Why all this discussion about Trump?
Do you really need the political stamp on the matter to see what has happened?
Trump runs and operates for himself before anything else, even before his country, like any real egomaniac would. He has no problems in lying, deceiving, disregarding his own words, and he knows when he does. A part of what he wants also benefits the US, but he does it because it benefits himself first. Never in his mind is the US before him. Do not forget.
During the campaign, he accepted any help he thought could help him. As any good egomaniac, he does not look too far in the future if the present gain/loss is high enough, and he doesn't take too much into consideration what other people may want (this is why he stinks at foreign politics), so when he saw that shady people from foreign countries were helping him, he let them do with no doubts. Regardless of the means used. He does not care about "unfair" or "not right", as long as it benefits him.
He knew he was getting that kind of help, and this was ok to him. And he used this knowledge to further his own cause, without thinking of the consequences. I don't think he is a puppet of Russia, but he was glad that Russia helped him because he wouldn't consider the covert implications. Also, Putin is good at this: he knows that if you pet a conflated ego in the right way, that ego will love you back; he did the same with Berlusconi, back in the days. Berlusconi genuinely thought he was a personal friend of Putin. Anyone with a grain of salt knows this is not the case. Trump works the same as Berlusconi, as it has the same underlying ego problem.
Trump got elected, and this was what Russia wanted; we should all think about why, because that's what really matters. Trump knows that he owe part of his victory to shady russian propaganda, and he doesn't care a bit. But he knows that public opinion does care, so he REALLY doesn't want the news of how much he did know to become public, and he tried multiple times to avoid it. The means he used are tied to his nature: he is first and foremost an egomaniac, not a psycho, so he doesn't want to taint himself or the image he has of himself, or maybe is just a bit cowardly, and he tried to convince other people to do the dirty job themselves.
This hasn't worked, because most of those working for him do it for money, interest and adulation, not for zealotry.
So here we are:
Has it conspired with Russia? No. It was a case of mutual interests (even if that's scary)
Did he know of the thing? Yes.
Did he know that this kind of help wasn't good? Yes, and he was ok with that.
Did he try to keep it secret? Yes, because he knew the public wouldn't like it.
Did he try to persuade some of his staff to obstruct the investigation? Yes.
Did he manage to get the investigation obstructed? Mostly not, because his entourage is composed of people who would refuse to bathe in sh*t for him.
[...]
I have no problem in principle with Twatter/Facegram/Instabook banning whoever they want, because to your point, they are still private entities, but the problem is they aren't consistent. They don't even follow their own terms of service. That most of the bans are only one one side of the ideological spectrum makes this even more suspect.
[...]
If they want to be left wing sites... fine, let them be left wing sites... just have the courage to outright SAY so.
[...]
But no, they can't. Because like mainstream media, they want to pretend they're unbiased, centrist organizations, which is complete bullshit. And when they do ban people on the left, they (or other media, see WaPo or NY Times) try and pass it off as someone from the right (Louis Farrakhan).
I have to agree, here, although things are not exactly as clearly specular: left extremism leads to idiocy and hate and violence in a much less obvious path than the right extremism, because the left start from peace and non-violence and then twists them madly, while the right goes towards violence altogether: it's easier to spot, recognize and refuse right-wing extremists than it is left-wing's. Many left-wing extremists do think they are peaceful and Gandhianly non-violent even as they are being jailed for beating people up.
The public opinion do the same: it sees right-wing hate well before left-wing hate, and the media try to please the public, so they'll be way more lenient towards left nutjobs than towards right nutjobs.