Trump Thread

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Husar]

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.
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.

Ok, they think so.
As for Shepard Smith, he is about as professional as the President who states bullshit as facts all the time, so I guess the people get the level of professionalism they voted for.
Smith doesn't even call it a fact, he "only" doesn't pronounce any doubts on TV. While that may not be textbook journalism, it's far better than outright lying or presenting "alternative facts". You might as well complain about Stephen Miller not having shown up on all the shows that invited him when he clearly said on TV that he would repeat things on any show anywhere at any time. I mean what professional standard is that for a representative of the POTUS?
Your whole Smith outrage is obviously a smokescreen fueled by partisanship since you never get outraged by similar blunders of the Trump admin.

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?

Ugh, first you scold me for not using belief correctly and then you talk about me believing something when I clearly said I can't be sure. Is your logic failing you today or is it my fault again?
And what Seth Rich theory? Can you prove it? Can anyone?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...afa_story.html

All I see there is a bunch of speculation that offers no more proof than the Russian hacking theory. With the added bonus that even if he was the leak and/or murdered to cover the leak, it could still have been done by the Russians.

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.

Because it would make sense to publicly release the names of their Russian sources who secretly told them so?
And escapees are no proof, they're obviously not happy with the regime and are likely to lie to get asylum in other countries. Unless you can prove that they are not lying, NK is a paradise.

No - I just mean you don't have enough tanks, or men. Germany is large, but the German army numbers just over 60,000 men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Army

More than last year - but still about half the size the army needs to be to contribute effectively to NATO and Germany's own defence. At the same time you're integrating the Dutch, Romanian and Czech armies into your own, increasing the area you are required to cover.

As I said, so you think we're not good enough for NATO, how about we just scratch the idea and work with the Russian Federation if we don't deserve NATO protection? Maybe Putin will agree to a cooperation without demanding that we spend more on defense. The Red Army can defend us effectively if the US Army does not want to.
And if neither of them want us, well, we have finally achieved complete independence with no threat, might as well disband the army completely to make them want us even less.

[Montmorency]

If you are referring to Brexit, I disagree. When it comes down to it Brexit happened because of a lack of consultation on the surrender of parliamentary power to Europe (treaties signed without Referenda first). This caused disenfranchisement.

A lot of the resentment towards Eastern Europeans has to do with the fact that "we" didn't invite them in, "Europe" foisted them upon us.

But why just Brexit? Populism has had trouble penetrating your national government over its history more because of inertia than any palpable pressure from the monarchy, because conservatives deferential to the monarchy have typically ruled over the national government, because your most significant populist movements have been ethno-national ones seeking dissociation rather than representation, because social authority was contested and compromised on the basis of landed aristocracy embracing market capitalism under state stewardship into the Industrial Revolution. These quirks, and their attendant norms, are smoothing out as time passes.

I don't think the monarchy continues to act as some primitive force distinguishing American results from British ones. Let's say the only discrete forms of democracy are party democracy, and populist democracy. Would you be surprised if there were a referendum towards dissolving aspects of the monarchy in your lifetime?

[Idaho]

Is it just from outside the US that people are pointing and laughing? Bowling green massacres, the Swedish attacks...

He's a laughing stock.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

But why just Brexit? Populism has had trouble penetrating your national government over its history more because of inertia than any palpable pressure from the monarchy, because conservatives deferential to the monarchy have typically ruled over the national government, because your most significant populist movements have been ethno-national ones seeking dissociation rather than representation, because social authority was contested and compromised on the basis of landed aristocracy embracing market capitalism under state stewardship into the Industrial Revolution. These quirks, and their attendant norms, are smoothing out as time passes.

I don't think the monarchy continues to act as some primitive force distinguishing American results from British ones. Let's say the only discrete forms of democracy are party democracy, and populist democracy. Would you be surprised if there were a referendum towards dissolving aspects of the monarchy in your lifetime?

There will never be a Referendum on dissolving "parts of the Monarchy", there might conceivably be a referendum on abolition but that is highly unlikely. It is far more Likely the monarch would see the writing on the wall and voluntarily abolish their position and usher in a Republic.

After all, the Monarch has been placed over us by God to Protect us. I'm not joking here, this is widely acknowledged to be the view of HM Queen. Abolition in the UK is unlikely though, the Queen is outstandingly popular, her son is also generally very popular and her grandson is possibly the post popular of the lot.

On the other hand, Abolition in her other Dominions is a real possibility, but it all depends on timing. The Australians have already rejected abolition under the current Monarch. It's possible that once Charles ascends abolition there and in Canada will move forward but not immediately after his coronation - it would take a few years at least to get going.

In that time he might prove an excellent King, and if he dies early and William ascends then abolitionists will be back to square one, I think.

[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.

[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.

[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.