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> Even as our nation spent years outraged over Russian interference Only a minority of the country was (supposedly) outraged about the mostly non-existent Russ

> Even as our nation spent years outraged over Russian interference Only a minority of the country was (supposedly) outraged about the mostly non-existent Russian interference. Most of the US knew it was bullshit the entire time, the Russians had near zero impact on the prior election (amazing how they didn't somehow swing this latest election, given their apparent god-like powers, despite how close it was). Trump's vast popularity showed up again in this latest election, they couldn't even try to hide it behind fake Russian interference. It was nothing more than a politcal ruse, a frame to hold Trump in, which the media almost universally played along with (and simultaneously they won't tag Biden as being controlled by China despite Biden having far closer ties to China than Trump does to Russia). It's the exact same thing they did to Tulsi Gabbard when she dared to go against their agenda. We're all owned by the all-powerful, magical Russians if we go off the acceptable message.

pjc50 6y ago
People went to jail over it. At least until they were pardoned by the president.
- cm2187 6y ago
  For tax fraud and falling into perjury traps. Not for colluding with Russia.
  - Taniwha 6y ago
    no one "falls into a perjury trap" - what one does is commit perjury - lie under oath, there's no trap there, all you have to do is tell the truth when you should and you don't get indicted .... in the US you even have the option of pleading the 5th
    - koolba 6y ago
      If you’re John Brennan you can even lie, under oath, on camera, directly to Congress. The trick is to be deeply connected with the political establishment. For a reverse example, look at the treatment of Michael Flynn. They weren’t looking into a crime, they were look for one.
    - concordDance 6y ago
      IIRC the details of that perjury make it fairly clear that it's the kind of perjury a reasonable normal person could end up doing incidentally. But I last read up on it a couple of years ago so check it out yourself.
phs318u 6y ago
> mostly non-existent Russian interference This is not true. The Republican-led, bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee found, over the course of their 3.5 year investigation, that there was in fact Russian interference. You can find the actual report (all 5 volumes) here [0]. Alternatively, a TL;DR summary can be found here [1]. > amazing how they didn't somehow swing this latest election Let's for a moment, assume that the Russians were indeed behind the interference campaign. Having experienced many Democrat and Republican administrations, they would know that neither side of politics has historically been favourably predisposed to firstly Soviet and later Russian geopolitical ambitions. So, why would you bother getting a particular party in power, if both parties present have always been on a unified ticket against you? Answer - you wouldn't. It was never about getting a particular party in power, rather it was about weakening your enemy's unity. In this case, Vladimir Putin can absolutely pat himself on the back, and more than any other world leader in recent decades, truly declare, mission accomplished (if it was indeed a mission). For all Biden's talk of unifying the nation, there is no way that the all of the millions of Qanonistas left scratching their heads over the absence of "The Storm", are going to go back to quietly accepting a two-sided status-quo. The chaos monkey in chief has successfully taken the raw material of a discontented working class, and using tried and true methods [2], shaped a potent political weapon, who importantly now realise they have power. There are now millions of chaos monkeys at loose within the Republic. If that's not a win for enemies of the US, I don't know what is. Do we know for sure whether this was part of a Russian long-term psyops play? I doubt we'll ever know. It's my view that the vast majority of those at the top of the power pyramid in place over the last four years, are almost certainly not Russian operatives or plants or had anything to do with Russia. What they were (and are) is hungry for power. Seeing an opportunity to implement their wet dream neo-neo-con agendas by riding the dragon, they went all-in weakening people's trust in institutions, science, evidence, truth. They were, as Putin might smilingly say, useful idiots. This is my view. I don't believe I'm alone in holding this opinion. But at the end of the day, it's speculation - another conspiracy theory. It's entirely possible that this was a coincidental but very happy set of circumstances for Putin. Either way, it's an outcome that reflects the fact a significant number of people close to the levers of power, played themselves into a position that suited them, and also conveniently suited someone else. [0] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-volume-5-bipartisan-russia-report https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-relea... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate-findings-fact-idUSKCN25E2OY https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate-f... [2] https://www.azquotes.com/author/5626-Joseph_Goebbels https://www.azquotes.com/author/5626-Joseph_Goebbels [2 Note]: This is not a glib Nazi reference. I believe that many of these quotes represent political axioms, and that those that understand them and are willing to implement them, can, and historically have, achieved great power.
simonh 6y ago
If I was American and there was clear proof that Russia had interfered in elections, I don’t care how ineffective it was. I’d want it investigated and stopped. I’d also rain fire and fury on anyone who interfered with or obstructed those investigations. But that’s me. I suppose caring about free and fair elections in the US is now a partisan issue over there. For a British conservative that grew up under Reagan/Thatcher it’s all desperately sad and disappointing.
- roenxi 6y ago
  > ... I don’t care how ineffective it was. I’d want it investigated and stopped. The level of interference to the election was so trivial I doubt you can back that attitude up. At some level of ineffectiveness, having an investigation and stopping the activity is more costly than just ignoring it. Investigations take time, money and it turns out have collateral damage: Looking at the charges out of the Mueller investigation, for example [0]: - ~80% of those charged are beyond the reach of the US government and the charges aren't going to be tested. Weak evidence that whatever it was they were doing did anything given the Trump 2020 election counts were pretty similar to/improved on the 2016 counts. - ~15% of those remaining hadn't done anything wrong until they were hit with process crimes in the investigation itself (counting those with only "false statements" charges + R. Stone). - ~5% of charges I can't be bothered to read up on, but given that 95% of the charges are scrambling to find a problem I doubt the remainder are all that impressive. I'm not deeply up to speed on the all 5 of those "false statement" charges - but the one against Flynn were probably politically motivated. They were interviewing him about a call where the investigators already had a transcript of the call. It is unclear why they were charging him for what could be a mismemory of routine diplomacy. By my reckoning, at least 75% of the charges in the Muller investigation that could actually be prosecuted were crimes that wouldn't have existed except for the Muller investigation! That is a big cost for what turned out to be nothing much. Even if you want to use some sort of irrational strategy as a deterrent the cost is higher than the benefit. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_the_Special_Counsel_investigation_(2017%E2%80%932019)#Table_of_charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_th...
  - 6y ago
cm2187 6y ago
What I find remarkable is that all the claims of russian/chinese/iranian interferences in US elections suddenly stopped when it became clear Biden won, and we switched to “it’s a perfect election”. It seems that Trump’s warning of not interfering into US elections have worked and the said countries complied. And we were told only weeks before voting day of evidences of those interferences, so I assume they also complied retroactively. The brave new world of “post-truth”.
- samastur 6y ago
  Claims that the last US election was fair were stated well before it was clear Biden won.
tim333 6y ago
>the Russians had near zero impact on the prior election I'm not American or that bothered by Trump but he only won the swing states by less than 1% and I'd guess it's quite likely the Russian email hacking the the like could have swung it.

pjc50 6y ago

People went to jail over it. At least until they were pardoned by the president.

cm2187 6y ago
For tax fraud and falling into perjury traps. Not for colluding with Russia.
- Taniwha 6y ago
  no one "falls into a perjury trap" - what one does is commit perjury - lie under oath, there's no trap there, all you have to do is tell the truth when you should and you don't get indicted .... in the US you even have the option of pleading the 5th
  - koolba 6y ago
    If you’re John Brennan you can even lie, under oath, on camera, directly to Congress. The trick is to be deeply connected with the political establishment. For a reverse example, look at the treatment of Michael Flynn. They weren’t looking into a crime, they were look for one.
  - concordDance 6y ago
    IIRC the details of that perjury make it fairly clear that it's the kind of perjury a reasonable normal person could end up doing incidentally. But I last read up on it a couple of years ago so check it out yourself.

phs318u 6y ago

> mostly non-existent Russian interference This is not true. The Republican-led, bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee found, over the course of their 3.5 year investigation, that there was in fact Russian interference. You can find the actual report (all 5 volumes) here [0]. Alternatively, a TL;DR summary can be found here [1]. > amazing how they didn't somehow swing this latest election Let's for a moment, assume that the Russians were indeed behind the interference campaign. Having experienced many Democrat and Republican administrations, they would know that neither side of politics has historically been favourably predisposed to firstly Soviet and later Russian geopolitical ambitions. So, why would you bother getting a particular party in power, if both parties present have always been on a unified ticket against you? Answer - you wouldn't. It was never about getting a particular party in power, rather it was about weakening your enemy's unity. In this case, Vladimir Putin can absolutely pat himself on the back, and more than any other world leader in recent decades, truly declare, mission accomplished (if it was indeed a mission). For all Biden's talk of unifying the nation, there is no way that the all of the millions of Qanonistas left scratching their heads over the absence of "The Storm", are going to go back to quietly accepting a two-sided status-quo. The chaos monkey in chief has successfully taken the raw material of a discontented working class, and using tried and true methods [2], shaped a potent political weapon, who importantly now realise they have power. There are now millions of chaos monkeys at loose within the Republic. If that's not a win for enemies of the US, I don't know what is. Do we know for sure whether this was part of a Russian long-term psyops play? I doubt we'll ever know. It's my view that the vast majority of those at the top of the power pyramid in place over the last four years, are almost certainly not Russian operatives or plants or had anything to do with Russia. What they were (and are) is hungry for power. Seeing an opportunity to implement their wet dream neo-neo-con agendas by riding the dragon, they went all-in weakening people's trust in institutions, science, evidence, truth. They were, as Putin might smilingly say, useful idiots. This is my view. I don't believe I'm alone in holding this opinion. But at the end of the day, it's speculation - another conspiracy theory. It's entirely possible that this was a coincidental but very happy set of circumstances for Putin. Either way, it's an outcome that reflects the fact a significant number of people close to the levers of power, played themselves into a position that suited them, and also conveniently suited someone else. [0] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-volume-5-bipartisan-russia-report https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-relea... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate-findings-fact-idUSKCN25E2OY https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate-f... [2] https://www.azquotes.com/author/5626-Joseph_Goebbels https://www.azquotes.com/author/5626-Joseph_Goebbels [2 Note]: This is not a glib Nazi reference. I believe that many of these quotes represent political axioms, and that those that understand them and are willing to implement them, can, and historically have, achieved great power.

simonh 6y ago

If I was American and there was clear proof that Russia had interfered in elections, I don’t care how ineffective it was. I’d want it investigated and stopped. I’d also rain fire and fury on anyone who interfered with or obstructed those investigations. But that’s me. I suppose caring about free and fair elections in the US is now a partisan issue over there. For a British conservative that grew up under Reagan/Thatcher it’s all desperately sad and disappointing.

roenxi 6y ago
> ... I don’t care how ineffective it was. I’d want it investigated and stopped. The level of interference to the election was so trivial I doubt you can back that attitude up. At some level of ineffectiveness, having an investigation and stopping the activity is more costly than just ignoring it. Investigations take time, money and it turns out have collateral damage: Looking at the charges out of the Mueller investigation, for example [0]: - ~80% of those charged are beyond the reach of the US government and the charges aren't going to be tested. Weak evidence that whatever it was they were doing did anything given the Trump 2020 election counts were pretty similar to/improved on the 2016 counts. - ~15% of those remaining hadn't done anything wrong until they were hit with process crimes in the investigation itself (counting those with only "false statements" charges + R. Stone). - ~5% of charges I can't be bothered to read up on, but given that 95% of the charges are scrambling to find a problem I doubt the remainder are all that impressive. I'm not deeply up to speed on the all 5 of those "false statement" charges - but the one against Flynn were probably politically motivated. They were interviewing him about a call where the investigators already had a transcript of the call. It is unclear why they were charging him for what could be a mismemory of routine diplomacy. By my reckoning, at least 75% of the charges in the Muller investigation that could actually be prosecuted were crimes that wouldn't have existed except for the Muller investigation! That is a big cost for what turned out to be nothing much. Even if you want to use some sort of irrational strategy as a deterrent the cost is higher than the benefit. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_the_Special_Counsel_investigation_(2017%E2%80%932019)#Table_of_charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_th...
- 6y ago

cm2187 6y ago

What I find remarkable is that all the claims of russian/chinese/iranian interferences in US elections suddenly stopped when it became clear Biden won, and we switched to “it’s a perfect election”. It seems that Trump’s warning of not interfering into US elections have worked and the said countries complied. And we were told only weeks before voting day of evidences of those interferences, so I assume they also complied retroactively. The brave new world of “post-truth”.

samastur 6y ago
Claims that the last US election was fair were stated well before it was clear Biden won.

tim333 6y ago

>the Russians had near zero impact on the prior election I'm not American or that bothered by Trump but he only won the swing states by less than 1% and I'd guess it's quite likely the Russian email hacking the the like could have swung it.