[feklar]

The Putin/Trump friendship is largely invented by the media. For example when Putin supposedly called Trump 'brilliant' he used a Russian term that means 'bright colorful personality' not intelligent. Our media knows this but ran with the illusion of Putin admiring Trump because it serves domestic political talking points. Trump's whole platform of America First(tm) populist rhetoric would be detrimental to any agenda Russia has.

It seems to me that embarassing leaks are best distracted away from the political news cycle by manufacturing a sexy story about Russian interference instead of trying to spin the content of the leaks themselves.

[int_19h]

I'm Russian, and I regularly follow Russian news. I can tell you two things.

One, coverage of Trump in Russian media (which is almost entirely government-owned or controlled) is generally positive, and that of Clinton is generally very negative. You can clearly see the political preferences they're trying to push.

And two, it's actually a fairly easy sell to the public, because it plays well into the "degenerate West" narrative that Russian propaganda has been using as one of its lynchpins for several years now. When Trump comes out and says that he's against political correctness and immigration, he becomes a part of that narrative, as some sort of valiant crusader against "degeneracy", and his popular support becomes a "proof" of its existence.

[qaq]

I didn't say there was friendship. Trump and his buddy and partner Phil Ruffin are also partners and buddies with ukrainian oligarch Onyshenko who at present is hiding out in Russia as ukrainian parliament voted to lift his immunity (as a parliament member) so he can be prosecuted for his various schemes. He is most likely one of the key pawns for Putin for having influence on Trump. So far only minor things came out relating to Paul Manafort, I am guessing closer to elections something major related to the above connection will come out.

[ting_bu_dung]

such lies.

1.) Paul Manafort, Trump's previous manager, received a cash payment of more than $12 million from Pro-Russia party in Ukraine

2) Donald Trump's campaign's ONLY intervention in the entire GOP platform was to remove anti-Putin language from the platform re: Ukraine.

3) Not only that, but just days before the RNC, Carter Paige, one of Trump's foreign policy advisers traveled to Russia and gave a speech attacking America's policies towards Russia, calling America's focus on democratization and fighting inequality "hypocritical."

4) The Intelligence community has confirmed that Russian Intelligence is responsible for the hacking of the DNC, which is an obvious attempt to harm Hillary Clinton's campaign.

5) Furthermore, Donald Trump called on Russia to release/hack any emails they could get their hands on.

6) Trump's campaign manager has ties to pro-Putin oligarchs who were propped up by the Kremlin. This isn't new information. As long ago as 2005, there were calls to McCain's people to try and do something about Manafort because he was working against American interests in the region.

7) Trump has praised Putin numerous times, calling him a far better leader than Obama.

8) Donald Trump has taken an anti-NATO stance.

[sgnelson]

I love how this comment has been down voted, even though it's much more truthful than the parent comment (which misses many other points as described above.)

[feklar]

Which points were missed

>campaign ties to the Kremlin

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-clinton-foundation-state-and...

>speeches in Moscow that benefit the Kremlin

https://www.quora.com/Who-paid-Bill-Clintons-2-5-million-com...

We can play this game all day. Both US major federal political parties are neck deep in Kremlin corruption and ties to each other. Trump has also never taken an 'anti-NATO' stance, he wants to shake down NATO countries for cash to pay for protection, and so did Dubya, who threatened my country into joining the Afghan military adventure with that whole 'you are with us or our enemy' speech.

The question is, is Russia trying to get Trump elected which is hard to believe since they enjoy a pretty good relationship with the Clintons, but who really knows I will concede. I'm also not buying the secret IOCs that "verify" state sanctioned involvement, they verify similar attackers, that use a Russian VPS.

[yarou]

You didn't even bother to refute the GP's points; rather, you go on some strange invective against both US political parties. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader of what this implies. (hint: it smells a lot like cheap vodka and balalaika on a polar bear)

[rtpg]

I agree with your sentiment, but is Putin personally buddies with Trump, or is Trump's team just heavily invested in Russia?

The end result is basically the same, but I feel like the second is easier to prove (By your points)

[travmatt]

Awesome compilation of facts. It's getting to the point that the only people who am ant see a Russia-Trump connection do so willingly.