Pointing to what has so far been revealed about Russiaā social media activity, Burr added that, āthereās no way that you can look at that and say that was to help the right side of the ideological chart, and not the left or vise versa. They were indiscriminate.āā (Sen. Richard Burr, R-NC)
Um, yes, there are thousands of ways to look at that and say their meddling was most certainly to help the right side of the ideological chart. Still a lying Republican, I see, Mr. Burr.
Sure thereās a way. Just look who won.
They are endlessly slinging those false equivalenciesā¦
Right, they were pushing right wing anti-Hillary memes and left wing anti-Hillary memes equally, obviously it was entirely indiscriminate.
I view this presser as a small but fairly notable if not significant concession from the Republicans. The GOP led Senate committee is now on record that Russia did interfere in the election, which contradicts Trump and Fox News. Burr also didnāt deny any of the conspiracy allegations in the Steele Dossier or other findings. If Trump were stronger politically, the GOP wouldāve killed this investigation. Burr canāt now and he is opening the door to siding with the Democrats on this even as we learn from Politico that the GOP is trying very hard to curtail this inquiry.
I can hear the chants of ānothingburgerā from Trump supporters already.
āRussian involvement in the election questionāweāre in agreement on that,ā Burr said, āWe have not come to any determination on collusion or Russiaās preferences.ā
Here they are, still looking for the obviousā¦ Letās review:
Putinās Goals:
Sow doubts about the US electoral process
Sow doubts about the US media
Gut the US State Department
Distance the US from its staunchest allies
Weaken NATO
Inflame US race and class divisions
The list goes onā¦
Which of these goals has Trump NOT worked very hard to implement?
Thereās your damn collusion!
Still no proof of meddling or proof of cause and effect. Further, there is no evidence whatsoever that any of the alleged Russian meddling had any significant impact. All we still have is, āTrust us.ā Yeah, said the spider to the fly! (Trust the CIA at your own peril!) As an illustration, there was once a āgeneral consensusā that the sun orbited the Earth, and that the Earth was the center of the universe. There was also āgeneral consensusā that the King was selected by Almighty God. Then the evidence poured in proving both to be true. Wait. What? Oh yeah! That never happenedā¦
So while we Democrats are obsessed with relitigating the last election, Republicanāts are laser focused on turning 2018 into another bloodbath for Team Blue. I fear we will never learnā¦
That wasnāt ICās or Comeyās conclusion.
Are you serious?
hahahahahahahahaha you sure have no feel for the American people.
Just to take one example, are not the FB ads proof of meddling? Effect can be debated, but in an election decided by very close margins in a few states, the list of things that could have a decisive influence grows pretty long.
Iād agree that this particular issue needs to be viewed in perspective. Dems would get more mileage from, say, framing their policies within a narrative that speaks to a majority of Americans instead of insisting that voters use common sense and reason, but neither can the issue of disinformation on social media be ignored.
This is comment is so much better in the original Russian
The current push to curtail Congressional investigations is a pretty good measure of the fear level of the target(s).
Original artwork removed by author.
Not sure which of those youāre calling into question.
That said, both the IC and Comey āconclusionsā are well over 6 months in the past, and an enormous amount of water has passed under multiple bridges since that time.
Well then, Iām just going to have shamelessly appeal to authority here:
BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Yeah, Iām very concerned that while we should focus on the Russian hacking, but that weāre missing that the greatest hacking of our system was racialized voter suppression. Let me give you some numbers for your audience.
Eight hundred and sixty-eight. Thatās the number ofāthe number fewer, that we had 868 fewer voting sites in the black and brown community in 2016, black, brown and poor community.
Twenty-two. Twenty-two states passed voter suppression laws since 2010. Thatās where 44 senators were represented, over nearly 50 percent of the United States House of Representatives. And at least 16 or 17 seats in the Senateārather, in the House, probably would not be where they are partisan, if it was not for voter suppression.
Today is 1,562 daysā1,562 days since the Supreme Court gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Now, Strom Thurmond only filibustered the Civil Rights Act of ā57 for one day. This Congress, under McConnell and Ryan, has filibustered fixing the Voting Rights Act for 1,562 days. We talk about Trump winning in Wisconsin by 20,000 or 30,000 votes. There were 250,000 votes suppressed in Wisconsin. In North Carolina, we had over 150 fewer sites doing early voting.
So it is amazing to me that weāre having a conversation about Russian hacking, but weāre not having a conversation about racialized voter suppression, which is systemic racism, which is a tool of white nationalism, which is a direct threat to our democracy.
(***Emphasis mine.***)
As Iāve been saying here at TPM all alongā¦