Embarrassing. How an American President not protect our interests from being bombarded by Russian cyber attacks and interfering with our election, is incomprehensible.
Traitor. What else could explain Trump?
- Thread starter cernjSHU
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LOL, this is really all on Obama and his administration.
And who is the biggest interferer in international elections? That would be the U.S.
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I guess there isn't much else to say. The #1 Trump foe has posted and the #1 Trump fan has replied.
I think even SPK is saying this tongue in cheek. Otherwise, his moniker should be changed to Comrade SPK. Or we can go with KGB SPK.
Um, yeah, no, Obama et al knew all about this as it was happening and either purposefully did nothing about it or were too incompetent to do anything about it.
But now it's Trump's fault, LOL!!! Funniest, most desperate post ever.
That is a joke.
Obama issues sanctions, expelled diplomats and closed Russian compounds in the US in relation to their election meddling
What has Trump done except create doubt about the US intelligence community?
A few things.
1 . Please cite the world leaders who have excused such interference from the US and placed doubts if it ever actually happened because the US said so.
2. If the US interferes in a foreign election, are you saying the citizens of those countries should be ok with it because they also do it?
3. As a citizen of the US, you should not be ok with and excuse a foreign government influencing our democratic process.
Sorry, another huge LOL, that was in very late 2016, WELL after the Russians despicable interference in our election process. As a citizen of the US, the incompetence of preventing election interference should bother you, no?
I'm nor excusing it, it's terrible, merely pointing out the hypocrisy of any whining US citizen who doesn't think the U.S. is a huge interferer as well. A taste of own medicine, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, too bad we didn't have the competency or will to protect against it.
That isn't logic, that's ridiculous.
9/11 was planned long before Bush was in office and our incompetency and unwillingness to take it seriously (see that Chinese wall) was our downfall.
The Russian interference took place completely during Obama's time, he knew it was going on right beneath his nose and either chose to do nothing about it or was just plain incompetent.
I agree that Obama should have been more forthright and actually came forward with that information to the American public. However, Obama in his sense of righteousness apparently thought that he would be putting his hand on the scale of the elections. (This was a big mistake).
However, Trump is now President and proof of Russian (meaning Putin) interference is without a doubt. Yet, Trump accepts Putin's denial and does not back up the US intelligence? This interfering is happening at this moment in time. So, if you are angry with Obama, you should be equally as angry with Trump. It is still happening and Trump has done nothing about it. How you attack Obama as incompetent and let Trump pass is an exercise in the absurd.
You don't think Russians have been looking at ways to interfere with US democracy since before Obama was in office?
Lets even play along with you assertions.... Obama is the worst ever and deserves all the blame.
Did Obama just make Trump stand next to Putin and place doubt on our own intelligence community?
The idea that you are talking about Obama at all after that just happened is crazy.
I don't agree with this, far too simplistic, doesn't broach the incompetence to stop it.
I agree with the above. Obama was incompetent and an asshole on this and Trump is incompetent and an asshole on this.
Let me start by saying I am an Independent, did not vote for Trump or Hillary, have voted for each major party in prior elections.
While I do not think Trump has handled this the best, not sure what is really expected to be done? Sure he could denounce Russia, but then what, Putin & Russia are still going to deny. So then what?
No summit with Putin?
Are we going to go to war over this?
End diplomatic relations?
Impose sanctions?
Other options?
Even if Trump came out against them, in end still accomplishes nothing.
One of the reason I think he has "cast doubt" is because he believes people will use it to attack him, as excuse to why he became President.
Also, I understand people are outraged, but in the end this is how spying works unfortunately, and it seems the Russians accomplished what they were planning. But I am sure this type of stuff happens all the time, all over the world, damn we know of countries spying on allies, etc... I am not shocked at all the Russians attempted this, and have no doubt they would attempt similar things in future against us no matter who is the President.
Many books have been written on CIA black ops used to interfere with other governments.
The idea that you are not talking about Obama and his letting it happen is crazy. Russian interference didn't happen in a Trump vacuum, however much you hate him. That election interference should be looked at in its totality if you really care about said interference as opposed to just a way to slam Trump only.
This was a problem under Obama. He did nothing to stop it or his attempts were weak and not good enough. Trump inherited a lot of problems some he's taken the bull by the horns and fixed others he has chosen to blame Obama. It's just one more problem Trump has to fix. I would just prefer he keeps his head down and keep working as opposed to constantly making it known it was Obama's fault. Once, maybe twice is enough.
The funny part is we hear all the lies Trump has told the American people. We all now know what Obama knew, but nobody calls out his lies. All President's have lied numerous times to the American people. Why the uproar now all of a sudden.
The funny part is we hear all the lies Trump has told the American people. We all now know what Obama knew, but nobody calls out his lies. All President's have lied numerous times to the American people. Why the uproar now all of a sudden.
That video is referencing changing votes. Not hacking a political party and working with wikileaks to release the data.
Using voter rolls to target specific voters. etc...
Thanks.
Plus in the end I am still not sure how the Russians really actually interfered in the election. I understand Facebook posts, You Tube videos, hacked servers and emails, but does that really change people's votes?
I think the real harm is we have now wasted 1.5 - 2 years on this topic, and maybe the whole point of the Russian exercise in the end was not to interfere in the actual election results, but is to cause more divide among American citizens, which has totally happened, whether that was the plan or not.
To be honest, I think the divisiveness / doubts on our intelligence community would be much worse currently if Hillary won.
To that end, I am happy she is not president.
but to your other point
We should talk to our adversaries. No problem with the summit from my view.
Yes to sanctions (as Obama imposed)
Yes, many other options but maybe start by not telling the world that you doubt our intelligence community and believe Putin?
A US president on foreign soil standing next to the guy responsible for attempting (at minimum) to undermine US democracy, gives him a pass and places doubt on US intelligence.
When becomes hysteria worthy in your opinion? Neil Cavuto even called it disgusting today.
He didn't doubt US intelligence. All he said was Putin strongly denied it.
What he should have said was, "President Putin and I disagree on this issue. I made it clear to him that any further interference in internal US affairs will not be tolerated and we will respond."
Please re-watch.
Trump was asked a pointed question. "Will you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him (Putin) to never do it again"
The FIRST thing Trump talks about is the FBI's investigation about Hillary and where the server is.
He literally responded to a question about if he would denounce Putin and he said the FBI let Hillary get away with something.
Then he said "I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this, I don't see any reason why it would be."
How is that not placing doubt on our intelligence community?
I will watch it later. I have not seen the video of the press conference, only what has been reported in the media.
Trump being his usual asshole self.
I believe Russia meddled in the 2016 election but you really think U.S. intelligence is trustworthy overall??
I believe the President of the United States has a duty to stand up for the interest of the United States. He should not be there casting doubts on US intelligence.
Of all of the issues we bicker over here, I am surprised that idea is partisan.
Merge, I am with you 100%. It strikes me as an issue that we should all be in universal agreement. We are Americans first. What is going on here? SPK, are you really questioning the intelligence community over the validity of Russian hacking and attributing the source of the hacking?
As I said earlier, I think Trump has handled this poorly from the beginning, but have not seen too much about what he did today that is any different or worse.
While I believe the Russians obviously were up to no good, was it any worse or more aggressive than things the Russians have been doing for the last 75+ years?
The intelligence community is always going to play up espionage incidents because it is in their best interest, no difference than military when discussing conflicts, ICE with immigration issues and other government organization looking to push their own interests.
Also feels Trump just says (or doesn't say) and does things intentionally to annoy his critics. It seems he is the kind that doubles down when the Dems or media feel he should do something.
And when during these last 75+ years did we have the US President not willing to admit Russia was up to no good, directly contradicting our intelligence agencies.
It may have happened in past, it may have not. Things were handled much differently in the past so hard to really say truly, things in past were often covered up more, especially when involving intelligence.
Definitely never happened as it is happening with Trump and this incident, but unfortunately we are in a new era of politics and media reporting and things like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
As I said in several times in this thread, I do not feel Trump has handled this correctly.
But an example I can think of quickly, many intelligence reports have linked people high in Saudi Arabia leadership to Bin Laden and 9/11, but US officials (both Republicans & Dems) have never truly taken them to task on this issue, a much more dangerous issue in my eyes.
Um, no, read above again (maybe you didn't read above, it's so very clear), I posted that I believe Russia meddled in the 2016 election.
Do you believe our intelligence 100% of the time, no questions asked?
And BTW, this is nothing new, Trump has repeatedly said this before about Russia and the 2016 elections, today is just another day for the selective outrage.
I'm just glad Russia is not our greatest geopolitcal foe and that we sold them uranium deposits.
It is new.
We now have indictments against Russians and Russian companies and Trump is standing next to the guy that was responsible for interfering with US democracy and couldn’t even acknowledge what happened - and is still placing doubt on US intelligence.
Such an easy opportunity for Trump. All he had to do was say that our intelligence says x, he believes them and has told Putin that future actions will not be tolerated.
Why is hurting trust in us intelligence instead?
He should have but he’s Trump, nothing new here. The indictments are a complete joke, are they going to stand trial, LOL?
We don’t really want to get into what a president should have said at the time now, do we? Terrible people make terrible presidents.
Merge, I watched the entire 46 minute press conference this evening. I found it quite troubling.
In particular, the part about taking Putin's ridiculous selection of having his people work with Mueller was an embarrassment and a disgrace.
Your flippant nonplussed response is what is wrong with this country. You think this is no big deal? Indictments are a joke laying out the details of how the Russians did it? Really? I don't understand your stance on this at all. Never will. Even Shu09 has come around to the realization that this was a disgrace.
I'm not and won't defend Trump, he was wrong in what he said, merely pointing out the hypocrisy and inconsistencies of many and the rank political nature of a supposed independent special counsel.
From one of your favorites:
Donald Trump is right; Countries spy on each other all the time
By Paul Mulshine
Columnist, The Star-Ledger
Let us start with a simple yet unassailable premise:
Spying is by definition illegal in the country being spied upon.
So it was rather silly for members of Congress of both parties to demand that President Trump ask Vladimir Putin to extradite the 12 Russian military-intelligence operatives indicted last week as part of the probe into Russian interference in our elections,
Why stop there? Why not simply demand that Putin turn himself over to the American justice system?
After all, "he's the ringmaster of this conspiracy" according to one of the loudest Trump critics, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California.
That's the logical extension of the argument. But it's an argument that could be made only by someone who doesn't understand how intelligence collection works.
Pat Lang understands. He spent years working for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is our equivalent of the GRU, the Russian agency for which most of the indicted Russians work.
"It's not as though we have never influenced any elections in a foreign country," said Lang (whose Sic Semper Tyrannis blog offers perhaps the best example of a realist approach for foreign affairs.)
We're the world champs in that category. A database put together by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University lists the U.S. as interfering in 81 elections between 1946 and 2000. That compares to a mere 36 by the Russians/Soviets.
The Democrats can't accept they lost last year's presidential election and are going to absurd lengths to get a do-over; this non-story about the Russians is just the latest example
And when it comes to hacking into other nations' computer systems, our NSA, CIA and DIA are the world's finest as well, Lang said.
So it was entirely predictable that Putin would point that out when the question came up at a press conference following the two-hour meeting between the presidents.
In response to a question on extradition of the 12 operatives, Putin said the Russians would be perfectly happy to let our intel agencies come to Moscow to interview the 12 Russian agents - as long as he gets to send his guys over to Washington to interview a bunch of our agents.
It's no mystery why the Russians would want hack into the Democratic National Committee's computers, said Lang. We'd do the same to them.
"What you try to do is collect encyclopedic information on everything on earth," he said. "When Vladimir Putin calls and asks how the election system works in Nebraska, you better know or you're out on your ass."
The cure for aggressive intelligence-gathering is aggressive counter-intelligence. That's the province of presidents, not prosecutors.
That's especially true in this case, said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent who is a friend of Lang's.
"These are soldiers presumably following orders," said Johnson.
If the U.S. is presuming the right to indict soldiers of a foreign power for following orders, that sets a new precedent in international relations, Johnson said.
Lang said special prosecutor Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should have taken the evidence they gathered to their boss and let him decide how to proceed with it. And Mueller's boss is Trump.
"Mueller should have gone to Trump and said, 'This is the deal,' and then Trump could decide what kind of reprisal to take," he said. "Instead Mueller sees this as a honey pot to get Trump and try to depose him."
That sort of thing works both ways, however. Trump can fire Mueller and Rosenstein whenever he wants to. That's what he should do, said Lang.
"He and Rosenstein both are interfering in the conduct of foreign policy," said Lang. "They put the president in a position that made it difficult for him to even talk to Putin."
But talk he did. And he's not going to shut up if his performance in Helsinki Monday is any indication. Afterward he Tweeted that the Mueller probe is a "rigged witch hunt."
It certainly looks that way to me when I consider the timing of the Rosenstein press conference. It came while Trump was meeting Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle.
Why the hurry? There is zero chance that any of the 12 will ever see the inside of an American courtroom. Rosenstein could have waited until after the Trump trip was over.
If the president truly believes that the Mueller investigation is rigged, then there's an obvious way to unrig it
The Congressional elections are less than four months away. Unless the Democrats have big gains in both houses, Trump will have a free hand.
