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Former FBI Director Predicts Russian Hackers Will Interfere With More Elections (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the New York Times:
James B. Comey, the former director of the F.B.I., testified that the Russians had not only intervened in last year's election, but would try to do it again... Russian hackers did not just breach Democratic email accounts; according to Mr. Comey, they orchestrated a "massive effort" targeting hundreds of -- and possibly more than 1,000 -- American government and private organizations since 2015... As F.B.I. director, he supervised counterintelligence investigations into computer break-ins that harvested emails from the State Department and the White House, and that penetrated deep into the computer systems of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Yet President Barack Obama's administration did not want to publicize those intrusions, choosing to handle them diplomatically -- perhaps because at the time they looked more like classic espionage than an effort to manipulate American politics...
Graham Allison, a longtime Russia scholar at Harvard, said, "Russia's cyberintrusion into the recent presidential election signals the beginning of what is almost sure to be an intensified cyberwar in which both they -- and we -- seek to participate in picking the leaders of an adversary." The difference, he added, is that American elections are generally fair, so "we are much more vulnerable to such manipulation than is Russia," where results are often preordained... Similar warnings have been issued by others in the intelligence community, led by James R. Clapper Jr., who has sounded the alarm since retiring in January as director of national intelligence. "I don't think people have their head around the scope of what the Russians are doing," he said recently.
Daniel Fried, a career diplomat who oversaw sanctions imposed on Russia before retiring this year, told the Times that Comey "was spot-on right that Russia is coming after us, but not just the U.S., but the free world in general. And we need to take this seriously."
Graham Allison, a longtime Russia scholar at Harvard, said, "Russia's cyberintrusion into the recent presidential election signals the beginning of what is almost sure to be an intensified cyberwar in which both they -- and we -- seek to participate in picking the leaders of an adversary." The difference, he added, is that American elections are generally fair, so "we are much more vulnerable to such manipulation than is Russia," where results are often preordained... Similar warnings have been issued by others in the intelligence community, led by James R. Clapper Jr., who has sounded the alarm since retiring in January as director of national intelligence. "I don't think people have their head around the scope of what the Russians are doing," he said recently.
Daniel Fried, a career diplomat who oversaw sanctions imposed on Russia before retiring this year, told the Times that Comey "was spot-on right that Russia is coming after us, but not just the U.S., but the free world in general. And we need to take this seriously."
Of course they will. Did anyone think otherwise?
I guess if you really bought into the "Trump works with Russia" DNC story, then you would expect it to end.
But any rational person would realize that Russia, like the USA, will attempt to interfere in any election where they think they can get away with it and get an advantage.
...and National Security advisors of every other nation predict that that the United States will continue to interfere in their elections.
Hell, Obama intervened in the French election and no one in the MSM batted an eye.
after all, we are selecting between coca cola and pepsi cola. this needs to change or we are doomed.
The Soviet Union used propaganda and dirty tricks to try to interfere with EVERY US election they existed, and Russia just continues the tradition. They didn't call it fake news back then, it was just journalism with an agenda. Walter Duranty wasn't an accident, ya' know.
The only difference is that instead of stealing letters and publishing them, they're hacking email accounts and publishing them. Still no hacking of voting machines, still no manipulation of vote counts. In other words, still no 'hacking the election'.
And Hillary looked sooooo stupid up on the stage holding that giant Reset Button.
Yup. Just like Bush had months of daily warnings of an impending attack but chose to do nothing. Which led to the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Then Bush lied to the American people about the need to invade and occupy a foreign country which had nothing to do with the attacks, which led to the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers, over 250,000 Iraqi civilians and a $3 trillion+ price tag foisted on the American people.
Very Bush.
I love Tom Clancy books! Red storm rising is great because the useless weather sperg gets laid!
Y'know, I've watched as the left has argued the morality of Russia, in the Korean War (citing civilians killed by the US), in Iranian revolutions (never mentioning the KGB-supported power grab), in the VIetnam War (where they've taught forty years of history dividing the two sides into the good guys who the KGB supported, which conducted purges of the population after the war, and America), the various Central American communist parties, which are paragons of social justice until their economies collapse like Venezuela...
We even enacted a so-called peace deal with Iran where we released large amounts of money to them and the next _month_ suddenly Russia had the funds to bomb rebels in Syria at Iran's behest.
But suddenly, in the year 2016, after all that, it's important that we fight Russia, after giving them all those countries (never mind that they couldn't even hold onto the ones in Eastern Europe besides Belarus) and even giving (via Iran) the money to keep their Air Force afloat in bombs to drop on civilians.
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So the free world will fall apart if everyone in it knows the truth about their government? I find it interesting how US government justifies spying on their own citizens with "if you're doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" and yet calls anyone who informs the people they serve with what the government does an enemy of the state. It's not like they hacked the personal sex videos of the Clinton, or some embarrassing comments made off-the-record; what they allegedly exposed were facts that have to do with her profession and potential corruption. I get that exposing those possibly affected the outcome of the election, but shouldn't the voters be entitled to know what the politicians they vote for actually do?
Dear Globalist elite, I expect Russia, China, Israel, UK, etc to snoop just like we do. If "interference" is their exposing your crimes, so be it. If you can't do the time (or handle the slime), don't do the crime. I do think all the noise today is to ignore the Seth Rich murder case, to marginalize or overthrow a legitimately elected president, and to avoid accountability for many crimes including treason.
If you are alleging vote frauds, very simple. Liberals, Democrats and Rinos have pushed insecure voting and counting methods for years. I would welcome traceable, simple paper based systems with voter ID.
Given any honest efforts, the Russians don't worry me. But you do.
With the massive surveillance in place, if you can't immediately produce hard evidence, SHUT THE F*** UP and go away!
You imperialist scum will use any excuse to grab power. But this Russia nonsense is really taking the cake. If all it took is proving a candidate wasn't trustworthy then that is that candidate's fault and nobody else's. Don't shoot the messenger, it won't stop the leaks, just get good already. It's better to be honest, you won't have to write everything down.
Bush had months of daily warnings of an impending attack but chose to do nothing.
The intelligence provided the president is shared with congressional leaders, and as I recall was not what the intelligence community refers to as 'actionable intelligence' - there was nothing specific to act on.
You want to play the blame game, what about Clinton's siloing of the intelligence bureaus that prevented the field reports of the middle-eastern flight school students that had no interest in learning to take off or land, but only in controlling a plane once airborne from ever being investigated?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fb...
Ken
He's most pissed that he was being shitcanned while on the other side of the continent. No chance to clean up his office, shred stuff, etc.
I'm OK with him not being able to clean up his office, shred stuff, etc. - when you or I do it it's called 'destroying evidence'.
Ken
As usual the media noise machine has managed to deflect everyone from the real issue. Of course the Russians will interfere if they can. This last time around they probably didn't think when they started that it would work out so well but it did. It was a low cost, low risk enterprise probably intended to a) test the weapons and b) trim Hillary's wings rather than win Trump the White House.
Had Comey not done his political stunt with the Weiner's e-mails it wouldn't have flipped the election and I doubt they expected it to. Yet Nate Silver's numbers are pretty clear: Hillary had 6%+ lead until Comey did that and down 3%+ points after, close enough for the EC to do its thing. Had it not been for Comey the election would not have even been close.
As it turned out if Trump can manage it he will end the Russian sanctions which have been crippling to the Russian economy. Hillary would not have. She would have continued Obama policies. That is not a bad payoff for what this cyber op probably cost.
Back to the point at hand is Trump is most likely innocent in the part about the election. What has him worried is that he knows that if they keep digging on the investigation what will come to light is his deep financial dependents on Russian money interests, all of whom are either pals of Putin if not outright operatives of his office.
A month or so ago Trump had one of his lawyers write up a letter that declared that "nobody in Russia owes Trump money." While the Trump supporters view that (as intended) as some sort of vindication/valdiation the reality-based world realizes nobody ever thought he did. What the real problem is that Trump owes Russians (i.e. Putin money big time.)
For the last two decades no American based bank would loan Trump money due to his shady business practices and so the money he has been using comes from either Russia. Or China (a whole new issue.) So I would bet that a lot of Trump businesses are heavily leveraged in Russian debt and possibly in default. In other words Putin probably has the power to ruin Trump -- the U.S. President! -- and family financially with just a phone call.
That is what Trump doesn't want you to know and why he has been so eager to stop any investigation regarding Russia. It will come up eventually and the only real question is how far Trump will hang on and how far the Republicans in the house will go to protect him. Based on what has gone on so far is pretty damn far.
Comey who Democrat's some how loved after he got fired did same thing many times, intelligence on person looking to commit an attack yet did nothing. Fort hood, Pulse night club, San Bernadine, Boston marathon. All those they had intel on person that committed the attack yet nothing was done.
I think China is a hundred times more of a threat than Russia. Russia grandstands. They want attention. China doesn't want attention. ... Because they're an actual threat. They manipulate information, they manipulate currencies, they have tons of spies and the largest group of hackers on the planet. 27% OF ALL ATTACKS come from China, and as much as 47% can be tracked back to China. This is not a fucking joke. This is the calm before the storm. China has the largest standing military (over a MILLION MORE than the USA). For all the "military-industrial-complex" people harp on the USA (and it's warranted) 99% of the public has no idea how big a threat China is becoming.
And manipulating the election? China does that too in both the US and the UN. Google it.
We've also had tons of ACTUAL state secrets "leaked" and straight up SOLD to China. Not this "war in iraq"/"poor civilians got shot" shit that's just a PR blunder. ACTUAL secrets that represent tens of BILLIONS of dollars and decades of US research that ends up overseas. Like ultra-high resolution modern radar systems. We're paying for it, and they're benefiting from it.
Here's a report from 2017 that China is reaching "near parity with the West's military." That should horrify you. China does not give two shits about your civil liberties or peace among nations. They've been the sole reason North Korea hasn't been bombed into dust. Why? Because it's in their best interests.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
Russia is a freaking distraction. An underdog. China is a resting giant quietly growing a military capable of conquering new territory.
I don't think I've ever seen someone argue the morality of any particular country that they didn't live in. It seems like you may be conflating people's desire to avoid war and the involvement of foreign nations in wars.
I also don't think we should be fighting Russia but we should be defending ourselves from all forces that seek to mislead the public, both foreign and domestic.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Obama didn't do nothing, he got the actions documented so that the incoming administration would have justification to go to war. Going to war is what you really want, right? You should spend your pre-teen angst on figuring out the most evil way to retaliate.
In other news, Nigeria will continue to pull 419 scams. The thing that people don't understand is that Russian and Chinese hackers, both state sponsored and independent, try to hack/phish everything on the internet.
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that Comey is saying what people already know well, a recent poll shows folks believe him over the predisent (sic) 5 to 1.
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Some of you seem like you don't even read the news you comment on. Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats when he found out, closed the embassies they were housed in and accused them of using the premises the conduct espionage.
See the email leak smear attempt just two days before the French presidential election for a more recent example.
If it did exist with all the OTHER crap Obama hold overs have leaked, that evidence likely would been as well. As it would help push their narrative but since nothing has leaked shows likely there is nothing to leak
Nutsign detected: vague non-specific claims with "Google it" instead of providing links to corroborating evidence.
Russia is after its old glory and aims to destroy the rest of the world to get it. There is no ambiguity, there is no hesitance. Putin is evil and must be removed. Russia must be reformed again, and it may require that Putin is assassinated first. He is poised to invade the Baltic with paratroopers, and NATO can't defend anything at its current readiness. War is inevitable, and taking initiative is the primary concern.
Don't try to hide the only strategic analysis of revealed Russian aggression. They must be fought directly and quickly or the losses will be even greater.
There has been a few Democrat's even one on the senate intelligence committee that came out and there is NOTHING. He said there is a lot of smoke but no gun. If i remember right as well that "company" that examined the DNC servers even back tracked on their claims it was russia.
As an outsider i'm quite shocked that this isn't a bigger scandal than it is in the US. I think the only reason is a group of people are in flat-out denial when it comes to anything that might tarnish Trump's image.
This is Cold War shit all over again.
SO far they claimed Russia hacked the 2016 election ...
Really? The only ones I have seen make that claim are pundits on Fox News and Breitbart trying to defend their 'Dear Leader', the greatest negotiator of all time. Most of the rest of the media claims the Russians hacked the DNC and used carefully timed leaks of that information in an attempt to influence the voting behaviour of the US electorate.
I have to say, I used to be all for civil liberties; but now that I'm told that these devious Russians are trying to influence our elections, well then obviously what we need is strict controls in place to shutdown all that FAKE NEWS and ensure that our news sources publish only Real News! Why isn't anybody talking about this!!!!!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Republicans who were communicating with Russians who were being monitored had their conversations picked up. There was no "active wire tapping and spying on a republic candidate for president". None. Zero. Claiming that is like getting busted at a sweep of a whorehouse and then whining that "they" are out to get you.
The thing is - China isn't going to invade America. They will fuck with Asia.
And the rest of the world that is so mad at America ? They can go get fucked. Good luck. Deal with that tiger on your own.
But I like all the Russian shit posting propaganda, now when someone says something I disagree with I can just to myself 'oh you silly Russian, real Americans like myself don't think that way'... Hey don't knock it, without this crutch I would have lost all faith in humanity months ago!
I like the Russian method of regime change more than the American way. I think the population of most of the countries that the US bombed agrees with me.
In Soviet Russia, government chooses YOU!!!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I've always wondered, if the Iraqi people had the choice to go back in time and keep Saddam and his progeny instead of what they have now, would they? At the time they seemed very happy when he was removed.
it's almost as if times can change, or that hindsight is 20/20. See, this is the trouble with the Right. Zero ability to adapt to change. If Russia was an Ally yesterday they're always gonna be an ally, right? Oh, and no shades of grey. Russia's either balls to the walls evil and needs to be exterminated or our ardent friend.
As for Iran, they were well on their way to modernizing before we put a bunch of religious nuts in power. There's pictures of girls in Iran wearing the sorts of skirts that wouldn't have been out of place in 1960s America before we screwed with 'em. And don't get me started on the shit we do and did in South America so Code can sell cheap sugar water.
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In this post-fact world, you don't need any proof. You just repeat the same things over and over and eventually it becomes facts.
I like this site and I really liked it when the byline used to be "News for nerds Stuff that matter". Is there an extension or bookmarklet or something that I can use to filter out stories based on keywords? Keywords like Comey, Trump, Government, Clinton, Democrat, Republican, Brexit, and on and on? I sure would like that. I really would.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
The biggest threat in the world is actually USA, they are the only country that has troops all over the world.
I thought we were still blaming the Russians... or didn't they do this?
The media obviously knows more than we do, so the fact that they're publishing story after story about this without any evidence proves that it is true.
Look at you here making up your own history.
The Left had a problem with US actions during the revolutions in Iran because we overthrew a democraticaly elected government and installed a dictator. When the Iranians found out they went apeshit which is how we got the modern day Iran and all of the problems that come with it.
The Left has had a problem with the vietnam war because of lives lossed and the fact that both the French and Americans knew that the communists would win any election that was put forward so not only were our actions antidemocratic they were doomed to failure.
Finally, the American Left has never been a fan of the South American nations you mention in any real mainstream way. ("Oh but Bernie said something nice about Venezuela once!" Shutup)
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
... always face forward.
There's no news value here.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Obama was correct. They can't be rigged, but Putin rigged them.
You may be right.
https://www.independent.co.uk/...
http://fortune.com/2017/04/12/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
My God, this is getting more tedious than the McCarthy hearings.
I'm still waiting for someone who has the guts to ask the Democrats "Have you no shame!!"
Unfortunately the answer to that question in this case is yes, the Democrats have no shame...
Some good news about China stealing the information because if they have taken the plans for the F-35 their fighter program will be set back by decades!
I'm not sure whether you're going for "funny" or "insightful"; perhaps you're going for "funny" but getting modded "insightful". So for the benefit of the irony impaired:
SO far they claimed Russia hacked the 2016 election but yet not 1 piece of proof has shown that to be true, only so called "hack" that happened on elections was by the DNC
Gee, how do we know about the so-called DNC "hacking" exactly [note 1]?
as well as in states like California letting people vote that don't even hold US citizenship.
California did no such thing. What California did was pass two separate laws, one of which enabled American citizens to register to vote when they obtain a driver's license, another of which provided a separate registration process that allows undocumented immigrants to obtain licenses. That process does not include voter registration, for obvious reasons.
note 1: the DNC did not "hack" the election. It just worked for HRC and against Sanders, which pissed of some Sanders voters, but in fact was legal both by US law and the party bylaws (you *have* read your party's bylaws, haven't you?)
The DNC, like the RNC, is not an impartial, non-partisan organization. Both national committees are power centers which, by design (those bylaws again) serve the party insiders. The way you deal with people using the national committees in ways you don't like is you put your own people on them.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Jesus, who keeps modding this guy up?
/. that they noticed an increase in pro-Russia/Putin/Russian agenda type posts over the past couple of years. My first thought was, "That's a cute conspiracy theory." But now I'm seriously wondering if it's true.
The other day, someone posted on
I've always wondered, if the Iraqi people had the choice to go back in time and keep Saddam and his progeny instead of what they have now, would they? At the time they seemed very happy when he was removed.
If they had such an option they would probably want to return to a point in time to prevent Bremer from disbanding the Iraqi army and delaying Iraqi's from taking control of the government. These two decisions by Bremer, a career diplomat who served numerous administrations, essentially started the insurgency and created an opportunity for al-Queda in Iraq.
The generals and the White House had originally planned on using the Iraqi army to maintain security and law and order; and getting elections going as soon as possible to create a new constitution and government.
The problem with Iraq wasn't really the invasion, it was the occupation that followed.
Three different government agencies agreed on Russia attempting to interfere with the latest election.
I'd like to see some evidence of this. How exactly did they interfere? What did they do? Did they buy electors? Did they leave some kind of paper trail? Swiss bank accounts? WTF are you talking about?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
And that's all they talk about, to distract from the heart of the matter. It's nothing but a 'shoot the messenger' campaign. The DNC and Clinton were behaving in an unethical manner, and the Russians leaked the evidence of it. The underlying unethical behavior should be the focus. And yes, the retort is that they only leaked information on one party, but a) that doesn't absolve the DNC and HRC of what they did, b) What they did pales in comparison to what Trump openly did anyway, and c) They almost certainly alienated even more voters who realized a) and b) and watched them try to scream about Russians stealing the election anyway.
And no, I'm not a Trump supporter, because Clinton was still the lesser evil by miles. Thinking that anyone who says anyone other than Russia was at fault is automatically a Trump supporter is another thing that's just alienating even more people so that they stay home and cost the Dems the midterms and next presidency too.
Maybe if the US didn't have to make things so overly complicated on voting day by having electronic voting booths then you wouldn't have to worry about hacking. Hand the voter a couple of ballots, one for each thing they are voting for, and they put an X on each one. It's simple and it works. Secure and easy to (re)count.
But then there's this fascination of voting for so many positions. Like clerks. Why do you need to vote for clerks? They are part of the civil service. And some states elect judges. WTF? There's nothing to run on to be a judge. You apply the law without prejudice. At least you are supposed to. (Something else I don't understand about the US as you have judges that bring their own interpretation based on their beliefs.).
Cut down on the number of elected positions and you have a couple of ballots for people to mark which means they can use paper like many places in the world where it works quite well.
Bush had months of daily warnings of an impending attack but chose to do nothing.
The intelligence provided the president is shared with congressional leaders, and as I recall was not what the intelligence community refers to as 'actionable intelligence'
From what I recall McConnel threatened to basically rebuke obama. link That still seems odd and Obama should have spoken more forcefully.
The main problem is garbage in garbage out. CItizens are poorly informed at the best of times, let alone when they are fed raw sewage thanks to the alt right and all the fake crap. For the good of our country, it would be best that if politicians stood together and defended it. The other options are attacking back with cyber weapons to expose truth, or just blindly hoping a more active press and more informed citizenry will protect us. That seems a poor strategy.
The Russians have been interfering for decades, hell in Europe the Green parties received huge amounts of funding from the Soviets back in the day. In the 90s the Chinese were working hard to funnel money secretly to the Clinton campaign.
And despite all the interference all the US intelligence agencies agree. There is no evidence that votes were tampered with; nor the outcomes of the election changed.
And even from Hillary, there is no dispute that the damaging emails were fake, merely that they were stolen.
Because Russian hackers hacked an insecure email system and let the information be freed instead of say Chinese hackers it's the Cold War again? It's only the Cold War if the democrats want to restart one and it certainly seems that they do. Even if the Russians do want to influence our elections so what? Unless you can actually prove some kind of crime that's just SOP. We do the same. In fact we do much worse.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
There has been no declassified evidence officially made public. Big difference. And that is the way it should happen.
Glad one of you war mongers at least admitted it. No evidence. No crime. Period. You expect popular support without evidence? Forget it.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
The job of an Intelligence Agency is to gather the data, process it to gain intelligence, and present it to those who need to know. When you gather too much you bury the agencies so they can't process it to generate useful intelligence. America is spending too much effort on spying (data) and not enough on intelligence gathering. You have all the pieces but can't do anything with it.
So where is the actual meat of the proof? Where are the actual technical proofs? Logs, times, IP addresses? Please.
Nutsign detected: vague non-specific claims with "Google it" instead of providing links to corroborating evidence.
No. Some of us are old enough to remember and its only the "kiddies" who need to Google things. Some of the top links for Clinton and Chinese donations.
... According to congressional investigators, Ng laundered the illegal campaign donations through a close Clinton associate in Arkansas named Charlie Trie during the 1996 election."
"The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by the People's Republic of China to influence domestic American politics prior to and during the Clinton administration and also involved the fund-raising practices of the administration itself.
While questions regarding the U.S. Democratic Party's fund-raising activities first arose over a Los Angeles Times article published on September 21, 1996, China's alleged role in the affair first gained public attention when Bob Woodward and Brian Duffy of The Washington Post published a story stating that a United States Department of Justice investigation into the fund-raising activities had uncovered evidence that agents of China sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) before the 1996 presidential campaign. The journalists wrote that intelligence information had shown the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. was used for coordinating contributions to the DNC in violation of United States law forbidding non-American citizens or non-permanent residents from giving monetary donations to United States politicians and political parties. A Republican investigator of the controversy stated the Chinese plan targeted both presidential and congressional United States elections, while Democratic Senators said the evidence showed the Chinese targeted only congressional elections. The government of the People's Republic of China denied all accusations."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe invited the Chinese businessman whose donations to him have been named as a focus of Justice Department investigators to a 2013 fundraiser at Hillary Clinton's personal Washington, D.C., residence. Wang Wenliang, a Chinese national with U.S. permanent residency, briefly shook Clinton’s hand at the Sept. 30 event, a representative for Wang told TIME. An American company controlled by Wang made a $60,000 contribution to McAuliffe’s campaign three weeks before the fundraiser. Less than a month later, a separate Wang company pledged $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation, the first of several donations that eventually totaled $2 million."
http://time.com/4348675/terry-...
"Ng, a Macau businessman with ties to the Chinese government, was accused of funneling over $1 million in illegal foreign donations to support Bill Clinton's reelection campaign in 1996. "Ng, a Macau businessman with ties to the Chinese government, was accused of funneling over $1 million in illegal foreign donations to support Bill Clinton's reelection campaign in 1996
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
The point seems more that the current president Donald J Trump only came to power with the assistance of foreign powers that have no regard for the actual wishes of the people of America, and indeed, seek to harm the nation. That's the takeaway - that his recent actions in attempting to stifle the probe into the relationship between members of his campaign team and the Russians is symptomatic that they, or he personally, put ambition ahead of the nation, and there is a strong potential that he (or they) should be impeached, indicted, and then spend time in federal prison.
Countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, much of the EU, and many others, have generally been strong supporters of freedom, democracy, and human rights. Together, they are powerful to defend those values.
Wait, what? When? In this century? That hasn't been true for a long time.
There is no reason to 'push back' against Russia. Whatever they did there is no evidence and even if they really did say buy some electoral votes or something you know what? It doesn't matter. Use that knowledge to improve the system so it isn't so vulnerable to corrupt electors. Although the electoral system does seem inherently vulnerable to bribery it has always been that way. Maybe it's time to dump it, but our insecure outdated election system is no reason to go to war with Russia, something that is always a bad idea. This isn't even worth saber rattling about. It's nothing. Not a big deal. Even if it's true and so far there is zero evidence that it is. At best some Russian hackers hacked some emails and set some information free. If certain people were not tech illiterate their emails would have been strongly encrypted and not stored for any length of time, especially not in an insecure location. But I'm happy with email leaks because it gets the information out there. I'd be just as happy to see Trump's emails. The more information the world has about our leaders the better.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
There is no reason to think his replacement would be better. The US Government has a long history of overthrowing other countries governments, and it never turns out better. Ex. Iran led to islamic extremists ruling Iran, Iraq led to ISIS.
The relentless pursuit to prove there was a connection with Russia is creating far more damage than the Russians (allegedly) managed to do. Hard to imagine Russians getting a better return for their efforts.
Country != continent.
That, in fact, is "classic espionage".
Anybody who claims to be surprised that Russia is trying to spread propaganda or obtain secrets on US government officials obviously has been so out of touch with reality that they have no business being in government. Ditto for any US government official whose computer security is so weak that Russian espionage attempts are successful.
The ODNI went into some detail on the matter: https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
One of the problems I see is how local and state governments want to do elections on the cheap and save a few bucks with the election process. That is also why they buy machines from the lowest bidder, don't care about securing the voting machines (like the infamous Dibold crap), and don't bother verifying a voting trail to make sure the elections are secure. Heck, a chain of custody for the votes themselves is often hard to prove from the voter to the final voting total as well.
In other words, a whole lot of room is there ripe for fraud even without Russia getting into the act.
As much as at first I didn't like the idea, I'm really warming up to public funding of elections too. While not perfect, such public funding where candidates have the chance to present their platforms mostly free of financial campaign raising is also a good way to get rid of foreign influence too, as well as to debate ideas and not simply let the wealthiest candidate win. While a Russian diplomat can presumably bribe a member of Congress or a presidential candidate with a few million dollars, public funding would move that into a flagrant bribe and not merely something that can be whitewashed with being a campaign contribution through 3rd parties (since foreign governments aren't permitted legally to finance political campaigns... not that stops it from happening though).
Actually, 55% of Democrats believe that the Russians modified vote totals to elect Trump, according the most recent YouGov/Economist poll. This is roughly the same response rate that we've seen since December, 2016 - 50%-60% believe it.
Well it now seems that the Russians tried to attack election officials and voting machine manufacturers so there may be some fire to go with that smoke although only time will tell how much luck the Russians had with that approach. I always thought it was kind of stupid to hack the actual voting machines and counting mechanism. Just getting 'kompromat' on the candidate you don't like regarding some US specific hot button issue and releasing it at strategic moments was always much more likely to be effective and still retain some semblance of plausible deniability.
And that's all they talk about, to distract from the heart of the matter. It's nothing but a 'shoot the messenger' campaign. The DNC and Clinton were behaving in an unethical manner, and the Russians leaked the evidence of it. The underlying unethical behavior should be the focus. And yes, the retort is that they only leaked information on one party, but a) that doesn't absolve the DNC and HRC of what they did, b) What they did pales in comparison to what Trump openly did anyway, and c) They almost certainly alienated even more voters who realized a) and b) and watched them try to scream about Russians stealing the election anyway. And no, I'm not a Trump supporter, because Clinton was still the lesser evil by miles. Thinking that anyone who says anyone other than Russia was at fault is automatically a Trump supporter is another thing that's just alienating even more people so that they stay home and cost the Dems the midterms and next presidency too.
I agree, the Democrats behaved unethically but quite frankly, having taken a look at Donald Trump's extensive record of unethical behaviour (excluding the hullabaloo about Russia), the Democrats look like a bunch of Eagle Scouts by comparison.
China is only a scary boogieman if you ignore all of the serious internal issues they have. They're undergoing a socioeconomic change the pace and scale of of which the world has never seen before. That can't continue if they need to divert resources to a war. It's not clear if it can continue anyway, given the serious raw material and energy shortages they have.
A million plus man army is indeed staggering, but china has 1.3 billion people that are increasingly exposed to and embracing the standards of living in the west. Hundreds of thousands, now perhaps millions of young people educated in the west, and who saw the freedom the west has. While I don't discount that China has stolen vast amounts of tech from the west, and is using this to make dramatic leaps forward, their current struggle is to take care of themselves. More and more goods are not being shipped to the west, and are instead kept for their own populace.
The major issue is this rapid pace is slowing down, and a half billion Chinese still live in abject poverty. Large swathes of China still aren't electrified. China's rapid growth is not impacting half of the country, and that's causing a lot of unrest. As China's manufacturing growth slows and exports continue to drop off, that's going to really impact their economy. None of this is conducive to them being a world military power. Regional? Sure. But definitely not one that's going to go out and conquest. That's just a fever dream.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
You're right, the Republicans 'hacked' the election and cost Hillary the Presidency - when will the Democrats start their investigation into those pesky Republicans and their 'better than thou' candidate that WASN'T under an FBI investigation?!?!
Ken
You're right, George W. Bush started Project Echelon in the mid-sixties... oddly, I'm not sure why he did that when LBJ was President?
Ken
Announced what? I don't believe anything they say without evidence. I don't think presenting their evidence is an unreasonable request and until they do...well I am certainly not going to take anything those liars say on faith. They aren't just liars. They are evil liars.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I guess what this really means is the DNC will continue to take ethically bankrupt actions that they document by email which are then leaked by Russian hackers?
Maybe the DNC and Democrats in general should simply cease doing so many illegal and unethical things that are so damning when exposed?
Nah. Like Spice, the Graft must flow!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Where is this detail of which you speak?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Everything China is doing, Russia tried to do. Russia never managed to build the factories required to rule the information age. China got smart and got other countries to build the factories for them. Little surprise that technology was copied by the Chinese military.
You mean their war-mongering, political manipulation and economic terrorism will be worse than the USA's identical behaviour. Possibly, since the USA also worked to be a good example of governance and capitalism during the 20th century. This century, the dogs called China, USA, Russia and even India are unleashed. No-one wants to be a force for peace.
Why; because they're willing to disrupt the global hegemony benefiting Western nations? I can't imagine the effect that will have on the 'peace' enjoyed by Western nations, however the disruption has begun.
Have a look at Syria: It's not like Korea, Vietnam, Taliban Afghanistan, Russian Afghanistan, Iraq; where one country had to fight several armies, including the world's richest. In Syria, ISIS, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Russia, USA (and allies) are all fighting different sides of the one war. It took much less chaos to start two global conflicts.
What should be horrifying Western nations is the possibility of that war spreading. The refugee problem it created has seen a religious war expand in Africa and be adopted by the settled enclaves of immigrants in Europe. But we call the warring acts of 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants, terrorism. Western nations make the mistake of not identifying the religious solidarity causing that terrorism and not responding to the home-grown nature of terrorism. Well, they are responding with cyber-surveillance and push-button policing but it isn't working against low-tech terrorism. Something needs to change.
Read the doc. It has a good overview of state-mandated propaganda and hacking attempts from Russia to undermine the election, how they targeted and gained access to DRC infrastructure since Jun 2015 and how information potentially damaging to Clinton was strategically leaked through Guccifer, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks.
If you want more proof you'll have to wait for the original, highly classified assessment (sic) to be released.
Well, if we don't want the Russians to interfere with "elections", then maybe we should stop having them!
That worked out really well for Germany in the 1930's. And then worked out wonderfully for the rest of the world in the 1940's. :)
To be honest, I think that a much better system would be to simply hold a lottery made up of interested citizens that could serve in a legislative capacity and help make the laws rather than holding elections. This is called a Sortion election, something that even dates back to ancient Athens as a governing body selection process. IMHO those who would serve in such legislative bodies would be far more representative of ordinary citizens, hold proportionally similar views of the general public at-large, and such a selection process would be completely free of all of the corruption that comes from the lobbying groups that finance political campaigns. Lobbyists would still exist, but their influence would be substantially diminished and would really only be able to represent their constituency alone. Bribery would need to be blatant... and ineffective so far as their "bought" politicians would be leaving office at the end of the term.
If you feel that you need experienced legislators on a national or federal level, you could have such candidates for a national legislature (aka the U.S. Congress) made up of those who have served for some time on a state or even local level.
There are obviously some problems with such a selection process, but I think that would be far less complicated than the current electoral process.
SO far they claimed Russia hacked the 2016 election ...
Really? The only ones I have seen make that claim are pundits on Fox News and Breitbart trying to defend their 'Dear Leader', the greatest negotiator of all time. Most of the rest of the media claims the Russians hacked the DNC and used carefully timed leaks of that information in an attempt to influence the voting behaviour of the US electorate.
How about Rolling Stone? Are they an alt-right media outlet, too?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
When you view everything through a partisan lens you end up blind to the way the world actually works.
The truth is, Washington isn't a two-party city. Political parties are just one set of power centers. Comey has always put the FBI's interests ahead of all other groups. Sometimes that syncs up with the republicans, sometimes that syncs with democrats, but when it does that's mostly just chance, not collaboration. As far as Comey's concerned, the Bureau comes first.
Mass interception of international telegrams was going on long before the sixties. Project SHAMROCK began in 1945. The second world war and the espionage going on during it fundamentally changed the relationship of the state to the citizen. That horse left the barn during your parents' or grandparents' lives, and privacy in communication is not coming back unless everyone embraces strong crypto without backdoors, exactly what Comey as US FBI director and May as the UK prime minister have opposed.
It's a simple choice really.
Either open source the E-voting systems so exploits and generally bad things can be found, fixed and secured . . .
or
Go with the Russia* solution and revert back to old school methods by dropping E-Voting completely.
*Recall the story where they quit utilizing computers and switched back to typewriters for sensitive documents when spying revelations became apparent.
Paper methods are a PITA for sure, but also impossible to manipulate with a simple keystroke.
Astroturfing has definitely been a thing here with some obvious MS funded posts and some political stuff from obvious clueless interns or campaign workers so it's possible this site may have been one of many targeted by a different bunch of "social media workers".
It's not an expensive thing to do after all.
While you have a point about China there is a great deal more to worry about with Russia since it's happening more in a military sphere than an economic one.
Also that's the second link to "Business Insider" I've seen here today as if it's a credible source on something other than it's core topic - if even that. Did Idiocracy happen over the weekend or something and I didn't notice? National Enquirer links next?
Maybe if you read something else you'll get a clue as to why people are seeing Russia as threat - especially pay attention to what Putin has been saying about the USA since the 1990s.
In addition, the anti-Obama posts are a related form of propaganda. First, they imply that whatever Trump is doing is OK because Obama was worse. Besides being factually incorrect (i.e. lying) it is nonsensical because two wrongs do not make a right. Imagine a presidential campaign run the on the slogan "Not as terrible as the last time". That would not get anyone elected, so why is it being brought up now?
Attacks on Obama by Trump trolls are also disinformation intended to undermine people's belief in the integrity of the political process. It's another classic propaganda technique that the Russians like to use. Not that they are the only ones who do this, but it is a favorite, just like their use of poison as an assignation technique.
Are there individuals on the internet who are doing this deliberately on behalf of the Russian government. The answer is absolutely yes. Intelligence sources have said so on multiple occasions. Additionally there is a vast amount of home grown propaganda generated by the US right wing. Fox "News" presents slightly less crazy distortions of reality, but online and radio media outlets spew deranged concepts that are a full on propaganda storm. They are now doing a lot of the heavy lifting for Russians without any overt cooperation.
The short version: the US right is a threat to democracy and Putin and his crew are very happy about it.
Why is Snark Required?
That's a mighty fine strawman you've built there stranger.
How about we saddle up and search for the Jackolope that looks like it.
Good questions - an investigation could answer those if it isn't shut down.
Getting the point yet?
Russian interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation? Really? Let's compare that to the king of manipulators- the USA. Ask any insider in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East or Germany or Russia ... The USA is there, with the carrot and the stick, arranging weapons contracts, CIA connections, generous bribes, commercial alliances, and assuring that the 'right' people win elections. Maybe the US has achieved a level of subtlety and control over the press that makes these activities seem less significant, but you can bet that they are well supported with our tax dollars.
...omphaloskepsis often...
I think your post has reached peak partisan stupidity.
This is all just fallout from Trump doing anything he could to win an election and Putin taking advantage of the chaos. Discussing the issue improves the situation and does not "damage" anything other than deservedly damage the election prospects of a few people in a few years time.
Did your earlier discussion of Hillary's email server create damage? No? Then why should this? Why one rule for your party and another for everyone outside it? Do you really want to push that Russian sort of approach?
To hack the US election a lot of people from Russia would have to arrive into the USA for "work".
The FBI would notice that.
Drive out to the different US states.
Seek and get secure work with surrounded by existing election workers.
The FBI would notice that change in the number of election workers in each state.
Once the votes are counted within every state any hacking would be noticed at a state and federal level.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
There is no corelation hacker with Russia. What is the benefit for Russia anyway?
Comey has NO credibility left. He leaked information for his own benefit.
I just said this here last week: The Russians post comments on Finnish news sites and forums in Finnish. If they have the time and the resources to do propaganda on sites with readerships that are a tiny tiny fraction of /.'s, there's absolutely no doubt that they're actively posting and moderating here as well.
The way they operate in the social media is by having vast amounts of bots/fake accounts, usually with western names. Then they push out articles through their own media corps directly (RT etc,) or via 3rd parties like different conspiracy sites and communities that then share these on FB & al. Then they use the bots to 'moderate' these post for high visibility with likes and shares. In here, probably some of their people just gather mod points and then other write posts which the modders then vote up.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
So while the FBI is setting up "them roooskies" as the boogie man of interfering with sovereign nation's democratic process, is that just to keep attention away from the american covert service's own programme for doing the same?
Many bodies seem to identify hacks as being "russian" due to the content of some of the code used - which contains fragments of other (known) "russian" hacks. But to recognise those code fragments, you have to have them. And if you have them, couldn't you be using them, yourself?
It is no different from selling weapons to "friendly" terrorists (aka insurgents, if they are on your side) that you sourced from enemies of the government you are targetting. So when they are found, there is no route that traces them back to the puppet-master.
America has a long tradition of influencing foreign governments, toppling dictators and installing their own leaders. Especially in central america. We should expect that they have not given up on this sort of activity. And what better way than online? Since nobody seems to be "finding" evidence of CIA hacks, is that because there are none, or because they are disguised as "russian", instead?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
There was a good article in a local satire magazine recently about how belief in almighty russian hackers is now a recognized religion.
Russians are tricky, that's for sure. My girlfriend is Russian and I occasionally admire her ingenuity. And Putin is not a man to pull any blows (find some videos on YouTube how he tells his ministers that they care idiots unable to do their jobs).
But how did we come to this new McCarthyism where everything is blamed on russian hackers, as if a) there were no chinese, indian, european or american hackers and b) hackers are the only possible answer, not intentional leaks, misdirection, scaremongering and media hype.
Frankly speaking: Why would the russian government even care about elections in the US or Europe? It's not like there's much difference in whoever gets election. Real politics hasn't been made by the figureheads of our states for decades now. If I were Putin, I would pay 2 people to spread some misinformation about russian hackers, and 2000 people to hack the hell out of the lobby groups, big consulting companies, financial institutions and especially the secret services. In other words: The backroom government and the deep state.
Who cares about the people flying in Air Force One when you can influence the real politics being made behind closed doors?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Mod up please
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
While all you are saying is true, China does not show any ambitions of building an empire. It especially lacks any capability to project its military power. Last I checked, they had two aircraft carriers. (for comparison, the USA operates 10, half of the world-wide fleet).
China does understand the power of economics. Their economic activities around the world, especially their long game in Africa and South America, should worry anyone who looks beyond two election periods much, much more. This country is used to thinking in terms of centuries. They plant seeds now (of economic cooperation) that will blossom in 50 or 100 years.
The same is true for hacking. I don't think they care much about elections. In chinese terms, a US president is a temporary event. There'll be another one soon. But military secrets, technological advances, scientific progress - those are things worth stealing.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The thing is - China isn't going to invade America
Neither is Russia.
What, exactly, are you americans all so afraid about? Not being able to be the bully on the playground anymore, that's what?
Nobody is threatening you. Some countries are just tired of being threatened.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
No, it's the cold war again because Russia invades any free and independent country near its boarders that tries to go pro west and territories like Chechnya have impossible elections where 95% of their population votes and 95% vote pro Russia. No populace is so united, particularly in a region known for it resentment towards Russia.
The US couldn't even influence Russian elections the way they do ours because there's aren't anywhere near honest.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
The "interference" amounted to what? Running slanted news stories? He testified that New York Times story about contacts between Trump campaign and Russian spies was essentially a work of fiction. Was NYT stealing an election? How about Al Jazeera? If Al Jazeera has its own take on the news reporting in the US, is it Qatar (whose government own Al Jazeera) stealing our elections? How about BBC? BBC is actually financed by the British government. And spare me the "it's independent" nonsense. When it comes to foreign affairs, BBC has a fairly unique point of view: all colonies which rejected British rule continue to be ruled by barbarians or by fools. Is that Britain trying to steal our elections? Who the fuck is Comey kidding? Has he not seen a single movie about the military? When the POTUS tells you "I hope you can let this go", and you work for him, your answer is "is that an order, Sir?" Instead he chose to spend federal money to investigate someone when his told him to let it go because the guy was already punished enough. So now Comey is jumping on the, hey, but look at Russia bandwagon to save his own ass? He was too stupid to ask if he was given an order and paralyzed the government for 3 months because of it. And now we are supposed to believe that 3 agencies which looked at some log dumps at told the other 14 agencies "we definitely saw something" means that Russian government was trying to hack US electoral systems? With no actual evidence for it? Yeah, nahah. Oh, wait, I must be a Russian spy, too. So, here we go: "nyet, nyet, nyet."
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Well, if you really are an outsider, here's a newsflash: people who like Trump, like him despite of his image. So, no, they don't think the Russia spying hoax is a hoax because they care about Trump's image.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
So, it is basically a cult of personality.
Are you seriously quoting NYTimes in a story about fake news? Comey himself directly said NYTimes coverage of the spying was essentially a work fiction. That puts NYTimes in the fake news category.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I can't imagine more damage than was done to the country by Comey not asking "is that an order" when Trump asked if he could drop Flynn's investigation. Comey himself testified that a President can legitimately give such an order. But instead of clarifying what Trump was saying, Comey just gave us 3 months of finger pointing and bull rhetoric about potential abstraction of justice. 3 months of stalling the government because he was too stupid to ask a simple question... Can you name a dumber decision by a person with this much power in recent history?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Except that Even Comey stated clearly in response to repeated questions that there was no evidence that they were able to alter a single vote. They did not hack the election. They may have hacked the DNC and DCCC, and penetrated several state election board systems, but there is no evidence they were able to actually change any votes.
In regards to altering the outcome, all they did was publish the dirty laundry of Hillary and the DNC.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
By "meticulous", "research", and "sourced" .. he means every article "meticulously" waits until the very end to point out that there isnt any evidence of anything, that the "research" done is finding out what the corporation the media works for wants, and the "sources" as people that say things without evidence.
"His name was James Damore."
yes thats why The American Left decried the ousting of the democratically elected government in the Ukraine, and are in full support of the Russians working to restore the Democracy taken from them.
oh... wait... our American Left is actually defending the overthrow of the Ukrainian government? They have actually vilified the people that had their democracy stolen from them by the CIA?
The American Left will say anything at any time, completely opposite positions dont even give them a single millisecond of pause.
Fuck The Democrats.
"His name was James Damore."
Ahahahahahahaa. Translation: "You're talking bullshit. the Russians are not hiding everywhere."
Firstly: did I say they're everywhere? Nope. Finland and the US are both strategic targets for Russian information warfare for rather obvious reasons. Second of all, they're not doing that good a job of hiding in the first place, the comments are often quite easy to spot- Thirdly, there's been journalism done that exposes these kinds of operations here and elsewhere in the Nordics, google is your friend.
So you've effectively been spotted, but it's okay, you still managed to mess up the US elections pretty effectively so it wasn't all for nothing, Calm down Comrade and have some chai and pirogi. ;)
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Under Saddam the Iraqi people lived a good healthy life in a modern country. Yes, rebels were not tolerated but why should terrorists be tolerated? They are not tolerated in Turkey either. In fact Syria is the only country that was good to the Kurds. After Saddam's murder and the murder of hundreds of thousands of their fellow countrymen the country has been overrun by terrorists, has no reliable running water or electricity. There is no industry or education, it is no longer a functioning country. At the time most were not happy that he was removed. There were orchestrated TV scenes that were staged managed like the famous one of the statue being toppled by a US military crane but that was just theatre. A democratic country was turned into a hell hole. I think you would find it hard to find anyone, even amongst the Kurds, that thinks life is better.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
If you want more proof
before you can offer more proof, you need to offer some proof.
"His name was James Damore."
Your thinking is what is so bizarre about today's political climate. A variety of US intelligence services, in the course of monitoring Russian agents who often are part of recruiting US citizens, noticed a high level of contact between high level trump campaign people and these agents. It's become clear that there was an intense effort by the Russians to get trump elected, and that's part of an ongoing effort to influence and ultimately control US elections.
Let that sink in. A hostile foreign power wants to decide who is running the US government. However bad you think the USA is today, it would be a crap ton worse with Putin running it, and elections being utterly meaningless.
And with all that, with the fate of our democracy at stake, people are worried that some of trump's buddies who were busy talking to these Russian had their names revealed... again, NOT because THEY were being monitored, but because the RUSSIAN AGENTS they were talking to were monitored.
Congratulations, you've managed to focus on the mote, and ignore the tidal wave bearing down on you. People like you are why our democracy is in such trouble right now.
Well, if an official document sponsored by three different US government agencies doesn't do it for you I can't help you any further.
Do you actually read the links you post?
The memo from Phoenix went out two months before 9-11 and led to Zacarias Moussaoui being caught the month before 9-11.
How do you leap from that to "Clinton's siloing" stopping the other 19 terrorists from being caught? If there is no intelligence pointing anywhere and Moussaoui did not know enough of the other attackers (from siloing on the terrorist side, I might add) then what is there to do?
Oh, right...play the blame game on strained logic and half-truths in 20-20 hindsight. You're an American hero!
The "Miracle" in China, is also its "Curse"
The Miracle is that the government created zones with the economic laws, not written but simply understood, "don't be dicks to your fellow Chinese." The economic prosperity this has created is as much as miracle as free market capitalism ever was. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have migrated into these free market zones in spite of the Wests attempts to make it sound so terrible to be in one of them. From time to time the government arrests a ton of people, heads of corporations, police chiefs, what-not. It offends my sense of due process, but my guess is that most of the time the people being taken down deserve some of it..
The Curse is that their future is just like every Western nation. England has a Queen, China will have its own power-stunted supreme leader too. The bureaucrats are coming.
"His name was James Damore."
1. Many people don't want war with Russia, they think that is the best for Russia, the US and the world.
2. Russia keeps asking the US to stop organizing coups and putting military bases around them, that seems reasonable.
3. Those interested in 1 will make comments supporting 2, the "Russian agenda". Even if we disagree with most of Russian politics.
Before the US started surrounding them with missiles this was not an issue, no one talked about them. The problem as I see is that somehow many Americans think that the American agenda is world military domination, those that disagree are being called pro-Russia/Putin/Russian agenda.
I've always wondered, if the Iraqi people had the choice to go back in time and keep Saddam and his progeny instead of what they have now, would they? At the time they seemed very happy when he was removed.
How is this even a question?
“...I am one of the political prisoners who was arrested in 1988, but life was better in Saddam’s days, compared with now.”...
If they had such an option they would probably want to return to a point in time to prevent Bremer from disbanding the Iraqi army and delaying Iraqi's from taking control of the government.
The problem with Iraq wasn't really the invasion, it was the occupation that followed.
No, the biggest problem was the invasion. I'm not saying you're completely wrong. But to pick out one mistake out of so many is misleading. To begin with the war was based on a lie. So if not WMD, what were the real reasons for going to war? If Jack shoots himself with a gun, then doesn't dress the wound properly, the reason Jack died was because he shot himself.
But anyway, after the invasion, Col. Ted Spain was the guy in charge of law & order, he seems like a great resource to list all the mistakes:
They'll never find one as moronic and stupid as this time.
Currently our elections don't lead to real politics. Just politicians doing nothing and eating money. If Russians (ah, those Russians!) interfere, they will subvert such results, leading Italy to either politicians doing something and eating money or even doing some and don't eating money.
We need your help, Putin. You are our only hope!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Trump has handed the embassies back and now wants to let the expelled staff back.
If they had such an option they would probably want to return to a point in time to prevent Bremer from disbanding the Iraqi army and delaying Iraqi's from taking control of the government. These two decisions by Bremer, a career diplomat who served numerous administrations, essentially started the insurgency and created an opportunity for al-Queda in Iraq.
Bremer says those weren't his decisions. He says he was ordered to do so, that order came from Rumsfield's office but Rumsfield also says he was ordered to do so but won't say by whom. It seem likely that the order originated from Cheney's office and was made on the recommendation of Chalabi, who wanted to install his own army and government in Iraq. If that's the case, then it wasn't a mistake, as much as it was a deliberate betrayal of America and Iraq's common interests to profit an ally of Dick Cheney.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
"China's rapid growth is not impacting half of the country, and that's causing a lot of unrest. "
If you look at the 7 lines system (The High Speed rail network) and associated works it's clear the chinese government is rolling out massive infrastructure developments to try and pull investors away from Shenzen and the coastal areas in general.
Whilst China's slowed down/stopped rolling out more coal plants (as in more than existing, but still replacing older ones), they're going hell-for-leather in nuclear development and if still on the roadmap as planned, will have a pebblebed-based Molten Salt Reactor running soon. They're aiming for a test LFTR technology reactor to be live towards the end of 2018 - more than 50 years since the Oak Ridge Experiment was last run and 45 years since Nixon killed the project.
Why is this important? A lot of the posturing by the USA and other militaries around the world is about access to energy resources. If the chinese commercialise LFTRs and roll them out en masse to developing countries, then energy costs are set to drop dramatically, oil becomes mostly obsolete and most of the "renewables" projects are simply silly trinkets.
There may be some milage in the thought that the chinese presence in the south china sea really is intended to keep the area neutral and more importantly to dissuade anyone from attempting to drill for gas/oil in the region. China is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise and I'd imagine they're planning on the basis of avoiding mass movement of ~3-400 million people off the coastal plains.
In regards to altering the outcome, all they did was publish the dirty laundry of Hillary and the DNC.
No, that was not all they did, they also have been shilling, and spying, among other things. And the neat little insinuation that there was any dirty laundry to expose is not supported by the facts.
Indeed during the election, I was interested in reading some of this supposed "dirty laundry" but time and again the claims were not backed up by actual facts. They relied of extremely tortured interpretations of sentence fragments from emails. For example, there was one about "Hillary hates Catholics", which Trump actually tried to use in his speech at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. The actual email was between two staffers, Hillary was not involved as either a recipient or a sender and the staffers were gossiping about a pair of trust fund young Republicans. One them said neither attended Catholic churches, and thus were more Evangelical than Catholic but couldn't officially change religion because they'd lose access to their Trust funds. That was heralded as conclusive proof that Hillary Clinton hates all Catholics.
I looked at half dozen other claims and they were all the same, some bit of something from an email twisted beyond the point of recognition into "conclusive proof" of some outlandish claim. After the fact, it seems like there are indications that many of those sites were part of the propaganda efforts put together by the Russian propaganda agencies. The only question is whether the posters who posted links to them on Slashdot were useful idiots or paid propagandists.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Comey was the leader of the chief government agency in charge of domestic counterintelligence, the FBI. If this was happening, wasn't it their job to stop it?
Most of the report is about Russian "propaganda" efforts. Are we really going to consider public statements made by Russian government officials, stories published on the Russian news agencies RT & Sputnik News (and their spread on social media), television shows broadcast on RT America & other similar efforts as "interference"? If so, then yes, there is "proof" that Russia "interfered" in the U.S. election by publicly criticizing Clinton and indicating a preference for Trump.
There's no "proof" of any of the hacking stuff. Only vague references to methods they used & speculation that it was Russians.
"former". hey comey. mcdonalds is hiring.
Again, from the doc:
"This report is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment. This document’s conclusions are identical to the highly classified assessment, but this document does not include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence on key elements of the influence campaign. Given the redactions, we made minor edits purely for readability and flow."
Russia under Putin as a bad actor all right, but what I don't get is how can they really be a threat to the West, or at least a semi-unified West.
I think, Militarily, they are not really a threat, except to their immediate neighbours. The larger threat lies in espionage and destabilization. Russia literally operates entire armies of propagandists to maintain order in Russia, and they are starting to see the benefits of directing that propaganda power outside of their country to sow chaos among their enemies. Crimea, for example, was a the result of a several years long propaganda campaign by Russia followed by with a small, clandestine, military action. But I don't know if they will ever be able to pull it off again, but they will likely try, even though it obviously didn't work as well on the Ukrainian border...
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Speaking as a New Zealander, I'd rather Russia were in charge instead of 'Murica.
Then you're probably a fool. America has many, many problems, but "Russia in charge" is much, much worse, unless you're a fan of sham elections, political assassinations and state sponsored propaganda campaigns.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Well, if they ever do that will be the first.
All I have ever seen is innuendo and guesses, and absolutely zero actual proof of them doing anything.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
'Daniel Fried, a career diplomat who oversaw sanctions imposed on Russia before retiring this year, told the Times that Comey "was spot-on right that Russia is coming after us, but not just the U.S., but the free world in general. And we need to take this seriously."'
An investigation should not be necessary if they have evidence. They should just present the evidence if there is any. The purpose of an investigation is to gather evidence. They claim they already have it but not only won't show it to us, but won't even give us a hint at what it might be. That's just pathetic.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
"Everything China is doing, Russia tried to do."
The difference is that up to about 3-400 years ago, China and the west were about technologically equal. What's happened since then is attributable to the industrial revolution and China's coal resources being virtually inaccessible in the hinterland vs Europe and North America's being easy to get at.
300 years ago Russia was mostly swamp, forest and steppes with an agrarian economy and the population mostly inward looking peasants. 150 years ago it was still much the same, with some beginnings of nationalism stirring.
China's got the brains, the numbers to make things work and a will to avoid repeats of the civil wars which wracked the country during the 19th and 20th centuries. Russia would have gotten much further if not hamstrung by the Stalin and crippling corruption that never went away when the royals were removed.
Chinese people I speak to in Europe are happy to criticise their government and surprised that we can particpate so freely in politics but generally choose not to. Russians are reluctant to speak about politics or their leaders unless they have zero intention of ever returning home. That says a lot.
Many of the biggest investors in the US real estate market are Europeans with no money laundering needs. Trump's biggest lender is Deutsche Bank, not some Russian oligarch.
The real reason for the massive foreign investment in US assets is simple: our massive consumer spending on imports. Many groups in the US don't want that to stop because it pushes up real estate and share prices in the US. But it's probably not good long term public policy,
Probably they already have. I'm just saying. This is part of the game of chess powerful players in large governments play with each other to try and get more things going their way.
This just comes to show that neither country's version of "democracy" has managed to eliminate the Oligarchy, and how the "State" can still become detrimental to the people, as it begins to serve more and more the interests of the Nobility (The "Congressmen" and "Officials" who maintain a pretension of being chosen by the people ---- In reality, their composition is biased heavily towards their In-Group supported by whatever corporations and billionaires are in favor of what they will Truly wind up doing with their power).
It's just in the US our Nobility let us pretend to elect them to their office (But our choices are limited to Oligarch A or Oligarch B), most of the time, so "Influencing" our elections is more about who can do the most favors for which side to get the one of two options that best serves other states.
For example: Prozac Nation Is Now the United States of Xanax. Basically a drug ad for Xanax. The 90s were about Prozac! The 21st century is about Xanax!!
You didn't read anything more than the title of that article, did you? If you'd actually read it, you'd realize that you are completely wrong. Of course, that implies that you actually care about the facts, but then I'd bet that you don't as long as you can post your moronic opinions..
Fanatically anti-fanatical
> China does not show any ambitions of building an empire
> their long game in Africa and South America, should worry anyone who looks beyond two election periods
lolwhut?
Well if you replaced our whole government with Russia's whole government, yeah it would be a crap ton worse. I'm not convinced that if you simply replaced Trump with Putin that it would be any worse, and in fact would probably be better. Congress and the intelligence agencies would do like they are with Trump, not let him actually do anything that would *really* threaten the country. And at least we wouldn't be led by a man, already in a dead heat with Putin for 'most corrupt major power leader', whose malevolence is matched only by his stupidity and disgraces the country every time he opens his orange baboon megalomaniac mouth or tweets the latest stream-of-(lack of)-consciousness idiocy he's regurgitating from Russia Today's US Fox affiliate.
Not to mention you're really overestimating how meaningful our elections are these days. Is having two parties that are united on 90% of the ways they want to fuck the country, who actually differ only by which particular way they fuck us, and distract and divide us on a few social wedge issues instead of, you know, the 90% of the other ways they're fucking us.. is that really SO much better than just having them join together and drop all pretense? tl;dr covert fucking: better or worse than overt fucking?
Sorry, up all night and a wee bit grumpy.
Why don't we just do the same and let Putin get some of the same medicine... things are getting rough in Russia... protestors are taking the streets.
Reality is you think someone like me is Russian troll just because I have no issue with Russia and I am tired of none-sense. I am a Russian troll your mind even though I was in the US Army(2000-2003, 101st 1-187th Aco). I had a Russian roommate that was also in US Army at the time and funny enough he use to be in the Russian army at one time. To sum it up just because someone is somewhat pro-russia in that I don't want cold war 2.0 or worse nuclear war , doesn't make me or majority of them Russia FSB trolls. Reality the DNC has vast online troll operation that has been going on for years.
Really? What are they? Besides ex-wifes and girlfriends. Sure bet, ex-gfs or ex-wives always say the nicest things about their exes.
Yes, land, naval, air, space, and cyberspace war. Germany will, as it always has, taken care of the international problems plaguing the world since the end of the second world war. Now especially as the cowardly US fades that will become obvious to everyone. Germany will fight, and the Eu will fight Russia to maintain quality of life. The failure of the US to react is a sign of its destruction by Trump. That is the other truly sad part of the revealed Russian agression.
The thread is a bit stale, but I want to chime in.
With some regularity, Slashdot members have called me a paid Microsoft shill. I am a Linux user and don't actually need money. In all those cases, I posted factual information, to the best of my recollection.
I was away, dealing with some personal stuff, during the election.
Since returning, I've had just one comment that accused me of being a Russian. I've had several that accused me of being a Trump voter. I didn't vote for Trump and don't even like the guy. Hell, I dislike him. I am, however, a fan of facts and honesty.
You may be able to see why I view such accusations with great skepticism. I know, factually, that these accusations aren't accurate, at least sometimes. I know that I am not employed by Russia, a Trump voter, or a shill for Microsoft. Hell, I have met quite a few people who post here. I have had some of you in my home. I am pretty sure that none of that group is engaged in any of those things.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , something the CIA invented. If you really think Russia isn't playing both sides, you are truly an idiot.
Oh no, someone will not let political parties get away with their lies and bullshit and expose the truth. How terrible! How dare they! I mean it was one sided and with the purpose of altering the results but still, the truth came out and that's what mattered.
I just said this here last week: The Russians post comments on Finnish news sites and forums in Finnish. If they have the time and the resources to do propaganda on sites with readerships that are a tiny tiny fraction of /.'s, there's absolutely no doubt that they're actively posting and moderating here as well.
There was absolutely no doubt of that during the election. The moderation of politicial stories took a sudden and drastic turn. What was even more obvious was that even more than pro-trump posts, what was getting +5 mods was ridicule of the meer idea that Putin or Russians might be involved. You tell me what group of people would be flooding a US political forum with their #1 priority being promoting Russia and Russian politicians and only their #2 priority being promoting their favorite US politician?
I had to quit posting on the stories, simply because it got to be such a drag reading page after page of upvoted Russian propaganda. They basically removed /. as a useful forum for the last 3 months of the election.
Honest questions here... Is the majority opinion then that we would have preferred to remain ignorant of the DNC activities until after the election was decided? If not, was the DNC hack "just deserts" and our main concern propaganda separate from the DNC hack?
I doubt there has been an election in the last 60 years in the US or Russia that the other party hasn't influenced to some degree.
Another way to deal with people using national committees in ways you don't like is to not vote for or support those parties.
Sure, but that also means you're voting for third parties that can't win. And if they do by some miracle win it just means a whole new group of insiders. Because that's how it works. People who work hard and win feel entitled. That's how every new generation of insiders arises. Every old guard gets replaced by Young Turks who in time, become a new old guard. If you follow politics you'll see this happen over and over again.
Voting isn't about your feelings, and it isn't an exercise in self-expression. Voting is an exercise of political power. If you don't use your vote that way, you're responsible for the outcome.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I actually agree with a lot of this, but I don't think it makes sense to downplay the military (specifically naval) threat.
Last I checked, they had two aircraft carriers
That would be more reassuring if it weren't for the fact that last *I* checked, they had only one carrier, and no planes that could land on it. They currently have those two, two more under construction, and another planned. Two to Five operable fleet carriers is actually pretty dang muscular. Sure, they may have to think twice about anything the US will fight over, but would the US fight to protect Vietnam? How about Taiwan? China seems pretty determined to get Taiwan back, and with 5 carriers the only way to stop them would be a full-blown shooting war with the USA (with a very chancy result, given China's logistical advantages in that part of the world).
China has been very aggressive lately with their maritime neighbors. This is making all their neighbors think hard about rearmament. If anyone thinks that will end with some gun-induced peaceful Nirvana in the region, I'd say they've been reading too many John Ringo novels (or perhaps not enough. They're a good way to spend time, and clearly reality-based politics is not this kind of persons' bag).
Its so nice that the professional Russian trolls have moved onto other targets, so that I can again read "+5 Insightful" comments like this one that are actually insightful. I think they are busy today protecting Putin at home. Probably won't last, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.
You may be right about a lot of that, I don't know. I really wonder at your description of Saddam's Iraq as a Democratic country though.
Russia is not a threat to the US.. they're not even comparable as an economic power to the US, China or the EU. They would have to make significant structural changes to compete and grow economically and if they did that... then they wouldn't be ideologically opposed to the west so still no threat. The establishment was aghast at Trump winning and this is the boogieman to whip us up into a mob mentality to support a (metaphorical since it would be legal) coup.
I think it's obvious now that a lot of thought wasn't put into what to do after we toppled Saddam. Saddam brought his death on himself though. Playing games and defying the terms of the ceasefire of the First Gulf War wasn't a smart thing to do when the US was still in a rage over 9/11. In retrospect I too think the invasion of Iraq was a mistake but it's almost like Saddam was daring Bush to do it.
At what point is it time to just block all systems in Russia and North Korea during critical events? I frequently have to do this for clients, when some script kiddie from Bulgaria or Croatia wants to send spam from their servers. Why not just have all ISPs block all traffic from Russia for a week before and after any election? Months? Permanently? I don't feel like my quality of life would suffer any if Russians couldn't reach my servers.
Call it the Freedom Bloc and all the mouth breathing hyper-patriotic tagalongs can hoop and holler that it's anti-communist or something while crushing beer cans on their forehead and screaming 'Murica!'
Don't worry, Trump will take credit for that, too.
Team Hillary thought the election was in the bag, there was no way Trump could become President they all thought, then when he won the Democrats all sat around wondering how the election was stolen from them!
Ken
No matter who took or was given power in Iraq there would have been an insurgency.
tl;dr: So what if Putin wanted us to elect trump? As long as he didn't literally hack the voting machines and change the votes then so what if our choice happens to align with his?
Crappy parable that I made up on the spot:
There was a farmer who had some vegetables he needed to sell at the village market.
To get to the market in the village he needed to cross a river. There were two bridges he could take-- and he had to take one of them because there was no other way across. At first he didn't know which bridge he would take but figured he would decide when the time came.
He came to a fork in the road-- one fork leading to the north bridge, the other fork leading the south bridge.
Time to decide.
But there in road stood a thug. The thug was lounging by the sign post and looked up when the farmer approached.
The thug greeted the farmer, who was wary of this obvious ne'er-do-well. There was an awkward silence as the farmer looked at the sign and was making up his mind on which way to go.
"The northern bridge is almost impassible" said the thug, "Flood's lapping over the top of the bridge this morning. You're best off taking the southern bridge."
The farmer knew that flooding was a definite problem at this time of year and that the thug was almost certainly telling the truth.
The farmer didn't like taking the southern bridge because it was a shabbier bridge and the route after it was stony and rough.
But farmer figured that since the northern bridge was almost certainly flooded that he had to take the difficult southern bridge because if he went north and the bridge turned out to be flooded that by the time he could turn around and take the southern bridge it would be too late in the day and he would lose all the profits that he needed from selling his vegetables.
So he wound up taking the southern bridge-- what choice did he have?
Yet when he finally returned home and described his day to his wife she shouted at him: "Why did you listen to the thug? Don't you know he was just trying to influence you? It might have been a trap!"
But trap or not, what choice did the farmer have? Isn't a broken clock right twice a day? Do not even liars sometimes tell the truth?
If they had such an option they would probably want to return to a point in time to prevent Bremer from disbanding the Iraqi army and delaying Iraqi's from taking control of the government. These two decisions by Bremer, a career diplomat who served numerous administrations, essentially started the insurgency and created an opportunity for al-Queda in Iraq.
Bremer says those weren't his decisions.
Absolutely false according to a National Geographic channel documentary ("American vs Iraq" ?) that was interviewing many American and Iraqi principals.
The military and white house plan was to use the Iraqi army. The day before the army dismissal Bremer had a call with Bush pleading the case for dismissal , Bush responded something to the effect: You're the person on the scene so if you think it is necessary. The Pentagon was not happy.
With respect to pushing back the timeframe of turning over the government to Iraqis the white house and pentagon were completely taken by surprise by Bremer's announcement of days, learning of it only through the newspaper stories covering Bremer's announcement. It was in response to Bremer's actions and to prevent more delays that Bush declared a date for the government turnover. Bremer was strongly against allowing Iraqi's to vote early on, he didn't think they were "ready". To counter Bremer the Iraqi's turned to the United Nations to get election scheduled at an earlier date and there was some progress but it all ended with an al-Quaeda attack on the UN compound with caused the UN to withdraw from Iraq.
Chalabi and other Chenney friends came later.
No matter who took or was given power in Iraq there would have been an insurgency.
A token one, some Saddam diehards. Not enough to effect the direction of the nation. For that wide scale involvement in the insurgency was necessary and dismissal of the army was the key precipitating event. Bombings and US casualties immediately jumped after the dismissal, within days. Also note that once the "army" was "sort of" reformed in the sense that the sunni and other militias were put on the US payroll to fight al-Quaeda in Iraq (proto-ISIS) insurgent activity dropped significantly.
To begin with the war was based on a lie. So if not WMD ...
Saddam and various Iraqi political and military officials have confirmed that Iraq secretly held WMD in violation of the first gulf war cease fire and UN agreements. They also admit bio and chemical research programs, however these were small scale and made little progress. A nuclear program was also continued in a covert planning sense and it was estimated to need 18-24 months to get up to speed from its current state (mostly planning on paper). One official said that Iraq had approximately 80 chemical rockets that could hit Tehran, Iran.
The Iraqi military officials then went on to say that Saddam eventually became concerned the US would discover the above and ordered it all destroyed. However he ordered that it all be **secretly** destroyed, no paper trail. He feared the papers could leak and prove Iraq was in violation. Plus Saddam wanted the Iranians to suspect he had something to keep them at bay.
So yes Iraq was technically free of WMD at the time of the invasion, but scraps of evidence of WMD programs were legitimate. Saddam was successful at hiding the destruction of his hidden caches and hidden programs. He wanted the US and more importantly Iran to keep guessing, unfortunately he could not predict the US' post-911 intolerance of not knowing for sure.
But anyway, after the invasion, Col. Ted Spain was the guy in charge of law & order, he seems like a great resource: Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s deployment plans. They didn’t include an adequate number of military police to control the routes during the ground war, and then we didn’t have sufficient military police to control the streets after the ground war.
True, but that seems to refer to the US providing all security. As in past wars the pentagon was expecting the Iraqi army to provide manpower. At the end of WW2 surrendered german military were used to help control traffic and the streets, to pick out the die hards trying to hide among ordinary civilians and soldiers, to conduct searches of German civilian homes, confiscating weapons, etc. In the Pacific surrendered Imperial Japanese troops were used to police some territories until a functional local government could be elected and established.
Plus Bremer was being repeatedly warned by Iraqi political leaders and former military to put "the men" on the US payroll to keep them from becoming angry and desperate.
... The Coalition Provisional Authority, under the leadership of L. Paul Bremer III, dismantled the Iraqi Army, and the highest level of the Baath Party. Under Saddam Hussein, the highest ranks could only belong to Baath Party members, so we lost some of the most experienced personnel that were so vital in putting Iraq back together again ...
My understanding is that the original pentagon plan was to remove various officers with personal connections to Saddam, atrocities, etc. While this may decimate the upper most ranks it was thought it would only minimally impact NCOs and lower ranks of officers. Allowing these NCOs and lower ranking officers to remain in command of the troops. The Iraq officers would essential receive their instructions from US officers.
However Bremer rejected this plan because he wanted the symbolism of Saddam's army being completely "destroyed" and a new army created. Unfortunately the insurgency began in earnest with days of the army's dismissal.
Abu Ghraib certainly accelerated the insurgency, but it was the second major acceleration. The first major acceleration being the dismissal of the army. A valuable and wasted resource for the US.
NOAA predicts Sun will rise in the east, set in the west. IRS predicts people will cheat on their taxes. Anyone predicts Slashdot will publish any old thing.
At least if the French had let the vietnamese vote they would have chosen their own government and who knows, under those conditions maybe things would have been different.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Seriously? Have you heard what Putin has been saying since Bill Clinton was President? Have you heard of what he was saying about Hillary when she was Secretary of State? With autocrats (as you will start to learn with Trump) the personal is political, and Putin has been extremely pissed off with Bill and Hillary since Bill gave the order to bomb bits of the former Yugoslavia without telling Russia first. Putin built his political career on making a fuss about Bill Clinton trying to take over "Russia's backyard" based on those events.
Circular reasoning.
How about cheering for the home team instead of getting into some of that Russian backchannel action?
What form did this "interference" take, anyway?
Did they intimidate voters at polling places? Systematically prevent some categories of people from registering to vote? Did they stuff ballot boxes? Did they fraudulently fill out large numbers of absentee ballots for people suffering from severe cases of dementia or death?
I've not been following this all that closely, so maybe I missed it.
What form did this "interference" take?
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
This is good info and details - thank you. I see it's the 2nd most important reason. But I also remember when they were beating the drums, I was thinking, 'Compared to the US, this is a relatively poor country. Don't they have intelligence on the ground? Those were the best pics they could get?' As Cheney said years earlier on MTP, they knew the risks. Including the surrounding violence that Iraq had contributed to, we are talking about over 1 million deaths. A million. The soft power that we lost. The advantage we gave Iran, Al Queda, Isis would have been Hussein's enemy. Is it worth waiting for real intelligence? Yes. If they were invading us, different story. But we were the aggressor. We controlled the timetable. Don't go in unless we're at least close to sure, and we were not. I read Bush At War, where he questioned (this from my memory) Rumsfield, 'Get me the intelligence pointing to Iraq' 'But we don't have good intelligence showing that' 'I saaid, get me intelligence pointing to Iraq.' To this day, I want to know what was in Bush's head or ear when he made that decision. It couldn't have been just WMD, or even oil, imo.
I do agree - big picture was bad, but Saddam did get what he deserved at least.
A reset at that point made at least a bit of sense. Since then Russia has gone out of its way to be anti-western.
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There's a difference between building an empire and forging (economic) alliances. Ancient Rome vs. the European Union.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The USA spans North America east to west completely. If he was on the west coast he most defiantly would have been on the other side of the continent.
Yes. I'll shed no tears for that individual.
Thanks for the anecdote! Unfortunately even removing AC wouldn't provide any real benefit to uncovering or determining the possibility of or extent of any shill/propagandist style activity. Puppet accounts are easy to create. How about some kind of country of origin geoip location with filtering for tor exits/vpns? AC can be retained, but I expect all sorts of remote compromises and bouncers to make this idea worthless, too.
The only solution is to create innumerable named accounts, use each randomly and throw each away after a random time. Better than posting AC, this destroys the entire idea of a coherent group with implicit trust which is the mechanism abused for these kinds of manipulations. That applies not just to slashdot but to every forum. The Internet is dysfunctional, and is being used to mount threats to physical security. Deprive the paid fools of an audience by making everything as fake as they are. Deprive Russia and its pawns of all power and observe peace through strength greater than anything they can piss on.
No, it's the opposite. They like what he can do even if they don't like him. The cult of personality would be liking him regardless of what he does.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The official document doesnrt contain proof. In fact that official document that you insist contains proof literally says the opposite inside. It literally says there isnt any proof. I mean literally in the correct sense here... it literally says, using words and stuff, the opposite of what you insist it says.
"His name was James Damore."