses-to-back-down-from-Vladimir-Putin-row.html

"Vladimir Putin has accused Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, of fomenting an increasingly vociferous opposition movement in Russia, threatening to derail the two countries' fragile resetting of relations…

…Speaking to supporters on Thursday, Putin accused Clinton of giving "the signal" to opposition leaders, who are expected to gather with tens of thousands of supporters for a protest on Saturday. He rejected Clinton's repeated criticism of a parliamentary vote last weekend that gave Putin's United Russia party nearly 50% of the vote amid widespread reports of fraud."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/08/vladimir-putin-hillary-clinton-russia

"…Five years later, Putin may be seeking revenge against Clinton. At least that’s the implication of the view among some cybersecurity experts that Russia was behind the recent hack of the Democratic National Committee’s email server, which has sowed confusion and dissent at the Democratic National Convention and undercut Clinton’s goal of party unity…"

and here is the core issue in my opinion:

"Former U.S. officials who worked on Russia policy with Clinton say that Putin was personally stung by Clinton’s December 2011 condemnation of Russia’s parliamentary elections, and had his anger communicated directly to President Barack Obama. They say Putin and his advisers are also keenly aware that, even as she executed Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia, Clinton took a harder line toward Moscow than others in the administration. And they say Putin sees Clinton as a forceful proponent of “regime change” policies that the Russian leader considers a grave threat to his own survival."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/clinton-putin-226153

"In one of her last acts as secretary of state in early 2013, Hillary Clinton wrote a confidential memo to the White House on how to handle Vladimir Putin, the aggressive and newly reinstalled Russian president. Her bluntly worded advice: Snub him.

“Don’t appear too eager to work together,” Clinton urged President Obama, according to her recollection of the note in her 2014 memoir. “Don’t flatter Putin with high-level attention. Decline his invitation for a presidential summit.”"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/from-reset-to-pause-the-real-story-behind-hillary-clintons-feud-with-vladimir-putin/2016/11/03/f575f9fa-a116-11e6-8832-23a007c77bb4_story.html?utm_term=.adb5ce93b5f8

It didn't matter at all who was running against Clinton. Clinton is a direct threat to Putin, and his primary motivation has less to do with Trump, and more to do with getting vengeance on Hillary.

This goes back to 2011 guys, not 2016.

Teddy の Sadcat said:

…why was the US Election had anything to do with Russians to begin with?

Russians (it's still up in the air whether it was state sponsored or not, but most think it was) hacked the DNC's servers and obtained messages which showed the DNC giving preferential treatment to Clinton during the primaries, causing a ruckus at the democratic convention. Then, after Clinton Campaign Chair Podesta answered a phishing email, they dumped his emails in October. Attempts to hack state voter databases have also been made (it's unclear whether Russians were responsible for those hacks) but have had limited success.

The total results of which appear to have been negligible to the election's outcome--the Podesta leaks were a minor event in a tumultuous October that saw Trump's pussy comment and Comey's letter and there were no recorded voting irregularities caused by database issues. At best, the DNC hack may have caused a defection of Sanders' supporters to the Green Party (they gained 1,000,000 votes over the 2012 election), but with both candidates being terribly unliked, that may have happened regardless.

The current storm is over possible collusion between members of Trump's campaign and Russia. So far, there has been no evidence to suggest such collusion.

poochyena said:

So why did he say Russia?

He was referencing the news that Russia was responsible for the DNC hack, which had broken two days prior on July 25th.

…you have no problem with Trump asking a foreign government to hack and steal information from an American politician?

I do not have a problem with someone making a joke on Twitter, no.

@poochyena Ya know. Despite your overwhelmingly simplistic view of Geo politics and America's role and the importance of American leadership, and credibility: I gave you enough respect to engage in discussion with you, reading everything you post and responding to it. In doing so I hoped that you would do the same.

You don't have to agree, nor really answer if you don't want to. But to say that I am going off topic when I am trying to ascertain the goals of those pushing the Russia hack narrative and trying to discuss the ultimate result of what would happen with that narrative if it meets those goals, which is the heart of this entire issue, is utterly petulant.

Why should I or anyone else in this forum give you the respect to even read and discuss your opinion? What have you brought to the table except the black and white world view akin to a twelve year old? Why should anyone of us respect the opinion of someone who clearly puts their own sense of vindication over the well being of their own country, let alone, potentially the well being of millions around the world?

Honestly, dude, and I'd hate to say it, but…grow the hell up.

There is a big crisis in the Middle East between Qatar and the other Arab states.

the four countries are demanding, among 13 points in total, that Qatar restrict diplomatic ties with Iran, close a Turkish military base on its territory, severe ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, and shutter the Al-Jazeera broadcasting network.

This might be related: Qatar Has Been Corrupting the National Security Deep State. Some contrary views from The American Conservative: The Qatar Crisis and the Absurd Saudi Ultimatum, and Tillerson and Mattis Cleaning Up Kushner’s Middle East Mess.

Other big international news:

• Tunisia's 'Moderate Muslim Brotherhood' Leader Rachid Ghannouchi Implicated in Assassination of Political Rival
• Rockefeller Brothers funds BDS
• How NIAC Used the White House to Advance Iran’s Agenda

poochyena said:

That wasn’t a joke.

If you want to believe that, fine. Myself and most conservatives (and Piers Morgan) saw it as a humorous reference to both Clinton deleting her emails and the then recent DNC email hack. It became even funnier when the media flipped out it.

Looks like, at the least, an attempt at collusion involving Republican party operatives, the Trump campaign, Mike Flynn, Wikileaks, and Russian hackers that claimed to have Hillary Clinton's e-mails (they didn't).

Considering how close Flynn was to the Trump campaign (a senior adviser), it's hard to believe that Trump didn't get involved with this.

It also puts into context all the talk of "Collusion isn't a crime" bullshit that was permeating this past weekend. It was a pre-emptive discrediting of information that might be revealing direct collusion with the Trump campaign.

…

…

Also, Russia tried to influence their own elections with ballot-stuffing operations. Hillary Clinton only got involved after Putin's United Russia party got caught by European election monitors.

Matt Tait has published this article on Lawfare Blog, corroborating The Wall Street Journal's story about Peter Smith's involvement with attempts to obtain Hillary's e-mails on behalf of the Trump campaign.

A few things to note:
1.) Mr. Tait believes that Russia did, indeed, commit an influence campaign against the United States of America to affect the Presidential election.
2.) Peter Smith didn't seem to care about whether or not Russia was one of the sources for these "missing" e-mails, and seemed to be more concerned about having them validated and made public.
3.) Mike Flynn initially wanted to be CIA Director, but settled for National Security Advisor due to the confirmation hearing being "prohibitively difficult". (Considering the people that have been confirmed by the Senate, I doubt he would have much trouble. :P)

I hope Matt stays safe.

Also, as of yesterday, Jason Chaffetz of Utah has officially resigned from the House of Representatives.

Donald Trump tweets an old edited gif from back during the general elections, the WWE one where he beats up CNN. CNN then does a segment on memes, and has a "former CIA operative" on to discuss what donald trumps meme tweet could have told foreign spies.

It was over the tv and not a cnn article, so idk if I can find the source or not. It was ridiculous though, and feels a lot like fear mongering to try and connect this to the Russia Investigations.

Reddit user who made the thing Trump tweeted seems like a sane guy

His username checks out at least.

@Trump tweet
I don't know what's funnier. The fact that Trump tweeted a shitpost meme gif on the official POTUS twitter account, or the fact the media's flipping out over it, with CNN decrying Trump as encouraging violence against reporters.

It's like watching a masterful internet troll and it's really making the anarchist side of me want to vote for him in 2020 just to keep it up.

Yep.
He's definitely an asshole.

I feel that if the media can literally insult Donald Trump, not his policies mind you, the man himself, and turn a blind eye to people making thinly-veiled threats against him, then he has some room to retaliate in turn with petty jokes.

So you see think the president of the united states should have the same standards as CNN?

Well a lot of people keep saying that despite what the president says CNN is still quality news.

More like what I'm saying is if they want to crack jokes at Trump's expense all they want then he should have the right to crack them back, because that's what his tweet was, a joke. Is it wrong for a president to make a joke?

Plus even what he did wasn't as bad as compared to what others have done. He merely made a joke of bodyslamming CNN. People have made jokes of assassinating him, blowing up the White House, and holding up his decapitated head. I don't know about you, but I feel like those jokes go a little overboard compared to Trump's tweet. If it was a gif of Trump viciously stabbing CNN with a steak knife things would be different, but it's not.

Basically what I'm trying to get at is this is all a double-standard. People make casual jokes now about killing Trump or saying other things that would probably land you in prison for treason and threats if it was any other president, and the media doesn't bat an eye towards it. When Trump makes a tweet about bodyslamming CNN, however, everyone literally lose their shit, question his mental well-being, and demand his resignation. It's fucking ridiculous and at this point it's getting tiring.

>"More like what I’m saying is if they want to crack jokes at Trump’s expense all they want then he should have the right to crack them back, because that’s what his tweet was, a joke."

When has CNN every made a similar joke about Trump on twitter? Actually, when has CNN ever joked about Trump?

>"People have made jokes of assassinating him, blowing up the White House, and holding up his decapitated head."

Yes, and those people don't represent the United States.

>"Basically what I’m trying to get at is this is all a double-standard."

Yea, thats literally the entire point. The President of the United States of America should actually be held to standards higher than what you'd give to a twitter troll.

North Korea Says It Has Successfully Tested ICBM

North Korea said on Tuesday that it had successfully conducted its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, claiming a milestone in its efforts to build nuclear weapons capable of hitting the mainland United States.

…

While the North is believed to have made significant progress in its weapons programs, experts believe it still has a long way to go in miniaturizing nuclear warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles.

After their initial assessment that the North Korean projectile was an intermediate-range missile, the United States and South Korean authorities were continuing to analyze the data “with the possibility that it was actually an ICBM-class missile,” said Mr. Moon, the South Korean president.

…

The missile looked like the longest-range missile that North Korea had ever tested, and its long flight time was “more consistent with an ICBM that can target Alaska and perhaps Hawaii,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

…

But analysts also cautioned that although they have been impressed by the rapid and steady progress in the North’s missile programs, the long flight time itself did not suggest that North Korea had mastered the complex technologies needed to build a reliable nuclear-tipped ICBM, such as the know-how to separate the nuclear warhead and guide it to its target.

So CNN tracked down the Reddit user who made the WWE gif, supposedly a 15 year old, and had him write an apology and delete all his content. They then explicitly threatened to dox him live if he ever made content they did not agree with. You can't make this shit up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/6lbh08/cnn_discovers_identity_of_reddit_user_behind/

Some Twitter users are retaliating by making CNN rekt GIFs
You can find some with the #CNNblackmail hashtag

This is frankly rather disturbing. I expect this behavior from a troll from 4chan, not a major media outlet.

Gonna point out that he isn't a 15 year-old, he's a middle aged man.

I agree that the guy is a shitbag, but CNN's threat is a bad look for CNN. CNN wasn't just petty, this is a pretty clear abuse of power. This guy isn't the story, the President finding his stuff and broadcasting it is.

It's always sad when media outlets do this to people. Fox did this a while back to women that tried accusing Trump of assault. I'm sure there's a lot more examples unfortunately. This is mostly just gonna give MAGA chuds ammo behind the whole "CNN is ISIS" shtick.

Edit: Gonna post CNN's quote from their article

CNN literally shot themselves in the foot by posting these 3 paragraphs. I fail to see how having these three paragraphs would've impacted the story in any meaningful way.

It has only harmed them by making them seem as petty and pathetic as the "trolls" they constantly bash.

I honestly hope they don't publish the guy's info because there are still some rather violent anti-Trump people like Antifa that would probably love to beat a guy like this literally to death. I wouldn't be surprised if those people were complaining to CNN for not publishing his info.

I am not posting poochyena's name because he is a private citizen and has issued an intensive statement of apology, has shown remorse by taking down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. I'm addition, poochyena's statement could serve an example to others to not do the same.

I reserve the right to publish his identity if any of this changes.

That is the thinnest fucking veiled doxxing threat in history, and it was done nationally by a news agency. I'm sometimes sympathetic to you dude, but on this one, you just plain are downright wrong.

Also, I guess that attitude of indifference is why none of you seem to care about the fact that NK can bomb as far as the US now, and is thus that much closer to nuking us. But heaven forbid CNN does something really shitty! That's so much more powerful a story than a madman who has now made a monumental leap towards nuking where we live.

You know that counts as coercion right? Like the legal definition of Coercion.

Remember when the video of US Marines urinating on dead Taliban sparked world wide outrage? Caused those marines their careers? Having Hillary Clinton say that it was a war crime?

https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5a4_1498854082

Wondering when we will hear the global outrage when a bunch of Russian soldiers torture an ISIS fighter by sledgehammering his hands and legs.

Don't get me wrong, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy here…but the expectation and standard that the US holds it's own soldiers, and the expectation and standards the rest of the world puts on the US in comparison to other countries.

It's not that they could, it's that they threatened that they would.

Threatening to release someone's secrets in order to goad a certain response from them is the definition of coercion, which is a FELONY.

I mean yeah the guy said some nasty things, but hell if they released his information I'm pretty sure some people like Antifa would pay him a visit in order to play a friendly game of "bash the fash."

they are threatening to expose his public information if he shit posts again.

"showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again."

This is what CNN persuaded him to do.

If he dares to show "ugly behavior" on social media:

"CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change."

Can't get any friggin clearer than this.

CNN is persuading the redditor to not display anymore "ugly" behavior again or they threaten to release the guy's private information to the internet, the same internet known for having people who constantly spout off about disemboweling the opposite political party.

Not only will this guy's social life and employment probably be completely ruined, but he'll probably also get harassed and possibly even attacked by those who don't agree with his political views.

I seriously don't know how I can be any more clearer than that. If you still don't realize how this is bad either you're too thickheaded or purposely ignoring facts.

Perhaps a graphic image will help you understand better.

p.s. I'm pretty sure that shitposting is included in that "ugly behavior" he was told not to do again.

Sorry, meant to downvote you, accidentally hit the upvote instead.

There's this thing where something doesn't need to be outright said to be understood. It's like how if you just looked at Tyranid's image you could tell from the "For Fuck's Sake" that he was angry even though he didn't say that. That's what's happening here.

What does CNN gain by saying "We reserve the right to post his identity should any of that change"? Why did they choose to say that? What's the point? If CNN has the right pronouncing it doesn't make their case any more legally viable. They aren't saying that to protect themselves. They're sending out a message – "We very much do have the ability to release this if he does these things we don't like".

Let's say I have a bomb. I say "I have the ability to set this off if anyone messes with me!" The point of me doing that is, clearly, to let people know not to mess with me. If they do, I may just blow everyone up. I don't say that because it's an idle threat – I say that because people know I just might. That's what CNN is doing. They're saying that because the guy knows they just might release it. CNN knows that's why they're doing it. They're threatening the guy with the release of his identity.

There is no other reason for them to say this, at least that I can find. If you have a better explanation for why they said what they said I'm open to hearing it.