Banned

Is there going to be another Eurovision comic about everything that happened? It was a crazy year

the winner of eurovision was a chicken song that promotes 3rd way feminism (ie instead of pushing women up they try to push men down and destroy the relationship between males and females) feminism is good when it gives women equal rights to men. it ISNT good when it starts to try to push men down and emasculate them and antagonize them. it was probably for the better that china didnt see this social engineering contest

edit: to the people who disliked my comment. are you all man haters or what? what part of what i said was unreasonable or wrong?

@yoisi
Didn't we hit 3rd wave in the late 80's/early 90's already? I distinctly remember the term "FemiNazi" already being used at Uni, and for clear and obvious reasons after a couple of run-ins with those ...ladies.. at the time.
By my reckoning we're into 4th gen by now: past equal rights, into oppression, with added entitlement.

@Grikath I think they called it "New-Wave" feminism. But yeah pretty much toxic many of them

@Grikath
Yeah, that's the "Third Wave", also called "Neofeminism" because they no longer have the same goals or methods of actual feminists. They got into bed with the religious right, and now their objectives are taking basic civil rights AWAY from women neither groups like (straight women who don't hate men enough, or who work in a career based around making men happier, and making more money than most men doing it, with enough time left to raise their own children instead of paying strangers to do a half-assed job of it like the rest of us.) Since it's hard to get financial support to drag single mother's out of their paid-for homes by their hair in front of their soon-to-be fostered, previously happy and healthy children, neofeminist methodology involves a lot of dishonesty, fake testimonials, and easily debunked junk science studies. You've probably heard of this before: "The War on Human Trafficking".

@Hinoron im not really talking about marriage relationships that they are destroying. i myself probably dont want to get married . im talking about them encouraging women to treat men like they are their enemies and also creating some resentment from men as well by constantly talking down on men and bashing men. and that is absolutely wrong.

@yoisi I get ya I consider myself a feminist but more along the lines of men and women equal more than one above the other like some feminist I’ve met

@Joaquin546 lol if i were you id stop calling myself a feminist. the title is so spoilt and tainted these days because of toxic people.

@yoisi nah im a real feminist not some weirdo

@yoisi
(I should like to upvote, but I can no longer find your comment on this poorly designed, cumbersome website. >.< 10 minutes of trying to hunt it down in order to make one click is my limit.)

@yoisi who disliked my comment? what part of what i said do you disagree with? if you would stop using your feelings to think and instead used your head and logic you'd realize everything i said was correct.

theres a difference between being a strong woman and being a whiner that cant take personal responsibility and that blames all your problems on other people(men). rights and personal responsibility comes hand in hand. i feel like a lot of overly entitled feminists forget this. complaining about LEGITIMATE problems is one thing but developing a victimhood complex with an unhealthy sense of entitlement and trying to create and see problems when there is none, is another thing completely. having a victim complex and no self awareness is a sign of weakness not strength

anytime anyone points this out they are labeled as a toxic male or a self hating female. well let me tell you i am NOT a traditional kind of woman i am a tomboy and i argue with men in my life a lot but i can also see when feminism has gone out of hand as well.

@yoisi There are two kind of people: Those who work and those who whine. Workers find problem? They work or atleast try to fix it! Whiners find problem? They tell about it and then expect someone OTHER to fix it, for god's sake what failure of existence! So, Which side are you, Workers or Whiners?

So if they want to do something with "Patriarchy" Do something and dont just go around Toplessly with your protest sign and flower Crown like an idiot!

@yoisi and lets be honest even without the unnecessary male bashing parts of the song the song itself was just obnoxious. trying to promote the idea that the world should always accept you as you are and that you shouldnt try to improve yourself is a bad message to send. the first line was already problematic. nope. obese people arent beautiful thats just an objective fact. its ingrained in our human consciousness and genes through years of evolution , to not find unhealthy looking people to be attractive. people shouldnt bully them but trying to enable their unhealthy lifestyles and tell them its not them that needs changing but rather the whole world needs to change for them is a very entitled and wrong message to send .
this way of thinking comes from people who worry more about not hurting other people's feelings and less about the real reality of the situation.

@yoisi "nope. obese people arent beautiful thats just an objective fact. its ingrained in our human consciousness and genes through years of evolution , to not find unhealthy looking people to be attractive. "
I mean.... There are/have been many cultures in which being fat is considered incredibly attractive, BECAUSE it signifies health from a biological stand point. The ability to BE fat used to mean you are in a position of surplus and could extend this surplus to mates and offspring. In a time when everyone around you is skin and bones and scraping food together to survive, being fat meant you were doing incredibly well for yourself. Obviously I don't think obese people are healthy, but to say it's 'objective fact' that obese people are ugly is.... Just not true.
Anyway, we know better about obesity and being obese nowadays doesn't mean you're well off any more (quite the opposite) (in the west anyway, in poor countries it's still a thing and still a thing of beauty) (there's a reason African men think fat women are sexy).

@yoisi I am saddened that a struggle as noble as feminism is tainted with this new extremism without logic.

@yoisi I disagree with your interpretation of the song. From the song I got the impression that she had been treated badly ("I'm not your toy") by someone who waved around money and made her feel like an exchangeable doll. So to me that song was about not letting a bad relationship or abusive partner destroy one's self-respect.

I do agree that feminism has it's loud and extremist section, but all ideologies/organisations on earth do. One shouldn't let the idiots on the fringes distract from the good that the majority of feminism does.

As for obese people not being beautiful, there is a difference between external and internal beauty. Using the word "creature" after beautiful makes me interpret it more as an abstract thing, rather than conventional physical beauty.

@ilyena87 so she gets treated badly by some guy and then lets it out on all guys? and you think thats right or fair? guys get their fair share of emotional abuse from women as well you know does that give them the right to make anti female songs like that too?. . and no she isn't beautiful inside or out. she hangs out with war criminals (netenyahu) and cared nothing about the palestinian plight when she talked about Jerusalem. besides i think it was pretty clear that she was talking about external beauty. in her interviews she mentioned feeling insecure about her weight and all that.

@yoisi What makes you think the song is against all men? Going by the lyrics, it's about one person. She uses "he" and "boy", as in singular. I don't see what makes you think it's about men in general.

I evaluated the message of the song by the lyrics. I don't know anything about the artist, not if she's the one who wrote the song or her personality and opinions. That's how most people experience songs I'd say. Few people bother hunting down info on the artist and context for songs.

@ilyena87 watch and read her interviews the song was clearly written by her to express her own insecurities. ( about her weight and appearance though i think instead of expecting the world to change she herself should change and try to lose some weight if shes that insecure)

and the song is an obvious jab at guys in general. its a song worded in a way where any woman can self insert themselves in it against a guy that might have upset them. so its clear that the song is just anti male in general
.though if what you said is right and it was only about one guy that she knew then im not sure what male could have made her feel this way . she doesnt seem like the kind of person that any guy would want to have anything to do with in the first place. id honestly be surprised if she ever had a boyfriend (or even a girlfriend) like who would want to be romantically involved with someone like her .? she's terrible both inside and out.

notice that she only cares about her own issues(promoting 3rd way feminism and fat acceptance) but doesnt care about the issues of other people like the Palestinians and that trashy way she culturally appropriate Japanese people? she very very insensitively mentioned Jerusalem and met up with the war criminal isreali prime minister. thats how i know she doesnt care.

@yoisi i think every women always have her own body insecurities even for a thin super model in their interview.. and she is from middle eastern countries israel, my friend in dubai who have same clothes size as mine said that it's hard to find clothes with size s/m there coz their size s/m are bigger than here more like l/xl.. And beauty is the eyes of the beholder.. Man have different taste of women too.. So i find your comment really rude and insulting "she doesnt seem like the kind of person that any guy would want to have anything to do with in the first place." why? Coz she is not skinny? she has a good voice and pretty face, and probably a nice person.. Well i think there's nothing wrong with sharing personal experience into the song.. Taylor swift, adele did it too.. Even justin beiber's video about loving women has 9M dislike..

@Zuperkrunch i dont care if its rude and i dont care if its insulting. i care about facts over feelings. its not my fault if other women are so insecure about their looks. its not my fault if people are too emotionally weak to handle facts. if you want the world to see you better then imProve yourself instead of expecting the world to change for you. no need to get upset no need to cry over it just accept your flaws and improve on it THATS ALL.

beauty is in the eye of the beholder? really? why dont you ask any normal guy if they find fat girls prettier or normal sized girls? honestly instead of expecting the world to change to suit you why dont YOU change and try to improve yourself ? LOSE SOME WEIGHT its not that hard. and stop getting hurt and upset about people telling you that you are overweight you emotional weakling.

IM a girl and im ok with people telling me i need to lose weight i dont care as long as they say it respectfully. ill just say "yeah i do have to lose weight haha" i admit when i have problems and work to fix it. thats it i dont make a big emotional fuss over it. CAUSE IM NOT AN INSECURE EMOTIONAL WEAKLING

@yoisi yeah.. the fact is she is the winner and you have to accept it.. Not just looking the negativity of her... Lol.. A lot of my normal friends (man) here have a beautiful fat wife and they are really happy togather... I'm not a fat woman but i think she is beutiful...

@Zuperkrunch im not upset that shes the winner. im upset that the winner is sending the wrong message of thinking she can blame others for her own self made problems. and that she OBVIOUSLY won for political reasons.

im not against people who find fat people beautiful. more power to them. im just annoyed when people try to pretend that all looks are beautiful and the world has to change for them and if they dont then they are bigots or whatever. THAT is victimhood mentality and THAT is what i dont like. it creates a country of weak emotional whiny people who always blame their problems on society instead of looking to improve themselves instead.

@Zuperkrunch put it this way. i hate victim hood cultures. and i hate people who try to blame society for their own self made problems. thats all. if you are fat and ugly and can still find a boyfriend then hey good for you. im genuinely happy for you.

but dont try to force society to change to accept that fat=beautiful just because you are too emotionally weak to accept your own flaws. dont try to bash another group of people for no real reason other than that you are insecure.

ps unhealthy looking people will never look beautiful to the general populace because we are genetically hardwired to try to find the most attractive looking and most healthy looking mate to produce the best offspring. . thats evolution. people who went after unhealthy looking people generally didnt produce the best offspring or had spouses that were too unhealthy to look after those offspring therefore their bloodlines died and the ones that did survive were the ones that went after the more healthy looking mates. so it became ingrained in our instincts to have certain standards of beauty no mater how much you try to deny it.

@yoisi i think being healthy is more important than being skinny or fat, a lot of my skinny/thin friends also have high colesterol, bulimia and others mental health even a cancer .. And some of my fat friends are sport freaks and eat healthy foods.. woman's body type are so different, and your word "she doesnt seem like the kind of person that any guy would want to have anything to do with in the first place." describe her as the ugliest woman in the world and no man can ever want her.. Like who are u to judge her like that? The prettiest girl in the world? That's really mean and rude.. She is not that super fat woman (if u want the real fact u can see adele, she has husband now and she write a lot of songs about her ex-boy friends, she also fat woman with beautiful voice)And I think her song just to support women to love her self and not just be an object for the boy (not man) like her ex-boyfriend saw her, she is not my fav either but i think her lyrics and music was pretty creative..... " that's just my opinion.. btw this eurovision comic not abot the winner, humon didn't mention anything about netta... And your comments just a lot of negative things about her..

@Zuperkrunch she's creative. ill give you that. but sorry but if you are fat you are just by definition not very healthy. thats a fact. im not hating on fat people i just dont want people glorifying it thats all and i especially dont like people who blame other people for their own problems.
. i never said she was the ugliest women in the world . omg dont twist my words. im saying that people need to stop being so emotional and insecure and learn to accept their own flaws without having an emotional breakdown over it . they should toughen up accept reality and try to improve themselves. see ill admit myself that im not that skinny either im actually on the slightly overweight side but i dont get angry with society for pointing that out i just work on myself to improve myself thats all. its not that hard.

shes not an object for men but if she doesnt care what men think of her then why did she make an entire song based on bashing them? obviously she does care about what men think of her. what IM saying is that she cant FORCE men to see her as beautiful she cant try to guilt trip men(or women for that matter) to see her as beautiful. she cant go around hating an entire gender just because of "thought crimes" they might have of her. thats not how it works.

@Zuperkrunch she didnt mention about netta but i am still talking about her. because im sick of this victimhood culture being encouraged like this. its becoming over the top. why i said so many negative things about her is everything about her song just rubbed me the wrong way

. the whole thing is about expecting the world to accept you as beautiful when you arent and instead of trying to improve yourself you blame everyone else and bash an entire gender for no reason. that kind of mentality is bad. if she's not a man's object then she doesnt need to make an entire song based around bashing them just for having "thought crimes" about her that she doesnt like does she?

its called having some personal responsibility for yourselves and not expecting the world to revolve around you. like i said, with equal rights come equal personal responsibility. you dont need to act like a man's toy XD (paraphrasing her own song haha)
but you cant stop men or women from thinking things you might not like either if you are obviously not at the top of your game, appearance wise. .
its not their job to stop thinking things its YOUR job to improve yourself(if you want them to stop thinking those things) if you have genuine problems that is within your power to fix.

@yoisi so.. The different between you and her that she is fat women with a lot of talents and won the euro vision and from israel which more welcoming in europe than china... And u just fat women with no talent but negativity.. Yes.. I get it now poor you...

@Zuperkrunch though you are from indonesia right? then i can understand why you are such a stance feminist because indonesia isnt exactly the best place for women. but im talking about the west. women in the west are treated with kid's gloves and yet they still complain and act like victims and try to blame all their self made problems on men . its shameful

@yoisi and u are chinese immigtant in australia right? And u want to said that china is the best place in the world for womens right? Why the china goverment banned women to have more than 1 and now 2 kids? It's women's right.. And your comment about europe banned china from eurovision just like china more better than europe... Hahahaha..

@yoisi and if u really proud about china.. Use china flags not australia... In this site there is an indonesian chinese man lived in denmark, and he still using indonesian flags and proud of it.. Lol..

@yoisi indonesian is the best place for women.. We can have a child without gov intervension not like china... We ever had women president... China? Never? And now life time president? Ditactor? Shame of china not using the flag? And please don't using australia's flag and said that israel not part of asia.. Open your map lady... #9765129 u just embarrasing australian peoples even the aboriginal/native australian... Lol...

@yoisi and there is a china women living in spain.. She still proud to be chinese and using china flags.. And also a jew living in california still using israel flags.. Not like u australia wannabe.. Lol..

@Zuperkrunch i for one think women are far too emotional and get insecure about EVERYTHING. like omg. women want to project that they are just as strong as men yet they show that they arent when they cant handle any sort of criticism and cant handle anyone stating any flaw about them without completely breaking down. . i dont see men behaving this way. men can handle criticism about their looks just fine without becoming cry babies over it.

now am i a self hating female for saying that? not really cause i dont hate myself (ive never been so irrationally insecure about myself like that cause i actually do have self confidence)but i can observe and acknowledge that in general, people of my gender are emotional crybabies compared to males and it does make me sad to see that. i WISH women would learn to be stronger than this

and im not talking about the whinny-blame everyone else for their own problems-so called "strength" that 3rd way feminists try to show im talking about the true internal strength of accepting your own flaws and improving on it without getting upset about it. feminists forget that rights and personal responsibility come hand in hand. you cant have extra rights without also having some extra personal responsibility

Lets be honest here, if you try to censor the gay out of Eurovision there isn't much left to watch. Its hugely popular with the lgbt community and Eurovision knows its audience and supports that. Its why we love it!

@gandyg
I disagree.
There is quite a lot of other fine music and performance to be watched, but unfortunately not at Eurovision because the Eurovision contest has been deliberately tailored and groomed to certain market segments.

@ThorsomeTarmukas
Eurovision is the topic though, so your rebuttal is besides the point.

@Narf
tautology

@gandyg So true! Here in Sweden there´s even a nickname for Melodifestivalen (ESC) and that is "Melodihomosexualen"

>influence presidential elections

There are still people who believe that?

@Theomniadept
A lot of people don't actually change their opinions even when it's obviously wrong. Whatever fits their bubble.

@Theomniadept
I wasn't honestly aware there were people who didn't believe that, i'm actually fairly certain everyone and all of our intelligence agrees they influenced it.. now what is much more debatable and I believe is leaning towards no on the facts even if some people are pushing it still but I haven't followed that part as much is whether Trump/his campaign, was in anyway involved in it, or just happened to benefit from it.

@kinshotaki It comes down to what people consider influencing. Some people think influencing means hacking the results of the machines, which was attempted but caught and failed in a few areas. Others think it was influencing through trying to change people's opinions with false information, which is not unheard of.

Obama talked about how Brexit was going to mean the US and UK would stop being such close trading partners, but recanted once the vote came through. Some people claimed that was an unethical influence of another nation's vote, where others thought it was true in some way and deserved to be said. It's hard to even get all people on what counts as what, even when you'd think it'd be clear yourself.

Well, there are people who are smart enough not to buy into that claim. Sure, the deep state doesn't like how Hillary lost... because she's the preferred candidate of the deep state, having voted for the Patriot Act and the Iraq War, as well as being vocally critical of whistleblowers such as Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden. However, there is several points where this argument falls quite short, including the fact that the data transfer of the e-mails that were leaked was initiated on the east coast.

Now, did Russia try to influence the election with posting fake news? Maybe. But I think it's more likely that Hillary lost because she didn't take accountability for what was in the e-mails, choosing instead to blame Russia and fingerpoint when anything went wrong in her campaign. She was running to be PRESIDENT. She should have more accountability than a two-year-old who is caught red-handed when all the cherry popsicles go missing.

@kinshotaki

@kinshotaki the people who dont believe that are more politically woke. russia influenced things but so did literally everyone else. thats what they forget to tell you. russia didnt do anything that other major countries didnt do as well.

@Theomniadept Propagating fake news through troll accounts is a method of influencing elections, and it has been proven that the Russian government did pay people to do that.

@MapleLeavesAreHats the internet is a free global place last i checked..... why CANT the russian govt use internet trolls? and do you honestly believe the CIA or hillary's side didnt do the same thing?

@yoisi Well, people do get understandably upset when the U.S. Throws its weight around in their political arena in a shady way. Or even in an honest way, trying to avoid trouble... I suppose it's just more people getting upset when Russia tries the same crap.

@tomyironmane They went so far as to organize protests inside of US soil. It's pretty whacked stuff, once you view the released data and intelligence reports. On the other hand, it was nice to know why social media became so toxic (with so many misspellings).

Proving the Russian troll farms was helpful towards that end, to some degree. They earn their rupees by replies, btw.

@yoisi First off, it doesn't matter if Hillary did it. If Hillary did it (and, for the record, there isn't any concrete proof), then that's amoral, but completely irrelevant. I never mentioned Hillary, nor does she have anything to do with this. And the issue is that the Russian government used people to claim to be other people and spread false information to mislead the American public.

@MapleLeavesAreHats it does matter if hillary did it. because that means she cant go around claiming that the election was stolen from her because she used the exact same methods to try and win herself as well. she already stole the primaries from bernie and she has the nerve to complain that the generals were stolen its like wow. . and like i said. the internet is a free place. liars are everywhere all the time. so unless you want to ban liars , get used to "misinformation" being spread. besides what DID the russian govt spread that was apparently lies anyway? most of the information they provided were unpleasant truths not lies

@MapleLeavesAreHats One of the ways you can ID some of the 'bots is if they start talking about "the Hillary Conspiracy." If you watch some of the alt-news channels, they talk about "the Hillary Campaign" as though she were the president and is currently running things. Or her massively organized campaign is. They need an enemy to argue their views; once you notice that, it's kind of facepalmy, but it's everywhere.

Every intelligence community so far has said, "yes, this happened," so I am not too worried about the hand-flailing and accusations about someone who didn't win the election and is now off writing books. :p

We've proved it, now let's worry about preventing it from happening a second time, and this alt-news business. Many in the same alt-news camp also argue against gays, the existence of climate change, and vaccines. It's turned tribal in a scary way, where one "ascribes to a group of beliefs."

@Theomniadept They spent millions of dollars on anti-clinton proaganda, actively spread miss information, and attempted to hack into our voter boxes. This is not some paranoid conspiracy theory, multiple nation’s intelligence communities have stated that the Russians attempted to influence the 2016 Presidential Campaign. How sucessful they were we don’t know and may never know, and whether or not Trump was in on it we don’t yet know. Which is the point of the Private Council, and was the point of the house intelligence commity investigation. Before Nunes thoughouly eradicated it’s credibility by making it a partisan issue.

@Hyporia I see comments like Theomniadept's, and I see the downvotes to your own itemized list of attempts made by Russia to influence our elections... verified by own own intelligence agencies (a lot who tend to lean conservative, as a whole)... and I think, "Maybe instead of an elephant, the GOP should adopt the ostrich as their symbolic animal. Because when confronted with facts they don't like, they just scream 'FAKE NEWS!!!' and bury their head in the sand."

@TuxedoCartman : Ostriches have a good reason to do that (they are not burying their heads, they do this to dig nests and tend to their eggs). Republicans do it to spite fellow Americans, even if they hurt themselves in the process. I would suggest a scorpion for the GOP's symbol, like from The Scorpion and the Frog.

@Kummerspeck Hmm... very astute points. However, I thing too many people think scorpions look totally bad-ass, and would miss the analogy entirely. AND I like the idea of referring to ostriches as "big chickens." Either way, I think we're in agreement that the elephant, known for its exceptional memory, is about the worst mascot imaginable to represent them.

@Kummerspeck Although... given how the Democratic Party sets itself and is about as aggressive as a wet noodle... maybe I can get behind the scorpion as a GOP mascot IF Democrats change theirs to the frog. I honestly can't think of a more appropriate pairing to describe Washington DC these days.

@Hyporia "millions of dollars on anti-Clinton propaganda"

And you have any proof of this? We seem to have proof of Obama telling Putin we'd have more flexibility after the election and a massive amount of direct connections between Fusion GPS and the Clintons going back decades, but not a single piece of evidence Trump or anyone he knew had anything to do with Russia.

We also have Podesta's emails that show they were planning this scapegoat back in December of 2015 but who am I to question the totally-not-colluding media?

@Theomniadept Do you live under a rock? How about the 3,000 Russian Face Book adds released by Congress back in November of last year. Or is the Republican Controlled Congress also Left Wing Shills? But yes Obama was very lenient with Russia, returning an embassy to them our intelligence community suspected was used to spy on us, actively deflecting criticisms of Russia and its treatment of its own citizens, and refusing to sanction them... oh wiat no Trump did that. And don’t bring up the fact Trump armed the Ukrainians, it was one shipment of missles and after that suddenly the Ukrainians stopped cooperating with the US in the investigation of Paul Manafort. And given the Trump administration’s history of geopolitical racksteering, the only reason the US is supporting the Blockade of Qatar is because they wouldn’t invest in one of Jared Kushner's businesses, I doubt this was a coincidence.

@Hyporia One of my favorites is: "this took place with my son, in my building, with me downstairs and I knew nothing about it." Paraphrased, but you have to really twist into a pretzel to get around that.

Though, regards some of the comments elsewhere about CNN, fake news, etc.--there was this great interview with Jake Tapper that reflected on some of the "fake news" business. He was sharing how they'd interviewed Ms. Conway on CNN and asked her about why the WH kept saying, "the mainstream media isn't covering x." So he asks her that, why are they saying this? Doesn't it hurt our ability to talk with one another? ...and has screen upon screen of different media sources, not just CNN, covering that topic.

...her response was to filibuster and talk about something unrelated, even after he tries to bring her back to the topic. He eventually gets a kind-of acknowledgment. You can listen to the audio clips of the interview from Fresh Air.

@Theomniadept I met someone that actually thinks the Popular Vote means something. The election of 2016 proves why the Electoral College is needed in the USA. Look at the County by County Election Map. If the Popular vote is the only thing that counted, then only the Blue Counties would have a voice in who was President. The EC keeps it balance to where ALL States have a voice.

And people still think Russia Hacked Voting machines... which has been disproven several times.

@BHopper2 The states, but not the people. The way the system works right now, if a person votes in any other way then how the majority of their state voted, their vote means nothing. It ultimately isn't even counted as a dissenting vote. It isn't counted at all. At least if we went by the popular vote, every vote is given equal weight and dissenting votes are not ignored.

@Blaise0510 Dissenting votes mean nothing as well. Not in our Constitutional Republic.

@BHopper2 County by county, sure, but you're forgetting that land does not equal population. Lots of those places have way more representation than they should in the first place. If it were up to me, we'd do away with by-state voting in general and have a direct democracy. So, basically, the popular vote. And you're right, the blue counties would rule, because the cities are blue and they happen to have the majority of the population. Majority rules, man

@ItsAGiraffe There's a reason why our Founders made us a Constitutional Republic. Mob rule is not the answer, and they knew that back when they founded our country.

@Theomniadept

Yes there are.

Like the ENTIRE US intelligence community and the US Senate Intelligence Committee (which is controlled by Republicans), for example:

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/16/politics/senate-committee-agrees-intelligence-community-election-meddling/index.html

@Nisse_Hult If you read CNN they will obviously tell you that "the Russians are devils who manipulated the elections to their complete whim and that in fact, no good American vote for Trump, everything was the work of the Russians". With this I do not try to deny anything, I only say that if one seeks the truth, you will not find it there, nor do you expect to find it in reality. We all know that CNN is 99% propaganda.

@Betelgeuse9

No, we certainly don't all know that.

That may be what Trump claims - but that's not actually the truth.

You may personally dislike CNN's way of covering the news (I do), but they're not pushing simply fake news and propaganda like Fox News or RT does.
And CNN has certainly never said any of the things you claimed.

@Nisse_Hult
Try watching the smaller independent news sources online for a while that don't take sides.

It will take you about 2 days of watching honest unbiased news to see that CNN and pretty much all the leftist supporting MSM runs 10:1 on misinformation, misdirected context claims, false accusations and blame and outright lies they push over the more conservative ones.

Same with the pushing all of the leftist agendas in general. Way way too much of what they push regarding who stands for what and why in a bad way is easily debunked.

The right leaning make mistakes too but given what they are competing against they have been putting a solid effort into being more direct, fair and accountable on their reporting and their uptick in viewers and general ratings is showing its paying off now.

Both get things wrong and do put some spin on certain subjects but as of now the left end is way way worse and too many on that end make it clear they don't care if anyone knows.

@Thecustodian

Anyone talking about "leftist supporting MSM" (that's MainStream Media for anyone not familiar with the term) in the US is clearly not an unbiased observer himself, but on the far right fringe of the political scale.

Mainstream American media isn't supporting the left at all - in fact there is not ever a mainstream political party in the US that support basic left-wing policies.

Unlike in every other western democracy, where one or several of the major political parties all trace their roots back to the socialist theories of Marx.

Usually these are social democratic parties (or Labour, like they're called in the UK).

The US doesn't have that, as the US is the only western democracy that's never seen a major political party based on the socialist ideology.

Which is also the reason why the US is the only western democracy that doesn't have universal healthcare coverage for all it's citizens - which is a very basic socialist policy.

Not even the Democratic Party in the US (who are falsely viewed as the "left" by many Americans) support universal healthcare coverage as a party. Some individual Democrats do - yes - but it's not a stance the party has officially adopted, still today.

Thus there is no actual representation of real leftist political policies in the US on the national level - only the Democrats (who would be recognized in any other western democracy as a modern right-wing party) and the Republicans (who would be recognized in any other western democracy as a bat-shit crazy far-right party).

So anyone claiming that mainstream US media is supporting "leftist" policies or "misinformation, misdirected context claims, false accusations and blame and outright lies" like you do, don't know what the hell they're talking about.

Instead, all you did there was post the far-right propaganda claims against the mainstream US media - which are of course all just lies.

Mainstream US media is certainly not any of the things you claimed.
They are however often bad at covering news and politics - but that's because they're guided by economic motives, as they're all private companies driven by profit motive.

Which means that selling commercial space is more important then reporting often uncomfortable truths.

Something all other major western democracies have handled by instituting national broadcasting companies that are funded through taxes or direct fees from the viewers, which mean that they don't need to sell add space, run commercials or please the corporate interests.

Instead they can focus on what should be their only real concerns - in-dept factual reporting of news and politics.

Which means that unlike in the US, in the rest of the western democratic world there are actually still arbiters of truth that are generally trusted by the public - even when they tell us uncomfortable truths.

These institutions are of course still being relentlessly attacked from the far-right (and now also Russian state-sponsored influence campaigns that seek to destabilize all western democracies), but so far it's only in the tribalized US where a large minority of far-right wing supporters actually reject truthful but uncomfortable reporting as "fake news" and instead prefer to live in the alternate reality their own right-wing media create for them.

You seem to be one of those people - judging from your comment here and your earlier comments where you among other things spouted the same kind of right-wing propaganda on the topic of man's influence on climate change.

@Nisse_Hult "Which is also the reason why the US is the only western democracy that doesn't have universal healthcare coverage for all it's citizens"

Ok - I've seen that bit of misinformation in the comments so many times, and I'm gonna start correcting it. America DOES have universal health care for citizens..... and it even covers non-citizens. It is just not a single, universal program. Instead, we have laws that mean EVERY person in need of medical assistance gets treated - and in emergency situations - before even asking about money. Instead, America has an extensive and overlapping charity system. Yes, poor people with expensive and debilitating medical conditions are asked to pay everything they can before the charity kicks in. But... that is still getting millions of dollars of medical treatment for free! (And no, you don't need to go into debt if you manage your money responsibly and frugally for non-medial costs... like food and rent. (If you were living off credit cards to start with... then, of course, a medical emergency is gonna force you to bankruptcy))

We have FREE consultations by licensed practitioners at local pharmacies, and pretty much any minor/moderate medical condition can be effectively treated just with Over-the-Counter stuff. And oh yeah - America licenses a lot of stuff as Over-the-Counter. And did you know that many of the common prescription drugs are given out for FREE (and/or low cost) at my local Grocery Store/Pharmacy? (Its a "loss leader" advertisement for them) Not to mention Free/ Low-cost eye/dental clinics.

The downside, of course, is that you have to ask in person to access this free medical care. And sign up with paper forms for each program. And... the doctors don't have your medical history without mailing a request to your previous doctors (with a signed, paper form for each request). I can't point you to websites to prove my words because much of this "universal care" simply isn't online.

@Kin ...I'm not sure where to begin debunking this. If you go into an ER you get some treatment. ...but that can equate to having emergency heart surgery because preventative care isn't covered, at all...

...then being sent home without any pain medication. Yes, that happens. So I'm not...

...I'm not really sure where to begin, here, except: kind of, vaguely, but not...really?

@Kin

No, the US unfortunately DOESN'T have universal health care for all citizens.

"Despite being among the top world economic powers, the US remains the sole industrialized nation in the world without universal health care coverage."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

What you're talking about is universal emergency care - provided by a law called "Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act" or EMTALA.

It was passed in 1986 (at a time when every other western democracy had already had universal health care coverage for decades) to combat the problem of "patient dumping", where hospitals simply refused to treat people with medical emergencies because of their lack of insurance.

It is however not (despite Republican politicians sometimes falsely claiming so) actually universal health care coverage, as noted above.

Here is a further explanation why emergency medical coverage does not equal universal health care:

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5468057/

Offering free emergency care is obviously better then not doing so, yes - but it's still not universal health care.

It's also the most expensive way to treat patients - while actually not providing the best medical care.

Because many, many uninsured people have medical conditions that would be much better - and cheaper - treated by primary care.
But that option is not open to them - because the US lacks universal health care coverage.

So people who would need monitoring of their diabetes or high blood pressure or asthma or a host of other very common ailments get no such help - until their situation deteriorate so much that they're admitted for emergency care.

Which is obviously much worse for their health - and also for US health care costs, as it's a much, much more expensive way to treat these patients then to offer them the basic check-up's that would have saved them from becoming so ill.

Which in turn is one of the reasons why the US pays more then any other nations in the world for it's health care - while still not actually getting better health outcomes for the money she spends:

"According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States spent more on health care per capita ($9,403), and more on health care as percentage of its GDP (17.1%), than any other nation in 2014."

"A 2014 survey of the healthcare systems of 11 developed countries found that the US healthcare system to be the most expensive and worst-performing in terms of health access, efficiency, and equity."

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

The lack of preventative primary care is also a key reason while the US lags far behind not only other western democracies, but even some surprising nations, in different health care statistics.

As a jarring example I can mention the fact that the US has a higher child mortality rate not only then all other western democracies, but also Cuba - a country it has imposed a blockade against for over 50 years.

Or in other words - more American parents have to bury their infant children then Cuban parents does.

Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html

(Note that a lower placement on the list is better. Cuba is in place 181, the US in place 170)

Regarding your opinions on the value of frugal living and the avoidability of incurring medical debt, I can say that medical debt is the primary cause of personal bankruptcy in the US and that 62% of all indebted household cite out-of-pocket medical expenses as a contributor to their debt.

Medical debt is meanwhile an almost unknown phenomenon in any other western democratic country - because they all have universal health care.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_debt

This article about a man hit with a completely unexpected additional medical fee of $117,000 after a planned surgery also help explain the issue:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/us/drive-by-doctoring-surprise-medical-bills.html

I write all of this not to hit you over the head or try to denigrate the US - I do it in the hopes that it may inform you and others who read this about the actual facts.

The US is not only the richest country in the world today - it's the richest country in the HISTORY of the world - and things certainly doesn't have to be this way!

Every American should have AT LEAST as good health care as citizens of any other western democracy, and American children should AT LEAST have the same chance of reaching adult age as Cuban children - I think we all can agree on that?

It's only a matter of money - and the US certainly has the money to pay for all of this, when far poorer nations have done so.

What's lacking is the political will to allocate the needed resources to this - and the reason for that is simply that no major US party has ever made this a priority.

And unfortunately a highly contributing factor in this is that Americans, at large, are very uniformed about how much worse their health care system is performing compared to the universal health care systems in the rest of the industrialized world.

Americans, to a great degree, accept their currant situation because they simply don't understand how far behind they have fallen compared to comparable nations.

@Thecustodian CNN is not leftist nor does it support the left. In Latin America CNN supports the right-wing governments and any right-wing semi-dictatorship. CNN is the typical liberal right-wing channel that pretends to be something else.

@Nisse_Hult I did not say that CNN was propaganda because Trump said it (I do not like Trump at all) I said it because we know (Latin Americans), that is propaganda since it only dedicates itself to praising the United States and saying that everything else is bad. As Rafael Correa said, you just have to see who the owner is.
Is it hard for you to believe a channel whose owner is a government? Well, it is harder for me to believe a channel whose owners are businessmen, billionaires, corporations, banks, vulture funds, etc. Surely those opinions are not going to be objective, they will only support the interests of their owners.
I reiterate that with this I don't try to deny anything, I only say this.

@Betelgeuse9

"I did not say that CNN was propaganda because Trump said it"

Nor did I ever claim that you said what you did because Trump also says the same thing - but it's still a fact that the unnuanced way you expressed your critique of CNN is just the way Trump expresses himself.

As I told you before, it was completely wrong of you to claim that:

"If you read CNN they will obviously tell you that "the Russians are devils who manipulated the elections to their complete whim and that in fact, no good American vote for Trump, everything was the work of the Russians"."

CNN has never said any of the things you claim - that's a complete lie!

Nor do "We all know that CNN is 99% propaganda." - that's also completely false.

Firstly because not all people agree with that statement and secondly (and more importantly) - that's not actually the case!

Your later comment now is much more nuanced, and you're certainly right that CNN can rightly be critiqued for it's coverage (I'm critical of them myself).

And as you rightly point out, they are - like all mainstream American media - owned by large corporations who of course have a vested economical interest in them and that fact always skews the way they cover the news.

All US mainstream media strive to attract viewers to increase their add sales - to make more money.
Which mean that their first interest is not covering the news - but to attract viewers.
Which in turn means that they always go for the "sexy" or attractive news - the stories that grabs peoples attention - which might not in fact be the most important news, of course.

So yes - you can certainly critique CNN, as well as all mainstream US media for being too corporatist and too interested in making money, over their journalistic integrity and stated reason for existing - which is to simply report the most important news.

But claiming - like you did - that "99% [is] propaganda" is simply wrong, because that's simply false.

Now either you exaggerated wildly and admit that what you wrote was actually not true, or you clearly aren't an unbiased observer yourself, but are pushing stupid anti-CNN propaganda here - just like Trump does, when he without any nuance what so ever calls the entire network "fake news".

But just because you don't always like the stories a newspaper or a TV channel runs, that doesn't make them "fake news" or "99% propaganda".

CNN or US mainstream media in general certainly has some serious flaws - yes. But they are not all those things.

Not even Fox News or RT pushes ONLY "fake news and propaganda" like I implied above (yes, I exaggerated slightly too) - but they still operate on a completely different level then any other US mainstream media.

Because both Fox News and RT are deliberately set up to be political propaganda tools for the US Republicans and the Putin regime respectively.
They're not guided by profit motive, like all other US mainstream media.
Their only reason for existing is pushing propaganda on their viewers to influence them in accordance with a specific political agenda.
Other US mainstream media is not based on that idea at all - they're in the business to make money.

Which still skews their perspecitve yes - but that dosen't rise anywhere near the level of propaganda you'll find on Fox News or RT.

@Nisse_Hult
"CNN has never said any of the things you claim - that's a complete lie!"
When I said that I did it with irony, of course they do not say it openly, but they would like to do it.

"Nor do" We all know that CNN is 99% propaganda. "- that's also completely false." When I said "we" I did not mean you and me.
I do not know how CNN covers the news in your country, but here IS propaganda. Everything the United States does is good, the rest is bad, any right-wing government that sucks the USA's boots is good, any left government that seeks independence from the United States is bad. Here CNN is arbitrary, censuring and really insulting, but maybe it does not act in that way in other places.
Therefore, from my point of view, CNN here is propaganda.
No problem, it is possible that it has its good things, at least where you are, not here. I do not judge you by watching CNN, although it does not like me at all (the same with Fox News, etc). Although I believe that if we are sincere, in a world of market, where everything is demand and offer according to interests, everything is propaganda, in less or greater average.
PS: I confess that I like RT a bit. Because I agree with Russian propaganda? No, I like it because it is the only channel that gives space for programs to left-wing Latin American presidents that are now being banned. I suppose that this one of the positive factors that RT have, as well as CNN have theirs too, I think.

@Nisse_Hult I loved the letter sent out by the intelligence community, including a number of intelligence agents who had worked under President Bush. The published letter--which was unprecedented--but it was overswept by the sexual harassment revelation and video tied to the then-candidate.

Btw, some of the alt-news feeds and hired trolls--you'll find them talking about "the Clinton Campaign" as though she had won the election and *is currently using* that office to conspire. She keeps being brought up as a whipping post, and I am not sure I understand that, except they seem to need someone to dislike?

I suspect we've got some folks here from bot farms, too. Just let them collect their rupees and move on. They get paid based on replies.

@ruggs

Yes, the entire US intelligence community made joint statements both before the election, and since, that Russia did carry out a government order intelligence campaign aimed at interfering in the US presidential election.
And at least after the election they also stated publicly that the Russians did so in support of the Trump campaign.

And again - that conclusion is now also supported by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is controlled by Republicans.
And the people on that committee get's to see evidence not released publicly - so they know more then we do.

Not only are the intelligence community full of people who worked under GW Bush - it's also mostly filled with Republicans.
All law enforcement, intelligence and military in the democratic west is mostly filled with people with a right-wing political leanings - it's a very basic fact.
Just like most people who work in arts and culture have more left-wing political leanings.

So Trumps entire conspiracy theory about the evil "deep state" that's out to get him is simply ridiculous.

If any such "deep state" even existed (which there is no evidence for) it wouldn't use it's power to undermine a Republican president, but support him.

A president Bernie Sanders on the other hand - such a person might possibly be viewed as threatening enough to get some few individuals in US law enforcement or intelligence to hatch some subversive plan to resist him.

But even then, the vast majority of the people in the federal agencies are certainly honest and upstanding individuals that rightly sees their duty as to uphold the constitution and the rule of law.

And Trumps constant attacks on them are of course just shameful.

Regarding the right-wings need for objects of hate, that's an old story. That's how they whip their base to the polls - by filling them with fear that if the Democrats win, life as they know it will be over.
But of course it wouldn't be, so they have to lie and tell their base that the Democrats will confiscate all guns or Obamacare will kill grandma and a thousand other lies like that - just to drive them to the polls by fear.

The Clinton's have been the US right's favorite bogeymen for several decades by now. They've spent many millions in taxpayer money on endless investigations of both of them - and the only thing they've ever been able to prove is that Bill Clinton lied about having a sexual affair.

That's all they've ever been able to prove. But talk to any American on the right and they're believe all kind of insane things about the Clinton's. Because that's what their propaganda outlets have told them - for decades.

@Theomniadept its pretty easy for the media to brainwash people who dont pay close attention to geopolitics or do their own research.....

@Theomniadept The Senate Intelligence Committee literally just agreed that they did. Is your doubt more important to you than the word of bipartisan professionals?

@ItsAGiraffe And what evidence, pray tell, did they present as proof? Oh, yeah, some Facebook ads in favor of Hillary.

@Theomniadept
"
"Though Republicans said they believed that the public would now have access to the information that led them to conclude there was no evidence of Trump-Kremlin coordination, they also said they were prevented from revealing everything they wanted to because of intelligence community (IC) redactions."

When we started this investigation, we set out to give the American people the answers to the questions they’ve been asking and we promised to be as transparent as possible in our final report,” Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.) said in a statement. “I don’t believe the information we’re releasing today meets that standard, which is why my team and I will continue to challenge the IC’s many unnecessary redactions with the hopes of releasing more of the report in the coming months.”

- Washington Post

Tragically, yes. I have a friend who is a Hillbot and she still believes TO THIS DAY that Russia "hacked the election" and that is why Hillary lost. Not because of the many things she did wrong on the campaign trail which include (but are not limited to) not campaigning in the Rustbelt; rigging the DNC primary in several key battleground states such as New York (where a number of Brooklyn Dems were purged from the rolls), California (where poll workers were instructed to over-rely on provisional ballots, resulting in so many Dems in that area being disenfranchised), and Nevada (where the antics at the NVDems convention were so corrupt, one would think the Gambinos were running the Nevada Dems); picking someone to the right of her to be her running mate (whereas good candidates would pick someone who compensates for their weaknesses); not stumping hard against NAFTA or the TPP; not taking personal accountability for anything that went wrong during the campaign; trying to blame Russia for the e-mail leak (even though several intelligence sources point out how impossible this is and how a former British ambassador close to Wikileaks confirms that the source was someone inside the DNC) in what appears to be an attempt to deflect from the content of the e-mails that were leaked; running a campaign on cliches and platitudes; and elevating Trump, Cruz, and Carson as "pied-piper candidates".

Meanwhile, the polls were showing that Hillary would perform worse than Bernie in the general election, whereas Bernie would have won. He was polling stronger against Trump than Hillary was. The importance of this is that Bernie went from a virtual unknown to being such a strong contender against Hillary that the DNC had to engage in some pretty shady behaviour which was later revealed in the DNC e-mail leak.

So yeah, there are people who still believe that Russia "influenced" the 2016 election. And okay, maybe they published one or two stories that influenced a grand total of three people. However, I think Hillary lost because she didn't do the work that she needed to do to win in the rustbelt.

@Theomniadept

@Theomniadept It is always difficult and painful to recognize your mistakes. Recognizing it and realizing that one had always been wrong is equivalent to dying in life. In psychology that is studied a lot.

@Theomniadept Only people who don't get their "news" from Murdoch's propaganda empire. So, in no particular order:

- All of America's intelligence community;
- The Republican-majority Senate Intelligence Committee (as shown in their recent report on the matter - they differ with Democrats in how effective they think it was, but they agree that Putin tried);
- Rudy Giuliani, when attempting to justify Don Jr.'s untruthful testimony before the SIC ("Sure, they gave us data on Clinton, but we didn't use it, so...NO CONSPIRACY!");
- Around 60% of Americans; and
- The Trump Administration, which just closed down their cybersecurity advisor's office.

Hope that helps.

@Australiana And yet every one of those organizations has had to sheepishly tuck their limp dicks away and admit not a single shred of evidence exists anywhere showing collusion with the Trump campaign or anyone he's ever known.

Fusion GPS and Clinton, however,....

@Theomniadept Waaaaaaaiiiiiit a second. This is a fact, not something you can believe or not. Russia has had influenced the elections.

Nope. Blaming Russia is the kind of head in the sand ignorance that will keep the so-called "Democratic" party from learning from its mistakes in 2016 and hand 2020 to the Republicans.

@IcePhoenix

@vero Well, I didn't say that this caused Trumps win; I only said, that there was an influence e.g. by russian trolls, fake accounts... Of course, there are much more factors. One got recently busted through investigative journalism.

@Theomniadept Yes, there are people. You know, people like the FBI. And the CIA, and the NSA, and ODNI (which apparently is a thing?)

Source....http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/jul/06/17-intelligence-organizations-or-four-either-way-r/

@korben600 Lol @ using Politifact as a source.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/03/politifact-used-doctored-clinton-foundation-memo-on-its-hivaids-program/

Gee the Clinton Foundation 'fact checked' stuff and decided they lost because of Russia. What unbiased and ethical reporting.

@Theomniadept

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-russia-probe-senate-investigation-us-election-house-probe-a8354786.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-committee/key-u-s-senators-no-doubt-russia-sought-to-interfere-in-u-s-election-idUSKCN1IH2AX?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter

https://twitter.com/SenatorBurr/status/996782613611282434

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/20/democratic-party-files-suit-alleging-russia-the-trump-campaign-and-wikileaks-conspired-to-disrupt-the-2016-election-report.html

@Theomniadept Citing the Daily Caller is about as bad as citing Breitbart or Fox. Fox was founded by a master of propaganda, and a specific reputation that we've only seen the tip of the iceburg of, related to the O'Reilly scandals. Breitbart is run by a confessed White Nationalist (alt-right/Nazi) and its leadership has advocated the "peaceful return" of all blacks to Africa. Please don't cite these sources.

@ruggs I forgot, it's not real news unless Soros owns it.

this is one of the rare moments when Russia is scared.

@scarhunter The EU is one to fear when it comes to Eurovision

@scarhunter
Oh, believe me - if we speak in realities of comic he is scared every morning, waking up and realizing how voices in his head keep driving him mad: "We do not need anybody else, my precious... Oil wells will never run dry... We need a third presidental term legalized... And more ex-intelligence in the parliament...! Moar, we say..!"

Trust me, that sure drives him to cold sweat and to thoghts about self-mutilation - the kind of which he was afraid for years and years.

@scarhunter : Humon made another comic where Russia was scared. An Episode with Aland kicking him out of his island.

No sister Israel with her chicken act? I'm disappointed, Humon.

Speaking of Israel and the Eurovision, actually there was a semi-successful censorship attempt. In 1978, Jordan did not broadcast the Israeli entry and simply showed a picture of flowers instead. When, during the voting, it became clear that Israel would win, the Jordanian broadcaster cut the signal and announced Belgium won.

Since then the EBU has insisted all participants be shown, which mans Lebanon will not broadcast the contest, even though it is a member.

@Rossum

Thanks, never knew that. Very glad that Eurovision stood firm against China.

@Rossum israel's song had a bad message. im sick of 3rd way feminism. feminism should be about bringing UP women not pushing men down, trying to antagonize them or trying to emasculate them. they shouldnt encourage the division and hatred between the genders. . asians do it better. asians dont constantly try to push men down but they do try to push women UP.

Its sad that there is so much discussion here denying Russia's role in the US election. Europeans just want to banter about Eurovision in peace without conservative Americans turning this place into another political battleground.

@Kummerspeck I would agree there's way to much talk about it, and not just here ugg it seems I can't listen to the news half the time with out hearing someone talk about it or something related to it. it's annoying.

@Kummerspeck you guys turned it in to a political playground by making claims that Russia interfered in the elections in the first place .We aren't the ones politicising it you guys are by making claims we don't agree with

@yoisi : You realize there is an investigation with an ever increasing number of indictments and guilty pleas right? This is not just a claim that you disagree with.

@Kummerspeck im aware of it. but the way i see it, russia is just one of the many countries that tried to influence the election. you are naive if you think other countries didnt also do that same thing . but they are picking on russia the most because they just dont like russia for geopolitical reasons. and hillary rigged the primaries against bernie so i say its karma.

@Kummerspeck also people keep going on about russia influencing the elections but why isnt anyone bothered by multinational companies (with zero loyalty to america or ANY country )influencing the elections SO much more. ?

also i have zero trust for the media and the establishment(both sides). they lie about everything and are brilliant at spinning stories to fit their narratives no matter whether its actually true or not. and i DEFINITELY dont trustanything that the CIA says. they lied about iraq they lied about gadaffi and they lie about assad. if anyone did any REAL research on gadaffi and assad you would find out they were actually really good leaders for their countries but the media managed to spin lies about them to make them look evil .

libya was one of the richest countries in africa and after gadaffi died its a total mess and even has slave trade. and where is the media and the govt establishment now? why are they no longer talking about human rights abuses in libya? its disgusting. . and i believe its the exact same war mongering people who are trying to antagonize russia as well they are ALWAYS desperate to go to war

@Kummerspeck Huh, I sense a bit of a foul tone when you said "conservative" As if it were a bad thing...

@VocalLove : Its only the conservatives who are throwing a fit over the Russian collusion comment. The shoe fits.

@Kummerspeck .3. Well, what do you expect when you tell someone their victory wasn't deserved, even when we're sure it was?

@VocalLove : What do you mean "we're sure it was"? You might be sure of it, but the global intelligence community certainly isn't. I am not going to waste my time educating you about the special council's investigation.

@Kummerspeck Fine by me.

The truth is that the Chinese don't miss anything. Eurovision is not what it should be, in my opinion, everyone should sing in their language and not in English, and should be more horned to the folklore of each country instead of that commercial music. My opinion.

PS: Still blaming Russia for that? Someone intervened in the US elections and it was a British private company whose name starts with C.

@HHWinston

It's the joint assessment of the ENTIRE US intelligence community that Russia sought to influence the 2016 US presidential election in favor of Trump - and has so been for more then a year.

Since two days ago it's also the assessment of the US Senate Intelligence Committee - which is controlled by Republicans:

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/16/politics/senate-committee-agrees-intelligence-community-election-meddling/index.html

Frankly, that the Russians did this has been a known fact for a long time by now. The only question is how much Trump actually knew about it at the time.

But so far the Special Counsel is up to 22 criminal indictments and 5 people has already pleaded guilty to crimes in the investigation.

This is certainly a hell of a lot bigger then Cambridge Analytica.

@Nisse_Hult If that is true, I do not understand what the Russians were looking for in Trump, things have not improved anything between Russia and the United States, it is possible that they have worsened.
As for Cambridge Analytica, that corporation has gotten involved in many elections not only in the US, there is a long list where it has influenced, that is a shame and nobody seems to care so much. Anyway, nobody is clean of guilt.

@HHWinston

Putin is looking for the sanctions in the Magnitsky Act to be lifted.
That's what the Russians who met Trumps son, son-in-law and campaign manager before the election in Trump Tower where there to discuss.

Russia is under sanctions as a country, but the sanctions in the Magnitsky Act is targeting the PERSONAL wealth stashed abroad by Putin and the oligarchs around him.
These people have stolen billions from the Russian state and invested it in real estate (like big chunks of the most expensive parts of London) and other investments abroad - and now much of that is frozen and lost to them as long as those sanctions are in effect.

So THOSE are the sanctions Putin really want to see lifted - the ones which target him and his friends ill gotten gains specifically.

And Putin's hope was that Trump - who in turn has long-standing financial interests and connections to Russia and neighboring countries and Russian oligarchs - would be willing to play ball.

Which he probably was, but the US congress isn't. Not even the Republicans are willing to go easy on Putin to please their dear leader Trump.

The Republican congress has in fact passed rules that expressly FORBIDS Trump from lifting sanctions on Russia (because they don't trust him) - and they've also passed further sanctions on Russia - because of their interference in the 2016 presidential election (which Trump still denies even happened).

Sanctions which Trump reluctantly accepted (becuase they where passed by a veto proof majority Trump couldn't stop anyway) and then held up for almost a year before they finally went into effect.

Cambridge Analytica was definitely a shady corporation that probably broke all kind of laws in many different countries where they operated - yes.

But they didn't break into the Democratic party's database or release their stolen e-mails - hackers working on orders from Russian intelligence and Wikileakes respectively did that.

@Nisse_Hult I don't know, there are many things that don't match, geopolitically speaking. But the truth is that on these issues I refuse to have preferences, the Russians must have their questionable questions without a doubt, but do you seriously believe that a private company that has manipulated elections unscrupulous has not done the same things you say? maybe we do not know it yet but surely it has. To be honest, obviously I feel more offended by Cambridge Analytica because it is from my country, and it embarrasses me, and because it has manipulated the Argentinean elections of 2015, place where I have been living for a long time. But I'm sure you're right, but we'll never know any absolute truth.

@HHWinston Nisse outlined it pretty well. It's an old adage: "follow the money."

@HHWinston

You're completely right to be upset about Cambridge Analytica - they certainly where a shady company that did all kind of illegal and morally reprehensible things in many different countries, yes.

But my point was just that they weren't the only ones trying to influence the US presidential election.

The Russians certainly did too.

Well, we'll probably never be able to know for sure how much either groups attempt at interfering actually effected the outcome of the election, no.

But hopefully the investigation headed by the Special Counsel Robert Mueller will be allowed to finish it's investigation, and if they do they'll probably be able to tell us at least who tried to do what.

So we'll know that the Russian's did this and Cambridge Analytica did this, Wikileaks did that and so forth.

Then how successful they actually where at influencing American voters - that we'll probably never know for absolutely sure of course, as voters of course are influenced from many different directions.

@HHWinston Beyond what Nisse_Hult already said, Putin benefits from the US being controlled by a weak-willed, ignorant, approval-seeking man like Trump because it means that the US has more internal issues and can't interfere with Putin's plans for places like Syria and Ukraine.

@Nisse_Hult Meh. With internet nowdays almost anyway can be said to influence elections. Have blog, youtube, twitter channel or something like that and post your opinion? Influencing. You can buy ads on various sites as a person and promote your candidate. Is it legal? Well it depends on your country, website country and etc.
Posting fake news arent crime unless you have journalist, publishing or some other licensing.
So what Russia did ilegally?
Oh and those pleading guilty and idictments, how many of them are for collusion with Russia and how many are taxes and other shit?...

@MiskisM

The problem isn't the influence - it's who did it.
No country allows another country to interfere in it's elections and nowhere is that legal.
When it's done openly it's called propaganda, but this was done covertly and hence it's sometime called just "influence".
But it was a state controlled intelligence operation, and another word for that is also hybrid warfare - as it's one country attacking another by non-military means.

And beyond the fake news and the fake adds and bots and everything else the Russians unleashed online, they also broke into the Democratic Party's data servers and released their e-mails (in cooperation with Wikileaks).

Basically all the people indicted and all the guilty pleas are connected to the Russia case.
But some people have been charged with many different crimes - and all of those aren't necessarily connected to Russia.

Collusion isn't an actual crime - it's just the act of cooperating in secret - so no one will ever be charged with "collusion" specifically.
Instead people have so far been charged with things like "conspiracy to defraud the United States" - which is what the crime of secretly cooperating with a foreign power to subvert the result of a US election would be prosecuted as, according to the law.

The guilty pleas stem from people admitting they lied to the FBI.
These people admitted one count of lying to the FBI in exchange for them flipping, and they are now providing evidence to the Special Counsel instead. The FBI certainly had a lot more evidence against them, but they dropped that in exchange for their cooperation.

Two of the five guilty pleas come from people who have admitted that they lied specifically about their contacts with Russians connected to the Russian government - Trump's first national security advisor Michael Flynn and his foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos.

@Nisse_Hult
"No country allows another country to interfere in it's elections and nowhere is that legal."
That is interesting statement.
They do. Especially when those in power want to keep power. Like visiting leaders endorsing current ones. Or with Brexit various leaders screaming how brexit will destroy UK, various national medias using their propaganda and etc. We live in global, connected world. But when Russia or China does something it is propaganda, influencing and etc., when Western powers do it, it is freedom of speech or other type bullshit...

@MiskisM

Speaking about democracies - which I was - no, they don't.

Now you may think they do, because you're apparently one of these people who support Brexit and think anyone saying that was a bad idea was in some way trying to influence the British referendum - but the fact is of course that political leaders and different nations national media of course still have the right to hold an opinion on things happening in other countries.

Obama or Merkel or even Putin expressing an opinion on Brexit or media in those nations expressing an opinion on Brexit isn't a problem - it's completely normal and acceptable.

A country's intelligence service placing fake news and ads, deploying tens of thousands of bot accounts and doing all kind of shady shit in an attempt to surreptitiously influence sentiment in another nation - or breaking into a political party's servers and releasing their internal communication in an attempt to do the same - that's something COMPLETELY different!

Obama or Merkel or even Putin - or any media outlet in the world - are free to express any opinion they like on anything. And when they do, everyone knows where they come from and has a chance to understand that they may have ulterior motives in holding the opinion they do.

But Russian intelligence operatives posing as Americans where active deceiving American voters in an attempt to influence the US presidential election surreptitiously - that's what makes what the Russians did completely different and illegal.

@Nisse_Hult I am supporting Brexit. But it wasnt good or bad. It will be what people will make of it.
Internet is full of fake news and info. In regard of and not of elections. Choice for countries: control of internet (freaking china firewall) or total freedom. In this global world there is no other option. You say fake news helped Trump. Big companies and media outlets were so biased in favor of Clinton that it was worse than fake news IMO.
Also I dont know how elections were in your country, but in Lithuania it was "shit hitting the fan million times, all directions". So yeah, this subject a bit sore for me...

@MiskisM

I'm not really sure if you're making proper distinctions here?

You seem to conflate how Lithuanian media covered Trump with how US media covered the presidential election?

I have no idea how Lithuanian media covered it, but I can tell you Swedish and US media where not biased in favor of Clinton.

My guess is you're conflating legitimate criticism with bias - but it's actually the medias job to cover politicians CRITICALLY and point out inconsistencies in what they're saying and doing.

And Trump was frankly an incredibly inconsistent candidate - just as he's been an inconstant president.

He says basically anything to anyone in any situation to get their approval - and then he says something completely different in the next situation.
His answer on any policy question during the campaign was incredibly weak - he basically neither understood nor cared about most of the issues, he was just saying whatever he thought would get him applause at that moment.

"Make America great again!"

Ok - but what does that mean and how would you do that?

"I'll make great deals!"

"So much winning!"

"Mexico will pay for the wall!"

But those are not actually serious policy proposals - they're just empty promises that are impossible to verify.

Journalist notices these things and of course point them out - it's their job to do so.

Which Trump and his supporters didn't like of course, so Trump branded any unflattering coverage of him as "fake news".

But it's not fake! It's just the unflattering truth - but Trump can't handle that, so he lies and attacks anyone pointing out his lies.

About everything - from the really big things to petty little shit like the size of his inaugurations crowd size.

He lies, and lies and lies - and journalists kept (and still keep) track.

So far he's averaged about 6 lies a day as president - far more then anyone before him.

Pointing this out - whether during the campaign or now - isn't biased against Trump - it's just telling the truth. He lies like fucking crazy - it's just a fact.

@Nisse_Hult
Yes. Trump is fucking liar.
(I am drunk now so yeah, just typing to type)
Trump is fucking liar but he says some truth with his decisions, I am annoyed that in Lithuania journalists can tell tell lies and be bought without problems.
Basicly situtation before elections:
Media candidate: I will fuck you
Media: You will always feel great
C: I will murder-fuck you
M: You will always feel like orgasming
C: Serioulsly I will kill some of you
M: Some will die from feeling too happy.

MC Media Candidate. C Candidate. I think that is attempt to influence. Same with Trump, any little shit against Trump goes for weeks, agains Clinton? Barely last page of news...

@MiskisM

The lesson here might be not to post comments while drunk...

Because I'm afraid to say I can't really follow your argument here?

Yes, I agree Trump "says some truth" (but I don't know what you meant by "with his decisions"?) - but it's not at all strange that the media focuses on the mountain of lies he also spouts.

I mean almost any of the lies he has told would be huge news if any other president had told them, but they're actually smaller news now - because he says so many of them, the media constantly has to shift focus to the latest lies!

So I certainly wouldn't agree with you that "any tiny little shit against Trump goes for week" - because the lies he's told and the outrageous statements he's made that's actually been covered for week haven't been "any tiny little shit".

Him freely admitting to sexually assaulting women ("grab them by the pussy") was talked about for a long time - and is still being brought up - but NO president EVER said anything like that as far as we know!

No one has ever claimed to hear any other president talk like that - and it's certainly not on tape - so it's not some "tiny little shit" but a huge fucking deal!

Or talking about Mexicans as rapists and murderers "and some, I guess, are good people" - again, completely outrageous!

What if Trump (or Putin) said the same about Lithuanians?
That you're basically all rapists and murderers - but then added that "some, I guess, are good people".
And then following that up with wanting to wall of your country and demanding that you pay for the wall?
Would you think that was some "tiny little shit" never worth mentioning again?

Regarding Clinton there was an INSANE amount of discussion about her in US media before the election - in large part because the Republicans and Trump constantly accused her of everything under the sun (including running a pedophile ring from the basement of a pizzeria!).

The Republicans and Trump are STILL trying to divert attentions from what's actually happening now by talking about her, or Bill, or Obama - anything to accuse anyone else to draw focus away from themselves.

But the simple fact about the Clintons is that no people in the history of the world have been subjected to more scrutiny.
The Republican in congress have spent millions of dollars and decades of investigations trying to find anything incriminating against either of them - and the only thing they've ever been able to prove is that Bill Clinton lied about a sexual affair decades ago.

That's ALL they've EVER been able to prove!

But talk to any American right-winger or look at any of their propaganda sites online and they're filled with accusations about all kind of illegal things they firmly believe the Clintons have done.

Only problem is - they can't prove any of it!

While the Mueller probe so far has 22 indictments and 5 guilty pleas from people admitting criminal acts - in one years work.

The same kind of special investigation against Bill Clinton ran for several years and produced far less - as did the many Republican lead Benghazi-investigations or the investigations into her email server, both aimed at attacking Hillary Clinton, and they produced even less.

The simple fact is that the Republicans haven't been able to prove SHIT (except for that one lie by Bill Clinton, about the sexual affair, decades ago) - but they still act like and claim that the Clintons are far more criminal or corrupt then Trump - while they do all they can to stop the Russia investigation, that is yielding A LOT of both indictments and guilty pleas, and has only run for a year.

In fact - the Russia investigation currantly under way, has in one year yielded more results then ALL of the investigations the Republicans ever launched against the Clintons - combined!

But Trump and the Republicans supporting him of course only attack any media accurately describing these facts as "fake news".

Becuase that's all they have - lies, lies and more lies.

@Nisse_Hult Oh my god, why Americans can't just admit that despite all the positive changes majority of their people still are sexists and extremely conservative guys, so they have chosen Thrump instead of Hillary because she's a woman and seems to be more tolerant. And all the me too stories prove that. I don't think that our government's clowns have such power outside of our country or former Soviet territory and finally now we have new sanctions, so there is no sense

@HHWinston the only thing russia did was use some internet trolls and have some corrupt business ties with trump.internet trolls arent illegal last i checked and trump has corrupt business ties with isreal and saudi arabia as well last i checked.. this anti russia hysteria is getting out of hand.

no, russia did not affect the election.

@slicergod they did. but then so did everyone else. trump has corrupt business ties with lots of countries not just russia which most people conveniently forget to mention. he's more a isreali puppet than a russian one. he likes putin sure but his true master is netenyahu

No, they legitimately didn't affect the election, @yoisi. Hillary Clinton lost because she was a completely inept candidate who literally tried to promote Trump, Cruz, and Carson because if she ran against a moderate Republican like Jeb Bush, the two candidates would have been too similar.

@slicergod They did both directly and indirectly, through propaganda, computer crime, money and more.

@Anuran propaganda? computer crime? really? what computer crime? the internet is a free place last i checked? the CIA uses internet trolls as well you know. propaganda? all sides like to use propaganda. money? trump gets corrupt money from other countries as well not just russia. the only reason the media picks on russia is simply they dont like russia because they arent their puppet.

@yoisi Theft and subsequent release of private information from opposing political parties to the public media for a start on computer crime. For propaganda a number of anonymous ads run on high traffic domains with political messages based on false information intended to embolden the most likely supporters of an unstable candidate have been traced back to Russia. The trolls were involved as well but not nearly as big an issue. Also money, Trump happens to get a lot of money from Russia specifically because their banking system is still willing to do business with him where the American banks have imposed a ban on loaning to him unless he puts up personal collateral which he won't do as he ultimately intends to screw them by fallaciously declaring bankruptcy on the specific project he was loaned money for. While not uncommon it is still illegal in the United States to fund a political campaign with funds procured directly from a foreign country.

@xana55 oh so you are upset that they released information about Hillary that should have been released in the first place? You are upset that they revealed the TRUTH about all the shady things she did.? Really? And donations from foreign countries happen all the time not just from Russia. And for that matter there was evidence that Hillary herself got donations from Russian oligarchs as well. Oops

@yoisi No I'm not upset that compromising information was released about another candidate I also hated, just that it was done through illegal means meaning that by my nations laws she can not be punished for her wrong doings using that information. See the United States has standards for how our Justice System is supposed to operate and among this is any information obtained through illegal means is inadmissible in a court of law no matter how damn it would be. So now instead of knocking one of two objectively terrible people out of the running both of them remained as the only viable presidential options and we ended up with the slightly worse one.

@yoisi Never better said.

@yoisi Trump doesn't have masters, he isn't intelligent enough to be manipulated and does whatever happens to please him at a given moment, but he does have worrying ties to both Russia and Netenyahu. That being said very few people who use the term zionist are in any way credible, far from it most of them are the sort that see conspiracy and personal vendetta against them in everything, so might want to consider rewording your arguments for the future.

@yoisi I don't think its taboo, just seems foolish to use that term when you already have a country with a name that you could use. Almost seems like you're going for more for spooky intimidation factor to convince people of your conspiracy theory then imparting information.

@xana55 you only think its conspiracy theories because like i said you dont do any independent research on geopolitics from non western non zionist sources. . i already told you why i cant use the word israeli. its because the pro isreal people in america who care more about Israel than america itself are not actually israelis so how can i call them israelis?

@yoisi Well you did just use the term pro-isreal to mean those exact people so it's pretty apparent you had an alternative now isn't it? As for your insistence on the existence of a conspiracy I once again point out that it requires far less stretching of the facts for a simple case of mutual interests. To assume conspiracy instead is a mistake because searching for others conspiring against ones self or ones group will always be met with success regardless of whether the assumed conspiracy actually exists. Once your first assumption is that others plot against you and actively seek to destroy you in everything the decent into paranoia is pretty much guaranteed.

@xana55 do you want to know how obvious it is that zionists own america? Chinese know about it. russians know about it and muslims know about it. hang around the Chinese, russian and muslim political forums(preferably the ones in their own languages if you can understand them) and watch the smaller news outlets of foreign countries more.
everyone knows about the zionist power behind america and the west except for americans and the westerners themselves. you guys love diversity right? yet you never actually pay attention to what non western people are talking about in their own inner circles .

so no. its not just neo nazi conspiracy theorists that complain about zionists. everyone else(especially in countries where its not taboo to talk about it) notices it as well. its amazing you havent noticed it yet when,
1, some states in america are trying to make it illegal to boycott isreal
2. america gives billions of dollars to israel every year for no real reason
3. all the wars in the middle east are so obviously in israel's best interest and doesnt help america in anyway
4. AIPAC (an isreali lobby group) is the only foreign lobby group that doesnt have to be registered as a foreign agent. .
you still dont think they control america and the west?

if it makes you feel better zionists include evangelical Christians that believe in the end time prophecies and consider israel as "gods chosen land" and jews as "gods chosen people. so they religiously care more about israel than their own country

@yoisi Yeah no, the reason the United States has close ties with Israel is not due to a conspiracy to control our nation by "zionist powers" we just stand to gain by having a relatively free agent in the region capable of acting in our interests as they are inclined to do which gives plausible deniability when they do something awful on our behalf. After all the United States benefits greatly from the Middle East remaining too unstable to unite and potentially drive up resource prices. I don't agree with it but I am just one person.

@xana55
Well, in the end it matters not. It is still MY country in crisis, not anybody else's. MY people beaten for protesting against being dragged into that conflict.

As sanctions keep going against specific individuals, government's counter-sanctions keep turning them into measure that injures each and every one. Ban on imported medicine, anyone..? - in a country, where literally over 1% of citizens are HIV carriers, and on top of them - many more in need of expensive medicine that native pharmacefts not always bothering to make in the past two decades. So far ban is still in discussion, argued over in the parliament. I hardly doubt that Putin's government will refuse opportunity to *de-ci-ma-te* my people.

While you keep arguing about dead horse, you are loosing 143.000.000 of potential allies, most of whom would be pretty content with day when Putin and his clique will be sitting in Hague.

@Ninian Is imported medicine seriously forbidden? Maybe they do it to favor the national industry. I did not know that Russia had an aversion to the free market.

"you are loosing 143,000,000 of potential allies" Who do you mean?

@HHWinston
Ban of imported medicine is being reviewed by parliament for over a month now. There have been several serious arguments against it, but it is still in discusion and still might be approved into a law.

And no, it isn't done in favor of import replacement - it is part of counter-sanctions pack. It was proposed as counter-sanction, and discussed as a counter-sanction, from RF towards US and countries supporting american sanctions. Hence I am expecting the concern about people who will die without proper medicine to not be a valued argument for parliament.

"Who do you mean?" - people who are damaged most by sanctions, counter sanctions, travel restrictions, chauvinism, and negligence of their human and civil rights - citizens of Russian Federation.

@Ninian I see, the situation is complicated. Are national medicines more expensive then?
I say because usually foreign medicines are always expensive and it is preferable not to enter them to avoid having to pay patents. Where I live now (not in England) there was a similar situation, and banning foreign medicine was the best thing. But I see that the situation in Russia is different from common cases.

@HHWinston
"Are national medicines more expensive then?" - there are not always domestic analogues to imported medicine, and some of analogues are SIGNIFICANTLY worse in quality and effectiveness.
And yes, foreign medicine IS expensive, but between death and expense people rarely pick the death.

We are country of EXTREMELY corrupt politicians. Our education, science and infrastructure have been steadily degrading for past fifteen years. So situation is bad and only getting worse. Let me give you bit of statistics:
https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/eastern-europe-central-asia/russia

1%. In the country, that has no decent treatment for HIV infected even now. ~1% of *known* HIV infected.

1%. Every hundredth person in this country posesses illness that has no permanent treatment and is going to kill them in matter of everal or few years.

1%. By next elections these people will not be there, population of my country will be decimated - even with imported medicine. Imagine it banned. Think of how many other ill people are here.


Imagine how many more there will be.
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-volokolamsk-protest/29138498.html
https://themoscowtimes.com/news/black-snow-in-siberia-caused-by-weather-and-industrial-waste-authorities-60352
http://yk24.ru/index/proisshestviya/razliv-nefti-v-yakutske-vyishel-za-bonovyie-zagrazhdeniya
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/investigation-blames-russian-facility-for-last-years-ruthenium-isotope-leak/3008692.article

These are only few cases, only recent cases. Problems, that either occured recently, or been and keep amassing over the years.

My people are getting decimated. And for a long while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#After_WWII

We are *dying out*. We already do not wish to breed like cattle, but facing country administrated in such way, that we are literally becoming extinct. Having statisctically worst fire fighters in the world and taking part in military conflicts does not helps either.

So yes. Situation is different.

@Ninian Most countries are dealing with some sort of crisis, frankly Russia is not special in this regard and is getting off rather easy compared to most of the world. Is it terrible that you are in this situation? Oh undoubtedly so and I have nothing but sympathy for people whos lives are being ruined or ended by a government that clearly ceased to give a darn about them. But at the same time everyone else has messes of their own to clean up and unless someone is willing to offer an actual way we can help I don't see much my nation or anyone in it can do to assist.

@slicergod

Of course they didn't. Those 19 people charged and 5 guilty pleas were just magicked into being by transgender fairies.

@Faeryn If 19 people on the internet can defeat Hillary by posting memes, then maybe she wouldn't have been a very good president. It is a shame that Trump was running against her; if anyone good were running against Hillary we might have gotten a good president last time around.

Yes, it is a shame that Trump was running against her, @vxc2006. However, in the Podesta e-mails, we know that the Clinton campaign elevated Trump, Cruz, and Carson as "pied piper candidates". Hillary played chicken with the white house and we ALL lost as a result.

@slicergod
Does it even matters? We are getting sanctioned anyway, and politicians who are being target of sanctions turns these seanctions into country-wide by their counter-sactions, successfully making sure that any blow agains one or other oligarch will hit the regular citizens and not them.

And if you protest against that - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNMY1tFeeQs

So honestly, it matters zero now, who affected whose elections.

@Ninian "When you squeeze the nobility, it's the peasants that feel the pinch" /Dragonheart 1996

@TheDungen
Government discusses ban of imported medicine. Such "pinch" will murder several millions people.

@Ninian While I am mortified to hear that, we can't be held responsible for what the Russian government does. And we got to do something about how aggressive Putin is acting.

@TheDungen

Well, technically there is whole rest of the world and United Nations who de facto could give us some assistance here. It's not like hundred of millions of unarmed people can't take on presidental guard, OMON and army - it's just that nobody wants to be the pompous sacrifice to freedom, laying in a pool of blood, torn to shreds by bullets, like some of, say, ukrainian "Celestial Centuria".

And you could do something more effective about how Putin is acting. Peacekeepers, for example, could really, really make war in Donbass harder for everybody. Formal, actual accusations in crimes against humanity - particularily my people - in UN could be a good ultimatum to that pile of corrupted bureaucrats.

Refusing to recognise Putin as legit elected president would've helped a lot as well, considering that election. Where people. Throw in dozens of fake bulletins. On hundreds of electoral posts. Is not. Bloody. Fucking. LEGIT.

Sending humanitarial help to people that live in our villages and deteriorating towns would help too - help to save lives, at least. And perhaps will help to make the people here less dependant on mercy of local pro-Putin bureaucrats, sent there by higher rank governors. Less people depend on government - less power it has. If world really wants to neutralize threat of Putin and his supporters - world should give russians some HELP.

@Ninian
THIS. This is what western media should show of russia: struggle, people in need. The fact that most citizens do not agree with their unjust government.

All our media ever shows is the strong nuclear power that threatens to evicirate the major cities of our baltic neighbours and is laying claims on our industrial regions, and then portraying it's people as mindless fanatics with kalashnikovs who would willingly die en-mass for their leader. The propaganda should be obvious.

If real progress is to be made, that has to change. And that's on us. I hope the good people over there will hold out until we realizes this.

@slicergod Keep telling yourself that.

'@TheDungen'

Well, they also banned the best songs from winning for about the last 10-20 years.

why