So no response of substance. Just a snipe at Clinton. You should be on the Trump re-election campaign. Oh, wait.
But that isn’t what he asked of Ukraine, was it? No matter how much you wish it was.
No, I think he was talking about the hacking when he said Putin denied it in a conversation. The President is not going to ask Putin about Russia buying Facebook ads. It is clear from the other quote I explained, that Trump has no doubt Russia bought Facebook ads, and it would be silly to ask a world leader about Facebook ads on top of that. Trump is not a careful speaker, but here he is being analyzed as if he wrote what he said in a legal document. The Impeachment Articles though, which should be one of the most carefully prepared legal documents in history, contains a false “exclusive or”: Ukraine XOR Russia. But logically it could be an “inclusive or”, and a Ukrainian court declared Ukraine can be included: Ukraine AND Russia.
It was a test, and I think the score you earned on it’s pretty plain to see. If you can’t admit error in such an unambiguous case, what’s the point in further discussion?
No not a snipe, just an illustration of how ludicrous it is to think that the small amount of money spent on facebook ads that didn’t specifically say “vote for Trump!” were more effective than the billions that the Clinton Campaign spent on media.
Russians did buy facebook ads, but Mueller did not provide evidence that the ads from IRA were at the direction of the Russian Government.
“Billions”? With a “B”?
Read the first paragraph on page 3 of the Trump Zelinsky call transcript. He is asking Ukraine to investigate the 2016 election interference.
Some background on the facebook ads:
Mueller Tied to Double Deception: First in Court, Then Before Congress
I’ve not read any definitive analysis that shows the extent of influence on the 2016 election due to Russian interference. Because it was done mostly through social media and various (mostly unsuccessful, it seems) hacking attacks, it’s a difficult value to quantify. Which is not to say it didn’t happen or had no effect at all. As I stated, the effects were marginal but sometimes marginal is enough.
What the 2016 election shows is the vulnerability of not just the American election system, but of American society in general. Russian interference did not divide American society, it exploited the existing divisions. I suspect that no one was mores surprised than Russia at how effective their interference campaign was. I’m sure they could not believe their dumb luck at having Trump be the GOP nominee. For that I blame the GOP. And while Russian interference helped around the margins, I blame the ~60M voters who thought electing Trump was a good idea. I can ascribe various motives to those who voted for him, but none of them would be complimentary and we’ve done this before so no need to repeat them again. Finally, HRC shares some of the blame for inspiring apathy in non-Trump voters. 2016 was the perfect storm, in some sense. But it has been an insightful look at American society and I hope we can learn some lessons from it. I think, “A Republic, if you can keep it”, being the most important take away.
As a factual matter, you are inventing a term that is never used by the intelligence community, and then criticizing them for not meeting that term that they never use.
The highest level of confidence used by intelligence agencies is “high confidence.”
In essence, let’s say the highest grade that can be awarded to a student is an A. That student has a paper graded as an A. You then swoop in, and say that an A doesn’t mean anything because it isn’t an A++++superawesome++imgonnagiveyouaBJ. I’m sure you can admit that this is a bullshit criticism of the student’s work.
Again, it didn’t need to be a large amount of money. It just needed to be effective at exploiting the existing divisions. The fact that people freely shared the propaganda without understanding what they were sharing was the brilliance of the entire interference effort. Credit where credit is due. It was masterful in how well it worked for a relatively small investment.
I have a bridge for you in Leningrad. Low mileage. Good condition. One owner. Interested?
Great, so the inelligence agencies never stamp anything as “absolutely certain”. Thus, unless we enter the Kangaroo Court Zone, I can rest assured that no President will be removed from office for disagreeing with the intelligence agencies.
Now I see where you get your information - Media Bias Check of RealClearInvestigations:
I doubt further discussion will prove fruitful as I don’t have the inclination to fact check your every post.
If I recall correctly, you have stated that you are not a Republican and that you are not a Trump supporter. Is this correct?
That’s not a fact check, it’s a bias check. What purported facts in the article EasyPhil cited are false? News flash: mainstream media outlets are highly biased against Trump, and there is often complete mainstream media silence on factual news that helps him or goes against his opponents. So if you want the truth, you will have to read sources others call “too biased in favor of Trump to even consider”. And posters here that I debate who are anti-Trump often report having such “news blinders” on. They should take off those blinders. But even if they don’t, I am still optimistic, because truth is a force of nature.
Newsflash back at you: Pointing out liars and the lies they tell is not a bias check.
I’m not holding my breath but I too think that truth matters. So if you can convince me, or anyone, that Trump is not a corrupt, incompetent, pathological liar and that media that exposes him for what he is is in fact “fake”, then I’m open to such “alternative facts”. Until then, I’m going to continue to fact check bullshit cites and posts like the one you’re responding about.
On the same day that Russia stopped hacking? Yes, I’d put that as relatively small likelihood. And we would expect such a person to go to Mother Jones or some other American news agency, since they would be aware that WikiLeaks is a Russian front and, as an American, has reason to keep our political secrets from them.
You will note that the majority of leaks that you see go to American news agencies.
Let’s also note that:
a) We’re discussing a single footnote in a summary document, where there is more in the summary document, and even more in the actual indictment, and you’re already having to invent whole people who don’t exist, when we have evidence of motive, opportunity, timing, and modus operandi for a particular suspect again, in just a single footnote. Do you think the case will become better or worse if we include more than one sentences worth of evidence in the discussion?
b) The indictment was issued against Russia by Rod Rosenstein - a Trump appointment. The indictment is still active, and being kept in place by Bill Barr and Rosenstein’s replacement, Jeffrey Rosen - both Trump appointments. So we seem to have a least four persons who all agree that the Russians did it, three of whom were hand selected by Donald Trump.
I think we are all being shined on in this thread.
How many you want?
Well, when all you’ve got is shinola, you put your best shine on it.