(02-24-2018 04:14 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 04:02 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 03:36 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 01:34 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-24-2018 12:11 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Did they use social media like that before? Of course not. They didnt have it to use. That is unprecedented. Did they use everything they had? Yes.

I said overt, not anything about social media. Is there evidence they ever placed ads or organized rallies before? What about sending agents to talk to potential voters? Or gown about getting fake news stories into the media that pushed a narrative? Any ornament those examples could have happened in previous elections, prior to the advent of social media. It isn’t like there weren’t overt ways for them to meddle before this election.

Your view is far too narrow and focusing on only one aspect of their overt actions thos election.

So let me get this straight. You’re the one who keeps narrowing the definition but I’m the one whose viewpoint is too narrow? Gotcha.

Thanks to my friend tanq for reciting chapter and verse so I don’t have to. Hell yes the Russians have been doing everything they could to disrupt and influence us for decades. As have we to them. Ever hear of Radio Free Europe? And I’m sorry if you can’t somehow equate the Cold War to Twitter, but believe me they have done everything they could for a long time.

I kind of sense a problem that the left has here. They have to create the notion that Russian hacking and interference started with the 2016 political campaign. If they concede that this sort of stuff has gone on for decades, then it becomes about a 99.9% probability that Hillary’s contraption got hacked, and badly so. Like maybe treason bad. And that raises questions that nobody on the left wants to contemplate.

I keep narrowing the definition? Get real man. I've literally been talking about election interference the ENTIRE time. My definition has not strayed - you're the one that incorrectly assumed I was comparing it to the Cold War and then only wanted to talk about social media.
And the right has its own problem - the fact that they are too tied up with Trump to admit that what Russia did was a bit too blatant this time around. I mean, if Russia has been doing the same thing for years, why is now the first time we've noticed? It can't be because the scale of their operation was larger and more overt, could it?

Come on, I didn’t assume anything. I thought you were talking about Russian interference in a generic sense. I didn’t realize that nothing else counted as long as it wasn’t specific incidents unique to this time. Except none of it was unique. Except maybe the social media since that’s such a new thing.

And as far as blatant, I thought a Kashin bearing down on me at 32 knots in 1973 was pretty blatant, but I realize that wasn’t as scary as a social media attack or a rally.

I mean, the past wasn’t as blatant as this? Really? Seriously? Come on, get real.

And so what Russia did this time was too blatant? Why is the investigation focusing on Manafort’s form filling? Why not start with the DNC server? Oh yeah, the DNC won’t make it available. Why not? Why isn’t anyone asking that?

You're conflating issues here. Russia has tried to influence US policy, actions, etc. as you have said. But this is by far the most blatant attempt to influence our election, the way in which we select our leaders. The other actions were, more or less, focused on influencing how the leaders acted.

And the investigation is not focusing just on Manafort filling out forms - that is just one part of one indictment.

Quote: Prosecutors say Manafort orchestrated a group of former European politicians, called the "Hapsburg group," to pose as independent voices. Yet they covertly pushed positions favorable to Ukraine as paid lobbyists. Manafort used offshore accounts to pay the former politicians 2 million euros.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/23/politics/...index.html

And apparently the DNC gave the FBI copies of their servers with the information the FBI would need and the FBI seemed fine with that. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/...dnc-serve/