The Right Side of the News

Nope.But it did clearly identify Russia as the source of the only widespread and significant Interference. Paid for in a normal, common, and legal commercial transaction.The Steele dossier is a minuscule portion of the evidence for collusion.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Yes, that's what the article and the evidence indicate. Yes. All 17 US intelligence agencies disagree. From Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections:

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Key Judgments

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Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations.

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We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.

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• We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.
  
• Moscow’s approach evolved over the course of the campaign based on Russia’s understanding of the electoral prospects of the two main candidates. When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency.
• Further information has come to light since Election Day that, when combined with Russian behavior since early November 2016, increases our confidence in our assessments of Russian motivations and goals.

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Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operationssuch as cyber activitywith overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or trolls. Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, has a history of conducting covert influence campaigns focused on US presidential elections that have used intelligence officers and agents and press placements to disparage candidates perceived as hostile to the Kremlin.

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• Russia’s intelligence services conducted cyber operations against targets associated with the 2016 US presidential election, including targets associated with both major US political parties. We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks
• Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards. DHS assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying.
  
• Russia’s state-run propaganda machine contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.

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We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes.

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{Bold in original, red added} Some of it has been discredited. Most of it hasn't. At the time none of it had been discredited. Nope. The meeting between Papadopoulos and Downer is considered to be the 'spark' that led to the Mueller investigation. The DOJ IG report is due out any day now but we know it concludes that the investigation was justified and properly handled (with one minor exception)

• Trump was receptive to a Campaign national security adviser’s (George Papadopoulos) pursuit of a back channel to Putin.
• Kremlin operatives provided the Campaign a preview of the Russian plan to distribute stolen emails.
• The Trump Campaign chairman and deputy chairman (Paul Manafort and Rick Gates) knowingly shared internal polling data and information on battleground states with a Russian spy; and the Campaign chairman worked with the Russian spy on a pro-Russia peace plan for Ukraine.
• The Trump Campaign chairman periodically shared internal polling data with the Russian spy with the expectation it would be shared with Putin-linked oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.
• Trump Campaign chairman Manafort expected Trump’s winning the presidency would mean Deripaska would want to use Manafort to advance Deripaska’s interests in the United States and elsewhere.
• Trump Tower meeting: (1) On receiving an email offering derogatory information on Clinton coming from a Russian government official, Donald Trump Jr. appears to have accepted that offer; (2) members of the Campaign discussed the Trump Tower meeting beforehand; (3) Donald Trump Jr. told the Russians during the meeting that Trump could revisit the issue of the Magnitsky Act if elected.
• A Trump Campaign official told the Special Counsel he felt obliged to object to a GOP Platform change on Ukraine because it contradicted Trump’s wishes; however, the investigation did not establish that Gordon was directed by Trump.
• Russian military hackers may have followed Trump’s July 27, 2016 public statement Russia if you’re listening within hours by targeting Clinton’s personal office for the first time.
• Trump requested campaign affiliates to get Clinton’s emails, which resulted in an individual apparently acting in coordination with the Campaign claiming to have successfully contacted Russian hackers.
• The Trump Campaignand Trump personallyappeared to have advanced knowledge of future WikiLeaks releases.
• The Trump Campaign coordinated campaign-related public communications based on future WikiLeaks releases.
• Michael Cohen, on behalf of the Trump Organization, brokered a secret deal for a Trump Tower Moscow project directly involving Putin’s inner circle, at least until June 2016.
• During the presidential transition, Jared Kushner and Eric Prince engaged in secret back channel communications with Russian agents. (1) Kushner suggested to the Russian Ambassador that they use a secure communication line from within the Russian Embassy to speak with Russian Generals; and (2) Prince and Kushner’s friend Rick Gerson conducted secret back channel meetings with a Putin agent to develop a plan for U.S.-Russian relations.
• During the presidential transition, in coordination with other members of the Transition Team, Michael Flynn spoke with the Russian Ambassador to prevent a tit for tat Russian response to the Obama administration’s imposition of sanctions for election interference; the Russians agreed not to retaliate saying they wanted a good relationship with the incoming administration.

All of that concerns activities by individuals except for:

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Yet Politico’s investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another’s elections.

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For which they provided no evidence of Ukrainian government involvement. In fact they gave some reason to doubt government involvement:

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There’s little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine. Longtime observers suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the country not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia would render it unable to pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country’s election. And President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.

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Maybe they were representing the government, maybe they weren't. Not everything a government official says is the policy of or the orders of the government. The evidence from your beloved article indicates that it's quite possible they were not acting for the government:

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There’s little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine. Longtime observers suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the country not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia would render it unable to pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country’s election. And President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.

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But we cannot be sure either way. Biden was explicitly acting as a government representative speaking official government policy, as were the many other government's representatives saying the same thing. The complaint was not that an investigation was going on, but that investigations were not going on. No such thing happened, and irrelevant anyway. The evidence is overwhelming that he did. Denying the existence of the evidence does not change reality.

It was investigated. There's nothing there except a abysmal misunderstanding of servers. He didn't care about "corruption", he cared about what would help his re-election. In his first congratulatory phone call to Zelensky, his advisers told him to talk about corruption. He didn't. He's never mentioned corruption in the many other places where it's a problem for US interests. Some of it is not true. Some of it is. Hillary's campaign broke no laws. The dossier was not the main basis for the FISA warrant and there were no claims that it had been verified. Here's what the FBi actually said:

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Source #1 {Steele - JonF}, who now owns a foreign business/financial intelligence firm, was approached by an identified U.S. person, who indicated to Source #1 that a U.S.-based law firm had hired the identified U.S. person to conduct research regarding Candidate #l's ties to Russia (the identified U.S. person and Source #1 have a long-standing business relationship). The identified U.S. person hired Source #1 to conduct this research. The identified U.S. person never advised Source #1 as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate #l's ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #l's campaign.

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Source #l tasked his sub-source(s) to collect the requisite information. After Source #1 received information from the sub-source(s), described herein. Source #1 provided the information to the identified U.S. person who had hired Source #1 and to the FBI

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Notwithstanding Source #l's reason for conducting the research into Candidate #1's ties to Russia, based on Source #1's previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby Source #l provided reliable information to the FBI the FBI believes Source #l's reporting herein to be credible.

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And Sondland and others testified that there was pressure. The announcement was all set to go with air time reserved when the poopies hit the fan. Zelensky is deathly afraid of saying anything that would make Trump mad, for fear of losing the aid he desperately needs. No, he is on video saying that the prosecutor who wa refusing to prosecute corruption should be fired, as did representatives of many other governments. At the time there was no investigation into Hunter Biden or Burisma. From https://www.washingtonpost.com/...7e-d2026ee0c199_story.html:

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7. What evidence suggests that was Biden’s motive?

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Pretty much none. The problem with Shokin -- in the eyes of U.S. leaders, their Western allies, the International Monetary Fund and many Ukrainians -- wasn’t that he was being too aggressive about corruption, but that he was being far too lax. In May, Bloomberg News reported that prosecutors in Ukraine had shelved the investigation into Zlochevsky by 2015, meaning Hunter Biden didn’t stand to benefit from the prosecutor’s ouster. Vitaliy Kasko, who pursued the case against Burisma’s owner as deputy prosecutor and is now first deputy prosecutor in the new government, told Bloomberg News that there had been no U.S. pressure to close that case. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also told Bloomberg News that Biden never asked him to close any cases.

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ABE: The investigation into Burisma (not Hunter Biden) was shelved in 2015. iden spoke on Shokin's ouster in 2017. The dossier did not originate in Russia, some of the information in it did. It was gathered by a British citizen in the employ of a US company. It was part of the FISA application but not a major part.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

How many people have you heard saying "us" to mean 'the US"?

He was charged. The Senate found that there was no actual obstruction of justice. Ergo, no such thing happened.

Ohio Anti-Abortion Bill Would Push Docs to Re-Implant Ectopic Pregnancies. Not only do they want that, but they want a capital crime of "aggravated abortion". The definition is the acme of tard:

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... knowingly performing an abortion while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping, rape, aggravated arson, arson, aggravated robbery, robbery, aggravated burglary, burglary, trespass in a habitation when a person is present or likely to be present, terrorism, or escape. "

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Performing an abortion in most of those circumstances should earn a medal.Edited by Admin, : Fix closing code for quoted section.

The White House "transcript" was released on September 24.Schiff's parody was delivered September 26.At least on this planet, September 26 comes after September 24. I don't know how it works on your planet. But it's obvious you have no clue about events on planet Earth and your opinions on those events are worthless.I accept your apology.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

Great timing.https://www.washingtonpost.com/...war-confidential-documents

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A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.

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The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.

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Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

"Fake news" doesn't mean false, it just means RWNJs don't like it. Tho Post is usually trustworthy.

Obama saved the economy from the Bush catastrophe and left Trump a healthy and growing economy.Trump has managed to continue at roughly the same pace. That's GDP growth 1990-2018. 2019 numbers are about the same as 2018. The big negative is the beginning of the Obama administration.Note how Clinton did way better than Trump,and Trump is doing about the same as Obama but a little worse.The stock market is pretty good. Unemployment is very low. Job creation is less than under Obama.. Farmers are going bankrupt in record numbers. None of the alleged benefits of Trump's tax cut happened, all of the detriments did. The deficit and debt have exploded. GDP growth is nowhere near what Trump promised and compares poorly to GDP growth under Obama.

And Percy pointed out why Marc was wrong about "furious".I stand by my definition of fake news, seeing that you can't come up with any actual examples.

It's a little embarrassing.I missed the fact that Percy had linked to essentially the same story I did. I thought his message was not based on that story. So posting that message at the same time the story was published wasn't really good timing, alt I thought it was.As usual the Post published real true news.

Then you won't have any difficulty listing a half-dozen or so. It isn't. I just explained why.