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Cont: All things Trump + Russia Part 2

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sackett said:
People call various Trumple antics attempts to distract the public from his serious troubles. Why? Nobody's distracted; everybody can follow multiple stories with attention, comprehension, and glee.
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I recently lost that ability, wake me when something actually happens.
 
So were these two latest leaks of the phone call transcripts purposeful to distract from the Russia problem or just plain leaks?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
So were these two latest leaks of the phone call transcripts purposeful to distract from the Russia problem or just plain leaks?
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I don't know. but I'm not sure how they are damaging to Trump in any practical way.

The average Trump supporter will read those (if his attention span can last that long) and wonder what the problem is?

They will think Trump sounded fine. Just like Trump.

That's what they voted for. They didn't vote for some magical, mythical Trump who would suddenly become Presidential and diplomatic over night. That was what Trump apologists used to try and deflect criticism by people who thought Trump's campaign behavior showed he wasn't fit for the job.

The ones who supported him prized exactly that sort of behavior.

And he did not disappoint them. He continues with it to this day.

They aren't complaining. They have nothing to complain about. This is the Trump they wanted.
 
Special Counsel Mueller Impanels Washington Grand Jury in Russia Probe

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, a sign that his inquiry is growing in intensity and entering a new phase, according to people familiar with the matter.

The grand jury, which began its work in recent weeks, is a sign that Mr. Mueller’s inquiry is ramping up and that it will likely continue for months. Mr. Mueller is investigating Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether President Donald Trump’s campaign or associates colluded with the Kremlin as part of that effort.

A spokesman for Mr. Mueller, Joshua Stueve, declined to comment. Moscow has denied seeking to influence the election, and Mr. Trump has vigorously disputed allegations of collusion. The president has called Mr. Mueller’s inquiry a “witch hunt.”

Ty Cobb, special counsel to the president, said he wasn’t aware that Mr. Mueller had started using a new grand jury. “Grand jury matters are typically secret,” Mr. Cobb said. “The White House favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly.…The White House is committed to fully cooperating with Mr. Mueller.”
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Skeptic Ginger said:
And yet another Russian operative that was one of Trump's insiders was revealed as Kelly got rid of him when Trump/Kushner/Ivanka wouldn't.

The Deeper Story on Cohen-Watnick
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So... down the rabbit hole I went!

Went to read the TPM article. It seemed... opinionated. There aren't any sources in it, no reference to anything verifiable. But that's fairly common these days. So being a good skeptic, I go find the "about" page for TPM - what is this site, is it reliable, how knowledgeable is the author? In short, is this news or is this opinion?

Turns out that TPM describes itself as "iterative journalism". It had its origins as a blog - not a news source.
About TPM
Widely recognized as the pioneer of iterative journalism, which draws on readers’ knowledge to break stories
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dahell does that even mean? What is "iterative journalism"? And what's with this "drawing on reader's knowledge to break stories"? That sounds an awful lot like a rumor mill - if a lot of their readers are saying it, then it must be news, right?

So then I googled iterative journalism, trying to figure out what that is. Turns out that iterative journalism is a pretty new phenomenon. It's a response to our right-now culture. Under the concept of iterative journalism, as soon as a media outlet (take that phrase with a grain of salt) has enough information that they believe is factual to form the framework of a story... they can publish it. Even before they've reached out to sources to verify the information, before they've validated the information they believe they have. It's left to the "iterative process" to make corrections as the story evolves. So if it turns out that some key piece of information was either errant, or was taken out of context... that will be corrected in an update at the end of the original piece. Of course, that relies on readers who have already read that article coming back to see if there were any updates. In the mean time, other media outlets will have linked to the article provided by whoever "broke" the news first.

As I was reading through this whole "iterative jhournalism" thing, I came across this article from Tech Cruch:
The Morality And Effectiveness Of Process Journalism

I also read this bit: Writing for Right Now: “Iterative Journalism” that outlined some of the potential dangers of this approach. That article linked to a book titled Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

So I went and read some snippets of that book, which were remarkably interesting. Some of it is undoubtedly confirmation bias... but it touches at the heart of a lot of my complaints about the current media frenzy, and the rampant speculation, anonymous sources, and unverified suggestions and allegations being treated as fact.

So now I'm going to buy that book and read the whole thing.
 
Emily's Cat said:
So I went and read some snippets of that book, which were remarkably interesting. Some of it is undoubtedly confirmation bias... but it touches at the heart of a lot of my complaints about the current media frenzy, and the rampant speculation, anonymous sources, and unverified suggestions and allegations being treated as fact.

So now I'm going to buy that book and read the whole thing.
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Yeah, it's just a media frenzy, I mean not like anything serious is going on:

'Grand jury assembled' in Trump-Russia investigation
 
Garrison said:
Yeah, it's just a media frenzy, I mean not like anything serious is going on:

'Grand jury assembled' in Trump-Russia investigation
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Something serious might very well be going on. That doesn't distract from the media frenzy here. And i'm not talking solely about the Russia thing. I'm talking about anyone who has ever had anything to do with anything Russian and also had anything to do with anything Trumpian is presented as if that is evidence of purposeful collusion. I'm talking about every thing Trump says is news. Every word out of his mouth is presented as either more evidence that he has a severe and pathological mental disorder, or that he is the stupidest person on the planet, or that he is an evil criminal, or that he is the ringleader for a really complicated far-reaching conspiracy involving dozens of people colluding together, or whatever else is going to increase readership. The US is so polarized that it's almost impossible to find objective information presented without bias.

It's entirely likely that there were improprieties between Trump's campaign and the Russian government. I think it's possible, but less likely that there was direct collusion of the sort being theorized about. If nothing else, there are too many people involved and it's too transparent. Possible, sure. Maybe that many people really are ALL that completely stupid and dumb and short-sighted that they can't manage to avoid blatantly obvious situations that are going to bite them in the ass. Maybe. But there isn't enough actual verified information coming from identified and reliable sources in order to reach a conclusion at the moment, so I'll happily sit back and wait for Mueller to finish his investigation. If Trump goes down in flames for collusion, I'm not going to be surprised. But I'm also not going to dig in my heels with an uninformed rumor-fueled opinion before the investigation is completed and stick to it. I'm going to very contentedly sit on my backside and reiterate "I don't know, we'll see". Because that's what rational people without a vitriolic and overriding hatred for one fluffy-haired blowhard do with their reasoning brains.
 
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The Russian government is a criminal enterprise. Period.

The governments of the world have to deal with Putin and his underbosses. Private individuals and corporations have no excuse and are inviting corruption when they deal with these people...who would be investigated by the FBI and prosecuted under RICO statutes if they were in the US.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Something serious might very well be going on. That doesn't distract from the media frenzy here. And i'm not talking solely about the Russia thing. I'm talking about anyone who has ever had anything to do with anything Russian and also had anything to do with anything Trumpian is presented as if that is evidence of purposeful collusion. I'm talking about every thing Trump says is news. Every word out of his mouth is presented as either more evidence that he has a severe and pathological mental disorder, or that he is the stupidest person on the planet, or that he is an evil criminal, or that he is the ringleader for a really complicated far-reaching conspiracy involving dozens of people colluding together, or whatever else is going to increase readership. The US is so polarized that it's almost impossible to find objective information presented without bias.

It's entirely likely that there were improprieties between Trump's campaign and the Russian government. I think it's possible, but less likely that there was direct collusion of the sort being theorized about. If nothing else, there are too many people involved and it's too transparent. Possible, sure. Maybe that many people really are ALL that completely stupid and dumb and short-sighted that they can't manage to avoid blatantly obvious situations that are going to bite them in the ass. Maybe. But there isn't enough actual verified information coming from identified and reliable sources in order to reach a conclusion at the moment, so I'll happily sit back and wait for Mueller to finish his investigation. If Trump goes down in flames for collusion, I'm not going to be surprised. But I'm also not going to dig in my heels with an uninformed rumor-fueled opinion before the investigation is completed and stick to it. I'm going to very contentedly sit on my backside and reiterate "I don't know, we'll see". Because that's what rational people without a vitriolic and overriding hatred for one fluffy-haired blowhard do with their reasoning brains.
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At the very least we know, and has been confirmed that:

1) Donald Trump Jr met went to a meeting believing he would be getting information on Clinton provided by the Russian Government. This is attempted collusion right there.

2) Donald Trump Sr dictated an untrue response that he gave to his son to release which lied about what the meeting was about and who was at it. That's a cover up!

Those two things would have been enough to sink pretty much any other President, without the rest of the information we have about back door channels, clandestine meetings, phone tap transcripts, firing of the FBI Director "because of the Russia Case" and so on.

I think it might be time to start getting used to the words "President Pence."
 
PhantomWolf said:
At the very least we know, and has been confirmed that:
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Let's check these, shall we?

PhantomWolf said:
1) Donald Trump Jr met went to a meeting believing he would be getting information on Clinton provided by the Russian Government. This is attempted collusion right there.
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Yes, he went expecting to get dirt on Clinton. Whether it is deemed to constitute attempted collusion is a matter for the courts to determine. That opinion isn't really universal, and collusion probably isn't the appropriate word.
Politico had a pretty good article on this:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/12/what-is-collusion-215366

PhantomWolf said:
2) Donald Trump Sr dictated an untrue response that he gave to his son to release which lied about what the meeting was about and who was at it. That's a cover up!
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What's the source for the claim that POTUS crafted the message? So far as I can tell, all sources lead back to this WaPo article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-dictated-sons-misleading-statement-on-meeting-with-russian-lawyer/2017/07/31/04c94f96-73ae-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html?utm_term=.82eb8392ffe8
That article states it as fact, but provides no supporting evidence. They don't even reference an anonymous source for this. They reference anonymous sources saying it was unnecessary, but they don't cite where they got that information in the first place. But that WaPo article is cited as the source for all the other articles on the topic that I could find. The closest thing to confirmation we've got is Sanders saying that Trump "weighed in" on the issue...

I think it's entirely likely and plausible that Trump added his own suggestions to Jr's approach. But the claim that Trump personally dictated the response isn't confirmed.

PhantomWolf said:
Those two things would have been enough to sink pretty much any other President, without the rest of the information we have about back door channels, clandestine meetings, phone tap transcripts, firing of the FBI Director "because of the Russia Case" and so on.
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There's a lot of that other information there that isn't confirmed in any way, and is still speculative. Some of it represents interpretation and opinion layered on top of very sparse fact in order to paint it as significant. For example, it is a fact that some of the people had meetings with Russian people and didn't properly disclose them on their security forms. What is not fact is whether any of those meetings involved any impropriety.

So far, we've got failure to disclose meetings, and very likely some false statements made to the government. The false statements are actually crimes. Whether they are charged is up to Mueller.

PhantomWolf said:
I think it might be time to start getting used to the words "President Pence."
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I would not lament seeing the back side of Trump.
 
Babbylonian said:
Not for lack of trying.
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That wouldn't be in the campaign if they did do it. It's a weird denial that leaves a number of possibilities open like collusion. I wish I could remember the reporter who said it but the biggest problem with Trump is understanding, "What does he mean when he says words?"
 
quadraginta said:
The average Trump supporter will read those (if his attention span can last that long) and wonder what the problem is?

They will think Trump sounded fine. Just like Trump.

That's what they voted for.
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A namby-pamby whiney-baby?

"Oh, you can't tell the press Mexico won't pay for the wall! I've been saying you will for years, it'll make me look like a loser! Waaaaa!"

"Oh please take back the refugee arrangement - after all I've been saying, if I have to admit we're bound to this agreement I'll look weak and ineffectual in my very first week in office! Waaaaaaa!"
 
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