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Cont: House Impeachment Inquiry - part 2

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Norman Alexander said:
Can the evidence be made totally public by means outside the Senate trial? The very fact that McConnell is desperate to hide this is because most of the Trump Ukraine fudge-up has already been published in excruciating detail in the media globally, and now he doesn't want the rest of it to come out.

By making the facts public, perhaps by "leaking" them, they would become "common knowledge", a premise. So the GOP Senators can hardly pretend they don't know about it. It would be like trying to deny that the sun rises in the East or that water is wet, because it hasn't been formally presented as trial evidence. They will look EXTREMELY foolish in public trying to do so. Alternatively, accepting that the evidence DOES exist and they know it means McConnell's cover-up has failed.
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None of this "looking foolish" stuff matters. The GOP Senate knows all this and they don't care, it's a simple political calculation. Trump may be a corrupt, malevolent weasel, but he is still more popular than the GOP Senate overall, and vastly more popular amongst Republicans.

Right now, if a GOP Senator wants to stay in office, their only possible move is to prostrate themselves before Trump, climb on to his rickety bandwagon, then put their hands together and pray to God that Trump doesn't drive the whole lot of them off a cliff before November. There really is not other politically viable path for them.

So they will swear up and down that water is dry, the Sun is cold, and Trump is the most innocent, masculine, sanest man in the world, even though they know it is a lie.
 
Meadmaker said:
Was there anything very important in the article? NYT has a paywall.
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Basically we're looking at a sequel to 2016, targeting Obama's Veep instead of his former SecState.

NYT said:
...Russian hackers from a military intelligence unit known formerly as the G.R.U., and to private researchers by the alias “Fancy Bear,” used so-called phishing emails that appear designed to steal usernames and passwords, according to Area 1, the Silicon Valley security firm that detected the hacking. In this instance, the hackers set up fake websites that mimicked sign-in pages of Burisma subsidiaries, and have been blasting Burisma employees with emails meant to look like they are coming from inside the company.

The hackers fooled some of them into handing over their login credentials, and managed to get inside one of Burisma’s servers, Area 1 said.

“The attacks were successful,” said Oren Falkowitz, a co-founder of Area 1, who previously served at the National Security Agency. Mr. Falkowitz’s firm maintains a network of sensors on web servers around the globe — many known to be used by state-sponsored hackers — which gives the firm a front-row seat to phishing attacks, and allows them to block attacks on their customers.

“The timing of the Russian campaign mirrors the G.R.U. hacks we saw in 2016 against the D.N.C. and John Podesta,” the Clinton campaign chairman, Mr. Falkowitz said. “Once again, they are stealing email credentials, in what we can only assume is a repeat of Russian interference in the last election.”
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tl;dr - "But Burisma!" is the new "But her e-mails!"
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
McConnell hit with official ethics complaint over his declared coordination with the White House re impeachment trial
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Does anyone have any context here?

I do think Moscow Mitch is incredibly corrupt. But, I'm wondering just how common these complaints are (like for example, did groups on the political right submit official complaints over Democrats). And what is the ultimate effect? Do formal inquiries result? Or is the complaint the end of the story?
 
Segnosaur said:
Does anyone have any context here?

I do think Moscow Mitch is incredibly corrupt. But, I'm wondering just how common these complaints are (like for example, did groups on the political right submit official complaints over Democrats). And what is the ultimate effect? Do formal inquiries result? Or is the complaint the end of the story?
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Formal complaints are relatively rare.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
What about the people in the middle?
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Probably not going to have an effect on them, either.

People in the middle fall into a few broad categories:

- Those who already decided he was an ass in 2016 and voted for him anyway.

- Those who already decided he was an ass in 2016 and thus didn't vote for him.

- Those who aren't paying attention or don't care if he's an ass, and voted however they were going to vote anyway.

I don't think this particular revelation is going to move the needle much one way or the other, for any of those groups.

I think if killing Soleimani had sparked a major escalation of the war with Iran, that might have made some people in the middle reevaluate their electoral priorities. But this kind of trickle, more of the same shenanigans they've already accounted for? I doubt it's going to make a difference in November.

But hope springs eternal! This may yet be The One Thing.
 
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All of these things that aren't having an effect yet the GOP keeps shrinking over time as they keep happening........
 
Upchurch said:
“Russia, if you’re listening...”

This will have zero impact or importance for Trump supporters.
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Meadmaker said:
I can't see why it ought to have an effect on Trump supporters or Trump opponents.
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Upchurch said:
Okay. You said that once already.

What sort of reaction where you looking for?
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???


Well, at any rate, I don't see any significance to the story at all, except maybe to cyber security specialists.

I suppose it serves as a reminder that Russia is up to no good, but surely most people already knew that.
 
Meadmaker said:
???
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You missed a one:

Meadmaker said:
Upchurch said:
“Russia, if you’re listening...”

This will have zero impact or importance for Trump supporters.
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Or Trump opponents.
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Meadmaker said:
I can't see why it ought to have an effect on Trump supporters or Trump opponents.
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Meadmaker said:
Well, at any rate, I don't see any significance to the story at all, except maybe to cyber security specialists.

I suppose it serves as a reminder that Russia is up to no good, but surely most people already knew that.
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Russia is hacking emails to get dirt on Trump's political enemies. Sound familiar?
 
So apparently the Senate is going to get Articles of Impeachment from the House tomorrow and McConnell has said the trial is expected to start next Tuesday. There is still a small but vocal call to immediately dismiss the charges and other people saying the trial is expected to last "well beyond the State of the Union Address" in early February.
 
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