Putin Hints At US Election Meddling By 'Patriotically Minded' Russians (nytimes.com) 195
Two anonymous readers share a report: Shifting from his previous blanket denials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Thursday that "patriotically minded" private Russian hackers could have been involved in cyberattacks last year to help the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). While Mr. Putin continued to deny any state role, his comments to reporters in St. Petersburg were a departure from the Kremlin's previous position: that Russia had played no role whatsoever in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and that, after Mr. Trump's victory, the country had become the victim of anti-Russia hysteria among crestfallen Democrats. Raising the possibility of attacks by what he portrayed as free-spirited Russian patriots, Mr. Putin said that hackers "are like artists" who choose their targets depending how they feel "when they wake up in the morning."
Throwing them under the bus (Score:5, Insightful)
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As always, should you or any of your I.M. Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape/disc will self-destruct in five/ten seconds. Good luck, Dan/Jim.
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Of course when Putin gave his cyberwarfare people their marching orders, they all knew that if caught they'd be disavowed by the State.
And we could prove it if the tape hadn't self destructed [youtube.com] five seconds after concluding.
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Tuvalu strongly denies your accusations and demands an apology from the other 194 nations.
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> you shouldn't be elected into office
One of the valid possibilities can be that neither candidate is fit for office. Maybe the levels of fitness differ. And voting for the lesser of two evils might be better.
Re:Throwing them under the bus (Score:4)
One of the valid possibilities can be that neither candidate is fit for office. Maybe the levels of fitness differ. And voting for the lesser of two evils might be better.
On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.
(From "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" by Douglas Adams)
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Re:Throwing them under the bus (Score:4, Funny)
Cthulhu 2020, why vote for a lesser evil?
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Re:Throwing them under the bus (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on mods, Flamebait? I thought that he was honestly voicing his opinion. If you don't agree with his opinion that doesn't make it a flamebait. IMHO the DNC hack was a service to American democracy, despite the result. (not a suppoter of Mr. Trump)
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This is what online discourse has devolved into. It's a sort of "if I agree with you I will defend you no matter how reprehensible and disgusting you may be; if I disagree with you I will hate you no matter how noble and helpful you are."
This is the logical, expected outcome of raising an entire generation of "citizens" who are unable to deal with being wrong about anything and must have everything their way.
Re:Throwing them under the bus (Score:5, Insightful)
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Russia's economy is smaller than California. Their is _no_ empire in their future.
Putin is playing to domestic politics. Russian pride is in play, they have to think they are still capable of empire. While actually going broke fighting with their former satellite state.
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"There" is no empire in their future
Got to start somewhere, don't you? I'm sure Genghis Khan started out with only a handful of men and a few horses. Rome wasn't built in a day. The U.S. started out as little British colony. Putin has risen through the ranks, by hook or by crook, any way he could, to rise to the top seat in the Russian government. Then he goes and successfully invades, occupies Crimea. From his perspective I'm sure he wishes things would move along a little quicker (he's not getting any younger) but I'm sure he thinks they're
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'helsinki92', indeed, sir!
I'm guessing you know what you're talking about on this subject? ;-)
Good or Evil, smart players on the World stage do indeed play the 'long game', and Putin is no exception. I think he's been thinking about this since back in his days with the KGB. His 'One Bad Day' that galvanized him and committed him to this path probably was the day the Wall fell.
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Putin will bankrupt Russia in Crimea.
If he was looking to build an empire, he would be growing his economy and damn everything else. But he needs to maintain his hold on power, which means he needs to feed Russian pride, even if it breaks them in the long run.
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At this point, Russia is, more or less, a third world nation running a pure resource export (oil and blonds) economy.
That's _not_ a good place to be, claims of 'long game' not withstanding.
Putin needs to get Russian capitalism working better, or they have no hope, long term.
Re:Throwing them under the bus (Score:5, Insightful)
The point was to create a weak, ineffective US. That is done by installing a weak, ineffective illiterate impotent president who is unable to think or speak in complete sentences. He will then install weak ineffective people into top government positions. Often people at odds with the very government function they are supposed to be running. Then leave vast numbers of government positions vacant -- running on autopilot. It's a plus if the president is unable to control himself with women in professional situations. Unable to be told NO on anything. Unable to take advice. A vindictive person without class who must not only win, but must utterly humiliate his perceived enemies.
Alienate the press. Alienate our allies. Get foreign heads of state to to make fun of you behind your back. Treat a NK missile launch as if it is after dinner entertainment for your resort guests. Let one of your rich guests get a picture with the nuclear football guy. I could go on and on, but I'll get near a point . . .
Does anyone actually believe that if a major international crisis broke out right now that the US administration would have a clue how to handle it? The current president doesn't seem to even be aware of who he is, or where he is during a solemn ceremony honoring fallen soldiers.
Re:Throwing them under the bus (Score:4, Interesting)
Not just the US. Brexit too, weakening both the UK and the EU. That might have backfired though, because it looks like the EU will renew itself and become even strong as a result... But then again, the EU is much less of a threat to Russia than the US and it's British poodle.
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Not just the US. Brexit too, weakening both the UK and the EU. That might have backfired though, because it looks like the EU will renew itself and become even strong as a result... But then again, the EU is much less of a threat to Russia than the US and it's British poodle.
You forgot to add the word "today" at the end of that last sentence. I wouldn't be surprised to see the EU countries becoming much closer and start the process of building an EU army.
The only reason why the EU is relatively weak is because of political infighting and because they have not needed a large standing army due to the strength of its allies, the US in particular. Take away the US and there is a vacuum to be filled, both politically and militarily. On top of that, the EU countries have been work
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Fear Built on a House of Falsehoods (Score:5, Insightful)
Statement 1: Weak and Ineffective US: This statement is founded on the premise that the United States is somehow weak and ineffective. There is no reasons given to back this claim, and non that could be possibly substantiated. What exactly do you suppose as made the U.S. weaker? Is it the call to increase U.S. industry by undoing horribly lopsided trade deals that drain our wealth? Is the U.S. made weaker by asking NATO members to actually contribute to their defense at a proportion to the GDP as ours? Is it made weaker by asking the press to cover both political parties with the same zeal, instead of cheerleading for one? I am confused by how weaker?
Statement 2: Illiterate President. As is well known, he has ran a successful multibillion dollar corporation. Although he did start with wealth, he increased it several times. A good analog would be Elon Musk, turning a small company Zip2 into larger ones through sales and mergers. Success at these levels is rarely the work of an illiterate. Disagreeing with someone does not make the illiterate, but it if you think it does that means you are intellectually close to one.
Furthermore, we know he graduated from Fordham and Penn with and economics degree. We do not know his GPA. In contrast, the previous president had failing grades at a private high school (read his autobiography) yet somehow got admitted to an Ivy league school, and his grades are also not known, but was not reported to be a great student. Did you hold him to the same criticism?
Alienate the press: CNN actually gave his opponent the questions for the debate. The coverage on the other networks were laughably biased, with numerous other errors and gaffs made. The press in the U.S. is no longer the press, but an arm of the democrat party. This is dangerous and tragic and should not be applauded. The press should be about uncovering truth, not suppressing it. Speaking of which... The whole Russia is blame part of this thread. Lets be clear about what happened. Hillary Clinton and the DNC conspired to fix the democrat primary. They controlled the media, the timing of events, and funding to make Berny Sanders seem like a buffoon and have no chance. In all honesty, he had drawn many of the same concussions about the system being corrupt as Mr. Trump, but offered different solutions. The press knowingly helped burry the story of the unfair primary election.
The Russian hackers helped bring to light these issues. Through them, we learned that the Sanders supporters were denied a legitimate shot. The Russians did not report anything that was untrue. Do you understand that? The Russians were the force of truth and light in this election. For that, we in the U.S. should be ashamed.
In this thread and others like it today, people are acting like the Russians made up horribly untruths and it cost Hillary the election. For some reason of nothing less than extreme stupidity, there are posters who conveniently seem to forget what the so called fake news was, and why it worked. Hillary attempted to fix the fucking election, and thankfully, despite a biased media, she got caught. The people who got cheated were angry, and did not vote. Its that simple.
So, instead of feeling this false righteousness because you hate the current president for no particularly good reason, look in the mirror. Please stop the bullshit character assassinations. Try to grow up, and hold all politicians to a high standard, instead of just one.
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Mod parent up.. Where are my MOD points today...
Explicit meddling (Score:2)
Putin's saying this is explicit meddling in US domestic affairs, intended to further undermine American confidence in its electoral system. It is a comment intended to make people doubt the legitimacy of their elected government, a doubt which weakens the country.
Donald Trump is the legitimately elected President. He lacks a popular mandate but is still the legitimate president until he is removed, he resigns, he dies, or his term ends.
Yes, by all means, let's do more to secure voting from electronic attack
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And the way overused Hillary / Obama defense. Oh, bu, bu, but . . . Hillary! Obama!
Here is a free clue: Obama is not in power. Hillary is not in power. Trump won. Get over it.
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So, given that Trump has now shamed the other NATO nations into spending more money building up their militaries, does that mean Putin's plan backfired?
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Increased NATO spending will drive increased Rusky spending. NATO can afford it, Russia can't.
NATO that isn't completely dependant on America is NOT weaker. No matter how often you repeat the claim.
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The problem with U.S. Russian relations today is that there are too many people like you making decisions with regard to Russia. This "alienation of Russia" foreign policy only hurts the weak opposition that there is to Putin. You, neocons, are more his lapdogs than anybody else today, providing him with an easily identifiable enemy so that he can appear as the protector of the Russian people and Russia's interests.
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Nonsense. What Putin wants is to make Russia into an empire again, but without all the baggage the Soviet Union had. A weak U.S. is a step towards weakening NATO, which is a major roadblock standing in the way of the conquest of Eastern Europe. Wouldn't at all be surprised if Russia was influencing the UK with regards to Brexit, since the UK leaving the EU will weaken the EU as well, which is to Russias' advantage, too. In general: Foment chaos in Europe, making it easier to build an empire. That's what Putin is after.
Putin didn't choose his horse very well then. Trump is a problem for his Russian nationalism popularity that keeps him in office, barely. Trump is making Putin look a bit weaker than Obama did (and one would assume Hillary would do the same).
If the Russians actually tried anything, it was to weaken Hillary, not get Trump elected. My guess is that they didn't really care who took office before January 20th but are calling that into question now. Why all the saber rattling by Putin over Syria and North Korea
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As of now the NATO is advancing their borders towards Russia and trying to encircle the whole country (and China in the process) with anti-missile shields.
I do not see how this makes Russia a power hungry expansive imperialistic saber rattling colonialist nation with the megalomaniacal desire.to impose their political system upon the rest of the world, by force.
The US on the other hand...
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Except Hillary said her #1 foreign policy priority if elected would be the removal of Putin's ally in Syria, Assad. It seems to me Putin's interests in Syria (pipeline from Iran -> Iraq -> Syria -> Med) are best suited with anyone but Hillary (incidentally her KSA and Qatar backers supported a competing pipeline Qatar -> KSA -> Syria -> Turkey -> Europe).
Re:Throwing them under the bus (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of that, nobody that claims they wanted Trump to win can cite a single benefit that they have or would gain by having Trump in place,
Except for the fact that Russia had regular contact with multiple people in Trump's campaign who were in place to have considerably powerful roles in a Trump administration: Flynn, Manafort (until he got run out), Kushner, Sessions apparently, Page. And those are just the ones we know about. And don't forget the intercepts we have with the Russians stated that they believed they could influence Trump through Flynn. Other than putting a complete puppet into office, just about the best thing a state can hope for is an ability to directly influence the policies of a rival. Trump himself may not have had ties or contacts with the Russian government, but the Russian government was doing everything they could to make sure they had a man inside Trump's administration.
Here it comes (Score:4, Insightful)
Then, miraculously, Putin admitted he ordered Russian troops [businessinsider.com] to seize the land. The excuse he used was those Russian troops were "helping" the Crimean sefl-defense forces. And by helping he means the Russian troops were doing the dirty work.
So now the excuse of "patriotic" Russians doing the hacking is being tossed out. What patriotism? Is he now admitting they were helping Trump win the election? That would be an interesting admission since he's denied any Russian meddling in the election despite the overwhelming evidence.
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The unraveling of the denials begins. This is the exact same process Putin used when Russia stole Crimea from Ukraine.
Stole? They reclaimed what was rightfully their territory. Most people in the region support it. I get that you're swimming in western propaganda, but it's pretty easy to look up the history of the situation.
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The unraveling of the denials begins. This is the exact same process Putin used when Russia stole Crimea from Ukraine
And it's still the official line concerning the pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
According to Putin, the fighters there are "private Russian citizens on vacation". He can't tell them how to spend their free time, and if they choose to spend it by waging a guerilla war in the Ukraine that just so happens to prevent the country from ever joining NATO (because NATO won't accept countries that are already at war), well, neato.
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I think Trump's victory hinged on beating the other 16 Republicans for the nomination. Any moron with an R after their name is guaranteed 40% of the vote, and so is any moron with a D after her name. It's getting that R or D that's the hard part.
What did Putin do to help Trump win the Republican nomination?
Interesting description (Score:2)
So basically he's saying that they are the Russian version of Anonymous? No wonder why the Democrats are so pissed off.
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The same 'Patriotically Minded' Russians (Score:5, Insightful)
That invaded Ukraine and Georgia. Nothing to do with their government at all. Nothing.
Seriously Putin's word as a man is a joke
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The fact that Putin is a demonstrable liar doesn't preclude him choosing his words carefully. Quite the contrary.
So it's worth studying what he's done here. He's cast meddling in the US election as an act of Russian patriotism. Once he's got people used to thinking that way, there's no negative consequences, at least domestically, if he's forced to concede that it was a Russian government operation.
It's important to neither exaggerate nor minimize an enemy's competence. Putin, like all successful autho
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Mr. Trump's recent European trip was nothing less than a triumph for Russian policy. They've been trying to split NATO for half a century.
Splitting NATO...by the member states increasing their defense spending? Isn't that the opposite...?
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Ah, I see now, so Putin's doing a spin on the ol' Trudeau maneuver, where "if you kill your enemy, they win." Perhaps if you make your enemy stronger and better armed, you win! Very, very clever that Putin.
Maybe that's how we should beat ISIS. Instead of bombing them, just give them so many guns they can't carry all the guns, and they get too tired from carrying the guns so they stay home.
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Splitting NATO...by the member states increasing their defense spending? Isn't that the opposite...?
Of course not. The way to split NATO is by having a US president hint that we might not live up to its Article V obligations, even though the sole time the mutual defense clause was invoked in NATO's 70 year history it was by us. The SVR must have thought they'd died and gone to heaven.
In any case the 2% guideline has never been an actual rule, it's always been a guideline. That's because it's never made sense for many countries (e.g. Iceland) to spend that much. And today with the dissolution of the Wa
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The way to split NATO is by having a US president hint that we might not live up to its Article V obligations
I don't think that's going to split up NATO. Especially when the context is, "we might not follow through on Article V because you guys aren't paying up." Especially when then they start paying up. So, you think the end goal there was not for the NATO nations to pay more, but to give the US an excuse to leave?
Seems like a pretty risky plan for Putin. If the Europeans just do what they're supposed to do then he winds up with a strengthened, better funded NATO, not a split NATO. And that seems like what's goi
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But they are fully paid up. The 2% thing has nothing to do with NATO dues, it's about total defense spending. If the other NATO countries did meet the 2% guideline, NATO operations wouldn't see a single additional euro-cent.
So what is Trump's goal here? Well in part it's to play to his base back home who don't understand this. But it's not clear that Trump knows enough about NATO funding and operations to understand this either, and perhaps he thinks he's haggling to reduce US contributions to NATO, whi
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Explain the 2% thing to me. I was always under the impression that NATO members pledge to spend 2% of their GDP on their military (which is the hardware and personnel used in NATO operations). There are no penalties for not doing it, so it's more of a "suggestion," but still the freeloading europeans weren't doing it. And Americans (particularly the ones whose support Trump wanted) would much prefer they meet these pledges.
You're saying it's actually some bait and switch about NATO dues? How does this bait
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Alright, the 2% thing explained. It's not about NATO dues or contributions, it's about a country's spending on defense above and beyond NATO expenses. Why does NATO care about money a country spends on defense other than NATO? Because NATO is a mutual defense treaty. You don't want to have to come to the defense of another country because it doesn't spend enough money to defend itself.
How much should a country spend on its own defense not to be a burden? It depends. Back in the Cold War the figure they c
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Russia did not invade Georgia in 2008. Contrary, on 08.08.08 Georgians invaded the South Ossetia in a surprise attack, indiscriminately shelled civilian population and killed Russian peacekeeping troops in their sleep.
Russian peacekeepers were in charge of pacifying and separating both of the fighting sides from each other after the violent separatist conflict of 1991-1992 [wikipedia.org], when the separatists, Georgians, and the Russian Federation agreed to cease fire and designated Russian troops as the peacekeepers [wikipedia.org]agree
A few thoughts Sad Vlad the Mad (Score:5, Interesting)
Even though I am a strong fiscal conservative and voted against Hillary, Russian interference in the US election process is the same as any other hacking efforts aimed with malicious intent, and is clearly illegal. You assassinate your political rivals. Neither that nor the hacking are acceptable. Open bad mouthing in the press, sure, but that's political discourse. Informed voters can evaluate the source as well as the content. The current sourceless allegations against Trump, they could just as easily be attributed to "patriotic russians" who might be disappointed about the Presidents support of Ukrainian interests. The acceptance you show for the hackers within the russia just shows that, along with your other actions, in Ukraine for example, that under Putin the russia is a rogue state that needs to be marginalized.
Do we really learn anything new ? (Score:2, Insightful)
The only people who still believe that Putin did not try to interfere in any way with the U.S. election are the same people who believed that Clinton ran a pedophile ring from the basement of a pizza restaurant.
`Nuff said.
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> the U.S. election are the same people who believed that Clinton ran a pedophile ring
> from the basement of a pizza restaurant.
You should mention that the pizza restaurant doesn't, in fact, have a basement.
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But yea it does have a much proof as the gossip about trump working for the russian government.
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As for Trump and any connections to the Russian government, I think the smoke hasn't cleared on that yet. And I think there is more than a fire causing the smoke. But we'll see. It just takes time. I imagine a lot of people couldn't believe Nixon hired some 2nd rate burglars, but I do remember being a teen at summer camp when it was announced that he resigned.
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1: DNC staffer falls for a phishing scam
???
???
???
???
n: Voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin choose Trump over Clinton -- who decided to campaign elsewhere believing those states to be shoo-ins
What goes in the blanks? Surely, the people of those states didn't go "Oh Russia hacked a server, I'd better switch my vote!" What happened, what changed their votes?
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Please. They tell us that "17 agencies" agreed that Russians meddled in the US election, yet the DNC did not allow FBI to do forensics on their hacked server. Instead, the DNC hired a private company (see a bit of conflict of interest here?) called Crowdstrike whoe conclusions that Russians hacked the DNC lingered on assumptions that were already debunked by a whole lot of experts.
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Up till the last cycle, the Ruskys supported the likes of Sanders, just to try and fuck the American economy. They were too clueless to have any effect outside their 2%.
This time, Seth Rich exposed real dirt on the part of the Ds. They've got to blame someone.
And Hillary's saying the Russians were guided (Score:2)
by Americans.
So, billionaires paid Russian hackers (at a discounted rate from American hackers, and not in danger of the FBI getting them) to get the data....
Ha ha ha (Score:2)
Putin takes a page from Trump's book and trolls .... name your own favorite set of blathering idiots ....
Totally believe him for once! (Score:3)
Having visited Russia and exposed to Russian culture and so on, I actually totally believe him for once!
But what is more amusing to me is how this statement is basically telling us that even Putin is scared with how horrible Trump is for the planet... ;-)
At this point, does it even matter? (Score:3)
I mean, let's suppose that somehow, actual evidence that was somehow incontrovertible showed that there was meddling... and let's even further say that they managed to identify the people responsible, and were able to bring them to court, where they were appropriately and justly tried and sentenced for the crime.
Would that really change anything, though? I'm betting it wouldn't.
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I mean, let's suppose that somehow, actual evidence that was somehow incontrovertible showed that there was meddling...
There is.
...and let's even further say that they managed to identify the people responsible, and were able to bring them to court, where they were appropriately and justly tried and sentenced for the crime.
The people involved have been identified as belonging to Russian intelligence, not holding my breath for a list of names though.
Would that really change anything, though? I'm betting it wouldn't.
No, it would not change anything. A thin skinned egomaniacal moron with a twitter account and a bad temper is still president of the United States and will be for as long as Mitch McConnell can find a use for him after which you will probably be saying hello to president Pence.
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And thats exactly what will happen if anyone gets caught.
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Here's what we all need to do: (Score:2)
There is a reason that Trump admires this man... (Score:2)
Trump acts a lot like him, except he's a bit more amplified and a lot less polished.
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Can we please stop calling it election hacking? (Score:4, Interesting)
The phrase election hacking (meddling/w.e) is agenda driven, as it implies there was tampering with the election process or results. If this is election hacking, then so is recording a private conversation and releasing it to affect results. Just because it may have affected voters minds (because it informed them) doesn't mean we need to add negative connotations to them. Let's reserve that for tampering with the actual election process.
Like stacking the deck against popular candidates so that your candidate can win.
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To be fair to Putin.. (Score:2)
Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of East Europe have been a kind of internet's wild west since the beginning of the web popularity. When credit card numbers or email account passwords are stolen by thousands or millions, chances are good that they will be traded in the murky chatrooms among those east Europeans. Russia still has the best torrent and tor sites. "Hactivism" is still a common phenomenon in Russia, just recently somebody broke into a bunch of Kremlin official email accounts and leaked their commun
how is this a departure? (Score:2)
So, we're are supposed to ignore Obama and Clinton (Score:2)
So, we're supposed to ignore Obama's and Clinton's helping the Russians?
We have Obama on record: ... the 1980s, they're now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War's been over for 20 years,"
"Gov. Romney, I'm glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida. You said Russia
Also:
In March 2012, at a summit in South Korea, Obama was caught in a
News at 10 (Score:2)
End of story, and no one is surprised, they all thought it was common knowledge.
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Fake News? Did, or did not Putin say this?
What about the Reuters article link [reuters.com] that was provided? Is that also fake news?
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And of course exposing the misdeeds of the RNC would be the work of American traitors.
Re:Russian Patriots? (Score:5, Insightful)
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+1 Correct.
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I'm pretty sure patriotic Americans like the Tea Partiers have been trying to expose the misdeeds of the RNC for a decade. Trump finally did it.
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Now the question becomes, WHY did Putin say this?
The conclusion that seems obvious to me is that:
1. Putin realizes that something is about to be exposed to the bright light of day
2. He is doing his job of shifting the blame away from the state
At this point, IMO, it does not even pass the laugh test to suggest Russia did not interfere in the US presidential election. Now if
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3. He wants to be seen as a bigger player in world affairs than he is.
4. He likes watching the western media and the Democrats chase their tails. Get 3 pigs and paint the numbers 1, 2, and 4 on them and let them go in the school yard.
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As for item 4, I happen to be a believer that where there is smoke, there is fire. What we have already is a conflagration. So what would be gained by Putin blowing in a little more smoke?
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Item4: What he gains: Credulous fools, like you, believe what they want to believe for longer. Duh.
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As for your item 3, what would be gained? If anything, Putin would lose respect.
"Russia big and stronk. Russian patriots make foolish Amerikanskis dance to tune of Russian bear heh heh heh!" Puts fear into enemies, and gives him support at home.
As for item 4, I happen to be a believer that where there is smoke, there is fire. What we have already is a conflagration. So what would be gained by Putin blowing in a little more smoke?
Depends on whether or not there really is a conflagration. I happen to...not see any conflagration. But I kind of don't mind watching the Democrats and the media run around in circles like idiots. Screaming about Russia prevents them from actually doing something to fix their dumpster fire of a party. So I'm perfectly happy to keep the Russia na
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You might want to look up the definition of Treason in the Constitution.
Note that "disagreeing with an Anonymous Coward" isn't included....
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How is it treasonous?
IF Russia "hacked" into DNC emails (remember, as far as we know the "hack" was a fucking phishing link that yielded a certain someone's iCloud password), and did so in a state-sponsored way (such that you could say Russia did it, and not Russians did it), you then have to look at what they did with that access.
All they did was reveal the truth. Notice how the media and the DNC and Hillary herself kick and scream about how they were exposed. They do this because they have absolutely no
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American democracy was attacked when the secret ethical misconduct of the DNC was revealed to the public. In order to preserve American democracy, misdeeds must remain guarded and kept from the public eye.
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Obama would have never lost due to Russian meddling. He was a much stronger candidate with a likable personality and almost no corruption under his belt.
No corruption? You realize his political roots are in Chicago, right?
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The Chicago of today isn't the chicago of the past.
You wouldn't happen to be a Southron would you? I've noticed that Southrons LOVE to pick on Northern cities (they did that during the civil rights movement as well), even though the nepotism and plutocracy in the Neo-Confederate Plutocratic party runs deep
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The only city in the USA that can comes close to Chicago for corruption is New Orleans. You can deny it all you want, doesn't change a thing.
What % of Illinois governors end up in prison?
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I put more time and effort into defeating liberals than I have on anything else in a long long time.
The efforts of others and myself killed Hillary's chances.
And guess what? We won by the skin of our teeth!
FIFY
I voted for Trump, but you have to understand that he won by a narrow margin in the key states he took from the blue team. While historic, this was a skin of your teeth win for him and we'd do well to remember that.