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).

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.

Anonymous wrote:

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


More to the point. We have no record of Manafort taking payments or receiving them, but we have record or HRC - the actual candidate, remember Manafort isn't running - in shady uranium deals.

Romney's assertion was that Russia was our "#1 geopolitical threat." He was wrong. Russia is dangerous, but from a military perspective, it isn't a threat to US interests. Yes, NATO needs to be vigilant and check the growing Russian submarine capabilities, but Putin heads a economically weak state which can't do much more than menace neighboring countries like Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltics, and try to flex muscle in Syria to back an ally in Assad. The US doesn't need "Star Wars" or a massive arsenel of ICBMs. We need to focus on China, which is an economic Superpower, and it's designs on the South China Sea where a madman has been elected in the Philippines.

+1. Russia is not and likely will never again be the United States' single largest geopolitical threat, for lots of reasons including geography and the lack of a compelling counter-ideology to market capitalism/democracy at this point. Romney wasn't right, and no one said Russia wasn't a threat, just that it wasn't the single largest threat.

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


More to the point. We have no record of Manafort taking payments or receiving them, but we have record or HRC - the actual candidate, remember Manafort isn't running - in shady uranium deals.

Romney's assertion was that Russia was our "#1 geopolitical threat." He was wrong. Russia is dangerous, but from a military perspective, it isn't a threat to US interests. Yes, NATO needs to be vigilant and check the growing Russian submarine capabilities, but Putin heads a economically weak state which can't do much more than menace neighboring countries like Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltics, and try to flex muscle in Syria to back an ally in Assad. The US doesn't need "Star Wars" or a massive arsenel of ICBMs. We need to focus on China, which is an economic Superpower, and it's designs on the South China Sea where a madman has been elected in the Philippines.

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


More to the point. We have no record of Manafort taking payments or receiving them, but we have record or HRC - the actual candidate, remember Manafort isn't running - in shady uranium deals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, evidentiary rules don't apply outside the courtroom, so why are we talking about them?

Because PP is trying to argue that finding a secret ledger showing $12.7 million in cash payments to Paul Manafort in a room containing two safes stuffed with $100 bills is totally meaningless... nothing to see here, move along people.

I'm agnostic on what actually happened, but you have to admit both the NYT story and the sources they interviewed go to great lengths to state that the mere presence of his name in the ledgers doesn't actually prove he received anything. Other names had signatures next to them showing the money was received; his doesn't. And playing a devil's advocate, it's not like the chain of evidence is museum quality here. It's a handwritten notebook found in the trash of a ransacked building. It's not like it's hard to make anything handwritten. This evidence is consequential at best. If Manafort was running for office, it would probably destroy his chances, but he remains a private citizen, and his reputation doesn't have to be pristine.

Your post generally makes sense, but if I am reading the NYT article correctly, there are signatures by Manafort's name, but the signatures aren't verified to be his.

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.

That was Medvedev's ear, you dimwit.

Putin was certainly still calling the shots, but PP can't be credited with this knowledge.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, evidentiary rules don't apply outside the courtroom, so why are we talking about them?

Because PP is trying to argue that finding a secret ledger showing $12.7 million in cash payments to Paul Manafort in a room containing two safes stuffed with $100 bills is totally meaningless... nothing to see here, move along people.

I'm agnostic on what actually happened, but you have to admit both the NYT story and the sources they interviewed go to great lengths to state that the mere presence of his name in the ledgers doesn't actually prove he received anything. Other names had signatures next to them showing the money was received; his doesn't. And playing a devil's advocate, it's not like the chain of evidence is museum quality here. It's a handwritten notebook found in the trash of a ransacked building. It's not like it's hard to make anything handwritten. This evidence is consequential at best. If Manafort was running for office, it would probably destroy his chances, but he remains a private citizen, and his reputation doesn't have to be pristine.

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.

That was Medvedev's ear, you dimwit.

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.

Do you have even the faintest idea what the Obama policy has been with respect to Russia since 2012?

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?

Absolutely nothing. The only Amateur Hour I see here is the PP grasping at an attempt to bash Obama.

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?

Deflection, which is essential for Trumpites/Republicans who want to continue defending their choices.

Basically, both sides are Russia-appeasers, so vote Republican.

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?

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.

This story is interesting, more intresting is Cory lewandowski twitting about it -
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/internet-freaks-after-corey-lewandowski-posts-times-story-on-manaforts-sketchy-ties-to-ukraine/