I think with John Brennan involved, it sure is easy for a politicized IC and politicized senate to conflate 'hurt hillary' and 'help trump'. Because anyone could argue the two are synonymous and draw no distinction and use this to push a conclusion of 'interfere to help trump win'

But I dont give them any trust. I trust only the facts we know, and the rampant leaking to be reasonably sure we know most of what they know. And nothing anyone has presented has made that supported that distinction. And there remains that critical lapse in logic that needs to be explained away somehow- why would Putin think Trump has any serious chance of winning when basically everyone everywhere expected a Hillary win?

Until I see that, I have no reason to trust 3 unaccountable agencies rife with politicized actors, especially headed by those with axes to grind. Not when they were headed by an anti-Trump Obama administration before inauguration, not when new faces had reason not to backtrack on such nuance and appear politically compromised themselves. I dont think its the job of either new IC heads or senators to pick that hill to die on even if they know its 'technically inaccurate'. The politics would overwheln them, the distinction is so acute. I trust their assessment as much as I believe in yellowcake uranium and aluminium tubing. And its particularly high readin on the bullshit-o-meter if the IC could claim on Jan 7 2016 a deep inside knowledge of Putin's motives, yet in the year and a half since we still havent seen either Mueller or the IC produce any evidence of Putins handiwork let alone something acquired that early on. If they had rock solid basis for that assessment, why did we wait so long to get indictments on.... just some internet trolls, on a flimsy premise? Why are we stuck with forensica on whether Guccifer 2.0 didnt use his VPN once as proof the Kremlin was involved? If we knew what Putin was personally directing and why, we'd have him far more compromised with direct surveillance

Give me a real reason to believe Putin wanted to help Trump, not just hurt Hillary. I like logic and motive, not blind faith in all too fallible authority

This post was edited by Goomshill on Jun 5 2018 02:20am

I still dont get all the fuss about the distinction between "hurt/discredit hillary" and "help trump" - the key question always was and still is: "has trump colluded with russia?"

and as far as we know to date, the answer to this key question is no, even though it seems obvious that putin was interfering in favor of trump/against hillary. but with hillary's history as a russia hawk and her bad personal chemistry with putin, it's not that hard to see reasons for putin to interfere in order to weaken her, not to strengthen trump.

moreover, the 2016 presidential race really brought to light massive fault lines inside the western societies which had been lurking beneath the surface for quite some time. if we're assuming that putin wants to weaken western democracy as a whole since it threatens his own autocratic/cleptocratic system, then it makes sense for him to try to reinforce those divisions in our western societies. since hillary had the support of an overwhelming majority of the media, of the cultural, societal, political and intellectual elites, it's obvious that putin had to "choose team trump" in order to stir shit up.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jun 5 2018 02:27am

I don't keep up with the Hannity talking points much anymore... not sure how John Brennan is just assumed to be some political actor without integrity. That seems to be one of the most used and idiotic talking points of today... which is that any political appointee is just a hack with no integrity.

I don't think we know most of what they know. The Senate Intel Committee is chaired by a Republican who has shown that he's not a Trump flunkee, and they think the IC assessment is correct. I think that means something. Trump's IC appointees are men with integrity... so if they really had an issue with the assessment, they could bring it up.

I'm not hyper-skeptical of government officials and institutions like you are. There is no deep state. As of now, it seems that the hacks on the House Intel Committe are the only ones in government who don't accept the idea that Putin at some point started to try to help Trump. I trust the myriad of other Republicans and Trump appointees who say otherwise.

imo the reason to support trump was that russia would have a much easier time in syria with him (and they do just to name one example) compared to hillary
if you want to weaken the united states at home just support hillary and let the leftists do their destructive work
nobody could a better job dismantling the country than these guys

its the same in europe really, people talking about putin trying to undermine us fail to realise that russia does not need to do anything right now

Fake news:
https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/1003845673073238016

Fox News showing Eagles players kneeling while praying, not during the anthem.

let's get this straight, they're not the same motivation, but the plan would be the same regardless of motivation, but the motivation matters more than the plan, because the media are misrepresenting it.

The plan, our weaknesses, etc is all that's ever mattered. you're asking them to be even more nuanced, while also complaining about the continued investigation. It should have been a technical investigation all along, now you want them to take it 5 steps further into implied and perceived motivations?

I get that media bias is a pet peeve of yours, it just makes you look like a hypocrite when you complain about the purvue of the investigation than suggest they need to expand it. Set aside all of the media coverage, and stop coming back to it like it matters.

Derp

Fake news has issued an apology for their disgustingly misleading fake news report by fake news
not common we see an apology from fake news for their fake news so here is fake news's apology

if only cnn and msnbc would do such.
it would take a decade just to write the apology