I accept no such thing. Trump attempted to initiate harm to the US, in pursuit of private gain for himself. That is against the interests of the US, and a violation of US law. He used his powers as President to do that - which demands impeachment from any Congress not in violation of its own oaths of office. Russia has already taken territory from Ukraine and annexed it to itself, killing many Ukrainians in the process. It threatens to do more. That makes nobody safer. Not the part lived in by Kurds. They are much less safe - as are the other enemies of Assad's rule. Remember when you advocated for the right of anyone to secede, and get help from anywhere to do so? Now you refuse to allow the Kurds what you advocated for slaveowners. There already was a Dem President, and those two wars were not started. Your imagination does not provide real world examples. Trump's intensifications of US military threat and violence - including the regime changes and CIA assaults and paid terrorists you claim to deplore - are not imaginary. Russia started the war process, and is therefore responsible for starting the peace process - unilaterally. If no peace process has been started, Russia is completely to blame. And so we see in the Mueller report - Russia to blame for doing bad things, spreading lies, meddling in elections, and so forth, for the benefit of the corrupt, colluding, and law-breaking Trump.
Giving money to Ukraine is a loss of taxpayers' money, Ukraine is so corrupt that they go all away. Delivering weapons to the Nazis only leads to more internal fighting and harms the people of Ukraine. The typical zero-sum US politician may think that whatever harms other countries is good for the US, but this makes not much sense. I have not made any statements about Trump being corrupt or not, this is not interesting for me, he does a sufficiently good job for world peace (not starting new wars is something very good for US presidents) and decreases US power independent of his possible corruption. And, no, I'm not defending him if I see trivial errors in iceaura's attacks against him. He has done this by asking Zelensky to investigate the Biden corruption case? No. Crimea was an independent state which, based on a referendum, wanted to join Russia, which has been accepted by Russia. This is not annexation. The Donbass region has defended itself against the Nazi gangs and the putchists who had taken power in Kiev. Russia has supported them, which was reasonable and justified by the responsibility to protect. This region is not occupied by Russia too. There have been no threats. It makes all of Korea safer. Don't forget, starting a war there could lead to millions of dead. Wrong. The parts where most of the Kurds live (where they are the majority) are in fact those which have been left by the US. They are safe now (as long as the US does not succeed to compel the SDF to start a war against the Syrian army), and safer than before because else Assad would have started to support a partisan movement fighting the US. Which is what he will do anyway - but that war will be fought now in those areas yet occupied by the US. I don't. My argument is purely pragmatical. To follow the US, instead of negotiating with Assad some autonomy on much better conditions than available now, was in no way evil, it was simply stupid. I'm not talking about 18... or so. Obama started two terrorist wars (Libya and Syria). The Ukrainian civil war is also Obama's contribution to world peace. Clinton had his own wars in Europe, first in Bosnia, then Kosovo. You see intensification where I cannot see any big difference. The most deadly regime change operation during the Obama time was Syria, followed by Ukraine. The support for the Syrian terrorists decreased, there was certainly no escalation in Ukraine. Complete nonsense. Russia has not started any war process, that was started by the US supporting the Nazi coup, and the war itself was started by the Nazis. Russia is not in a state of war with Ukraine. The war is a civil war inside Ukraine started by the Nazi coup government, so it is, following your ideas, completely to blame for the actual situation. Russia has helped (together with Germany and France) to reach a ceasefire combined with a plan for peace, Minsk II. It has been supported by the UNSC in resolution 2202 (2015) . It is the Ukrainian Nazi side, supported by the US, which refuses to follow this document. As usual, you are following the prescription of Dr. Goebbels to repeat the lies as often as possible.
Yep. In the US we are much more familiar with prosecution of organized crime than you appear to be - the language of mob bosses as recorded and presented in court is not difficult for us to understand. Russia sent military force, and killed many Ukrainians while annexing part of Ukraine at gunpoint. Russia brought tanks, and soldiers. It threatens the rest of Ukraine now, with its tanks and soldiers and other military equipment it recently used to kill Ukrainians who did not want to be annexed to Russia. Nothing Trump did made Korea safer in any way. As always, your poor eyesight is not evidence of anything - especially your inability to see what fascists are doing. Russia started its annexation of Crimea by sending in soldiers and military weapons, and killing many Ukrainians in their home towns and communities. That is war. Just informing you of what is in the Mueller report. Read it yourself, if you don't believe what people tell you about it.
Yeah well the Ukrainians didn't tell Russians like Schmelzer that Americans aren't better than him at everything he does, so that makes them Nazis. Being better than Russians at everything = Hitler.
IOW, Trump is organized crime, whatever he says is only some camouflage of what he really means, and our prosecutors are free to interpret whatever he says in such a way that it becomes a crime. No, that is not war, that is propaganda fantasy. Moreover, your own propaganda fantasy, not even the Western propaganda at that time has whined about many Ukrainians killed at that time, moreover in their home towns. Russia supported the legal government of Crimea, on its request, by the military forces which were already in a completely legal way in Crimea (on the base of the Russian Navy in Sevastopol), against the supporters of the illegal coup in Kiev. Nobody was killed during the operation in Crimea. The people of Donbass were supported by volunteers. It seems quite certain that Russia has also supported the Donbass with instructions, weapons, and ammunition but at such a low level that there is not even proof of this. Don't forget that the Donbass was the industrial center of Ukraine, with a lot of own fabrics and of course also military depots, moreover, the Ukrainian military was so corrupt that it is well-known that a lot of weapons and ammunition was simply bought by the separatists from the Ukrainian army. Russian military force was not sent. Threats from Russia exist only in Western propaganda fantasies. Yes, there was killing of Ukrainian people in their home towns, but only by the Ukrainian army and the fascists gangs. The main element of safety of NK is, of course, the nuclear weapons and the ability to send it to the US territory. The threat to kill millions of South Koreans existed always, but where was the suspicion that this may be insufficient to deter the US. With intercontinental weapons, US seems sufficiently safe now. It was expected that testing intercontinental rockets by NK would lead to a dangerous escalation, if not to war. This has not happened, and actually nobody expects this to happen in the near future. So, don't forget, the US simply doing nothing in a particular region is a great contribution to world peace. Hitler thought differently in 1945 and shot himself, encircled by Russian troops.
Good thing the Normandy landings happened before Russia ran out of troops to fight Hitler. I'm guessing you wish everyone who's better than you at everything shot themselves too, starting with Ukrainians who don't think you're qualified to run their show.
Not at all. We simply know what Trump means by what he says. We don't have to interpret. You are the one claiming he is by turns exaggerating and joking and so forth, and doesn't mean what he says, and has to be interpreted. It is war, accordng to you, when the US does it - even when the US does not annex, but merely installs a client government. Soldiers were sent. Arms and supplies for killing were sent. Many Ukrainians were killed, and Russia annexed a large amount of Ukrainian land That is what may happen, of course. Trump did nothing about that - the risk is as it was, except for some Korean diplomacy that Trump interfered with temporarily. Trump did nothing about that - it remains what it was, plus a few more tests and possible advances. And the US intensifying military violence and discarding diplomacy - Trump's actions since he took office - is a great subtraction from world peace. Meanwhile, Russia doing nothing in several regions would be a contribution to world peace as well - even that small aspect of its behavior as documented in the Mueller report increases the chances of violence. .
Of course, the prosecutors always certainly know what the accused mean. That's standard in police states like the US. No, I don't name regime change operations war. What I name annexation is Kosovo, which is essentially one of the greatest US bases in Europa surrounded by criminal Albanian gangs living from the US and their criminal business. This annexation was the result of a real war. Nice following of Goebbels's recommendation to repeat the propaganda lies often enough. This was expected to happen during Obama time, now it remains a theoretical possibility. Certainly an improvement. With Russia doing nothing, the civil war in Ukraine started by the US puppets would have become genocidal. With Russia doing nothing in Syria one can imagine now a situation similar to Libya, with the IS controlling most of Syria and Al Qaida controlling the other half, both genociding all non-Wahabi population. Together with some Kurdish-controlled regions officially controlled by the US and used as a weapon against the Turks. And the Russian meddling "documented" by Mueller is simply nonsense out of nothing. For publishing the facts about the manipulation of the Dem primaries against Sanders by the leadership of the Dem party you should thank the Russians if they would be responsible for this, not? Ok, I don't know, maybe Dem supporters like to be manipulated by their leadership. And those 13 bots making money with selling advertizing in social media groups are simply fun, or do you really consider this as something serious?
In this case, almost the entire American citizenry knows what Trump meant. The defense, the prosecution, and the bystanders, people walking by on the street - everyone who speaks English and knows how organized crime operates understands what they are hearing on that tape. Mob boss lingo is familiar to us. When the tape aired, the percentage of Americans who agreed that Trump was doing wrong jumped by half - to more than 70%, which includes many Trump supporters, no "prosecutor" involved. Your handicap seems to be that you have never experienced a lawful prosecution of a mob boss - you don't know what it looks like, how they operate, etc. (That squares with your inability to recognize fascism - fascism is basically organized corporate capitalist crime made government.) American eyewitnesses called it a "drug deal" - here's what they meant: https://thebulwark.com/trumps-clean-hands-defense/ Quote the lie. Nothing you quoted is even false. You did, earlier. That's how you managed to accuse both Clintons and Obama of starting wars, remember? You even had Hilary Clinton starting wars via the State Department. It was an unlikely "theoretical possibility" (propaganda bs) then, and is a more likely "theoretical possibility" now - only now it would be more in the hands of secretive agencies and mercenaries and paramilitaries, and less publicly scrutinized as official military violence the way Obama arranged (and thereby made less likely, until Trump revoked that policy and restored CIA control). That's not an improvement. If it becomes less likely now, the impeachment of Trump deserves some credit for interfering with his agenda and preferences. Your speculations don't count as evidence. Meanwhile, you finally admitted that Russia did "something" equivalent to war; and since we know what they did, namely invade Ukraine and annex part of its territory by force of arms, we can discard all your previous denials - right? You haven't read it - you don't know what's in it. But you post about it anyway - a foolish mistake. They weren't. That's not where I learned about that, which was obvious long before the Russians weighed in and got caught. And I don't thank foreigners for manipulating US elections. I prosecute them, and anyone who colluded with them. You haven't read the report - you don't know what's in it. When you post in ignorance like that, you always end up posting from Republican propaganda. How do I know? Common error reveals common source. You're a parrot. What Mueller documented was, in fact, serious.
You don't know what I don't know, but repeating such defamations is obviously part of your job as a propagandist. Nice description. The problem is that either you accept the fact that if gangsters behave in such a way they are sufficiently secure, or you accept the fact that the persecution can create fake crimes out of nothing. Of course, it is false, I have described the facts before, you have presented no counterevidence, thus, you know it is false, but repeat it intentionally, thus, it is a lie. You repeat it with this claim again, following Goebbels. I do not name Libya and Syria regime-change operations, they were full-scale terrorist wars. No, they did not invade, at most they supported the Donbass with money and weapons and allowed volunteers to go through the border. They were supporting (if this happened) the legal regional governments of the regions Donezk and Lugansk, which have not accepted the coup in Kiev. This is completely legitimate from the point of view of international law - if after a coup a civil war starts between those who support the former government against the putschists, foreign governments have the right to support those fighting the putschists with whatever they like. This differs fundamentally with what Obama/Clinton have done in Libya and Syria - supporting terrorists fighting the government of the country. Feel free to correct errors. I have taken a short look at the DNC hack and even discussed here that funny indictment against those 13 bots. I have, BTW not yet received an answer if there could have been a similar indictment against me if what I post as part of the political discussion I would do "conspiring" with a good friend of me with similar political positions. Many sources, including you, have confirmed that there is essentially nothing new. BTW, you don't even know if I have read it. You should know that I like to cross-check sources, so why not cross-checking if your claim is correct and there is really nothing new (beyond uninteresting details relevant only for prosecutors). I will not tell you. It is much more funny to observe how you stupidly repeat the dead "you have not read" horse being unable to present a single thing which is relevant and new. Of course, reasonable people have always known that the Dem leadership is a criminal gang. As the Rep leadership, if this makes you happy. Thanks for admitting fighting against those who distribute the truth about that criminal gang. You prefer if the Brits torture Assange to death, or want him extradited to murder him in the US prison system? Except that it is not an error, and you have not provided any counterarguments. And common truths reveal nothing. BTW, for simple yes/no questions even a common error also reveals nothing. Fake bank accounts opened in the name of stolen identities is, in fact, considered to be a sufficiently serious crime, because this is something used by organized crime. In a civilized society, like the old Swiss, it would be completely legal to have pseudonymous bank accounts. What has been done in this case was, instead, harmless. They have received payments from the advertisers for doing what those advertisers have expected. A classical case of a crime without a victim, not? What remains beyond this, was simply distributing political opinions by a group of foreign people.
It is an error - a very silly, foolish, flagrant one. There is only one source for such folly, and that is the Republican media feed. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt - assuming you are not lying wholesale, but are instead posting in ignorance as you have so often in the past. Not nearly as criminal, or as much of a gang, as the entire Republican Party - leadership, rank and file, and corporate support; the entire thing. Your false equivalence there is of course yet another parroting of the Republican media feed. I do. Waste of time in your case - You can't correct them or learn from them, and as I have noted before they come in handy as examples, evidence, etc. You are rare in having no reality base whatsoever - you are willing to post absolutely anything fed to you by the US marketing pros, where most Rep feed parrots have some basis in US reality and will not post in conflict with what they know. Like this: You haven't read the Mueller report. Instead, you parrot a media feed that everyone who has read the report now can see for what it is - thanks to you and the lads. That's true - I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. You might be lying, instead of ignorant. Mob bosses behave like Trump whether they are secure or not. Americans know such things from experience - in America organized crime is often honestly prosecuted, and courtroom proceedings are public. You have no source of facts to describe. You did. Now you don't. You have reversed yourself like that several times, on various topics (whether or not you support Trump, etc). Yep - my favorite so far was your presenting exactly one issue of the New York Times as evidence of pro-Clinton bias throughout the 2016 campaign, and then getting the bias in that one issue backwards - it was anti-Clinton. Like everyone else parroting the Republican media feed, either you have not read the Mueller report, or you are a flat out liar. Choose.
I disposed of everything which was simply the stupid repetition of "you know nothing/parrot" without any evidence. What remains are two lies about what I wrote: Given that this claim is not supported by any quote, it has to be qualified automatically as a lie. In this case, it is a minor issue, in principle you could have a chance to find some quote out of context to support your claim, given that the Syrian terrorist war was started with a failed attempt of a color revolution, and the Western media have continued to present it this way at a time when it was already a full-scale terrorist war on the ground. Moreover, I supported Trump at less evil in comparison with Clinton, and this "support" based on "less-evil" remains, and will remain as long as those proposed as a replacement for Trump are criminal warmongers. So, if Tulsi Gabbard wins the primaries, which seems highly unlikely, I will support her. Given that after an impeachment we would get Pence as the president, I do not support impeachment for the same reason. But I have never been a supporter of Trump in the usual meaning of "Trump supporter" in the US. This is already an open lie, I have checked the headlines for a whole week. Together with the fact that you have not questioned my classification as pro-Trump resp. pro-Clinton for any of the articles in this week. The key question I have asked, where my argument was based on the explicit reading of the indictment against the 13 Russian bots, remained unanswered: What makes the difference between the 13 bots and simply me with some friend posting political statements about US elections here, if we ignore the stolen personal data and the bank accounts opened based on these stolen personal data? What would prevent Mueller from writing a similar indictment against me beyond the trivial points that I do not conspire with some friend and a simple lack of interest? This question I have asked at the time when the indictment against the 13 bots was discussed and remained unanswered. It remains unanswered today too. Obviously reading the Mueller report has not given you any arguments which would make a difference. The question if iceaura prefers if the Brits torture Assange to death or if this would better be done after the extradition to the US remains unanswered too.
He can tell what you do and don't know based on the propaganda you post and the ways you stretch the truth beyond the breaking point in order to justify it. Just like how you pretend to do a self-consistency check on the bullshit you copy and paste from Russian state news, and the independent claims you consistently dismiss without analysis.
BTW, there is some news about the 13 bots, which, according to a new study, influenced nobody: Of course, this is what has to be expected, given that the intention to influence is itself a propaganda fantasy. https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/...d-not-sow-discord-they-influenced-no-one.html nicely summarizes this: The facts on the ground give no indication at all about anything different And this was clear to everybody who has really read the indictment: This is how US law looks actually. You run a commercial operation and get a political indictment for conspiracy against the US, once this is useful for some guys in the deep state. Of course, this is what one expects after reading "three felonies a day".
perhaps a throw away line... perhaps more an indication of your foolishness. So to make it clear , you wish more corruption on a nation that has the worlds greatest military power, nuclear weapons to destroy the planet and financial leverage in just about every bank? You wish there be more corruption? Do you even know what the word corruption means? Oh of course not... not when corruption is considered the norm like it is in Russia....
[#FileUnderDuh] You probably should have read the study, instead: We conclude by discussing several important limitations of our study—especially our inability to determine whether IRA accounts influenced the 2016 presidential election—as well as its implications for future research on social media influence campaigns, political polarization, and computational social science. (Bail et al.↱) Additionally, there is a question of how we define influence; when the question, as such, is efforts to sow discord, we might also wonder what that actually means. If, "Russian trolls might have failed to sow discord because they mostly interacted with those who were already highly polarized", we consider the standard of sowing discord in some dimension of actually creating new disagreement and enmity between people, and this was already a problematic aspect of the American market. Asymmetric polarization in recent years has built powerful divisions between individuals. If, by the study description, "Russian trolls" on Twitter "failed to sow discord" between myself and others because we "were already highly polarized", then, sure, that sounds about right. However, what the study does not measure is what we might be polarized about. Once upon a time, a conservative I know who happens to be a bit toward extreme in a time when rightist extremity wasn't really considered so extreme, was just as racist and tinfoil-conspiracist as ever, but at least his disgraceful potsherds were American-made. So, sure, we were already polarized. However, we weren't disputing over imported anti-institutionalism that does not hold consistent in its own context, to begin with, and, furthermore, is actually antithetical to the blustery, self-righteous façades of traditional, American rightist justification. In that context, sure, whenever the stupid flocked densely enough and trended hard enough that the discourse took any time for it at all, quite clearly the troll campaign had and continues to have influence; this study just doesn't measure for that. Additionally, we might note various limitations of the study, including the specialized definitions of particular political behviors, the acknowledged lack of representation of general American population, and even the point of social media data only coming from Twitter, and, yes, these are all important considerations in what the study does say, but one thing it does not conclude is that bot campaigns "influenced nobody" in the 2016 election. It is possible that trolls have a stronger influence on political independents or those more detached from politics in general (though we did not observe significant effects among those whoexpressed weak attachments to either party). Our study was also limited to the United States, whereas reports indicate that the IRA is active in many other countries as well. Finally, our analysis only examines Twitter. Though Twitter remains one of themore influential social-media platforms in the United States at the time of this writing—and was targeted by the Russian IRA far more than other social-media platforms—it has a substantially smaller user base than Facebook and offers a unique, and highly public, form of social-media engagement to its users. It is thus possible that Russian influence might have been more pronounced on other platforms with other types of audiences or other structures for user engagement. (Bail et al.) We should also note, the authors come right out and say, "the observational nature of our study prevents rigorous identification of the causal impact of the IRA campaign". One line standout line notes, "the American public is not a tabula rasa and may not be easily manipulated by propaganda", but this also precedes a technical problem, that, "on average, just 0.1% of [active partisan users'] liking, mentioning, and retweeting on Twitter", and reflecting, "That interactions with trolls were such a small fraction of all Twitter engagements may further explain why we observed null effects above". The last three paragraphs of the paper are downright amazing, with the highlight explaining, "In other words, Russian trolls may not have significantly polarized the American public because they mostly interacted with those who were already polarized". And while we can file that under, Duh, the failure to polarize people who were already generally polarizeed is a far cry from influencing nobody. Beyond that, "We conclude by noting important implications of our study for future research on social media, political polarization, and computational social science." It really is a gem of a paragraph. The entire conclusion, which stretches across four pages, broken up by graphs, is a technical study in admitting that one's study is a disappointingly uninformative result. And, in any case, it pertains to late 2017, with responses to Internet Research Agency efforts occurring within a different behavioral economy than during the 2016 election. ____________________ Notes: Bail, Christopher A., et al. "Assessing the Russian Internet Research Agency's impact on the political attitudes and behaviors of American Twitter users in late 2017". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 22 October 2019. PNAS.org. 29 November 2019. http://bit.ly/34HWErq
Yes, because corruption leads to a loss of power. And it is important for the peace of the world that this aggressive state loses its power as fast as possible. A high level of corruption means that a lot of government money will not be used for evil purposes of aggressive states, but end in the pockets of the corrupt state bureaucracy and the firms which make big profits. Are you completely off? I have seen enough corruption in various countries. BTW, not in Russia, but in Ukraine and Aserbaidshan and also in a lot of other countries. Ok, during the Yeltsin time when corruption was really the norm in Russia I simply have been in Russia only a very short time, for a scientific conference. When I visited it for a longer time, it was 2008 and the worst of corruption in everyday life was already gone. The region which is actually considered one of the worst regarding corruption is Crimea - simply because a lot of corrupt Ukrainian politicians have switched sides and are now pro-Russian patriots, but remained corrupt. This needs time. Sometimes low-level corruption has good sides too, especially if the laws are horrible and unjust. If the police would not be corrupt, that would create a GULAG of a horrible size. With corrupt police, the penalties remain bounded by a bribe. Given the size of the US GULAG, US Americans actually do not see this positive side of corruption. LOL, of course, every such study has limitations and is obliged to discuss them. Why would bots who try to collect as many followers as possible start something new? They repeat what is already popular in the targeted group. "Sow discord" was simply the best they could make up given that they did not care at all about supporting some particular political position. Of course, you have no evidence at all for your "new disagreement and enmity". The study tried to identify some influence and failed. As expected, for those who have understood that this is only commercial click-baiting for advertizing, and whatever it influences will be only probably unintended side effects.
Yeah because we all know Russia was a complete non-factor in the whole run-up to the election, aside from some comment along the lines of "I hope the Russians help me find Hillary's used tampons" or whatever it was.
I would say, please tell me you're not attempting that ridiculous sleight, but it's actually a tossup. It's one thing to observe what you didn't include from the paragraph you quoted for that point of response, but on this occasion it also happens to be important to note what it said: • Additionally, there is a question of how we define influence; when the question, as such, is efforts to sow discord, we might also wonder what that actually means. If, "Russian trolls might have failed to sow discord because they mostly interacted with those who were already highly polarized", we consider the standard of sowing discord in some dimension of actually creating new disagreement and enmity between people, and this was already a problematic aspect of the American market. Asymmetric polarization in recent years has built powerful divisions between individuals. If, by the study description, "Russian trolls" on Twitter "failed to sow discord" between myself and others because we "were already highly polarized", then, sure, that sounds about right. (#956↑, italic accent added) Those two sentences are kind of important, since their omission from what you quoted happens to be what you missed according to a pretense that I gave "no evidence at all" for "new disagreement and enmity". More directly: Your complaint, that I have no evidence at all for something I do not claim, is your own make-believe. Meanwhile, your deflecting pretense is ridiculous: When we strip away the variable, i.e., bots, the underlying question is why would an influence operation "start something new". There is an American saying that there are no stupid questions, but it persists these days more as a joke, because, as the cynicism observes, people ask plenty of otherwise untenable questions by which we must presume them extraordinarily, if not downright unbelievably, uninformed. Why would an influence operation try to start something new? File under, Duh: It's an influence operation. This wasn't for a lark. And they gave their reasons for not finding compelling evidence of the particular influence they sought. Again, file under, Duh: Influence is the point of advertising. If "whatever it influences" is some range of "accidental side effects", then the advertisers are doing it wrong. It's kind of like the arguments we see and hear in defense of Donald Trump: The particular ignorance required for your pitch, and concomitant suspension of disbelief obliged of the audience, are simply unbelievable. • • • What stands out about our neighbor's post at #933↑ is the pretense of naïveté: "The only point would be that the harm corruption causes to the state is something positive for the world as a whole." There comes a point at which, sure, the reason why is probably important, but no explanation will excuse such a low ethic. To wit: Is he really that stupid? Well, it probably depends on what we mean by stupid. As an accidental result, the outcome signifies what it will; as an intentional result, well, again, the outcome signifies what it will; neither aspect, however, fails to describe dysfunction.
