Current Trump Press Conference: I hope Russia finds Hillary's emails

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

This story is being seriously overrated. Some college kid in a Moscow basement infiltrated the DNC and the Russians, like usual, are being painted as the bad guys.

Of course, I wouldn't put it past Putin to meddle with our elections. But he isn't actively aiding Trump. If anything, he probably prefers Hillary. Its better to have a foe who you can predict and who you know how to handle. He has that in Hillary. Trump is short term more favorable to Putin, but long term he still is an absolute wildcard.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

This story is being seriously overrated. Some college kid in a Moscow basement infiltrated the DNC and the Russians, like usual, are being painted as the bad guys.

Of course, I wouldn't put it past Putin to meddle with our elections. But he isn't actively aiding Trump. If anything, he probably prefers Hillary. Its better to have a foe who you can predict and who you know how to handle. He has that in Hillary. Trump is short term more favorable to Putin, but long term he still is an absolute wildcard.

I can't tell if your head is farther up your own a** or Trump's.

So you agree and just don't want to admit because I pissed on your convention's opening night, yes? That is all I am taking away from this post.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

To take a page out of the Trump playbook, what if we started calling him "Traitor Trump" or "Treasonous Trump?"

Very high energy!

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-clinton-emails.html

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Ah I love the smell of light treason in the morning.

You have a warped definition of treason. He wishes that he could read them. Wishes. It's this thing called a Trump joke, and Trump makes a lot of them. Usually just rambling and throwing out ideas like these press conferences are board room brainstorming sessions.

I think joking about treason is a lot less serious than taking bribes from foreign governments, but whatevs, you're with her, and he's with us, so we'll just talk over each other until one side edges the other out by like 1%.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

/headdesk

Talk of treason over tweets is so face-palmingly stupid it defies description. The whole "Trump is a Putin stooge" thing is playing right into his hands.

Does Trump have financial and other connections to Russia that look kind of shady? I don't know for certain, but I find it very easy to believe that he does. Using that as one nail in a Trump coffin leading up to the GE would be good strategy.

But responding to damaging emails with terrible optics that were leaked at a very damaging time for the Clinton campaign with screams of "traitor!" and pretending that Putin is a cheezy Roger Moore Bond villain is terrible strategy.

First, even if it were 100% true, it's obvious to anyone with half a brain that its an attempt to distract attention away from the leaked DNC emails. Second, the evidence to support the ludicrous charges just isn't there, which makes the already-suspicious Trump-supporting or Trump-leaning voters think better of Trump and worse of Clinton. Also, it justifies similar behavior on the part of the Trumpers. (Do you want Trump & Co picking out "traitors"? I certainly don't.) And finally, it's an open invitation for Trump & Co to haul out the Clinton Foundation's dirty laundry front and center, and use it to simultaneously refute (not really, but that's how it'll play) the charges against Trump, AND paint Clinton as a corrupt tool of foreign powers.

This is actually the best post so far on the matter.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Treason over tweets is a good line until you realize this is over statements made to the press, not tweets. Is Trump not accountable for his own words?

But Trump treats the press like they are his Twitter followers, which is why they hate him.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I can't help laughing at the Clintonites who seem to think that the Putin bit is an effective anti-Trump tactic. And maybe some of you are actually biased enough to believe that it is demonstrably true despite the oft-ignored reality that evidence for a connection, or even of more than negligible manipulation, remains weak.

Then I remember that these are the only folks standing between us and a Trump administration, and I feel very, very scared. It is amazing how detached these people are from the concerns of voters outside of their extended social circles of well-off, highly educated coastal professionals. Even if much of the movement that we've seen over the past week is a convention bump, the polls have steadily trended toward Trump since his mid-June nadir. There needs to be a better answer to this than half-baked conspiracies that reek of desperation.

You seem to underestimate how much foreign policy is important, it definitely is.

Again, most Americans don't necessarily like Russia but also don't necessarily give a damn about the Crimeans. They hear exactly what that last sentence decried as half baked conspiracy theories, and they think this: who care?

They do care about foreign policy, but they care of foreign policy that effects them. They care about ISIS, border security, TPP, NAFTA, Cuba, and so on.

Brexit? Nah. Crimea? Nope. The Central African Republic? What and where? The average voter isn't the average Atlas policy nerd who cares about the coup in Burgundi.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

What your missing is that Trump doesn't need to be labeled as a Kremlin agent. Russia is unpopular as is Putin. Trump is clearly showing that he holds pro-Russian views. Trump may have tapped into alot of hidden sentiments in America, but I guarantee you pro-Russian will not be one of them.

This would be a great bit of political strategy if we had any indication that swing voters believe the accusations when they hear them. But we do not. On the other hand, this has become another opportunity for Trump's shills to bring Clinton's private e-mail server back under national media coverage, and in yet another context in which Clinton's surrogates are almost forcibly maneuvered into talking about it in a way that sounds dismissive and deflective.

(Does this actually hurt Clinton? I'm inclined to think that it does, given how poorly polls show her scoring on trustworthiness and accountability. Who knows, really, but I'm confident that it is, at least, not helpful.)

Then I believe your being deliberately obtuse.

Instead of trying to make others shut up, try to rebut. Can you post something longer than a sentence that says "you are wrong, I am right" for once this week? You can't be this dense surely?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

What your missing is that Trump doesn't need to be labeled as a Kremlin agent. Russia is unpopular as is Putin. Trump is clearly showing that he holds pro-Russian views. Trump may have tapped into alot of hidden sentiments in America, but I guarantee you pro-Russian will not be one of them.

This would be a great bit of political strategy if we had any indication that swing voters believe the accusations when they hear them. But we do not. On the other hand, this has become another opportunity for Trump's shills to bring Clinton's private e-mail server back under national media coverage, and in yet another context in which Clinton's surrogates are almost forcibly maneuvered into talking about it in a way that sounds dismissive and deflective.

(Does this actually hurt Clinton? I'm inclined to think that it does, given how poorly polls show her scoring on trustworthiness and accountability. Who knows, really, but I'm confident that it is, at least, not helpful.)

Then I believe your being deliberately obtuse.

Instead of trying to make others shut up, try to rebut. Can you post something longer than a sentence that says "you are wrong, I am right" for once this week? You can't be this dense surely?

This place has gone to hell. I don't exclude my own posts from this judgement.

Eh, it is 2016. The bad elements will purge themselves in 2017 because they only care about the horse race and a chance to express "lol Republicans are so dumb!" or "LOCK 'DER KILLARY UP" to a group of strangers instead of their monolithic group of Facebook zombies.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

What your missing is that Trump doesn't need to be labeled as a Kremlin agent. Russia is unpopular as is Putin. Trump is clearly showing that he holds pro-Russian views. Trump may have tapped into alot of hidden sentiments in America, but I guarantee you pro-Russian will not be one of them.

This would be a great bit of political strategy if we had any indication that swing voters believe the accusations when they hear them. But we do not. On the other hand, this has become another opportunity for Trump's shills to bring Clinton's private e-mail server back under national media coverage, and in yet another context in which Clinton's surrogates are almost forcibly maneuvered into talking about it in a way that sounds dismissive and deflective.

(Does this actually hurt Clinton? I'm inclined to think that it does, given how poorly polls show her scoring on trustworthiness and accountability. Who knows, really, but I'm confident that it is, at least, not helpful.)

Then I believe your being deliberately obtuse.

Instead of trying to make others shut up, try to rebut. Can you post something longer than a sentence that says "you are wrong, I am right" for once this week? You can't be this dense surely?

I gave my rebut. Im not sure if your confusing me with someone though. I just know that you were being a complete jerk in the DNC thread and I put you on my ignore list. Sadly Oakvale quoted you.

No you didn't. Oakvale replied, and you just "nah, you're wrong" without even an explanation.

I'm not suggesting that he's in cahoots with Putin. But what's clear is that Putin is backing him

No, it really isn't.

Yeah, this conspiracy theory is the lame type of thing that Trump would trot out. Emailgate had more meat than this, and the FBI made a fair and reasoned judgement on that matter.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Painting Trump as some sort of Manchurian candidate sleeper agent is great fun in a hyperbolic just-between-us-leftists sort of way but bad strategy in terms of getting the average voter to believe that there's a problem here. Pointing out that Trump's inner circle is, for reasons still unknown, pushing him in an increasingly unapologetically pro-Russian policy direction that betrays America's treaty obligations, and that he's fundamentally unserious enough about American democratic processes to make this sort of joke (if it is a joke), is a bit of a harder sell in terms of sound-bite-ability, but is, hopefully, demonstrably true enough to stick if it can be sold effectively.

The problem is (not you, of course) that the left's capacity for snark and overconfidence is starting to measure levels similar to Fox News on election night '12. Calling Trump a traitor is downright insulting to the intelligence of voters.

There is sooo much juice on Trump to squeeze out, but instead of the tax returns, the threats to free press, free speech, etc, they just want to attack Trump for saying (actually just mouthing) the phrase "bomb the shinks out of 'em."

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Trump isn't joking.


He's now doubling-down on Twitter.

It's not that kind of a joke. It isn't just a random quip. He raises ideas for the reactions, which are always more severe among the media than they are among the audience.

I want to know why Putin can't interfere in our elections and Obama can go over and campaign for the Remain side in the Brexit? The same Obama who didn't attempt to undermine Netanyahu and Likud's campaign? Putin plays by the same rules that Obama does, he just has more balls.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I think Trump critics are playing this one wrong.

With the outrage, undecided voters aren't hearing that Trump is relying on a hostile power. They're hearing that Trump critics are afraid that there is stuff out there that is so bad and disgusting that it could cost Hillary Clinton the election.

No, I think you are wrong. It's the opposite.
They are hearing that trump would allow Russia an easy path to do whatever they want.
That trump would do nothing to help our allies, or nations neighboring Russia, that no longer want anything to do with "Mother Putin."

No. You're wrong. You're wrong. I win.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

If you guys think it's OK to even semi-seriously invite foreign powers to screw with our elections, or think Trump was 100% joking, you are delusional.

AIPAC?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Assuming they have hacked Hillary's emails, what is the crime? So did she delete the sensitive classified data or not? You guys can't keep your story straight besides posting "OMG Stubby Fingered Rapist and his pal Putin its Molotov-Ribbentrof all over again oh my Godz!" or whatever hysterical drivel you have.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Comrade junior leuitenant has joined in.

Ah, personal attacks, the last refuge of the scoundrel!