The Left’s great Russian conspiracy theory

[+Mirumir]

 

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The Left’s great Russian conspiracy theory

 

The chattering classes have officially lost it. On both sides of the Atlantic. Of course they’d been teetering on the cliff edge of sanity for a while, following the bruising of their beloved EU by 17m angry Brits and Hillary’s loss to that orange muppet they thought no one except rednecks would vote for. But now they’ve gone over. They’re falling fast. They’re speeding away from the world of logic into a cesspit of conspiracy and fear. It’s tragic. Or hilarious. One or the other.

 

Exhibit A: this week’s New Yorker. It’s mad. It captures wonderfully how the liberal-left has come to be polluted by the paranoid style of McCarthyist thinking since Trump’s victory. It’s a New Yorker for a future, dystopian America that’s been captured by the Evil Empire. The mag’s masthead is in Cyrillic and its famous dandy mascot — Eustace Tilley — has morphed into Putin. It’s now ‘Eustace Vladimirovich Tilley’. Inside the mag it’s even more feverish. A 13,000-word report, ‘Trump, Putin and the New Cold War’, is accompanied by a drawing of a deep-red, UFO-style Kremlin hovering over the White House and firing lasers into it. It’s CGI Hollywood meets House Un-American Activities in an orgy of liberal dread over Ruskies ruining the nation.

 

[More]

 

 

 

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They have vacated the world of reason. They’re in the land of the paranoid now, and they don’t even know it.

 

Has the Left lost its marbles over Russia? Freddy Gray and Michael Brendan Dougherty discuss:

 

[ctebah]

The "it's Obama's fault" is quickly turning into "it's the Russian's fault."

[+Mirumir]

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Dear, dear me. What has become of these people? They really believe Putin made Brexit happen? That Ruskies tampered with vote counts in the US? That Russian computer bots ‘read minds’? They’ve lost it. They’ve gone. The very people who for years talked about the problem of conspiracy theories have become the keenest spreaders of conspiracy theories.

Word.

[+Mirumir]

 

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Senator Calls Sessions’ Russia Denials a Jedi Mind Trick

 

Is Attorney General Jeff Sessions using the Force to distract Americans from Russia's connection to the Trump Administration?

 

Maine Senator Angus King, an Independent, said the attorney general's denial of improper contact with a Russian official is similar to a Jedi mind trick from Star Wars.

 

"The denials remind me of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the first Star Wars," King said on MSNBC Friday. "Remember where he says, 'These aren't the droids you're looking for,' and they go on by?

 

[+Zagadka]

They said Russia was a conspiracy before the election when Trump was literally asking Russia to hack a US government official.

They said Russia was a conspiracy after the election because of the downturn in support for Hillary after leaks that Trump called for.

They said Russia was a conspiracy after the first Trump cabinet member resigned over illegal connections to Russian authorities that he lied about.

They said Russia was a conspiracy after the second Trump member has had to recuse himself over illegal connections to Russian authorities that he lied about.

 

How many times does this have to happen before you admit that at the very least an independent investigation needs to be involved? You all called for literally several dozen investigations into Benghazi.

[Son_Of_Dad]

3 minutes ago, Zagadka said:

literally asking Russia to hack a US government official.

He was? How?

[+Zagadka]

Just now, Son_Of_Dad said:

He was? How?

 

[Son_Of_Dad]

4 minutes ago, Zagadka said:

the downturn in support for Hillary after leaks.

The media were covering how the leaks occurred more than the leaks occurring. Of coarse after WikiLeaks said "Not the Russian government. The left started questioning WikiLeaks on, sources and validity for the first time ever.

[Son_Of_Dad]

How, why, when did it become a crime for US officials to have contact with Russian officials?

[+Mirumir]

8 minutes ago, Zagadka said:

How many times does this have to happen before you admit that at the very least an independent investigation needs to be involved? 

I'm all for it. The sooner they release their findings the better.

[Son_Of_Dad]

3 minutes ago, Zagadka said:

 

Those are the emails on the non government email server which had been pushed under the rug so to speak?

[+Zagadka]

So you're fine with the President of the United States to ask Russians to hack private American politician's servers and publicize their e-mails?

 

Please. Hillary had a month of whining because she had a cold and was thus "unfit to serve office". If Hillary had even one tie to, say, China, and asked them to leak Trump's e-mails (he was a private citizen on a non-government server) she'd have been burned at the stake. Who knows what would happen if Trump's e-mails were exposed. He won't even submit tax returns that REPUBLICANS are demanding.

[Son_Of_Dad]

30 minutes ago, Zagadka said:

If Hillary had even one tie to, say, China, and asked them to leak Trump's e-mails (he was a private citizen on a non-government server) she'd have been burned at the stake.

What issue's of the leaked emails which were actually reported by a major news source actually impacted on the general public? As I said more time was spent on how the information came to light then what was actually provided. The media were spending more time on the women coming out of the woodwork saying Trump felt them up 20 years previously.

[+Zagadka]

Oh, I forgot, the news is all a massive conspiracy. That needs its own thread.

 

If you're saying that the email leaks had no news coverage... I have no idea where you were during October. It was the leading story for weeks leading up to the election, which coincided with poll numbers closing. The focus was on the leaks themselves rather than the content of the leaks because there was nothing interesting to report on (other than Pizzagate, of course), so the Republicans were forced to settle on the leaks themselves (which they called for and, in hindsight, seem to have been possibly complicit in) for the "lock her up" chant, ignoring whether the content of the leaks was relevant or not. It was brought up in debates.

 

You are all happy to, at the same time, jump all over covering up Flynn and Sessions' violations by saying they didn't leak info - but are unwilling to apply the same metrics you did for Hillary.

 

You even dismiss Pence's use of private mail, which, while not on the same legal scale as Hillary, is the exact same act in spirit. The calls that she risked secrets can easily be applied to Pence, who actually was hacked. If Hillary had been hacked and switched to an AOL account...

 

I see you are from Sydney, so maybe you had access to news we didn't in America. I'm not a democrat, I don't and never liked Hillary, I didn't vote for her, I agreed that her use of the private server was a severe risk and a severe violation. Even if I didn't, what she did has no impact on how illegal what the Trump administration has (so far) been caught complicit in.

 

I don't care who did it, I care that they face investigation. Lock her up, lock them up.

[theyarecomingforyou]

It's interesting that Russian involvement in US politics is supposedly a conspiracy yet time after time we see Trump and those in his cabinet lying and covering up their connections to Russia. At the very least they are dishonest politicians, at the very worst they're part of a conspiracy. An investigation is necessary to determine the reality, as that will bring to light further evidence.

[+Zagadka]

Apparently the swamp they wanted to drain was St. Petersburg. 

[Emn1ty]

7 hours ago, theyarecomingforyou said:

It's interesting that Russian involvement in US politics is supposedly a conspiracy yet time after time we see Trump and those in his cabinet lying and covering up their connections to Russia. At the very least they are dishonest politicians, at the very worst they're part of a conspiracy. An investigation is necessary to determine the reality, as that will bring to light further evidence.

I just find the likelihood of a conspiracy low, as it requires so many people to work together. If it was one or two people in Trump's administration... maybe. But it's becoming everyone. And when everyone is "in" on it, that's when conspiracies fall apart.

[theyarecomingforyou]

55 minutes ago, Emn1ty said:

I just find the likelihood of a conspiracy low, as it requires so many people to work together. If it was one or two people in Trump's administration... maybe. But it's becoming everyone. And when everyone is "in" on it, that's when conspiracies fall apart.

I think you're probably right. It seems unlikely to me that Trump personally coordinated with Putin to ensure he won the election, especially given his inability to contain sensitive information leaking from the White House. However, do I think that Putin deliberately interfered with the US election to favour Trump? Absolutely. The Russian media—which is state controlled—portrayed Trump is an overwhelmingly positive light and the hacks against Clinton bore the hallmarks of previous attacks by Russian hackers with ties to the Putin government. Further, Trump's advisers and cabinet members have numerous connections to Russia and they have deliberately lied/concealed that involvement. If they're lying under oath they're at the very least dishonest and unfit for office - at the worst they're corrupt and part of a conspiracy to undermine US sovereignty.

 

An investigation is necessary to shed light on any further evidence. When democracy is at stake this really can't be taken lightly or simply shrugged off. That investigation may turn up nothing, which will only reinforce the unlikeliness of a conspiracy, or it may confirm people's suspicions - either way it is the right thing to do.

[Melfster]

There should be Independent prosecutor appointed that will look into these matters. I don't see why Trump is unwilling to have one.  It could exonerate him unless he really is hiding something.

[protocol7]

14 hours ago, ctebah said:

The "it's Obama's fault" is quickly turning into "it's the Russian's fault."

It's all Twitter's fault.

[Hum]

the secret government is in control -- not Russia

[+Mirumir]

On 3/4/2017 at 0:14 PM, Zagadka said:

Oh, I forgot, the news is all a massive conspiracy.

The "innocent until proven guilty" principle appears to be a forgotten concept as well.

 

/looking forward to the official due process

 

 

[+Mirumir]

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But, at the end of the day, it’s Russia that hacked the US, in its drive to sow chaos in a country it sees as its rival, and to elect a friendly leader who would both pass amenable policies (like the potential lifting of sanctions) while feeding that very chaos.

 

Russia pulled off one of the greatest coups in history — and it’s getting away with it.

 

[T3X4S]

I am waiting to place judgement on Trump or any POTUS, until I see what kind of tax breaks I can get - everything else is just white noise IMO.

[+Mirumir]

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Russia: The Conspiracy Trap

 

I am, of course, merely pretending not to know what makes Russia so special. For more than six months now, Russia has served as a crutch for the American imagination. It is used to explain how Trump could have happened to us, and it is also called upon to give us hope. When the Russian conspiracy behind Trump is finally fully exposed, our national nightmare will be over.

 

The backbone of the rapidly yet endlessly developing Trump-Putin story is leaks from intelligence agencies, and this is its most troublesome aspect. Virtually none of the information can be independently corroborated.

 

Russia has become the universal rhetorical weapon of American politics. Calls for the release of Trump’s tax returns—which the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) hopes to have subpoenaed as a result of its lawsuit alleging the violation of the Emoluments Clause—are now framed in terms of the need to reveal Trump’s financial ties to Russia. And the president himself is recapturing the campaign debate’s “No, you are the puppet” moment on Twitter, trying to smear Democratic politicians Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi with Russia.

 

The dream fueling the Russia frenzy is that it will eventually create a dark enough cloud of suspicion around Trump that Congress will find the will and the grounds to impeach him. If that happens, it will have resulted largely from a media campaign orchestrated by members of the intelligence community—setting a dangerous political precedent that will have corrupted the public sphere and promoted paranoia. And that is the best-case outcome.

 

More likely, the Russia allegations will not bring down Trump. He may sacrifice more of his people, as he sacrificed Flynn, as further leaks discredit them. Various investigations may drag on for months, drowning out other, far more urgent issues. In the end, Congressional Republicans will likely conclude that their constituents don’t care enough about Trump’s Russian ties to warrant trying to impeach the Republican president. Meanwhile, while Russia continues to dominate the front pages...

 

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/03/06/trump-russia-conspiracy-trap/

 

 

 

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Democrats Now Demonize the Same Russia Policies that Obama Long Championed