Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread III
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jobbridge4life wrote: »I'm curious about your statement that I have bolded. What is this based on? I have a similar enough feeling, or maybe the exact same feeling but it has just been battered.
My reasoning was that basically I couldn't comprehend someone doing such a thing, for a variety of reasons. I have to admit though given the last couple of years I don't really know anything.
Mostly because there's nothing in his life to date to suggest that he's that organised.
I also think that his narcissism would not allow him be able to accept the basic premise of interference.
It would however allow him to not see/recognise it for what it was and for him to truly believe that it was 100% pure undiluted Donald J Trump that won the election.0 -
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White house have just made a statement that Trump is supportive of enhanced background checks for those wishing to buy guns
Saw that on the news. It reported that he's also ready for a sit-down and listen session with students and teachers about the shootings. The thing is I don't think he'll stay quiet at any such meeting and may well provoke more anger rising in the students over their friends being shot dead in school. This students march on Washington is being organised by committed incentivised people [parents and children] sick of the murders committed in schools by fire-arm owners. The students blame all those with the power to make and pass laws on fire-arm sales and ownership as being responsible for the murders in the schools, along with the NRA for blocking prevention measures.
I see that Don, as a recipient of NRA financial sponsership, ignore's that that makes him as much a part of the Washington swamp he derides but who's interests are best served in the status quo. If he chooses to ignore that, then he's even deeper in the swamp.
It may well be a sign of disrespect to walk out of a meeting with the sitting president but I hope it is done if Don show's any sign of disrespect to the students, in order to prevent outbursts on either side. I keep seeing students protests from the past, hearing Bob Dylan singing the words "come senators, congressmen.....", thinking politicians never learn.0 -
mcmoustache wrote: »Robert Mueller's indictment seemingly also makes Christopher Steele a criminal. He is a foreign citizen, he tried to influence an election, he received payments to do so, and he neither registered as a foreign agent nor listed his receipts and expenditures to the Federal Election Commission.
This makes so little sense that I'm still at a loss. Steele, a private British citizen, was contracted by Fusion GPS, an American company, to provide some opposition research. That's no more trying to influence an election than the Chinese guy making MAGA hats.
The requirement to register as a foreign agent isn't something that foreign contractors to American companies have to do. FARA statutes refer to agents working on behalf of a foreign government. I'm no legal professional but this is simple stuff.
These people who are informing you about constitutional and criminal law are either full of it or you are greatly misunderstanding them.
Steele's had a close association with Russian informants and common sense dictates the informants were authorized to cooperate with Steele by the Russian government. I think a good argument can be made that Steele was acting on behalf of Russia within the meaning of the statute to interfere in our election. He also acted on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the DNC to influence the election, and did so by leaking his dossier to media sources that published them and of which served as the basis for government spying on the Trump campaign. Clinton and the DNC paid Steele, which possibly makes them co-conspirators with Steele. Also, to take it to a possible conclusion, the Steele dossier was paid for by Hillary and the DNC, which we already know relied heavily on Russian informants, and therefore Hillary and Steele technically might have conspired with paid Russian agents to interfere with the election to damage Trump.
And perhaps we need a Special Council to investigate and make a determination of whether Clinton and the DNC conspired with Steele and the Russians to interfere in the 2016 electionYou can ignorantly accuse me of "whataboutism," but what it really is involves identifying similar scenarios in order to see if it holds up when the shoe is on the other foot!
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aloyisious wrote: »
You can ignorantly accuse me of "whataboutism," but what it really is involves identifying similar scenarios in order to see if it holds up when the shoe is on the other foot!
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You see, your trying to build an case on an incorrect premise;
'Steele's had a close association with Russian informants and common sense dictates the informants were authorized to cooperate with Steele by the Russian government' Quote
It's not common sense, at all. Steele isn't a gomme, easily played.
Think I remember a previous poster, who didn't trust the media. So he, read widely, taking it all on board equally. And then viewed it through his right of centre lens.
Problem is, that gives equal weight to extreme right wing BS. From Fox to Breibart to Jones.
BTW lets not deflect from, (A)the Russians interfered directly in the US elections. (B)Trump has been totally wrong to say otherwise. (C) He hasn't moved, in any way to prevent it happening again. Despite the advice of all five security agencies, heads.0 -
Water John wrote: »(C) He hasn't moved, in any way to prevent it happening again. Despite the advice of all five security agencies, heads.
Surely as the President this is dereliction of duty on Trump's part.0 -
Looks like pretty boy Kushner is firmly in Mueller's crosshairs, for trying to do deals while in the transition oops....not only Russia but with the Chinese and Quatar I think. Were they looking for favors for bailing him out? hmmmmm
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/02/19/politics/mueller-investigation-kushner-foreign-financing-efforts/index.html
I don't know is this accelerating or not! I think there is so much dodgy stuff going on with all of Trumps friends and family that Mueller that he's only picking off the easy stuff now. He is some operator I would hate to be in his crosshairs.6.1kWp south facing, South of Cork City
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White house have just made a statement that Trump is supportive of enhanced background checks for those wishing to buy guns
That's a bit of smoke and mirrors. A bipartisan bill was put forward last November tightening compliance with background checks. Not even the NRA are opposing it. It's a bit like Trump issuing a press release saying that Christmas happened and he approves.0 -
Water John wrote: »You see, your trying to build an case on an incorrect premise;
'Steele's had a close association with Russian informants and common sense dictates the informants were authorized to cooperate with Steele by the Russian government' Quote
It's not common sense, at all. Steele isn't a gomme, easily played.
Think I remember a previous poster, who didn't trust the media. So he, read widely, taking it all on board equally. And then viewed it through his right of centre lens.
Problem is, that gives equal weight to extreme right wing BS. From Fox to Breibart to Jones.
BTW lets not deflect from, (A)the Russians interfered directly in the US elections. (B)Trump has been totally wrong to say otherwise. (C) He hasn't moved, in any way to prevent it happening again. Despite the advice of all five security agencies, heads.
And I agree the Russians interfered in US elections. They have been doing it for decades and will continue to do so. And so has the US been interfering with foreign elections. I think the number stands as 81 of them between 1946 and 2000. And that doesn't include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the US didn't like. The strongest defense to outside interference is an educated electorate.You can ignorantly accuse me of "whataboutism," but what it really is involves identifying similar scenarios in order to see if it holds up when the shoe is on the other foot!
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How much smoke does there have to be
FBI investigating potential money transfers from Russian banker to NRA: report
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fbi-potential-transfers-russian-banker-nra-article-1.37637920 -
Problem is David, we have people like the poster above you, 'who comes to his own truths'.
Objective analysis of proof, would be my preferred criteria. Like civil and criminal prosecutions, we can have probable, as one bar and beyond reasonable doubt, as a higher bar.0 -
Re the fire-arms issue, Don's now been quoted on BBC's newsnight programme as saying that he'll have a look at loopholes in gun laws or words to that effect . It re-ran his promise to the NRA that he would defend LAW-ABIDING citizens rights to keep and bear arms. The snag with that promise is that up until the time that a law-abiding citizen shoots, without legal cause, another person with a fire-arm, he/she is a law abiding citizen like Cruz was before he shot and killed 17 people in an unlawul way, so Don can't be faulted by his promise.0
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Perhaps I am misunderstanding it.
Yes you are. You're so far out there in terms of your ability to discern fact from fiction, to figure out reality from bullsh!t that I don't know how to help you.
It's like if you got caught speeding and went to your solicitor with the following:
"You see Mr Solicitor, the Garda wasn't wearing his hat. That invalidates the ticket. And he can't ticket me because I don't have diplomatic relations with the Republic of Ireland. Not only that, this ticket is addressed to a different person. And the judge sits in a dock so if I say some magic words, he'll have to spin around 3 times and leave the court, leading to a mistrial. Why am I even here, Mr Solicitor?"
I might suggest this forum as the nonsense that you're coming out with could really only fly in a place such as that. I'm sorry for being so harsh, but you're simply not well enough equipped to to handle debate in what is a factual forum.0 -
Perhaps I am misunderstanding it.
Steele's had a close association with Russian informants and common sense dictates the informants were authorized to cooperate with Steele by the Russian government. I think a good argument can be made that Steele was acting on behalf of Russia within the meaning of the statute to interfere in our election. He also acted on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the DNC to influence the election, and did so by leaking his dossier to media sources that published them and of which served as the basis for government spying on the Trump campaign. Clinton and the DNC paid Steele, which possibly makes them co-conspirators with Steele. Also, to take it to a possible conclusion, the Steele dossier was paid for by Hillary and the DNC, which we already know relied heavily on Russian informants, and therefore Hillary and Steele technically might have conspired with paid Russian agents to interfere with the election to damage Trump.
And perhaps we need a Special Council to investigate and make a determination of whether Clinton and the DNC conspired with Steele and the Russians to interfere in the 2016 election
On the basis of your last Para above: would you think Don would have trust in any former FBI director chosen to act as special counsel in charge of any such investigtion, seeing as it would be into HRC, the person he believes the FBI protected through a bad investigation, the same way he thinks the present former FBI director/special counsel is carrying out a bad investigation into him at a personal level?0 -
I'm still not particularly sure what it is that's being achieved with all this. Nobody from St Petersburg instructed me to vote a certain way, or else. And what's this investigation, or the social media companies going to do if, instead of a troll farm, the technique is simply to offer people in the US a couple of dollars here or there to do exactly the same thing?0
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The question, I think, is whether people might have influenced your voting decision by circulating false information, or by trying to create a media environment in which it was difficult for you to tell truth from falsehood, opinion from fact, or by breeding distrust in your country's institutions, or whatever.0
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Manic Moran wrote: »I'm still not particularly sure what it is that's being achieved with all this. Nobody from St Petersburg instructed me to vote a certain way, or else. And what's this investigation, or the social media companies going to do if, instead of a troll farm, the technique is simply to offer people in the US a couple of dollars here or there to do exactly the same thing?
Elections are swung by small margins, by getting the undecided to switch side or stay at home.
In many ways, democracy often comes down to appealing to the least politically aware people in society. People, like Donald Trump, who don't care about politics 99% of the time and only get engaged with an election in the days before a vote and tend to believe the last person they talked to, and have such little awareness of the world that they cannot identify when they are blatantly manipulated.
In America there are also entrenched sides, life long dems and life long GOP voters, these people will usually vote for whoever the candidate is. Then there are the principled voters who take their decision seriously and try to weigh up each candidate. These voters are vulnerable to propaganda that ether promotes one candidate, or more likely poisons them against another candidate by constantly dripping negative stories about them and creating a virtual consensus in their social media that their candidate is severely flawed but maybe might be the better of two bad choices. Some percentage of these voters will either abstain or vote third party, and this is often enough to swing an election.
Then there are the gullible conspiracy theory driven voters who will believe almost anything that their preferred news source tells them to believe, whether thats facebook, or youtube, or internet media outlets like breitbart0 -
My view on it is twofold.
I don't really believe that Trump himself actively (and knowingly) colluded with the Russians to influence the Election.
However through a combination of Hubris , ignorance of rules and also Trumps in ability to look at some of his successes through the lens "If it looks to good to be true it probably isn't" they definitely gained from it.
But - His attacks on Mueller and his current lack of willingness to punish Russia for their actions I believe it absolutely down to him not wanting people looking too closely as his connections to Russia and Russian Money in particular.
Trump's business was never real estate or casinos or golf courses it was money laundering.
Lets talk just one golf course Doonbeg:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/trump-inquiry-hears-claim-of-russian-mafia-money-link-to-doonbeg-1.3361639
Let's take one building: Trump Soho. Linked is a case against Bayrock who built it for Trump for laundering to the value of $100 million. Now you could believe Trump when he says he wouldnt recognise main defendant Felix Satter if he saw him in a room. Even though Sater escorted the Trump kids on a Moscow holiday; even though Satter had a managership job card for Trump enterprises, even though he and Trump go way back.
What about all the other Trump towers/buildings where charges of suspicions of money laundering occurred?
What about the Trump Tazmahal where the biggest ever fine for money laundering in US Casino history took place. What about his other Casinos?
What about his and his fathers long standing connections to NY mafia?
This is just the tip of the iceburg regarding his corruption in estate and casions. His seedy 'model' operation has not being fully scrutinized yet.
So he has no culpability in all this, he is naive.
What about his NSA advisor telling the Russians Trump would drop sanctions?
What about his own son dealing with a Russian agent to swap removing Magnitsky sanctions for dirt on Clinton?
What about his foreign policy advisor Papadopolous?
He was emailing with a Russian agent and met him and others in London. The offer was 100,000 of Clinton emails in exchange for benefits to Russia for a Trump presidency? Papadolous is now a criminal because he lied about these exchanges.
How about Gates deputy Trump campaign manager. He instructed the platform on Ukraine to be drastically softened. Now he is about to be a criminal (agreed a plea)?
What about the Trump tower Moscow deal negotiated in 2013 at Moscow Miss World? You build anything in Moscow it must get the OK from Putin. After the deal a Russian minister of State tweeted that Trump will make a great President. This is back in 2013? Was this Trump sleep walking? What was the quid pro quo? This deal was only called off well into Trump's first year. Oh yeah, his lawyer Cohen and Felix Satter helped arrange that deal (the guy TRump would not be able to pick out of a room full of people).
Trump's defence is now that he was naive, a bumbler. There is a lot of disinformation out there, but people need to dig deeper and really make up their minds.
I keep warning that this nightmare will come to our shores sooner rather than later and we wont be able to rely on Mueller to save us.0 -
Manic Moran wrote: »I'm still not particularly sure what it is that's being achieved with all this. Nobody from St Petersburg instructed me to vote a certain way, or else. And what's this investigation, or the social media companies going to do if, instead of a troll farm, the technique is simply to offer people in the US a couple of dollars here or there to do exactly the same thing?
What's being achieved with all this is an understanding of the US's vulnerability to psychological warfare and how it can be minimised in the future. Propaganda is a real thing and has been an important component of warfare for a very long time because it works. The US itself had been rather adept at it over the years but this time, it was a victim of it. Russian propaganda is being used to divide American society. That's not some liberal opinion but the assessment of various heads on intelligence agencies.
While you may not have been affected by propaganda, plenty were and are still being riled up. Factions on the left and on the right were riled up enough to show up in the real world and protest each other. What I'm saying is that while you weren't necessarily manipulated by propaganda, plenty of others were and it went well beyond the keyboard. In the same way, some people were motivated to vote while others were motivated to stay home. Again, this isn't just leftist opinions, these are assessments from members of the intelligence community. Their testimony was provided to the Senate Intelligence committee and these are available on youtube and there are also transcripts available which show in detail how all this works.
Now, regarding what happens if Russians just pay people in the US, I'm not too sure. I presume money would need to change hands along the way and that Americans would cost a bit more than Russians. There's also the small matter of these social media posts being relatively easy to detect by the social media companies despite their argument to the contrary. For example, if 50 people make the exact same post, chances are that it's a shilled message.
I don't deny that minimising the effects of propaganda is difficult in this age of information but that doesn't mean that the US shouldn't try. It's a smart country. I'm sure they can figure it out.0 -
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Manic Moran wrote: »I'm still not particularly sure what it is that's being achieved with all this. Nobody from St Petersburg instructed me to vote a certain way, or else. And what's this investigation, or the social media companies going to do if, instead of a troll farm, the technique is simply to offer people in the US a couple of dollars here or there to do exactly the same thing?
This article is what you are looking for:3. Who or what was the operation targeting, and what did it aim to achieve?
The indictment mentions that the Russian accounts were meant to embed with and emulate “radical” groups. The content was not designed to persuade people to change their views, but to harden those views. Confirmation bias is powerful and commonly employed in these kinds of psychological operations (a related Soviet concept is “reflexive control”—applying pressure in ways to elicit a specific, known response). The intention of these campaigns was to activate—or suppress—target groups. Not to change their views, but to change their behavior.0 -
Water John wrote: »Problem is David, we have people like the poster above you, 'who comes to his own truths'.
Objective analysis of proof, would be my preferred criteria. Like civil and criminal prosecutions, we can have probable, as one bar and beyond reasonable doubt, as a higher bar.You can ignorantly accuse me of "whataboutism," but what it really is involves identifying similar scenarios in order to see if it holds up when the shoe is on the other foot!
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mcmoustache wrote: »Perhaps I am misunderstanding it.
Yes you are. You're so far out there in terms of your ability to discern fact from fiction, to figure out reality from bullsh!t that I don't know how to help you.
It's like if you got caught speeding and went to your solicitor with the following:
"You see Mr Solicitor, the Garda wasn't wearing his hat. That invalidates the ticket. And he can't ticket me because I don't have diplomatic relations with the Republic of Ireland. Not only that, this ticket is addressed to a different person. And the judge sits in a dock so if I say some magic words, he'll have to spin around 3 times and leave the court, leading to a mistrial. Why am I even here, Mr Solicitor?"
I might suggest this forum as the nonsense that you're coming out with could really only fly in a place such as that. I'm sorry for being so harsh, but you're simply not well enough equipped to to handle debate in what is a factual forum.
I’ve laid out information worthy of discussion on the matter. Perhaps, rather than jumping immediately into disingenuous attacks on a poster, try some logic to debunk my questions and rationally make the case for why you feel as you do, so strongly.You can ignorantly accuse me of "whataboutism," but what it really is involves identifying similar scenarios in order to see if it holds up when the shoe is on the other foot!
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Objective analysis of proof and court decisions would be my preferred criteria, also. But absent that, we all analyse the information available to us and determine from it what the truth is in our own minds.
What information did you analyse to establish the below array of conjectures?
For example Steele also previously gathered the intelligence that allowed the British government to confirm that Litvinenko was murdered by Russian agents under orders from Vladimir Putin.
Your logic seems to be that because he was able to garner some of this intel from Russians, a 'good argument' can be made that he must have had the permission of the Kremlin to do so and is therefore a double agent?
Was he also an agent of Sepp Blatter and FIFA when he brought them down for the Federal Government?
As was said before you need to work on your BS. It's poor by any standards.Perhaps I am misunderstanding it.
Steele's had a close association with Russian informants and common sense dictates the informants were authorized to cooperate with Steele by the Russian government. I think a good argument can be made that Steele was acting on behalf of Russia within the meaning of the statute to interfere in our election. He also acted on behalf of Hillary Clinton and the DNC to influence the election, and did so by leaking his dossier to media sources that published them and of which served as the basis for government spying on the Trump campaign. Clinton and the DNC paid Steele, which possibly makes them co-conspirators with Steele. Also, to take it to a possible conclusion, the Steele dossier was paid for by Hillary and the DNC, which we already know relied heavily on Russian informants, and therefore Hillary and Steele technically might have conspired with paid Russian agents to interfere with the election to damage Trump.
And perhaps we need a Special Council to investigate and make a determination of whether Clinton and the DNC conspired with Steele and the Russians to interfere in the 2016 election0 -
Another indictment in this whole nothingburger.
I never heard of the guy but he's the son in law of German Kahn, Russian Oligarch. Kahn worked for Alfa Group who own Alfa Bank, if anyone wants to take a look down the rabbithole.An attorney who worked for a prominent law firm was charged with making false statements to federal authorities as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.
Alex Van Der Zwaan was charged Feb. 16 in federal court in Washington with lying to investigators about conversations related to a report he helped prepare on the trial of a Ukrainian politician, Yulia Tymoshenko. Van Der Swaan was charged with a criminal information, which typically precedes a guilty plea.
Van Der Zwaan, identified on his LinkedIn page as an associate in the London office of Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom, was questioned regarding the firm’s work in 2012 on behalf of the Ukraine Ministry of Justice. He allegedly lied to investigators about his last communications with Richard Gates, who was indicted in October with ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort over their consulting work in Ukraine.0 -
mcmoustache wrote: »Another indictment in this whole nothingburger.
I never heard of the guy but he's the son of German Kahn, Russian Oligarch. Kahn worked for Alfa Group who own Alfa Bank, if anyone wants to take a look down the rabbithole.
This relates to Manafort. Manafort's worked on former Ukraine president Yanukovitz's campaign. If I remember correctly this president jailed former president Tymoshenko. This Alex Van Der Zwaan will plea and provide evidence against Manafort.0 -
Thank you for proving ridicule and mockery has become such a staple of the Left.
Why do you assume that someone who describes your nonsense as nonsense has to be a leftist? It happens a lot here with Trumpers.I’ve laid out information worthy of discussion on the matter. Perhaps, rather than jumping immediately into disingenuous attacks on a poster, try some logic to debunk my questions and rationally make the case for why you feel as you do, so strongly.
No you didn't. You posted some nonsense that looks like something from Charlie Kelly's second edition of Bird Law or the legal theories of Barry Zuckercorn. Your post had words in there but when parsed into English, displayed a massive misunderstanding of reality itself. Your interpretation of FARA and how it applies to Steele is so far removed from how things work that you are either educating yourself with nonsense or interpreting nonsense from facts. Either way, it's nonsense coming out.
I'm sorry if that seems rude but you need to understand some pretty basic concepts if you want me to take you seriously.
I've provided a link above to the wiki entry on FARA. Here's a taster:The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) is a United States law passed in 1938 requiring that agents representing the interests of foreign powers in a "political or quasi-political capacity" disclose their relationship with the foreign government and information about related activities and finances. The purpose is to facilitate "evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons." The law is administered by the FARA Registration Unit of the Counterespionage Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD) of the United States Department of Justice.[1] As of 2007 the Justice Department reported there were approximately 1,700 lobbyists representing more than 100 countries before Congress, the White House and the federal government.[2]
If you can read that and still think that it applies to Steele, I'm not going to waste my time because you're not going to understand or are just sealioning.0 -
Objective analysis of proof and court decisions would be my preferred criteria, also. But absent that, we all analyse the information available to us and determine from it what the truth is in our own minds.
What information did you analyse to establish the below array of conjectures?
For example Steele also previously gathered the intelligence that allowed the British government to confirm that Litvinenko was murdered by Russian agents under orders from Vladimir Putin.
Your logic seems to be that because he was able to garner some of this intel from Russians, a 'good argument' can be made that he must have had the permission of the Kremlin to do so and is therefore a double agent?
Was he also an agent of Sepp Blatter and FIFA when he brought them down for the Federal Government?
As was said before you need to work on your BS. It's poor by any standards.
Steele’s past is irrelevant.
Just because Steele might have been clueless in that he seemingly was being played by the Russian government through their informants doesn’t negate his actions regarding his trying to influence the election. First, he was a foreign agent. Second, his motives appear political. Steele relayed to Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr that he was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president." It is also important to note that Ohr's wife is a former CIA researcher who was hired by Fusion GPS to collect anti-Trump material, and was paid for my the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. And this was after the FBI cut Steele loose after discovering he shared the dossier's contents with journalists in efforts to influence the election.
Pertinent factors that Steele might be looking at criminal proceedings.You can ignorantly accuse me of "whataboutism," but what it really is involves identifying similar scenarios in order to see if it holds up when the shoe is on the other foot!
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Join Date:Posts: 22734
Notobtuse banned for repeated breaches of forum charter.Deliberately misleading posts or posters aiming to spread misinformation will be sanctioned. We do not expect posters to be experts in all areas, however, the onus is on all posters to fact check their information. If a poster is corrected, or information corrected in a thread, any poster who continues to relate misinformation as fact will be sanctioned.
Let's leave it there folks0 -
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Manic Moran wrote: »I'm still not particularly sure what it is that's being achieved with all this. Nobody from St Petersburg instructed me to vote a certain way, or else. And what's this investigation, or the social media companies going to do if, instead of a troll farm, the technique is simply to offer people in the US a couple of dollars here or there to do exactly the same thing?
For someone who was/is part of the miltary machine in the US though is it not concerning to you that the US soft power is being undermined by what could be construed as your biggest enemy of the last 60 years.
I mean you seem rather okay with the idea based solely on the fact you are a republican voter anyway.
Have to say Manic its a perplexing viewpoint especially from an Irishman.0