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Post by Amadan on Dec 10, 2016 13:54:16 GMT -5
Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House. So let's be clear - the article does not claim that Russia hacked voting machines or otherwise directly interfered in the vote count. What it claims - and with considerably more credibility than some previous articles - is that Russia has deliberately and systematically interfered with the US election to try to engineer the result they wanted. Really, it's less about "hacking" because the hacking was just a means to obtain the propaganda they wanted. Now, the fact that Russia had a preference as to who wins the US Presidency, and that they would use whatever means they had available to manipulate the result, should not be surprising. Of course they have a preference, and of course if they think they can do something to make their preferred candidate more likely, they will do it. It's not as if the US wouldn't (and hasn't) done similar things. The fact that they obviously preferred Trump is also not a reason in itself (after the fact) to vote against Trump. Every national government in the world will have preferred Trump or Clinton according to which one they saw as more likely to align with their own interests. The things that are alarming to me are: (1) That the Russians clearly have a sophisticated cyberwarfare operation going, tied into social engineering on a national scale (i.e., they have actually figured out how to manipulate US elections) and we are doing little or nothing about it; (2) That lawmakers are responding in a strongly partisan manner. Obviously it's a little awkward for Trump and his supporters to admit that yes, Putin did in fact want him to win and even tried to make that happen. But the fact that Putin preferred Trump doesn't make Trump Putin's man, and Trump needs to confront this. Instead, he's just scoffing that "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction." Great, so US intelligence occasionally gets things wrong, and therefore you can dismiss whatever they tell you if it doesn't fit your agenda?
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Post by robeiae on Dec 10, 2016 16:19:10 GMT -5
I don't disagree with most of the above. However, I do object to the idea that Trump's victory was a consequence of Russian interference in the election. That idea is be taken as a given and, I think, wrongly so. I accept the idea that elements in Russia--government and private--sought to influence the election. I even accept the idea that they were successful in generating some negative press for Hillary Clinton.
But none of this translates into quantifiable evidence of "Russia" swinging the election from Clinton to Trump. The lone comment in the above piece from someone who briefed on the report is the following:
Okay, fair enough. But that comment is NOT equivalent to the opening line of the piece:
Or rather, it's not equivalent to the reading most are giving to the above: that Russian intervention WON Trump the Presidency. Goddammit, that's not what it says!
*walks away muttering about non-dairy creamer*
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Post by Amadan on Dec 10, 2016 18:38:08 GMT -5
I don't think Russia actually made Trump win. Many things made Trump win and Clinton lose, and that's what post-election analysis is all about. No one can say that any one factor made the difference. What I think is indisputable is that there was deliberate Russian action that had an impact, and we should be concerned about that.
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Post by Christine on Dec 10, 2016 19:27:07 GMT -5
Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House. Obviously it's a little awkward for Trump and his supporters to admit that yes, Putin did in fact want him to win and even tried to make that happen. But the fact that Putin preferred Trump doesn't make Trump Putin's man, and Trump needs to confront this. Instead, he's just scoffing that "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction." Great, so US intelligence occasionally gets things wrong, and therefore you can dismiss whatever they tell you if it doesn't fit your agenda? Methinks he doth protest too much. Take a look at the probable new Secretary of State, to boot. Fucking fabulous. ETA: More on Tillerson: During Trump's campaign, he denounced any ties with Russia. Now applauds a guy with massive ties to Russia and thinks he'd be a great SoS. (Side note: "not for himself, for the company." lolz)
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Post by Don on Dec 12, 2016 17:53:35 GMT -5
I don't think Russia actually made Trump win. Many things made Trump win and Clinton lose, and that's what post-election analysis is all about. No one can say that any one factor made the difference. What I think is indisputable is that there was deliberate Russian action that had an impact, and we should be concerned about that.
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Post by Amadan on Dec 12, 2016 21:12:01 GMT -5
Come on,Don. That's a Facebook level of argumentation.
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Post by Don on Dec 12, 2016 21:34:23 GMT -5
Come on,Don. That's a Facebook level of argumentation. Precisely. That's where I found it. I find humor in hyperbole, particularly when so obviously stated. YMMV. Obviously, the Russians did not shoot Donna Brazille with a stupid ray. As you said, "Many things made Trump win and Clinton lose."
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Post by Amadan on Dec 12, 2016 22:47:35 GMT -5
But that wasn't the implicit message of that meme.
The implicit message of that meme was "People who call out Russia for meddling in the election are trying to distract us from the corrupt media's collusion with Crooked Hillary hur hur."
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2016 22:55:03 GMT -5
Take a look at the probable new Secretary of State, to boot. Fucking fabulous. ETA: More on Tillerson: During Trump's campaign, he denounced any ties with Russia. Now applauds a guy with massive ties to Russia and thinks he'd be a great SoS. (Side note: "not for himself, for the company." lolz) As I noted in the Cabinet tracker thread, make that Trump's actual secretary of state pick. Tillerson is the choice. Russia has got to be over the moon about how this is working out. As I see it, we've got two issues, the content of the hacked emails/Clinton's flaws as a candidate, and the fact Russia likely deliberately tried to sway our election towards Trump. The first issue is no longer relevant. Clinton lost. The content of her emails, whatever happened with Brazille -- all that shit is moot. But the second issue is still very relevant indeed, and should concern all Americans. And our president elect should not be dissing and scoffing at our own intelligence.
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Post by Don on Dec 13, 2016 6:46:25 GMT -5
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Post by Amadan on Dec 13, 2016 9:22:13 GMT -5
Wow. I had never heard of that story. I am surprised it didn't make a much bigger splash at the time.
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Post by robeiae on Dec 13, 2016 9:41:42 GMT -5
Ted Kennedy is the greatest partisan partisan in US history. He would--imo--literally do anything to advance his party's interests.
Also, let's not forget that there was serious opposition to Reagan's "Evil Empire" point of view, in the elites of both parties, as well as among major media players. The Russians loved their children too, after all.
As to why it didn't make much of a splash, such a move by Kennedy was simply accepted by and large as Realpolitik in the U.S. Also, no social media...
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2016 11:00:28 GMT -5
I will only make this observation -- more and more, I'm inclined to regard pretty much every piece of news I hear with at least a grain of skepticism, a wee reservation that it might not be what it seems.
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Post by robeiae on Dec 13, 2016 11:17:37 GMT -5
I think Limbaugh's claim--that Kennedy sent Andropov a secret letter--is most definitely bs, pure Politifact.
But I don't think it's a given that the rest is bs. Tunney denies it, but that's not surprising. And it could be KGB bs, but it seems like a very minor thing, sticking in a phony memo that reveals what, exactly? A friend of Kennedy's suggesting that some positive PR for the Soviets would help them and help the Dems beat Reagan? If the KGB wanted to set someone up, they'd do much better.
Sorry, but I see that as simple politics (if the memo is accurate). Again, many people had a serious problem with Reagan's approach to the Soviets back then. Many thought that Detente should be restored, that peaceful coexistence was a necessity. So I don't have a big problem with Kennedy's actions, if the memo is accurate. He's not making treaties, he's not passing on state secrets, he's not trying to induce the Soviets to do something nefarious or illegal.
Comparing this to the possibility that Russia was running some sort of wide-ranging "Elect Trump" op is apples and oranges, imo.
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Post by Amadan on Dec 13, 2016 11:32:44 GMT -5
I think the comparison is between Kennedy colluding with the Russians and Trump colluding with the Russians.
Both would be pretty damning, but both appear to be largely unsubstantiated claims. At most, they both were opportunistic enough to take advantage of Russian political interests intersecting with their own.
Trump concerns me more, though, because Kennedy is dead and Trump is actually President.
Seriously, Russia is a threat. People don't get that, because they think "the Cold War is over."
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