Thank God nobody’s reading my e-mails (I hope!) to find out all the bullshit I’ve had to listen to, or the characters I’ve fortunately dismissed from my mind, who’ve tried to sell me their bullshit deals.*

Little did I know that publicists, especially publicists for Azerbajani pop stars, are the soul of probity! I guess that means I should believe Barak Obama’s publicist who publicized the “fact” that he was born in Kenya.

So I suppose that means I’m in collusion with all the highbinders, conmen, promoters, and luftmenschen I’ve had to endure listening to because a friend of a friend of a friend says they have the greatest deal since the Dutch “bought” Manhattan. Before I say, “Thank you very much, let me show you the way out, don’t call me, I’ll call you,” that is.

*I do remember some of them — Mark Spitz (yes, the Olympic swimmer) once tried to sell me a cattle-feeding tax shelter!

At least it is still on the same topic, and relevant to this discussion. 😉

Okay – “not an enemy”, as in the cold war era. But still adversarial.

Or, does that need to be a debate too? I’m all for a discussing a more non-interventionist role for America, but I don’t think there is a good argument to make diminishing the strategic challenge that authoritarian regimes, especially on the scale of russia, pose to our national interests.

One could argue that there is indeed “substantial warfare” of a cyber sort that is ongoing with russia. Not sure how to otherwise frame that than it is adversarial, given its high potential impact and nature of its targets. And it was well known that the russians were actively doing so – just a couple of many articles, even in 2015:
http://fortune.com/2015/04/07/russians-hacked-white-house/
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34411472

As long as the regime is authoritarian and/or its government has been adversarial, in broad terms, to our interests, and with reasonable expectation that the information “promised” may well have been obtained by illegal (within our boarders) means, it seems to be rather morally problematic, even if the meeting, for its believed purpose, it isn’t illegal.
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“… let’s say Putin …. was talking to Trump Jr. … for some reason. Is that okay? … it would be somewhat suspicious … But it would depend what was discussed. If it was the weather, it’s fine with me … If there was any quid pro quo, it would be wrong.”

Now, talk of the discussion being about “weather” trivializes this episode, as, from the facts that we DO know, it is far from “the weather” that was trump jr’s rationale for the meeting. That part couldn’t be clearer. If it was merely “the weather” then this conversation wouldn’t be happening.

Does the quid pro quo need to be explicit in order for this to be wrong? Perhaps, for legal reasons, it does.

But, come now, nobody is going to accept something of the value, that trump jr and team thought it would be, without some inkling that there will be an expectation set for some future favor (unless it is in return for some kind of consideration already passed).
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“But, the cookie jar was empty!” or “A pig in a poke!”

That nothing was gained, as is currently claimed by those with a strong interest in claiming so (but don’t have a good track record of being forthright on this), is not an excuse.

Just showing up for the reasons that were expressed in the emails is the kind of stuff that, IIRC, conspiracy charges are based on, regardless of success of outcome. Does this raise to that legal standard, IDK, but it sure models the issue.

Some claim “entrapment” with some theory that the dems set this all up with the russians. Still isn’t an excuse. Police use that approach all the time to nab “johns” and “dealers”.

Besides, isn’t claiming “entrapment” itself an implied recognition of wrongdoing?
.

Sure, asking if putin himself were involved is absurd, but it comes back to limiting principles.

If one thinks it is coming from a government official, with the understanding that their government wants to be helpful, GIVEN the nature of that government, might as well be in for the pound as for the penny.

ted kennedy did the same or worse. Regrettably, kennedy got away with it. I’m sure we can find more examples. (I’d also say that both clintons and obama got away with plenty, as well)

Not sure the point, unless it is that makes it right for “our guy” to do something maybe “not quite as bad”?
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In the end, it may not rise to legally be collusion or conspiracy of some sort, but it was rather clear about what trump jr (and team) understood the meeting to be about, who it is from, and could reasonably expect how it was obtained.

Beyond this discussion about the ethics of it, let’s just say it is highly questionable if this is anything close to an “Amercia First!” approach to politics, something trump has campaigned heavily on.

“Drain the Swamp!” seems just another empty slogan, in context of these revelations.

We do ourselves a disservice if we continue to argue like there is nothing to this by replicating the dems’ denial and legalistic approach to their own ethical evasions.

All that does is erode our own Credibility and Trust.

How will the Paris agreement lower the sea level in Miami?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcIG5Bf3__g&feature=youtu.be&t=374

“those useful idiots who have no concept of what figurative speech is ..”

A habit which we all fall into, since calling a halt to the whole proceedings with a constant challenging of premises at every turn is so wearying, is to respond to the language used with mental or implied reservations, while repeating it nonetheless and thus proliferating the intentionally foggy polemical language.

This repetition of content-free and intentionally deceptive propositional verbiage by opponents of the proposition in question, tends to, as you say, convey the impression that there is some there, there.

And then of course, some people just get a charge out of deploying the tropes du jour as signs that they are in the magic circle themselves.

Russia hacked the election is a figurative speech rhetoric invented intentionally to dope those useful idiots …”

Which is why it is useful to throw a little degreaser at it every now and then.

The argument that this isn’t plausible because Ms. V was given a hardship visa in October 2015 is a red herring. The speculation about Fusion GPS involvement doesn’t rest on that part of the timeline. Ms. V was let in the country because a client she was representing, Katsyv was being charged with money laundering.

But as to the speculation that the DNC might have funded this, since they had already hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump Sr. here’s a timeline that shows this very plausible:

April 26th, 2016: Trump declares himself the presumptive GOP nominee.
April 29th, 2016: DNC learns its computer system has been breached.
April 30th, 2016: DNC hires CrowdStrike.
[Late April-Early May]: Democrats begin funding Fusion GPS.
May 1st, 2016: CrowdStrike determines Russia perpetrated the hack.
May 3rd, 2016: Reince Priebus declares Trump the presumptive GOP nominee.
June 9th, 2016: Don Jr. meets with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at the apparent request of a Fusion GPS operative.
June 14th, 2016: The DNC publicly discloses the Russia hacked its computer network.

So even though the DNC doesn’t publicly state that their server had been hacked until after the June 9 meeting, they knew the hack had come from inside Russia on May 1.

The DNC began funding the Fusion GPS effort in late April- early May.

From Wikipedia:

During 2015 and 2016, Fusion GPS was hired by the BakerHostetler law firm which was defending Prevezon from an asset seizure by the U.S. government.[8][9] As part of their litigation support, Fusion GPS investigated Bill Browder, a witness central to the case.[10] During the course of the case, Browder claimed that Fusion GPS had previously been hired to undertake a pro-Russia campaign to aimed at stopping passage of the Magnitsky Act,[11] named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who died while being held without charges in a Russian government prison after he revealed that the Kremlin had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from Hermitage Capital Management.

Trump dossier and Christopher Steele[edit]
In September 2015, Fusion GPS was hired to do opposition research for Republicans who opposed Donald Trump’s bid during the Republican primary campaign for the 2016 presidential election. When Trump had emerged as the probable Republican candidate for the 2016 U.S. presidential election in the spring of 2016, Republican donors stopped funding the investigation, and Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton became Fusion GPS’s new clients.[13] In June 2016, after the Democratic National Committee had been hacked and its emails began to be published online, Fusion GPS retained Christopher Steele, a private British corporate intelligence investigator and former MI-6 agent, to research any Russian connections to Trump. Steele issued a series of memos from June to December 2016, which became the document known as the Donald Trump—Russia dossier.[13]

This would likely be how Fusion GPS and Ms. V became acquainted. Note it says Fusion GPS was hired by the DNC in June, but it was earlier, before the June 9 meeting. Note that Hillary supporters had been funding Fusion GPS before the DNC began paying them in May.

Rob Goldstone has stated that he was asked to set up the meeting with Ms. V and Trump Jr. at the request of the son of Russian oligarch Aras Agalarov

This is speculation, but every bit as plausible as the narrative that Trump Sr. and Putin colluded to hack the 2016 election.

Have you at least, figured out by this point just what unprecedented outrage it is that the Russians are demonstrated to have committed against what some hysterical talking heads on TV have called, “our sacred democracy”?

What exact and hard evidence, not claim, is there for a Russian infiltration having rigged the vote and outcome of the November election?

What actual crime is Youngblood Trump supposed to have committed in meeting with a Russian lobbyist, whether she was frank or not?

What feelings of solidarity am I supposed to feel with American Democrat ideological Stalinists, when they complain about the great evil of the current Russian state?