In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
I don't know, like do you guys kniw who Putin is and what he wants?
He has something in common with Trump: the world is a zero sum game in his view. You don't cooperate, you win by crushing your opponent. And the opponent is us.
Take Europe. Putin has territorial ambitions in eastern Europe. His goal is to restore the greatness of the USSR, meaning dominance over its neighbours. He sees the EU as too strong and too big a rival, so he tries to undermine it by supporting actively and finantially nationalist far right who are the only ones to oppose the EU, because he knows that without the EU, he will have endless possibilities to bully and invade territories in the baltic states and eastern Europe.
That's not me doing 6d chess. It's completely in the open.
On a domestic level, what Putin has done is fucking terrifying. He is probably one of the top 5 richest men in the world according to Forbes, has assassinated, emprisonned and silenced all opposition and essentially goven the country to a loyal bunch of oligarchs. The country has been subjected to 15 years of ultra nationalist propaganda. I met very nice russian people who think Stalin was great and that US is the biggest evil in the world.
It's not fear mongering and it's not to make Trump illegitimate but you guys have to get real. Putin doesn't want anything, anything that align with any of our interests. His biggest dream is to restore russian imperialism and see the liberal west, its values and its power in ruin.
On February 27 2017 15:53 LegalLord wrote: My point is kind of somewhere in GH's: sure, you have a right to be upset about it. But there's no real justification for hysteria of the form of the rabid "Russia is destroying democracy with UNPRECEDENTED meddling" variety that is plenty common here. They saw a fragile situation and thought it would be funny (in a nation-state to nation-state trolling humor sort of way) to help things reach a breaking point. I doubt even the people who planned the operation could have expected that the result would be quite as significant as it was (in getting Trump elected and bringing partisan/intra-party tensions to a boil), but the intent to create trouble was obvious.
Anyone who expects Russia to play nice in such a situation even though they have every moral justification (since, you know, international rules only apply to countries that aren't the US) to give the US a taste of its own medicine... well that's not something that can be guaranteed. Certainly, this was quite bold and rather blatant, but it's not anything more insidious than the way the US meddles with other nations' elections to try to get desired results. Doesn't make Russia an unprecedented attacker of democracy, but merely an unfriendly nation responding with a tit-for-tat of sorts in a brutally effective moment. And as I said before, the US has and continues to meddle in Russian elections so it's not without justification.
But again, Russia provided the leaks, Democrats provided the DNC. What actually made all of this work is simply that the leaks were just too good not to read and use as proof of what people like GH were saying all along.
Since this is not unprecedented please provide evidence of a major first world country actively spreading illegally gained information in an attempt to sway the election of another major first world country.
Does it have to be a major first world power? Or can it be *insert random South American country in the 1970s*? Because the US was doing a lot worse than simply spreading illegally gained information in an attempt to sway the election in plenty of countries.
But that's completely beside the point. When those countries figured out they were justifiably outraged, but being powerless in the face of the USA and far too dependent economically on the USA, it was in their best interest to not rock the boat too much. Nevertheless, the wave of anti-America sentiment that swept through South America in the last 20 years or so is largely based in those policies... and it's no surprise that people like Chavez, Morales or Kirchner swept into power riding the evil-US-imperium sentiment.
Probably the closest example to the US meddling with a major power's politics, however, is Iran. And that worked out swimmingly. almost 40 years later the Ayatollah is STILL riding the "fuck America" sentiment (which they are of course milking for what they can). In fact, Iran "legitimized" their nuclear weapons program to their people, regardless of the sanctions, with the basic idea that they need to be able to protect themselves the next time America tries to install a puppet dictator.
So in conclusion, fucking with other peoples' governments has historically had some pretty serious consequences. The fact that the US just wants to roll over and take it says more about how deep Trump is in Russia's pocket than anything else.
The first step, is of course, to investigate whether Russia meddled and how much they meddled. Hacking and spreading information is obviously not as egregious an offense as propping up a military dictator (or a Shah), and the evidence presented so far even for that, is completely inconclusive. The intelligence agencies claim they have evidence, but haven't actually presented it, making it about as believable to outsiders as Iraq having WMDs. But given that this is a mostly internal affair, the full forensic investigation can be done without invading another country, so there doesn't seem to be any reason not to, except that Congressional Republicans are afraid of what they might find.
The investigation *should* focus on two issues: what did the Russians do during the elections, and do they hold compromising information about Trump that might be used to influence policy? Then what the response should be to either (or both) of those being the case, is the next step. But seems to me an investigation is a necessity.
I'm just here to point out that the US did very likely meddle in Portuguese elections in the 70s, helping save the country from going from a right-wing dictatorship and into a communist dictatorship. Instead, the party they helped finance won the first elections and a full-fledged democracy was established.
Not saying that meddling in others' elections is awesome. Just pointing out nuances in this subject.
On February 27 2017 20:26 warding wrote: I'm just here to point out that the US did very likely meddle in Portuguese elections in the 70s, helping save the country from going from a right-wing dictatorship and into a communist dictatorship. Instead, the party they helped finance won the first elections and a full-fledged democracy was established.
Not saying that meddling in others' elections is awesome. Just pointing out nuances in this subject.
Sure, sometimes the meddling happens to be in line with personal political views, but that's besides the point these guys are making.
On February 27 2017 20:26 warding wrote: I'm just here to point out that the US did very likely meddle in Portuguese elections in the 70s, helping save the country from going from a right-wing dictatorship and into a communist dictatorship. Instead, the party they helped finance won the first elections and a full-fledged democracy was established.
Not saying that meddling in others' elections is awesome. Just pointing out nuances in this subject.
Sure, sometimes the meddling happens to be in line with personal political views, but that's besides the point these guys are making.
Have to consider who is meddling and why. If it's a ruthless dictator meddling in a democracy's election to pursue his imperialistic aggressive FP, I would say that the case is pretty fucking straightforward.
On February 27 2017 20:26 warding wrote: I'm just here to point out that the US did very likely meddle in Portuguese elections in the 70s, helping save the country from going from a right-wing dictatorship and into a communist dictatorship. Instead, the party they helped finance won the first elections and a full-fledged democracy was established.
Not saying that meddling in others' elections is awesome. Just pointing out nuances in this subject.
Sure, sometimes the meddling happens to be in line with personal political views, but that's besides the point these guys are making.
That form of meddling is pretty transparent by comparison to what happened last year. And long term meddling in elections hurts the legitimacy of the party that wins, even if the meddling had little or no impact on the results.
Based off that commercial, this is apparently the website with all the information about Republican's replacement for the ACA: https://abetterhealthcareplan.com/
You'll notice that there's no information there...
On a related note, John Oliver just came out with a video about Obamacare and how the Republicans are running around with their heads cut off...
This seems to be what happens when you blindly disagree with an idea only because it wasn't proposed by your party (even though Romney and others had the idea before Obama...), and just spend year after year strawmanning the act instead of looking at ways to make it better.
On February 27 2017 14:59 ChristianS wrote: At no point did I equate the two, so I think you might be reading more hysteria into my tone than I'm actually experiencing. Russia hacked the election. Not in the sense of directly hacking voting machines. But it did influence the result, quite possibly singlehandedly changing the outcome. That's not liberal hysteria, it's just a thing that happened.
That it was the candidate I supported that was hurt by this is a bit difficult to separate from the fact that even if it wasn't, I'd still feel this type of intervention was unacceptable and that every measure should be taken to prevent it in the future, and find and punish any Americans that might have colluded with the Russians on this operation. I'm not losing sleep over it though. There are aspects of Trump's presidency that I legitimately think could be a threat to our democracy, but this isn't one of them. It's just a bad thing that happened, and I'd expect the party that made months of ruckus about Obama's hot mic with Putin in 2012 to take this a little more seriously instead of letting their eyes get wide thinking how many policies they could get through in the chaos.
Wikileaks seems to claim that their intel came from a disgusted democrat who wanted bernie sanders to win the primary.
The CIA claims that John Podesta falling for a phishing scam? The CIA certainly can't be trusted and the DNC have a vested interest in saying that Russia is the badguy.
Earlier I made a point about saying that I'm not necessarily sure it was Russia. I thought it was prudent to stop using the qualifier because I still thought it was most likely Russia, and it wouldn't really add much to the discussion to say otherwise. But I think it's worth briefly mentioning.
On the surface, the circumstantial evidence seems to line up quite well. And below that, it has a few key elements that look a lot like a Russian intelligence operation. So it's fair to say it was probably Russia. The motive and opportunity are there, and a few bits of evidence are available.
But what concerns me is that the people pushing the case most strongly - the intelligence community - both have a vested interest in the outcome and conducted themselves in bad faith. That unclassified release was poorly conceived and quite unconvincing, to the point that I wonder why they even bothered. The leaks to the media - the "CIA figured out that Russia hacked to get Trump elected" moment - not one of the finest works of the IC. And the aftermath shows that people within intelligence are really unhappy to have Trump around.
The signs mostly point to Russia, yes - but the IC has acted in bad faith and that makes me a little suspicious.
I don’t think anyone should take wikileaks’ or the IC’s story at face value. Almost everyone involved has a vested interest in the outcome of the investigation and public perception. The only way to get a handle on the DNC hacks and why they happened is to seek out the perspectives of third parties like veteran journalist and security experts. But the truth is that we will never receive the smoking gun evidence that completely dispels any doubt about who did it.
The bigger issue to me is whether there was coordination between team Trump and Russia. Republicans who wanted independent Benghazis investigations but none for this are trying to outdo themselves in hypocrisy.
In a wide-ranging interview that shied away from directly criticizing the current commander in chief, former President George W. Bush said it's critical for the media to hold accountable "people who abuse their power." He also rejected the current administration's controversial immigration policy.
"I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. We needed the media to hold people like me to account," Bush told TODAY in an exclusive interview. "Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power."
Yes, we can start by holding people accountable for spreading bullshit to start a vanity war in the Middle East. For which the media was a willing advocate.
That job belongs to Congress. And the news media has the same amount of guilt as the rest of the nation. We collectively own that disaster and the failure to hold people accountable.
BEIJING — After approving plans on Friday for informal talks in New York between a North Korean delegation and former American officials, the Trump administration reversed course hours later, withdrawing approval for the North Koreans’ visas, two people who were to take part in the planned talks said.
The schedule called for the two sides to meet in early March, and arrangements were underway for the six-member North Korean group, led by Choe Son-hui, who runs the American affairs bureau of the North’s Foreign Ministry, to travel to New York.
The organizer of the talks, the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, led by Donald S. Zagoria, was told by the State Department on Friday morning that the visas would be granted.
But the decision was reversed in the afternoon when “someone overruled State,” said one person who planned to participate in the talks. Both of the people on the participants’ list spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.
The reversal came as the Malaysian government announced that VX nerve agent, a chemical on a United Nations list of weapons of mass destruction, was used to kill the estranged half brother of the leader of North Korea at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13.
On February 28 2017 00:59 Plansix wrote: That job belongs to Congress. And the news media has the same amount of guilt as the rest of the nation. We collectively own that disaster and the failure to hold people accountable.
By that I mean, my response to Bush is, "start with yourself, asshat."
I have no problem taking a hard line with NK, but I wish they had gotten the sign off from the State Department before pulling the trigger if that part of the report is true.
On February 27 2017 14:59 ChristianS wrote: At no point did I equate the two, so I think you might be reading more hysteria into my tone than I'm actually experiencing. Russia hacked the election. Not in the sense of directly hacking voting machines. But it did influence the result, quite possibly singlehandedly changing the outcome. That's not liberal hysteria, it's just a thing that happened.
That it was the candidate I supported that was hurt by this is a bit difficult to separate from the fact that even if it wasn't, I'd still feel this type of intervention was unacceptable and that every measure should be taken to prevent it in the future, and find and punish any Americans that might have colluded with the Russians on this operation. I'm not losing sleep over it though. There are aspects of Trump's presidency that I legitimately think could be a threat to our democracy, but this isn't one of them. It's just a bad thing that happened, and I'd expect the party that made months of ruckus about Obama's hot mic with Putin in 2012 to take this a little more seriously instead of letting their eyes get wide thinking how many policies they could get through in the chaos.
Wikileaks seems to claim that their intel came from a disgusted democrat who wanted bernie sanders to win the primary.
The CIA claims that John Podesta falling for a phishing scam? The CIA certainly can't be trusted and the DNC have a vested interest in saying that Russia is the badguy.
Earlier I made a point about saying that I'm not necessarily sure it was Russia. I thought it was prudent to stop using the qualifier because I still thought it was most likely Russia, and it wouldn't really add much to the discussion to say otherwise. But I think it's worth briefly mentioning.
On the surface, the circumstantial evidence seems to line up quite well. And below that, it has a few key elements that look a lot like a Russian intelligence operation. So it's fair to say it was probably Russia. The motive and opportunity are there, and a few bits of evidence are available.
But what concerns me is that the people pushing the case most strongly - the intelligence community - both have a vested interest in the outcome and conducted themselves in bad faith. That unclassified release was poorly conceived and quite unconvincing, to the point that I wonder why they even bothered. The leaks to the media - the "CIA figured out that Russia hacked to get Trump elected" moment - not one of the finest works of the IC. And the aftermath shows that people within intelligence are really unhappy to have Trump around.
The signs mostly point to Russia, yes - but the IC has acted in bad faith and that makes me a little suspicious.
The modern left and intelligence agencies make very funny bedfellows. You have concerns? You mean besides this breathtaking Russian involvement in hacks undermining the fabric of our Democracy? Clearly, you're a Russophile partisan Trump lover. We should welcome the CIA voice in public policy!
On February 27 2017 14:59 ChristianS wrote: At no point did I equate the two, so I think you might be reading more hysteria into my tone than I'm actually experiencing. Russia hacked the election. Not in the sense of directly hacking voting machines. But it did influence the result, quite possibly singlehandedly changing the outcome. That's not liberal hysteria, it's just a thing that happened.
That it was the candidate I supported that was hurt by this is a bit difficult to separate from the fact that even if it wasn't, I'd still feel this type of intervention was unacceptable and that every measure should be taken to prevent it in the future, and find and punish any Americans that might have colluded with the Russians on this operation. I'm not losing sleep over it though. There are aspects of Trump's presidency that I legitimately think could be a threat to our democracy, but this isn't one of them. It's just a bad thing that happened, and I'd expect the party that made months of ruckus about Obama's hot mic with Putin in 2012 to take this a little more seriously instead of letting their eyes get wide thinking how many policies they could get through in the chaos.
Wikileaks seems to claim that their intel came from a disgusted democrat who wanted bernie sanders to win the primary.
The CIA claims that John Podesta falling for a phishing scam? The CIA certainly can't be trusted and the DNC have a vested interest in saying that Russia is the badguy.
Earlier I made a point about saying that I'm not necessarily sure it was Russia. I thought it was prudent to stop using the qualifier because I still thought it was most likely Russia, and it wouldn't really add much to the discussion to say otherwise. But I think it's worth briefly mentioning.
On the surface, the circumstantial evidence seems to line up quite well. And below that, it has a few key elements that look a lot like a Russian intelligence operation. So it's fair to say it was probably Russia. The motive and opportunity are there, and a few bits of evidence are available.
But what concerns me is that the people pushing the case most strongly - the intelligence community - both have a vested interest in the outcome and conducted themselves in bad faith. That unclassified release was poorly conceived and quite unconvincing, to the point that I wonder why they even bothered. The leaks to the media - the "CIA figured out that Russia hacked to get Trump elected" moment - not one of the finest works of the IC. And the aftermath shows that people within intelligence are really unhappy to have Trump around.
The signs mostly point to Russia, yes - but the IC has acted in bad faith and that makes me a little suspicious.
The modern left and intelligence agencies make very funny bedfellows. You have concerns? You mean besides this breathtaking Russian involvement in hacks undermining the fabric of our Democracy? Clearly, you're a Russophile partisan Trump lover. We should welcome the CIA voice in public policy!
Yes, the left's "we love the CIA now" 180 is one of the biggest idiocies I have seen in a while.
On February 27 2017 14:59 ChristianS wrote: At no point did I equate the two, so I think you might be reading more hysteria into my tone than I'm actually experiencing. Russia hacked the election. Not in the sense of directly hacking voting machines. But it did influence the result, quite possibly singlehandedly changing the outcome. That's not liberal hysteria, it's just a thing that happened.
That it was the candidate I supported that was hurt by this is a bit difficult to separate from the fact that even if it wasn't, I'd still feel this type of intervention was unacceptable and that every measure should be taken to prevent it in the future, and find and punish any Americans that might have colluded with the Russians on this operation. I'm not losing sleep over it though. There are aspects of Trump's presidency that I legitimately think could be a threat to our democracy, but this isn't one of them. It's just a bad thing that happened, and I'd expect the party that made months of ruckus about Obama's hot mic with Putin in 2012 to take this a little more seriously instead of letting their eyes get wide thinking how many policies they could get through in the chaos.
Wikileaks seems to claim that their intel came from a disgusted democrat who wanted bernie sanders to win the primary.
The CIA claims that John Podesta falling for a phishing scam? The CIA certainly can't be trusted and the DNC have a vested interest in saying that Russia is the badguy.
Earlier I made a point about saying that I'm not necessarily sure it was Russia. I thought it was prudent to stop using the qualifier because I still thought it was most likely Russia, and it wouldn't really add much to the discussion to say otherwise. But I think it's worth briefly mentioning.
On the surface, the circumstantial evidence seems to line up quite well. And below that, it has a few key elements that look a lot like a Russian intelligence operation. So it's fair to say it was probably Russia. The motive and opportunity are there, and a few bits of evidence are available.
But what concerns me is that the people pushing the case most strongly - the intelligence community - both have a vested interest in the outcome and conducted themselves in bad faith. That unclassified release was poorly conceived and quite unconvincing, to the point that I wonder why they even bothered. The leaks to the media - the "CIA figured out that Russia hacked to get Trump elected" moment - not one of the finest works of the IC. And the aftermath shows that people within intelligence are really unhappy to have Trump around.
The signs mostly point to Russia, yes - but the IC has acted in bad faith and that makes me a little suspicious.
The modern left and intelligence agencies make very funny bedfellows. You have concerns? You mean besides this breathtaking Russian involvement in hacks undermining the fabric of our Democracy? Clearly, you're a Russophile partisan Trump lover. We should welcome the CIA voice in public policy!
Yes, the left's "we love the CIA now" 180 is one of the biggest idiocies I have seen in a while.
It is right up there with the right suddenly taking a softer stance on Russia.
On February 27 2017 14:59 ChristianS wrote: At no point did I equate the two, so I think you might be reading more hysteria into my tone than I'm actually experiencing. Russia hacked the election. Not in the sense of directly hacking voting machines. But it did influence the result, quite possibly singlehandedly changing the outcome. That's not liberal hysteria, it's just a thing that happened.
That it was the candidate I supported that was hurt by this is a bit difficult to separate from the fact that even if it wasn't, I'd still feel this type of intervention was unacceptable and that every measure should be taken to prevent it in the future, and find and punish any Americans that might have colluded with the Russians on this operation. I'm not losing sleep over it though. There are aspects of Trump's presidency that I legitimately think could be a threat to our democracy, but this isn't one of them. It's just a bad thing that happened, and I'd expect the party that made months of ruckus about Obama's hot mic with Putin in 2012 to take this a little more seriously instead of letting their eyes get wide thinking how many policies they could get through in the chaos.
Wikileaks seems to claim that their intel came from a disgusted democrat who wanted bernie sanders to win the primary.
The CIA claims that John Podesta falling for a phishing scam? The CIA certainly can't be trusted and the DNC have a vested interest in saying that Russia is the badguy.
Earlier I made a point about saying that I'm not necessarily sure it was Russia. I thought it was prudent to stop using the qualifier because I still thought it was most likely Russia, and it wouldn't really add much to the discussion to say otherwise. But I think it's worth briefly mentioning.
On the surface, the circumstantial evidence seems to line up quite well. And below that, it has a few key elements that look a lot like a Russian intelligence operation. So it's fair to say it was probably Russia. The motive and opportunity are there, and a few bits of evidence are available.
But what concerns me is that the people pushing the case most strongly - the intelligence community - both have a vested interest in the outcome and conducted themselves in bad faith. That unclassified release was poorly conceived and quite unconvincing, to the point that I wonder why they even bothered. The leaks to the media - the "CIA figured out that Russia hacked to get Trump elected" moment - not one of the finest works of the IC. And the aftermath shows that people within intelligence are really unhappy to have Trump around.
The signs mostly point to Russia, yes - but the IC has acted in bad faith and that makes me a little suspicious.
The modern left and intelligence agencies make very funny bedfellows. You have concerns? You mean besides this breathtaking Russian involvement in hacks undermining the fabric of our Democracy? Clearly, you're a Russophile partisan Trump lover. We should welcome the CIA voice in public policy!
Yes, the left's "we love the CIA now" 180 is one of the biggest idiocies I have seen in a while.
It is right up there with the right suddenly taking a softer stance on Russia.
Long as we can agree that both are stupid then that's fair.
EPT
