The Intelligence Community - Champion of Democracy

[Brian Peacock]

Big dumb strawman. No one thinks the CIA are "good guys" or "champions of democracy".

....would you deign to ....say... distrust what they say? Or, would it be treason to do so?

I don't trust anyone on faith, but that's my problem. Is there any evidence to support assertions imlying that all or any of the US intelligence agencies are operating outside of political oversight and/or beyond their constitutional remit?

[L'Emmerdeur]

It's not as simple as 'the CIA and the "intelligence community" was sure there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.' If anybody had bothered to read any of the good post mortems on the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, they would know that many of the rank and file in the CIA (particularly those on-station in the region) were dubious of the evidence supporting WMD claims. However, George Tenet, taking his cue from Cheney and Bush, glossed all of that over as a "slam-dunk case." His National Intelligence Estimate on WMD in Iraq failed to present an accurate description of the actual intelligence. Senator Bob Graham:

He refused to do a report on the military or occupation phase, but reluctantly agreed to do a National Intelligence Estimate on the weapons of mass destruction.

[How did you feel about that?]

Well, I think that was maybe ... the turning point in our attitude towards Tenet and our understanding of how the intelligence community has become so submissive to the desires of the administration. The administration wasn't using intelligence to inform their judgment; they were using intelligence as part of a public relations campaign to justify their judgment. ...

But that September of 2002 was the turning point in my, and I think many other members' of Congress, attitude towards Tenet and the credibility of the information and analysis that was coming from our intelligence community.

What did you think then of him?

Well, I thought that this wasn't a man who was strong enough to stand up to the president of the United States and say: "Mr. President, you are about to make a very serious mistake, and here are the reasons. Here's what we know, here's what we don't know about the situation in Iraq, and it does not warrant us leaving a victory which is imminent in Afghanistan, and attainable in Afghanistan, to start a war in an environment in which we are largely ignorant."

It's convenient to misrepresent history in pursuit of an agenda, though.

[Forty Two]

Big dumb strawman. No one thinks the CIA are "good guys" or "champions of democracy".

....would you deign to ....say... distrust what they say? Or, would it be treason to do so?

I don't trust anyone on faith, but that's my problem. Is there any evidence to support assertions imlying that all or any of the US intelligence agencies are operating outside of political oversight and/or beyond their constitutional remit?

Is there evidence to support the assertion that the CIA and the NSA, for example, operated outside of political oversight and beyond constitutional remit? Well, one, they have no "constitutional remit." They are agencies of the Executive Branch, and they're supposed to report to the President. The suggestion that the President's friendly policy toward one country or another, or lack of faith in a report or intelligence opinion/conclusion of his underlings is "treason" (per Brennan's ludicrous statement) is beyond ridiculous. The intelligence agencies do not make policy (they're not supposed to) - the President and the Congress make US policy, within their respective constitutional remits.

As for operating outside of political oversight, the evidence of that is legion. James Clapper avoided political oversight by lying to Congress in his testimony in 2013 regarding NSA surveillance. Yes, the NSA was operating outside of political oversight because they were doing things they were not supposed to be doing. There were declassified documents about 10 years ago (hundreds of pages) revealing rafts of illegal activity committed by the CIA, including bugging and illegally surveiling journalists, domestic wiretapping, assassination plots, and mind control experiments. There was an investigation into the CIA in the 1970s which found that it had conducted operations outside of its charter. Just this past May, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Romania and Lithuania were involved in torture activities by the CIA. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 73973.html CIA agents report that they routinely lie and spreads misinformation to the American public. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom ... 0002-5.pdf Do you need more evidence of CIA lies than Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Vietnam, Nicaragua?

Good article on Global Research from 2016 - https://www.globalresearch.ca/russian-h ... es/5564413 and from 2017 https://www.globalresearch.ca/russian-o ... d_articles

Chicago Tribune in 2014 - The Intelligence Community Keeps Lying - http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opin ... olumn.html

The latest example erupted last week, when the CIA's inspector general confirmed that the agency had hacked into Senate Intelligence Committee computers and read emails sent by staffers. The investigation came after U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., revealed the surreptitious search, charging that the CIA had violated federal law and the Constitution.

At the time, Brennan rejected Feinstein's accusation, insisting that "nothing could be further from the truth."

Places far from the truth are his native land. Only after the inspector general delivered his report was Brennan forced to admit he was wrong about Feinstein's complaint — without revealing whether the falsehood was the result of dishonesty or of ignorance.

These guys don't get my faith or trust.

Lying to the people they are supposed to serve is just part of the job description for top intelligence officials. At a 2013 Senate hearing, Clapper was asked, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" He said it didn't — despite the agency's massive collection of domestic phone records.

So, if breaking federal laws, state laws, UN treaties and other international laws, repeatedly, for decades, and lying to the American people and lying to Congress, repeatedly, for years, in every administration since World War 2 to the present, is "beyond their constitutional remit" and "outside of political oversight" to you, then there is your answer...

[Brian Peacock]

Big dumb strawman. No one thinks the CIA are "good guys" or "champions of democracy".

....would you deign to ....say... distrust what they say? Or, would it be treason to do so?

I don't trust anyone on faith, but that's my problem. Is there any evidence to support assertions imlying that all or any of the US intelligence agencies are operating outside of political oversight and/or beyond their constitutional remit?

Is there evidence to support the assertion that the CIA and the NSA, for example, operated outside of political oversight and beyond constitutional remit? Well, one, they have no "constitutional remit." They are agencies of the Executive Branch, and they're supposed to report to the President. The suggestion that the President's friendly policy toward one country or another, or lack of faith in a report or intelligence opinion/conclusion of his underlings is "treason" (per Brennan's ludicrous statement) is beyond ridiculous. The intelligence agencies do not make policy (they're not supposed to) - the President and the Congress make US policy, within their respective constitutional remits.

As for operating outside of political oversight, the evidence of that is legion. James Clapper avoided political oversight by lying to Congress in his testimony in 2013 regarding NSA surveillance. Yes, the NSA was operating outside of political oversight because they were doing things they were not supposed to be doing. There were declassified documents about 10 years ago (hundreds of pages) revealing rafts of illegal activity committed by the CIA, including bugging and illegally surveiling journalists, domestic wiretapping, assassination plots, and mind control experiments. There was an investigation into the CIA in the 1970s which found that it had conducted operations outside of its charter. Just this past May, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Romania and Lithuania were involved in torture activities by the CIA. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 73973.html CIA agents report that they routinely lie and spreads misinformation to the American public. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom ... 0002-5.pdf Do you need more evidence of CIA lies than Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Vietnam, Nicaragua?

Good article on Global Research from 2016 - https://www.globalresearch.ca/russian-h ... es/5564413 and from 2017 https://www.globalresearch.ca/russian-o ... d_articles

Chicago Tribune in 2014 - The Intelligence Community Keeps Lying - http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opin ... olumn.html

The latest example erupted last week, when the CIA's inspector general confirmed that the agency had hacked into Senate Intelligence Committee computers and read emails sent by staffers. The investigation came after U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., revealed the surreptitious search, charging that the CIA had violated federal law and the Constitution.

At the time, Brennan rejected Feinstein's accusation, insisting that "nothing could be further from the truth."

Places far from the truth are his native land. Only after the inspector general delivered his report was Brennan forced to admit he was wrong about Feinstein's complaint — without revealing whether the falsehood was the result of dishonesty or of ignorance.

These guys don't get my faith or trust.

Lying to the people they are supposed to serve is just part of the job description for top intelligence officials. At a 2013 Senate hearing, Clapper was asked, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" He said it didn't — despite the agency's massive collection of domestic phone records.

So, if breaking federal laws, state laws, UN treaties and other international laws, repeatedly, for decades, and lying to the American people and lying to Congress, repeatedly, for years, in every administration since World War 2 to the present, is "beyond their constitutional remit" and "outside of political oversight" to you, then there is your answer...

OK. If US intelligence agencies are, and always have been, a literal law unto themselves, a cancerous growth on the body politic, an open wound on the face of society, an everpresent source of international chaos and domestic shame since World War II, etc etc (m paraphrasing of course), then I guess you'd support the wholesale demobilisation and disbandment of all US intelligence bodies?

However, I doubt that you'd be so bold - that is: I doubt that your actual view would live up to the consequences of your rhetoric. You'll more likely say that secret intelligence and Investigatory bodies are vital to maintaining the independence of a nation and the freedom and security of the citizenry - it's just that the US needs different intelligence institutions to the one's it currently has.

Have you noticed the circular nature of this kind of reasoning?

[Forty Two]

Oh, yes, indeed. I would support the wholesale disbanding in their present form. They do more damage than they are worth.

It's not my "rhetoric." My recitation was a dispassionate list of relatively undisputed things the intelligence community has done. It's not controversial. I'm not exaggerating.

I don't like the secret intelligence agencies with off-books budgets and dark sites. I want our legislature to make policy, not secret intelligence agencies. Were I some sort of conservative, I would be four-square in favor of our intelligence agencies. I never have been. My education on the Pentagon Papers disabused me of any allegiance to "intelligence communities."

[Tero]

The law enforcement of the states cannot work well without the FBI. Our terrorism events have been mostly white guys with many guns and those are hard to control. Much better under control are foreigners hating America.

[Hermit]

No intelligence community is a champion of democracy. It simply is not what they are created and designed for. Intelligence communities are established to safeguard the interests of whatever nation they are located in and work for. If they need to ride roughshod over legal, moral and ethical niceties they will do exactly that. The only apprehension they have about doing so is for their actions to become publicly known. Notwithstanding pious words regarding the protection of the freedoms of its citizens and its constitution the USA's intelligence community is no exception.

Further, the idea that an intelligence organisation's dossiers, reports and analyses are uniformly accepted truths which are then made available to its government, or more accurately, government personnel that needs them, who then formulate policies in light of them, is a lovely, widely believed theory. In practice it does not work that way. High ranking people within the government pick and choose the bits of information, vetted or not, that fit their agenda, promote the vendors of such information and sideline those whose information does not suit. Within the intelligence organisations there's a metaphor for that. It's called "stovepiping"*. The head of government receives information filtered and promoted by bureaucrats he has appointed.

In 2003, for example, they were primarily Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Under-Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith. All of them had a bee in their bonnet about ousting Saddam Hussein, no matter what. This is why they threw out the reports by the United Nations inspection teams and the International Atomic Energy Agency, all of which concluded that Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and passed on unchecked information of dubious veracity that came to them from an exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi, who wanted to take over the Iraqi government and other opponents of Hussein's regime.

It is conceivable that President George Bush jr. had not been lying when he insisted that Hussein possessed stockpiles of WMDs. His belief may have been based on the (false) information fed to him, either being unaware of reports to the contrary or sceptical of their validity. Same goes for the UK's Prime Minister Bill Blair.

Anyone who says they believe (or don't) what intelligence communities come up with, or that they are (or are not) influenced or manipulated by politicians and bureaucrats, don't know what they are talking about. Things are just way too complicated to make simple blanket statements of that sort.


*The Stovepipe, written by Simon Hersh and published by The New Yorker in 2003 is a fascinating, somewhat lengthy case study of this.

[JimC]

In the current Trump situation, though, it is not just intelligence agencies but law enforcement agencies and the Justice Department that are in play. It is not just about intelligence assessment of Russian activities, but an investigation into the activities of Americans. In effect, it belongs more to the area of counter-intelligence...

[Scot Dutchy]

It belongs in the realms of fantasy and fiction. What Trump thinks Trump gets.

[Forty Two]

No intelligence community is a champion of democracy. It simply is not what they are created and designed for. Intelligence communities are established to safeguard the interests of whatever nation they are located in and work for. If they need to ride roughshod over legal, moral and ethical niceties they will do exactly that. The only apprehension they have about doing so is for their actions to become publicly known. Notwithstanding pious words regarding the protection of the freedoms of its citizens and its constitution the USA's intelligence community is no exception.

Agreed. And, the problem is worsened by the fact that so much power is vested in secret, clandestine agencies run by guys like Clapper and Brennan that they start making US policies - the tail wagging the dog -- Brennan's comments regarding Trump were quite disturbing, as a CIA head claims that the President (the guy constitutionally given the position of "Commander-in-Chief" and "Chief Executive" - making policy decisions as to which countries to talk to and which not to to talk to and how to talk to them - i.e. the CIA guy says his superior is beholden to the policy preferences of the CIA guy. That was what disturbed me about Brennan. Traitor? Treasonous? The CIA reports are "findings" based on "levels of confidence" and "professional judgment" -- they are not policy, and they are not designed to be policy. They are advice to the people who make policy - the President and the Congress - if the President and the Congress do not wish to follow the advice of the CIA, that's not "treason." That's the President and Congress doing their jobs. We did not elect the CIA or John Brennan or James Clapper. They are appointed officials, serving at the pleasure of those we elected. To say that the President committed treason by not being confident in the results of an agency that has so often been wrong, and so often outright lied, is ridiculous, and dangerous.

Further, the idea that an intelligence organisation's dossiers, reports and analyses are uniformly accepted truths which are then made available to its government, or more accurately, government personnel that needs them, who then formulate policies in light of them, is a lovely, widely believed theory. In practice it does not work that way. High ranking people within the government pick and choose the bits of information, vetted or not, that fit their agenda, promote the vendors of such information and sideline those whose information does not suit. Within the intelligence organisations there's a metaphor for that. It's called "stovepiping"*. The head of government receives information filtered and promoted by bureaucrats he has appointed.

Indeed, another danger of the CIA, which is why the convenient excuse of "here's our conclusions... but we can't show you the proof because national security..." is overused and abused. Publish the proof. You want us to trust you when we go to war? Hussein has what? Those pictures Colin Powell is showing us are chemical and bio weapons factories and trucks (even though they could easily be a warehouse and shipping trucks for furniture or food or whatever)? That factor in the Sudan or Chad or wherever is a chemical weapons factory so we need to blow it up? At a certain point, they need to pull the spooks out of harms way, and disclose the "evidence" they say they have.

That should be especially true to those who strongly oppose Trump. You want Trump to be able to rely on an unclassified (no proof included) report that says some country is an imminent threat? Not me. If he wants to cross another border with military force, I want the proof. Oh, it's took dangerous to give us the proof? Why? Spies are out there who might be disclosed and put in danger? Bring them home. If you're asking us to sign off on killing people in other countries, invading other nations' sovereignty, and blowing things up, then I'm sorry but we need disclosure.d

In 2003, for example, they were primarily Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Under-Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith. All of them had a bee in their bonnet about ousting Saddam Hussein, no matter what. This is why they threw out the reports by the United Nations inspection teams and the International Atomic Energy Agency, all of which concluded that Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and passed on unchecked information of dubious veracity that came to them from an exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi, who wanted to take over the Iraqi government and other opponents of Hussein's regime.

Indeed, and at the time, the reason we couldn't examine the so-called "evidence" was national security, sources and methods, and the like. We were told to take it on faith, and the CIA was willing to word its reports in a way to justify war because the military industrial complex and the "intelligence community" wanted Iraq for a long time. They can make a report come out one way based on "strong confidence" of X, or if they want, they can make an argument for "strong confidence" in the opposite. The memos they publicize are so generalized and non-specific that nobody really can do anything with it except accept or reject the conclusion. Accept the conclusion, patriotic and reasonable "hey it's what the intelligence community is saying... who am I to dispute it?" Reject it, and it's "treason" - you're siding with some awful regime over our own intelligence people???? How dare you?

It is conceivable that President George Bush jr. had not been lying when he insisted that Hussein possessed stockpiles of WMDs. His belief may have been based on the (false) information fed to him, either being unaware of reports to the contrary or sceptical of their validity. Same goes for the UK's Prime Minister Bill Blair.

Anyone who says they believe (or don't) what intelligence communities come up with, or that they are (or are not) influenced or manipulated by politicians and bureaucrats, don't know what they are talking about. Things are just way too complicated to make simple blanket statements of that sort.

Agreed. Which is why I find reports interesting, but if I'm being asked to support violent action based on those reports, then they better have some steak behind the sizzle.

[pErvinalia]

You seem to have missed the point.

[Hermit]

i.e. the CIA guy says his superior is beholden to the policy preferences of the CIA guy. That was what disturbed me about Brennan. Traitor? Treasonous?

Brennan was not "the CIA guy" when he made the remarks about treason, and there is no suggestion whatsoever that he said or acted as though "his superior is beholden to the policy preferences of the CIA guy". You're just making stuff up now.

What is more, the dog is indeed wagging the tail, sometimes to the detriment of US policy. I provided a link to an article reporting one case of that in detail, where senior government officials filtered and stovepiped intelligence information to such an extent that the POTUS finished up making a disastrous policy decision. It was not the CIA that misinformed Bush. That was done by his Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, his Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton Deputy, his Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and his Under-Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith.

You haven't read Hersch's article, have you? You could do worse than to read it one day.

We were told to take it on faith, and the CIA was willing to word its reports in a way to justify war because the military industrial complex and the "intelligence community" wanted Iraq for a long time.

That is pretty much the opposite of what happened. Government officials cherry-picked reports from a number of organisations, rejected the ones that suited their agenda, then pretended that what they concocted were the CIA's conclusions when they presented their confection to Bush . You're making things up again. Read the article.

[Forty Two]

i.e. the CIA guy says his superior is beholden to the policy preferences of the CIA guy. That was what disturbed me about Brennan. Traitor? Treasonous?

Brennan was not "the CIA guy" when he made the remarks about treason, and there is no suggestion whatsoever that he said or acted as though "his superior is beholden to the policy preferences of the CIA guy". You're just making stuff up now.

He was the head of the CIA until January 2017. My point was not that he has actual power over the President. My point was that his declaration that the President committed "treason" is ridiculous, because it's not the CIA or the intelligence services that set policy, it's the President and the Congress. Where he might have the opinion that Russia is an enemy or a danger to the US at level that is critical or extreme - it's not Treason for the President to disagree with him, and to seek friendship and even an alliance with Russia. I wasn't saying that the Prez is beholden to him or subject to him - I was saying that Brennan's statements - and those agreeing with him - that the President committed treason are political statements and ridiculous ones at that.

What is more, the dog is indeed wagging the tail, sometimes to the detriment of US policy. I provided a link to an article reporting one case of that in detail, where senior government officials filtered and stovepiped intelligence information to such an extent that the POTUS finished up making a disastrous policy decision. It was not the CIA that misinformed Bush. That was done by his Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, his Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton Deputy, his Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and his Under-Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith.

Certainly all those advisers to the President can be criticized as you have. As Trump said, “They lied,” he said. “They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none."

However, that instance does not change the fact that the CIA is regularly wrong, and regularly lies. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell all ultimately lied. They asked us to trust us, and they didn't let us see the documentation they said supported the war decision -- why? -- the rhetoric of sources and methods and national security - I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. Bullshit. We should never fall for it again.

I supported them based on trust that if they were making such bald-faced declarations at the time, they must have some really good proof. They wouldn't just make shit up. Well, they made shit up. Colin Powell went before the UN and lied. I was on the phone with a friend of mine while watching that speech. I said out loud at the time - o.k. - but they better have what they say they have - because what they're showing us are aerial photos of what looks like a Walmart taking deliveries from semi trucks. Never again will I believe what I'm told the intelligence community has concluded, or the government officials. I want proof. If it'll put sources at risk, then don't go to war until you pull the sources out.

We were told to take it on faith, and the CIA was willing to word its reports in a way to justify war because the military industrial complex and the "intelligence community" wanted Iraq for a long time.

That is pretty much the opposite of what happened. Government officials cherry-picked reports from a number of organisations, rejected the ones that suited their agenda, then pretended that what they concocted were the CIA's conclusions when they presented their confection to Bush . You're making things up again. Read the article.

You're right about the Bush Administration themselves exaggerating and lying about the intelligence on Iraq. But that doesn't change the fact that the CIA and the intelligence community regularly lies and regularly gets things wrong.

And the CIA did make reports that Iraq had a WMD program -- https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/gen ... emetns%201

Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.

Baghdad hides large portions of Iraq's WMD efforts. Revelations after the Gulf war starkly demonstrate the extensive efforts undertaken by Iraq to deny information.

Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons; most analysts assess Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.

Iraq's growing ability to sell oil illicitly increases Baghdad's capabilities to finance WMD programs; annual earnings in cash and goods have more than quadrupled.

Iraq largely has rebuilt missile and biological weapons facilities damaged during Operation Desert Fox and has expanded its chemical and biological infrastructure under the cover of civilian production.
Baghdad has exceeded UN range limits of 150 km with its ballistic missiles and is working with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which allow for a more lethal means to deliver biological and, less likely, chemical warfare agents.
Although Saddam probably does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on acquiring them.

October, 2002 report from the CIA - https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/gen ... t_2002.pdf

Dead. Fucking. Wrong. Wouldn't it be nice if we were privy to the background data (if any) used to produce this report - if we had the other intelligence, that was later released and "declassified" long after the war ended. But... national security and sources and methods rubric prevented us from knowing at the time.

[Joe]

You seem to have missed the point.

It's funny to watch him demonstrate his profound ignorance, though I guess we're all used to it by now. Throwing dirt at the CIA clandestine folks in no way invalidates the conclusions of the analytical folks, much less those of the FBI, NSA, or allied intelligence agencies. That the Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about a covert NSA program of questionable Constitutionality doesn't invalidate the agency's conclusions either.

Of course, this whole thread is just meant to deflect attention from the fact that Trump's Helsinki summit caused so much concern. Unlike the North Korea summit, which was spun as a success, it's hard for his partisans to argue the US gained from Helsinki.

Forty Two had to quote a Chinese commentator just for this. Putting Helsinki in a positive light would require using Russian media.

[Forty Two]

You seem to have missed the point.

It's funny to watch him demonstrate his profound ignorance, though I guess we're all used to it by now. Throwing dirt at the CIA clandestine folks in no way invalidates the conclusions of the analytical folks, much less those of the FBI, NSA, or allied intelligence agencies. That the Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about a covert NSA program of questionable Constitutionality doesn't invalidate the agency's conclusions either.

I'm not looking for something to "not invalidate" conclusion. I'm suggesting that their record of being incorrect and their history of lying, and engaging in illegal activities, which is known and accepted for the past 75 years, since it was the OSS, and the fact that they will publish reports like the one I cited above regarding WMD in Iraq, means that their conclusions are not worthy of blind trust. All I'm saying is that they need to produce the evidence.

Of course, this whole thread is just meant to deflect attention from the fact that Trump's Helsinki summit caused so much concern. Unlike the North Korea summit, which was spun as a success, it's hard for his partisans to argue the US gained from Helsinki.

The mainstream media and anti-Trumpers didnt' spin North Korea as a success. They don't spin anything as a success. We have nearly 5% GDP growth, and even that's not considered a success. Even the low unemployment with high labor participation rates is not spun as a success. Democrats claim that it's because everyone has two jobs, and they work 80 hour work weeks.

Forty Two had to quote a Chinese commentator just for this. Putting Helsinki in a positive light would require using Russian media.

LOL. This has nothing to do with Helsinki being in a bad light or a good light. This whole Russia nonsense since 2016 is contrived. It's the new "Red Scare." And, people who are anti-Trump eat it up, hook line and sinker. If you had a Republican say Russia was a thread in 2015 or 2016, the Democrats would have laughed him out of the room, just like they laughed at Romney in 2012. The 1980s called, and they want their foreign policy back! Loooooooooooolllll! Oh, but the Russians are buying facebook ads and trying to "sow discord" in our elections! Oh, no! It's so terrible! These Russians they're behind it all!

The majority of Democrats thought the Russians tampered with vote tallies, even though there isn't a shred of evidence for that. https://www.weeklystandard.com/mark-hem ... o-evidence