CIA Captured Putin's 'Specific Instructions' To Hack the 2016 Election, Says Report (thedailybeast.com) 535
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Beast: When Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James B. Comey all went to see Donald Trump together during the presidential transition, they told him conclusively that they had "captured Putin's specific instructions on the operation" to hack the 2016 presidential election, according to a report in The Washington Post. The intel bosses were worried that he would explode but Trump remained calm during the carefully choreographed meeting. "He was affable, courteous, complimentary," Clapper told the Post. Comey stayed behind afterward to tell the president-elect about the controversial Steele dossier, however, and that private meeting may have been responsible for the animosity that would eventually lead to Trump firing the director of the FBI.
Intredasting (Score:4, Funny)
When you require careful and concerted choreography to explain simple concepts to your president, there might be a problem.
Re:Intredasting (Score:4, Insightful)
>When you require careful and concerted choreography to explain simple concepts to your president
If you want Trump to believe something, it's best to get Fox News to do a short and aggressive segment on it in which they flatter Trump a lot. Maybe include a short phrase that looks good with a hash tag.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Intredasting (Score:2, Interesting)
Trump is Obamaâ(TM)s true legacy.
Re: Intredasting (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nobody says that. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm curious. When was being a lobbyist treated as treason (a crime defined in the Constitution)?
Re:Nobody says that. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm curious. When was being a lobbyist treated as treason (a crime defined in the Constitution)?
Quite the contrary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This is just one of the things that Madison, and the court, have gotten wrong. The forces do not, in fact, tend to balance out in time because Madison had no concept of the degree of accumulation of wealth that would occur over the next two centuries and how much this would lead to a small oligarchy controlling immense resources and correspondingly acting as a superselector for the actual private citizen's choices. Shockingly, the courts have even recognized corporations themselves as having many of the rights of private citizens, in particular the "right" to petition the government via lobbying. In this way, the entire concept of democracy (republican or not) is subverted, as in the actual constitution corporations are NOT recognized as political entities -- all political power ultimately devolves to we, the people, the citizen. A corporation is not a citizen, nor is it a democracy.
Sadly, the only way we can get out of this at this point is EITHER having a congress that passes laws that muzzle lobbying -- personally I'd prohibit ALL lobbying, as the baby drowned long ago and all that is left is the sewer sludge swamp water of extremists on all sides, fueled by the oligarchs who maintain power as long as they keep wethepeople too distracted to care and too stupid to want to. Then we'd have to have a court that would actually consider the point that corporations are NOT citizens and do NOT have a right to "freedom of speech" -- only individual persons (owners or employees alike!) do, and only to the extent that they are willing to expend their own personal resources on it. OR we'd have to pass an amendment to the constitution specifically limiting the power of corporate entities to participate in or influence government decision making. Frankly I'd prefer the latter, but it will probably require the second American revolution to bring it about.
In the meantime, much as I appreciate the sentiment that corporate lobbying SHOULD be, well, not "treason" but a pretty serious crime, the lobbying part per se is the tip of the iceberg. I could even live with it as long as the real problem is repaired.
That is the simple fact illustrated here: https://www.opensecrets.org/ne... [opensecrets.org]
and here: https://www.opensecrets.org/ne... [opensecrets.org]
Scroll down to the graphic detailing PAC contributions. To put that graphic in perspective, one has to look at the numbers:
https://www.opensecrets.org/or... [opensecrets.org]
and
https://www.theverge.com/2017/... [theverge.com]
Opensecrets (among other places) follows this all the way down to the following brutal fact. It costs an average of around 11 million dollars to run for the Senate. It costs almost 2 million dollars to run for the House. It costs well over 100 million dollars to run for President. Actual donations from private citizens making less than $200,000/year constitute about 6 or 7 PERCENT of this. Well over 90% of the cost of running for office comes not from We, The People, but from corporations, filtered through PACs and the parties themselves, and those corporations are controlled by a tiny handful of the world's wealthiest people.
Nothing illustrates the corruption more clearly than the fact that many -- arguably most -- of the PACs contribute roughly equal amounts to Republicans AND Democrats running against each other. They don't care who wins, regardless of their stated position on whatever "issue" the PAC is supposed to give a shit about.
Re: (Score:3)
In the meantime, much as I appreciate the sentiment that corporate lobbying SHOULD be, well, not "treason" but a pretty serious crime, the lobbying part per se is the tip of the iceberg. I could even live with it as long as the real problem is repaired.
Accepting money, property, or favors either directly or indirectly (e.g., "campaign contributions", "donations" to foundations, etc.) in exchange for influence betrays the office and is thus inherently in opposition to a representative government. Do it at a thus level (congress) and it's counter to the design and law of the nation, and I consider anyone engaging in this practice (on either end of the transaction) to be a traitorous enemy of the state. If you don't, you're part of the problem.
Re:Intredasting (Score:5, Insightful)
it had nothing to do with his policies
This one is true. Obama told everyone what he wanted to accomplish which then allowed Republicans to state unequivocally their top priority, make him a one-term president [nationaljournal.com]. And thus they became the party of No, obstructing everything, even if the people wanted it.
how he enacted those polices
Not sure what you mean by this one. Oh wait. You mean those executive orders and signing statements, don't you? The same ones George Bush and every single president has done since George Washington. Yeah, I can see how that would be an issue. After all, if you do the exact same thing as your predecessor, only you are in the wrong. Not the guy who came after you and does the exact same thing.
his attitude toward the opposition
You mean like reaching out and trying to find common ground? How horrible!
his repeated mishaps (Fast and Furious as example)
You claim multiple mishaps yet cite only one. I'm guessing those 3,000 dead that happened when George Bush ignored months of daily warnings of an impending attack doesn't come close this one issue, right? Nor the financial collapse which was the worst in 80 years. Nor the invasion of Iraq which cost us over 4,000 soldiers and over $4 trillion in costs. How about handing over $700 billion of taxpayer money to Wall Street and banks so they could pay out their bonuses? Forcing phone companies to install illegal wiretaps? Does any of this ring a bell?
his moneyed ties to Wallstreet
You mean unlike the current administration who as as his Treasury chief a person who came from Goldman Sachs, right? Or that he had, until recently, Carl Icahn who is lousy with connections to Wall Street. Here's a list [cnn.com] of the Goldman Sachs employees the con artist has in his administration. This is only Goldman Sachs employees. This doesn't include all the other firms people have come from.
This article [bloomberg.com] talks about how the con artist doesn't want to enforce rules against Wall Street and the banks. Instead, he wants them to "self report" whenever they commit a crime. This of course is in no way a sign the con artist has moneyed ties to Wall Street or is doing their bidding. None whatsoever.
his repeated power grabs at various government agencies
Like signing statements above, the same as previous administrations. Were you whining when Bush did this? How about Reagan?
his cozy relationship with MSM
Non sequitor. MSM is a nonsense name, a fake name if you will, made up by those trying to claim the high ground because they have nothing to offer. If you think Breitbart and the Fox tabloid are somehow better news sources than the New York Times, BBC or CNN, it's quite clear facts don't enter into your daily life.
his continuation of Bush policy
Isn't this a good thing? Everyone knows how great things were under Bush what with the financial markets collapsing, the worst recession in 80 years, 14 million people losing their jobs, millions losing their homes. This doesn't even take into account the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history which occurred on Bush's watch. Make up your mind. You criticize Obama for doing his own thing, and you criticize him for doing the exact same thing Bush did. You can't have it both ways.
his lackluster foreign policy
This is the only legitimate issue and is a continuation of your first comment. Obama was lackluster when it came
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe include a short phrase that looks good with a hash tag.
You mean something like "Covfefe"?
Re: (Score:2)
"If you want Trump to believe something, it's best to get Fox News to do a short and aggressive segment on it in which they flatter Trump a lot."
Naw, just do it like John Oliver does it, paying for a commercial with a self-lubricating-catheder-cowboy actor explaining things to the 'fucking moron' on Faux-News.
Re: Intredasting (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Intredasting (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it helped that the new administration didn't introduce the "no fly zone" over Syria that Clinton had wanted to put in place.
Re:Intredasting (Score:4)
Shockingly, "he is an asshole" actually is a valid point for not liking someone. And it's also a majority opinion that Donald J. Trump is, indeed, a huge asshole.
You are correct that "he is an asshole" probably isn't valid criteria for quantifying job performance as President, unless he's actively an asshole to other heads of state during diplomatic events and such. Someone can still be a complete asshole and be an effective President - see: Lyndon B. Johnson or Richard M. Nixon. Both huge, gaping, assholes. But both also passed landmark legislation that has made this country a better place since (Civil Rights Act, Clean Water Act being two examples) and both had major foreign policy victories that have helped to shape the world we live in (for better or worse).
The history books will have the final say on Trump, regardless of what people are saying today (good or bad).
horse-shoe (Score:4, Insightful)
If your boss explodes when reality does not conform to his wishes, he just might be a snowflake.
*shocked gasp* (Score:3)
The real surprise would be if they didn't find any evidence of this.
Another round of nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
If you show the average person evidence that someone is doing something bad, they might ask questions about the reliability of the evidence.
If his own spy agency shows Trump evidence that Russia is doing something bad, he denounces them and has an off-the-record chat with Putin.
I wouldn't trust a spy agency as a general rule - their whole existence is about getting what they want by deception - but I'd hardly trust the Russians when it comes to a domestic agency's claims against them.
This immediately leads to questions about why a president might trust a foreign power over his own agencies. And more questions when there are records of his team attempting to work with that same power to scuttle an opponent's election bid, that have been consistently lied about in an obvious cover-up.
But this is Trump, so this will amount to another round of Twitter outrage and blow over.
Re:Another round of nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
This immediately leads to questions about why a president might trust a foreign power over his own agencies.
No, the real question and, as far as I know a question that no one is asking, is: if the elections have really been hacked, why not void them and have a do over?
Of course that's a rhetorical question, since putting the blame one someone else is easier than admit that enough people voted for the man, so you now have to deal with it. Trouble is, so does the rest of the world.
RT.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Even if people don't admit that they were duped, just knowing that will make them more careful next time. And that's the point of it - to understand what happened and come up with ways to stop it happening again.
Re: (Score:3)
Even if people don't admit that they were duped, just knowing that will make them more careful next time
uhm, have you ever BEEN to the deep south and spoken with our, uhm, fellow americans?
they are beyond hope. nothing will convert them. look at alabama. half of the fucking state STILL thought the child molester was better than having a clean guy with a D next to his name.
no, just under half of this country is beyond hope. no way to change their minds. this election was proof of that, if you ever needed any.
reason and logic and the R party? are you fucking kidding me??
I do live in California, where they would gladly do the same if you switch the R for D. Partisanship is not restricted to just one side or just one region of the country. I would apply your statement "reason and logic and the D party? Are you fucking kidding me??" to what we see here - the Sanctuary State.
Re:Another round of nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you forgotten Schwarzenegger already?
Re: (Score:2)
if the elections have really been hacked, why not void them and have a do over?
And what organization would be the arbiter? CIA can't call new elections. Congress can impeach, but that is a political decision, not a technical one. Any other?
Your question was indeed rhetorical, but not for the reason you named.
Re: (Score:3)
Shoot Trump and Clinton into the sun. Have a new primary and a new general election. Have an option on the ballots to shoot both candidates into the sun, just in case we end up in a similar situation. Rinse and repeat until we've got a candidate that the country doesn't hate.
Re: (Score:2)
This immediately leads to questions about why a president might trust a foreign power over his own agencies.
No, the real question and, as far as I know a question that no one is asking, is: if the elections have really been hacked, why not void them and have a do over?
That would be cool, but the process of removing a sitting president in America is based on either Impeachment and removal, or the 25th amendment removal process, then there is a specific line of succession as to who is next in line. The next to are obviously vice president Mike Pence, followed by Paul Ryan, speaker of the house.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Another round of nothing (Score:2)
Consider, "One person's Terrorist is another's Freedom Fighter."
I always found that phrase so vapid. One persons cult figure is another persons great leader. The fact that people are often delusional or mislead doesn't mean there aren't objective standards, or that words don't actually have real meaning.
Re: Another round of nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Itâ(TM)s not about trust but about keeping the peace and politics. Trump may or may not personally believe what the NSA and CIA told him (which has its own agenda) but to accuse or retaliate on Russia could start another Cold War.
In the end, Russia used propaganda to influence an election just like the US does in Russia. They didnâ(TM)t hack it, they didnâ(TM)t make people vote or stop voting at gun point, they got some advertising on a Facebook - voters influenced by that are morons and are spread out evenly across the population so itâ(TM)s unlikely to have had a great effect other than being demoralizing.
Re: Another round of nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
I do find it ironic that out of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in advertising in this election, so many people are willing to believe that just $3000 in well placed Facebook ads is all it took to 'steal' an election. Does anyone besides Facebook have anything to gain by perpetuation this rumor? I mean that's totally amazing Advertisement for Facebook. "Ads placed on Facebook are 10,000 times more likely to be viewed than traditional media. A 2016 study showed that every dollar spent in ads on Facebook had more impact than $10,000 spent with our competitors" ... then they go about feeding those who are so anti-trump they will latch onto anything, and suddenly half the country believes that Facebook is the ultimate advertisement platform.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Russia did much more that Facebook advertising. They hacked the democratic party and had Wikileaks published 20000 internal stolen emails. This was denied by the Trump campaign and Trump instead at a rally said, ""Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing". US intelligence released a statement stating that Russia was responsible and Obama kicked out a number of Russian diplomats and enforced sanctions on Russia. While Trump claimed it "could be Russia, but i
Re: (Score:3)
Bold claim. However it has never been proven.
Re: Another round of nothing (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
If you look at my post history, you'll find I'm decidedly on the Anti-Trump bandwagon. (As a non-American, not living in the USA, I feel somewhat impartial and think my opinion that Trump is a dangerous, divisive and disruptive idiot is my opinion because it's the truth, not because I'm partisan)
So, with that huge disclaimer that's probably lost you by now... I would find it more difficult to believe the USA never attempts to affect Russian politics than to believe it was making such attempts.
I'd actually
Re: Another round of nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
But this is Trump, so this will amount to another round of Twitter outrage and blow over.
First statement is true, as for the second one - just stand by
Re: (Score:2)
>as for the second one - just stand by
I stopped thinking anything would happen to Trump when he went crazy over the inauguration photos and the Republican party didn't immediately convene to discuss how to remove someone that divorced from reality from the White House.
Instead, people supported him, and continued with every new inappropriate thing he said afterwards. I don't care if his support is slowly falling in the polls to record lows, nothing seems to stop his party and their core voters from uncon
Re: (Score:2)
Who says he trusted anyone? Distrust a foreign power particularly one run by a Soviet-era intelligence operative. But they weren't Trump's agencies by any stretch of the imagination. They were the last administration's agencies. Pretty much everyone in there came on board before he took office. They all have a vested interest in their own power, influence, and careers. I wouldn't trust them either.
Re:Another round of nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
>Such an obvious cover up that no evidence has been found.
Just lie after lie uncovered about meeting with Russians. Just that.
But if you repeat your lie - "no evidence has been found" often enough, something like 30-50% of the USA will either believe it or pretend to believe it in order to keep your team in power.
Party over country, all the way down!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>No no... there's no evidence at all
There you go, you're getting it! Keep repeating your lies!
That stuff that was in the news? The changing stories from those involved as their lies were exposed? FAKE NEWS!!!
Posting as AC, though... weak. You lack the courage of your convictions.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
>Most likely doesn't want to Prove that AC is really a Russian troll.
Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I'd like to believe the Russians are recoiling in horror at how effective their efforts have been.
They might be in competition with the USA and gain a little at their expense, but too much disruption is bad for everyone's business. On the other hand... the full potential of an American return to isolationism is nowhere near being realized, so maybe the Russians are pleased with the results.
My grandkids may
Re: (Score:2)
>Most likely doesn't want to Prove that AC is really a Russian troll.
Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I'd like to believe the Russians are recoiling in horror at how effective their efforts have been.
More likely shaking their heads in amusement as they see the effects of an almost perfect storm of flaws exposed in the American Electoral system. Computerized gerrymandering, the ease with which the voting machines can be hacked, and an electoral system so bitched up that a candidate can lose even though they received over 3 million more votes than the winner.
A candidate who is beholden to Russia because no other country is willing to lend him money, as well as some other activities involving Russia.
Re:Another round of nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
You left out "a deeply corrupt primary system in the opposition party that coronated the only person in the country that could lose a general election" and "hubris that stopped said candidate from stepping foot in the Rust Belt"
Those were, after all, larger factors than anything you mentioned.
Re: (Score:2)
No, they've found "business as usual" stuff, some pocket change thrown into ads, and oil guys that have ties to an oil rich company.
Trump should be in jail or under a guillotine, but Russia is a big nothingburger.
Re:Another round of nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me the actual intercept, then it's a fact. And of course, they won't, because it's completely made up. They'll hide forever behind not revealing their capabilities.... as if the CIA has a tap on Putin's phone they don't want him to know about.... Do you really think that's even plausible?
You don't think the CIA would make shit up to effect an election? They guys flying single engine planes under the radar to bring cocaine into this country wouldn't possibly do something bad like lie to the American public. Nope.
Re: Another round of nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
Literally none of those things have happened. You seem to want them to have happened, so you are pretending that "evidence" suggests they did.
Re: (Score:2)
Great argument.
Since you're argument is "IS NOT!" I think the only appropriate counter argument is "IS TOO!"
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, there are the lies about all the various meetings that people had with Russians. And then there's the fact that many of them improper and some arguably illegal.
One of the issues we are not hearing much about today is the attempt to use Russian crypto equipment to bypass normal communications.
I suspect the people who attempted to do that are praying they get offered a plea deal.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You have a very bizarre definition of "following this very closely" if you missed both Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos pleading guilty to charges of lying to the FBI about contact with the Russians during the campaign and transition. It was on pretty much every news outlet available.
Re: (Score:2)
Flynn and Papadopoulos.
Oh, right, but those aren't "real" convictions of "real" crimes. And that guy over there isn't a true Scotsman [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
That would be news to those of us who have been following this very closely. Please provide a citation.
Suuuure you are following this very closely. Look up Mike FLynn, Trump's ex-security head Look up George Papadopoulos a foreign policy advisor.
Amazing that a person such as yourself, who is an apparent expert on all of this does't know that bit of fact.
Don't they get anything other than Fox News in Moscow?
Re:Another round of nothing (Score:4, Informative)
That would be news to those of us who have been following this very closely. Please provide a citation.
Lying to investigators is a crime and guilty pleas are convictions. If you actually need a citation, then you haven't been following closely.
Of course, lying to investigators isn't evidence of an actual conspiracy to do anything, though it looks very bad. The charges against Gates and Manfort are much more substantial, but not related to the Trump campaign.
My guess is that Trump and his staff are too incompetent to have really colluded with the Russians to subvert the election. Putin decided to do what he could to manipulate the election on his own, and that it's impossible to know whether Trump would have lost without the Russian interference (I'd guess that Comey's October surprise had a bigger effect than everything Russia did). Russia did reach out to the Trump campaign (that's well-supported), and the Trump campaign was willing to cooperate but I suspect nothing happened that Putin wasn't already doing anyway, and the Russians were cagey enough not to say anything openly enough that the Trump staffers had a legal obligation to report it to the FBI. Which is good for the Trump team because they were too clueless to have realized they had such an obligation.
So, I think the way this is going to work out is that Mueller is going to shake a lot of trees and a lot of dirt is going to fall out, because Trump is dirty and the people he works with are dirtier. Little of the dirt will be related to the election. Trump will probably have been sufficiently well-insulated from the dirt to escape prosecution, but the issue will dog his entire term of office, and his remaining three years in office will be even less effective than his first, assuming he lasts out his term. I give it even odds that some combination of health and stress over the investigation get him to resign or be removed under the 25th. There's also a chance that he gets frustrated and decides to try to shut down the investigation, which would generate a huge backlash, and probably convince GOP leaders to impeach him in self-defense.
Re: (Score:3)
Lying to investigators is a crime and guilty pleas are convictions. If you actually need a citation, then you haven't been following closely.
To be a pedant, no conviction has occurred, unless something happened when I wasn't paying attention. A plea bargain between prosecutors and accused in which the accused will be agreeing to plead guilty to a crime will lead to a conviction but the conviction does not occur until the charges are brought forth before a court and judge.
Papadopolous and Flynn have both formally pleaded guilty to a US district court, not just made an agreement with the prosecutor. AFAICT neither has been sentenced.
Cool... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
They won't publish because it would reveal how they got that information. They aren't going to advertise how the Kremlin leaks. Now go back and learn about how to do foreign intelligence.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Publish them... SHOW us all this "Evidence" (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly.
The media has been pounding on the Russian drum for over a year now. So far, it's a big nothing-burger. A few alleged Facebook ads, not even a molecule in a drop in a bucket. Otherwise, endless allegations, but a stunning lack of actual proof.
Really, it's like the media are trying to distract from something. Like, maybe, Trump isn't doing such a bad job after all?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Like, maybe, Trump isn't doing such a bad job after all?
Impossible. According to CNN he drinks way too much diet coke for that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>big nothing-burger
Except for the guilty pleas...
You're in for a shock if you think this is all made up. Time will tell.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Nothing burger? You should tell that to Michael Flynn, Peter Smith (oh...), George Papadopoulos, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner.
Considering some of them have already admitted their crimes, it's odd that you forgot to mention it in your summary.
Re: Publish them... SHOW us all this "Evidence" (Score:2)
Which one of those people pled guilty to anything related to colluding with Russia to affect the election?
Re: (Score:3)
When you plea deal you don't plea guilty to the worst of the charges, otherwise why would you deal?
To get a the prosecution to ask the judge for a reduced sentence for your crimes.
For example, you and a group of friends rob a bank. You use a gun so it's armed robbery for all, but they don't have enough evidence to charge everybody with conspiracy and the police cannot ID a number of people involved.
You decide to give up your friends because the prosecutor says he will recommend a light sentence for you. You will be required to plea guilty to the whole thing in order to be seen as a credible witness.
Re: (Score:3)
Publish them... SHOW us all this "Evidence" I want to SEE it. Not hear about it. I can hear lies from ALL directions. SHOW ME THE TRUTH!
Exactly.. I'd settle for a transcript of the intercept myself.. Not that some intercept transcript means much at this point. There have been SO many invented things reported about this now that turned out to be false that I'm pretty skeptical every time something new pops up.
What we have now isn't even hearsay. It's basically somebody saying that somebody else heard a third person say something. But you can bet we have a federal case now!
Yea, Right, (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-14/new-russian-hacker-claims-putin-ordered-theft-clintons-email-after-first-one-refused
Haven't we heard this before? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is the simple fact that even if the DNC and Hillary were hacked by the Russians, which evidence shows that it was mostly leaked data by their own people, they were acting in a criminal manner to rig the nomination process and to burn Trump with made with a made up dossier
I for one do not care how the information came out. The fact that it came out was good enough for me. I actually hope hackers all over the world do this every election. Break in to both sides as show where all the bodies are buried. Maybe then we can end some of the corruption that plagues governments.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
>they were acting in a criminal manner to rig the nomination process
The party was in a financial mess, and Team Hillary essentially bought the debt and the right to have significant control of the party with it. Not illegal in the slightest, 'just' slightly unethical in that it was not traditionally how things were done.
Also, as it turns out, a giant mistake because Hillary was not actually a viable candidate.
> and to burn Trump with made with a made up dossier .
Nope. You know that dossier was first
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>The dossier was NOT "first commissioned by Republicans". Christopher Steele was not hired by Fusion GPS until AFTER the Republicans in question stopped paying Fusion GPS for opposition research on Donald Trump
So it was, in fact, first paid for by Republicans.
Re: (Score:3)
So you will be happy when someone leak's Trumps tax returns, right?
There is a massive bombshell hiding in Trump's tax returns that he is absolutely terrified of the world seeing...I'll need lots of popcorn for that day!
Wonder why he distrusts the FBI (Score:2, Insightful)
Turns out the entire FBI leadership was, and mostly still is, a rat's nest of opposition [pjmedia.com] to him filled with unethical bureaucrats who think it's their right to have "insurance policies against the President" among other things.
If this were happening in 2009, the Democrats would have been giving Obama--rightly--carte blanch to purge the entire agency's leadership above the level of GS15. It doesn't matter what you think of Trump or Obama. Neither of them were Hitler or Stalin or anything like that. The only
Re: (Score:2)
Sedition is the technical term for it, not mutiny.
Re: (Score:3)
It doesn't matter what you think of Trump or Obama. Neither of them were Hitler or Stalin or anything like that.
The things that Trump posts on twitter make me think he's aspiring to become like Stalin. The guy doesn't think he should have any oversight whatsoever.
There will be more (Score:3, Funny)
james clapper (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we probably knew that... (Score:2)
... Trump was the sort of person who would...
...kill the messenger. A petty little man.
It doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Hillary didn't lose because of Russia. Trump didn't win because of Russia.
Ignore Russia for five seconds if you can... Hillary was a weak candidate and so was pretty much the entire republican field.
Jeb Bush for example carried 3 percent of the republican vote. Hillary is generally disliked by most of her own party. Trump naturally is one of the most disliked presidents in US history. But he didn't win the election because people liked him. He won because for whatever reason... he said he was going to do things and people believed him.
Pretending that the current political circumstances are the result of the Russians is deranged. This is the same sort of blind spot that lead to Al Gore losing the election against Bush 43. Anyone that studied the gore vs bush election knows that Gore made a lot of mistakes. If you tell yourself you lose because of the Russians or because the Supreme Court robbed you... then you're going to keep losing and you'll deserve to lose.
Re: It doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Holy shit your oversimplification of the situation is amazingly intellectually bankrupt. The actual reality of the situation is nowhere near as binary as youâ(TM)re trying to suggest.
The Presidential election is really hundreds of district elections for electors which then cast the votes for the President. Illegally influencing Presidential elections does not require all of the winning partyâ(TM)s voters to be âoesheepâ. It doesnâ(TM)t even need a majority to be âoesheepâ.
Swinging an election through illegal influence can be done by targeting a relatively small number of swing districts in swing states. This effect has been amplified with ridiculous gerrymandering of the last century (thanks so much Reapportionment Act of 1929) and disenfranchisement campaigns.
The allegations against Russia include not just the hacking of the DNCâ(TM)s e-mail but an astroturfing and advertising campaign to help Trump and damage Clinton. Literally fake news articles written by content farms and actual Russian intelligence agents/contractors were pushed by thousands of social media bots and fake accounts. A great many of these have been found to be based in Russia. The same patterns have been seen in several recent elections in Europe as well.
The actual fake news articles used mastheads and site themes aping legitimate news organizations. Facebook and Twitter were gamed to make these sites look like they were widely read and highly regarded. Some people influenced by that misinformation campaign were indeed sheep. It certainly helped Trump in that he routinely decried the mainstream media as collectively untrustworthy. To even the less sheep-like voters the tide of real looking articles confirming their preconceived beliefs put them in a bubble insulated from reality or rationality. Trump campaign officials and Trump himself even amplified these literally fake news stories during the campaign.
Which goes back to swing districts and states. If a few thousand people in a relatively small number of districts were influenced by that PSYOPS campaign to 1) vote Trump 2) vote third party or 3) stay home because Clinton either âoehas it in the bagâ or is a master criminal then the state will go Trump. If you go back to the vote counts in swing states youâ(TM)ll see a lot of districts went Trump by small margins that tended to go contrary to historical voting patterns. Just like regular product advertising you donâ(TM)t need to influence everyone just enough to profit.
Trump lies all the time, plain and simple (Score:2)
And People take his words and run with them, only later do the News Agencies claim they were wrong (less Foxnews). I for one am tired of it.
https://www.theguardian.com/us... [theguardian.com]
I had such a warm fuzzy after Roy Moore was beat by Doug Jones, that I'm looking forward to Trump's ouster.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't forget the uranium. And the Russians.
Just forget the part about those things already being looked into and dismissed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>With the Meuller investigation falling apart
There's no evidence that's happening, and in fact there is evidence to the contrary. Not much, though, because Mueller is being a professional about it all. Oh noes! Someone on his team thinks Trump's an idiot and got booted! Let me let you in on a secret: the vast majority of those who have taken notice of Trump think he's an idiot. It'd be surprising if there weren't people on Mueller's team of the same opinion. (Though it's sad they were unprofessiona
Re: (Score:2)
Where I live (far away from the US in Europe), absolutely everybody I've ever talked to about Trump thinks that he's an idiot. I haven't come across a single exceptions. If there are Trump supporters where I live, they must be hiding very well. People agree so much about this that I occasionally found myself in the odd position of defending Trump a little bit during his campaign, but I've stopped doing that after he got elected and regret it now.
Re: (Score:2)
>Where I live (far away from the US in Europe), absolutely everybody I've ever talked to about Trump thinks that he's an idiot.
Must be a distance thing. I'm in Canada and there are definitely a few people here who think he's OK (though with a lot of excuses, mainly for his tweets). Not enough to get him elected dog catcher, but there are fans.
Re:Excelent (Score:5, Informative)
the fact that we learned that the HRC team contributed to the campaign of an FBI deputy directors wife, to escape indictment; and another special prosecutor's wife works for Fusion GPS, the same wife who provided this 'dirt dossier' to the FBI, to her husband, the same person who spearheaded the wire tap in trump tower. (remember back in may when you insisted that trump was making that part up about an illegal wire tap?)
Here is why his investigation is struggling:
Peter Strzok - dismissed for bias and losing objectivity. This was more than saying something negative in a text, his entire career just got sacked to a shitty desk job in human resources. This wasnt a small thing, according to Meuller.
Buce Ohr - we learned that he met with Fusion GPS many times during the campaign, and his wife WORKS for fusionGPS and was part of the anti-trump dossier
Andrew McCabe - Deputy FBI Director and husband to Jill McCabe, while running for a Senate seat, received $467,000 in contributions from Terry McAuliff right around the time that her husband, Andrew, edited the words 'grossly negligent' to 'extremely careless' in Comey's statement, because 'grossly negligent' is the precise words in the law that would have triggered an indictment.
now stand back and look at this objectively... if HRC had won, and this same investigation was underway trying to impeach her, and you have all these examples of the investigation team being packed with hillary haters... so she screams VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY at the top of her lungs again... would you consider the fact that the prosecution would have a hard time moving anywhere with this?
You do understand impeachment right? Simple majority of the House has to vote for impeachment and 75% of the Senate has to vote to remove him. With all this 'reasonable' doubt and allegations of bias flying around, its never ever ever going to cross the 75% threshold and most of the senate republicans do not even like the guy.
Re: (Score:2)
>Mueller has been at it for almost a year now and besides some sound bites and headlines on CNN nothing truly significant has come out yet.
Didn't Watergate take a couple of years before Nixon resigned?
I think you vastly underestimate the time requirements of a properly executed investigation of a sitting president.
>He's wasting time, trying to keep his job afloat. When he's done his career will be over and he knows it.
That sounds like what you hope to be true, but Mueller's professional reputation wil
Re: Excelent (Score:2)
Didn't Watergate take a couple of years before Nixon resigned?
It took a couple years because they didn't get the "smoking gun" tapes until 2 years after the event happened. Once they had those, iirc he stepped down a month or two later.
Even without those tapes he would most likely have been impeached, but the evidence against him up until that point was much weaker.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Typical WP - lots of words little substance (Score:5, Insightful)
>Up to this point it still appears that Russia bought some ads to try to sway the vote.
Well... more than that. There's also the bot net deployed to make certain opinions look vastly more popular than they were.
But how upset are you supposed to get about that when your own country has a history of funding outright revolutions and installing puppet regimes?
>There is no evidence that they hacked any voting machines.
I really don't understand why Americans tolerate their current voting system. Computer-tallied paper ballots and pencils with ballot boxes and any manual counting observed by the candidate's representatives is pretty solid.
Computer kiosks with known flaws, with the electronic records purged ASAP looks an awful lot like the dream system of someone who wants to generate whatever result they like and should offend (and terrify) the average voter.
Re: (Score:3)
I really don't understand why Americans tolerate their current voting system. Computer-tallied paper ballots and pencils with ballot boxes and any manual counting observed by the candidate's representatives is pretty solid.
Computer kiosks with known flaws, with the electronic records purged ASAP looks an awful lot like the dream system of someone who wants to generate whatever result they like and should offend (and terrify) the average voter.
You are right. In my state it it still done on paper with optical scanners. The electronic voting machines are not ubiquitous in the USA.
Best as I can determine the electronic voting machines without a paper trail is only done in the following 11 states: Virginia, Texas, Tennesee, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Louisiana, Kentucky, Indiana, Florida, and Delaware.
Re: (Score:2)
Up to this point it still appears that Russia bought some ads to try to sway the vote. There is no evidence that they hacked any voting machines. There appears to be no evidence of the Russians hacking anyone's email either.
You forgot the evidence that the Russian government cooperated with the Clinton Campaign in the compilation of the "Steele dossier".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't mind if the US worked to influence Russian elections and get Putin voted out. Turnabout is fair play, right? Hanging onto power for forever minus a day is what Putin cares about most, and he's willing to tear Western society apart from the inside to help achieve that goal. I think he's a more dangerous character than Kim Jong Un at this point.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)