Goddamn that was a stupid post, Sam.
Seriously, Sam. It’s just like Obama except for the retaliation which led to a 20x response from Russia. :rolleyes:
The rest of your post is just as easily refuted. This is still the SDMB - don’t come in here with your El Rushbo/Fox News takes. That shit works on Facebook with all the other grandads, but not here.
Then go ahead and refute it.
No, and neither Trump:
So the Treasury finally acts, but the administration puts a lot of escape hatches that help Russia or Putin get around them:
And of course, the bending over by Trump continues:
Launch a thousand Benghazi investigations and you’ll never come up with anything as damning as…
But Obama. But the Dems. But my fucking ass. Fuck off.
“Is not wanting get bed with Trump! Is puking guts out!”
“But, Vlad, just once! Then Exxon and Tillerson build oil pipeline and we make billions more to steal!”
“Hmmm. Top or bottom?”
“Top, Vlad! Knyeshna, top!”
“Horrorshow. Once!”
It would be a slam dunk for 'this campaign was, unambiguously, willing to work with a foreign adversary’ for any Republican Congress of the past.
But this Republican Congress has given up all pretense of concern about the security of the nation. Apparently great big wads of cash can do that, if you’re not possessed of much integrity to begin with.
So you don’t dispute that America’s actions under the Obama administration favored Russia in many ways, and the Trump Administration’s actions have been pretty harsh, but you know this is a sham because of the list of leaks you posted about Trump’s true state of mind. Is that it?
Trump has undermined Russia in many, many ways. For example, pushing domestic energy sources like fracking creates competition for Russia’s natural gas. Pushing the Saudis to open up production to drive down the price of oil hurts Russia. The U.S. massive military buildup hurts Russia. The U.S. in Syria is currently working against Russia’s interests, as is the U.S. effort to build an alliance between Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel against Syria and Iran. For that matter, Trump’s belligerence against Iran both in Iran and Syria hurts Russia’s interests.
As a comparison, the Obama Administration started right out of the gate appeasing Russia with that stupid ‘Reset’ button. And their effort to ‘reset’ relations and prove Russia could be an ally caused them to overlook all sorts of Russian aggressions. Even to the point that the Obama Administration knew about Russia trying to hack the election but did nothing about it - possibly because they thought Hillary couldn’t lose anyway and it could potentially be used against Trump if he became the nominee.
In 2009, as part of the ‘Reset’ campaign, the Obama Administration unilaterally canceled an Eastern European missile defense system:
Then there’s Iran, a Russian ally and a major source of arms and technology purchases that provided a lot of money for Russia, and which is partner in Russia’s shenanigans in Syria. Obama thought he could appeal to Russia’s better nature if he gave away missile defense for nothing in hope that Russia would then back off helping Iran. That did not happen. Then inexplicably, Obama dropped the sanctions on Iran, gave them billions of dollars of hard currency, and turned a blind eye to their incursion into Syria.
When Obama blew the ‘Red Line’ strategy, he instantly accepted Russia’s offer to get rid of all the WMD in Syria. The result was a massive mobilization into Syria by Russia - followed by several more gas attacks. No one now believes that Russia had any intention of getting rid of Assad’s weapons. Obama got played after making a bad error in foreign policy.
Then there was Obama’s whispered “Tell Vladimir that I will have more flexibility after the election”, when asked about acceding to Russia’s wishes on missile defense and other issues:
I can only imagine the sounds of all the heads exploding around here if Trump were caught whispering the same thing to a Russian President.
The point is not ‘whattaboutism’ or to criticise Obama or accuse him of being a Putin stooge. He also did lots of things that pissed off the Russians, including putting harsh sanctions on them. The point is to show that you can work yourself into believing just about anything about your enemies if you are willing to ignore all the evidence that doesn’t fit your narrative, while elevating evidence which does.
And the fact is, most of the policies Trump has implemented which have anything to do with Russia have hurt Russia’s interests. His ripping up the Iran agreement has deprived Iran of a lot of hard currency it was using to buy Russian weapons and support Iranian soldiers meddling around the world and supporting Russian efforts in Syria. Trump’s attempt to build alliances between Sunni majority countries in the Middle East and Israel is in direct opposition to the Russian/Syrian/Iranian axis. His military buildup is a direct threat to Russia. Claiming that everything Trump has done benefits his buddy Putin flies in the face of reality.
Wow. Was “I know you are but what am I?” taken?
So how many pages of The Sam Stone Show are we in for?
Who knows? He apparently thinks this is the “compare Trump to Obama” thread which is, in fact, non-existent. Perhaps he can make one?
Narrator: That was a hint.
What I want to know is why Sam cares so much. He’s a fucking Canadian!
What it is clear is that you did not counter those reports presented.
As for your weak “but what about Iran?”
Sure it was.
Again, you are ignoring that Trump did so under duress. And once again, you are wilfully ignoring the escape hatches Trump is giving to Putin while the sanctions are placed.
Is it too much to ask that this thread’s conversation be confined to Mueller’s investigation’s results and outcomes? Maybe we could put that in the title so people would see it every time they posted.
This.
Michael Cohen will be interviewed on Good Morning America tomorrow. In a tweet, he says his “silence is broken”.
About a month ago, I really scaled back my news consumption, including keeping the radio off in my car. But I’ll probably be champing at the bit to see what Cohen says. I doubt he’ll reveal anything that Mueller doesn’t already know and will include in his eventual report. So I’m less interested in what Cohen says about Trump than what he says about the Daniels case, Broidy, and Hannity. I mostly hope he fucking unloads on Hannity.
Here is Foreign Policy Magazine (that was used before by Sam as a good source) on the Trump delays to sanction Russia:
I had to add what is in bold to assure glowacks that this is indeed also related to the investigation of Muller, I do think that Sam does not give a damn if his sources are still peddling the idiotic idea that the Mueller investigation is “Much ado about nothing.” When even the Republican congress doesn’t think so and compels Trump to sanction the Russians or Russian entities that meddled in the past election.
No idea, but he’s finally going onto my ignore list. I’ve had it with his nonsense.
So this just showed up in my FB feed:
“So to recap: Healthy lifetime appointee Justice Kennedy randomly steps down days before stunning NYT report linking him, his financier son, and Russia-connected Deutsche Bank to Trump and a billion dollar loan deal and nobody finds this at all fishy?”
I’m guessing if this were real I’d probably have heard about it from other sources as well… Anybody have any clue what this is about?