North Korea's Loch Ness Monster (2016)

> Available evidence strongly suggests Trump and his campaign coordinated with representatives of Russian government interests that involved both significant lawbreaking and a targeted media campaign that resulted in a victory for Trump that would not have occurred otherwise. Whether that's semantically equivalent to "colluded with Putin to cheat in the election" I don't know.

The Mueller report disagrees. What available evidence exactly do you have which the special council investigation did not? Cite your sources please.

> What you're saying, is itself an example of propaganda, in the sense that it's a simplification that while technically true leads a reader to reach a different conclusion that what actually occurred. And it's easy to do, because reality is complicated while disinformation can be simple.

No it's not, what I am saying is almost verbatim from the Mueller report. No evidence was found implicating Trump or his campaign of colluding (conspiring) with Russians. I can dig out quotes from it verbatim or cite page numbers for you if you have not read it or disagree. EDIT: I have done so in another reply, if you are interested.

> No, Donald Trump did not sit down in a hotel or pick up a phone and directly conspire with Vladimir Putin to scheme about how to change vote totals.

Strawman, that is not what was being argued against.

> Here's what is known to have happened:

> Trump publicly asked Russia for help https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/donald-trump-calls-...

Firstly, Rachel Maddow has a very poor and biased record on the whole Russia story. Part of the propaganda, I would say. So no need for that opinion piece, we can link direct to the actual video of the event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kxG8uJUsWU

This is not evidence that Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election. It's clearly a joke that is typical of his jokes during his campaign rallies. Does it not ring any alarm bells with you that this is the keystone "evidence" that gets wheeled out by people who claim they have proof Trump colluded with Putin?

What we actually know is that there was never any evidence that Trump colluded with Putin, the alleged evidence that was the foundation of the wire tapping and investigation was fabricated https://nypost.com/2021/11/09/ex-state-dept-spox-slams-schif... and prominent politicians on intelligence committees lied to the public about what evidence they had https://www.wsj.com/articles/all-the-adam-schiff-transcripts....

that's a very poor comparison to the outright falsehoods perpetuated by propaganda. Not only was the Trump campaign never exonerated of the collusion accusations, but several associates were convicted for their dealings with Russia related to the election and investigation:

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"If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime... A president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view – that too is prohibited."[164]

Dozens of ongoing investigations originally handled by the Special Counsel's office were forwarded to district and state prosecutors, other Department of Justice (DoJ) branches, and other federal agencies.[165] The following (in alphabetical order) were indicted during the Mueller investigation:

13 Russians implicated in election interference: Mueller's team indicted thirteen Russian citizens, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering with conducting social media campaigns about the U.S. elections.[166] Twelve of the Russian defendants, who were alleged to be members of the Russian GRU cyber espionage group known as Fancy Bear, were charged in June 2018 with hacking and leaking DNC emails.[167] The other Russian indicted, who was not a direct employee of Fancy Bear, was Russian business tycoon Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was alleged to have served as the financier for the organization.[168] The US government dropped all charges against Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering in March 2020.[154] In November 2019, Time magazine reported that it was "unlikely that any of the Russians will ever face a trial in the United States, but the charges make it harder for them to travel overseas".[169] Maria Butina, who had claimed to be a Russian gun activist, was investigated by the Special Counsel investigators and then prosecuted by the National Security Law Unit. She was imprisoned for espionage after entering a guilty plea.[170][171] Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer, pled guilty to making hush payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal in violation of campaign finance laws, and was convicted for several unrelated counts of bank and tax fraud.[172][173] Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who had been appointed as National Security Advisor by the incoming Trump administration, was dismissed from his position and later pled guilty to making false statements to FBI investigators about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition.[174][175] Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort's business partner in Ukraine, was indicted for witness tampering at the behest of Manafort;[176] Kilimnik is suspected of working for Russian intelligence.[177] Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman was found guilty on eight felony counts of tax evasion and bank fraud,[178] pursuant to his earlier lobbying activities for the Party of Regions of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich.[179][180] He later pled guilty to conspiracy to defraud and obstruction of justice;[181][182] in total, he was sentenced to over seven years in jail[183] in February 2018. George Papadopoulos, Trump campaign adviser, was convicted for making false statements to the FBI.[184] Roger Stone, a longtime Trump advisor who had met with a Russian person offering to sell derogatory financial information about Hillary Clinton,[185] was indicted on seven charges of lying to Congress and witness tampering. He pled not guilty.[186] The jury subsequently found him guilty on all seven counts.[187]

This exactly. I like comparing the absolute bottom denominator. I would never want to find myself in a US prison. They appear to be some of the worst in the 'developed' world.

I would easily choose a US prison over a North Korean prison, and one could even make a decent case of time in a US prison vs time as an average peasant in North Korea.

And unfortunately, we have many people who still believe Trump won the 2020 election.

If it was "propaganda" as opposed to credible, unproven allegations you'd be pointing us to paragraphs about how meetings between Trump campaign officers and Russian officials probably or definitely did not happen as alleged, not clutching at the straws of "did not find evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt [specific offence]" in an investigation which substantiated that there was contact between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives and resulted in criminal prosecutions of some of the participants for lying about that contact anyway.

When the OP suggest that claims of a South Korean built wall stretching the full length of the border are baseless propaganda, he's not doing so from the starting point that yes, there's obviously a wall going the full length of the border but we can't be confident of convicting its builders of criminal intent