Paul Manafort's lucrative Russian connections

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More importantly, PP, Russia is not an existential threat to the U.S., and has no interest in harming the U.S. Russia has interests globally and wants to expand its influence, like any other country, and they are entitled to pursue that cause.

I'd agree with the first but not the second. I think Russia would be happy to "hurt" the United States because Russia genuinely believes it has been hurt by the United States. Economically (some of the advice that Big Thinkers gave during the transition was really terrible), politically (they consider our support for democracy to be meddling) and militarily (they are pissed about NATO expansion).

Then it's not like they have no point, is it. Russia would be happy if its own influence increased and the U.S.'s diminished, particularly in the areas close to the Russian borders, but that's a perfectly normal thing for a country to wish for.

[Anonymous]

Russia has its own deep-seated pathologies and admiration for strongmen, which is something that Trump has plugged into. One of the principle ways for Putin and his oligarchs to retain power is to get the populace to buy into the fiction that the US is the "enemy" of Mother Russia. So you invade Georgia, retake the Crimea and meddle in Eastern Ukraine to distract from the fact you are a weakened player with little influence on the world stage. It's a tried and true formula for demagogues and dictators.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Russia has its own deep-seated pathologies and admiration for strongmen, which is something that Trump has plugged into. One of the principle ways for Putin and his oligarchs to retain power is to get the populace to buy into the fiction that the US is the "enemy" of Mother Russia. So you invade Georgia, retake the Crimea and meddle in Eastern Ukraine to distract from the fact you are a weakened player with little influence on the world stage. It's a tried and true formula for demagogues and dictators.

Unlike really awesome countries who invade other countries based on fraudulent evidence, remove their leaders by force, create chaos and bloodshed, and unleash a monster radical group upon the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Russia has its own deep-seated pathologies and admiration for strongmen, which is something that Trump has plugged into. One of the principle ways for Putin and his oligarchs to retain power is to get the populace to buy into the fiction that the US is the "enemy" of Mother Russia. So you invade Georgia, retake the Crimea and meddle in Eastern Ukraine to distract from the fact you are a weakened player with little influence on the world stage. It's a tried and true formula for demagogues and dictators.

Just to reassure you that 99.99999999999999% of the Russian populace, including its political class, doesn't give a fuck about Trump. So it's not like there's anything for him to plug into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So Romney was right. Obama and the liberals criticized him for calling out Russia. Clinton did the "Russian reset", Ovama whispered in Putin's ear he had more flexibility after the election. Perhaps we should have elected Romney instead of President Amateur Hour and Crooked Hillary.

What does this have to do with Manafort's secret illegal payments?

That liberals maintained his ideas were stupid,

I don't recall Romney being called stupid, but maybe some people said that. Not unusual in a campaign. The main issue though was that our military was that he was pushing an aggressive foreign policy against Russia at a time that our military was still overextended and allies weren't on board. With Russia entering the Ukraine, the situation is become more threatening to our interests as well as our European allies. Meanwhile Trump admires Putin and says we might abandon NATO if they "don't pay their fair share," as if military alliances were like business deals.

yet here we are trying to connect Trump to some Russian boogeyman and suddenly they're the enemy when Obama laughed at Romney for suggesting such a notice.

Situation with Russia has been deteriorating for years, it's not sudden.

It's pretty obvious, are you stupid or something? You don't sound intelligent if you're not making the connections.

For all the crying Trumpkins on this board complain about mean old liberals, you are yourself pretty insulting. Some liberals on this board throw around insults on this board. Much as I am tempted to give it right back to you, I won't do that. But I will promise you that it is likely my IQ is quite a bit higher than yours.

More to the point. We have no record of Manafort taking payments or receiving them,

Talk about not making connections. Manafort worked for a corrupt Russian allied dictator (we already new that), he is under investigation for corruption himself, and yet we are not to make any connection between Manafort and the pro-Russian foreign policy of his current employer.

but we have record or HRC - the actual candidate, remember Manafort isn't running

Don't care if he isn't running. He is in a position to influence, that's bad enough. You aren't just voting for a candidate, you are voting for a team.

- in shady uranium deals.

This claim has been debunked.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/30/donald-trump/donald-trump-inaccurately-suggests-clinton-got-pai/
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/04/no-veto-power-for-clinton-on-uranium-deal/
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/04/24/fox-news-baselessly-blames-hillary-clinton-for/203404

[Anonymous]

14:58 I realize it's immature, but when I read rebuttals like yours, all I want to type is, "BURN!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Russia has its own deep-seated pathologies and admiration for strongmen, which is something that Trump has plugged into. One of the principle ways for Putin and his oligarchs to retain power is to get the populace to buy into the fiction that the US is the "enemy" of Mother Russia. So you invade Georgia, retake the Crimea and meddle in Eastern Ukraine to distract from the fact you are a weakened player with little influence on the world stage. It's a tried and true formula for demagogues and dictators.

Just to reassure you that 99.99999999999999% of the Russian populace, including its political class, doesn't give a fuck about Trump. So it's not like there's anything for him to plug into.

Russians are paying attention.