1. #7341
    The Lightbringer
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowferal View Post
    Why don't republicans care?
    They're in too deep at this point, which is why I don't think they'll have a change of heart anytime soon about impeaching Trump. If they admit they're wrong, they'll hemorrhage votes from their base and lose even the most wishy-washy of soundbite centrists. But, by clinging to Trump and hedging their bets on the willful ignorance of their usual voting block, they at least have a stable foundation to try and keep themselves afloat even if it's still a rather shitty situation.

  2. #7342
    Legendary! Thekri's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Xyonai View Post
    They're in too deep at this point, which is why I don't think they'll have a change of heart anytime soon about impeaching Trump. If they admit they're wrong, they'll hemorrhage votes from their base and lose even the most wishy-washy of soundbite centrists. But, by clinging to Trump and hedging their bets on the willful ignorance of their usual voting block, they at least have a stable foundation to try and keep themselves afloat even if it's still a rather shitty situation.
    Well, there is some plausible deniability in this for them as well, and that isn't the only narrative the Russians are pushing.

    The Russians are pushing another narrative that is widely popular with liberals, and that is all the Anti-Fracking propaganda that is out there, Fiona Hill talked about it just yesterday. Now to be clear, there are very real concerns about fracking, but 90% of the readily available information is pure propaganda with no real science behind it, because American fracking is an existential threat to the Russian energy industry.

  3. #7343
    “They gave the server to Crowdstrike,” says @POTUS. “Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?” https://t.co/x3IRnQWWlE
    https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/119...495621123?s=19

    @Skroe. Trump stated this today on Fox & Friends. He is pushing conspiracy theories.
    Democrats are the best! I will never ever question a Democrat again. I LOVE the Democrats!

  4. #7344
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Desperate for literally anything, Republicans are asking the Treasury Department if they have any reports of suspicious transactions relating to Hunter Biden.

    You'd figure if this was such a pressing matter after the 2016 elections that it wouldn't have taken them 3 years to start looking into it.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...source=twitter

    - - - Updated - - -

    https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/lind...-back-veteran/

    Lindsey Graham has a new way to protect himself from opinions he doesn't like, turning his back and immediately walking away from a combat veteran voicing concerns.

    Veterans are great to use as props for Republicans, but inconvenient when they start actually having opinions they disagree.
    Reminds me of my own senator Perdue during the Kavanaugh thing. Screeched "don't touch me!" and ran into a bathroom to hide. Pitiful.

  5. #7345
    Quote Originally Posted by Paranoid Android View Post
    https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/119...495621123?s=19

    @Skroe. Trump stated this today on Fox & Friends. He is pushing conspiracy theories.
    They're not even a Ukrainian company, no?

    - - - Updated - - -

    https://www.voanews.com/usa/impeachm...kraine-records

    A U.S. federal judge on Friday ordered the State Department to make public certain "readouts or summaries" of the July 25 call between President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart at the center of a congressional impeachment investigation.

    The order by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington gave the State Department until Nov. 22 to hand the documents over to American Oversight, a watchdog group that sued for access to them based on a public records law.
    Rack up another legal loss for the Trump administration. Wonder if there will be any new revelations in these documents.

  6. #7346
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    They're not even a Ukrainian company, no?
    Pretty sure it's an American company based in California.

  7. #7347
    Quote Originally Posted by Nelinrah View Post
    Pretty sure it's an American company based in California.
    They're based in California, but that doesn't mean they're not originally Ukrainian in origin. I just don't see anything that would indicate that's the case.

  8. #7348
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    They're based in California, but that doesn't mean they're not originally Ukrainian in origin. I just don't see anything that would indicate that's the case.
    It was founded by an American(born in New Jersey) and a Russian born Canadian immigrant. Maybe Trump got Russian born confused with Ukraine?

  9. #7349
    Herald of the Titans D Luniz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Paranoid Android View Post
    Stated the same in the other thread.

    Intelligence Agencies state this while doing the wink, wink, nudge, nudge that our POTUS was one of these people.

    I can't believe where we actually are today. We have a Russian puppet in the White House and the Republicans don't care.
    No puppet, No puppet. You're the puppet!
    -a stable genius


    the DNC needs to just super cut Hill stating Russia wants to spread this "it was actually Ukraine" bullshit , next to that clip, and Trump in Helsinki supporting Putin

    bonus, they can use it for both getting the public behind impeachment and against voting for him in 2020 after the GOP spinelessly keeps from convicting him

  10. #7350
    Schiff isn't ruling out more impeachment hearings

    “We’re not foreclosing the possibility of additional depositions or hearings, but we’re also not willing to wait months and months and let them play rope-a-dope with us in the courts,” Schiff said, referring to ongoing legal battles over the refusal of some witnesses to testify or provide documents.

  11. #7351
    The Unstoppable Force Bakis's Avatar
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    As most of us knew, at least any rational human being. This is a solid case.
    That however does not matter. It's all about who got the time, will to find it in the media landscape of a dictatorial landscape that the polarized shithole that US has become and then put pressure on their elected official.

    It will go to the Senate floor and Trump, however guilty, will walk free cos in a 2-party system infested by a hyperpartisan system its digital. It's a 1 or 0.

    You loose either way and so do the rest of the free world.
    Unless Trump loses the 2020 election, but let's face it
    US got the media landscape of Kremlin. But we can always hope I guess.
    Last edited by Bakis; 2019-11-23 at 12:44 AM.
    But soon after Mr Xi secured a third term, Apple released a new version of the feature in China, limiting its scope. Now Chinese users of iPhones and other Apple devices are restricted to a 10-minute window when receiving files from people who are not listed as a contact. After 10 minutes, users can only receive files from contacts.
    Apple did not explain why the update was first introduced in China, but over the years, the tech giant has been criticised for appeasing Beijing.

  12. #7352
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowferal View Post
    Schiff isn't ruling out more impeachment hearings

    “We’re not foreclosing the possibility of additional depositions or hearings, but we’re also not willing to wait months and months and let them play rope-a-dope with us in the courts,” Schiff said, referring to ongoing legal battles over the refusal of some witnesses to testify or provide documents.
    This process cannot be allowed to end without John Bolton either giving a deposition or testifying in public.

    I get the very valid concerns that dragging this out for months and months will exhaust the public. But letting obvious key witnesses just skate so you can stick to some arbitrary timeline seems like a bad call.

  13. #7353
    Quote Originally Posted by Vegas82 View Post
    Then the courts need to get off their fucking asses and address the constitutional crisis being precipitated by the Trump administration.
    The thing that reall hacks me off sometimes is the bottomless bullshit bureaucracy of The Courts.

    Nothing ever sticks. Oh? A federal judge ordered an injunction on The Thing? Cool. That takes care of that. Oh? It was appealed? And a panel reversed the decision? Fine. At least that's the final-- Oh? It was appealed again? It's going to SCOTUS? (Repeat ad nauseum forever).

    Sometimes I deeply wish for some kind of "Go To SCOTUS Immediately" button we could push. I get why that would be bad. But consider:

    -Partisan Gerrymandering
    -Congressional Subpoenas (re: Executive Privilege)
    -Trump's Taxes

    These are issues that everyone and their dog knows are ultimately going to be decided by SCOTUS. Which means all these stays and orders and injuctions and appeals and overturnings are functionally meaningless. It's just this weird gigantic waste of time that's just become The Way it Is

  14. #7354
    Merely a Setback PACOX's Avatar
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    All accused deserve to defend themselves. Here is Trump's defense:


    Resident Cosplay Progressive

  15. #7355
    Merely a Setback Kaleredar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by StarDog View Post
    This process cannot be allowed to end without John Bolton either giving a deposition or testifying in public.

    I get the very valid concerns that dragging this out for months and months will exhaust the public. But letting obvious key witnesses just skate so you can stick to some arbitrary timeline seems like a bad call.
    I think making the public "exhausted" over Trump's shenanigans is a pretty good idea.

    The republicans aren't going to vote to have him removed. That was decided from day one. This is about ensuring the American people know who stood up for exposing corruption and who decided to fall on their sword to defend an orange lunatic. This is about exposing Trump's corruption to the American public, and letting people know about it and specifics as to why he should no longer be allowed to be president. And even if they don't remember specific things, or specific names, people will remember that Trump was in deep trouble, and isn't to be trusted. And every day that stays in the public perception is every day that Trump is having his name rightly dragged through the mud.

    When these vile republicans that have tried, unsuccessfully, to turn the hearings into a clown fiesta are up for reelection, their opponents will point that out. They've dug their own graves with every idiotic, misleading and intellectually dishonest talking point they've spat out in defense of Trump. Like this recent bout of insulting a decorated service member. By trying so desperately to cling to party (so as not to anger Trump) they've created the very real possibility that people will oust them for just that.

    I say let these hearings role. Not a single shred of testimony that has come up has reduced the case against Trump in any way. Keep hammering them, and keep hammering them hard. Frankly I'd like to see this thing roll proper into election season, so that Trump's campaign momentum is being repeatedly bombarded with news about who's testified against him now.
    Last edited by Kaleredar; 2019-11-23 at 01:48 AM.
    “Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
    Quote Originally Posted by Wells View Post
    Kaleredar is right...
    Words to live by.

  16. #7356
    Over 9000! Santti's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PACOX View Post
    All accused deserve to defend themselves. Here is Trump's defense:
    Oh God, the comment section of that video. Save yourselves, and don't take a look.
    Quote Originally Posted by SpaghettiMonk View Post
    And again, let’s presume equity in schools is achievable. Then why should a parent read to a child?

  17. #7357
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-i...documents-say/

    Largely a story about procedural matters with the whistleblower, who apparently provided an updated form for why they didn't check the "Congress or Congressional Committee(s)" - being that they didn't share any specifics or materials with the Intelligence community and were apparently were not told that they needed to check it. And that they didn't even know what the ICIG was and all the committee staffer told them to do was to lawyer up and contact the ICIG.

    But that's not the relevant bit, really. In light of all the Republicans constantly pushing for the whistleblower to testify, this is -

    Separately, on the issue of potential congressional testimony, the whistleblower expressed a preference for written questions from the Senate or House Intelligence Committees. According to the records, the whistleblower "does not wish to testify in person" and "does not believe there was any point for him/her to come forward given all that has come out in the news. He/she is not interested in being part of a political show."

    The whistleblower, according to the ICIG, believed that "much of the information provided by him/her at the time of the urgent concern disclosure has now been overcome by more detailed information coming out in the press, or recent text message releases, which are beyond his/her original knowledge. Some of the dates of information being disclosed in the news do not match up with Complainant's urgent concern disclosure."
    Bolded the most relevant bit, as they have literally nothing to add that hasn't been discussed in more detail by first-hand witnesses.

  18. #7358
    Quote Originally Posted by Beefhammer View Post
    At this point you could consider the mods complicit in spreading lies and propaganda for refusing to deal with this.
    I'm not going to talk about mods here because that is against forum rules, even though I very much want to.

    I will say though that across the internet, there is a very good reason why news websites have dropped discussion forums or sharply moderated them. Why Twitter and Facebook are having to police more than ever. Why reddit has to quantanine massive fringe communities from the rest of its site.

    The internet has changed and some places have adapted to that change better and faster than others. It used to be that you can dismiss happenings on the internet as harmless curiosity. "Oh that's an internet argument" or "oh it happened in cyberspace" something. It was't "real", and thus not a big deal.

    We see now, it's very real.

    Consider the "Jeffery Epstein didn't kill himself" meme that has turned into a conspiracy theory. First of all, he certainly did kill himself. He had tried shortly before hand and was put on watch (then taken off). The Prison system fucked up. A person who wants to take their own life will find a way to. One could find a certain harmlessness in the meme, but consider the implication of the meme: a connected, powerful person who could potentially implicate other connected, powerful people was murdered in custody to cover up the crimes of others. The posion in that should be quite clear. It is an indictment of the entire US system of justice. If such a thing were to happen here, then we ARE no better than Russia, where the government does that to opposition figures, figures who have fallen out of favor, journalists, LGBTs and so forth. The meme undermines the confidence that Americans can and should have in the rule of law in the country.

    It's incredible harmful. It's also directly up Russian intellgience's alley.
    They are the people who started the conspiracy theory that AIDS was spread in Africa by the CIA.
    They are the ones most directly responsible for (during the Cold War) bolstering and spreading JFK Assassination conspiracy theories.
    They are the ones amplifying Pizzagate and QAnon to this very day.
    9/11 Trutherism? Russia spreads that one.
    "Cultural Marxism"? Another oldie that Russians reintroduced here.

    This is how they work. They work this way because Russia has weak institutions (outside of the national security apparatus) whereas the United States has extraordinarily strong institutions. Russia's vector of attack for 70 years has been to target American institutions to break America's confidence in them in order to even the playing field for themselves. And they've been hugely successful in that, albeit with significant help from American institutions fucking things up along the way.

    One key barometer to the health of a country's civil society is how receptive its populace is to conspiracy theories. Take 9/11... to this day it's taken practically as an article of faith in the Muslim world that 9/11 was commited by Israel (chiefly) and Americans who wanted to make Islam look like an aggressive religion and begin wars in the middle east to Christanize them. This is reflective of the conspiracy theories they live with regards to their own internal governance. The simple explanations they offer for why their lot is such as it is.

    Americans used to be relatively immune to that. We had our picadillos like JFK and Area 51. But since 9/11, we've become extremely vulnerable to them to the point our President openly campaigns on them... and people second him. Americans in 2019, are much closer to how Russians have been with regards to conspiracy theories for many, many decades, than we are to pre-9/11 Americans. Seriously. Watch the X-Files Episodes filmed in the 90s. It's almost quaint how dated the conspiracies are. That's what Americans thought conspiracies were.

    As Elizabeth Warren put it, a country that elects Donald Trump is not well. We are very much not well.

    The internet has migrated from being a place where curiosities happen - ancillary to "real" happenings, to the central commons for communications of all types. Political campaigns in the 2000s "had internet operations". Political campaigns in the 2010s and 2020s are internet operations that "have boots on the ground too".

    This means that malicious actors like Russian intelligence and their forum trolling goonsquads have a tremendously easier job in assaulting objective reality and attacking US institutions. "Jeffery Epstein Didn't Kill Himself"... not just a cute meme anymore. Places either get this or they don't. I think MMO-OT is starting to based on some recent conversations I have had. I think large swathes of the internet still do not. I think the response is you're going to see a lot more walled gardens, and a lot more curated content as years ago on.

    But to get back to the question of "complicity". Broadly speaking it's past time everyone who is responsible for a discussion forum, anywhere on the internet, to be on guard for Russian (and Chinese and Iranian) mischief. Because it's only going to get worse. Far, far worse. And the first line of defense is (not simply here, but anywhere on the internet) actively involved moderators who are attenuated to the conversation enough they can distinguish a simple matter of a difference of opinion from memified-propaganda that was born in an intelligence / information agency.

    "Ukraine attacked the US in 2016", is not a matter of opinion. That is not something that needs researching or is something we really don't know about. It is a fact they did not. It is a fact that Russia created that lie in order to advance their own interests. And it should not be treated as a serious alternative point of view or possibility, because it didn't happen. This is EXACTLY what Fiona Hill was getting at and I hope site managers across the internet take to heart. You do not give lies created by intelligence agencies a fair hearing as if they are legitimate in anyway.

    Again, @ moderators and site managers across the entire interwebz: you do not treat propaganda as legitimate differences of opinion or legitimate possibilities. That comes from the US Deputy National Security Adviser, discussing DIRECTLY what we here at MMO-OT and many, many people have dealt with across the internet for years now. We should not be patient with it. We should cut it out like a tumor.
    Last edited by Skroe; 2019-11-23 at 02:24 AM.

  19. #7359
    The Undying Breccia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Rack up another legal loss for the Trump administration.
    Wait, the real transcript locked in the National Security Lol server? Even as I write that, I don't think it's true, but...that one?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by StarDog View Post
    This process cannot be allowed to end without John Bolton either giving a deposition or testifying in public.
    Aside from that mysterious twitter thing, all evidence suggests he's trying not to, or maybe more accurately, is trying to find out if he doesn't have to. Bolton's truthful testimony would be huge, but Bolton knows these rules better than most. He knows testifying will end his life in DC, but then, he does have a book deal, so he might not need one...

  20. #7360
    Void Lord Elegiac's Avatar
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    *coughs delicately*

    A lawyer for an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani tells CNN that his client is willing to tell Congress about meetings the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee had in Vienna last year with a former Ukrainian prosecutor to discuss digging up dirt on Joe Biden.

    The attorney, Joseph A. Bondy, represents Lev Parnas, the recently indicted Soviet-born American who worked with Giuliani to push claims of Democratic corruption in Ukraine. Bondy said that Parnas was told directly by the former Ukrainian official that he met last year in Vienna with Rep. Devin Nunes.

    "Mr. Parnas learned from former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin that Nunes had met with Shokin in Vienna last December," said Bondy.

    Shokin was ousted from his position in 2016 after pressure from Western leaders, including then-vice president Biden, over concerns that Shokin was not pursuing corruption cases.

    Nunes is one of President Donald Trump's key allies in Congress and has emerged as a staunch defender of the President during the impeachment inquiry, which he has frequently labeled as a "circus." Nunes declined repeated requests for comment.
    Methinks the lady doth protest too much...

    Wouldn't it just be apropos for this cursed timeline where one of the ranking Republicans in the impeachment hearing committee is nailed as being complicit in the issue being investigated.
    Quote Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
    The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk and understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

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