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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNYT: This is not a debatable issue. This is not fake news. This is not a witch hunt. This happened.
Dwindling Odds of CoincidenceCharles M. Blow APRIL 3, 2017
We are still not conclusively able to connect the dots on the question of whether there was any coordination or collusion between members of Donald Trumps campaign and the Russians who interfered in our election to benefit him, but those dots do continue to multiply at an alarming rate.
First, and we have to keep saying this because this fact keeps getting obscured in the subterfuge of deflection, misdirection and ideological finger-pointing about what has yet to be proven: It is absolutely clear that the Russians did interfere in our election. This is not a debatable issue. This is not fake news. This is not a witch hunt. This happened.
The investigations, rightly, are seeking to figure out exactly how and to what degree, and those questions obviously depend on knowing more about campaign contacts with Russian meddlers.
................
The journalistic caution in me keeps having to write that these could all be coincidences, but the journalistic instinct has learned long ago that coincidence is the albino alligator of political reality: It exists, but is exceedingly rare.
the rest:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/opinion/dwindling-odds-of-coincidence.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Botany
(70,291 posts)DK504
(3,847 posts)Oh no....there you go again.
Botany
(70,291 posts)Russia was into Wisconsin @ the county level.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/24/russians-suspected-hacking-wisconsin-dems/97023222/
But it is all fake news.
Amaryllis
(9,523 posts)voter reg databases for fun and stop with that.
Response to Botany (Reply #1)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Cary
(11,746 posts)In terms of criminal prosecution, it's beyond a reasonable doubt. For our purposes, here, it's far less. In fact I respectfully suggest that WE, THE PEOPLE have an absolute right to know that our president isn't a traitor and the burden of proof is on Trump and his handlers, or whatever they are.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)I'd say we're past a preponderance of the evidence, and practically at clear and convincing evidence of Russian meddling. Let's get a full-scale investigation going; are there no Republicans in Congress who value the United States over their party? Who think that hiding away the influence of a hostile foreign government is the path to our nation's destruction? Where are the patriotic Republicans who will aggressively investigate, consequences to their own party be damned?
Cary
(11,746 posts)For one thing we don't know what the FBI knows. We only know what has been reported but from what has been reported I think you're correct. There certainly appears to be a growing mountain of evidence of conflicts of interest everywhere and probable impropriety.
Are there any patriotic Republicans? Each and every one of them sold themselves out to opportunism long ago, when they decided that they could make their own reality. All we have, as human beings, are facts and reason. When people will not accept facts and reason then they succumb to evil.
That's ironic, given their claims. But it's true.
spanone
(135,633 posts)NRaleighLiberal
(59,940 posts)Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)Of course, I'd like to hit the lottery too. I wonder how the odds figure against each other?
Duppers
(28,094 posts)Chances of that happening?
The whole election in not valid, not just Trump's presidency.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Please leave the magical thinking to our Freeperite friends.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)The more fucked up the situation gets, the more crucial it is to stick to what is actually in the Constitution.
Ditching the constitution would be a tremendously bad idea.
The remedy here is impeachment or resignation.
ffr
(22,647 posts)Which is why he won't release them. Rosneft deal more than likely at the heart of money dealings. When you get a stake of ownership in something without consideration, there are strings attached.
Hekate
(90,189 posts)JTFrog
(14,274 posts)It moves from the zealot Mike Pence, to the weasel Paul Ryan, to anti-abortion crusader Orrin Hatch, to Rex Russian Order of Friendship Tillerson, to the former Hollywood producer Steven Mnuchin, who had to apologize last week for plugging The Lego Batman Movie, for which he was an executive producer.
The list goes on and on.
Yes, an administration without Trump would be less of an international embarrassment and exceedingly more predictable, but these men have all cozied up to Trump or were picked by him, so there is little daylight among them on policy.
Then there is the brazenly political, callously calculating school of thought which is as dangerous as it is interesting that holds that the severe distaste for sitting-President-Trump will likely be the best liberal motivator for success in the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. Following this logic, a crippled Trump is better than a vanquished one.
Doesn't seem to be any way we end up but fucked.
Paladin
(28,202 posts)CentralMass
(15,265 posts)Paladin
(28,202 posts)Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)lark
(23,003 posts)He's a great journalist and captures the present moment, as well as the angst so many are feeling, so well.
Skittles
(152,964 posts)LiberalFighter
(50,499 posts)mnhtnbb
(31,319 posts)That's funny. Really.
Blue_Roses
(12,894 posts)nt
hamsterjill
(15,214 posts)We all know there was wrongdoing that involved Trump and his campaign. We all know that there are Republicans (Nunes, et al) who are trying to keep the wrongdoing from the public.
It WILL come out sooner or later. The question is how much damage will be done before those facts are out and Trump is impeached AND how the country can move forward after that is done. There is also, of course, the question of how far this wrongdoing stretches within the Republican party, etc.
But Trump and his hit men (and women) WILL eventually go down.
kag
(4,076 posts)It is not clear to me that America and indeed the world can survive a full-term Trump presidency.
jmg257
(11,996 posts)soon. Schiff said there was something a couple weeks ago.
FakeNoose
(32,349 posts)... Order of succession is NO REASON to not impeach Trump.
We have to impeach him and there are multiple reasons for that.
If Trump's impeachment and eventual removal means the next yoyo is up (Pence) we'll go to work on him too.
We'll impeach him if we can because there's a lot evidence that he's in on it too.
But don't ever suggest that we can't do THING #1 because THING #2 will happen.
If we do that then we might as well tear up the Constitution and start over.
Just sayin'
sprinkleeninow
(20,133 posts)Hekate
(90,189 posts)niyad
(112,434 posts)know the investigations are on the correct track.