Putin Hints At US Election Meddling By 'Patriotically Minded' Russians (nytimes.com)

Two anonymous readers share a report: Shifting from his previous blanket denials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Thursday that "patriotically minded" private Russian hackers could have been involved in cyberattacks last year to help the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). While Mr. Putin continued to deny any state role, his comments to reporters in St. Petersburg were a departure from the Kremlin's previous position: that Russia had played no role whatsoever in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and that, after Mr. Trump's victory, the country had become the victim of anti-Russia hysteria among crestfallen Democrats. Raising the possibility of attacks by what he portrayed as free-spirited Russian patriots, Mr. Putin said that hackers "are like artists" who choose their targets depending how they feel "when they wake up in the morning."

Comments

The same 'Patriotically Minded' Russians

[plague911]

That invaded Ukraine and Georgia. Nothing to do with their government at all. Nothing.

Seriously Putin's word as a man is a joke

Re:Throwing them under the bus

[Rick Schumann]

Nonsense. What Putin wants is to make Russia into an empire again, but without all the baggage the Soviet Union had. A weak U.S. is a step towards weakening NATO, which is a major roadblock standing in the way of the conquest of Eastern Europe. Wouldn't at all be surprised if Russia was influencing the UK with regards to Brexit, since the UK leaving the EU will weaken the EU as well, which is to Russias' advantage, too. In general: Foment chaos in Europe, making it easier to build an empire. That's what Putin is after.

Re:Throwing them under the bus

[Nidi62]

On top of that, nobody that claims they wanted Trump to win can cite a single benefit that they have or would gain by having Trump in place,

Except for the fact that Russia had regular contact with multiple people in Trump's campaign who were in place to have considerably powerful roles in a Trump administration: Flynn, Manafort (until he got run out), Kushner, Sessions apparently, Page. And those are just the ones we know about. And don't forget the intercepts we have with the Russians stated that they believed they could influence Trump through Flynn. Other than putting a complete puppet into office, just about the best thing a state can hope for is an ability to directly influence the policies of a rival. Trump himself may not have had ties or contacts with the Russian government, but the Russian government was doing everything they could to make sure they had a man inside Trump's administration.

Fear Built on a House of Falsehoods

[Texmaize]

Sadly, the above post is typical of modern slashdot, where group think and unsubstantiated attacks are modded up as "smart.".

Statement 1: Weak and Ineffective US: This statement is founded on the premise that the United States is somehow weak and ineffective. There is no reasons given to back this claim, and non that could be possibly substantiated. What exactly do you suppose as made the U.S. weaker? Is it the call to increase U.S. industry by undoing horribly lopsided trade deals that drain our wealth? Is the U.S. made weaker by asking NATO members to actually contribute to their defense at a proportion to the GDP as ours? Is it made weaker by asking the press to cover both political parties with the same zeal, instead of cheerleading for one? I am confused by how weaker?

Statement 2: Illiterate President. As is well known, he has ran a successful multibillion dollar corporation. Although he did start with wealth, he increased it several times. A good analog would be Elon Musk, turning a small company Zip2 into larger ones through sales and mergers. Success at these levels is rarely the work of an illiterate. Disagreeing with someone does not make the illiterate, but it if you think it does that means you are intellectually close to one.

Furthermore, we know he graduated from Fordham and Penn with and economics degree. We do not know his GPA. In contrast, the previous president had failing grades at a private high school (read his autobiography) yet somehow got admitted to an Ivy league school, and his grades are also not known, but was not reported to be a great student. Did you hold him to the same criticism?

Alienate the press: CNN actually gave his opponent the questions for the debate. The coverage on the other networks were laughably biased, with numerous other errors and gaffs made. The press in the U.S. is no longer the press, but an arm of the democrat party. This is dangerous and tragic and should not be applauded. The press should be about uncovering truth, not suppressing it. Speaking of which... The whole Russia is blame part of this thread. Lets be clear about what happened. Hillary Clinton and the DNC conspired to fix the democrat primary. They controlled the media, the timing of events, and funding to make Berny Sanders seem like a buffoon and have no chance. In all honesty, he had drawn many of the same concussions about the system being corrupt as Mr. Trump, but offered different solutions. The press knowingly helped burry the story of the unfair primary election.

The Russian hackers helped bring to light these issues. Through them, we learned that the Sanders supporters were denied a legitimate shot. The Russians did not report anything that was untrue. Do you understand that? The Russians were the force of truth and light in this election. For that, we in the U.S. should be ashamed.

In this thread and others like it today, people are acting like the Russians made up horribly untruths and it cost Hillary the election. For some reason of nothing less than extreme stupidity, there are posters who conveniently seem to forget what the so called fake news was, and why it worked. Hillary attempted to fix the fucking election, and thankfully, despite a biased media, she got caught. The people who got cheated were angry, and did not vote. Its that simple.

So, instead of feeling this false righteousness because you hate the current president for no particularly good reason, look in the mirror. Please stop the bullshit character assassinations. Try to grow up, and hold all politicians to a high standard, instead of just one.