And in your analogy, all hypothetical of course, the VC here is located in Moscow?
Update: Am I really being down-voted for suggesting what everyone already knows? Seriously?
Update: Am I really being down-voted for suggesting what everyone already knows? Seriously?
Taking my own advice, regardless of what you or anybody may think of the connection between Russian money, Russian politics, and Mr. Trump, surely we can find a number of wealthy Americans who are interested in winding down Federal oversight.
I'd start with the high-fructose corn syrup people, the private university rip-off people, and the fossil fuel people. If there are also Russian interests, surely they are not "acting alone."
Or non-wealthy Americans interested in winding down Federal over-reach. Really, in a federal republic aren't there quite a lot of things which can safely be left to the several states? Is it necessary to make everything an item for federal concern?
Well, you hope so, otherwise a federal republic is a good idea. OTOH, simply because you have a federal government (or even that it was a good idea a century or two ago) doesn't mean that a federal republic is a good idea, and even if a federal republic is a good idea and there are quite a lot of things that make most sense at the state level, well, that doesn't mean that every particular thing belongs there.
I completely agree! Most of them are already explicitly listed as federal concerns, in the Constitution; we should amend it to include environmental concerns for the exact reason you note.
But I see no reason why e.g. education should be a federal concern. Let the states do as they will.
LPs typically don't have such a direct influence on the operations of the investments, although certain actual LP arrangements have in recent years.
Of course, the nature of political contributions and influence seems to be vastly more complicated compared to VC.
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
From the report:
"We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or 'trolls.'"
It doesn't say anything on if they actually succeeded.
Find a quote that says they actually succeeded in having influence over Trump, and maybe that would be a valid argument.
The special counsel is presumably constructing a more fleshed out case looking at proving a direct quid pro quo, using witness testimony, financial records, etc. All of that investigation is currently secret however.
And not that long ago he put more sanctions on them than was requested by Obama. So you can not read anything into that.
I skimmed your timeline. It's pretty much junk. You can make a timeline like for basically anyone. If you have enough public activity some of it is going to line up.
> All of that investigation is currently secret however.
That's not an excuse for you to declare case over. So far every time people claim to have some evidence or other, it's all been nothing.
Trump says a lot of stupid things, but I've never found anything that makes him beholden to the Russians. And in fact, even if they did help him, Trump, of all people, would feel perfectly free to completely not care.
He's already well known for ignoring political norms. Ignoring the norm of helping people who help you would be completely typical for him.
Who said the “case was over”? It’s clearly an ongoing investigation, which will hopefully be allowed to proceed to its conclusion despite the president’s ham-handed efforts to obstruct it.
Why do you think Trump’s campaign was so filled with people traveling back and forth to Russia, having secret meetings with Russian intelligence assets, trying to set up secure communications channels directly to the Russian government, and so on? Why do you think they have spent so much effort on publicly lying about those meetings and communications, and so much effort on shutting down the investigation about it?
Are you referring to this? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions/trum...