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**jdshock** · July 17, 2018, 02:12 PM

Originally posted by SB Shock View Post

The US intelligence community unanimously agreed Saddam was still developing weapons of mass destruction.

Well, first of all, that's not really true. The Select Committee on Intelligence found that statements that WMD's were in Iraq "did not convey the substantial disagreements that existed in the intelligence community."

But yeah, I mean let's assume that is the case, if Bush had been going around saying "sure, everyone thinks they have WMD's, but I trust ol' Saddam." we would have been losing our collective minds. And for good reason! Even though he would've ended up being right. The same is true here. Even if Russia didn't have anything to do with anything, we should be paying particular attention to the one guy who disagrees with every single other expert.

Originally posted by SB Shock View Post

Being that said - why would you not think Russia is trying to influence our elections? It been that way my whole life.

Unresponsive. This is not the topic at hand. Trump could've said that. He didn't. He said he doesn't think they did anything.

**ShockerPrez** · July 17, 2018, 02:32 PM

Trump should have told Vlad to cut it out!

**WuDrWu** · July 17, 2018, 02:35 PM

Serious question, and please don't misunderstand as I am not asking this as a defense of or for the President, but as it's widely circulated that the "attack" "meddling" whatever you want to call it was initiated in Russia, are we also equally certain that the man behind the curtain is the Russian government, and not just Russian hackers? I'm not suggesting this, but having dealt with several dozen Russians, personally, and just talking about email hackers (not in any way claiming this is the same thing) I am certain that a lot of hacking originates in Russia that has nothing to do with Putin or their government in general, and I do not know all the details of what "we" know here.

Now, just a thought jdshock while I agree that the absurdity level is high right now, perhaps the current Narcissist in Chief would NOT be spending 24 hours a day trying to "discredit" the investigation if the Media and the left weren't trying 24/7/365 to prove that he was involved, when it's been said many many times over that NO evidence of collusion exists.

**WstateU** · July 17, 2018, 02:59 PM

Hillary might have been right...

151rwi.jpg

**kcshocker** · July 17, 2018, 03:05 PM

How can anyone still defend anything that Trump says or does? That boy has gone off the deep end.

**WuDrWu** · July 17, 2018, 03:07 PM

jdshock fair enough, and thank you for the link. There's no persuading me, I'm just asking questions.

To be honest, I really don't care what politicians say, because I don't think they are generally as smart as you (or I for that matter) when it comes to understanding what happens. They are outstanding at spinning it their way however, and deflecting all blame everywhere but onto them.

I hear you on letting it run it's course....I think it has but whatever. I get these things can go on for years. Let me just say/ask this. Do you really think the Russians changed the election? The left had an AWFUL candidate. This was a WWE SummerSlam of terrible choices. I don't believe they affected the outcome, and if by chance they changed someone's mind, then shame on us for being gullible. But in all seriousness, do you believe any of this is good for the country? It's a MONUMENTAL waste of time, energy, resources and every day it goes on it further divides our country. And again I will ask the question, do you really believe they changed the outcome?

Next election cycle is going to be worse, and everyone knows it, from the standpoint of social media interference. You aren't going to stop it. Agreed? If we want to keep fighting, I guess we can keep fighting, I just don't see a winner, except the Russians.

**jdshock** · July 17, 2018, 03:40 PM

Originally posted by WuDrWu View Post

jdshock fair enough, and thank you for the link. There's no persuading me, I'm just asking questions.

To be honest, I really don't care what politicians say, because I don't think they are generally as smart as you (or I for that matter) when it comes to understanding what happens. They are outstanding at spinning it their way however, and deflecting all blame everywhere but onto them.

I hear you on letting it run it's course....I think it has but whatever. I get these things can go on for years. Let me just say/ask this. Do you really think the Russians changed the election? The left had an AWFUL candidate. This was a WWE SummerSlam of terrible choices. I don't believe they affected the outcome, and if by chance they changed someone's mind, then shame on us for being gullible. But in all seriousness, do you believe any of this is good for the country? It's a MONUMENTAL waste of time, energy, resources and every day it goes on it further divides our country. And again I will ask the question, do you really believe they changed the outcome?

Next election cycle is going to be worse, and everyone knows it, from the standpoint of social media interference. You aren't going to stop it. Agreed? If we want to keep fighting, I guess we can keep fighting, I just don't see a winner, except the Russians.

I think it's incredibly unlikely it changed the election. I mean, maybe? Contrary to some popular opinion, it was a remarkably close election. Comey coming out two weeks before the election and saying they were re-opening the investigation into Clinton probably had a bigger effect. Wholeheartedly agree about her being a bad candidate, or at least a bad candidate for this particular time in history. Not just a bad candidate, though. I actually think she could've won against someone like Cruz or Rubio, honestly. Trump was the worst case scenario for Clinton. His whole shtick (drain the swamp, etc.) was a direct criticism of her.

As for if I think it's good for the country: probably not, but I think letting it go is worse. I've been thinking about it a lot because I actually think Kavanaugh makes a good point about presidents when he says they shouldn't be subject to criminal investigations while in office. He basically says their role is too hard and too important to let them get distracted by these kinds of things. And I buy that, but it's our only option unless we're willing to impeach presidents much, much sooner in the process. If we're not willing to impeach presidents sooner, then our only option is a thorough criminal investigation during times like these. I hope we can all agree that if we had definitive evidence that Trump worked with Russian government officials to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election, he should be impeached.

Without the investigation, both sides are stuck saying "well, we'd be unified if you just joined my side of the argument!" Ideally, we accept the findings of Mueller's office regardless of what they find (and I think it's probably less than a 50/50 that Mueller finds any wrongdoing on Trump's part).

Lastly, Russia wouldn't be a winner if Trump treated the situation like everyone on here treated it. If Trump came out and said "Russia meddled in our 2016 elections. That is unacceptable. Democrats have taken it too far. Ultimately, I'm sure the Mueller investigation will show no wrongdoing on my part, but we can be certain that Russia did interfere in the elections."

The real crisis that I am worried about is the scenario that I think is becoming more and more likely. Mueller finds that Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey and/or lying to other folks or whatever. Democrats lose their minds calling for impeachment and Republicans completely ignore any such findings by saying the original investigation was on "collusion" so we should discredit any other findings.

**ShockingButTrue** · July 17, 2018, 03:56 PM

One Deplorable's insight: The FBI's reopening of the investigation, which McCabe sat on, had nothing to do with my opinion of that hag's worthiness, or not.

Letting her off on 7-5-16, considering its coming within days of the "tarmac" meeting between the acting AG and Bill, most definitely did. Could Not emphasize it enough. Nothing could change this depolorable's mind after that, or since, so far. But I have been entertained by all of the hysterics.

**jdshock** · July 17, 2018, 04:24 PM

As an absolutely hilarious update:

Trump has come out and said he meant to say the exact opposite of what he said yesterday (contrary to just about everything else he has ever said on the subject for the last two years).

Instead of saying he had no reason to believe it would've been Russia, he meant to say he had no reason to believe it wouldn't have been Russia. And despite having this one opportunity to try to win back people that he lost yesterday, he said:

And I have felt very strongly that, while Russia's actions had no impact at all on the outcome of the election, let me be totally clear in saying that, and I have said this many times, I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place. It could be other people, also. There are lots of people out there

Which is awesome. He was 90% of the way to the clear, obvious choice (i.e., "Russia did it. It didn't impact the election, but they did it.") and then he decided to veer off the cliff and say it could've been a lot of other people too!

Source

**wufan** · July 17, 2018, 07:02 PM

Originally posted by kcshocker View Post

How can anyone still defend anything that Trump says or does? That boy has gone off the deep end.

There are things he says you can defend, and there are things he says that you can’t defend.

**wufan** · July 17, 2018, 07:09 PM

Originally posted by jdshock View Post

What? How? It's an attack on our democracy. It's an attack on our livelihood. Maybe there were no lives lost, but it was a cyber-attack, without a doubt. I would say any national security expert, government official (minus Trump), etc. would classify it as an attack. Do you have any that are saying it's not an "attack?"

Unresponsive. This is not the topic at hand. Trump is literally saying that he doesn't see any reason to believe it was Russia period.

Unresponsive. This is not the topic at hand. Trump is literally saying that he doesn't see any reason to believe it was Russia period. Obviously, I may disagree with whether or not it was "small potatoes" but the smaller the "potatoes" the more Trump should be willing to admit what happened.

This is all also unresponsive. We're just asking Trump to not spend 24 hours a day trying to discredit the investigation into what happened. That's the first thing that we should be trying to do. We can find out what they did and if Trump had anything to do with it.

What’s the topic? I thought the topic was whether or not the reaction of the left to the Russian meddling was appropriate. My response was that it wasn’t appropriate because there was NOT an attack against US citizens. If you want to use that metaphor, then it was like a couple of ISIS rejects talking it up in a bar, and when they were denied purchase of guns at their local spot info goods, they dropped it.

The left reaction is ridiculous.

Trumps comments are also ridiculous, but less so.

**Kung Wu** · July 18, 2018, 08:22 AM

Originally posted by jdshock View Post

Well, first of all, that's not really true. The Select Committee on Intelligence found that statements that WMD's were in Iraq "did not convey the substantial disagreements that existed in the intelligence community."

Not sure why you only included the conclusion regarding Nuclear Weapons?

The intelligence community unanimously agreed that Sadam had possession of Chemical and Biological weapons.

**SB Shock** · July 18, 2018, 09:33 AM

Putin responds to the Muehler indictments

Vladimir Putin: Last year there was one extradition case by the United States… Mueller can use this treaty as an official request to us… in this case this kind of effort should be a reciprocal one… For instance we can bring up Mr. Browder… They sent a huge amount of money $400,000 to Hillary Clinton! …So we have solid reason to believe that some [US] intelligence offers accompanied and guided these transactions. So we have an interest in questioning them.

**ShockingButTrue** · July 18, 2018, 11:24 AM

Originally posted by Kung Wu View Post

Not sure why you only included the conclusion regarding Nuclear Weapons?

The intelligence community unanimously agreed that Sadam had possession of Chemical and Biological weapons.

Precisely. The consequences of that intelligence dossier, which was apparently just an assumption, if not a bold lie, are still being felt today. Couple that along with 7-5-16, and it's clear why our President doesn't just blindly believe what he's being fed.

The President's intention on the world stage is to avoid WWIII, as shown here and in N. Korea. What's wrong with that kind of diplomacy? Did sanctions get lifted? Hasn't Germany been put on notice for purchasing a lot of their energy via the Nord Stream?

Wasn't it the President who decided to release the indictments, based upon intelligence, publicly before heading to Helsinki?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ome-pre-summit

**ShockerPrez** · July 18, 2018, 11:39 AM

I can't be sure who gave the order, but was Trump in the pocket of Putin when our special ops teams in Syria slaughtered a couple hundred Syrians and Russians a few months ago?

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