Donald Trump’s fake election integrity commission is ignoring Russian hacking, the biggest, clearest, and best-documented threat to the integrity of our elections. As candidate and as White House occupant, Trump himself has downplayed, doubted, and outright rejected Russian election hacking as a hoax.
Yet when Trump signs the Russia sanctions bill (and the White House says he will), he will be affirming this Congressional finding:
On January 6, 2017, an assessment of the United States intelligence community entitled, “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections” stated, “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the United States presidential election.” The assessment warns that “Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the U.S. Presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against U.S. allies and their election processes” [H.R. 3364—”Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” Section 211(6), as approved by U.S. Senate, 2017.07.27].
This White House demonstrated that we cannot expect consistency in word or deed from the current Executive Branch. However, Donald Trump is about to sign into law the fact that even his new chief of staff admits: Russia, at least our second-greatest geopolitical rival, is trying to influence our elections to undermine American democracy.
Trump colluded with Russia. So did Hillary. What a couple of inferior candidates.
Porter, do I need to throw a false-equivalency flag at you?
Note this story isn’t about collusion; it’s about Russian interference in the election, regardless of non-Russian collaborators. The Congressional findings mention nothing about collusion; they focus solely on Russia’s sacntions-worthy effort to undermine Western democracy.
Maybe. I’ll make my case and you decide. The Russian hacking you mention in your first sentence was partially a result of collusion by Trump. Trump even gave his approval when Dem committee e-mails were stolen and released.
A Clinton staffer met several times with staff at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, DC to ask questions about Manafort, Russia and Trump. The staff apparently shared their information freely with her. This is more collusion, which you referenced above.
i.e. This is more collusion in retaliation to the hacking you referenced above.
either trump is not smart enough to realize the truth eventually comes out, or he is arrogant enough that he does not care if the truth comes out because he thinks he is rich enough that people will look the other way.
“Truth” is not necessarily an objective entity. For Trump, it’s an irrelevant entity.
Right on, Roger. Trump is used to cheating in business where no one cares except the competition, employees and sub-contractors you’ve cheated. But, when you cheat in politics you’re cheating the entire USA and there are people who’ve dedicated their lives and livelihoods to exposing, accounting for and demanding justice for said cheating. He’s used to getting away with what’s now hanging over his head … more and more every week.
Roger, I’ll go with the latter, arrogant disregard for the truth. As Bob suggests, Trump is the nihilist relativism writ large that Limbaugh Republicans in the ’90s said we Leftists were all about. Now it’s us Leftists fighting to defend the basic idea of certain fixed, absolute truths and basic principles (logical consistency, morality, the First Amendment) that all must follow, while it’s the right-wing Trump core that’s putting its Führer above all facts and principles.
Trump knows he’s not in a position of strength to veto sanctions against Russia yet. Either he won’t notice the finding in the bill he’s signing, or he’ll ignore it and change the subject if anyone asks.
Sunday funny and good news for Drumpf- Putin expelled 755 Americans from Russia in retaliation for new sanctions bill.
Monday tweets will have Drumpf touting he brought back nearly 800 jobs to America, Guarantee it.
Now that’s funny mike.
Cory writes:
Thought-provoking and essentially true.
Cory continues:
“mike from iowa” writes:
And our sanctions will help him secure support from the Russian people. Russian agents campaigned against Hillary Clinton on Twitter. If provoking World War III is the only recourse available, put me down in support of the veto.
Ron Paul writes:
Read the rest here:
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2017/july/24/trump-should-veto-congress-foolish-new-sanctions-bill/
Pat Buchanan writes:
http://buchanan.org/blog/russia-baiters-putin-haters-127344
Yet hostility to Russia and hatred of Putin seem to exceed anything some of us remember from the worst days of the Cold War…
Of a certainty Kurt and Buchanan dismiss the obvious- Drumpf’s love of and for Putin exceeds anyone’s memories and never before has a bogus potus admired and wanted to emulate a nasty foreign dictator, as does the Russian puppet-Drumpf.
“mike from iowa” writes:
I’m not dismissing the possibility that Trump admires Putin for the wrong reasons, and I’d be glad to see Congress limiting executive overreach if it weren’t engaging in overreach of its own.
Drumpf’s wretched excuse for an administration just got worser. Comics are suiing Drumpf to slow down the firings of officials. (TIC)
http://tinyurl.com/yakr4hmr
Who do the sanctions really hurt? Germany and the EU. Follow the oil money and you see why this sanctions deal stinks to high heaven with its dishonesty. It is written to sell American LNG for export to Europe. Not a new idea by any means, Clinton discussed her energy plan when she was running. The problem still is the cost. Germany and the EU would pay more for our LNG than they would on the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia into Germany and then to the rest of the EU.
trump did not sign the sanctions bill. It is in his pocket. We may call that a pocket veto that is never law. Tricky those cult republican dudes man, they like to lie and fool us.
Not yet, Jerry, but VP Pence told the Georgian PM today that Trump will sign the sanctions bill “very soon.”
When I used to take my youngest fishing and he would ask when are we gonna start catching fish..I would always tell him, very soon. Most of the time when he would ask that question it was because we were not gonna catch any fish. I am kinda thinking that this is the same case. trump is not gonna sign it.
trump signs the bill! The drama was killing the New Apprentice followers.
Gotta keep those ratings up with the cult.
But, trump is still beholding to putin. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/02/tillerson-isis-russia-propaganda-241218
Trump blames Congress for passing a bill that he signed surrendering authority in foreign policy that a stronger President could argue rightfully belongs to the Executive Branch.
Whew—and I was worried Trump would be an effective tyrant. Now he appears too self-absorbed and Twitter-obsessed to manage even that much evil.