Is Putin Helping Trump?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Ivan Seeking, Jul 25, 2016.

  1. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    I guess we know now:
    ========================
    Paul Manafort Denies Receiving Millions in Cash from Pro-Russian Group

    Secret Ledger in Ukraine Lists Cash for Donald Trump’s Campaign Chief

    By ANDREW E. KRAMER, MIKE McINTIRE and BARRY MEIER
    AUG. 14, 2016
    NYT

    KIEV, Ukraine — On a leafy side street off Independence Square in Kiev is an office used for years by Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, when he consulted for Ukraine’s ruling political party. His furniture and personal items were still there as recently as May.

    And Mr. Manafort’s presence remains elsewhere here in the capital, where government investigators examining secret records have found his name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort’s main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych.

    Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.. . .

    It is not clear that Mr. Manafort’s work in Ukraine ended with his work with Mr. Trump’s campaign. A communications aide for Mr. Lyovochkin, who financed Mr. Manafort’s work, declined to say whether he was still on retainer or how much he had been paid.
    ===========================
     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That you are being played for a gullible fool, by the consummate professionals who have your number.
    But some people are wary of the effects of selection, knowing what can be done by propagandists and media pros.
    Because they would recognize the certainty of loss suffered by strategy employed without information in a competitive game - like the fish at a poker table. They would regard allowing themselves to be manipulated like that as a failure of adult responsibility.
    Voting is never done singly. All elections involve many votes, and take place among many elections over time. Adults know this - it's the same reasoning that leads to them picking up small items of garbage from their front sidewalk, or saving a little bit of money every week in a bank account. Grownup stuff.
    As far as you know, black women know all that, plus they know a lot about why and how it happens. You don't. Who is more likely to be a stupid sheeple, the informed person or the ignorant one?
    I gave up on the arguments after the first twenty or thirty. They do contain information - including, sometimes, the information that some assertion or assumption of yours in a matter of which you are ignorant is wrong, and should be amended. You're welcome.
    Sure I do. For example: You say that Clinton reveals herself to be a maniac in certain videos, by the way she looks. I point out that you have misinterpreted her appearance, by failing to take into account the context of the videos. You already know that you are completely unfamiliar with that context, so the basis of my correction is in front of you. Done.
    I said nothing about any Putin "statement" except that Putin has spoken favorably of Trump, I made no such claim as Putin corrected for Zakaria (intelligently hedging his bets along the way)

    and I based nothing here on the specific content of anything Putin said or is reported to have said except my observation that he appears to be an intelligent and informed man who knows what he is doing. Are you arguing that point?
    And I have seen such manipulation of translation in almost all conflicts involving underhanded and illegitimate American dealing abroad - for example: the bad translations of speeches by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, apparently intentional, were a major source of argument on these forums not too long ago, and I put some time and effort into untangling them.

    The rightwing corporate American entities backing Trump (however reluctantly), presenting him as a businessman and "isolationist" in contrast to the "maniac" Clinton, are and have always been among the major sources of such manipulations of American politics via bad translation. If you care.
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2016
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  5. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Oh no, the Chinese are in on it too.... and Foxnews.... just look at this picture of Putin and Wendi together... he's all over of her!
     
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  7. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    You're really into the conspiracy theories deep huh?

    Or, how about this: Empiricism.
    *GASP*

    Clinton: 150,000 million (and counting) of pledged donations from hedge funds
    Trump: 19,000 thousand.

    There's no conspiracy here, the rich would like more of the same - like they got from O-blah-blah, and so they're backing Goldman's Sux pick: Clinton. Even the Koch Brothers, your evil scary go-to black hat, would prefer Clinton over Trump. Hell, I think they're running third party candidates to ensure Clinton wins.

    Vanity Fair: CAN THE KOCH BROTHERS STOP TRUMP?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
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  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    You need a dictionary. Badly. Look up "Progressive" and "Reactionary" first, though.

    Unless your world is divided between "accident" and "conspiracy", with no room for cause and effect even, let alone marketing and propaganda - come to think of it, that would explain a lot.
     
  9. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    Of course, I'm not interested in nice birthday party videos with Hillary, so that I'm not only aware of the "effect of selection", but think that it is good that somebody selects which of them are worth to be seen by others, because they contain really interesting information. Only those videos which contain such nontrivial information are worth to look at them.

    Then, don't you get the point that the vote of a single voter does not change anything? This is the problem of democracy already on small scale, but on a small scale it is not a deadly one. To vote at all is already irrational loss of time on the voting day. One could do more useful things, and the result of the election would be the same one.

    Saving a little bit in a bank account is rational. Taking up garbage in a region where I live makes sense - but it has already a common good problem. Similar to voting in a small group, say, of 100 or so people. Voting in an election where millions vote is irrational quasi-religious behavior.

    It is a nice trick to force me to make claims about black voters, to present me as a racist. Sorry, but my argument is a quite general one. It depends on the size of the population which votes, and nothing else. So, if in Switzerland a Bürgermeister is elected, which decides about almost everything really important for the village, then the argument is less important. But if 300 or so millions vote, it makes no sense to vote, and voting is an irrational, quasi-religious exercise.

    Don't name simple unbased claims information.

    Yes, you have behaved differently, much more reasonable, in the past. You have really given some arguments, supported by some links to sources. You have stopped this. I guess, because you have seen that I use your sources to extract information uncomfortable for you. You have chosen to stop any argumentation beyond "you don't know" claims, not to post any links at all, even to remove the automatically created reply links.
    No, not done. But answered. I have, myself (given that you refuse to support links) found the context. After this, I have slightly modified my position, acknowledged that the particular video was indeed out of context, and focused on the part of the video for which the context was irrelevant. Namely, about her facial expression when she talked about obliterating Iran.

    Ok, all I have found is "Putin has has been quoted in the American press praising Trump, describing him in favorable terms (albeit carefully chosen to preserve his own reputation for perception)." at #101, not the quote itself. If you give a link to another Putin statement praising Trump in the American press, I will believe that this claim was not about this quote.

    You think I will start to count who lies more? The case I have mentioned was 2014, Obama rule. Those papers I have catched in this case in Germany, Spiegel as well as Zeit, are left-wing, and NYT clearly supports Clinton.
    http://libertarian.blogsport.de/2014/04/03/die-hohe-kunst-des-systematisch-falschen-uebersetzens/
    This may be just accidental, and I personally believe they lie as much on the left as on the right, (with the exception of the Eastern German left papers about Russia), but in this example the count is 3:0. Such is life.
     
  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Some unreliable rumors about Trump's Russian connections, with an overlooked aspect of truth in the story: http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-kno...mp-vacationing-with-putins-rumored-girlfriend

    The overlooked aspect, reliable info, is that Trump's daughter is pals with Rupert Murdoch's ex-wife. This Murdoch, invested in Russia: http://www.reuters.com/article/murdoch-russia-idUSL2E8E7HJN20120309
    and this wife, married at the time of Murdoch's deepest Russian involvements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendi_Deng_Murdoch
    "Somebody". Yeah. Like Breitbart.*
    The common good is not a problem. It's a benefit. It's a payoff that a rational person would be foolish to dismiss.
    It isn't irrational. Voting actually makes more sense in larger groups - small groups work well by consensus. If you need evidence, look at the effects of denying the vote to subsets of those millions of people, as was done in America to women and black people. Consider the amount of effort that took.

    The millions who do vote in their millions - actually vote, with their votes counted and everything - live lives of greater prosperity and freedom than those who do not. Look around.
    That was you, unforced. You were the one making claims about specifically American black voters, and calling them sheeple.
    It depended on you being better informed about the issues at hand than the majority of voters in the population you were talking about, black Americans. That premise was dubious, in that case. To be kind.
    Why not? They're informative. You can learn from them.
    No, you haven't. You are currently unfamiliar with the context of any interview or video involving Clinton.
    There are no Clinton videos, or parts of videos, for which context is irrelevant. That includes facial expressions, and the interpretation of what Clinton is talking about. (She is not, for example, talking about obliterating Iran).

    That's how you got suckered - you have been manipulated into providing your own context in agreement with your preconceptions, by the careful selection and framing of information over time. That's how hypnosis works.
    ?! Uh, no. You don't.
    I think you can't.

    *You are too gullible, and cannot defend yourself the kinds of sophisticated deceptions employed by professional American marketing operations. Your only hope is to avoid them.
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2016
  11. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    Which benefit? If the side I prefer wins, it wins without my vote too. If it loses, it loses with my vote too. My vote is therefore irrational.
    As if this would be somehow related.
    As if such an amount would matter.
    Really?
    All I can learn from them is that you believe these claims are true. Which is essentially nothing interesting. Given that it usually fits with what I believe about the typical prejudices of the left, it is mostly not even new.
    Again repetition about the context? I think we have clarified this. She is talking about it in an imaginary context - a nuclear attack by Iran against Israel - where a nuclear answer would be justified. This is what makes her psychologically weak in this moment. Because of the context, which formally justifies such an answer, she feels safe, and shows her true nature.

    Usual BS about "you are too gullible" disposed.
     
  12. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    Is Schmelzer being played or paid? My guess is he is being paid. It is well known Putin employs minions to spread his disinformation on the web. Given Schmelzer's inability to recognize fact and reason, I have to believe he is either incredibly brainwashed and dependent on the Russian state a la Jonestown or he is a paid agent of the Russian state. I give Schmelzer the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he is that stupid, so that makes him an agent of the state, one of Russia's web brigades.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_brigades
     
  13. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,285
    LOL
    No True Scotsman around here.


    Oh look, I was right, China is ALSO helping Trump, they've joined forces with the Russians:
    China says seeks closer military ties with Syria.


    LOL
     
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  14. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    You are reasoning as if you were voting singly rather than in cooperation with others, and as if winning were the only benefit of voting. Try to think just a little bit, ok?
    Yep. It's called evidence - you know, the stuff you claim I don't post? Pay attention, learn.
    Yes. Really. Look around.
    Up to you. If you want to live in a world in which the only reality is the existence of competing beliefs, you can - without a base in reality you're going to be suckered by manipulators at every turn, of course. And that's another piece of information you can take or leave.
    The clarification was this: you don't have any idea what the context of any Clinton video is. So you can't reasonably interpret anything you see in them. You don't know what you are looking at.
    For example:
    She doesn't feel safe, at any moment in that interview. She isn't that stupid, or naive. Why don't you know that?
    You think pointing to the media and propaganda operations of the well-known rigthwing "think tanks" and lobbying organizations is a conspiracy theory? Then you don't know what the term means. Get a dictionary.
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2016
  15. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,003
    If I'm voting, I'm voting singly. And I know, there are other benefits of voting, those which I name quasi-religious. The feeling of being part of some big and strong group, which uses this voting as a quasi-religious initiation process.
    It may be some evidence for something else, which I have never questioned. Therefore it is as interesting as evidence that a bag of rice has fallen over in China.
    Given that people who vote and who don't vote cannot be easily distinguished, so that I cannot tell if those who vote are better or worse up.

    In fact, participating in such quasi-religious democratic rituals may be correlated with higher position in society, given that democracy is the official religion of this society. But this is another causal connection: Those who accept the religious or quasi-religious rituals of a society can be expected to obtain a higher status there, because they will tend to conform to the career requirements much better. And, if you have a good position, you tend to like your society, and therefore tend to accept it cultural and religious rituals too.
    The point was, of course, a different one. Without any evidence about reality your claims give only information about your opinion, which is nothing which is interesting for me. I'm interested in reality. If you mingle claims about your beliefs with information about reality, this is your personal problem.
    May be, but as long as you give no further information, this is, as usual, only BS.

    But, I see, the following defines a little bit of such information:
    So, it looks like you know what is information.

    And, of course, she is not stupid at all, and, of course, in comparison with an everyday situation without camera she will, of course, feel unsafe, everybody does, and every politician has to. Feeling safe or not is, in this sense, relative. It is one thing if she is asked a question which requires a very accurate answer, because of various diplomatic subtleties, and one where there is no such danger.
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    Uh oh. It's not looking good for Manafort. Might we be seeing treason charges soon?

    ========================
    Trump campaign chief linked to secret Kiev cash payments
    Maxim Tucker
    Times-UK

    August 17 2016, 12:01am (<- note time, this just made the deadline!)

    Fresh details of alleged secret payments allocated for Paul Manafort by the pro-Russian party of Ukraine’s former president have emerged after 12 itemised regime accounting entries, totalling 7.61 million, were obtained by The Times.
    . . . .
    The senior Ukrainian prosecutor alleges that in 2006 Mr. Manafort orchestrated a series of Anti-Nato, Anti-Kiev protests in Crimea led by Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian Party of Regions—now a designated criminal organisation. The protests forced planned Nato exercises there to be cancelled.
    . . .
    Donald Trump's campaign chairman helped a pro-Russian governing party in Ukraine secretly route at least $2.2 million in payments to two prominent Washington lobbying firms in 2012, and did so in a way that effectively obscured the foreign political party's efforts to influence U.S. policy.

    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/...h-payments-npsg79ccj

    http://bigstory.ap.org/...sed-foreign-lobbying
    =========================
     
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  17. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,466
    If it weren't political in nature, one would think that the focus would be on Rick Gates.

    from ukraine:
    So we have no evidence against Manafort.
    What we do have is a crazy election campaign and the internet wherein someone can be found guilty just by he aleations of a potential link to corruption.
    Crazy that!

    On another note:
    Politics and corruption are hand and glove in all known political systems. Ours included.
     
  18. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    We have written proof that Manafort was offered millions to help Putin pave the way for his invasion of Crimea. Seems like more than enough to start an investigation into Manafort (and the campaigns he manages) to see where that money went.
    Nope, he hasn't been found guilty yet. That's for a jury to decide. Let's hope they get the chance.
     
  19. Ivan Seeking Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    957
    He's already been found guilty? Where does it say that?

    Does it stink to high heaven and suggest that possibly even treasonous acts could be involved? You bet! Do you want this man at the right hand of your President? If so, I have some land to sell you.

    We need to change the title of the thread to "Is Trump or his friends helping Putin to expand his power?".
     
  20. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,466
    "offered"
    "alleges"

    And, that's enough for you?

    ........................
    You don't have to prove propaganda.
    Just keep making allegations and you win.
    ...............
    Did you learn this crap from Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy?

    Is that the sort of politicking we should expect from you?
     
  21. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    Yes. Finding written proof that a felony was committed is sufficient to start an investigation. Not to prove him guilty - just to investigate whether he is or not.

    Good to see, though, that you are staunchly support the concept of innocent until proven guilty. I am sure you will agree, therefore, that Hillary Clinton is entirely innocent of the crimes she has been accused of.
     
  22. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,466
    What crimes has she been accused of?
    Please be specific.
     
  23. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    Well when it's a Democrat who is being alleged you don't seem to have a problem with it. The difference here is there is real evidence. There is certainly enough evidence for probable cause which is far more than any of the Hillary conspiracies have or have had.

    What they don't have, and what they have admitted they don't have is evidence Manafort actually received the money. What they do have is the fact that for more than a decade Trump's campaign manager served Putin's Russian vassal. What is also known is Manafort had extensive business dealings with Russian oligarchs. What is known is Manafort has a long history of serving corrupt dictators. That's just a matter of record. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort#Involvement_in_the_Karachi_Affair

    It's also known that before the Republican convention Republicans were very hard line on Russia's illegal invasions and annexations of the lands of neighboring states. Republicans had a plank in their platform which supported US arms sales to Ukraine. That plank suddenly and inexplicably vanished at the last minute. Committee members say the plank was removed by the Republican campaign i.e. Manafort. Now Manafort denies it. So who is correct, the many members of the Republican plank committee or the Manafort? Republican committee members don't have the extensive business ties Manafort has with Russia.

    This isn't the mindless baseless kind of allegations Republicans have become known for, no one has accused Manafort of doing anything illegal yet. Now, personally, dealing with the kind of folks Manafort does and what he does for them is morally reprehensible in my book. Many things are legal yet immoral. But unlike Republican allegations against Democrats and Hillary in particular, there is real and credible evidence here.
     

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