People can say that the speculation has been over the top, but the Clinton campaign was understated. Trump is a Putin puppet and that's the least of it.

should press for an investigation, but that proceeding from allegations immediately to saying that the proof is evident is a long jump.

The article fails to mention anything about all the denials, lies and covering up by Trump & Co. of their Russian connections and changing of Repub platform to help Russian interests and fails to acknowledge seriousness of Russia hacking Dems to disrupt election.

article that is your right, but he is merely suggesting that before Democrats proceed directly from allegations to an impeachment process, it might be wiser to make certain that there is strong evidence for the allegations.

If the Democrats make allegations and they cannot be proven, Trump will frame it as Democratic obstructionism and a willingness to do anything to stop him from doing his job.

Rachel Maddow did a fine job the other day of framing a credible sounding narrative, but the US Justice system works on the basis of proving charges, not simply making a narrative.

Cohen doesn't present any facts. This isn't a news article, it's an editorial. The headline here is "Putin apologist continues to apologize for Putin". And now he's apologizing for Trump also. Cohen has been writing "stop being mean to Putin" articles for years. He seems to have the same kind of bro-crush on Putin that Trump has.

If an editorial about Trump/Putin was written by someone whose opinion was be worth taking into account, that would be one thing. But it isn't. Cohen even denies that Putin had anything to do with the murders of Litvinenko, Politkovskaya, and others critics and dissidents. He apologizes for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And so on.

And asking that the Democrats assemble facts sounds more like good advice than apologizing for anything.

If Stephen Cohen were interested in facts, he would be imploring the GOP to support a special prosecutor, and get Trump to release his tax returns. But instead he makes excuses for Trump and Putin and denies plain facts, like Russia's involvement in the hacks and Putin's history of assassinations.

is not exactly correct.

is incorrect, plain and simple. What is not established is whether Trump's team colluded with Russia. But whether Russia was behind the hacks is not in question. Not only the unanimous view of all US intelligence agencies, but also several private internet security firms. Denial is willful ignorance, and the people who engage in it are either fans of Trump, or fans of Putin, like Stephen Cohen.

a valid strategy to pursue and Democrats should do so to their fullest power.

is one tactic, but only solid evidence is enough to justify impeachment.

Agreed that Democrats should try to weaken Trump.

An independent prosecutor. That's where the proof will come from.

There is plenty of evidence to seek an independent investigation.

and I hope that those allegations are enough to persuade the GOP to call for an independent investigation.

But, it's not to early to push to investigate.

And mine. Assemble a fact-based argument, but even with facts, Trump voters will probably dismiss the facts as a personal attack.

with the GOP blocking such an investigation at every turn?

And what if DT is Putin's puppet? Why should we think such an investigation will ever take place?

And if Trump is controlled by Putin, media and public pressure might be enough for an investigation to take place.

Given that Trump is not part of the GOP establishment, it might be that if more evidence is revealed the GOP controlled Congress might be willing to sacrifice Trump and allow Pence to take over.

Replacing an unstable fascist with a Christian theocrat. Not much of a choice.

About it to an extent that is inexplicable. A independent investigation is warranted.
Cohen is a career Putin apologist- has made excuses for the political assasinations for fucks sake as well as the immense corruption under Putin. He's partisan as hell and full of shit.

And an independent investigation is warranted.

As to Cohen being a career Putin apologist, I disagree.

While defending the man. Cohen has an obvious agenda.
He is not credible.

Certainly he is an oligarch of immense wealth, but he is also interested in insuring that Russia remains a world power.

Cohen often explains what he feels are the motivations behind Putin's actions, but that does not make him an apologist for those actions.

Are you suggesting we ignore he's a ruthless dictator enriching himself while leaving his country empoverished?
Seriously?

What's with the Putin love? It feels like more of the "anything goes if it's against Hillary" crap we saw last year. And that's exactly how a lot of RW Trumpmsuppprters see it.

Up to and including a coup against foreign leaders who pursue a path that the US sees as opposed to US power interests. Iran, Cuba, Greece, Chile, Haiti, and numerous other countries have all been the targets of US electoral interference.

What you choose to negatively frame as Putin love I see as a realistic assessment of history.

Putin is engaging in power politics. US Presidents also engage in power politics.

If you lived in Chile in 1973, would you be telling people to stop demonizing Nixon and Kissinger because they're just playing power politics, it's no big deal?

What Putin wants is to weaken America, and delegitimize democracy both here and in Western Europe, to increase his power and spread authoritarian rule. That's bad.

be assembled with care rather than proceed from accusation to impeachment.

He's making excuses for Trump's praise of a murderous dictator. He's denying the well established fact that Putin was behind the hacks of the DNC and Podesta. He's pretending that Russia didn't invade Ukraine. He's claiming that there is no evidence that Putin is a "killer". He's denying that Trump has financial dealings with Russia. He makes sorry excuses for Manafort's and Flynn's associations with Russia. And he compares concerns about a compromised election to McCarthyism.

If he had instead said that it's clear that Russia engaged in illegal hacking in order to help Trump win, and it's also clear that Trump and many members of his team have close ties with Russia, but further investigation is needed to determine whether Trump's team actually colluded with Russia, and also to determine how deep Trump's ties and indebtedness to Putin go, then I would have no problem with it.

But that's not what he is saying. Not even close.

And Congress must be impressed that the allegations are serious.

or "impressing Congress".

Do you honestly believe that the typical Trump voter reads The Nation? As for Congress, it is controlled by a Republican party that consistently demonstrates loyalty to party and wealthy interests, over nation. They also consistently reject any facts that support their agenda.

This discussion is about analyzing an article written by a Putin apologist who is turning into a Trump apologist. The audience for this discussion is primarily DUers who might actually be taken in by this poorly written and poorly argued article.

Rachel is reaching vastly more voters than Stephen Cohen ever will.

I disagree with your opinion of both.

But it illustrates the division between Democrats. Just as the primaries illustrated the division. But Cohen's point about allowing the case to build before calling for impeachment is a good one in my view.

No, I had not noticed.

Well, maybe I noticed a bit.

Could you post the relevant text from the article?





So far, no facts have been presented to back up the allegations. (Without facts, all of us are doomed to malpractice or worse.) An impartial investigation might search for such facts, if any exist, which should then be evaluated objectively—but neither may be possible in the current political atmosphere, only a witch hunt.

I see a suggestion to see where the evidence leads and proceed appropriately.

in the last 90 days. I don't have that level of inexhaustible energy, so you'll have to take it up with another of your many detractors.

I know my friend is over there and sent me this article.

We should not be scaling back our pursuit of the truth about Putin's influence on US politics. This is not the direction we should be going in. It is supportive of the very thing that is destroying this country.

East-West Accord? WTF? What the Actual Fuck?

But we must also recognize that, unless we are to echo the GOP tactic of conflating allegation with proving, the Democrats should insist that an independent investigation is warranted and necessary.

If that investigation finds credible evidence of what has been alleged, whatever happened after that would be seen as more credible.

Since we have a majority in neither house of Congress, we will have to make an impenetrable case. Cohen wants us to STFU, and let things work themselves out. He is a Putin apologist, pure and simple. If you post his crap here, then we will continue to point that out.

That I can guarantee.

And if that impenetrable case is built and prosecuted to conviction, I will help you build a scaffold.

In Ukraine, and now in this subversion of our election system. He is a Putin puppet and apologist. You have only to look at his history to see that. You could start with the Wikipedia article on him and branch out from there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_F._Cohen

Further, The Nation is NOT a progressive publication. It is something other than that. Something very different from that.

I do see what you're doing here with this. I'll be around to counter that.

is that The Nation currently represents a strand of left wing authoritarianism that exists in this country, among whom you will find left wing supporters of Donald Trump.

There are accusations made against the Clinton campaign, accusations of "McCarthyite hysteria" against Democrats and liberal media figures in general. There is almost a hero worship tone with respect to Trump, and a distress over the "slurs" against him, and calls for impeachment, which he sees as the real threat to American democracy. There are all kinds of intellectually dishonest arguments, and false equivalencies.

In the comment section, you repeatedly see the RW talking point that claims that Hillary was planning a nuclear war against Russia. Any sort of tension with Putin is described in hysterical terms as escalations that could lead to nuclear war. Expressions of disagreement with the article are equated with McCarthyism.

I honestly can't see how any non-authoritarian with basic analytic skills could read this article and not conclude that it's a relatively crude piece of pro-Putin, pro-Trump propaganda.

It's been a long time since I've read The Nation, but it seems like it's becoming the magazine equivalent of JPR. It's alarming to see some "progressives" swallowing this unquestioningly.

is a "progressive." That word has been much misused in the past year or so. There have been many quoted articles from that publication on that other site you mentioned.

I was surprised to see that article excerpted here. Fortunately, there were many who called it out for what it is.

Given the positions that The Nation has taken over the many years that I have read it, I disagree with your framing it as an unexplained something other.

However, your assessment of Cohen leaves me thinking that you are incorrect. And there it is.

Putin’s Pal (unfortunately, my long time boyfriend has gone over to JPR, and he sent me this nation article - it seems to be popular over at JPR)

Not DU. On DU, people are going to explain why Cohen is not someone to be trusted when he writes about Putin.

It's odd because the more one digs... the more red flags are going up about some Putin-Trump collusion in the election...

This is hardly the same as McCarthyism. McCarthy was a LIAR and using the hearings to promote himself. That's a far cry from exposing a possible Manchurian Candidate... or one susceptible to blackmail.

There are a multitude of red flags, irony intended, but a strong case must be assembled and a conviction or resignation required.

...

just stole a bunch of CIA documents to help that asshat Trump...and have been trying to interfere with Europe as well...screw them...if Trump tries to lift the sanctions, I think Congress will not go for it...and then we would know for sure...that he is a Russian puppet. At some point, the taxes will be released, ad we will see what the truth is.

And spent lots of money supporting political groups in the US. We needed detente then and we need it now.

Whether it be propping up secessionists, working to weaken U.S. alliances or engaging in a campaign to influence the U.S. election in support of Trump, we must resist such interference.

I suppose it is just an accident that WIKI which we all know is Russian Intelligence...just happened to put all that bullshit about tapping people after Trump accused Obama of wiretapping him...Trump is as quilty as sin...now we have one of his campaign guys speaking directly with the DNC hackers (Russian Intelligence)...and we have Flynn too...Trump is unfit to serve...and I have no idea why you would post this.

Dead in the past month.

"Natural causes"

And do the same thing over and over and expect different results.

Republicans do things like screech "Benghazi!" over and over along with lies about how Hillary was directly responsible, by sadistically ordering troops to "stand down" even though they were close enough and could have swept in and saved the ambassador. They create a whole 'made for TV movie' in the minds of many Americans. Same goes with their narrative of Hillary's email server problems.

Its about time Democrats started at least fighting back. We cannot anymore wait for all the t's to be crossed and the i's dotted before we fight back. 16 intelligence agencies say there was collusion. There is so much smoke its burning our eyes.

The old way of careful prudence and desperately hanging onto ridiculous assumptions that going down the slow plodding road of proving beyond a shadow of a doubt, in a court of law, before even whispering about guilt or innocence is, unfortunately (I mean that) passe.

For me to agree, she'd have to make a far better argument. Until then, I'm for releasing the media hounds on all things Trump/Putin.

And I believe that she was a staunch Stein supporter, no?

I guess you would just stand there and let it hit you and you would just say hey man that's ok. You must be a republican.

Feel free to enlighten me as to what I missed.

He seems to think that Crimea was rightfully a Russian territory, and he seems to be rather opposed to the idea of that ukrainians should have much say over their own lives. He seems to have a long history of pro-Russian and anti Ukrainian activism. Odd.

But NO thanks to the good Professor.

that's not good for america, and is borderline treason. Russia is not a paragon of civic virtue, that americans should be modeling themselves after, as many on the right seem to think now.

Can't believe this crap is posted on DU. Insults. my. intelligence.

But allegations are not proof or they would be called proof.

and the GOP leadership is complicit, we could still have an honest and fair investigation.

that argues that there can never be a fair investigation given that the GOP has control.

So it seems to me as if the Democrats must hope that more information comes to light and that the press continues to notice this information.