US Investigating Potential Covert Russian Plan To Disrupt November Elections (washingtonpost.com) 531
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Washington Post: U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are probing what they see as a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election and in U.S. political institutions, intelligence and congressional officials said. The aim is to understand the scope and intent of the Russian campaign, which incorporates cyber-tools to hack systems used in the political process, enhancing Russia's ability to spread disinformation. The effort to better understand Russia's covert influence operations is being coordinated by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence. The Kremlin's intent may not be to sway the election in one direction or another, officials said, but to cause chaos and provide propaganda fodder to attack U.S. democracy-building policies around the world, particularly in the countries of the former Soviet Union. U.S. intelligence officials described the covert influence campaign here as "ambitious" and said it is also designed to counter U.S. leadership and influence in international affairs. One congressional official, who has been briefed recently on the matter, said "Russian 'active measures' or covert influence or manipulation efforts, whether it's in Eastern Europe or in the United States" are worrisome. It "seems to be a global campaign," the aide said. As a result, the issue has "moved up as a priority" for the intelligence agencies, which include the FBI and Department of Homeland Security as well as the CIA and the National Security Agency. Their comments came just before President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin talked privately about cyberspying and other matters on the sidelines of the Group of 20 talks in China.
27 July 2016 (Score:4, Funny)
They are just doing what Trump asked them to.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."
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I'm still amazed that so many people think he thinks Russian can hack a server that no longer exists, rather than simply revealing what Hillary left open to all the world with her illicit email server.
Re:what Trump said and meant (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: what Trump said and meant (Score:2, Informative)
Hilliary did not follow the rules that applied to her because she was too stupid and incompetent to understand them.
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Colin's attributed remarks are Irrelevant, as Hillary had already set up her server. Convenient, expedient politically, and whitewash for the ignorant self-misinformed cheerleaders. The rest of us know the reason for the server to exist, and it wasn't because Colin told her to do it. When data was destroyed without any arms length oversight and the one who destroyed the data claims that attorney client privilege covers the criteria for the destroyed data, you can rest assured the original intent for sett
Re:So then Hillary is the warmonger (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia and Putin are going to try to help whichever candidate they think would weaken the US the most.
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No, because the US is a top trading partner of both of those countries.
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And in the case of Saudi Arabia, besides the deeply intertwined business investments, we're their main best buddy arms dealer and international apologist for their brutality and protector against Iran.
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That's true. Unfortunately, both candidates are sure to continue that buddy-buddy relationship with Saudi Arabia and Israel. It's a choice between a neo-con and just a con.
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Re:So then Hillary is the warmonger (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, that's it, I'm pretty sure.
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Its relationship with Europe certainly is.
But Putin spent enough time in the KGB to still have strong feelings about bringing down the West. I mean, we're talking about a guy who imprisons three girls in a punk rock band. I'm sure he'd like to piss on America's grave while Donald Trump holds his dick.
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He doesn't really care about America's grave. To him America is just a distant whining voice and occasional mosquito bite. If someday the US congress can have some sort of agreement about Syria or Ukraine he may pay more attention, but I can't see either of those things happening any day soon.
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Russia would love the natural gas concession to Western Europe. It's one of the few things left they have to export besides hacking and suppression of political dissent.
http://time.com/4205782/pussy-... [time.com]
[Note: they were arrested again after this]
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WTF?
You've got a million real reasons to hate her without going into tinfoil hat territory.
So Reagan was wrong in opposing Gaddafi as well?
Epic fail (Score:5, Funny)
Bzzt - fail.
Get a grownup to tell you about the bombing raid on Libya after the terrorist attack on a Pan-Am flight.
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That's not reasonable logic unless you think Russia is all-knowing and wise. Russia likes Trump because he speaks Putin's aggressive language and thwarts/embarrasses the USA internationally with erratic behavior. Those same factors could lead him into a war with Russia when his manly ego collides with Putin's over something.
Re:So then Hillary is the warmonger (Score:5, Insightful)
The media try to paint Trump as some kind of warmonger, but he's not even sure about backing all NATO countries!
Wow. You Trump supporters are terrifyingly ignorant. It should be obvious (at least to anyone who's read even a bit of history) that Trump's wishy washy support of NATO is far more likely result in war in Europe than strong support for NATO would. If or when the US participates is another question but I would strongly suggest you read about a little period of recent history in the 1930's. Putin wants his Empire back and one requirement to accomplishing that is the weakening of NATO to the point they don't oppose Putin when he starts taking it back. You sound like you would be a Neville Chamberlain fan. You might ask him how well an appeasement policy against an aggressive state works out. You'll see how well a weak Western Europe and an isolationist US turned out last time. The most efficient and effective time to oppose an aggressive state is before their tanks start rolling through neighboring countries.
Maybe, but not from us (Score:2)
Trump's wishy washy support of NATO is far more likely result in war in Europe than strong support for NATO would.
That is inevitable at this point anyway because Russia has not been countered for eight years. They will take back what they have lost.
But regardless it wouldn't be AMERICA starting the war, as it would be under Hillary.
Re:Maybe, but not from us (Score:5, Insightful)
That is inevitable at this point anyway because Russia has not been countered for eight years.
If that had even an inkling of truth to it the Ukraine and Baltic States would have been gone years ago. The Crimea was a difficult one to oppose. Historically it was never a part of the Ukraine and even after it was assigned to the Ukraine in 1954 (by the Soviet government) it retained a certain level of autonomy. Add to that the native population of the Crimea was relocated and/or killed after WWII for Nazi collaboration so the population was close to 50% pro-Russian. On top of all that Putin performed a fairly masterful job of brinkmanship maneuvering to split it off. Yes the West was badly out maneuvered but it was also a bit of a wake up call. And key, the Ukraine is not a member of NATO.
But regardless it wouldn't be AMERICA starting the war, as it would be under Hillary.
If you mean Hillary would actually oppose a Russian invasion of say Latvia rather than sit blindly on the side as Trump has hinted he might, I would back Hillary 100% in that. Trump's appeasement stance would result in a situation much like that which occurred in WWII. At some point you would have to oppose him. Do you do so when he invades Latvia? Or do you wait until he goes into Poland? Or even wait until he crosses the German border? The longer you wait the stronger his the position will be and the weaker the West's will be.
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NYT [nytimes.com] already pointed out how she made millions in bribes dealing with Russia while she was Secretary of State.
I'm a bit confused on why they keep saying Trump is working with them when they have already bribed Hillary. Her more important things is importing more potential terrorists for millions more in bribes to her. Don't worry, this time she will make sure no one finds out about the private email server.
"more important work to do." lols
Re:So then Hillary is the warmonger (Score:5, Informative)
Trump is being financed by Russian banks with very close ties to Putin, which is not the same thing but that's why people are saying Trump is working with them.
Trump is working for Trump and is not going to work for either the Russians or the American people.
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Trump is working for Trump and is not going to work for either the Russians or the American people.
I almost feel sorry for all those social conservatives who say they're voting for him due to the all-important supreme court nominations. As if he actually cares about their agenda.
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She probably will go for four, but the fourth will likely be Iran, certainly not Russia.
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Good one.
Ah, Cold War... (Score:2)
One congressional official, who has been briefed recently on the matter, said
I first read this as "bribed". Not sure if that says more about me or my perception of members of the U.S. Congress.
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Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
... are probing what they see as a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election...
...enhancing Russia's ability to spread disinformation.
...
No. Wrong. To sow distrust in the election is to spread information. The system is corrupt, and giving information showing the corruption is a social good. And anyone stupid enough to believe in the current system is still free to continue voting for corruption and evil. Those stupid people are still free to voice their stupid opinions. I wish they wouldn't, but they have that right.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
There are more than two candidates. If Americans vote for one they hate anyway, they deserve what they get.
It's the WaPo again... (Score:5, Informative)
The Washington Post has a bit of bias in this, so take it with a grain of salt. When will the Washington Post start investigating themselves for holding illicit fundraisers with the DNC? Or is it Russia's fault they did this? Those damned Russians, how dare they expose our corruption!
Source: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/2699 [wikileaks.org]
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Russia would have nada If the US system was honest (Score:5, Informative)
.
The current 2 party duopoly is a corrupt manipulative mess as the US presidential candidate choices.
.
Both Hillary and Trump are AWFUL candidates. So a huge number of voters are stuck voting against who they think is worse. There is NO positive choice.
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Re:Russia would have nada If the US system was hon (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not going to debate most of your opinions, but...
The info source does not matter.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
The source absolutely matters, especially considering the recent fad of leaking classified documents under the guise of "whistleblowing". Due to the classified nature of the information, there usually can be no official explanation beyond what is leaked. This means that the leaker has absolute editorial control over what can be discussed, and by exercising that control can manupilate public perception. Since nobody else can offer a rebuttal, the deception can last for decades.
Consider the well-known ethics thought experiment [wikipedia.org] of a runaway railroad trolley heading towards five people tied to the track. You stand at a switch with the ability to divert the trolley to a different track, but there is one person standing on that path.
Depending on the circumstances involved, a wide variety of ethical outcomes may be selected. Sometimes it's considered more ethical to do nothing, and remain innocent. Sometimes it's considered more ethical to kill one person rather than five, and save a net of four lives. Sometimes less-conventional solutions are proposed, like sacrificing yourself to try to stop the trolley.
The perception of ethics also changes when more circumstances are known. If the one person on the other track is the villain who tied up the other five, he is almost universally chosen to die instead. If he's an innocent child, he's usually chosen to live in preference to five elderly people.
The circumstances matter, and selecting which circumstances the audience does or does not know means the ethical perception of the issue can also be selected. This was seen directly in the "Collateral Murder" video, where WikiLeaks made extensive use of editing to minimize the evidence that the targets were hostile, and emphasizing the evidence that they were innocent. They also edited around the protocols used to confirm a target, and intentionally made no acknowledgement of the fog of war, letting the viewers know from the beginning that the victims were innocent.
Even if the original footage were unclassified ("honestly and transparently", as you put it), a full understanding of events requires an expert's knowledge. As we've seen from other cases where official full reports were released, they're usually ignored because they don't agree with the earlier biased reports released to the public.
Always consider the source for all information, and consider any bias they may have. The more outrageous the scandal, the more incentive there is to editorialize it, or even to outright fabricate the information. Even if the US government were fully transparent, it would always be possible to claim that there is some secret agency (or department, or program, or person) that isn't transparent, and exists to do all of the distasteful things the rest of the government can't do.
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The current 2 party duopoly is a corrupt manipulative mess [...].
The parliamentary system sounds much fairer, but is more subject to letting radicals get total control of a country.
Both Hillary and Trump are AWFUL candidates.
Hillary is only AWFUL if you believe all the right-wing smears. I've actually come to think more highly of her after following all the bogus scandal stories we're being fed.
People on the left generally wish she was more liberal. Bernie's views matched mine better than hers do, but there's about a negative chance that he would get a congress that would let him pursue his agenda. (Even centri
Yeah, it's the Russians (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it's the Russians, not the post Iraq war and post financial crisis revelations that have sown mistrust in institutions.
Uh huh.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy way to avoid the issue (Score:2)
Paper ballots
Problem solved
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you're funny, paper ballots are counted by machine and even if tallied by humans are subject to fraud and error just as any other system
Re:Easy way to avoid the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
you're funny, paper ballots are counted by machine and even if tallied by humans are subject to fraud and error just as any other system
And you are desperately naïve.
Obviously, any voting system is vulnerable to fraud if it is easily compromised by bad players. But what would you prefer? A tangible, macroscopic paper-trail of the choices that voters have made, or an ephemeral whisper of them in the ones and zeroes on the magnetic domains of a hard-drive that are written and read by computer software?
You tell me which of these two options is more susceptible to fraud. You tell me which is harder to verify by all interested parties. You tell me which is more easily tampered with.
I'll wait...
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You are the ignorant naive one, rigging paper elections is a mature art in this country. The paper election is the easiest by far to rig, the methods are tried and true. Actual tech knowledge is required to rig the voting machines.
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In areas where elections can go either way, both major parties have poll watchers to guard against known forms of rigging like ballot-box stuffing. As long as the process is monitored by opposing interested parties, undetected rigging is very difficult.
With electronic voting, many forms of fraud are possible without any visible symptoms; all that is required is that someone with enough knowledge of the system and adequate tools comes into unmonitored possession of the system at any time of its existence - e
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Five-nines on the Florida count is 59.63 votes, not 3000. The deciding margin was on the 5.9 million votes in Florida, not the entire country.
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er no, paper election rigging is mature art. easier than hacking computers.
You are hilarious, if the Russians "completely knock the grid offline" we won't be worried about elections at all. WW III would be the new past time, replacing pokemon go.
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Emergency! everybody to get from street! (Score:2)
Public Service Announcement from the Obama Adminstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
This will be interesting (Score:2)
As a result, the issue has "moved up as a priority" for the intelligence agencies, which include the FBI and Department of Homeland Security as well as the CIA and the National Security Agency.
Good, this sort of thing is supposed to be their job. Given that they've been so focused on domestic surveillance since 9-11-01, let's see how well they do at it.
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Good, this sort of thing is supposed to be their job. Given that they've been so focused on domestic surveillance since 9-11-01, let's see how well they do at it.
Come on. They're way too focused on SERIOUS domestic threats like OWS and Black Lives Matter to squander resources on stopping foreign spying and misinformation campaigns inside the US. Besides, spying on innocent US citizens and coercing half wits into FBI originated terror plots is far easier than catching foreign spies. It gets them bigger headlines too.
Somewhere, in an undisclosed location... (Score:3)
...a briefing is taking place. The director of the CIA is there, as is the head of the NSA, the National Security Counselor, and the Federal Elections Commission. The briefing, being given by an anonymous deputy
D: "Ladies and Gentleman, we have a problem. Vladimir Putin has developed a new weapon which he plans deploy to disrupt our electoral process."
NSA (interrupting): "He's resurrected the Tsar Bomba and he's going to set it off on election day, isn't he?
CIA: "No, no, no, nukes are too crude even for Putin. Clearly he has a new weapon to cut off all electrical power on election day."
NSC: "Come now, this is foolish. Certainly he has come up with a virus to cause all our voting machines to record all votes for Putin himself, as a thumb in our eye."
D: "No, it's not any of that"
NSA (interrupting again): "It's not that thing where he takes his shirt off again, is it?"
D: "No, it's more horrible than that. Putin intends to tell the American public... the TRUTH"
demand an manual court of each vote and if you hav (Score:2)
demand an manual court of each vote and if you have the choice DO NOT USE THE TOUCH SCREEN TO VOTE use paper
The 1980's called and... (Score:2)
...they want their foreign policy back.
Russia doesn't need to do anything (Score:5, Informative)
Threat [Re:Russia doesn't need to do anything (Score:4, Interesting)
Even though this election may be self-inflicted, Putin can take credit regardless, and use that to threaten other nations.
"If you don't do things our way, you'll end up with bozos in your election also."
That may be a more effective threat than nukes.
Why do we need the Russians for this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mainstream media needs to start focusing on the alternatives, like Johnston and Stein, and quit telling us we're stuck with the two fuckwits we see on 99% of the news coverage.
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The mainstream media have reasons to pick winners which is why it's a threat to democracy when it is owned by so few.
I distinctly recall about this time last year (Score:3)
There was some famous person from the US that was making fun of Canada for having a law against people residing in another country trying to influence Canadian elections by telling people who live in Canada how they should vote, or not vote..
Now suddenly that it's happening to the USA as their election draws near, why the change of heart?
Why bother? The overt stuff is bad enough (Score:2, Interesting)
It's as if Trump is ticking every box to do whatever he had ever accused someone else of doing.
The "truther" thing of 2011 was to imply that Obama was a "Manchurian Candidate" (watch the movie of that name if you haven't - good even if the science is wildly wrong) under the control of another power. So what does Trump do in 2016 - puts himself deep in debt with Russian banks tied very closely to Putin to theoretically put himself under the control of
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Also Trump himself is already going on about how the election will be rigged - he's deliberately sowing distrust in the election.
What's funny is that he has also said the primaries were rigged. Where does that leave his nomination?
Frankly I don't think he's "sowing" anything - he's just saying whatever crackpot idea crosses his mind while he's talking.
Ballot stuffing isn't how you steal an election (Score:3)
The people tearing into electronic voting are going after the wrong target.
In a state where there is only one news agency (the government one), it's possible to steal an election by ballot stuffing, fake votes, etc. In a state where there are a fairly large number of independent and semi-independent news agencies, it's pretty much impossible. If all the pre-election polling and exit polling indicates candidate A is winning by 7%, and candidate B suddenly comes out with a 5% lead despite that, everyone starts taking a *really* close look at the election mechanisms, because statistically you just don't see that kind of inaccuracy across the board.
To steal an election in America, you have basically three options:
1. Have a deniable asset do an unanswerable last-minute negative campaign. Think "election day mailer claiming candidate B has ties to organized crime." It doesn't need to be true, it just needs to skew the "undecided" voter long enough to go to the polls, because we don't invalidate election results after that kind of event here.
2. Gerrymander the districts so your party has an overwhelming advantage. This is very well-described elsewhere, so I'm not going to go into the mechanics behind it, but needless to say it works and it's legal in a lot of the country.
3. Make it harder for members of the other party to vote. Want to make it harder for the elderly to vote? Put restrictions on voting by mail, because many of them have mobility issues. Want to make it harder for the poor and working class to vote? Put specific ID requirements (driver's license is a common one since there's not a whole lot of reason to have a driver's license if you have no car) in place, or restrict polling place hours so that they won't be able to vote during work. There's also the popular "play games with the voter rolls" stunt, but we're starting to wise up to that one, so it's getting less effective.
So there you go. Want to steal an election? Manipulate who is allowed to vote and how their vote is apportioned, not how their vote is cast.
Russia? (Score:2)
I would think there's more of a likelihood of a domestic entity engaging in electoral fraud. More motive and more evidence.
If true (whic it is not), it's only fair (Score:3)
If true (whic it is not), it's only fair. The US interferes with everyone else's elections (including Russian) all the time. Sometimes through CIA, sometimes by financing NGOs which serve its needs. This doesn't work in Russia, of course, because Putin is famous for his 146% voter turnout, but they still try.
As if... (Score:2)
As if "we the people" need any more help not trusting our government.
Papers ballots... (Score:3)
... would be, uh, pretty difficult to hack into. A lot more difficult than some crappy Diebold voting machine running some Windows variant.
Do you believe this crap, Dascombe? (Score:2)
DASCOMBE: It's not our job to believe it, Lewis. Our job is to tell the people --
Simple Solution: Back to the Paper-Based Ballots (Score:2)
Everyone who has the slightest idea about how electronic voting works is against it. And for good reason, as electronic voting is against many basic principles of a democratic voting process.
It is completely pointless to cry "Russia wants to manipulate the vote!", because a lot of interested parties want to do this, and pointing at Russia (or China, or the aliens) is just about distracting attention from the problem that electronic ballots make an election easy to manipulate. And it is not that US politics
Re:I can't wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
if Hillary looses, you can be sure the left will point the finger at Russia. Any election the left looses is automatically "Unfair!".
It's not about left or right; it's about the process. Both sides are happy to manipulate electoral math in any way which helps them--this is the ONLY reason states still use winner-take-all allocation in the electoral college, for example.
The process should be managed very carefully and respectfully, and should at the least allow paper recounts of any electronic votes.
Russia doesn't need to interfere. (Score:5, Insightful)
Snowden's revelations of how our government betrayed us, combined with the farcical attempt at representing the public that the current crop of candidates makes, is more than enough to ruin the world's faith in America's "democratic" process.
Any American that has been paying attention has known for years that our government is corrupt to its core.
We deserve to be doubted. Right now, "trustworthy" does not apply to anything any politician says or does.
Re:Russia doesn't need to interfere. (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly, whilst it's easy to dismiss based on an already high distrust in the US for the establishment I don't think this can rationally be dismissed out of hand as mere deflection. It's in the US national spirit to distrust authority, it was the basis of creation of your country and it's enshrined somewhat in your constitution - I get it, but what you can't do is let that national distrust of your own authority blind you to the threats caused by authorities from elsewhere.
Links to Russian money and political players in the Trump campaign are well known and documented, the DNS hacks backed by the Russians have some evidence behind them, but this is all part of a broader picture.
When you step beyond Americas borders you have ample evidence of Russia doing this sort of thing both overtly, and covertly, both historical, and currently. In recent years we've seen Putin fund directly the far right in Europe, openly giving millions to France's NF, and playing host to far right leaders in Moscow:
http://imrussia.org/en/analysi... [imrussia.org]
https://themoscowtimes.com/art... [themoscowtimes.com]
But then there's a covert, we know Russia poisoned Ukraine's opposition candidate in 2004:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
But there are also dots that can be joined more recently pointing to continued meddling even in countries such as the UK. In 2010 a British MP, Mike Hancock got into trouble because he was giving a Russian girl around Britain's nuclear submarine sites, a girl whom MI5 had firmly flagged as having close links to Russia's embassy and who Russian military brass eventually admitted themselves was a spy when it all came out. Fast forward a few years, and we have a situation where UKIP, the UK's faux conservative (far right in reality) party suddenly has a guy, Aaron Banks comitting millions in donations to the party - a guy, who pretty much came out of nowhere, and who now seems to largely pull the strings at UKIP. Why is that interesting? because he still is, and was during the time of the affair married to the same Russian girl, Katia Zatuliveter, involved in the affair with the above mentioned MP.
We've known about Russian meddling in the politics of countries like Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, and so on and so forth decades now, it's not been a secret, nor is Russian funding and support of insurgent parties like Jobbik in Hungary, the National Front in France, Golden Dawn in Greece, and previously the BNP in the UK. It's not a stretch therefore to think that Russia funding and support, i.e. political meddling has extended to countries like the US too especially when there is growing evidence in support of that (i.e. Putin allies advising and funding Trump's campaign).
When Russia argued that Ukraine's revolution as a US funded coup, that was simple deflection. The reality is the head of the country was in Kiev, and the vast majority of people in Kiev (even if not everyone elsewhere) wanted an end to Yanukovych and Russian meddling, claims of US leading it are nonsensical because it didn't need US meddling - Russia had fuck things up with the people of Ukraine enough for them to be willing to put their lives on the line themselves.
What that claim did tell us though is that Russia believed that that kind of meddling is a thing countries do, it was more a reflection of their own guilty in engaging in such things than it was a legitimate accusation against the US. The evidence - i.e. US funding of NGOs doesn't remotely show what was being argued precisely because that funding was entirely transparent and open. I'm not saying the US hasn't done this because we know it certainly has, but what I am saying is that Russia instantly assumed that to be the case because that's what it would do.
It all makes even more sense when you look back at Putin's history as a KGB agent, his inaugration when he stated that he believed the fall of the USSR was the greatest tragedy of the 21st century coupled with his praise of Russia's tactic of Maskirovka.
The reality is that for people running Russia now, the cold war never ended, they just lost a turn and decided to sit it out and grow their covert operations for a couple of decades in the interim, in this context Russia's "surprise" annexation of Crimea is much less a surprise, they'd likely been setting the groundwork for some time, but loss of their puppet leader was enough to force them to take the military route. Make no mistake, whatever you may think of Hilary or whoever else, Russian meddling in Western politics is real - we know this because as per above much of it is being done in the open, but the real question is how much of it is being done covertly. I suspect the answer is probably one most people would be disturbed to hear, it's caught the West with it's pants down because the West mistakenly thought the cold war was over, and so hasn't been acting to counter such covert attacks - it's now finally waking up to the threat.
Again Maskirovoka is what Russia does, it's proud of it, read more about why they hold it in such high esteem and why they think it's okay to engage in it in a world that's supposed to be past that here. Whilst the rest of the world has tried to grow up and move on post 21st century strife, Russia still thinks we're playing the cold war game:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Russia doesn't need to interfere. (Score:5, Informative)
A Russian disinformation campaign has already been in full swing in Germany for over a year. Russia has identified Germany as the key player in European politics and foreign policy and Russian internet trolls are flooding the comment sections of German news sites with pro-Russian propaganda while trying to sow distrust in German institutions, the government and mainstream German media. Meanwhile Russia is funding European far-right parties like FN in France and the AfD in Germany. The AfD releases pamplets in German and Russian language and explicitly targets the "Russlanddeutsche" former German expatriates that emigrated to Russia and returned since then.
The extent of what is taking place in the German internet is worrying and can only be described by a massive Russian propaganda campaign designed to destabilize European and especially German democracy while bolstering parties that are more friendly to Russian interests and foreign policy. There is an information war going on.
Re:Russia doesn't need to interfere. (Score:5, Insightful)
All very interesting. But the USA and the UK are doing exactly the same sort of thing all over the world too so there's no high horse to get on. So the Russians are doing what "we" do. Big deal. News at 11.
Countries are all run by crooks. Who use their position to try to further enrich themselves at the public's expense. It's not a left/right thing. It's not a national thing. It's just crooks being crooks.
Same as it ever was...
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I'm a highly productive, able bodied worker. Why should my peers and I be bound by the votes of the elderly boomers?
Because someday you won't be. What do you propose we do with you then?
Re: Russia doesn't need to interfere. (Score:3)
Treat me with as much compassion as is practical, but no more.
Re:Russia doesn't need to interfere. (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny. I live in Germany. Show me this information war, because I don't see any sign of it.
What I do see is the massive Turkish influence, strong alliances of almost all key german politicians with US interests (keyword: "Atlantikbrücke"), and a breaking friendship with France. There certainly is russian influence as well, just like every other country, but the Russians living in Germany (and there are a lot) are the most calm and least visible of all the larger immigrant groups. If I could choose between, say, even more turkish influence or more russian influence, I'd pick the later any day. At least they don't open book stands in the city center to recruit fools for their Jihad.
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Did you ever read the comments section at tagesschau.de, the principal public news website, whenever there's an article about Putin, Russia, Ukraine or the war in Syria? The same applies to other prominent news websites and forums.
The Russian "Troll Factories" [theguardian.com] are well documented by now. The BND (German intelligence) has already warned the German government [huffingtonpost.de] about the intense disinformation campaign by Russian agents.
If you don't see it it's either because you don't want to see, you sympathize with the Russi
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Funny, I live in Germany too and I've seen it too often for it not being there.
In the meantime, the comments sections of the major news outlets have become unusable anymore - whenever there is an article about Russia, Putin, etc.
But, admittedly, the last few weeks it became less - probably because there was too much going on with Turkey.
And, yes, you are right, the russians living in Germany are peaceful people. Nobody said anything against these people. The "Russian Trolls", on the other hand, are a lot al
Re:Russia doesn't need to interfere. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's in the US national spirit to distrust authority
You might be able to say that about the framers of the Constitution fleeing from British rule. However, the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers sure don't see it that way. Have you had a Baby Boomer manager? The rhetoric is "trust me, do exactly what I say and I'll reward you appropriately." There is no better way to become the adversary of a baby boomer than expressing skepticism of their authority.
You're probably Generation X or younger. Generation X broke the trend of blind obedience and trust in government and social institutions. We had a lot of motivation like McCarthyism, Vietnam, etc. We looked at the horrors of the blind obedience to the Third Reich. In recent times, we've watched the US Chamber of Commerce buy our politicians to write pro Laissez Faire policies that benefit them without considering the (sometimes devastating) side effects of those policies. The Millenials have continued that trend. I understand your perspective and agree but regardless we need to acknowledge that we have quite a fragmented culture with wildly varying belief systems and this propaganda would be useful against certain segments depending on the agenda.
Re:I can't wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
if Hillary looses, you can be sure the left will point the finger at Russia. Any election the left looses is automatically "Unfair!".
It's not about left or right; it's about the process. Both sides are happy to manipulate electoral math in any way which helps them--this is the ONLY reason states still use winner-take-all allocation in the electoral college, for example.
The process should be managed very carefully and respectfully, and should at the least allow paper recounts of any electronic votes.
Okay, that much is true. We also need something better than first past the post, which in various ways is probably more important, since it would have helped third parties and maybe improved the candidate results from the primaries.
Speaking to the actual issue of things..
Clinton hasn't said if she loses the system must be rigged. That's Trump.
Clinton hasn't benefited from Russian hackers. That's Trump.
Clinton isn't particularly approved by people like Putin and David Duke. That's Trump.
Clinton didn't win the lie of the year last year from politifact. That's Trump. In fact if you add up each of their true, mostly true and half of their half true statements, Clinton is at 61% compared to Trump's 22.5%, so Trump tells the truth about a third as often as Clinton does.
Clinton didn't basically ask for foreign espionage to be done on Hillary Clinton to help his campaign. That's Trump.
Clinton didn't call most Mexicans rapists and criminals. That's Trump.
Clinton didn't make up medical problems about her opponent. That's Trump.
Clinton didn't change the core of her key policy proposals so many times that not even her surrogates can keep up. That's Trump.
Clinton didn't do his best to get the Central Park 5 killed, completely bypassing due process. That's Trump. (The turned out to be innocent.)
Clinton isn't the one that paid bribes That's Trump in Florida and texas.
Clinton isn't the one funnelling what money she can back into herself. That's Trump.
Trump hasn't spent her whole life as a public servant, with a long record to show for it. That's Hillary. Trump just has multiple bankruptcies, failed businesses and ruined lives.
Trump isn't the one with a charity that has saved millions that is rated very highly. That is Hillary and Bill.
Trump has focused on improving the Trump brand. Hillary has focused on improving the country.
Conversely, since you are a shill. (Score:2, Interesting)
As a shill you are going to dislike this one, but fair is fair.
Clinton hasn't said if she loses the system must be rigged. That's Trump. Hillary has however been caught repeatedly lying to the public, Law enforcement, Congress, Senators, and has done so for decades.
Clinton hasn't benefited from Russian hackers. Hillary and the DNC did however blame the Russians and attempted to pin motive (unsuccessfully) on Trump.
Clinton isn't particularly approved by people like Putin and David Duke. That's Trump. Trump disavowed Duke long before the media made their claim, so it's a try hard line of shit. Hillary has demonstrated that she cares nothing for the US and it's allies, only her own. Being disliked and untrustworthy may be a good set of traits for politicians to you, but not to others. More failed propaganda brought about by media.
Clinton didn't win the lie of the year last year from politifact. That's Trump. In fact if you add up each of their true, mostly true and half of their half true statements, Clinton is at 61% compared to Trump's 22.5%, so Trump tells the truth about a third as often as Clinton does. Hahaha, too fucking funny. The corrupt media has repeatedly given Clinton max ratings for her lies and THEY GET PAID TO PANDER FOR HER!
Clinton didn't basically ask for foreign espionage to be done on Hillary Clinton to help his campaign. The DNC has however attempted to claim that a plain statement regarding Hillary's "lost" emails is the same thing as requesting the US be hacked. Yet another failed effort at propaganda.
Clinton didn't call most Mexicans rapists and criminals. People who can't read persist in believing a propaganda message making the claim that Trump did, but most people can read. More failed propaganda.
Clinton didn't make up medical problems about her opponent. That's Trump. This is different from Hillary and the Democratic party talking about McCain how exactly? Oh, it's the same thing but against your candidate so it's bad.
Clinton didn't change the core of her key policy proposals so many times that not even her surrogates can keep up. That is such a bold faced lie I don't know where to start. How about abortion, LGBT rights, the war on Drugs, and rape victims to start. You get the idea I'm sure.
Clinton didn't do his best to get the Central Park 5 killed, completely bypassing due process. That's Trump. (The turned out to be innocent.) Another WTF? Are you doing a poor job of attempting to divert people from investigating the Clinton's Body Count? [whatreallyhappened.com] Like the DNC staffer who was murdered right around the time of the DNC leaks, which was blamed on "robbery" within a day yet nothing was missing on him?
Clinton isn't the one that paid bribes That's Trump in Florida and texas. I'm sure you have criminal conviction to reference right? Oh no, you don't. Another propaganda claim.
Clinton isn't the one funnelling what money she can back into herself. Except for the currently being investigated Clinton Foundation right? Oh shit, another one you lie openly about.
Trump hasn't spent her whole life as a public servant, with a long record to show for it. That's Hillary. Trump just has multiple bankruptcies, failed businesses and ruined lives. Career politicians have done such a great job with our country over the last two hundred years they have proven that business people interested in preserving liberty can't do the job right? Except for the founding fathers, and Lincoln, and countless other people who were not career politicians but working people who took office trying to make the country better. That is probably your most useless piece of propaganda because Trump gains support because he is not a career politician. People are well beyond seeing through the guise.
Trump isn't the one with a charity that has saved millions that is rated very highly. That is Hillary and Bill. That one is another funny one. Ask Haiti how much the Clinton foundation helped them. From all the money collected we have random amounts of cash being delivered to PO boxes, not helping the people the money was supposed to. The Clinton Foundation is listed as untrustworthy by every major rating service and the only people giving money to the "foundation" do so for political favor. How much pressure has the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar been put under for human rights abuses compared to Syria exactly? Yeah, go fuck yourself.
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When a State can be basically decided by two cities (filithy-delphia and shits-burg) I completely agree with this effort. The urban dwellers have vastly different issues that rural/small towns that are still mainly based on farming.
The all or nothing approach disenfranchises a large % of the population. Seeing that most urban voters are poor and black they vote democratic... even though the democrats are in largely the reason they are poor.
And gerrymandering is done by BOTH sides.
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Of course the establishment is trying to undermine him - he's a joke. And no you can't ask for evidence to be thrown out because it was discovered by a bad guy, but you can ask for evidence to be thrown out if it was collected via illegal means. Stop misrepresenting reality.
Re:Hey Obama and the MSM Obama toadies. (Score:5, Insightful)
both parties run bitches of big corporations, which money trail do we follow?
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Both, ideally. And don't vote for either of them...
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You mean the stuff going to the Clinton foundation?
Re: Hey Obama and the MSM Obama toadies. (Score:2)
Doh.
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One would assume that people at that level can cheat better. Voters should be offended not by he fraud but by their incompetence and shameless lies.
Re:We had electorial fraud during the DNC primarie (Score:5, Informative)
The fraud was related to evading campaign finance laws, not Bernie: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team-deflected-state-cash-concerns-226191
What they did to Bernie wasn't fraud, at least not in the legal sense, just a slap in the face to those in the dem voter base who thought their party's candidate would be determined by a fair and democratic process. Of course the DNC, as a private entity, is free to hand-pick their candidate and skip the entire primary process - as they used to long ago - but decades of at least the illusion of democracy has led people to expect something vastly different.
Re:We had electorial fraud during the DNC primarie (Score:4, Informative)
I love how people hide stuff like this at -1 because they don't want to hear it...
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I think you may have hit on a brilliant point worthy of further development.
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The presidential candidates could be Bernie Maddoff and Jeffrey Skilling, and the US election process would still be more trustworthy than the Russian one.
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That's a good thing. As the President of the United States, Mr. Obama is supposed to be mocked. He is supposed to be the butt of jokes, and everything he does is supposed to be criticized just like anyone else would be. Per the First Amendment, every American citizen's right to mock the President (and everyone else, for that matter) is protected to within reasonable limits. That's why he's still just Mister Obama, and not the Almighty Honorable Supreme Commander President Barack Hussein Obama.
We have electe
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In the Philippines it is the USA that is seen as so weak due to the massive decline since 2000 or so and it's the USA that is being mocked.
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