Trump Thread

[Greyblades]

You may want to note that I tried not to use selective quoting, but I can prove your point wrong like that just as well:

“As for hacking, I think it was Russian,” Trump said at a press conference in New York.

He just tried to take it back later when he realized that it could be used against him.

His prevous behavior indicates my interpritation; that being he's entertaining the idea of russia because he is less certain that it will turn out to not be russia and wants to cover his ass.

I would think you would agree, you are usually the first person to refute claims that "he means what he says" after all.

As for the allegations not being true at all, that's pretty ridiculous given that neither you nor I can definitely know the truth in that case.

I know that no proof has emerged in the months after the allegations were made and the people who propel it as irrefutable either have vested interest in it being true or were appointed by those same people. Strong bias towards false.

I would say thinking that it was the Russians is perfectly legitimate given that the US intelligence community said so. Whether they are always trustworthy is a different question.

Not allways trustworthy, proven liars for whichever administration apppointed them, same thing amirte?

there are plenty of people even in Trump's party and administration who believe just that.

I highly doubt that. Show me one that doesnt present it with some variation of "We cant say 100% that it isnt true".

If you say everyone is an idiot who believes that, then Trump's team of excellent people contains several idiots who were hand-picked by him.

I say anyone who presents it as indisputable fact at this stage is either too ill informed for the position of journalist, or a liar. That Shepard Smith also proved himself a blind hypocryte through doing so is a bonus.

[Montmorency]

We can't expect evidence in the form of top-level government intercepts or public defections; what we have is more than adequate.

Is the level of evidence for this hack less than that for any of the other military-industrial cyber attacks of recent times? After all, the Obama administration acknowledged Stuxnet - Putin is unlikely to ever reciprocate unless as a threat during a moment of heightened tension. Or maybe acknowledging Stuxnet was just Western propaganda after all? Can't trust those spies!

[Greyblades]

Fool me once monty.

The word of the organization behind iraq, once again saying what their president wanted to be true without so much as a russian IP (even as succeptable to faking as they are) to support it, isn't worth spit for proof.

[Montmorency]

Fool me once monty.

The word of the people behind iraq, once again saying what their president wanted to be true without so much as a russian ISP to support it, isn't worth spit for proof.

Leaving aside the problem of dissonance once you have to pick and choose what you will deign to believe, the Iraq connection is misunderstood.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

U.S. intelligence agencies warned the Bush administration before the Iraq war that al Qaeda and Iran could exploit a U.S. invasion to extend their sway in the region, a new Senate report said on Friday.

The United States invaded Iraq in March 2003. In January of that year, the Senate report said, the U.S. intelligence community predicted al Qaeda "probably would try to exploit any postwar transition in Iraq by replicating the tactics it has used in Afghanistan during the past year to mount hit-and-run operations against U.S. personnel."

"Some militant Islamists in Iraq might benefit from increases in funding and popular support and could choose to conduct terrorist attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq," U.S. intelligence concluded.

The 2003 intelligence papers also said, "Some elements in the Iranian government could decide to try to counter aggressively the U.S. presence in Iraq."

The papers, which the report said were circulated widely in the Bush administration, also warned there was a "significant chance that domestic groups (in Iraq) would engage in violent conflict with each other."

2004 even

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Bush administration disregarded intelligence reports two months before the invasion of Iraq which warned that a war could unleash a violent insurgency and rising anti-US sentiment in the Middle East, it emerged yesterday.

One of the prewar assessments said it would take years of tumult before democracy was established in Iraq, and the country could revert to its tradition of authoritarian rule. According to the New York Times, it also warned that the new authorities in Iraq could face a guerrilla war waged by remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime, and other militant groups.

Meanwhile, Washington could see a rise in anti-American sentiment across the Middle East, as well as support for some terrorist acts.

Mr Pillar also suggested that the Bush administration was so focused on going to war that it never considered the prospect of an anti-American backlash. "When Pillar was asked why this was not made clear to the president and other higher authorities, his answer was that nobody asked," Mr Novak writes.

Mr Pillar's frustration was widely shared yesterday by intelligence professionals who said they were undermined by an administration in which ideologues often had the final say over policy-making, as well as by the agency's management, which they believed was overly compliant with Pentagon and White House hardliners.

"The CIA had come out before the war, and had been telling the administration all kinds of things it didn't want to hear," said Melissa Mahle, a former CIA operative in the Middle East. "The CIA feels very embattled right now. They feel vulnerable to accusations of politicisation in the run-up to the war, and to a degree they are vulnerable because of the war [former CIA chief] George Tenet played."

2011/16: "Please take a look at what we don't know about WMDs. It is big."

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Rumsfeld was not under any legal or administrative obligation to circulate an internal DoD report, but not doing so raises questions about whether the administration withheld key information that could have undermined its case for war. Time and again, in the fall of 2002 and into early 2003, members of the administration spoke forcefully and without qualification about the threats they said Saddam Hussein posed. The JCS report undercut their assertions, and if it had been shared more widely within the administration, the debate would have been very different.

On September 5, Shaffer sent Myers his findings, titled “Iraq: Status of WMD Programs.” In a note to his boss, he revealed: “We don’t know with any precision how much we don’t know.”

And while the report said intelligence officials “assess Iraq is making significant progress in WMD programs,” it conceded that “large parts” of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs were concealed. As a result, “Our assessments rely heavily on analytic assumptions and judgment rather than hard evidence. The evidentiary base is particularly sparse for Iraqi nuclear programs.”

Rather than heed the JCS’s early warning — as well as similar doubts expressed by some CIA, State Department and Defense Intelligence Agency officers — and seek more reliable intelligence, Rumsfeld and Cheney turned to a parallel intelligence apparatus they created that relied largely on information from Iraqi defectors and a network of exiles led by the late Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress.

As for administration officials’ repeated claims that Iraq had mobile bioweapons plants, which in one especially colorful version were disguised as milk and yogurt trucks, the report says: “We believe Iraq has 7 mobile BW agent production plants but cannot locate them.” It summarizes the knowledge of Saddam’s germ warfare programs by saying: “Our knowledge of what biological weapons the Iraqis are able to produce is nearly complete our knowledge of how and where they are produced is nearly 90% incomplete.”

United States’ knowledge of Iraq’s chemical weapons, according to the JCS intelligence report was just as sketchy. “Our overall knowledge of the Iraqi CW program is primarily limited to infrastructure doctrine. The specific agent and facility knowledge is 60-70 percent incomplete.”

inally, while advocates of an invasion also claimed that Iraq was developing longer range ballistic missiles capable of hitting Israel with weapons of mass destruction — Bush had made the claim before the U.N. General Assembly three days after Rumsfeld sent the report to Myers — the report says: “We doubt all processes are in place to produce longer range missiles.”

But just because the JCS report wasn’t seen by key officials who might have benefited from its more cautious tone, doesn’t mean it wasn’t available for inspection. Its middling “Secret” classification meant that, in theory, nothing would have prevented sharing the report's contents had any member of Congress requested a briefing from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

[Greyblades]

Leaving aside the problem of dissonance once you have to pick and choose what you will deign to believe, the Iraq connection is misunderstood.

2004 even

2011/16: "Please take a look at what we don't know about WMDs. It is big."

I dont see the relevance of the first two, whether or not they saw "a violent insurgency and rising anti-US sentiment in the Middle East" coming as a result of the war changes nothing about the CIA's complicity in justfying it.

As for the third, I would not be surprised if there were doubt, disagreement and discontent from within the aparatus of the CIA but the fact remains that the organization produced this report at the behest of Bush's admin that persuaded politicians such as John Kerry that Iraq was producing Nuclear weapons.

America has been publically kicking itself for over a decade that it had been fooled by the Bush administration's claims of Iraqi Nukes, which were based on such reports. To put stock in the Obama's admin claims of russian hacking out of hand whose proof comes soley from the same compliant source and founded on the same amount of proof, IE None, Indicates either an epic degree of gullibility, a hideous lack of historical awareness or a desire to believe that has overwhemed any rightful skepticism you posess.

[Montmorency]

The point is that these are not the same sources, that there was much disagreement on how to report the intelligence between various agencies and actors within the agencies, and the conditions for proof are different considering physical scale of alleged activities. The administration chose to represent particular interpretations to Congress and the public which intelligence agencies overall disagreed with. On the other hand, the conclusions on these hacks have broad backing. It is difficult to see the intelligence community as a unified actor with single goals in these histories, let alone that there is some goal apparent now.

You shouldn't excuse partisanship as skepticism.

[Shaka_Khan]

I remember a time when I was accused of being unpatriotic and was ridiculed at the university and at the internet for opposing the invasion of Iraq. A few agreed with me (including my professor fortunately), but I felt very lonesome when I was being hated by so many for such a long time. Of course, they all agree with me now. A few of the friends who agree with me now are war veterans. That's the thing. I tend to express my views regardless of what the majority of the people believe. It's because I tend to have experiences and witnessed the things that they didn't or don't remember. This still goes on with recent events. Whenever I have a debate with the people I strongly disagree with, I realize that they really don't know the issue much.

[Husar]

[Gilrandir]

His prevous behavior indicates my interpritation; that being he's entertaining the idea of russia because he is less certain that it will turn out to not be russia and wants to cover his ass.

I have an impression that Trump doesn't remember and isn't really keeping track of what he has said on an issue (at least on international politics issues), so there is no use to look for consistency in what he says.

[Husar]

I highly doubt that. Show me one that doesnt present it with some variation of "We cant say 100% that it isnt true".

Now you're changing the goalposts to something that even I did not claim, besides, you probably mean "We cant say 100% that it is true" because otherwise it sounds like you were trying to make them refute your own argument.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/1...blicans-229572
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-r...neering-hacks/

As Monty explained, your demands for 100% proof are just an expression of your own partisanship, all I said was that someone who takes Russian interference for granted does not deserve to be called an idiot, that's different from saying I'm 100% sure they're right or that they all have to agree 100% or that there were 100% proof. You cannot live life with 100% proof and security in everything.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I have an impression that Trump doesn't remember and isn't really keeping track of what he has said on an issue (at least on international politics issues), so there is no use to look for consistency in what he says.

This is an apt comment.

We are used to political leaders whose staff and personal outlook lends itself to measured phrasings and careful use of labels and terminology. Barack Obama was among the most "considered" of Presidential speakers.

Trump, by contrast, mostly just says what he thinks and doesn't let past statements influence his current commentary very much. His core support group, by the way, simply adores this quality as it is very much "true" to everyday speech by most "regular" folks. They did, in part, vote for him precisely because of this quality.

For good or for ill, trying to measure him by the communication standards of his predecessor is a waste of time.

[Greyblades]

The point is that these are not the same sources, that there was much disagreement on how to report the intelligence between various agencies and actors within the agencies, and the conditions for proof are different considering physical scale of alleged activities. The administration chose to represent particular interpretations to Congress and the public which intelligence agencies overall disagreed with. On the other hand, the conclusions on these hacks have broad backing. It is difficult to see the intelligence community as a unified actor with single goals in these histories, let alone that there is some goal apparent now.

Whether the CIA is an actor or merely a tool in this is something I have come to change my mind on through this debacle, but the paralels are the same, claims with broad backing but containing precious little proof, being swallowed by those who we would want to be above such gullability.

You shouldn't excuse partisanship as skepticism.

Partisanship would have me believe one admin's use of the CIA to back thier theories and decry the other's. I decry both. You dont.

Whenever I have a debate with the people I strongly disagree with, I realize that they really don't know the issue much.

Were I you I would not advertise a habit to assume all your opponants are merely ignorant.

Now you're changing the goalposts to something that even I did not claim, besides, you probably mean "We cant say 100% that it is true" because otherwise it sounds like you were trying to make them refute your own argument.

You said: "there are plenty of people even in Trump's party and administration who believe just that." it is not moving the goalposts to expect belief not to come with a disclaimer.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/1...blicans-229572
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-r...neering-hacks/

Hm, it seems I should have kept my skepticism to claims of the admin believing it.

A rather stupid mistake really; the republican rank and file contain such rabid anti russians, Mcain in paticular, who would automatically believe claims the russians were behind the sky being blue. Of course there'd be some that believe this.

You cannot live life with 100% proof and security in everything.

Whereas you can evidently swallow anything that has 0% proof as long as there is enough official looking names attached.

These accusations of partisanship is but a dodge; ridicule to avoid having to acknowledge the possibility that what you want to believe may not be true; as valid as accusations of being unpatriotic was 15 years ago.

[Montmorency]

To dismiss the official bottom-line out of hand merely by the reasoning that spooks lie is either lunacy, where it will not recognize the contradictions it encounters, or hypocritical opportunism, where it will happily accept some claims but not others on no principled distinction.

There are specific demands one could be warranted in making in assessing hackers' chain of command and intentions. You could wonder whether analysts have made some crucial mistakes, or have been misled by a group potentially camouflaging themselves in such a way as to create the red herring of Russian deployment. You would be right to ask officials to take a leap and release as much as feasible should Trump or Congress pursue an escalatory policy much more aggressive or punitive toward Russia, especially if on the basis of Russian cyber attacks.

If the agencies have chosen to go all-out on too little, jumping the gun, or in the worst case if they have indeed conspired to fabricate claims or events in the hope of crippling or removing Trump, then they are quite reckless and should suffer for it. It would be a lot to pin their institution upon, for unclear benefit and illusions of success, and the process for unraveling it isn't obscure. Alternatively, if they are sitting on content because there is a strong connection between the hacks and the Trump administration and there is only one overarching case, it should not take long for the tipping point.

[Husar]

You said: "there are plenty of people even in Trump's party and administration who believe just that." it is not moving the goalposts to expect belief not to come with a disclaimer.

Hm, it seems I should have kept my skepticism to claims of the admin believing it.

A rather stupid mistake really; the republican rank and file contain such rabid anti russians, Mcain in paticular, who would automatically believe claims the russians were behind the sky being blue. Of course there'd be some that believe this.

Whereas you can evidently swallow anything that has 0% proof as long as there is enough official looking names attached.

First of all I didn't mean believe as in Scientology-level belief, but that's kinda arguing semantics now. If only you held Trump to that standard...

Anyway, several intelligence agencies saying so plus several other indicators saying Russia is trying to destabilize the Western world in general is not exactly 0% proof. Your "demands" are completely outlandish because you refuse to challenge your own beliefs. I don't even "swallow" anything, I just think it is likely that it was Russia, that's good enough for me s there is not much I can do about it either way. The only thing I can do is be a bit wary concerning potential Russian attempts to influence the election here for example.
You may have missed this, but a lot of pro-Trump Twitter accounts switched to anti-Merkel tweets around the same time after the election. There is no definitive proof here either, but it, too, is widely seen as a Russian bot net of Twitter bots that they use to influence our politics. The reason I can believe it is that it wouldn't be the only measure given that they created an English version of Russia Today to spread their propaganda here as well. Lavrov was apparently praising the downfall of Western hegemony already at the Munich security conference. It also rhymes well with all the other backhanded stuff Putin has done from arresting people on bogus charges, "local defense forces" popping up somewhere and the whole defender of endangered Russians thing. There isn't even any definitive proof that all his critics who mysteriously got poisoned or shot were killed on his order but you probably believe he is a harmless kitten given that there is 0% proof against him...

I have someone else for you, Kim Jong-Un, can you definitively proof that he ever did anything evil?

[Sarmatian]

The point is that these are not the same sources, that there was much disagreement on how to report the intelligence between various agencies and actors within the agencies, and the conditions for proof are different considering physical scale of alleged activities. The administration chose to represent particular interpretations to Congress and the public which intelligence agencies overall disagreed with. On the other hand, the conclusions on these hacks have broad backing. It is difficult to see the intelligence community as a unified actor with single goals in these histories, let alone that there is some goal apparent now.

You shouldn't excuse partisanship as skepticism.

Do they have? You know they're having issues when they're listing "Putin's revenge on Clinton because she insulted him" as a motive on an official report.

Also, the NSA, which is, according to Snowden, the organization best equipped to get to the bottom of this, expressed least amount of certainty in the report.

In the end, it wasn't even a hack. It was phishing. Which brings us to another problem because one of the most important "proofs" was that it was conducted on such a scale that it could have been only been done by a country like Russia, which is contrary to what phishing is. You don't need anything more than a computer with an internet connection to do it.

It does seem like the report was actually about telling the politicians and parts of the public what they want to hear. In the end, all involved in writing the report refused to categorically state anything or offer any proof. Instead, they covered their own asses by saying that Russian meddling is a probable conclusion based on what they know, so that no one can actually call them on it.

[Gilrandir]

It does seem like the report was actually about telling the politicians and parts of the public what they want to hear. In the end, all involved in writing the report refused to categorically state anything or offer any proof. Instead, they covered their own asses by saying that Russian meddling is a probable conclusion based on what they know, so that no one can actually call them on it.

Russia says something like that on her involvement in Donbas, MH 17, doping scandal and so on.

[Montmorency]

Also, the NSA, which is, according to Snowden, the organization best equipped to get to the bottom of this, expressed least amount of certainty in the report.

Weird of you to say "according to Snowden" - you don't have to get the NSA job description from Snowden - but yes, in the most recent (January) document put the NSA as reporting moderate confidence, or "the information is credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence". This qualifier was for the specific claim that the Russian government wanted to see Trump elected and worked to contribute to his winning; for the rest, the NSA seems to share high confidence.

In the end, it wasn't even a hack. It was phishing. Which brings us to another problem because one of the most important "proofs" was that it was conducted on such a scale that it could have been only been done by a country like Russia, which is contrary to what phishing is. You don't need anything more than a computer with an internet connection to do it.

If the infiltrators were a single organization, then it would need to be more than a single individual given the scale of the operation. But the content accessed and disseminated is clearly political - the contention is that regardless of who or how many specifically executed the task itself, or participated in grabbing data, their employers or paymasters were state agents.

It does seem like the report was actually about telling the politicians and parts of the public what they want to hear. In the end, all involved in writing the report refused to categorically state anything or offer any proof. Instead, they covered their own asses by saying that Russian meddling is a probable conclusion based on what they know, so that no one can actually call them on it.

So we hope to receive updated information in the coming weeks. It seems like buying time or stalling. They made very strong claims, in fact, most significantly:

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess
Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.

We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s
election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her
unfavorably to him.

[Husar]

Given Trump's remarks about NATO and Putin's apparent thirst to "come to the aid of Russian citizens" in neighboring countries, a Russian intention to help Trump get elected is really not so far-fetched. You could say Trump promised something and Putin wanted to see if he couldn't get it. He already "influences" elections at home, a little bit of that abroad to soften the hard NATO-bumper around his wannabe-expanding empire does not seem outlandish at all.This requires destabilizing or destroying both NATO and the EU ideally. Sure, there is no definitive proof that it was Russia, but that's kinda their/a thing these days that a lot of things happen and noone has any hard proof for anything. Welcome to the digital age where everything can be faked or disregarded as fake as wanted...

Quite interesting though that both Mattis and Pence tried to assure Europe that the US are fully committed to NATO.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Well - NATO was intended to combat the USSR - so it is obsolete.

Anyway, your army is too small and you don't foot your share of the bill.

Trump and Pence may well be worse for Putin and Russia.

[Montmorency]

What makes an institution obsolete? Why is the British monarchy not obsolete?

[Husar]

Anyway, your army is too small and you don't foot your share of the bill.

So we shall become a part of the Russian Federation.
That can be arranged of course.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

What makes an institution obsolete? Why is the British monarchy not obsolete?

Why isn't the Monarchy obsolete?

Trump.

So we shall become a part of the Russian Federation.
That can be arranged of course.

Your army is too small, you do not have enough Tanks and Tank Hunters.

Stop pretending this is not a problem.

[Montmorency]

Why isn't the Monarchy obsolete?

Trump.

I don't see the thought.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I don't see the thought.

Britain has an inbuilt immunity to Populism, our Monarch looms so large in the national consciousness that there's no room for a leader like Trump. What's more, there's no room for one man's vision because all is done "by the Crown". Blair came close to being "Presidential" and he is now generally loathed for that and his "sofa style" of government.

[Montmorency]

Britain has an inbuilt immunity to Populism

But that isn't true, and to the extent that it differs from America it might as well be parliamentary government as the factor.

As with other things, for the monarch to genuinely block a populist leader or government in some capacity they would have to sacrifice themselves in the process.

[Husar]

Your army is too small, you do not have enough Tanks and Tank Hunters.

Stop pretending this is not a problem.

You mean the Russians won't want us when we offer to join because we are too weak?
So your only option is to stay alone without being either The USA's or Russia's ally and without getting invaded by anyone?
Woah, that sounds like a big problem.

Just in case you misunderstood me and mean that Russian aggression is a problem, well, yes, but not as long as we stick together in NATO and/or the EU, so why did you just seemingly defend Trump for complaining? As long as NATO has a sufficient nuclear arsenal, the size of our regular armies is sufficient as well. As for the fair share of spending, I don't really believe it would somehow lower the spending of the US if all of Europe spent more on defense. More likely the US would spend more to stay #1. In fact they may secretly have liked the low EU spending levels as it makes us more dependent on them. If we began to spend loads of money and built a huge army, we'd probably get a lot of other complaints... We're already Hitler to the rest of Europe because we have so much power in the EU, I'm sure they'd all be quiet if we spent 6% of our GDP on tanks and also disbanded the EU and all our treaties with Poland. Why not also build border fortifications and talk about how they steal our jobs and cars and that their behavior has to have consequences. Aww man, I should go into politics.

[Sarmatian]

Weird of you to say "according to Snowden" - you don't have to get the NSA job description from Snowden

I simply consider him a credible expert on the subject. Probably wasn't needed to be pointed out, as it wouldn't be contested but still...

The part I find interesting is that he explicitly stated that NSA has the tools to find out exactly what happened. Hence, I'm surprised at the lack of certainty in their report.

If the infiltrators were a single organization, then it would need to be more than a single individual given the scale of the operation.

What is the scale of operation?

But the content accessed and disseminated is clearly political - the contention is that regardless of who or how many specifically executed the task itself, or participated in grabbing data, their employers or paymasters were state agents.

That implies that all political leaks must have been orchestrated by state agents, which is rather silly. Disclosing information about something that is trendy is human nature. Bill Clinton's sexual escapades were interesting when he was president, then no one cared and became somewhat interesting again 20 years later when his wife was running.

It's simple how society works. There's no need for a master villain. Just like leaks about Trump's pussy grabbing came out when he was running for president and weren't remotely interesting before that. Somebody obviously had that information for a very long time, but simply no one cared. By applying the same reasoning, we must conclude that it was Hillary and Democrats who orchestrated the leak because they had a vested interest in Trump losing the election.

[Greyblades]

To dismiss the official bottom-line out of hand merely by the reasoning that spooks lie is either lunacy, where it will not recognize the contradictions it encounters, or hypocritical opportunism, where it will happily accept some claims but not others on no principled distinction.

There are specific demands one could be warranted in making in assessing hackers' chain of command and intentions. You could wonder whether analysts have made some crucial mistakes, or have been misled by a group potentially camouflaging themselves in such a way as to create the red herring of Russian deployment. You would be right to ask officials to take a leap and release as much as feasible should Trump or Congress pursue an escalatory policy much more aggressive or punitive toward Russia, especially if on the basis of Russian cyber attacks.

If the agencies have chosen to go all-out on too little, jumping the gun, or in the worst case if they have indeed conspired to fabricate claims or events in the hope of crippling or removing Trump, then they are quite reckless and should suffer for it. It would be a lot to pin their institution upon, for unclear benefit and illusions of success, and the process for unraveling it isn't obscure. Alternatively, if they are sitting on content because there is a strong connection between the hacks and the Trump administration and there is only one overarching case, it should not take long for the tipping point.

This is blatant misrepresentation of my position; I dismiss it because the russians doing it is a theory and the only thing that supports it is the word of spooks that have twisted the truth before in similar circumstances and whose taskmaster at the time had incentive to do the same.

All your presented theories of mistake or ill intent are made all the more plausable than "russia did it" by the precident that was the Iraq war debacle and the fact that the CIA's entire role is to be the illicit tools of the president of the time, often loyal to the most extreme fault.

First of all I didn't mean believe as in Scientology-level belief, but that's kinda arguing semantics now. If only you held Trump to that standard...

Is your english failing you again? The difference between believing something to be true and entertaining a possibility is much greater than mere semantics.

You said members of the trump admin believe it. Prove it or amend your statement.

Anyway, several intelligence agencies saying so plus several other indicators saying Russia is trying to destabilize the Western world in general is not exactly 0% proof. Your "demands" are completely outlandish because you refuse to challenge your own beliefs. I don't even "swallow" anything, I just think it is likely that it was Russia, that's good enough for me s there is not much I can do about it either way. The only thing I can do is be a bit wary concerning potential Russian attempts to influence the election here for example.

Testimony of the demonstrateably unreliable and indicators of general ill intent are not proof and it certainly should not be enough for someone in Shepard Smith's profession to state as fact, yet there he is.

If you want to believe that the russians did it, I dont care, I dont even mind but dont blow smoke up my ass about it being proven. I mean the Seth Rich theory has a dead body found with valuables untouched but still labled a mugging by DC cops and it's the russian angle being pushed by the media?

You may have missed this, but a lot of pro-Trump Twitter accounts switched to anti-Merkel tweets around the same time after the election. There is no definitive proof here either, but it, too, is widely seen as a Russian bot net of Twitter bots that they use to influence our politics. The reason I can believe it is that it wouldn't be the only measure given that they created an English version of Russia Today to spread their propaganda here as well. Lavrov was apparently praising the downfall of Western hegemony already at the Munich security conference. It also rhymes well with all the other backhanded stuff Putin has done from arresting people on bogus charges, "local defense forces" popping up somewhere and the whole defender of endangered Russians thing. There isn't even any definitive proof that all his critics who mysteriously got poisoned or shot were killed on his order but you probably believe he is a harmless kitten given that there is 0% proof against him...

I have someone else for you, Kim Jong-Un, can you definitively proof that he ever did anything evil?

The Kim Jong-Un case has the escapees testimony to fall back on, the CIA's "this is how we think the russians hacked the DNC" has nothing of the sort.

[Montmorency]

We're already Hitler to the rest of Europe because we have so much power in the EU, I'm sure they'd all be quiet if we spent 6% of our GDP on tanks and also disbanded the EU and all our treaties with Poland. Why not also build border fortifications and talk about how they steal our jobs and cars and that their behavior has to have consequences. Aww man, I should go into politics.

Pak und Flak nach vorne.

What is the scale of operation?

Unauthorized access maintained and developed over the course of a year with respect to emails, chat, research, no financial or donor information taken, basically undetected throughout the time period until discovered and kicked out in spring of 2016.

That implies that all political leaks must have been orchestrated by state agents, which is rather silly. Disclosing information about something that is trendy is human nature. Bill Clinton's sexual escapades were interesting when he was president, then no one cared and became somewhat interesting again 20 years later when his wife was running.

Not at all. We're talking about electronic networks and data accessed remotely and without authorization, over prolonged periods of time.

It's simple how society works. There's no need for a master villain. Just like leaks about Trump's pussy grabbing came out when he was running for president and weren't remotely interesting before that. Somebody obviously had that information for a very long time, but simply no one cared. By applying the same reasoning, we must conclude that it was Hillary and Democrats who orchestrated the leak because they had a vested interest in Trump losing the election.

The Trump audio tape wasn't a leak, it was publicly-available content from media unrelated to Trump that people dug up while combing over his public profile for dirt.

[Montmorency]

This is blatant misrepresentation of my position; I dismiss it because the russians doing it is a theory and the only thing that supports it is the word of spooks that have twisted the truth before in similar circumstances and whose taskmaster at the time had incentive to do the same.

So I correctly represented it.

The Kim Jong-Un case has the escapees testimony to fall back on, the CIA's "this is how we think the russians hacked the DNC" has nothing of the sort.

They were recruited by the CIA.