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Colin Powell's Private Email Account Has Been Hacked (theverge.com)
According to The New York Times, Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has been hacked and a password-protected archive of his personal emails has been published by DC Leaks. The Verge reports: DC Leaks is the same site that first published emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee, which many took as an explicit effort to influence the U.S. election process. Many experts in the U.S. intelligence apparatus have attributed that attack to the Russian government, although no public attribution has been made. Thus far, there's no evidence tying Powell's hack to Russia, and similar hacks have been carried out by mischievous teens without government affiliation. The immediate result of the hack has been political fallout for Powell himself. Last night, BuzzFeed News reported on an email in which Powell called Republican nominee Donald Trump a "national disgrace," and another in which he said the candidate was "in the process of destroying himself."
Even though he was an enthusiastic supporter of Obama.
This does not bode well.
He refers to Hillary as "unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still dicking bimbos at home." That didn't bore me at all!
The summary totally ignores Powell's extremely critical remarks about Hillary, her lies, manipulation, and the public exploitation of his name against his wishes.
A lie of omission is still a lie, and that you choose to ignore these facts makes them all the more critical to examine.
The immediate result of the hack has been political fallout for Powell himself.
The guy who has no political aspirations? Nah, he's untouchable politically because he has no ambition. He is like the Buddha of US politics: having no desires, he feels no pain at loss.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I would be comfortable with Powell in charge. He always preferred diplomacy over a military solution, and he was not in favor of any military action that didn't serve the interests of the US. We could do a lot worse than that.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
That's more than just tabloid material. It's indicative of the type of characters making decisions and taking actions on behalf of you and me. Guess who gets to pay the bill and clean up the mess when these types are done feeding their egos and wallets?
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
...except that Trump will win because it will become known that
Hillary is suffering from a serious, untreatable neurological condition
(some suggest Parkinson's) and will be unable to perform the duties
the Office of President of The United States requires. The large
meds she's on to appear healthy during her campaign are going
to cause her to crash and burn really bad (I don't wish her harm).
She can't continue at the level of meds she's on for any period of
time - Sunday was just the tip of the ice berg of what's ahead...
CAP == 'faults'
No, it was wrong intelligence. Or else, why did UK, run by a Left wing government run by Tony Blair, back that? They could easily have told the US that Iraq had nothing, and that would have worked, but everybody's intelligence agencies seemed to suggest that Saddam had chemical and/or biological weapons
Did you watch it? His best evidence was a satellite picture of trucks leaving a building. He had no evidence, and he presented no evidence. To his credit, he at least didn't try to show any fake evidence. To his everlasting shame, he did make it sound like the evidence was damning. Your horse shit is just more on the pile.
Play Command HQ online
I'm voting for Johnson.
His campaign has basically become: Not Trump *or* Clinton
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Uh, Trump is beating Hilary among Independents, even while trailing her overall. His biggest problem has been breaking past the 70% of Republicans - the RINO faction of the party - like people like Richard Armitage, Christie Todd Whitman, Susan Collins, et al have all thrown their lot behind Hilary. But if he can induce defections among Bernie supporters w/ things like his trade policies, as well as support from new mothers by Ivanka's childcare proposals yesterday, he can offset those GOP losses and give people like George Will, Jonah Goldberg, Steve Heyes, Charles Krauthammer, Megyn Kelly, Brit Hume, et al the finger
A lot of countries opposed toppling Saddam - Russia, France, Saudi Arabia, et al. Why didn't they produce evidence that Iraq did not have WMDs? Truth is that Iraq wanted to put out the impression that it had WMDs as a deterrence to Iran, w/o having them. Instead, the US took those hints and took out their regime.
FWIW, my only opposition to Saddam Hussein was his support to Hamas against Israel, and his $25k reward for each suicide bomber in Israel. I had nothing against his having WMDs or even using them (except against the Kurds). I had nothing against his annexing Kuwait, a completely useless country whose citizens have forgotten and who now commit Jihad acts against Americans, like the guy in Chattanooga. He was a useful deterrence to Iran, which is today a quasi superpower of the region. Now, the only obstacle to Iran's domination there is ISIS!!!
I have seen no indication that independents are leaning Trumpward.
None are so blind as those who will not see.
Latest Quinnipiac poll has Independents going for Trump 45-40.
Latest Reuters poll has Independents going for Trump 30-22.
As a reminder, Romney won the independent vote in 2012 50-45. Boring, milquetoast Mitt. Independents were 29% of the electorate that year. Do you really think that the number of independents will go DOWN this year? After Trump won more primary votes than any other Republican in history? After the kind of excitement and craziness we've seen on both sides of the aisle? Get the fuck out.
Yeah, there's going to be a landslide, alright. But its going to be completely opposite what you think.
To be fair, what evidence we do have suggests that intelligence services genuinely believed that at the time. They were wrong, but it was an honest mistake on their part.
Saddam himself went far out of his way to make it look as if he had the weapons. It was his way of discouraging conflict - not only from the US, but also from the Kurds, the Iranians, and every other local faction that hated his guts (which was most of them). In the end it backfired spectacularly, but it might still have been his best chance for hanging on to power.
You asked "why?"
why did UK, run by a Left wing government run by Tony Blair, back that?
1. Because warhawks are warhawks, and allies are allies, regardless of party affiliation. After 9/11, Europe sympathized with the US.
everybody's intelligence agencies seemed to suggest that Saddam had chemical and/or biological weapons
2. Actually, the intelligence agencies didn't suggest this. The politicians claimed that the intelligence agencies said this, but they really didn't. The agencies don't really speak publicly, they speak through the elected officials that they report to. We now know that what they told the president and prime minister isn't the same as what the president and prime minister said publicly.
For example: We now know that for example, at the time that George W. Bush gave a speech about the supposed "yellow cake uranium," that he knew it was falsified evidence but proceeded with the speech anyway. The UK did the same thing, leading up to the invasion, asking BBC reporters to basically make-up phony facts.
If you look back at the evidence, it was clear that the evidence was being used to justify an already decided-upon conclusion. For example: The UK and US cited a shipment of aluminum tubes as evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons. It turns out that the tubes were used for the much more mundane purpose of rockets. If you saw an aluminum tube that could be used for rockets or nuclear weapons, and you knew the country was developing rockets, why would you assert that these tubes are evidence of nuclear weapons? Certainly, it is possible. But they didn't present it as "well, it was probably used for rockets, but maybe it is for nukes (shrug)." It was presented as "OMG This is proof that they are developing nukes!" A lie of omission is still a lie.
You asked "Why?" It is important to understand why. It is because well-intentioned people can sometimes lie to support what they believe is right. The populus and the media in particular, must be vigilant against such things. The New York times, has since, apologized for being the white house's mouthpiece.
Europe's 9/11 sympathies for the US expired once Operation Enduring Freedom was complete, and Hamid Karzai was installed as Afghanistan's president. In that atmosphere, Tony Blair too could have taken an anti-US position, particularly given that it was a Conservative administration in DC.
That's exactly what I was arguing. Saddam wanted to scare particularly Iran by making them believe that he had WMDs. While the Iranians probably knew that he was bluffing, they also played very smartly in letting the US overthrow him, knowing that any democratic replacement of that regime - like happened in Kabul - would result in the Shi'ites coming to power, and the Iranians getting a Shi'ite crescent by default.
No, it was wrong intelligence. Or else, why did UK, run by a Left wing government run by Tony Blair, back that? They could easily have told the US that Iraq had nothing, and that would have worked, but everybody's intelligence agencies seemed to suggest that Saddam had chemical and/or biological weapons
Read the damned Downing Street Memos
The policy is to invade, and the intel is being fixed around the policy
That's 2002. Seriously, brownnosing Bush won't help change the war crimes committed in our name.
I haven't found many people that really like Hilliary although I have heard from a lot of people that say they will vote for her. I've heard more people that like Trump but there are still more that don't but say they will vote for him. So far it seems to me the one thing going for Trump is that he's not Hilliary. The number one thing going for Hilliary is that she's a Democrat. I know tons of people that would vote for Satan himself if he ran on the Democratic ticket.
The polls disagree with you. Since the incident where she was dragged away into her getaway van, her numbers dropped and Trump's went up.
Guess it's time for Reuters to "tweak" their polling algorithms again so that Hillary appears ahead. Wouldn't want voters to get the wrong idea now, would we?
Establishment cronies, globalists, oligarchs, and sketchy millionaire career politicians are the ones coming out against him in droves and using their money to influence this election as hard as they can. Why do you think there's so many news outlets that act as cover for Hillary's crimes, failings, faux pas, and issues while at the same time mustering everything they've got against Trump for every insignificant issue under the sun, taking things out of context or just outright lying about him? We always thought the media was biased in the past, but it's now beyond any shadow of a doubt.
If these people are against him, you know that means he's bad for their agenda. Their agenda is bad news for the average person.
So do you vote Hillary and give these people even more power to get their way and rip you off? Or do you take your chances and vote for Trump?
No one in Germany thought so, and they actually HAD curveball and said he was both unreliable and most likely a fraud
Meanwhile, Blix and Ritter BOTH told us the stories were a lie.
Powell, like any apparatchnik, protected the boss and lied.
They knew individual parts of the puzzle were a lie, they may not have realized the conclusion was also wrong.
Saddam having an active WMD program (at least wrt chemical weapons) made a lot of sense. He'd used them before to protect himself from Iran and suppress internal dissident. He even hinted that he did have WMDs since he wanted to scare away the Iranians.
My opinion at the time was three things.
1) Saddam probably had a WMD program.
2) Saddam was content to stay in Iraq and was not an imminent threat.
3) The desire to invade Iraq had very little to do WMDs or an immediate terrorism threat and was more a desire to remake the middle east.
I stole this Sig
Your comment has a false subject. Powell has said he will not yet say who he is voting for.
Your body is also highly questionable. I remember watching at least one speech in which Powell endorsed then-Senator Obama, but I don't remember anything that approximated "enthusiastic supporter". Nor do I recall any of the marks of enthusiasm such as actively campaigning for Obama or speaking at the Democratic convention. According to my research just now, Powell only made his endorsement two weeks before the election in 2008.
One obvious lie and a highly questionable comment in such a short comment? Let me predict you are a Trump supporter, and in that case the only relevant question is "Who do you hate most?" Every Trump supporter I've met so far has been a deplorable hater, and I can only pity them. Maybe some of them can grow into less hate-filled people?
Powell is a realist. His assessment of Hillary was not particularly favorable, though I'm not sure how they compare with his personal assessment of Obama. However, it is clear that his personal assessment of Trump is extremely negative. He personally might well prefer the positions of Johnson on many issues, but he knows America has a winner-take-all system, so I predict that he will ultimately endorse Hillary or say nothing.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Since so many don't give a shit about his New York mob connections in the past why would they care about his funding from Russian banks run by mobsters now?
If somebody had written a novel about this election a few years ago the editor would have thrown it at a wall and told the author never to darken the door again. A million unlikely things before breakfast. At least he's ditched the PR guy who also did the work for Russian fighters in Ukraine - hard to get a positive spin on shooting down civilian airliners.
I know tons of people that would vote for Satan himself if he ran on the Democratic ticket.
This is not unique to the Democrats. The exact same statement is certainly true of most Republican voters. I'd go so far as to suggest that Trump could have anal sex with Satan on TV and pledge his eternal allegiance to ISIS/Daesh/ISIL and he'd still win Texas. I can imagine Texas voters saying "I don't like it that he had sex with Satan and supports ISIS but I'm not voting for a Democrat". I've been to Texas recently. I have family that lives there. Yes, it really is like that. I estimate that as many as 80% of voters only care about whether the D or R is by a candidate's name and everything else is negotiable, but the only sources I could find that tried to track this kind of thing suggest that the percentage is actually around 60%. All I can say is that it seems higher to me.
I agree. I recall everyone making fun of him about his not knowing what Aleppo was. If you pay attention his attitude was that he could get by on general doctrinal thinking and didn't need the details: what would a libertarian think, and that happened not to be half bad (stay out), much better than most experts in my view.
Of course the attitude of going on general principles and not requiring specifics has its problems, but also libertarian thinking is often isolationist and then one doesn't need to know much about the foreign situation.
The reason nation building worked post WWII was that the countries involved already had democratic traditions, and self criticism, while somewhat new, was something those countries were capable of. The US didn't sit down to write constitutions from scratch - as far as West Germany went, they sat down and put together the list of things that Germans could not do. Things like putting together a constitution was something that the West Germans did, and it was nothing similar to the Third Reich. Same w/ Italy - no semblance to the Mussolini regime that had been overthrown.
That's a totally different situation from Afghanistan and Iraq. Like the mission of Operation Enduring Freedom was to topple the Taliban. What followed? The creation of a constitution in Afghanistan that states that no law shall contravene the rules of Sharia. So the same issues that one had in Afghanistan w/ the Taliban are just bound to return, and the only thing there is that the regime is not anti-US as the Taliban was. Spending billions on the reconstruction of Afghanistan to win 'hearts & minds' has bombed. How do you win the hearts & minds of people who have neither?
In Iraq, Saddam was toppled, w/ the naïve assumption that the replacement regime would be a Jeffersonian democracy, w/ Shi'ites and Sunnites singing Kumbaya. It never happened, and the reason it can't happen is that those 2 have a historical rivalry dating back to after the death of Mohammed. Like the fable of the 4 geniuses who put together a lion w/o stopping to think that the revived lion would eat them (or Trump's narration of Al Wilson's song 'The Snake' at his rallies), none of the geniuses in either the State Department or outside it stopped to consider that if the Shi'ites came to power in Baghdad, you'd have a Shi'ite Crescent of Teheran, Baghdad, Damascus and partially Beirut (w/ Hizbullah).
Allying w/ either side in this conflict - Shi'ite or Sunnite - is idiotic. None of them are our allies. While Obama deserves to be faulted for the Iran deal and a restrained policy towards Iranian boats taunting US Navy vessels in the Gulf, Bush too deserves to be faulted for regarding Saudi Arabia and Qatar as allies. The issue w/ Bush/Powell/Rice was that he saw them as 'people of faith', even though the faith in question is a barbaric one. Obama/Clinton/Kerry's problem is that when the Arab Spring started, they continued the Bush doctrine policies of 'promoting democracy' by supporting the Arab Spring, w/ disastrous results.
What was worse was letting Qatar and Saudi Arabia guide their policy on Syria. Granted - Bashar al Assad was no saint, but he wasn't running a genocide in his country when it all started. If anything, he was trying to reform things so that opposition to his regime from the Sunnis would decrease. However, the Saudis and Qataris wanted to replace his regime w/ a Sunni one in Damascus, and tried to first get the US to agree, and then used the Arab Spring as a pretext to support it. It's not like they were clean either - Bahrein too wanted democracy, and Saudi troops marched in to prop up the Hanafas. Anyway, they all started supporting their own favorite factions - be it the Free Syrian Army, Khorasan, and so on, and plunged that country into civil war.
The point I was making was that everyone who supported nation building, as well as getting rid of dictators and replacing them w/ whoever the people wanted, turned out to be wrong. The intervention in Libya, which was supported not just by Hilary & Obama but also by McCain and a whole bunch of Republicans across the board: they only turned on that policy once it turned south. This despite the fact that one of the few benefits of the Iraq war was Gadaffi voluntarily ending his WMD program, and doing what he could to restore relations w/ the West. Yeah, he was evil, but there was no reason to support his ouster when he was on a reformation trajectory. Now, Cyrenaica is completely under the control of ISIS, and Tripoli has a regim
I think both of you are over-attributing this to "voting for them because they're X" when it's more "voting for them because they're not Y".
I don't particularly like Clinton. I don't think she's a crook or a serial murderer or any of the other crazy conspiracy theories, I just think she's a bit more conservative than i'd really like. But there's no way i'm going to help throw the election to Trump by voting for anyone other than the person who is most likely to defeat Trump.
Until we get rid of the first past the post voting system voting either R or D says a lot more about who you _don't_ want to be president. (And voting for a third party says either that you (possibly mistakenly) believe your vote has 0% chance of making a difference or you really don't care who gets elected.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
My main problem with Johnson is he's pro-TPP.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Well he's not wrong, about a month and a half ago Reuters changed their polling method because it was showing 3rd party candidates taking more from Hillary than Trump.
The problem with polling in general is it is often used to influence the way people think rather than report on how they think. Many of the polling firms are marketing groups, not political scientists.
The problem with polling this election is that every poll I've seen relies on the assumption that the turnout demographics in 2016 will be the same as they were in 2012 or 2008, but no one justifies this assumption. I find it hard to believe that blacks will come out for Hillary the way they came out for Obama. On the other hand the white working class hasn't had anyone speak to them about trade and immigration like Trump has in pretty much forever.
I don't know what the turnout will be in November, so I can't "unskew" the polls. But since the pollsters never justify the fundamental premise of the polls, I can't trust them either. I would just take any poll numbers you see with a massive grain of salt.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.