The government hasn't pursued the matter. It's all falling apart around them. The charges were blatantly trumped up. Everyone knew it. What these bozo's didn't count on was the Russians responding to the charges, and letting them know that they were perfectly willing to appear and face the music. Trump is doing the same thing now which is why they're going to just continue to shuffle it all under the rug.
How could the American Justice Department pursue the matter when the Russians are in Russia and apt to remain there? So what if the Russians say they're innocent? What would you expect them to say? You seem about as gullible as Trump when it comes to the Russians. Trump said he'd asked Putin about it and Putin said he was innocent. Trump said he believed Putin.
I was talking about past events first of all and that TED talk secondly. You seem to want to talk about Hillary and Bill or the Mueller investigation instead of the two articles of impeachment. That looks like an attempt to dodge.
You're confusing me with the mainstream news media.
Hardly. The media seems to be discussing current events. You appear to want to discuss events that are not relevant to this case, some of which are decades old.
You're seeing things. Everything so far has been a enormous exercise in futility. Look at what anyone is getting convicted of so far, and what you see is that it's a whole lot of nothing. Remember when Obama forgot that his mic was still on while he pointed out that he would be able to work with the Ruskies after the next election??? No one batted an eye when he said that, and this doesn't come anywhere near that level of collusion. Trump isn't colluding at all. This is all nonsense. There's no reason why Trump shouldn't be restoring relations with Russia so we can all get back to fixing the economy. Instead the mainstream news outlets are all spouting this nonsense that we can't trust the Russians. Why? Because they abandoned socialism? Yep. Because we need some sort of enemy to warrant having the biggest military budget in the world? Yep. Because Trump is an outsider? Yep. Because reestablishing relations with the Russians would take a big chunk of money away from the money changers in the Fed? Yep. It's going to happen anyways, and will probably signal the end of the Fed's money printing scam.
You sound as if you might be on the Russian payroll. The Russians have been outsmarting this administration for some time. It's either that or Trump is a Russian agent. I prefer to think he's naive politically and being outsmarted. His distrust of multilateral agreements is one of his biggest weaknesses. The Russians are masters of complex politics. Putin is very clever.
NATO is in peril with Turkey appearing to be willing to buy military equipment from Russia instead of the US. Trump threatens sanctions, Turkey laughs. I wonder how far Trump would go anyway when he has financial interests in Turkey that could be confiscated? Turkey is even threatening to close down an American military base.
Macron seeing how Trump has undermined NATO spotted his own opportunity to grab some power, saying NATO was brain dead or something like that. Macron wants a new security arrangement for Europe -- naturally with France in the forefront. The UK is leaving the EU; Germany while economically powerful lacks a strong military and nuclear weapons.
Ukraine just signed an agreement with Russia about natural gas supplies. Why not? It looks as if maybe the US isn't a strong ally and can't be depended on. While I think that agreement was needed, it's tragic to me that the US didn't seem involved.
Germany likewise is tilting more and more towards Russia and away from the US. That too is over natural gas. They need energy and Russia can supply it. Merkel expressed her displeasure with the American sanctions. Construction has stopped, at least temporarily, because the company working on it didn't want to run afoul of the US sanctions; but that works only so long. It opens the door for other companies from other countries to do the work. Trump overdoes the sanctions. If I was a foreign corporation, I'd think twice about whether I wanted anything to do with the US in the future. It might be easier to do business with other people.
Was the US at the table for the peace talks about Syria? So far as I know, they were not. That was mostly Turkey and Russia hashing out what they thought should happen in Syria.
Some months ago, Russia and China announced their first joint military exercises. The news this December is that Iran will be joining them for joint military exercises. I think Russia denied it was the start of a new military alliance. How could that be? The three big winners globally during the first three years of the Trump administration has been those three countries. Iran remains the most vulnerable, of course; but it looks as if Russia and China don't mind annoying the US if that means they can cozy up to Iran.
Afghanistan has been another wreck for this administration as it has been for quite a long time. Russia has to be enjoying seeing the US mired down -- the way they had been when the Soviets were there.
North Korea is another example of a missed opportunity. Trump started off well, I thought; but he really doesn't know that diplomacy depends on both sticks and carrots. He depends too much on sticks. Kim isn't impressed and won't be pressured. Iran also isn't impressed. I also agreed for the most part with Trump that the agreement Obama had reached with Iran was highly problematical. What Trump didn't seem to grasp was that he might have won more concessions from Iran by offering them more goodies. The same is true about North Korea. Both have tremendous problems that the US could help fix if both sides were willing to ratchet down the negativity.
If we want to talk about foreign influence on elections, I'd suggest focusing on North Korea and Iran for potential problems. Kim is threatening a Christmas surprise. My guess is both countries could be considering an October surprise for 2020. China and Russia might not have to do much themselves if they can get their surrogates to do it for them; but perhaps the Chinese might have a few tricks up their sleeve for October 2020. Have you noticed how the US stock market vacillates with every little bit of news about the trade negotiations with China? That shows a vulnerability on the part of the US. China think twice about trying to make the American stock market collapse since so many Chinese own stocks in it, at least for now; but as I see it, China now has the cards to collapse the American stock market and possibly the economy -- thus almost guaranteeing Trump's defeat in 2020 if they are pushed too hard. The damage to China could be considerable; but they have great control over the news, and any misery caused in China could be blamed on the US and the Chinese would accept it at true -- or be afraid to dissent if they didn't believe it.
What I don't see is that China will ever want to depend again on American farmers that much. They can buy soybeans and other things from other countries. China will also be doing its best to become less dependent on Americans for manufactured goods. Trump has made things too complicated and unpredictable.
I don't see "increased trade" with either Russia or China as a good thing. We did that already with China. They made a lot of money from it; and now they're using that money to build up their military. Russia took the money they got from selling oil and gas to build up their military too.
We appear to be in situation similar to the one prior to World War I when European countries owned almost everything globally and then began quarreling among themselves over who would be dominant. We are seeing the rise of Russia and China on the global stage. It's about money and dominance; and it's naive to think Russia is on friendly terms with us. Decades ago, good relations with Russia were possible. The Russians wanted to be friendly. They got treated with contempt by the EU, they got threatened by NATO peeling off countries which had traditionally been allied with Russia. I'd say Russia was abused, even betrayed, by the West. Putin is now suspicious of Western politicians who smile at him while plotting against him. They lied to Russia, and Putin figures he needs to lie to them now. Trump did not create the problems; but it seems he does not know how to solve the problem either. He is not a master of negotiations. He understands only bilateral agreements. The world order appears to be crumbling to me. If Trump is re-elected, a "new world order" is almost certain to emerge; and it won't be to America's good. Trump can be right about something but then plot a course for disaster by being too negative in public. He was completely right about NATO members not keeping their commitments; but he sought to embarrass them in public and made negative comments.
Now it looks as if Trump wants to make the WTO irrelevant, just as he has the FEC more or less. He doesn't appoint people. Positions are vacant. Is that the way to reform government, or is it the way to undermine order and create chaos?[/QUOTE]