I'm actually relieved that Mueller found no evidence of collusion by Trump or his team. I don't want to live in a world where that happened. There are plenty of real reasons to dislike Trump; we don't need to invent ones. I'm not that cynical.

The left's desire to hold on to this collusion narrative is no different than the birther fantasy that a lot of right-wingers held onto (and many still do, I'm sure).

The left's committed, vocal belief/hope that Mueller would find clear evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians has now simply played directly into Trump's hands. And since he knew all along that no evidence would be found, he's looking like the smartest player at the table.

And, finally, I don't believe that social media posts can affect an election that millions of people participate in. And if anyone was swayed by such posts, the blame is on them, not the entity that created the posts.

Far right politicians with extremist views and insular attitudes towards foreign politics have suddenly attained (or nearly attained) office in nearly every major Western nation in the world, and it happened over the span of only a few years. That seems extremely suspicious to me. Trump, May, Marine Le Pen, Germany's The Alternative For Germany party, Spain's Vox party, and a myriad of other political groups and figures, all creating a destabilizing partisan fight in their respective countries, leaving Russia to amass more power as international power vacuums result from the instability.

Does that prove Russia did it? No. Is it incredibly fishy AND convenient? You bet.

It's not suspicious at all. It comes from a failure dating back decades on the part of the political elite in the West to listen to large sections of the population. An awful lot of ordinary people in the West are sick and tired of not being listened to, and a vote for more extremist views is, historically speaking, what always happens when vast swathes of the populace are ignored by their governments and begin to feel disenfranchised. You don't need to look to shady foreign nations for reasons why this is happening; you just need to look to Western governments' lack of action on matters that many people care deeply about.

Also, on a nit-picky point, the idea that Theresa May is a "far right politician with extremist views" is laughable. The Tory Party is far more centre-right now than its ever been, and May's default position is actually quite liberal, compared to, say, Margaret Thatcher.

That may be so, but Trump voters do have something in common with other people in most Western nations who are turning to the right: a total lack of trust in established political parties and a frustration that their concerns not being listened to. That's a dangerous situation, but it's not Putin who is to blame for that...it's mainstream politics in the West and the way politicians have ignored large parts of the public in the last couple of decades.




Well, Theresa May is a remainer. She campaigned against Brexit.

But I've said it before in the forum, and I'll say it again: the vote to leave the EU is not a right-wing extremist vote. Yes, it was a far-right party (UKIP) who forced it onto the political table and forced the main parties -- Tory, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats -- to formally discuss it, but UKIP were only able to do that because a lot of ordinary people here in the UK felt it needed discussing.

In the 2015 General Election, UKIP had its best ever election result and received 3.9 million votes. Compare that to the 14.7 million people who voted to leave the EU a year later. Clearly, the vast majority of leave voters were not UKIP supporters. That 14.7 million who voted to leave constitutes the largest political mandate in British history. To spell that out, there have never been as many people voting for something in the whole of British parliamentary history as voted to leave the EU.

The truth is, what really swung Brexit for the Leave side was the left-leaning working classes, not the far-right. The results cut right across traditional left-right political boundaries, and it was all those traditionally Labour voting parts of the country who most overwhelmingly voted to leave. I'm a perfect example of that; I'm a left-leaning socialist who has voted Labour at every General and Local Election since I was eligible to vote, but I still voted to leave the EU.

Just look at Wales: its a traditionally left-wing, Labour voting place, but the whole country (bar one constituency) voted to leave the EU.

Even the leader of the Labour party, the main left-wing party here in the UK, is a Euro-skeptic of long standing. That's why he's been so quite about opposing Brexit, even when a lot of his party want him too....because he doesn't believe in the EU either!

Brexit is not about the left vs. the right (or the far-right) in the same way as Trump vs. Clinton. It really isn't.

First, we don't know what the report does or does not say because NO ONE else has seen it. We know what the hand-picked AG who mastermind the Iran-Contra pardons chose to put in his summary, and even within quoted a part of the report that explicitly said it does not exonerate POTUS of Obstruction. Calling this summary incomplete and biased is the understatement of the year.

Calling the report a witch hunt is absolutely laughable and demonstrably divorced from reality. There have been dozens of indictments, multiple guilty pleas, and witnesses cooperating with ongoing investigations. Please.

This is just getting started and is likely to get ugly.



Verbatim from the Barr summary, the conclusions and motives of which we have zero reason to take at face-value and assume good faith.

No, but we do know that Robert Mueller focused primarily on alleged collusion between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign team and Russia. In the 4-page summary of the investigation's conclusions, it states categorically that no evidence of that conspiracy was found.

Now, obviously we know that some of Trump's aides did have contact with various Russians (including some Kremlin-linked figures), during face-to-face interactions, phone calls or exchanged e-mails -- and three of those associates of Trumps have admitted lying about the meetings or interactions. So, clearly something stinks here. But, crucially, the attorney general's summary quoted Mueller's report directly by saying, "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

As I understand it, from what I've read, the summary says that Trump committed no crime, but there is speculation that the President might still be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. However, I've also read that it's actually very hard under U.S. law to prove "corrupt intent" in cases of obstruction, so who knows? Probably Slam Bradley would know more about that than I do.




Calling the 4-page summary released by the attorney general "incomplete" is factual. Calling it "biased" is...hmmmm, probably not right.

The thing is, the summary is extremely limited with very carefully chosen words designed to present a certain narrative. You notice how it specifically says members of the Trump campaign specifically did not coordinate with the Russian government specifically on its election interference campaign?  As in, no, DJT didn't sign a "will you please collude with me?" Valentine with Putin. That wording leaves A LOT unanswered, including people working with non-government oligarchs who are aligned with the government.  We know polling data was handed over to Kilminick I believe it was?  No, the conclusion this memo is trying so hard to suggest simply does not square with what we already know, and without the full context is not to be trusted. 

My second point is to emphasize that it is so monumentally incomplete and devoid of context that "incomplete" is not a strong enough word for it. Dude summarized 2 years in 4 pages. As for biased.. what would you call it?  The AG who sent an unsolicited letter before being appointed that he does not believe a sitting POTUS is indictable have a 4 page summary of a 2 year report he has not let anyone else see yet and is saying not indictable.. the same guy known for architecting mass pardons in the past.  I am happy to quibble on specific other words than bias if that is your hangup, but nothing about this summary or the guy who wrote it in any way deserving of the benefit of the doubt.

Until Congress has the full report, this is not trustworthy.