The Mueller investigation.

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Quantum Quack, Feb 17, 2018.

  1. CptBork Robbing the Shalebridge Cradle Valued Senior Member

    U mad, bro? Go start a war with Sweden, you'll feel better in no time. You should take it as a compliment that I call people drunk when they accuse a bunch of children of faking their deaths from sarin gas (and ignore the obvious forgeries that go along with such explanations), it's truly frightening for Russia's future to think that the best ideas coming from the Kremlin originated in sober minds.
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  3. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    LOL, your local Nazi starts to justify his hate speech with warcrime fantasies of Western war propaganda. But that at least makes some sense. Of course, a Nazi will believe anti-Russian war propaganda, and in his opinion, this also justifies to despise all the Russian people. A quite consistent point of view, even if fascist. In comparison with the defenses for anti-Russian hate speech proposed by the fighters against anti-trans hate speech.
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  5. CptBork Robbing the Shalebridge Cradle Valued Senior Member

    I don't despise all Russian people, especially the ones in my own family tree, just those like yourself who believe that being Russian or speaking Russian entitles one to privileges that somehow don't exist for anyone else. And yes, most of these people are drunk all the time, that's why they come up with their fantasies about lost imperial glories or believe they have the means to take the world on with an economy smaller than California, and why they're gullible enough to believe the Sesame Street level BS you get served every day on Russian state media. What are you folks trying to prove when you load missiles onto submarines in Syria and sail them out into the Mediterranean to fire back inland, instead of just launching them from land in closer proximity to the target and saving a whole bunch of time and money? Or when you take hypersonic ICBM's from the 1970's, make them fly at lower altitudes where they're easier to shoot down, and then pretend it's a revolutionary new Earth-shaking technology?

    It's one thing to be anti-American, not exactly an uncommon sentiment even in the US itself. It's another thing altogether when you double down on it by proclaiming your undying love for a diminutive KGB bureaucrat with a Napoleon complex and openly lie on his behalf to justify mass murder, and then support the destruction of US soft power so that a fascist can take over with Russian support and resort to hard power instead. You're not at all opposed to US bullying or aggression, as long as such activities are perceived in some way to contribute to re-establishing the Russian empire and thereby making you feel good about all your personal failures by living vicariously through your tribe.

    Apparently I'm a Nazi because I don't think Russians own the world or any part of it beyond what was agreed to when the Soviet Union was defeated by the US, and also because I refuse to acknowledge how civilized and sophisticated they are these days, drinking less vodka and more beer, soaking jeans in urine rather than traditional woolen garments.
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2019
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  7. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    I'm not even Russian, I'm German, and certainly I don't believe such nonsense. The remaining Nazi bs is not worth to be commented on.
  8. CptBork Robbing the Shalebridge Cradle Valued Senior Member

    Yes you do believe it. You believe it's ok for Russia to send colonists all over the globe, and then a few decades later when they decide they want independence, Russia is somehow entitled to invade and seize land in order to protect the colonists from assimilating into more attractive cultures.

    lol... wonders how many Russians are living in Germany at the moment...
    The main justification/excuse used for Czech annexation by Hitler (pre: WW2) was that 2 million+ Germans lived in the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia). (re: The Munich Pact -1938)
  10. CptBork Robbing the Shalebridge Cradle Valued Senior Member

    There's enough of them in Germany that I'd consider Russian expansionism to be a realistic threat if I were the chancellor, the KGB's propaganda division has been operating very extensively there in recent years trying to agitate discontent.
  11. Vociferous Registered Senior Member

    Military judicial code is its own animal, and one president's remarks are a red herring, at best, when compared to simply hiring someone, but not ordering them or remarking on what they should do.
    Intellectually suspect.

    Straw man. Never said either was unlimited.
    So where did Trump use either/both to obstruct justice? You know, like Obama:
    "President Obama and the Justice Department declined to prosecute the attorney general on the contempt charge, citing executive privilege." -

    Or the intellectually suspect could use it as an excuse for ad hominem. Yawn.

    You mean like this:
    "The conclusion reached by Judge Pauley, federal prosecutors and U.S. Probation was based on a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, meaning that they concluded it is more likely than not that Trump directed Cohen to commit a crime. That is well below the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard in a criminal trial." -

    Again, like impeachment, that's more political than criminal.
    Old, as in prior to Trump. Trump didn't invoke anything with respect to Mueller's report. Presidents have a right to free speech too.

    So that's all you got? Meh.
  12. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    LOL. This is supposed to be about Crimea? Which was part of the Russian empire hundreds of years? Which had never any relation to Ukraine, up to the decision of that Ukrainian guy, Khrushchev, to cut it from Russia and assign it to Ukraine, without caring at all what the population of Crimea thinks about it?
    A lot but in comparison with the Germans irrelevant. Moreover, they are well integrated. Initially, during the 90s, some cultural differences were visible (these "Russians" of German origin have been deported to Kasachstan by Stalin, and lived there in a quite harsh rural environment, much different from Germany at that time) but this was simply a problem of time, today they are well integrated. Even more, the Jewish emigration from Russia is well integrated. (And, just to clarify, I'm not one of them too.)
    Russia itself does not even want back the Baltic states, with much more Russians among the population, and much more conflict potential between the Russian population and the natives, which, with European support, develop their own strong Nazi traditions. What the Russians do is to develop their own infrastructure in such a way that the Baltic states lose the remains of economic importance for Russia completely. The main economic strength of the Balticum (beyond the local industry, which was destroyed by integration into the EU) was their ports. Today, Russia has built its own modern ports at the Baltic Sea, and the Baltic state ports remain empty and useless. Same for North Stream II, it is important to have direct connections with Germany, without leaving the completely US-ruled Balticum/Poland/Ukraine the possibility to seriously damage the communications with Germany.
  13. CptBork Robbing the Shalebridge Cradle Valued Senior Member

    I wasn't only talking about Crimea, but if you want to use that example then sure. It may have been part of the Russian empire for a few centuries, but it never had an ethnic Russian majority until the 1930's when Stalin cleansed it and sent people like you to replace the locals. Having it incorporated into Ukraine was a good buffer against domination of the Tatars by the new Russian colonial majority while giving everyone their basic democratic rights, but you don't like it when Russians don't get to run the show, which has been your only real gripe against America's international activities in general.

    ( Schmelzer )
    Yeah... One thing I do not understand about Schmelzer's devotion to a multi polar world (Promakov doctrine - BRICS etc) is that even though we can agree that the USA has flaws and is far from perfect it offers by far the greatest degree of support for democracy and associated freedoms and that to replace this with the draconian policies of Russia, China, Iran, Brazil, etc... is like stepping back into the dark ages.
    To replace the USA lead in world affairs with immature and politically repressive, and generally oppressive regimes is ultimately self destructive.
    Try freedom of the internet in Russia or China or Iran for example.
    Try the use of excessive population controls such as imprisoning people for contrary opinion, religious beliefs, etc.
    Try threatening world war to pursue their oppressive objectives. A war for democracy I can understand, but war for oppression I can't.
    History has proven over and over again that populations will only tolerate oppression for so long. China, Russia, Iran are serious melting pots for potential revolution not necessarily instigated by the USA but inspired by the notion of freedom and democracy that functions. Inspired simply because it is a fundamental of human nature and Schmelzer blames the USA for human nature?
    Of course Putin and Xi want to rid themselves of that notion called democracy but can't seem to get their heads around the fact that with an educated population which gives them power comes the call for democracy. A contradiction if you like.
    Honk Kong is a glowing example of how a highly educated population is rejecting the draconian oppression of the Chinese government. It easier to fool uneducated people and that is their ( China and Russia and Iran etc) fundamental issue as the general population becomes more and more educated calls for reform increase, even to the point of civil war.
    The very freedom that Schmelzer uses to post to this forum is the freedom he seeks to destroy... why is that?
    It is truly puzzling to me...

    Also the claim that Putin removed organized crime in Russia is absurd as all he has managed to do is rationalize it and turn a blind eye when it is convenient and profitable to do so, the same happens all over the globe not just in Russia, when dealing with that level of organized corruption.
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2019
  15. CptBork Robbing the Shalebridge Cradle Valued Senior Member

    Yes it's absurd that Schmelzer pretends to think that a dictatorship which survives by stifling intellectual freedom, land theft and resource exploitation can somehow compete with societies that reward their intellectuals instead of threatening or jailing them or targeting their parents and children. He calls it "liberal anarchy" but it's more like total anarchy when you consider the long-term direction in which repressive societies generally head. I think it's all really just about proving that Russia isn't truly inferior to the US despite all measures and appearances; people who wasted their lives backing it against more just and free societies now want to prove that their lives didn't really go to waste, so they cheer and gloat as more defenseless hospitals get blown up in Syria to prove their might, and they lie about it to try and deflect the blame.

    If it were about liberating the world from US domination, he would have expressed support for those US politicians who advocate soft power, or supported the rise of neutral middle powers such as Ukraine, or called for Germany to have a nuclear arsenal of its own, instead of trying at every turn to lie and justify Trump's abuses of office and collaboration with Russian hackers and propagandists. He certainly wouldn't be siding with people who embody the values he claims to hate against the ones to whom he targets his wrath instead.
    Quantum Quack likes this.
  16. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    The deportation of the Crimean Tatars happened after the war, as a collective penalty for (claimed or real, there are different opinions) collaboration with the Nazis. The majority was Russian/Ukrainian already 1926 (42,65% Russian, 10,95% Ukrainian), and the Russian/Ukrainian population was greater than the Crimean Tatar population already 1897 (33,11% Russian, 11,84% Ukrainian, vs. 35,55% Crimean Tatars).Население_Крыма#Национальный_состав
    LOL. Khrushchov caring about the rights of Crimean Tatars (who were not allowed to return at that time)?

    This is simply Western propaganda which I don't believe. Democracy in the form supported by the US means the rule of some oligarchy via their lobbies, with Washington controlling the mass media (which is named "freedom of press") and being able to get rid of any unwanted politician via a media smear campaign. The value of such "democracy" and "freedom of press" for the population is close to zero. Associated freedoms? This was justified in comparison with communist times. But in the age of the PATRIOT Act these are memories of the past.
    Russia, as well as China, are much more mature. They have a long history of ruling an empire, and both value the lessons they can learn from history. The ruling elites are much more educated than what we see ruling the US.
    The censorship in Twitter, Youtube, and so on is actually quite serious, and obviously political censorship. There is, of course, some censorship on the Russian internet, but if I see how Ukrainian fascists are free to comment on the Russian internet and what Navalny and Co. write there that is nothing serious.
    As an example of censorship, there was actually a case of a "liberal" blogger who suggested to abduct and murder the children of the policemen and then send them the snuff films. He was sentenced to 5 years or so. Any problem with this?
    In Russia, there is nothing of this. I have no information (beyond suspect Western sources) about the situation in China, but given how they react on the Hongkong color revolution attempt, one has to expect that most of the anti-Chinese Western propaganda is also simply propaganda.
    Except that neither Russia nor China nor Iran threatens world war. All they "threaten" is to defend themselves against US attacks.
    No, I simply don't see more freedom in the US than in Russia.
    Putin's Russia is democratic. Xi prefers a different model of society, based on Chinese traditions (Confucius). It is much more meritocratic. To become a ruling politician in this system, you have to be better than a lot of competitors in the bureaucracy. For the Chinese, it is sufficient to look at clowns like Trump or Johnson to know that their system is preferable because you get at least well-educated rulers.
    No. Hongkong is simply a color revolution paid by the US.
    The Russian population is much better educated than the Western one. This was already the case in communist times. The difference decreases a little bit during the pro-Western "reforms" in Yeltsin time, but not that much given that Western education was detoriating during that period too. Now it is increasing again. Similar for China.
    Explained many times: A multipolar world gives more freedom of choice where to live because there will be very different cultures with very different values. The poles - means, the very big states which give the warranty that there will be no world government - will be, simply because big states are usually more restrictive, not among the choices of those who look for their personal freedom, and I do not plan to live there. But they are necessary to protect my country of choice from being controlled by the US
    You have no idea about the real level of corruption in Russia, but get your information about this from Western propaganda. Crime rates are crime rates, murder rates are murder rates, both are decreasing, together with the number of incarcerated (which is nonetheless, even if much lower than US, far too high yet). Then, don't confuse complete destruction of organized crime (probably impossible) with removing organized crime from political power (which has been reached).
    Except that I neither think nor pretend to think such nonsense. The part of the world where intellectual freedom is actually much more stifled is the West, where you cannot question all that PC nonsense without the danger of being fired.
    LOL. The US hard power consists, mainly their airforce carriers, became sitting ducks now, at least for Russia and China, and without air superiority the US army is not able to fight seriously. The US soft power is much more dangerous. They can buy yet terrorists everywhere to create local civil wars. Actually they try to do such things in Hongkong. The other really important soft power thing is the petrodollar. It gives the US a lot of income for nothing. To get rid of US domination, to attack US soft power is even more important that to attack its hard power. The hard power of the US is already deteriorating simply because of US-internal corruption which nobody even tries to fight so that it will only raise. And, given that the US education is deteriorating too, with increasing speed (given that they no longer care about giving children knowledge but about PC and so on) the US will be unable to win the technological arms race. If the petrodollar will be finished, then the US would also lose the ability to buy scientists from all over the world to solve this problem.

    oh please .... You only need to read the Russian media outlets a few times to get the picture.... There are about 10 of them worth monitoring...
    The latest scandals have all involved reporter being locked up due to being framed by authorities with fake evidence being planted. And that is heavily censored
    Then there is rumor of a Ban on Russian athletes from competing in the Olympics for doping... again!! Gosh .. is there no honor in Russia?

    As for China I have Uyghur friends who are missing family members due to the forced detention and indoctrination of millions in camps in China.
    China wants to extradite Hong Kong citizens to mainland for extra judicial detention. ( the restaurant I eat at on occasions is staffed by Honk Kong expats. who are praying that the USA comes to their aid)

    There is ample evidence to state that you are merely following the Russian propaganda and all the pro Russia blogs. How do you know that they are being truthful any how?
    For me I need at least 3 independent of each other mainstream sources to grant any credibility, how many do you use?
    You seem to just soak up nonsense with out any real critical thought being attempted.
  18. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    So you admit there are Russian media worth monitoring? Fine, if there would be serious censorship, there would not be such media.
    There was an attempt, but the reporter is now free and the investigation is ongoing against those policemen who planted the fake evidence.
    There is a lot of doping everywhere in professional sport. I see no reason to care about this, but I sometimes see that the Russians like to point to the ways of organized doping in the West. There is, for example, a widely distributed illness, don't remember which, IIRC asthma, and all these asthmatics get a permission for some medicine which would be, otherwise, doping.
    Maybe. I don't have such sources, so I remain silent about this.
    The story is a little bit different. The issue was a murderer catched in Hongkong who was searched for in Taiwan. And it appeared that there is a legal possibility to extradict criminals to the US, Britain and so on, but neither to Taiwan nor to China. Does it make sense not to extradite murderers to Taiwan? Not. Same for China. Now, the murderer is happy, because he will not be extradited. The planned extradition law would work similar to everywhere, with extradition only if what was done was a crime in the country which extradites too.

    Expats are, of course, quite neutral sources about their home countries, lol.
    The techniques I use to judge the sources I have described many times. Evaluation of the text: Care about words (say, "terrorist" vs. "rebel" for jihadists), about links to sources, about the correct presentation of the arguments of the other side. Then comes the intention: What could be a motive to lie? If you can compare with what the other side says: Beyond the trivial what is admitted, most information is "between the lines": What is not questioned? What is not answered?
    As explained many times, there cannot be such a simple rate, because it depends on the context, on the content of the information, if there is a motivation to lie or not. Say, a Western mainstream source is considered as acceptable only if it admits Western wrongdoings. Similar to how common sense handles confessions of criminals if there is no evidence for torture. So, in this case even one source can be sufficient. Very trustable is also information used to justify somebody if one, instead, can use it against him. If instead, some information discredits the political enemy, it is almost worthless. Here one certainly needs confirmation from the attacked side. The number of Western mass media sources cannot be a criterion at all, simply because they are one side. So, even 50 Western media do not count much, if the content is, say, anti-Russian or anti-Chinese. Most of the content is anyway copypasted, but even if not - all these 50 mass media are anyway only the position of one side.

    Sometimes I use this forum as a check: I post it, and if there is nobody countering the information, fine. Of course, iceaura's "that's Rep propaganda" does not count as an objection, but reasonable objections with references (like from Tiassa against the Federalist or so which I linked) I take into account. Note that if I'm not sure about the reliability, I simply don't make direct claims. So, in the case of the Federalist link, I have simply given the correct information that the Russians laugh about this, not claimed that this is true. The error I make here is that I assume that the participants read the texts carefully before answering, are able to understand the elementary logic, and do not intentionally lie about things that everybody can easily identify as a lie by looking at my posting which has been answered. This error is essentially unavoidable, without making such assumptions it is impossible to start a discussion.

    The point is about the gravity of a president's words.

    The reminder that executive privilege and pardon power are not unlimited attends your unbound statement that, "Presidents do have executive privilege and pardon power. Nothing unlawful about either." Such as it is, those sentences might be generally correct, but they are not necessarily appropriate to the particular application. To wit:

    The question of Trump's dangling of pardons depends on others, such as Rudy Giuliani, who oversaw one attorney, or Ty Cobb, who was Trump's attorney at the time. It is known pardons were, indeed dangled, as the parlance has it. This is, in fact, illegal.

    Furthermore, we have in recent days seen inappropriate assertions of executive privilege while witnesses refused to answer questions.

    Have you not been following the story?

    Well, maybe not:

    Well, sure, but that's still a court, and not Congressional Democrats.

    Well, it goes back to the fallout from Watergate. And pretty much everybody has observed the old OLC memo. "Trump didn't invoke anything with respect to Mueller's report"? Don't push shit through a garlic press and tell me it's spaghetti. Facing a contempt vote for withholding the Mueller report, Attorney General Barr asked Trump to declare executive privilege over the entire report, and the President did. And as Congress seeks information and witnesses, he has even declared executive privilege over issues that do not involve his presidency.

    Well, sure, but every job comes with obligations toward speech and conduct. Faithfully executing the laws precludes extorting foreign governments for help with conspiracy theories against political enemies in exchange for abiding the law.

    That one's pretty straightforward. In fact, writing the sentence is a tougher task than understanding it; it's not quite explaining color to a blind person, or whatever, but still, "Presidents have a right to free speech too", might have some context of truth, but it's a pretty stupid line in the moment.

    Look, I know that seeing other people have it out with one another sometimes seems like something someone wants to do, too, but those others aren't not necessarily playing poseur games. Many are sincere, actually have a point, and, moreover, have a clue what they're on about. Meanwhile, we can presume your sincerity all we want, but compared to your twenty-one or so months here, we should probably note that sincere and clueless is no good way to go through life. Unanchored generalisms as meaningless, unattached arguments just aren't useful. Missing the point is not considered an actual method of doing anything useful; the remains of wannabe heroes who preceded you in failure still litter the field.
  20. CptBork Robbing the Shalebridge Cradle Valued Senior Member

    That's right Ilya, mass murder defenseless people and then call them Nazis. That's a nice playbook you got there, I hear the Cherokee, Navajo, Zulu, Aztecs and Mayans were all Nazis too.
  21. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    The local Nazi tries to present my description as if I would support Stalin's crimes:
    Just to clarify this: This was Stalin's justification, that's all. As a collective penalty, it is a nasty crime in any way, even if a large majority of Crimean Tatars would have really collaborated with the Nazis. But even how many of them have really collaborated remains unclear, making this crime of Stalin even more despicable.

    This technique of the local Nazi is, by the way, a well-establish propaganda technique beloved by the left too. One permanently distorts everything which can be distorted to present the opponent as supporting Nazis, antisemites, Stalin, whatever, forcing them to defend themselves by clarifying their positions. Given that the attacks become predictable after some time, they are essentially forced to include the clarifications already into their original statements. But even this will not help for a long time, because after some time adding such a clarification will be used as an indication, later even as a proof, that they are indeed such evil guys. This is the classical "I have friends with are Jewish/black, but ..." mem used by the left today as a proof that you are a racist/antisemite.
  22. spidergoat Liddle' Dick Tater Valued Senior Member

    The illusion of media freedom is useful.
  23. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

    Yes. That's why the Western propaganda claims it exists in the West.

    Russia does not care about such propaganda. Freedom of the press is not among the values which are considered important for Russia. Nonetheless, people recognize very well that there is actually de facto more freedom of the press in Russia than in the West. Because there is nothing of Western propaganda which is not present in the Russian media too, either as pure propaganda from a (quite small) number of pure Western propaganda sources or as part of the description of the position of the political enemy which is, then, debunked.

    I think that the pure Western propaganda media are left untouched because they show the superiority of the Russian sources. Even if they are closer to Russian reality in comparison with the Western media in the West (they have to be, given that their customers know the facts on the ground in Russia, so that some lies which are common in the West are simply impossible), they make the same basic errors, namely, they present a one-sided picture without a fair description of the position of the other side. Moreover, they give information if the Russian media work as necessary. If they don't, the Western propaganda media would gain a larger auditory.

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