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Special Counsel Mueller Charges 12 Russian Intelligence Officers With Hacking Democrats During 2016 Election (cnbc.com)
Special counsel Robert Mueller has obtained a new indictment charging 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Democrats to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, and with stealing information of about 500,000 American voters, the Justice Department announced Friday. From a report: The indictment lodged in Washington, D.C., accuses the Russian spies of hacking into the Democratic National Committee and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, and of releasing emails obtained from that cybersnooping with a a goal of influencing the election. The accused also hacked into state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and into companies that provided software used to administer elections, according to Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein said he briefed President Donald Trump about the case earlier in the week.
The mountain gave birth to a mouse.
I'm sure Russia will be falling over themselves to round these guys up and turn them over to the U.S. We can hold a trial in absentia to help make us feel better, but these individuals will never see the inside of a courtroom unless they are paying a parking fine in Mother Russia.
Russian President Donald Trump has issued a pardon for these victims of law enforcement overreach so that they can go about their business as he praises the Great Putin who unlike his enemies is a strong and virile man.
Yes, that form of hacking is still a crime, and that includes other entities such as the aforementioned state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and companies that provided software used to administer elections. A real problem.
Unlike you know, the hysterics Republicans went into when it was the Georgia elections systems that they could find some way to blame on Obama. And they still think Obama ordered Trump to separate children from their parents.
The DNC sacrificed a viable candidate to be on an old mainstay who fumbled the ball so hard it made the Cleveland Browns look good. Top that off with the FACT that the Whitehouse had Trump under surveillance. In a race between dumb and dumber the only sure loser was the American public.
The DNC deserved to lose the election and any sane minded person would abandon both major political parties at this point. How much do they have to do to show that they're playing this game for their own power elite and not for the man on the street?
The RNC latched on desperately to their only hope. Trump successfully co-oped the party that really didn't have a leg to stand on in the first place. A run at the top office was pretty much on life support from day one but the grass was so dead on the other side of the fence that people ran to anything that didn't look like the same old same old.
Anyone who isn't walking away from these buffoons at this point are just showing how pathetic the voting population has become.
I'll one up you on this.
Crowdstrike got caught blaming Russia on a hack in the Ukraine, and had to then claim they made up the evidence blaming Russia.
After that, Crowdstrike recanted that they had evidence that Russia hacked the DNC, they were unwilling to provide a single expert witness to claim Russia did it.
So, in addition to what you said, even Crowdstrike won't say Russia did it.
Muller also charged a Russian company that didn't exist during the 2016 election. He is also refusing to give evidence to defendants from Russian companies that showed up to defend themselves.
It appears Muller is attempting to run foreign policy via charging people who didn't do things. After the Strokz hearing yesterday, I'm not sure why Muller is daring to do anything else. Its obvious his group is corrupt, from the beginning.
NONE OF WHICH - have anything to do with, so-called, Russian interference in the election but tangential and unrelated crimes discovered during the investigation.
Time to... MoveOn...
I've been wondering lately whether I'm the subject of cognitive dissonance.
If you follow Scott Adams, he talks about cognitive dissonance as two people watching the same movie and seeing different plots. When called to describe the plots, the two views are wildly different, sometimes polar opposite.
And so for many people Trump is a racist, blowing a dog whistle that racists and liberals can hear clearly. For others, Trump is a practical leader doing what's best for the nation.
Which is the correct view? At this point, probably no one knows - there's no unbiased source of information. Best we can do is get unbiased statistics and raw facts (such as immigration numbers, unemployment, reputable polling) and come to our own conclusions.
Which brings me to the Mueller investigation, which I have always believed to be based on nothing. It seems perfectly obvious that the *amount* of Russian involvement in the election is well into the noise - to the tune of something like $13 million over several months, compared to $3 billion (-ish, depends on what you count) spent by Clinton and Trump.
Am I (and half the country) dismissing something important because of cognitive dissonance?
We might just find out.
The Mueller indictments will be based on evidence which can be examined, and accuses specific Russians of hacking and leaking the DNC through wikileaks.
On the other side, Julian Assange has stated several times that the leaks didn't come from Russia. Julian never identified the actual leaks, speculation has it that it was Seth Rich.
Julian Assange is a sufficiently trustworthy source not to be dismissed out of hand, and the US justice system should allow the evidence to be combed through by the media.
This could turn out to be a good touch-stone for validating one side of the cognitive dissonance claim.
I look forward to the public investigations of the evidence.
It will be good to finally see which movie we're actually watching.
Um, no. That's just a, what's that word? Oh, yeah, a LIE. In the course of "conducting espionage" against Russian intelligence operatives OPERATING IN THE US, the FBI recorded the Russians talking to Carter Page, Trump's foreign policy advisor, who they had previous evidence of collaborating with Russian Intelligence. But that's nothing to get suspicious about, right? No reason to follow up on that, right?
Ii there's any substance to this, it's more likely that the Kremlin didn't want Hillary as president than they wanted Donald. Hillary's an aggressive war mongerer who'll try to push NATO further east, while Donald's a buffoon who's reducing the USA's diplomatic credibility in the world. Sounds like the Kremlin, if they did do this, did the rest of the world a favour.
I'm sure you're pretty close to it. Russia saw Donald as a weak man they could easily manipulate by guiding his ego. Of all the candidates running for any party- Donald was the one most likely to destroy America's relationships with other countries and weaken America's position in the world.
It was really a smart move by Putin. For the many bad things you can say about Putin, you can't call him stupid.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Because they think that rage makes the Republicans look bad, and because they think it hurts Trump. No other reason.
If you think a concerted misinformation campaign had no effect at all on voters
misinformation campaign as in targeting both sides with trolls and memes. Oh, and airing the dirty laundry of the DNC, the Clinton campaign, and Hillary.
The dirty laundry wasn't misinformation. It probably persuaded some votes particularly Bernie supporters.
How many voters do you think changed their mind because a few trolls and memes that mostly occurred after the election? Methinks you are the one inclined to believe in fairy tales.
He keeps saying that... Again and Again... He said it LAST time he charged a pile of Russians.
Honest brokers of the facts *should* include this disclaimer any time they start talking about what these charges mean. If they don't, they are ignorant of all the facts, or purposely being misleading. In the first case, they need to check their sources and use better ones. I the second case, they need to be dismissed as the partisan hacks they are.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Sigh, You read russian propaganda like zerohedge? you must be so misinformed. Just google the it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
No one indicted so far needed the Special Counsel to be indicted... None of the indictments implicate Trump in any wrong-doing either.
That you are biased is obvious. That you are so biased, the above truths aren't clear to you, is rare...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It is important to include all relevant facts.
Peter Strozk, the FBI boss in the news for saying he would "stop Trump" from becoming President, was the person who paid Stefan Halper as an FBI informant and placed him inside the Trump campaign.
Stefan Halper then used his influence inside the campaign to recommend and hire Carter Page, who is now accused of being a Russian spy.
So the trail of facts seems to show a very very different story.
1. FBI's boss (Peter Strozk) hires a mole
2. FBI place mole inside Trump campaign (due to fear of russia)
3. FBI Mole recommends and hires a Russian spy (Carter Page)
4. FBI gets warrants to spy on campaign based on Russian spy "infiltrating" the campaign - Peter Strozk (see 1) leads the investigation
5. Opponents claim Trump colluded with Russians and deny FBI bias.
If Occam's razor can provide a better way to interpret these facts, please share.
If I ever had a mod point to give, then I might give you one on the grounds that it's the only visible mention of "hackers" in this discussion.
In general, I was not made happy by the lack of "funny" comments, even though it's a serious topic with little room for humor. However, it was more saddening to see the dominance of the discussion by obvious trolls and sock puppets. Does it call for a review of the ontology of lies? Or a new ontology of trolls?
The so-called victory of #PresidentTweety was razor thin. What that actually means is that each and EVERY group that can plausibly claim to have influenced about 80,000 voters has an equally plausible claim to be the margin of Trump's residency in the "dump", as he described the White House. Actually, you could argue for 40,000 if they were voters swung away from Hillary and over to Trump.
There are strong and credible evaluations (including some bipartisan ones) that strongly indicate that the tactics of Putin's goons influenced at least that many suckers among the millions of voters they targeted. Ergo, it's rather hard to deny that Trump owes Putin, but it's only a question of degree. My assessment is that Trump is much more beholden to Mike Pence for delivering the votes of the religious lunatics.
Or perhaps it's more significant that the US government is almost surely more guilty of interfering in elections than the Russians? If money does translate into votes, then it would be a sure call. Do you know how much of the Marshall Plan funding was actually diverted to the CIA? And how much of that dark money was used for meddling in elections in places like Italy and Japan?
Still, it feels worse when our own ox has been gored. It might be worse in this case only because of the old KGB kompromat on Trump that Putin inherited. (I still think the Golden Shower rumor is a clever feint created by Putin to make his puppet feel safer.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
Hillary Clinton lost to an incompetent businessman who had (and has) no idea of how to be President of the United States. She's that bad.
...or the Russians are that good.
notice, no americans in that indictment... and probably there is an expectation that this "accusation" won't be defended.
Foreign governments rarely show up to a US court to argue they were not guilty.
Thus a baseless accusation can stand because there is no due process because there is no trial generally.
I'd like the Russians to show up. Just send some lawyers to represent their clients. Force the Justice Department to actually argue their case in a court of law.
Already, the justice department was surprised when some Russian companies they accused sent lawyers. And the result was effectively a retraction of the accusations almost immediately.
Some people will accuse me of political bias... these people haven't been paying attention to this circus.
https://www.washingtonexaminer...
https://www.politico.com/story...
Effectively, an accusation was made where there was no belief that there would be a defense because there typically isn't one in these cases. Lawyers showed up unexpectedly... and it turns out that the Mueller team actually isn't ready to argue the case.
Which begs the question of why they would accuse someone.
Is that how the FBI normally works? Accusing people of things they can't prove in court?
Generally not especially when the accusations are formal legal charges.
So why is Mueller not following standard FBI protocol? Why in fact, has everything to do with this cloud of issues not been done according to standard protocol?
Because it is a political game. And its one that I'm actually pretty happy we're having because all the rats are coming out of the wood work. We know who most of the bad apples are in the justice department just by seeing whether or not they follow protocol. If they break protocol... why did they do that? To serve the interests of justice? Or to help grinding a political axe? Because if the former, then very well... but if the latter... they probably shouldn't be in that position.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If Occam's razor can provide a better way to interpret these facts, please share.
Ok:
FBI announces in late 2016 that they have an active investigation into the Trump campaign working with Russia to affect the election.
That would toss the election to Clinton, since it was pretty close. And it would be really, really easy for the FBI to do if they actually were out to sabotage Trump. Just a press release, like the multiple press releases they sent out for their investigation into Clinton.
Instead, the FBI announced the investigation into Clinton's emails, including a big announcement reviving it in October. The FBI didn't talk about the investigation into the Trump campaign, and actively turned the press away from it by claiming the investigation didn't involve the Trump campaign.
That would be a really bad idea if they were actually out to get Trump.....but it doesn't fit the narrative so the imbalance in press releases somehow doesn't get included when you talk about including all facts.
Rosenstein did not claim that election results or vote counts were not affected. Let me bold the important part for you:
There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.
Every time Mueller puts anything in a court filing, people can't wait to jump up and conclude that this is all there is, and that this is all there ever will be. That's a bit premature. Mueller isn't finished yet.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I don't think these attacks on the EC are well justified because the founders were quite clear that one of the main purposes of the EC was to prevent presidents like Trump, whose only campaign tactic is to make mobs angry. The entire notion of "faithless elector" would be anathema to them, because the electors were NOT supposed to be chained to the voters. If the EC was working as intended, Trump is EXACTLY the president they wanted to prevent.
Perhaps a secret ballot in the EC would help? I really think that a lot of the electors might have voted against Trump if they had been able to do so. Given the dislike of Hillary (regardless of whether that dislike was legitimate or ginned up), it is quite possible the EC would also have been unable to vote for her. In that case, they would have had to fall back on the other mechanisms for picking a president, and they certainly could not have found a worse president than #PresidentTweety.
Just a footnote, but don't forget that they wanted a system that would confer strong legitimacy, something like a mandate to lead, after strongly contested elections. I rather wish that they had been able to innovate all the way to a parliamentary system instead of creating such a winner-take-all system.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
People who live in reality don't have to rationalize anything. We just accept what is happening and truth. That truth being, Trump is doing a good job. No amount of "rationalization" by people with TDS will change that.
Of course by living in reality if Trump stops doing a good job we will accept that too.
As for his tweets, I don't see why anyone really pays attention to them. Well they are good at setting TDS people to frothing. When like the mythical nuclear war that didn't happen they have conquered up another boogie man when that didn't work out. They specter of a trade war. Which, to give them credit as a better chance of happening but not likely.
See here is what really happened. Trump stated that the trade deals between friends and allies was unfair. Like his NATO comments, that also pissed everyone off, he is of course correct. Like the nuclear comments this has sent the left off in a tizzy spouting 'Trade War! Trade War!" Which like the earlier nuclear war that didn't happen, this will probably not happen ether.
Would you like to know why? Sure you would. Because both sides, again like in the case of the nuclear war that didn't happen, know that a trade war would benefit no one. So here is what will happen. People that actually know what they are doing will get together. They will hammer out some agreements, then the politicians, like Trump will come in and take credit.
There. Is that all clear now? Now that, that is settled lets get on with more important conversations.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.