(08-17-2018 08:33 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(08-16-2018 06:03 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Let's say your goal was not to help Trump, but merely to sow dissent and discord. Hillary is odds-on to win, and by a wide margin. So what do you do? Whom do you back? Why Trump, of course, since the opposition will come from the loser's side. Only he didn't lose.

But you've still achieved discord and dissent on a massive scale.

As OO said, perfectly logical. I also think, at a minimum, they knew the Trump campaign was likely to be more open to advances, thus creating kompromat. But it's also perfectly logical that Russia had multiple goals, which is what our intelligence agencies have said. One goal, in particular, was to hurt Hillary because of Putin's personal vendetta against her due to her comments on Putin's election victories, and how he viewed her as being the culprit behind some of the political uprisings during her tenure as SofS. Another was that Clinton was also likely to be very hawkish against Russia, should she have won.

I don't see why you need to diminish this aspect of the Russian interference, it doesn't itself mean that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign.

But getting to a bigger issue I've been thinking about and that I don't understand. Why does it seem like there is always a dismissal of the actions of many people within the Trump administration for how they have handled themselves?

First of all, multiple officials within the campaign lied about their interactions with officials of the Russian government MULTIPLE times, why are some so eager to dismiss those lies? Especially when, in one example, Trump Jr himself finally admitted what his meeting was about after lying about the reasoning behind the meeting numerous times. That alone is troubling behavior and can't fit the narrative some like to use that he just forgot about the meeting. Trump Jr and Trump intentionally tried to cover up that meeting, and that's OK?

Second, why not be critical of an entire campaign that, when confronted with a situation where a representative with the Russian government is trying to provide information to their campaign, did not turn that information over to authorities? Had the Trump campaign been forthright from the beginning, there would be no doubt that no one within the campaign was conspiring with Russia.

It seems to me that it's easy for some to quickly flip the script and try and chastise people like me for not being even-handed, when they themselves are forgetting to even consider the implications and ethics of the actions that many people in the Trump campaign took, regardless of whether they were part of a broader collusion narrative.

And I'd appreciate it if the responses to these didn't turn into an immediate deflection to the Steele dossier, because that doesn't actually answer the questions.

Well, I guess you will have to be more specific about who lied and what they lied about. I have no idea, for example, what lie to the FBI Flynn is pleading to. Was it that he did not collude? or was it that he met Joe on Tuesday when it was actually Wednesday? I don't know. If you know the specifics, please tell me.

You seem to center on the Trump Tower (TT) meeting. Like Owl69 says, i view that as a big nothingburger. They met, nothing happened. BFD. But it is the centerpiece of your conspiracy theory. OTOH, the Steele dossier, which you want to hear nothing about, is a parallel effort to dig up dirt from Russian sources. It doesn't matter how direct or indirect, they are the same, and you will not see that. Thus the lack of evenhandedness.

Had someone in Hillary's campaign met directly with that same russian lawyer, then kicked her out with nothing for nothing, I would not be screaming conspiracy over that. More like Hurray for them. Seems like a mighty weak peg on which to hang your hat.

Campaigns try to dig up dirt on opponents. Fact of life. If the source is Norwegian, that does not indicate any sort of collusian with the Norwegian government.

People in campaign sometimes meet with Russians. Sometime they shake hands at a state dinner. Sometimes they sit on a panel in 2015. So what?

Usually the simplest explanation is the best. Leaving out all the "could haves" and "might ofs" that constitute the main body of the conspiracy theory would help a lot. Russians wanting to meddle? A given. A conspiracy between unknown people in the "Trump campaign" and the Russian government? a big, big reach. BTW. if all the Russians wanted was to sow discord and distrust into our election processes, the Democrats and people like you are their biggest allies in their biggest success. The ongoing hue and cray about the completely unnecessary and possibly illegal Mueller probe is the Russians greatest hope achieved. They have succeeded in transforming the all-Trump, all the the time "news" channels into a russian tool for sowing distrust. Who is helping them make the American people distrustful of our elections. The people pointing to the boogeymen.

The TT meeting was nothing. If you want to be more evenhanded, admit that the machinations to get the Steele dossier are pretty much the same thing, at the least.