I dont think the US has something like this in place. If his tax returns states he has taken money or loans from a foreign government, the public should be made aware of this.
The problem with this is... why? Is it illegal? Should s/he have to reveal if they've ever gotten any money or loans from a corporation? From Bill Gates? From anything or anyone that might have had an agenda?
And why, again, is it ONLY the President? Wouldn't the same argument apply just as well to every public official? Indeed, it's probably more likely to be relevant for other public officials, since blackmailing or applying pressure to the President is next to impossible in most circumstances.
The enemy of your enemy can absolutely be your friend in the right circumstances. These are those circumstances. It's possible to weigh two different options and decide which one is worse. In this case, the Deep State is less nefarious than Trump, by a long shot.
I'm also sick of this idea that this Russia-bashing has anything to do with the paradigm that existed during the Cold War. I just addressed this in another post. The current Russian government is a totally separate beast than when it was a Communist bloc. It's entirely feasible and rational to not be alarmed by a failing Communist state (which was the case during most of the Cold War) and be quite alarmed and worried about an autocratic petro-state that is trying to install puppet far-right governments to undermine NATO. Putin's Russia is far more dangerous than the USSR ever was post-Cuban Missile Crisis.
This is an argument that is pervasive on the Glenn Greenwald/Intercept faction of the left. That any position that doesn't comport to complete purity and consistency is invalid. That we are simply supposed to oppose Trump with our high-minded morals. That road is filled with nothing but carcasses. I'm for whatever is going to undercut the madman sitting in the Oval Office. Right now, there is no other check on Trump besides the judiciary and the Intelligence agencies. The FBI still seems to be broken into a pro-Trump faction and the normal part. The people he has really pissed off are the CIA and NSA.
Trump asking for Russia to hack his campaign opponent is bad. Foreign government agencies should not interfere in our elections.
Modern presidents have released tax returns. It's information that the public should know. Do foreign countries have leverage on our president? Is the President cheating on his taxes? This particular president claims a lot of things that are not true, is he also lying about his wealth? We don't know, these are public interest items. This has nothing to do with citizen Jim next door, this is the President in particular.
Excessive spying on private citizens is bad. Monitoring hostile intelligence services agents conversations is good. And it proved useful to uncover people you thought were on our country's side contacting those foreign agents.
Personally, I think all high-level public officials should publish their tax returns; it needn't just be the president.
The Speaker of the House? Yes, because that person is extremely powerful, and power should only be in the hands of people who have a history of ethical behavior.
The head of the IRS? Yes, for the same reasons.
My local librarian? No, because that doesn't provide any buffer against corruption. It just exposes a private individual with no power he or she could abuse.
Low-level functionaries in the IRS? No, for the same reasons.
I had a sour opinion of Putin long before I started hearing GOP figures defending the man. That wasn't a partisan issue for me at the time. But I thought Romney was stuck in the past when he said Russia was a critical geopolitical foe of the United States. I didn't think Russia was powerful or proactive enough to be a serious threat.
Then I saw Russia conquering sovereign territory in Ukraine. And lying about its activities there.
Then I saw Russia propping up a murderous dictator in Syria. And blaming the U.S. for starting the war despite the fact that the U.S. didn't even contribute humanitarian aid to the Syrian opposition until 2 years after the war began.
Then I learned that Russia has been financing anti-American propaganda worldwide, and promoting anti-American conspiracy theories via RT.
Then I learned that Russia has been funding political groups in Europe in an attempt to sway elections in Moscow's favor.
So my opinion of Russia changed. The threat is much more serious than I thought.
It's becoming increasingly clear the Trump campaign engaged in espionage with Russia to win a Presidential election.
Even the intelligence services you seem to now admire don't believe this.
This is indeed the intelligence community's view of the situation. A few pages back I posted a summary of their report. The intelligence community agrees that Russia interfered to help Trump win the election, but they do NOT agree--and so far there is no hard evidence--that the Trump campaign was actually working with Russia.
I do believe some quasi-disloyal Americans with Russian sympathies gravitated towards Trump because of his Putin-friendly stance. Manafort would be an example (I'm not talking about Trump's voters). But I have yet to see evidence beyond blind speculation that Trump has done anything treasonous involving Russia.
"What about Trump publicly calling on Russia to hack Clinton's emails? Wouldn't that qualify?"
Honestly, no. If Trump were personally colluding with Russia, he wouldn't need to publicly call for hacking. He'd just need to send a quiet message to his Russian friends asking them to do so.
My opinion of the U.S. intelligence community has always been positive, long before they said Russia interfered to aid Trump. The intelligence community is there to provide unbiased, unpoliticized information to the U.S. government, and that's what they're doing now. Not all of us liberals are former opponents of the intelligence community; some of us are lifelong supporters.
But yes, liberals have usually been the most vocal critics of the CIA and NSA, going back decades. Which I think is an extremely important detail, because it means the intelligence community has no pro-liberal bias that could be influencing its judgment on Russian involvement in the 2016 election. The CIA and NSA would be some of the last people to shill for the Democratic party or tout its accusations against the Trump campaign--especially considering the GOP controls all branches of government. The intelligence community is making these reports at the risk of antagonizing the most powerful group in the U.S. today.
Liberals don't usually pursue careers in national security to begin with. That's been a conservative domain since at least the Cold War.
Bob Harward, Trump's pick to replace Flynn, widely respected on both sides of the aisle and viewed as someone who could bring some order to this chaos, has turned down the job. Career military men are not in the practice of turning down such a request. This President, this White House, is toxic.
I dont think the US has something like this in place. If his tax returns states he has taken money or loans from a foreign government, the public should be made aware of this.
The problem with this is... why? Is it illegal? Should s/he have to reveal if they've ever gotten any money or loans from a corporation? From Bill Gates? From anything or anyone that might have had an agenda?
And why, again, is it ONLY the President? Wouldn't the same argument apply just as well to every public official? Indeed, it's probably more likely to be relevant for other public officials, since blackmailing or applying pressure to the President is next to impossible in most circumstances.
Well, I can only speak for Canada, but the ethics commission that I mentioned is for all members of parliament, not just the PM.
And look at it in this context:
Professional athletes are banned from gambling. The reason is not that it is unethical, it is that if they start owing a bookie money, the bookie may ask them to pay them back in another way such as attempting to throw a game that their team is favoured to win. Conspiracy theorist think this is the real reason why Jordan played baseball for 2 years, he was banned for gambling and throwing games.
If 1the president owes money to a foreign government, he and he alone can script legislation that favours that foreign government as a way to pay them back. They are putting their own finances, and those finances of a foreign government ahead of the people that elected them. This type of conflict of interest should be highlighted as soon as possible for the benefit of all tax payers.
That doesn't mean if a person owes money to a foreign government or business shouldn't become president, it is just that he should excuse himself from any type of legislation or communication with that government and allow his foreign affairs minster, vice president and diplomats handle it instead.
The problem with this is... why? Is it illegal? Should s/he have to reveal if they've ever gotten any money or loans from a corporation? From Bill Gates? From anything or anyone that might have had an agenda?
Let me highlight this right here. Assume it was known that Trump did take a billion dollar loan from Bill Gates. When he gets elected to the white house, one of the things he decides to do is replace all the Apple computers with ones running Windows 10 because "Windows 10 is great! It is the best thing since Windows XP. It is so great, that I think everyone who is great should use Windows 10."
Would you not smell fish in this situation? Would you still smell fish if the loan wasn't well known?
He is already doing this with this Trump Tower NY as the Department of Defence is being forced to rent out space in it "for the personnel and equipment who will support the POTUS at his residence in the building."
I'm not entirely convinced this is the case at all. The system is rigged is his favor with the Electoral College, Republicans are going to be able to do whatever they want to in regards to voter suppression laws. If Trump gets a full 4 year term, the assault on the free press and the rest of the authoritarian tactics will be too much to overcome. And let's get to the most salient point: if 40% of the country, after this first month, APPROVES of how this guy is handling his job, then those people are complete write-offs to Democrats. You'd as soon convince your toothbrush to go vote against him.
It's completely tribal at this point, and Trump will damn well get out his tribe next time. There is no middle worth courting anymore. You either get out your base or die trying. The main strategy of the Russian espionage was to depress Hillary's vote among Bernie supporters, and in my mind, there is no way this didn't work. You can't tell me that 100,000 disgruntled left-leaning voters in MI, WI, and PA didn't stay home because they were convinced Bernie was "cheated" out of the primary.
By the way, in all the news about assets Russia was looking to court leading up to the 2016 election, it wasn't just Michael Flynn who was targeted. Jill Stein was another. Guess who was at the same dinner with Putin as Flynn in 2015??
well the system is definitely rigged to give more electoral power to the places that people don't actually live, but take heart in the outpouring of protest and resistance. People are more involved than ever and are paying attention.
I can't see Repubs being allowed to continue to oppress the majority of people in the USA and continuing to push their agendas that are so unpopular.
Trump asking for Russia to hack his campaign opponent is bad. Foreign government agencies should not interfere in our elections.
Trump didn't. He made an obvious talk-radio-esque joke that the left and mainstream media have been treating ever since as if it was part of his policy platform.
Modern presidents have released tax returns. It's information that the public should know. Do foreign countries have leverage on our president? Is the President cheating on his taxes? This particular president claims a lot of things that are not true, is he also lying about his wealth? We don't know, these are public interest items. This has nothing to do with citizen Jim next door, this is the President in particular.
In no realistic world does any foreign country ever have real leverage on the President of the United States. Cheating on taxes is a crime, and a matter for courts. If the public doesn't know or doesn't care when the president lies, then they will also not know or not care about whether his measure of wealth is true.
None of this is a "public interest item". There is no compelling reason to tell it. Nobody is going to die because of a lack of Donald Trump's most recent tax return.
I will point out again: lots of countries do not force their leaders to release tax returns, and nothing bad generally happens. If it is so important, why does the lack of it not constantly cause bad consequences?
Excessive spying on private citizens is bad. Monitoring hostile intelligence services agents conversations is good. And it proved useful to uncover people you thought were on our country's side contacting those foreign agents.
And on precisely whose authority is it determined who is a "hostile intelligence service agent"?
Let us not forget that these are the same agencies and FISA court that allowed the monitoring of every phone call made where at least one person was outside the United States. That is their standard for what is "hostile".
You cannot separate the good from the bad in the US intelligence apparatus. No doubt many people working for it are not bad people, but the industry and institutions are thoroughly rotten, corrupt, and have already evaded any punishment for violating the Constitution, lying to Congress and the Senate (James Clapper still has his job!), and many, many other proven sins.
Trusting the US intelligence community just because they happen to be attacking Trump (who was squabbling with them from the start) is to ignore the fact that it is completely believable that they would fabricate or illegally gain evidence to take their enemy down a notch. Not to say that they did do this - but we already know they would. So anything they say is suspect without collaboration, and this should be even more true when you want to believe what they're saying.
I had a sour opinion of Putin long before I started hearing GOP figures defending the man. That wasn't a partisan issue for me at the time. But I thought Romney was stuck in the past when he said Russia was a critical geopolitical foe of the United States. I didn't think Russia was powerful or proactive enough to be a serious threat.
Then I saw Russia conquering sovereign territory in Ukraine. And lying about its activities there.
Then I saw Russia propping up a murderous dictator in Syria. And blaming the U.S. for starting the war despite the fact that the U.S. didn't even contribute humanitarian aid to the Syrian opposition until 2 years after the war began.
Then I learned that Russia has been financing anti-American propaganda worldwide, and promoting anti-American conspiracy theories via RT.
Then I learned that Russia has been funding political groups in Europe in an attempt to sway elections in Moscow's favor.
So my opinion of Russia changed. The threat is much more serious than I thought.
I can respect that, but... you do have to realise that the United States is guilty of every single thing you mentioned (with obvious tweaks, they're not financing anti-American propaganda), and often at a much greater scale, yes?
(So's Britain and France, by the by. And China. And probably India and a bunch of other regional and great powers.)
Let me put this another way, too - what exactly do you think Russia's end goal for this sort of thing is? What are they trying to do? What are they reacting to, and what do they fear? And why is any of it a "threat" to the United States? In what way, directly rather than vaguely, is Russia "threatening" the United States?
Well, I can only speak for Canada, but the ethics commission that I mentioned is for all members of parliament, not just the PM.
Sorry for lack of clarity; I do realise that, but I wasn't talking about Canada. I do think that sort of inquiry is a more reasonable way to deal with things, since it's not public but still can check for shady dealings (and being bipartisan, won't usually do on a witch hunt).
Professional athletes are banned from gambling. The reason is not that it is unethical, it is that if they start owing a bookie money, the bookie may ask them to pay them back in another way such as attempting to throw a game that their team is favoured to win.
Being barred from gambling on their own sport is fair. Being barred from all gambling is puritanical nonsense. There are MANY reasons why a sports star could end up indebted or being blackmailed.
If 1the president owes money to a foreign government, he and he alone can script legislation that favours that foreign government as a way to pay them back. They are putting their own finances, and those finances of a foreign government ahead of the people that elected them. This type of conflict of interest should be highlighted as soon as possible for the benefit of all tax payers.
The President of the United States does not have to repay money to any foreign government. In fact, the heads of far less powerful states can pretty effortlessly evade that kind of obligation.
That's even ignoring the fact that it's fairly rare for anybody to personally owe money to a foreign government in that sense.
We do not (or should not, anyway) invade people's privacy on the basis of "Oh, well, they might do something". You do it based only on actual evidence worthy of a warrant, or statistically proven likelihoods (and the latter is still sketchy). Presidents are people and their privacy does not lose its value simply because they have been chosen by voters to lead the country.
And if you want "you lose all your privacy" to be a cost to becoming President, then it should written into law. A tradition is a tradition. The cost of breaking it is that if voters care, you may lose the election. If you think presidential candidates should be forced to hand over private financial information for public perusal, that will require the force of law.
Let me highlight this right here. Assume it was known that Trump did take a billion dollar loan from Bill Gates. When he gets elected to the white house, one of the things he decides to do is replace all the Apple computers with ones running Windows 10 because "Windows 10 is great! It is the best thing since Windows XP. It is so great, that I think everyone who is great should use Windows 10."
Would you not smell fish in this situation? Would you still smell fish if the loan wasn't well known?
This highly hypothetical situation relies upon a) Trump being so stupid as to release tax returns without hiding evidence of this loan, b) Gates being so stupid as to make this loan knowing that information on it could come out, and c) nobody sniffing around about Trump's inexplicable new love for Windows 10.
Oh, and bribing Trump just after the end of the fiscal year would also evade his tax returns showing anything funny.
This is also true for all other hypothetical corruption uncovered via the means of tax return. How many Republican or Democratic presidential candidates have been knocked out of the race by this practice, again? I guess every one of them was squeaky clean and had never had any favours done for them by countries, industries, and lobbyists.
The hypothetical loan in question is one that was given prior to running for president, btw. Should have specified. We can even say that this loan was legal in all sense.
My point was, if a person has had past dealings outside of their current capabilities, then they should avoid dealing with those persons or businesses directly.
If even an independant third party doesn't know about any past dealings, unchecked corruption is bound to leak in.
Yes there is corruption on all levels of government, but having it questioned as the he's of state should be avoided. As I said, this is the one person who can sign an executive order into law and have it work in someone's else's favour than the American public.
And you said it is fairly rare for a person to owe a foriegn government, but it is still possible, especially someone of Trump's stature. If there was another way the American people could find out if Trump has conflicts of interest besides releasing his tax records, then I would be for that instead of this invasion of privacy.
Although I would also like to call the kettle black as he was the one pushing Obama to release his long form birth certificate, which is also a private document that in no way could cjange the way he governs, and already had numerous checks. If Trump can loudly demand the president to do that, the public can do the same to Trump.
Although I would also like to call the kettle black as he was the one pushing Obama to release his long form birth certificate, which is also a private document that in no way could cjange the way he governs, and already had numerous checks. If Trump can loudly demand the president to do that, the public can do the same to Trump.
One should also ask for Trumps birth certificate, just to verify that he is indeed from planet Earth ;-)
You cannot POSSIBLY turn 100,000 troops loose on US cities looking for undocumented immigrants without putting, in effect, a Gold Star on every person of Latino descent in this country. Citizen, illegal, legal. It won't matter. It will be "papers please". If you believe otherwise, you are a fool. This. Is. Fascism.
The administration is trying to say this is also not true. The AP IS NOT reporting that this is happening. They are reporting that a memo exists discussing it as a possibility, and that they have a copy of the memo.
And here is the memo. Spicer flat-out lied about it's existence within the last few hours:
Let me put this another way, too - what exactly do you think Russia's end goal for this sort of thing is? What are they trying to do? What are they reacting to, and what do they fear? And why is any of it a "threat" to the United States? In what way, directly rather than vaguely, is Russia "threatening" the United States?
Mostly I think of the situation in Syria and Ukraine when I think about what Putin can and will do to threaten America's interests abroad. Putin knew that the public attitude in the U.S. (including me, at times) wanted to stay out of foreign entanglements, and he took advantage of that. He knew the U.S. would not dive into Syria, so he intervened on behalf of Assad. He knew the U.S. would not dive into Crimea, so he invaded and annexed the place. He's not stupid enough to tackle the U.S. on its own territory; that's not the threat.
We have seen Russian ships lurking around the American coast this week, but I think he's just testing the Trump administration's wariness. I don't see what the spy ships are there to do besides gauge our response.
Putin's motives: The academic consensus is that Putin wants Russia to be feared and respected as it once was during the Cold War. I've seen no indication that he has any communist sentiments (precisely the opposite, really); his motives are nationalistic. There are a lot of people like that around the world, strongman leaders who want to revitalize their nation to a point of former glory (a common theme in non-Western countries today). That involves asserting Russian power on the world stage.
As for Crimea, he wanted to expand Russia's borders. As for Syria, he wanted to strengthen his man in Syria. Both came at the cost of human lives, and that's our problem with these actions.
How big of a threat is he? He is not an existential threat, of course. We haven't had one since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But we're talking about a former KGB agent who has made a habit of murdering his political enemies and funneling money into political groups in Europe. That's how he deals with his opponents: money when he has to, but violence when he can.
The difference between this and the Cold War--when Russia was a far more serious threat--is that Russia no longer has a violent messianic ideology like communism to export, and with the Soviet Union gone, Russia is just an underdeveloped petro state--strong enough to assert its power on the peripheries of the U.S. sphere of influence, but too weak to threaten closer American allies.
So, we don't see Russia trying to wage war on Britain or Canada. Instead, it targets smaller, more distant countries that the U.S. cannot defend as easily.
I can respect that, but... you do have to realise that the United States is guilty of every single thing you mentioned (with obvious tweaks, they're not financing anti-American propaganda), and often at a much greater scale, yes?
(So's Britain and France, by the by. And China. And probably India and a bunch of other regional and great powers.)
I realize that. Though I do see some differences.
1. The U.S. has fought wars, but hasn't conquered sovereign territory in over 100 years. We did not annex Iraq or Japan. We could have.
2. America's dictatorial allies these days tend to live in places where there is no peaceful democratic alternative to support, like Saudi Arabia. When pro-American dictators fall, they basically always get replaced by anti-American dictators--governance doesn't actually improve. When anti-American dictators fall, sometimes they get replaced by peaceful democratic regimes.
3. Where it does exist, American meddling these days is fairly mild. We don't overthrow democracies anymore. The only regime changes we've effected in decades is in Iraq--and to my surprise, polls have found that Iraqis thought getting rid of Saddam was worth the war. It was the lengthy occupation, not the regime change, that the Iraqi people opposed.
4. Our only form of propaganda is Voice of America, which the U.S. government doesn't actually control (though it could). Voice of America is mostly just a non-partisan news organization; it doesn't have to toe the administration's line. America's voice is journalism, not propaganda.
As for the non-American examples you bring up:
1. I don't know about Britain and France's foreign meddling, if any, but they've only lost territory over the past 100 years, what with the disintegration of their colonial empires. Britain and France don't engage in the sort of aggressive nonsense that Russia does. Same goes for India. They don't really foment revolutions or conquer foreign territory.
3. China is far stronger than Russia and could pose a far greater (even existential) threat, but the Chinese style of meddling is much different from Putin's. China prefers to purchase friendship with trade and punish its enemies with nonmilitary acts like withholding heavy metals from Japan. China isn't above violent conquest--the only thing holding them back from invading Taiwan and purchasing the land with Taiwanese blood is the U.S. promise to defend the island--but China's style is usually more subtle. Their admittedly imperialistic war on India took place under Mao, but the current government isn't remotely Maoist. Aside from Taiwan, which China claims based on (dubious) historical precedent, China's meddling is diplomatic rather than martial.
In a word, Russia isn't the only country to ever practice 19th century imperialism, but it is the only major power that still practices it in the 21st century. The rest of us--including American adversaries like China--prefer to exert power nonviolently.
Geopolitics has changed a lot since the Cold War. It was, after, over a generation ago. The same people aren't even in power anymore. A lot of them are actually dead.
I can respect that, but... you do have to realise that the United States is guilty of every single thing you mentioned (with obvious tweaks, they're not financing anti-American propaganda), and often at a much greater scale, yes?
(So's Britain and France, by the by. And China. And probably India and a bunch of other regional and great powers.)
In a word, Russia isn't the only country to ever practice 19th century imperialism, but it is the only major power that still practices it in the 21st century. The rest of us--including American adversaries like China--prefer to exert power nonviolently.
Putin's goal is to assert power and undermine the U.S. and its image. He has succeeded at that much.
It has come at the cost of crippling U.S. sanctions, a sluggish Russian economy, and a collapse of the ruble. Part of that was because of the sanctions; part was because of a Saudi-instigated drop in oil prices. Putin has successfully blamed the U.S. for the struggling economy; the Russian public mostly does not think Putin is responsible. He still has high approval ratings, like lots of leaders in stable non-democratic countries.
Russia has done poorly, but Putin got what he wanted.
My cousin's 4-year-old son has informed me that Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring all dog makers to use only dinosaur bones to make dogs. Which wasn't nice at all.
My cousin's 4-year-old son has informed me that Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring all dog makers to use only dinosaur bones to make dogs. Which wasn't nice at all.
If this was the case it would be the most reasonable thing he's done the entire month.
My cousin's 4-year-old son has informed me that Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring all dog makers to use only dinosaur bones to make dogs. Which wasn't nice at all.
For some reason, I read that as a Shaman Cultist Leader shouting THE PRESS IS THE ENEMY! and the whole Shaman Clan answers back THE PRESS IS THE ENEMY!
Comments
And why, again, is it ONLY the President? Wouldn't the same argument apply just as well to every public official? Indeed, it's probably more likely to be relevant for other public officials, since blackmailing or applying pressure to the President is next to impossible in most circumstances.
I'm also sick of this idea that this Russia-bashing has anything to do with the paradigm that existed during the Cold War. I just addressed this in another post. The current Russian government is a totally separate beast than when it was a Communist bloc. It's entirely feasible and rational to not be alarmed by a failing Communist state (which was the case during most of the Cold War) and be quite alarmed and worried about an autocratic petro-state that is trying to install puppet far-right governments to undermine NATO. Putin's Russia is far more dangerous than the USSR ever was post-Cuban Missile Crisis.
This is an argument that is pervasive on the Glenn Greenwald/Intercept faction of the left. That any position that doesn't comport to complete purity and consistency is invalid. That we are simply supposed to oppose Trump with our high-minded morals. That road is filled with nothing but carcasses. I'm for whatever is going to undercut the madman sitting in the Oval Office. Right now, there is no other check on Trump besides the judiciary and the Intelligence agencies. The FBI still seems to be broken into a pro-Trump faction and the normal part. The people he has really pissed off are the CIA and NSA.
Trump asking for Russia to hack his campaign opponent is bad. Foreign government agencies should not interfere in our elections.
Modern presidents have released tax returns. It's information that the public should know. Do foreign countries have leverage on our president? Is the President cheating on his taxes? This particular president claims a lot of things that are not true, is he also lying about his wealth? We don't know, these are public interest items. This has nothing to do with citizen Jim next door, this is the President in particular.
Excessive spying on private citizens is bad. Monitoring hostile intelligence services agents conversations is good. And it proved useful to uncover people you thought were on our country's side contacting those foreign agents.
The Speaker of the House? Yes, because that person is extremely powerful, and power should only be in the hands of people who have a history of ethical behavior.
The head of the IRS? Yes, for the same reasons.
My local librarian? No, because that doesn't provide any buffer against corruption. It just exposes a private individual with no power he or she could abuse.
Low-level functionaries in the IRS? No, for the same reasons.
Everyone in between? Depends.
Then I saw Russia conquering sovereign territory in Ukraine. And lying about its activities there.
Then I saw Russia propping up a murderous dictator in Syria. And blaming the U.S. for starting the war despite the fact that the U.S. didn't even contribute humanitarian aid to the Syrian opposition until 2 years after the war began.
Then I learned that Russia has been financing anti-American propaganda worldwide, and promoting anti-American conspiracy theories via RT.
Then I learned that Russia has been funding political groups in Europe in an attempt to sway elections in Moscow's favor.
So my opinion of Russia changed. The threat is much more serious than I thought.
I do believe some quasi-disloyal Americans with Russian sympathies gravitated towards Trump because of his Putin-friendly stance. Manafort would be an example (I'm not talking about Trump's voters). But I have yet to see evidence beyond blind speculation that Trump has done anything treasonous involving Russia.
"What about Trump publicly calling on Russia to hack Clinton's emails? Wouldn't that qualify?"
Honestly, no. If Trump were personally colluding with Russia, he wouldn't need to publicly call for hacking. He'd just need to send a quiet message to his Russian friends asking them to do so.
My opinion of the U.S. intelligence community has always been positive, long before they said Russia interfered to aid Trump. The intelligence community is there to provide unbiased, unpoliticized information to the U.S. government, and that's what they're doing now. Not all of us liberals are former opponents of the intelligence community; some of us are lifelong supporters.
But yes, liberals have usually been the most vocal critics of the CIA and NSA, going back decades. Which I think is an extremely important detail, because it means the intelligence community has no pro-liberal bias that could be influencing its judgment on Russian involvement in the 2016 election. The CIA and NSA would be some of the last people to shill for the Democratic party or tout its accusations against the Trump campaign--especially considering the GOP controls all branches of government. The intelligence community is making these reports at the risk of antagonizing the most powerful group in the U.S. today.
Liberals don't usually pursue careers in national security to begin with. That's been a conservative domain since at least the Cold War.
And look at it in this context:
Professional athletes are banned from gambling. The reason is not that it is unethical, it is that if they start owing a bookie money, the bookie may ask them to pay them back in another way such as attempting to throw a game that their team is favoured to win. Conspiracy theorist think this is the real reason why Jordan played baseball for 2 years, he was banned for gambling and throwing games.
If 1the president owes money to a foreign government, he and he alone can script legislation that favours that foreign government as a way to pay them back. They are putting their own finances, and those finances of a foreign government ahead of the people that elected them. This type of conflict of interest should be highlighted as soon as possible for the benefit of all tax payers.
That doesn't mean if a person owes money to a foreign government or business shouldn't become president, it is just that he should excuse himself from any type of legislation or communication with that government and allow his foreign affairs minster, vice president and diplomats handle it instead.
Let me highlight this right here. Assume it was known that Trump did take a billion dollar loan from Bill Gates. When he gets elected to the white house, one of the things he decides to do is replace all the Apple computers with ones running Windows 10 because "Windows 10 is great! It is the best thing since Windows XP. It is so great, that I think everyone who is great should use Windows 10."
Would you not smell fish in this situation? Would you still smell fish if the loan wasn't well known?
He is already doing this with this Trump Tower NY as the Department of Defence is being forced to rent out space in it "for the personnel and equipment who will support the POTUS at his residence in the building."
Probably not two terms, though...
(joke from reddit)
It's completely tribal at this point, and Trump will damn well get out his tribe next time. There is no middle worth courting anymore. You either get out your base or die trying. The main strategy of the Russian espionage was to depress Hillary's vote among Bernie supporters, and in my mind, there is no way this didn't work. You can't tell me that 100,000 disgruntled left-leaning voters in MI, WI, and PA didn't stay home because they were convinced Bernie was "cheated" out of the primary.
By the way, in all the news about assets Russia was looking to court leading up to the 2016 election, it wasn't just Michael Flynn who was targeted. Jill Stein was another. Guess who was at the same dinner with Putin as Flynn in 2015??
I can't see Repubs being allowed to continue to oppress the majority of people in the USA and continuing to push their agendas that are so unpopular.
None of this is a "public interest item". There is no compelling reason to tell it. Nobody is going to die because of a lack of Donald Trump's most recent tax return.
I will point out again: lots of countries do not force their leaders to release tax returns, and nothing bad generally happens. If it is so important, why does the lack of it not constantly cause bad consequences? And on precisely whose authority is it determined who is a "hostile intelligence service agent"?
Let us not forget that these are the same agencies and FISA court that allowed the monitoring of every phone call made where at least one person was outside the United States. That is their standard for what is "hostile".
You cannot separate the good from the bad in the US intelligence apparatus. No doubt many people working for it are not bad people, but the industry and institutions are thoroughly rotten, corrupt, and have already evaded any punishment for violating the Constitution, lying to Congress and the Senate (James Clapper still has his job!), and many, many other proven sins.
Trusting the US intelligence community just because they happen to be attacking Trump (who was squabbling with them from the start) is to ignore the fact that it is completely believable that they would fabricate or illegally gain evidence to take their enemy down a notch. Not to say that they did do this - but we already know they would. So anything they say is suspect without collaboration, and this should be even more true when you want to believe what they're saying.
(So's Britain and France, by the by. And China. And probably India and a bunch of other regional and great powers.)
Let me put this another way, too - what exactly do you think Russia's end goal for this sort of thing is? What are they trying to do? What are they reacting to, and what do they fear? And why is any of it a "threat" to the United States? In what way, directly rather than vaguely, is Russia "threatening" the United States?
That's even ignoring the fact that it's fairly rare for anybody to personally owe money to a foreign government in that sense.
We do not (or should not, anyway) invade people's privacy on the basis of "Oh, well, they might do something". You do it based only on actual evidence worthy of a warrant, or statistically proven likelihoods (and the latter is still sketchy). Presidents are people and their privacy does not lose its value simply because they have been chosen by voters to lead the country.
And if you want "you lose all your privacy" to be a cost to becoming President, then it should written into law. A tradition is a tradition. The cost of breaking it is that if voters care, you may lose the election. If you think presidential candidates should be forced to hand over private financial information for public perusal, that will require the force of law.
This highly hypothetical situation relies upon a) Trump being so stupid as to release tax returns without hiding evidence of this loan, b) Gates being so stupid as to make this loan knowing that information on it could come out, and c) nobody sniffing around about Trump's inexplicable new love for Windows 10.
Oh, and bribing Trump just after the end of the fiscal year would also evade his tax returns showing anything funny.
This is also true for all other hypothetical corruption uncovered via the means of tax return. How many Republican or Democratic presidential candidates have been knocked out of the race by this practice, again? I guess every one of them was squeaky clean and had never had any favours done for them by countries, industries, and lobbyists.
My point was, if a person has had past dealings outside of their current capabilities, then they should avoid dealing with those persons or businesses directly.
If even an independant third party doesn't know about any past dealings, unchecked corruption is bound to leak in.
Yes there is corruption on all levels of government, but having it questioned as the he's of state should be avoided. As I said, this is the one person who can sign an executive order into law and have it work in someone's else's favour than the American public.
And you said it is fairly rare for a person to owe a foriegn government, but it is still possible, especially someone of Trump's stature. If there was another way the American people could find out if Trump has conflicts of interest besides releasing his tax records, then I would be for that instead of this invasion of privacy.
Although I would also like to call the kettle black as he was the one pushing Obama to release his long form birth certificate, which is also a private document that in no way could cjange the way he governs, and already had numerous checks. If Trump can loudly demand the president to do that, the public can do the same to Trump.
You cannot POSSIBLY turn 100,000 troops loose on US cities looking for undocumented immigrants without putting, in effect, a Gold Star on every person of Latino descent in this country. Citizen, illegal, legal. It won't matter. It will be "papers please". If you believe otherwise, you are a fool. This. Is. Fascism.
The administration is trying to say this is also not true. The AP IS NOT reporting that this is happening. They are reporting that a memo exists discussing it as a possibility, and that they have a copy of the memo.
And here is the memo. Spicer flat-out lied about it's existence within the last few hours:
We have seen Russian ships lurking around the American coast this week, but I think he's just testing the Trump administration's wariness. I don't see what the spy ships are there to do besides gauge our response.
Putin's motives:
The academic consensus is that Putin wants Russia to be feared and respected as it once was during the Cold War. I've seen no indication that he has any communist sentiments (precisely the opposite, really); his motives are nationalistic. There are a lot of people like that around the world, strongman leaders who want to revitalize their nation to a point of former glory (a common theme in non-Western countries today). That involves asserting Russian power on the world stage.
As for Crimea, he wanted to expand Russia's borders. As for Syria, he wanted to strengthen his man in Syria. Both came at the cost of human lives, and that's our problem with these actions.
How big of a threat is he?
He is not an existential threat, of course. We haven't had one since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But we're talking about a former KGB agent who has made a habit of murdering his political enemies and funneling money into political groups in Europe. That's how he deals with his opponents: money when he has to, but violence when he can.
The difference between this and the Cold War--when Russia was a far more serious threat--is that Russia no longer has a violent messianic ideology like communism to export, and with the Soviet Union gone, Russia is just an underdeveloped petro state--strong enough to assert its power on the peripheries of the U.S. sphere of influence, but too weak to threaten closer American allies.
So, we don't see Russia trying to wage war on Britain or Canada. Instead, it targets smaller, more distant countries that the U.S. cannot defend as easily.
1. The U.S. has fought wars, but hasn't conquered sovereign territory in over 100 years. We did not annex Iraq or Japan. We could have.
2. America's dictatorial allies these days tend to live in places where there is no peaceful democratic alternative to support, like Saudi Arabia. When pro-American dictators fall, they basically always get replaced by anti-American dictators--governance doesn't actually improve. When anti-American dictators fall, sometimes they get replaced by peaceful democratic regimes.
3. Where it does exist, American meddling these days is fairly mild. We don't overthrow democracies anymore. The only regime changes we've effected in decades is in Iraq--and to my surprise, polls have found that Iraqis thought getting rid of Saddam was worth the war. It was the lengthy occupation, not the regime change, that the Iraqi people opposed.
4. Our only form of propaganda is Voice of America, which the U.S. government doesn't actually control (though it could). Voice of America is mostly just a non-partisan news organization; it doesn't have to toe the administration's line. America's voice is journalism, not propaganda.
As for the non-American examples you bring up:
1. I don't know about Britain and France's foreign meddling, if any, but they've only lost territory over the past 100 years, what with the disintegration of their colonial empires. Britain and France don't engage in the sort of aggressive nonsense that Russia does. Same goes for India. They don't really foment revolutions or conquer foreign territory.
3. China is far stronger than Russia and could pose a far greater (even existential) threat, but the Chinese style of meddling is much different from Putin's. China prefers to purchase friendship with trade and punish its enemies with nonmilitary acts like withholding heavy metals from Japan. China isn't above violent conquest--the only thing holding them back from invading Taiwan and purchasing the land with Taiwanese blood is the U.S. promise to defend the island--but China's style is usually more subtle. Their admittedly imperialistic war on India took place under Mao, but the current government isn't remotely Maoist. Aside from Taiwan, which China claims based on (dubious) historical precedent, China's meddling is diplomatic rather than martial.
In a word, Russia isn't the only country to ever practice 19th century imperialism, but it is the only major power that still practices it in the 21st century. The rest of us--including American adversaries like China--prefer to exert power nonviolently.
Geopolitics has changed a lot since the Cold War. It was, after, over a generation ago. The same people aren't even in power anymore. A lot of them are actually dead.
It has come at the cost of crippling U.S. sanctions, a sluggish Russian economy, and a collapse of the ruble. Part of that was because of the sanctions; part was because of a Saudi-instigated drop in oil prices. Putin has successfully blamed the U.S. for the struggling economy; the Russian public mostly does not think Putin is responsible. He still has high approval ratings, like lots of leaders in stable non-democratic countries.
Russia has done poorly, but Putin got what he wanted.
src
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