China, are you listening . . . ?

[Dill]

LOL Hillary Clinton on Rachel Maddow Wednesday night made and interesting, tongue-in-cheek analogy.

Why limit foreign interference to Russia? She asked. Why not invite other foreign players into our election?

Imagine if the Democrat front runner said "China, are you listening? Why don't you get Trump's tax returns!"

That followed by a flurry of hacking activity at the IRS, and a day or two later the returns appear on some Wiki style website.

Hillary was calling attention to the strange acceptance of Trump's willingness to call upon and benefit from U.S. adversaries; suppose that were acceptable for Democrats as well. What would the effect be on U.S. elections? If it's acceptable for Trump, why not a Democrat?

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/transcript-rachel-maddow-interviews-hillary-clinton

The point was, of course, not to actually call for Chinese involvement, to place attention on the tacit acceptance of Trump's behavior on the formerly Russia-bashing right.

But Laura Ingraham saw it differently last night, replaying only the "call" and discussing how irresponsible such a move was--knowing that most Fox viewers would never check the full context

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-03-2019, 04:17 PM)Dill Wrote: LOL Hillary Clinton on Rachel Maddow Wednesday night made and interesting, tongue-in-cheek analogy.

Why limit foreign interference to Russia? She asked. Why not invite other foreign players into our election?

Imagine if the Democrat front runner said "China, are you listening? Why don't you get Trump's tax returns!"

That followed by a flurry of hacking activity at the IRS, and a day or two later the returns appear on some Wiki style website.

Hillary was calling attention to the strange acceptance of Trump's willingness to call upon and benefit from U.S. adversaries; suppose that were acceptable for Democrats as well. What would the effect be on U.S. elections? If it's acceptable for Trump, why not a Democrat?

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/transcript-rachel-maddow-interviews-hillary-clinton

The point was, of course, not to actually call for Chinese involvement, to place attention on the tacit acceptance of Trump's behavior on the formerly Russia-bashing right.

But Laura Ingraham saw it differently last night, replaying only the "call" and discussing how irresponsible such a move was--knowing that most Fox viewers would never check the full context

So you're telling me Laura submitted her summary of the interview?

[Dill]

(05-03-2019, 04:51 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: So you're telling me Laura submitted her summary of the interview?

She discussed it with a guest, and they played a short clip of Hillary asking "China, are you listening . . . ?" Sans the framing and discussion afterward.

So I am telling you she submitted a snip of the interview, then went on to lament Hillary's bad behavior.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

Couple of things. First, is Rachel Maddow now physically incapable of discussing a topic other than Russian election interference? Second, is anyone here naive enough to think that China doesn't already interfere in just about everything we do? They're about a thousand times more our enemy than Russia is.

[Dill]

(05-03-2019, 09:18 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Couple of things.  First, is Rachel Maddow now physically incapable of discussing a topic other than Russian election interference?  Second, is anyone here naive enough to think that China doesn't already interfere in just about everything we do?  They're about a thousand times more our enemy than Russia is.

1. Rachel was interviewing Hillary, as a follow up to Hillary's op ed piece about how to respond to the Mueller Report.  So long as there are people (like me) who think the Russian interference is a serious subject, increasingly so as we approach another presidential election, I think she will continue covering it, as opposed to covering it up.

2. The question of whether China does or does not interfere was not a topic of discussion during the interview. That is in part because no presidential candidate in 2016 called for China to interfere, and the FBI/CIA did not catch China hacking a major party's email account and publishing its emails, nor breaching the election system in various states.  People in Hillary's administration did not meet with representatives of Chinese intelligence--and then lie about it. And China did not orchestrate a massive fake news campaign on social media--e.g., creating sock puppets to actually organize protests against candidates.  Also, China did not then deny all this activity, while a president backed Li's word over his own FBI/CIA.

PS Watching Rachel right now. She is talking about the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, right after the CIA published its detailed indictment of Russian intelligency.  Trump believed Putin. I'm going to watch her now.  More later . . . .

[CJD]

Well, the problem is Chelsea hasn't met any Chinese Officials in Clinton Tower about adoption yet, so Hillary's requests probably hold no water for China.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-03-2019, 10:02 PM)Dill Wrote: 1. Rachel was interviewing Hillary, as a follow up to Hillary's op ed piece about how to respond to the Mueller Report.  So long as there are people (like me) who think the Russian interference is a serious subject, increasingly so as we approach another presidential election, I think she will continue covering it, as opposed to covering it up.

You misunderstand.  I am not saying the Russia story is unimportant or that it should be, as you say, covered up.  I am pointing out that Maddow apparently thinks there are no other topics worth covering. 

Quote:2. The question of whether China does or does not interfere was not a topic of discussion during the interview. That is in part because no presidential candidate in 2016 called for China to interfere, and the FBI/CIA did not catch China hacking a major party's email account and publishing its emails, nor breaching the election system in various states.  People in Hillary's administration did not meet with representatives of Chinese intelligence--and then lie about it. And China did not orchestrate a massive fake news campaign on social media--e.g., creating sock puppets to actually organize protests against candidates.  Also, China did not then deny all this activity, while a president backed Li's word over his own FBI/CIA.

Again, you misunderstand.  I get all of that but I am pointing out that China is at least as bad as Russia in this regard and is a far greater threat than Russia has any chance of being in the near, or even far, future.

Quote:PS Watching Rachel right now. She is talking about the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, right after the CIA published its detailed indictment of Russian intelligency.  Trump believed Putin. I'm going to watch her now.  More later . . . .

I'm stunned.

[hollodero]

(05-03-2019, 09:18 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Couple of things.  First, is Rachel Maddow now physically incapable of discussing a topic other than Russian election interference?

Possibly. Which is good. Others talk Trump tweets, Trump lapses, Trump affairs and have 100 worked up guests confirming the host's biases. She at least sticks to the more interesting topic and usually has profund things to report.

(05-03-2019, 09:18 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote:  Second, is anyone here naive enough to think that China doesn't already interfere in just about everything we do?  They're about a thousand times more our enemy than Russia is.

What does that have to do with anything. Russians have a more aggressive propaganda, that has little to do with who's the bigger foe. Canada's pretty harmless, but if they started meddling in your elections with all kinds of document thefts and hidden schemes to promote one candidate over another, that would still be a thing.

Or would it?

[Dill]

(05-03-2019, 11:44 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: You misunderstand.  I am not saying the Russia story is unimportant or that it should be, as you say, covered up.  I am pointing out that Maddow apparently thinks there are no other topics worth covering. 

Again, you misunderstand.  I get all of that but I am pointing out that China is at least as bad as Russia in this regard and is a far greater threat than Russia has any chance of being in the near, or even far, future.

Over the last month, Maddow has been interviewing all the Dem candidates, one by one. I don't watch her every night, but I remember stories on Yemen, jared's china connections, and Iran.

Also she interviewed Bridget Kelly about her role in Bridgegate on 4/25 and did a segment on the NRA 4/29.

I think she spends time on the Mueller Report because

1. The Russians--not China--appear once again poised to interfere with U.S. elections.

2. The U.S. president today had a conversation with Putin about "many wonderful things" and does not believe Russia will interfere again, if they even did in 2016 (Putin says "No").   This means Homeland Security, the FBI and CIA work this out as best they can on their own.

3. A significant number of Republicans still believe there was no Russian interference in 2016.

So to sum up, while China is shaping up to be the next Superpower, both economically and militarily, there is at the moment no public evidence that they have been as aggressive in damaging U.S. democracy as Russia has. Our Intel Community certainly has its eye on China; it's not an either/or from their perspective. They can watch both.  But what makes Russia the greater immediate problem is 1) their 2016 multilevel swarming attack on our elections, and 2) the political fallout/division resulting from that--the election of Trump, his public vilification of the FBI and CIA (who are actually trying to defend the US), his success in sowing doubt about the free press and whether the Russians really attacked us, his refusal to plan for and lead defense of the coming election, his defiance of Congress and the consequent Constitutional crisis.

If you are Trump, you are likely hoping/expecting Russia to intervene on your behalf again--not China. So however economically powerful China is becoming, it does not live in the head of our president the way Russia and Putin do, damaging our national security from the inside, from the highest office.

I and many other Americans appreciate Rachel's continuing updates and analysis of this looming threat.

PS Lots of interesting legal history about Watergate and subpoenas tonight. It's like a class on government.