The Impeachment Process Has Officially Begun (12 Viewers)

[Andrus]

By Laura Bassett

After months of internal arguing among Democrats over whether to impeach President Donald Trump, the dam is finally breaking in favor of trying to remove him from office. The Washington Post reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would announce a formal impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, following a bombshell report that Trump illegally asked Ukraine’s government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, one of his political opponents. (He essentially admitted to having done so over the weekend.)

“Now that we have the facts, we’re ready,” Pelosi said Tuesday morning at a forum hosted by The Atlantic. At 5 p.m. the same day, she was back with more. "The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the constitution, especially when the president says Article Two says I can do whatever I want," referring to the segment of the Constitution that defines the power of the executive branch of the government. Pelosi's message was that checks and balances of those branches are just as central to the Constitution. And one more thing: "Today, I am announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry," she said at a conference broadcast on Twitter by the Huffington Post. ...

Read the Full Story - InStyle

 

[Saintamaniac]

The correct position for any American is that we need to figure out how to keep any foreign nation from attempting to influence our elections. And then do it. The correct position is not to deny said influence and make excuses for it. This should be a simple call.

With Hillary Clinton in office with or without help from Russia, you would see exactly that. The Benghazi crowd doesn't really see russian interference in our elections as a necessarily bad thing because they got the judges and president they wanted and they got the agenda they wanted. Had that not happen, you bet your arse you'd see funds approved by the senate to help prevent election interference. And if Clinton had given Bill top secret clearance....even as a former president, there would be a host of hand wringing about it.

 

[SaintForLife]

SFL. I know plenty about election interference. I know the US has been interfering in elections since at least the beginning of the Cold War. So has Russia. Mostly, it’s been our interests versus Russia’s, wherever the KGB or CIA has interfered, be it Chile, Italy, Japan, etc.

I am not surprised about foreign interference. I am surprised you are so hell bent on absolving Russia for it, or minimizing the harm it’s done. It *is* similar to an act of war. It is an attack on our democracy. We retaliated with measures the Trump administration immediately tried to undermine.

You’re right that it isn’t the first time Russia tried to interfere in our elections. I’ve read a ton about this since 2016. Russians offered help to Nixon’s opponent in 1968. He refused:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/07/13/donald-trump-is-wrong-when-democrats-were-offered-secret-help-by-the-soviets-they-refused/

It’s normal and patriotic to refuse Russia’s help. It isn’t normal or patriotic for your campaign manager to give Russia internal polling data on battleground states to help narrow down who to target. Or to undermine any countermeasures we‘ve taken against them. That’s not what patriots do. Manafort is not a patriot. He’s a foreign agent who has spent nearly this entire century representing pro-Kremlin interests.

We are acting like contributing to Russian interference is a crime and when it's carried out by agents of a political candidcate presumably with that candidate's tacit approval, it's a corruption of our election.

The results suit your preference it seems so you're defending it based on whether it's a big deal rather than it being a crime and immoral.

I don't really understand the point you're making in this defense now.

See the post directly above your post. Try to imagine the entire picture. Dont try to excuse foreign interference in our elections. You say you aren’t, but that is all I see you doing.

I know you all say my post when I said:

I am not a defending Russian interference in our election. We should do everything we can to prevent foreign election interference.

I do understand why you don't want to hear anything about how the US interference in foreign elections and other countries. It would be hard to still act as if the sky is falling for the Russian interference if you have to acknowledge that the US is the world leader in interference in other countries elections and affairs.

The Russian succeeded in 2016 with something that the US had already mastered. It's perfectly reasonable to criticize both Russia and the US for their election interference. Bringing up that we also interfere in foreign elections is not a defense of Russia. It's ridiculous to claim so unless you believe that the US shouldn't have to play by the rules that we expect of other countries. The holier-than-thou attitude in regards to election interference is what makes the freaking out about Russia beating us at our own game is hard to take seriously.

 

[SaintForLife]

Abrams is acting like the entire election didn’t swing on less than 80,000 votes in 3 states. it’s nonsensical.

And to just categorically deny that Russian interference (especially when aided by being provided with Trump campaign private polling and aided by Cambridge Analytica, who bragged that they could target voters on an individual level) had anything to do with that razor thin margin, is just whistling past the graveyard.

The correct position for any American is that we need to figure out how to keep any foreign nation from attempting to influence our elections. And then do it. The correct position is not to deny said influence and make excuses for it. This should be a simple call.

Neither Abrahams or I have said that the Russian interference had zero effect on the election. I think that the effect of the Russian interference has been vastly overstated.

I haven't seen any evidence that the Russian interference directly affected the votes that allowed Trump to win the election. If I had to guess the effect was minimal, but we don't know for sure either way.

 

[MT15]

You have left the impression before that you think there was zero influence, so I am going to celebrate this post from you.

Refusing to acknowledge that it seems likely (to me) or at least possible (if we are being charitable) at this point that the influence had some effect on the tiny amount of voters who swung the election or had an effect on the low turnout from black voters which reversed a trend that was decades in the making is reckless. We should strive to get rid of foreign interference in our elections. Exactly how impactful the interference was is going to be very hard to know for sure. But it’s important that we strive for none.

This isn’t a close call. Our free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our nation. To ignore foreign interference is foolish.

 

[JimEverett]

What did that 1.25 million people month include? I'm not familiar with that. For 1 year that's 15 million and 2 years 30 million. That still pales in comparison to the 2.4 billion spent on the 2016 presidential election. What makes you think that 15 to 30 million in spending would be more influential than the 2.4 billion in spending?

Not only the money but the knowledge. The Clinton campaign had some of the best political minds the country can produce - graduates of Ivy League colleges and elite liberal arts schools. Armed with $1.2 billion these people didn't win because of a few million dollars spent by Russians creating Facebook and Twitter posts???? It defies all logic.

 

[MT15]

It’s not how much was spent on the ads, this seems fairly obvious. It’s the amplification of the memes, millions upon millions of times, which is free. It also has more “punch” for people when they get something shared by someone they know rather than seeing it as an ad.

 

[TaylorB]

I do understand why you don't want to hear anything about how the US interference in foreign elections and other countries. It would be hard to still act as if the sky is falling for the Russian interference if you have to acknowledge that the US is the world leader in interference in other countries elections and affairs.

How do you keep saying things that are so provably false? You literally quoted my post in which I describe a century of US *and* Soviet interference in foreign elections giving three specific non-exhaustive examples of countries in whose elections the CIA interfered post Cold War and you are like "well you don't seem to acknowledge that the US interferes too." What *is* that tactic, honestly? I'm trying really hard not to antagonize you, but you mischaracterize posts compulsively, and it makes it impossible to have a serious discussion because so much time and effort has to be spent correcting the record.

But let's correct it again for good measure: The US and USSR are the world leaders in election interference since the Cold War. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russians are the world leaders, and we are second. Before that, it was 1A and 1B. We interfered for years in numerous elections, mostly to counter Soviet influence, and they did the same, for the same reasons.

The only purpose you seem to be serving by insisting on an equivalence test between Soviet and US interference is either that you think it somehow exonerates Manafort, which it doesn't, or by creating a straw-man distraction by claiming we said things we didn't say. We agree that the US interferes, and our argument that Manafort should not have been cozying up to Russian oligarchs with polling data is not dependent on the US having kept its nose clean. Manafort's culpability is dependent on what he did, not what the US did. And what he did almost certainly assisted Russia in a century-old practice of interfering in our elections. It shouldn't be hard for you to denounce that behavior, and it shouldn't be hard to consider the possibility that the Senate's conclusion about Kilimnik being Russian intel was actually correct.

 

[TaylorB]

Not only the money but the knowledge. The Clinton campaign had some of the best political minds the country can produce - graduates of Ivy League colleges and elite liberal arts schools. Armed with $1.2 billion these people didn't win because of a few million dollars spent by Russians creating Facebook and Twitter posts???? It defies all logic.

My arguments in this thread have mostly focused on the culpability of Manafort's behavior in sharing internal campaign polling data on key battleground states with a person tied to Russian intel who he knew planned to share it with a Kremlin-connected oligarch he owed millions of dollars to. That argument has never been dependent on proving that the Russian efforts were successful in swaying the election. I took a brief detour from my point to respond to SFL's misleading post that suggested the IRA's spending consisted only of $100,000 on facebook ads, since their efforts were far greater than that. But that was never my point; it was only something SFL raised that needed to be fact-checked.

Manafort's duty to his country demanded that he not share internal polling data with a country that was targeting the integrity of our democracy. But Manafort demonstrated greater loyalty to the Kremlin-connected oligarchs for whom he had worked in Ukraine than any loyalty to his country. That makes him culpable, regardless whether his efforts actually assisted in swaying the election.

The Senate intel's bipartisan conclusion that Kilimnik -- the person with whom Manafort was sharing information on groups of voters who were simultaneously being targeted by Russian (and possibly Israeli and other) operations -- was a Russian intelligence officer undermined SFL's first line of defense -- pointing out how naive I was to think he could be connected to Russian intelligence. So now we've drifted to the new defenses of "how much money did the IRA really spend, anyway," and "the US does it too," and "did it really sway the election?" I think those questions are relevant in other contexts, but they're not relevant in assessing Manafort's, and the Trump campaign's, culpability.

 

[JimEverett]

My arguments in this thread have mostly focused on the culpability of Manafort's behavior in sharing internal campaign polling data on key battleground states with a person tied to Russian intel who he knew planned to share it with a Kremlin-connected oligarch he owed millions of dollars to. That argument has never been dependent on proving that the Russian efforts were successful in swaying the election. I took a brief detour from my point to respond to SFL's misleading post that suggested the IRA's spending consisted only of $100,000 on facebook ads, since their efforts were far greater than that. But that was never my point; it was only something SFL raised that needed to be fact-checked.

Manafort's duty to his country demanded that he not share internal polling data with a country that was targeting the integrity of our democracy. But Manafort demonstrated greater loyalty to the Kremlin-connected oligarchs for whom he had worked in Ukraine than any loyalty to his country. That makes him culpable, regardless whether his efforts actually assisted in swaying the election.

The Senate intel's bipartisan conclusion that Kilimnik -- the person with whom Manafort was sharing information on groups of voters who were simultaneously being targeted by Russian (and possibly Israeli and other) operations -- was a Russian intelligence officer undermined SFL's first line of defense -- pointing out how naive I was to think he could be connected to Russian intelligence. So now we've drifted to the new defenses of "how much money did the IRA really spend, anyway," and "the US does it too," and "did it really sway the election?" I think those questions are relevant in other contexts, but they're not relevant in assessing Manafort's, and the Trump campaign's, culpability.

Yeah - I wasn't really responding to you or any arguments you have made. I was just responding to SFL's post. I am not following these arguments as to the specifics of Manafort's culpability and whatnot. I just think the whole idea of Russia swaying the election or even being a significant factor makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Nebaghead]

Yeah - I wasn't really responding to you or any arguments you have made. I was just responding to SFL's post. I am not following these arguments as to the specifics of Manafort's culpability and whatnot. I just think the whole idea of Russia swaying the election or even being a significant factor makes no sense whatsoever.

So if it didn’t make a difference, why is Russia still actively trying to interfere? If it was pointless, they would have stopped.

 

[JimEverett]

So if it didn’t make a difference, why is Russia still actively trying to interfere? If it was pointless, they would have stopped.

Their activity clearly paid off - it sent one political party into a complete meltdown: essentially calling into question the Presidential election. Russia's meager investment has paid off exponentially.

 

[TaylorB]

Yeah - I wasn't really responding to you or any arguments you have made. I was just responding to SFL's post. I am not following these arguments as to the specifics of Manafort's culpability and whatnot. I just think the whole idea of Russia swaying the election or even being a significant factor makes no sense whatsoever.

Fair enough. I think it is plausible that the whole of the coordinated foreign efforts to interfere swayed enough votes to turn the election, but (1) I also think it's plausible that it didn't affect the outcome, (2) I don't think it's possible to prove that it did affect the outcome with any kind of certainty, (3) regardless whether it did or didn't, it's imperative that we take whatever measures necessary to minimize the impact of future efforts to interfere, and (4) it's imperative that we're honest with ourselves about what did and didn't happen in 2016 so that we can punish those who need to be punished, and educate those who need to be educated.

Abrahms' posts are a bit obtuse about how disinformation works in the context of covert election interference, in my opinion. There are some books about this -- and I recommend reading Rigged, for starters -- but The Great Hack is a really good Netflix documentary showing how disinformation is being used on a grand scale to target the most vulnerable voters. It describes how Cambridge Analytica harvested social media data points to generate psychological profiles on people to narrow voters down to those who are most vulnerable to manipulation; this was in multiple elections -- 2016, Brexit, and others around the world. The IRA's tactics were similar, and there are similar psy-ops outfits operating out of Israel and elsewhere which will continue to use these tactics going forward.

The point of that is not to create a back-door argument that the operation was successful -- I reiterate that I don't know if it was -- but rather that it's not as simple as Abrahms' suggestion that we're acting like Russia persuaded half the country to vote for someone they otherwise would've rejected. Voters as a whole are not that naive, Trump was a popular candidate notwithstanding Russia's efforts, and Hillary was a flawed candidate notwithstanding the campaign to highlight those flaws. But it is conceivable that a targeted effort against the most vulnerable voters could've changed some minds with the right propaganda, particularly if it dovetails with messaging that's also being promoted in more legitimate political information centers. And to deny the possibility that such tactics can be successful against the right targets is to fundamentally misunderstand how covert election interference works, and has worked for the past century.

 

[TaylorB]

Their activity clearly paid off - it sent one political party into a complete meltdown: essentially calling into question the Presidential election. Russia's meager investment has paid off exponentially.

If you think questioning a presidential election is a "complete meltdown," wait'll you hear what Trump did for all of 2016 and is already starting to do in 2020.

[edit: Trump questioned the 2012 election by challenging Obama's legitimacy with birtherism, too]

 

[TaylorB]

If you think questioning a presidential election is a "complete meltdown," wait'll you hear what Trump did for all of 2016 and is already starting to do in 2020.

[edit: Trump questioned the 2012 election by challenging Obama's legitimacy with birtherism, too]

We're angry about what Russia did, and about Trump's inner circle's seeming giddiness and/or complicity in welcoming what Russia did. That's not the same as "calling into question" a presidential election, which looks more like this:

 

[dtc]

I know you all say my post when I said:



I do understand why you don't want to hear anything about how the US interference in foreign elections and other countries. It would be hard to still act as if the sky is falling for the Russian interference if you have to acknowledge that the US is the world leader in interference in other countries elections and affairs.

The Russian succeeded in 2016 with something that the US had already mastered. It's perfectly reasonable to criticize both Russia and the US for their election interference. Bringing up that we also interfere in foreign elections is not a defense of Russia. It's ridiculous to claim so unless you believe that the US shouldn't have to play by the rules that we expect of other countries. The holier-than-thou attitude in regards to election interference is what makes the freaking out about Russia beating us at our own game is hard to take seriously.

I find our tampering in the elections of other countries to be morally repugnant, but it's also probably justified in cases that I know nothing about. It's not my job to know. It's wrong, but sometimes necessary and that's the good thing about being the big dog.

The other big dog did it to us with approval and complicity of our current president. I can find our intervention appalling if not necessary and understand the privilege that comes with might. I can't tolerate your refusal to hold Trump accountable or to stand up for the defense of our system.

It's as if you believe the big dog should let the other big dog eat his food. That's not how it works. And to say "it's no big deal" because we do it makes us the little dog and we are not.

 

[Eeyore]

Useful idiot, or traitor?

Giuliani Pleads Ignorance On Bombshell Report That His Ukraine Contact Is A Russian Spy

The Trump attorney claims he had no idea Andrii Derkach, who fed him baseless dirt smearing presidential candidate Joe Biden, was working with the Kremlin.

m.huffpost.com

 

[FullMonte]

Armed with $1.2 billion these people didn't win because of a few million dollars spent by Russians creating Facebook and Twitter posts???? It defies all logic.

Does it? $1.2 billion spent by the Clinton Campaign earned the campaign 66 million votes. That works out to approximately 18.50 spent for each vote.

Now, let's say Russia spent $5 million on specific areas that were close in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. At 18.50 per vote, Russia gets 270,000 votes. Trump won those three states by 77,744 votes. Without those three states, Trump loses 273-258

 

[JimEverett]

Does it? $1.2 billion spent by the Clinton Campaign earned the campaign 66 million votes. That works out to approximately 18.50 spent for each vote.

Now, let's say Russia spent $5 million on specific areas that were close in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. At 18.50 per vote, Russia gets 270,000 votes. Trump won those three states by 77,744 votes. Without those three states, Trump loses 273-258

That is ignoring the fact that the Clinton campaign dollars were not targeted across the nation equally, no campaign does that.
Further, this line seems overly speculative- what evidence is there that Russia put forth an effort where resources were only spent in specific states?

And it doesn't address the fact that the Clinton's $1.2 b were spent by some of the brightest minds in the political science and advertising field - from the greatest universities/colleges in the world vs. some Russians "troll farms"