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[HorsCat]

What factual basis exists for determining Russia’s intentions were to get trump elected?

Nice to see you concede all the other ones (it could be argued that "bribery + extortion" = "legal conclusion" and not "fact.")

Putin: I wanted Trump to win the election - POLITICO

[Dallas Tex]

Nice to see you concede all the other ones (it could be argued that "bribery + extortion" = "legal conclusion" and not "fact.")

No, not at all. That was just the first one mentioned. Most all of your ‘points’ could be argued as non-factual or intellectually dishonest.

[Dallas Tex]

Putin: I wanted Trump to win the election - POLITICO

What exactly would you expect him to say two years after trump won the election?

[HorsCat]

No, not at all. That was just the first one mentioned. Most all of your ‘points’ could be argued as non-factual or intellectually dishonest.

What exactly would you expect him to say two years after trump won the election?

Oh, brother. Sure, whatever. I guess you'd say it is also non-factual or intellectually dishonest to say that Trump committed a crime when he paid a porn star $130k to keep quiet about an affair he had shortly after his fifth child was born to his third wife, or that he paid ~$150k to silence a Playboy model, or that he paid $25M for defrauding students at his "university" or that he has to pay $2M for using his "charity" as a personal ATM.

By the way, if you can offer counterpoints to any of my non-factual / intellectually dishonest "'points,'" I'm all ears.

[Dallas Tex]

By the way, if you can offer counterpoints to any of my non-factual / intellectually dishonest "'points,'" I'm all ears.

Do you believe it’s honest to pretend that trumps policies are not driving opportunity, low unemployment, and record setting stock market?

Can you honestly say that if the unemployment was high and opportunity low you wouldn’t be 100% all in on blaming trump?

[HorsCat]

Those aren’t counterpoints, Glenn. They’re non sequiturs masquerading as questions and based on incorrect assumptions.

[Dallas Tex]

Those aren’t counterpoints, Glenn. They’re non sequiturs masquerading as questions and based on incorrect assumptions.

Seems like a fairly straightforward counterpoint to the last few claims in your original post.

[jclay]

Do you believe it’s honest to pretend that trumps policies are not driving opportunity, low unemployment, and record setting stock market?

Can you honestly say that if the unemployment was high and opportunity low you wouldn’t be 100% all in on blaming trump?

1) Unemployment rate, stock market and opportunity aren't at issue; enlisting Russian interference in the 2016 election, coersion of the Ukrainian president by withholding approved military aid in exchange for actions intended to damage a political rival and obstruction of justice related to both, are. I have read the Mueller Report and a bunch of other transcripts; it is laughable to think that Trump is innocent. But since you raised the other points:

2 Here is a link that will take you to an interactive chart showing the U3 rate for any period you desire. Set it to start well before Obama's election and go to the present. The U3 rate started dropping years before Trump took office. Are you going to tell me that you don't think that the shape of the curve during Trump's term doesn't look like a smooth continuation of what started well before, by Obama?
Notice: Data not available: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

2.5) For fun set it to start back around Carter's time and the corelate the curve to the associated presidencies....not that that is the end all, be all either. Clinton + all but one R-senator + all but 8 D-senators voted to repeal the Glass Steagal Act which was directly responsible for the financial melt down. He and they were heavily lobbied by Citi et al and it has cost us dearly. But the common economic metrics were good at the time.

3) Do you understand anything about how the U3 (and we should be using the U6 data anyway but it's not as happy) rates are calculated? Do you understand that it doesn't include folks who for many reasons, including being chronically discouraged, are no longer looking for work?

4) I forget the term and am on a device that won't let me search without losing what I'm typing here but do you realize that the population of folks that have given up looking for work is at a record high and that much of that population is reflected in neither the U3 nor U6 rates?

5) Do you realize that the astronomical stock market records are due to record and artifically low fed reserve rates started by Obama? Do you also realize that due to that reality, and due to institutional investing, there is nowhere else to put money and get any sort of reasonable return, hence the astonishing appreciation? Do you understand that what we are witnessing is a bubble driven by excess demand, or do you think that our industries have actually increased their production efficiencies as much as would be necessary to support such valuations?

6) Do you realize that those metrics, not any particular values but in general, do not give a complete diagnosis of economic health?

And don't think that my objections to Trump = unqualified support of Obama, either Clinton or the Democratic Party at large, though I do see it as generally more constructive than the RP, particularly the progressive wing. That said the big corporate money people behind the two parties don't give a damn about democracy or decent lives for our population; they care about lining their own pockets. That's what we need to be fighting. It's also accurate, according to the data I've seen, that when polled by politically neutral questions related to generally what they want in terms of individual policies the majority of the electorate is more aligned with Sanders than anyone else.

There is a lot more to say but absent a real computer and real keyboard this will have to do.

[theflashunc]

What factual basis exists for determining Russia’s intentions were to get trump elected?

Plenty. Enjoy, it's 200-ish pages of horrifying reading.

https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and
systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In
June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that
Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials—hacks
that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government—began that same month.
Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in
October and November.
In late July 2016, soon after WikiLeaks’s first release of stolen documents, a foreign
government contacted the FBI about a May 2016 encounter with Trump Campaign foreign policy
advisor George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of that foreign
government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that
it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That information prompted the FBI on July
31, 2016, to open an investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump Campaign
were coordinating with the Russian government in its interference activities.
That fall, two federal agencies jointly announced that the Russian government “directed
recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including US political
organizations,” and, “[t]hese thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election
process.” After the election, in late December 2016, the United States imposed sanctions on Russia
for having interfered in the election. By early 2017, several congressional committees were
examining Russia’s interference in the election.
Within the Executive Branch, these investigatory efforts ultimately led to the May 2017
appointment of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III. The order appointing the Special Counsel
authorized him to investigate “the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016
presidential election,” including any links or coordination between the Russian government and
individuals associated with the Trump Campaign.
As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel’s investigation established that
Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a
Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J.
Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence
service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers
working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also
identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although
the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump
presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not
establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian
government in its election interference activities.

[jclay]

The Political Colour of Fiscal Responsibility: Trump's Fiscal Policy as a Republican Tradition | naked capitalism

[jclay]

U1 - U6 rates (access isn't really denied):

Access Denied

[jclay]

BLS says that 6.6 million are unemployed. The jobs report says it's 95 million. Hmmmm. That makes it pretty clear to me that one needs to look under the hood, study a bit and not just parrot this number or that, or say that this metric is X so the president is doing good stuff, to understand what's going on.

95 million American workers not in US labor force

[guido]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...ce_story.html]

[Saab2000]

BLS says that 6.6 million are unemployed. The jobs report says it's 95 million. Hmmmm. That makes it pretty clear to me that one needs to look under the hood, study a bit and not just parrot this number or that, or say that this metric is X so the president is doing good stuff, to understand what's going on.

95 million American workers not in US labor force

While I agree with most of your points, this figure is misleading it would seem. It probably includes my 82-year old mother who is retired and thanks to a lifetime of common sense saving and not overspending, is enjoying a comfortable retirement. She is not part of the labor force, nor should very many people at the extremes of the age spectrum be part of the labor force. Yet they are probably part of this 95 million.

I heard the same figure used by a right wing conspiracy theory believer I once worked with to blame Obama for all things wrong with the world.

There will always be millions of people not part of the labor force and that’s because we don’t allow child labor and we don’t want seniors who don’t wish to work to be working until they keel over.

[choke]

As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel’s investigation established that
Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a
Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J.
Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Mueller's report says a lot of things....but doesn't prove many of them. And I say that as someone who thinks that DJT is a moron.

In regards to the bold, a Fed Judge ruled that there was no apparent evidence that the Russian 'troll farm' was connected to the Russian Govt and ordered the Govt to “to refrain from making or authorizing any public statement that links the alleged conspiracy in the indictment to the Russian government or its agencies.” Funny how that never made the news.

In a July 1 opinion, unsealed Monday, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said Barr and Mueller inappropriately linked a defendant, Concord Management and Consulting, to the Russian government, even though prosecutors have not expressly drawn a connection between the firm and the Kremlin.

Friedrich focused on language in the special counsel’s report that did not draw a clear distinction between the Russian government and Concord Management. In the section about Concord Management, she said, the report states that Mueller’s “investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election through the ‘active measures’ social media campaign carried out by” the Internet Research Agency, a Russian firm that was charged alongside Concord Management.

“By attributing IRA’s conduct to ‘Russia’—as opposed to Russian individuals or entities—the report suggests that the activities alleged in the indictment were undertaken on behalf of, if not at the direction of, the Russian government,” Friedrich wrote.

Barr made a similar misstep, Friedrich said, during a press conference in which he described the Internet Research Agency as having “close ties” to the Russian government.

“Thus, the attorney general ‘confirmed’ what the indictment does not allege—that Concord’s and its co-defendants’ activities were ‘sponsored’ by the “Russian government’ and part of a two-pronged attack on our nation’s democratic institutions,” she wrote.

Judge Warns Prosecutors About Public Statements in Case Against Russian Firm | National Law Journal

[ABiCi]

The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee Report came to the same conclusions as Mueller. The Russians were interfering and they were doing it to help Trump and harm both Clinton and his Republican opponents:

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/...rt_Volume2.pdf

[jclay]

While I agree with most of your points, this figure is misleading it would seem. It probably includes my 82-year old mother who is retired and thanks to a lifetime of common sense saving and not overspending, is enjoying a comfortable retirement. She is not part of the labor force, nor should very many people at the extremes of the age spectrum be part of the labor force. Yet they are probably part of this 95 million.

I heard the same figure used by a right wing conspiracy theory believer I once worked with to blame Obama for all things wrong with the world.

There will always be millions of people not part of the labor force and that’s because we don’t allow child labor and we don’t want seniors who don’t wish to work to be working until they keel over.

You're absolutely correct Jim, and that's my point; people trot out this number or that and draw some firm conclusion as to the health of the economy or as support for this administration or that, without really understanding how the numbers are calculated, what the shortcomings are, or whether or not the methodologies have changed at some point as is the case with how unemployment is calculated.

Aside from my linking a three year old article the 95 million number includes people like your grandmother; by far the largest component consists of people who shouldn't be working but when we're rendering verdicts on economy and tax policies based on differences of a few tenths of a percent it's vital to understand how the numbers are created and whether or not the methodologies have changed over time, which in the case of unemployment statistics they have. I believe it was in the mid 90s that the fundamental unemployment calculations were changed search that a Rosier picture was presented.

As to the bureau of labor statistics unemployment curves the people who are trumpeting Trump are ignoring the previous five or six years of improving unemployment numbers following the great recession. Good or bad over the long term, the policies that lead to the drastic improvement in the statistics are the same policies that have continued the trend during the Trump era, namely crazy low interest rates; it isn't the tax cuts and ballooning deficit that are assisting at this point, it's that you can borrow money for historically low interest rates. And I'm pretty sure that's going to bite us in the rear end.

[HorsCat]

Mueller's report says a lot of things....but doesn't prove many of them. And I say that as someone who thinks that DJT is a moron.

In regards to the bold, a Fed Judge ruled that there was no apparent evidence that the Russian 'troll farm' was connected to the Russian Govt and ordered the Govt to “to refrain from making or authorizing any public statement that links the alleged conspiracy in the indictment to the Russian government or its agencies.” Funny how that never made the news.

Judge Warns Prosecutors About Public Statements in Case Against Russian Firm | National Law Journal

I assume you are referring to Judge Dabney Friedrich's 7/1/19 ruling on a motion by said 'troll farm' in the matter of United States of America v. Concord Management & Consluting, LLC.

If so, the Judge absolutely did NOT rule "that there was no apparent evidence that the Russian 'troll farm' was connected to the Russian Govt." Instead, the Judge issued a narrow ruling on whether the government violated Rule 57.7 (regarding pretrial publicity) and whether a contempt holding was warranted as a result. With respect to the former, the court concluded "that the government violated Rule 57.7 by making or authorizing the release of public statements that linked the defendants’ alleged activities to the Russian government and provided an opinion about the defendants’ guilt and the evidence." So that's probably why it "never made the news."

See: http://www.courthousenews.com/wp-con...ions-order.pdf.

In regards to a genuinely held belief that the troll farm isn't connected to the Russian government, I'm reminded of that old saw about a bridge being for sale.

[guido]

After Six Decades, Turkey Is Now a U.S. Ally in Name Only | The New Yorker

[guido]

Opinion | Trump and His Party of Pollution - The New York Times