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Pretty Clear GRU's Goal Was To Weaken a Future Clinton Presidency, Former Facebook CSO Says (zdnet.com)
Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt tech conference this week, former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos reflected on his time dealing with fake news and Russian intelligence interference ahead and after the 2016 US presidential election. From a report: The former Facebook security head said "it [was] pretty clear the GRU's goal was to weaken a future Hillary presidency. Putin has a [you know, it's been well-documented] like a personal antipathy towards her and believes that she was behind the protests against him in the 2012 Russian election, and so, the GRU activity was specifically focused on weakening her."
"I think it was less about actually electing Trump," Stamos added. "I find it unlikely that the Russians are better than Nate Silver at predicting elections." What kind of attacks could we expect in the near future? Per Stamos, "Throwing an election one way or another is going to be very difficult for a foreign adversary but throwing any election into chaos is totally doable right now."
"I think it was less about actually electing Trump," Stamos added. "I find it unlikely that the Russians are better than Nate Silver at predicting elections." What kind of attacks could we expect in the near future? Per Stamos, "Throwing an election one way or another is going to be very difficult for a foreign adversary but throwing any election into chaos is totally doable right now."
but throwing any election into chaos is totally doable right now."
"Chaos"?
First of all, we would know that how, lol? Aren't they all chaos?
In any case, real elections are "chaos" ... in real elections there's real potential for the voters to actually choose something different, whether the elites like it or not.
That feels like "chaos" to the people who think that only one party should rule and that any other parties are to be kept around only for appearances sake.
Not diplomat or political scientist, meaning Stamos opinion on why Russia is about as good as yours.
Personally I think Russia would have been sowing discord regardless Clinton, Trumps behaviour, narcissism and lack of diplomacy make him a particularly good stooge for attempting to create turmoil in western nations. See also brexit.
Remember the debates? Hillary was firm in wanting a no-fly zone in Syria. This would have led to direct conflict between USAF and Russian AF. It could have easily broken out into a big shooting war. Heck, I get the idea that a lot of people in DC (the unelected government, so-called deep state) would have greatly desired that. World War II hero and former U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) once observed, in a different context: "There exists a shadowy government with ... its own fundraising mechanism."
Also remember, just before the inauguration, that US armored brigade landed and the jokes wrote themselves? Obama just sent tanks into Poland, that sort of thing. They then traveled to the Russian border? That was Hillary's big stick. Plant a bunch of troops near them and then start shit in Syria. But she wasn't elected, and they just did some training and then left. Peace broke out instead.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Does the concept of 'blowback' matter, ie that the USA might actually be responsible for some of the bad things that happen to it? Would Hillary have been a stronger candidate if she had not taken part in globalist 'nation-building' activities?
love is just extroverted narcissism
I don't think they wanted Clinton either. A lot of her actions as Secretary of State were quite opposed to what Russia was doing and it's likely that she would have been willing to step that up and increase U.S. intervention in Syria and the other proxy conflicts that the U.S. and Russia are engaged in. That isn't to say they liked Trump or wanted him to win. As you point out, they, like most others, were probably sure that wasn't a real possibility based on the data. I suspect that they were ambivalent about him, or perhaps they were indifferent towards him.
I think that Trump also fits quite well into the known-to-be-corrupt, feckless category just as well as Clinton (or most other politicians for that matter) so they knew that they wouldn't have a problem dealing with Trump either. He's in real estate and has enough history prior to his foray into politics to leave them comfortable in that assessment.
My guess is that if Clinton were elected, she would similarly beleaguered at this point in her presidency. As much as you might like to argue that the media would be on her side, they also like blood in the water.
Clinton was loved by Centrists and the Establishment Right.
What? Centrists, sure, but the right? You're off your nut. Big Pharma loved her, centrists, and the near left, but everyone else disliked her. That's why polls showed that Sanders could beat Trump, but Clinton couldn't. The DNC chose to run Clinton when it was clear that democrat voters preferred Sanders, and that is the primary reason we have president Trump right now.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They were supposed to install Trump, when it looked like they hadn't done enough, Kremlin said he should claim the election was rigged, which he duly did, claiming the election was rigged.
Trump Oct 17: "The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary - but also at many polling places - SAD"
The aim was
a) Get sanctions lifted on Russia, attempted and sort of failed, but he has blocked some sanctions.
b) Hand Syria over to Russia, that's mostly done
c) Hand back the spies who offered the property deals, done.
d) Get Russia back into the G7+1, didn't happen, he did try.
e) Get Russia intelligence access, he tried, remember his "cyber protection alliance with Russia to secure US cyber space" thing?
f) 5 eyes access, he put Flynn in, who put a dodgy person over the NSA, but pressure from Republicans ejected him. Current a no??? or Maybe?
g) Recognition of the annexed countries as Russian. The Republicans have blocked recognition of Crimea as Russian, he's put in a signing statement saying he can recognize the Crimea as Russian. So far no.
I don't think they realized what a clown Trump is, they just had their wishlist of things, and he has his debt problems, and the two could do a deal.
Hillary Clinton getting elected was a foregone conclusion to everyone except the millions of people who decided to vote for Trump well before he was even nominated. You know, the silent folks who work every day, who don't engage in narcissistic social media bullshit, who didn't put stickers on their cars or signs on their lawns because they didn't want their property vandalized by lawless unhinged leftists. THOSE people. The ones who matter. The ones who weren't influenced by low budget Russian Facebook ads because they don't give a crap about Facebook. The ones who arrogant twerps who just know what's best for everyone simply forgot about for decades, and who have finally had enough of city dwelling ignorant fucktards trying to tell the whole country what to do.
Fair Question: Did Clinton meddle in the Russian election?
There are two broad categories of states, functioning Democracies where the leaders can be booted out by the public, and countries where you're going to need a revolution to change leadership.
I'm actually fine with a policy where you should leave the functioning Democracies as is but you're free to screw around with the other countries to make them functioning Democracies since the common thread is you're trying to make the leadership of those countries accountable to the people.
Therefore I'll happily condemn Russian meddling in US elections but encourage US meddling in the Russian theatre productions they call elections. The US meddling in Ukraine is a bit more ambiguous, they were a semi-functioning Democracy but with a leader trying very hard to entrench himself for life. The Ukrainian revolution actually made them a lot closer to a functioning Democracy, which as it turns out was a great motive for Russia to invade them and steal some territory.
I stole this Sig
To be fair, there was probably a lot more money thrown around for Russian meddling, but thats beside the point.
The main reason Hillary lost is because she was literally the worst candidate the DNC could've chose. Back when she announced her candidacy in 2015 I posted this which listed all of her past scandals, and that you had better choices, even on the democrat side
After the Access Hollywood scandal, Trump should've been done. Period. Any other candidate would have been sunk, and Trump would've lost to any other candidate running against him. The difference is that he was running against Hillary, and all he had to do was divert people's attention away from the scandal by addressing the issue once, and then going back to his core voter issues while Hillary spun in circles trying to capitalize on the scandal instead of focusing on her core voter issues.
From my experience in this election, I can tell you that Trump was resonating with voters. I live in the rust belt (More Specifically North East Ohio, Western PA) where there is a ton of Democrat support. Almost all of the people I knew that traditionally voted Democrat were voting Trump, including my Grandfather, who was a WWII vet, a Retired Union leader who worked in the Railroad Business, and Voted straight Democrat except for Eisenhower. When I asked him why, he said he was the first Candidate he saw in decades that gets that Free Trade and especially Steel Dumping is killing heavy industry in this country and he felt he was the only candidate to actually fix it instead of talking about fixing it. Most of the other voters had similar reasons. Here on Slashdot, it was the H1B issue drawing voters since he was against it (but as of this post still hasn't done anything about it, which is going to hurt him come November)
Surprisingly, Almost no one I asked that went from voting Democrat to Trump voted for him because of Hillary Scandals or "Crooked Hillary" or any anti Hillary message that you commonly saw with these Russian troll ads. They voted for Trump cause They liked Trump's stance on issues (particularly anti free trade) vs Hillary. Many of them also like Sanders over Hillary because of the same issues and reasons, since many of Sanders issues were similar to Trump when it came to Jobs. It wouldn't surprise me in the least that Sanders would be in the White House if he won the nomination.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
And are you accounting for the oligarch money that flowed through the traitorous NRA leadership? Notice I say leadership and not membership?