patrick.net

The Russian thing is going to blow up in the left's face. Give it some time.

CBOEtrader says

If the treason formula is hacking other countries' govt leaders PLUS influencing their elections, isn't the US/CIA playing the role of Russia/Putin in every election around the world?

No. Obama and his administration had a lot of 'favorites' in various elections, but we never hacked into the computer systems of the political opponents and then released that information to the world. If we did, you would have a good point. That is what Russia is accused of. No credible people are arguing against that conclusion, although there are conspiracies that Obama had the US intel community do it and frame Russia. Those are analogous to the 9/11 conspiracies that blame the US for bringing down the towers. If Trump had colluded with the Russians and given them a promise of a quid pro quo for helping get him elected, that would be treason. There is not enough proof of this to act. Otherwise, he would have been impeached by now. If enough direct evidence of this is found, he will be impeached. If not, it will blow over. There will be an effort to prevent Russia from influence elections in this way in the future. According to reports, he's doing it in many other countries as well, so the matter is somewhat urgent.

You wanted to know where the treason was. If Trump had hacked into the DNC and Clinton campaign directly and released that information, it would be Watergate 2.0. If he outsourced that to Russia using favorable policy as a quid pro quo, that would be Treason (selling out US interests in trade for having a foreign government commit a crime in the US to cheat in an election). I call it cheating, because it is going outside of the normal rules and involves illegal actions.

NPR is belly aching that districts are unfair because the believe Conservatives are rigging the Gerry Mandering. So they propose the Democrats need to bus Liberals into those districts to vote for new Democrats who get to redraw the map. You know because that kind of shit doesn't sit right with them.

They have conservative counter argument guests now(Isn't that cute?) The conservative guest suggested rather than breaking the system why not just impose term limits so those Gerry Mandering never get to realize the fruits of their efforts. To which the OneA Liberal Presenter said, Yeah, good Idea, then we can get people in that represent us better, and they can pass laws to change the Electorate and redistricting system.

They don't want Fair, they want a Guarantee.

Ironman says

There you go folks, it doesn't get anymore definitive then that!!! Trump's GUILTY

If you read my post and had a non-zero ability to comprehend English, you would see that I never said that Trump was guilty. I was merely discussing a hypothetical, because the OP asked a question about said hypothetical.

You are one of the most emotional debaters I have ever come across.

It's treason if you are using foreign support to attack and defeat domestic democratic norms (hacking). It's treason if you give state secrets to a foreign power (leaking).

You don't commit treason by acts against a foreign state. Treason is committed against your own country.

The CIA and FBI are continually putting America First by action, not just words. If this really was a non-issue, if there was nothing to hide, now would be the time a smarter administration would help install an independent investigation to clear the air. Looks like we will not be able to count on impartiality from the House side. Thankfully there is a parallel investigation in the Senate.

Once again though, America seems to also be looking to the FBI, to save it. These are the absolute craziest times in my living memory.

Thank god for our institutions.

Hater says

How do you know? Obama hacked Merkel's phone. Do you really think he would not hack Trump?

One of those is against the law and the other isn't. Did he publish the contents of Merkel's phone call? That is the part that Obama didn't do and Russia did. That's the line that was crossed, whether they did it publicly or through a 3rd party.

Hater says

But he didn't.

That's right. If he did, he would be in jail. Also of interest would be if he colluded with the Russians to do it. That would be treason. Like I said in my first post, there is not enough evidence to convict him. Otherwise the impeachment process would have started.

Do any of you disagree with these basic facts or are you just going to keep arguing against something that I never said?

So many ifs ... so much of the optics look awful. Gosh. If I was innocent I would appoint an independent investigation to help clear me.

Hillary has no remaining direct power over the course America sets. The President should be the priority right now.

Hater, facts are in very short supply. Let's go get some. Appoint an independent investigation.

YesYNot says

No credible people are arguing against that conclusion

Source? No "credible" person says they know this happened. In fact, all "credible" people I've seen have reported zero hard evidence.

Rew says

It's treason if you are using foreign support to attack and defeat domestic democratic norms (hacking).

Ok. Currently there is zero evidence Trump did this. Do we agree? The "foreign support" is the applicable word choice.

What if the "foreign support" was a $billionaire owner of a MSM outlet that leaked your domestic intelligence illegally? Is that also considered treason? There is proof of this happening.

YesYNot says

Hater says

How do you know? Obama hacked Merkel's phone. Do you really think he would not hack Trump?

One of those is against the law and the other isn't.

Is it also not against the law when Putin does it to Hillary Clinton? Or is it an act of war? It cant be both.

YesYNot says

That is the part that Obama didn't do and Russia did. That's the line that was crossed, whether they did it publicly or through a 3rd party.

Wrong

Someone leaked intelligence from within the Obama administration. Fact. Is Obama guilty of treason?

Right there is currently zero evidence. We are at the point in the story where we have suspects and lots of bad looking circumstances, operunity, and motive.

The more there appears to be a cover up and delays, the more people will be interested, the more it looks like there is fire behind all the smoke.

Gosh. What could Trump do? What to do ... what to do?

Let's keep Nunes on it! (laugh)

CBOEtrader says

Source? No "credible" person says they know this happened. In fact, all "credible" people I've seen have reported zero hard evidence.

Not even Trump is arguing against this.

CBOEtrader says

Is it also not against the law when Putin does it to Hillary Clinton? Or is it an act of war? It cant be both

Yes. It can be both. If a Russian in the US did this, it would be a crime. If the Russian intel community does this from Russia, it's a demonstration of power and a big fuck you to the US. Is it an act of war? Well, it's not the same with shooting down a plane. I'd agree with that. What about breaking nuclear treaties? Is that an act of war? That becomes a game of semantics. They are both an escalation of demonstration of power and increase the 'cold war' that is based on increasing world influence mostly for monetary gains. I think to prosecute the Russian actions, it would have to be done under international law.

CBOEtrader says

Someone leaked intelligence from within the Obama administration. Fact. Is Obama guilty of treason?

It could be treason. OTOH, if they are blowing a whistle on someone else committing treason, then they would probably get a pass. Last I heard, the Trump administration thought that the leak was the head of the RNC (Katie Walsh). I'm guessing that you mean not redacting the names of Trump's associates in intel reports. Those wouldn't be leaks, but that would be against the law as well. To be treason, you would have to show that it was bad for the country.

Rew says

Right there is currently zero evidence.

Of course there is evidence. Even Trump's buddy Nunes admitted that there was circumstantial evidence by failing to deny it. Schiff said that there was direct evidence as well. But there is obviously a lack of enough evidence to prove a case. Flynn has already admitted to omitting multiple payments from Russia. One or two could be an oversight. Three or four unreported payments was probably not a mistake.

Our USA government helps foreign dictators both come to power and stay in power ALL THE TIME! It's called "foreign aid" and we give it mostly to governments which are oppressing their people and have unrepresentative government. Why? Because buying off a dictator for oil contracts or to vote a certain way on the UN Security Council is much easier than bribing a democratically elected ruler whose constituents will vote him out of office should he make too many bad or selfish decisions. By giving millions or billions to foreign powers, we enable them to entrench themselves, enrich the people in their power structure, and pay for more military to further oppress their people.
This couldn't be further from fair play, and the USA is directly responsible for many many despots around the world.

Even IF Russia was behind the DNC hack that exposed vile corruption and election tampering if the lowest sort, costing the Democrat party votes from disgusted voters, it would be an action that is mild as milk water compared to the outright king making the USA has engaged in for the past century.

Destroying America is TREASON!
Democratic & Republican voters should face a firing squad.

In my county, the local unions take money paid through all taxpayers, and pay $100K to local democratic candidates. Each time. So we use publicly paid funds to back cartels that support the millionaire Public Workers (not all $e6-aires, but many with > $80K/year eternal pensions. 12.2 x $80K= $1e6.

Even if Russias ran ads and did calls on behalf of Trump, the purchasing of elections is in the realm of Democrats 9X%.

Ironman says

Can you say Seth Rich (is he Russian?)?

Since Hillary was probably behind his murder, the media won't even say this guy's name! Any mention of his leak and subsequent killing in the park in a "mugging" that left behind his wallet is absolutely ignored by Leftists!

Which is why they keep pounding away at the Russian narrative, trying to make believe they know something whilst conjuring alternative facts out of rumor, innuendo, and suggestion.

YesYNot says

To be treason, you would have to show that it was bad for the country.

By the definition of current use, we just have to show it was used to affect an election.

If Obama tried to gain political power for his friends by unmasking Trump, that is treason?

lostand confused says

The Russian thing is going to blow up in the left's face. Give it some time.

Susan Rice.

Other foreigners who openly interfered with the Election:
Tony Blair (ex-PM UK, multimillion dollar consultant to dictators)
Angela Merkel (ex-Stassi-cum-"Conservative" in mere weeks PM of Germany)
Francois Hollande
Premier Xi of China
Der Spiegel
Le Monde
The Guardian
BBC
etc. etc. etc.

CBOEtrader says

If Obama tried to gain political power for his friends by unmasking Trump, that is treason?

If Obama had spied on Trump and released the information publicly to influence the election, that would be classified as Treason. Trump and associates were not unmasked prior to the election, which is pretty much proof that Obama wasn't using it to impact the election. Reports are that Comey wanted to tell the public about the investigation of Trump regarding Russia, but that Obama prevented him from doing it. Why would he doing this if he were spying on Trump to help Hillary win the election?

Don't you guys see that Trump is just blatantly accusing Obama of what he is being accused of to muddy the waters and make it seem like a political witch hunt? The two accusations do not have equal validity. That's why one is being treated seriously and the other is being called out as a blatant lie. It's not a plot by the deep state. It's just reality.

Trump getting elected wasn't treason and democrats need to get off that talking point. Democrats made a lot of mistakes... And were far too over confident. 1). Bernie should have accepted and been put on the VP ticket automatically.... A divisive primary killed the democratic momentum and divided the party. 2). ACA care should never have been touted as an accomplishment... It should have been touted as a compromise that had lots of problems that Clinton and Bernie were going to fix... With clear plan to cap costs for middle class Americans. 3) Come out and say abortion is an unfortunate choice that society should work to avoid... Don't come across as an unrepentant baby killer... Give the pro-lifers an olive branch. I would say as much as 20% of Trump voters voted for the Republican abortion stance as the only issue that mattered to them. You might have pulled a few percent to the democratic side if Hillary didn't position her self as uncaring of fetuses. Her response during the debate killed any chances of gaining any pro-lifers who are democratic on other views. Hillary would never have lost the feminist vote had she showed compassion for fetuses.. Cause they know the alternative was Trump.

Trump was playing dirty and lying to get elected.. Democrats needed to do the same.

BoomAndBustCycle says

Trump getting elected wasn't treason and democrats need to get off that talking point.

'Trump getting elected = treason' is not anybody's talking point.BoomAndBustCycle says

Come out and say abortion is an unfortunate choice that society should work to avoid... Don't come across as an unrepentant baby killer.

Nobody cheers abortion. The left decreases abortions by providing family planning. The right increases the amount of abortions by making birth control harder to come by while losing the battle on abortion legality. The right tries to decrease the number of abortions by making it illegal. Finally, fetuses are not babies. Call them unborn if you prefer that term, but calling them babies is just wrong. The only people who think liberals are unrepentant baby killers have drunk some seriously bogus Kool aide.

CBOEtrader says

There is near unanimous agreement that the tool used to hack the DNC is well-known russian code. As per wikileaks, the CIA practices leaving fingerprints of any country, including but not limited to the code and code comments known to be used by Russia.

Can someone help me to understand how an investigator that identifies a particular tool was used, to hack into a network or a computer,might be able to see the code or the code comments ?

Sounds like a pretty neat trick.

CBOEtrader says

If Russia actually hacked DNC servers they'd be happy to let the FBI investigate rather than the 1-day Cyberstrike con job.

YUP.

And the DNC would have thrust the Servers into the FBI (and CIA and NSA and countless volunteer Cybersecurity Pro's) hands and begged them to show the world the evidence. The assessment (an opinion, not a conclusion) that Russia hacked the DNC is WHOLLY based on Crowdstrike's report, itself not including raw data. Also, you'd think if the Russians were so badass they'd use VPNs.

Something Marco Rubio, who sits on National Security related committees, seemed to not know what that was.

CBOEtrader says

Also, Wikileaks who has so far never knowingly lied, says Russia is not their source.

Nor are any of their documents contested.

CBOEtrader says

There is zero to little evidence thus far that Russian hacking/leaking/collusion is even a remotely likely story.

All of it is conspiracy theory nonsense.

Kerry lost, and this happened in 2004. Yes, there are vulnerability on some machines. Problem is many swing states have paper ballots and if there has been ANY convincing indication of tampering the ballots for Trump (even if perp unknown) we'd have heard about it every day for the past months.

BoomAndBustCycle says

Trump getting elected wasn't treason and democrats need to get off that talking point. Democrats made a lot of mistakes... And were far too over confident. 1). Bernie should have accepted and been put on the VP ticket automatically.... A divisive primary killed the democratic momentum and divided the party. 2). ACA care should never have been touted as an accomplishment... It should have been touted as a compromise that had lots of problems that Clinton and Bernie were going to fix... With clear plan to cap costs for middle class Americans. 3) Come out and say abortion is an unfortunate choice that society should work to avoid... Don't come across as an unrepentant baby killer... Give the pro-lifers an olive branch. I would say as much as 20% of Trump voters voted for the Republican abortion stance as the only issue that mattered to them. You might have pulled a few percent to the democratic side if Hillary didn't position her self as uncaring of fetuses. Her response during ...

Here here! Doing 1-3 might have been the ticket...... But they did not work in the best interests of America. Let hope Trump will.

Trump has been investigated more than any POTUS since Richard Nixon, and for far less reason. Despite this, all the investigators have produced was a clip of him and Billy Bush talking about getting pussy. Soooo he's basically like every other guy ever.
Right.
The globalists were priming us for a conflict with Russia by media propaganda for a good couple years before this election started. Overall the American people were unimpressed, and this was very frustrating for the oligarchs pushing it. So when Trump won the nomination they thought surely some of that propaganda could be put to use in saying he's a Russian plant! The Russians are helping him because they don't want war!

That's about when those of us with a cortex say back and said, "wait a tic, I don't want war with a nuclear superpower either! Why would I? If Trump is against this, Hillary seems to be for it, why the hell would I vote for her? Who cares if he's a damned realtor? I don't want my kids growing up dealing with radiation poisoning!"

And that's when she lost.

The tone deaf nature of the Leftists means they don't understand that they are flogging a dead horse that is so fucking dead it's rotten! And they are splattering everyone with rancid meat and putrefaction. Nobody appreciates it, and people are either tuning out from news completely or getting pissed off about their rhetoric.

Tim Aurora says

Between the 17 intel agencies vs Trump, I would trust our 17 intel agencies.

You are wrong.

Tell us: what do these 17 agencies agree on exactly and please provide a source? Anonymous quotes in an article don't count.

The agencies agree that despite multiple investigations, there is currently no hard evidence Russia hacked the DNC, or leaked to wikileaks, or collaborated with trump.

Ironman says

YesYNot says

If

YesYNot says

If

YesYNot says

If

YesYNot says

If

There you go folks, it doesn't get anymore definitive then that!!! Trump's GUILTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-03/top-obama-adviser-sought-names-of-trump-associates-in-intel

Its becoming more and more clear that Obama's administration abused power for political gain. Rice is a proven liar.

Here we have evidence of actual felonies. Real life crimes as opposed to the treason fever dreams.

Do you think same DNC that cheated Bernie, that secretly planted fake protesters at Trump events, that won't allow the FBI to examine their server which Russia so obviously hacked, and lied about the unmasking would suddenly start telling the truth when it comes to Russia/Trump collusion?

You have to be a special breed of stupid to still believe this narrative.

joshuatrio says

Well said.

Another genius who doesn't know what a conditional statement is. You guys are wicked smart.