For a guy who seems to get mad that people are saying he is a Russian puppet, he nominated a SOS which makes it seem like he is a Russian puppet.

There is definitely a lot of fair criticism regarding his cabinet choices. But again, I honestly can't remember a presidential cabinet ever receiving this type of scrutiny. I read someone complaining the other day that most of these guys donated to the Republican campaign. Who did they think Trump was going to appoint to his cabinet, Bernie Sanders supporters? There was the obvious promotion of the false idea that previous presidents simply looked beyond politics to pick "the best person for the job". As if Rahm Emanuel's ability as a Dem fundraiser didn't earn him the Chief of Staff job. Pamela Harriman was an ambassador for God's sake. It wasn't because she was an expert on Franco-American trade.

This is really the first move that indicates that Trump may just not have a clue about how he needs to operate as President.

I think there are a lot of things that suggest he has no idea. He is empowered by the way he ran his campaign, acting like a rude asshole who doesn't give a fuck. There's no reason for him to think it's important for him to suddenly start giving a fuck.

The problem is some of the games that could be going on here get you impeached or possibly in jail(assuming he isn't pardoned by Rubio in 2020).

There is definitely a lot of fair criticism regarding his cabinet choices. But again, I honestly can't remember a presidential cabinet ever receiving this type of scrutiny. I read someone complaining the other day that most of these guys donated to the Republican campaign. Who did they think Trump was going to appoint to his cabinet, Bernie Sanders supporters? There was the obvious promotion of the false idea that previous presidents simply looked beyond politics to pick "the best person for the job". As if Rahm Emanuel's ability as a Dem fundraiser didn't earn him the Chief of Staff job. Pamela Harriman was an ambassador for God's sake. It wasn't because she was an expert on Franco-American trade.

This is going to reach a head pretty soon.

It's hypocritical to complain about "pay to play" then staff yourself with people that paid to play. Trump was supposed to stop this sort of thing. Didn't his supporters repeatedly make the argument that he couldn't be bought because he was rich and an outsider?

My thoughts and views on Trump are in my posts from many moons ago.

My responses in this thread were specifically in response to the Yahoo "article" on the Russian - U.S. Election, I hate to call it an article because it really isn't, it's a regurgitation of a cleverly written narrative shaping/setting piece by the Washington Post/NYT which seeks to convince and not to inform.

Let us break it down, shall we?

WARNING: SINI LENGTH POST AHEAD.

Propaganda Outlet: Washington Post/NYT - proven to have worked, hand in hand, with the DNC and Clinton campaign during the primary and national election.

Assertion: Washington Post --> CIA says that Russia helped Trump win the White House via "hacking" things. More accurately its hacks on DNC servers and Podesta servers exposing emails via WikiLeaks. This isn't made expressly clear instead the article muddy's the water in an attempt to make it seems like the Russians "hacked" the election i.e. voting machines to change the outcome among other things...although, interestingly enough what Russia actually did isn't stated anywhere in the WaPo piece. That's not by mistake, by the way.
Source 1: Anonymous, unnamed, unverifiable.
Source 2: Anonymous, unnamed, unverifiable "senior official" that "sat in" on one of the meetings for U.S. Senators.
Proof/Evidence/Facts Provided to prove said assertions: None.
What was the actual concrete, verifiable information and facts were provided for the reader: The sources are unverifiable and anonymous. Everything else is unsupported assertions.
Now, the post used the word "consensus" when speaking about the 17 intel units. That's a squishy word and really means nothing without context. But, buried within the article the WaPo admits that all is not peachy....

--"there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.” “intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks.” But the purpose of both anonymous leaks is to finger the Russian government for these hacks, acting with the motive to defeat Hillary Clinton.--

Whoa, so the "minor disagreements" were about whether Russia actually did anything concerning the DNC email leaks and the total lack of any evidence to prove such a thing...sounds pretty major seeing as that's the whole crux of the matter.

New York Times article is easier to dissect.
Claim: The DNC/Podesta emails were hacked and provided to WikiLeaks by Russia and so was the RNC servers but nothing from the RNC servers was released, ergo the Russians were trying to protect Republicans and hurt Clinton.
What isn't really provided in the article: The RNC went to the FBI after the DNC leaks and had them run a full investigation including computer forensics to see if they had been compromised. After the FBI investigation it was concluded that the RNC was not compromised but an RNC vendor was as well as several Republican officials not connected with the campaign such as Collin Powell (not really an official but you get the point) The RNC told the NYT's this and the NYT didn't see fit to provide this information to its readers and instead went with their own narrative, i.e. they lied.


The above is now what all the major "news" outlets are running with except that they are now adding their own words to amplify an unproven narrative. Mind you, these are the same news outlets that were proven, by those same DNC/Podesta emails, to be working in full 100% cooperation with the DNC/Clinton campaign to undermine the primary process and the democratic process as a whole. The entire argument is taken from the above articles, one that uses unverifiable, anonymous sources (those are totally great now! super!) and a NYT article that, at this point, is proven false by the FBI. So, from that the "news" outlets are now reading from a script, same words, same language all at the same time which should really set off your alarm bells and bullshit meter. So, it was originally stated that "Russia helped Trump because the Russians hacked and gave DNC/Podesta emails to WikiLeaks and withheld RNC emails" which is, at this point, proven false...and now that, as of today's shows, turned into RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION, HACK HACK HACK with all sorts of other extrapolations with zero actual analysis. The words and statements "Confirmed!" and "concluded!" and "beyond reasonable doubt!" and "Not up for argument!" are now thrown about even though there isn't any actual evidence to back those up. Turning a simple thing into something far more nefarious and evil such as the voting machines were hacked to change vote totals even though they aren't internet connected and not all states use electronic voting machines and the ones that do have theirs under 24/7 locked surveillance and are randomly checked to insure that they have been tampered with.

Also interesting to note that the original WaPo/NYT articles are not even mentioned anymore (surprise, surprise) nor the anonymous sources (hmmm, wonder who that could be) that started this whole thing. They've turned the page quickly, gotten the narrative out there and really are doing their best to do what Vladimir Putin could only dream of doing....discredit, devalue and damage (3 D's!) our elector process and democratic foundations.

Now, this all happens on the back of the Jill Stein recount fizzling out and so with that the Establishment Left/Right and the Global Establishment is running out of time to do one of two things: Put out as much misinformation and disinformation as possible to discredit the incoming President and electoral process (short and long game) or two push this so far to the line that the Electors face a choice which is really interesting because now the electors want "full briefings" on this.....how convenient that this anonymous, unnamed and unverifiable source bravely comes forward right at this very moment.

Best part about it? All of the commissions, and investigation and deep dives...their findings won't ever see the light of day no matter what they conclude. So no one will ever see an actual shred of solid evidence about whether or not the Russians did anything or not. But that isn't the point, the point is to put this out here, do the damage and let it do its thing with the public, damage the incoming administration and if they completely discredit and devalue and destroy our democratic process....who fucking cares, right? Makes you wonder just was planned for a Clinton presidency if the elites are going through all of this effort at this time.

All the above said...The Russians may have done this, sure, but we have zero evidence so far to prove such an allegation and, most likely, never will. But again, that isn't the point here.

And by the way, who has done the best by Putin and Russia over the last 8 years? Who has let him do what he wants with no repercussions, who has strengthened his allies and who has let him become a more powerful enemy of democracy and freedom? It's administration that is leaving power in about a month or so.

I apologize to The Hawk

leash and I have bantered quite a bit about the way that Trump is being covered. The bottom line for a lot of people is simply, "Trump is covered differently because he is different." But there is an obvious lack of ethics in much of this coverage.

For example, regarding the story above, Julian Assange has repeatedly stated that the information that was disseminated by Wikileaks did not come from any Russian sources. Whether or not he is telling the truth is irrelevant. Any story about these leaks should ethically include the unequivocal statements of Assange. But they don't. It's obvious what the writer wants to reader to believe. It's also notable that the same departments of this administration that seem to be pushing this narrative also pressured Ecuador to shut down Assange's Internet access in the late stages of the presidential campaign. Not an insignificant detail.

I've read both Chicago dailies almost every day since I was 13 years old. I realize it's fashionable to bash newspapers and their readers, but they are the oldest of old media, and thus, stodgier and more bound to traditional standards of reporting than the traditional electronic media, let alone the modern Internet "news" sources. I'll use Lynn Sweet as an example. She got her start in Chicago and I've been reading her for most of my life. I respect her as a reporter and she has been covering Washington for a long, long time. She has great sources and she knows what she's talking about. But it should be very clear to anyone who is familiar with her writing that she dislikes Trump and that colors her reporting. I don't think she believes she is biased. She's not Rachel Maddow. But her bias is obviously there. It may manifest itself in something as subtle as the choice of a single word. And I'm not singling out Lynn Sweet, who I think is great, just using her as an example of how even a veteran reporter who is generally highly ethical and considered beyond reproach brings the baggage of their opinions to the table.

I think it comes down to a belief for many that the looming specter of President Donald Trump is so distasteful, so unacceptable that the true ethics lie in doing whatever is possible to undermine him. But of course, that's not real journalism.

In an effort to be consistent I view this the same way I look at the rigging of the primaries argument made by Sanders supporters. Russia wanted Trump to win. Russia may have done a few things to try and help him win. Ultimately Trump won because the people wanted him and not Hillary. Unless they directly tampered with voting booths (lots of them) I don't see how they really could have had much effect upon the election.

We as a people just can't face the fact that we aren't as advanced as first thought. In 2016 we elected someone as buffoonish as Trump and rather than face it we are dancing all around it. First Hillary Clinton for running a terrible campaign. Then the FBI. Now Russia. Jill Stein and the recount effort. If only the DNC wouldn't have rigged it for Hillary then we'd have been spared the fool that is Trump.

At the end of the day this country wanted Trump. They wanted a clown to win because they think that politics has become a mockery anyway so how much more can he screw it up.

I apologize to The Hawk

This is BS. Trump was covered in print with kid gloves. MANY times he would say false things and they would just run the quotes without stating that it was false. The media not being a fact checker is one of the MANY reasons he's kept making shit up. Also their need to try to compare Hillary with everything Trump said (like you do) was also bullshit.

Lynn Sweet has been a Hillary cheerleader for YEARS. I haven't read the Sun-Times regularly in years but you should know this.

The problem with the media is they thought Trump would never win and his bullshit would just be good for ratings. They wanted to give the appearance of being fair when they should have just reported the facts. When you add in their $2 billion campaign gift there is no doubt they're more responsible for President Trump/Bannon/Pence than Russia or anyone else could be.

There is definitely a lot of fair criticism regarding his cabinet choices. But again, I honestly can't remember a presidential cabinet ever receiving this type of scrutiny. I read someone complaining the other day that most of these guys donated to the Republican campaign. Who did they think Trump was going to appoint to his cabinet, Bernie Sanders supporters? There was the obvious promotion of the false idea that previous presidents simply looked beyond politics to pick "the best person for the job". As if Rahm Emanuel's ability as a Dem fundraiser didn't earn him the Chief of Staff job. Pamela Harriman was an ambassador for God's sake. It wasn't because she was an expert on Franco-American trade.

Campaign donors were usually named ambassador of some country. People who promoted white supremacy and bigotry we're not given prominent roles. Political insiders with lots of experience were usually given jobs.

Also lets not forget that Obama was torched for appointing Van Jones and Timothy Geithner and several others. Same with W. None of their picks have been as bad as nearly all of Trump's selections.

Stuff like this is done because hackers are privy to information that we are being hoodwinked and bamboozled, and, in this era, such trickery is able to be exposed.

It is no wonder that foreign servers have to be used to do this type of investigation and expose - which this "hacking" really is, if you were to take a truly honest look at it.

It exposed CRIMINAL, DISHONEST ACTIVITY, and, instead of prosecuting those who were caught red-handed, the focus is on crippling the messenger so that we have LESS information, less transparency, and powerful people and entities still have cover to perform dishonest deeds.

I smell a bit....

You're just wrong. And I never mentioned Hillary Clinton in the post above. You're a far bigger Hillary cheerleader than Lynn Sweet has ever been.

Honestly, I think I'm far more politically aware than the average person and I didn't even know Van Jones was in the administration.

That is a very Pollianna-ish take on hacking. If you don't believe that hacking is perpetrated for personal or corporate power or profit, you're fooling yourself.

The Dems severs were hacked and the release of that info absolutely swung the election.

You'll never convince me that there wasn't/isn't information just as damning in the GOP system.

It's just that the Dem info was attacked as it led to the outcome that the hackers wanted.

Is this the first U.S. election in which Russia has ever had a rooting interest?

I smell a bit....

Is this the first U.S. election in which Russia has ever had a rooting interest?

There is not a damned thing wrong with people who are bull shitters.

The real question is not if there was any Russian interference, but whether the interference had an effect on the outcome. If not, then the only point (besides taking steps to assure there are no future outside influences) is simply to undermine the elected president. And is there really any doubt that for many people that is the end game?

What could possibly be the end game for Russia as a "friend" of the Trump administration? Everyone talks about the issue but what can come of it interests me.

Is it some oil thing? Team up and quash OPEC and control the middle east?

Control of their former satellite countries who desire to move towards democracy and freedom. But who cares about Latvia when you got the puppet strings to the biggest fish in the US.

Control of their former satellite countries who desire to move towards democracy and freedom. But who cares about Latvia when you got the puppet strings to the biggest fish in the US.

If you don't believe that hacking is perpetrated for personal or corporate power or profit, you're fooling yourself.

The Dems severs were hacked and the release of that info absolutely swung the election.

You'll never convince me that there wasn't/isn't information just as damning in the GOP system.

It's just that the Dem info was attacked as it led to the outcome that the hackers wanted.

I apologize to The Hawk

Yeah but he has been trying to reconnect the USSR a while now. I doubt the world community sits back on that. There is something here we do not know. If there is a Russian underhanded plan it must be more than that.