So what's your stance on the reports that have come out? Are the FBI/CIA lying? Is the media lying? Are sources lying? Is it somewhere in between?
I'm currently at a position where I believe the reports, but am not all in. I am thoroughly behind conducting serious and quick reviews of the situation like some in Congress have pushed for, and for releasing the findings.
I am waiting to see the gist of the reports when they come out. I want to see the things they rely on to determine that the purpose was to help Trump. But for now, like the reporter said at the end, I find it odd that the way the Russians decided to mess with our election was not by actual tampering, but by releasing the truth.
So what's your stance on the reports that have come out? Are the FBI/CIA lying? Is the media lying? Are sources lying? Is it somewhere in between?
I'm currently at a position where I believe the reports, but am not all in. I am thoroughly behind conducting serious and quick reviews of the situation like some in Congress have pushed for, and for releasing the findings.
I am waiting to see the gist of the reports when they come out. I want to see the things they rely on to determine that the purpose was to help Trump. But for now, like the reporter said at the end, I find it odd that the way the Russians decided to mess with our election was not by actual tampering, but by releasing the truth.
Sorta read it (late and my eyes cross after a while of this bureaucratic double speak)
Some things stand out: No smoking gun, and everything is "assessed" based on what is effectively equal to racial profiling.
"Many of the key judgments in this assessment rely on a body of reporting from multiple sources that are consistent with our understanding of Russian behavior. "
Although I realize that smoking guns are hard to come by and almost every assessment must of necessity be circumstantial in nature, it does strike me as odd that all this rests on a procedure effectively banned for use by local police.
"Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary
Clinton because he has publicly blamed her
since 2011 for inciting mass protests against
his regime in late 2011 and early 2012, and
because he holds a grudge for comments he
almost certainly saw as disparaging him."
could well be. What i find odd here is how her time as SoS was touted as one of her achievements, but this sounds like her main achievement was to so anger a world leader that he not only held a grudge, but acted on it five years later.
...........................................
Moscow also saw the election of Presidentelect
Trump as a way to achieve an
international counterterrorism coalition against
the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL
Well, we sure don't want that, do we? nasty ol' counterterrorism coalitions.
In July 2015, Russian
intelligence gained access to Democratic National
Committee (DNC) networks and maintained that
access until at least June 2016.
A full year. Think about that. it's one thing to leave the house unlocked, it is quite another to leave all the doors and windows open for a year.
............................................
In the 1970s, the KGB recruited a Democratic
Party activist who reported information about
then-presidential hopeful Jimmy Carter’s
campaign and foreign policy plans, according
to a former KGB archivist.
wonder if that happened again? Sure would tie in the Russian hacking with the disgruntled Democrat version.
.........................
All the allegations are listed as "assessments" with High Confidence or sometimes with moderate confidence. On page 13, the definitions for those levels are given. For High confidence, it says such judgments are not a certainty and could be wrong.
.....................
so, lets assume the high confidence means they are right, and Russians hacked into the Dems databases and released the information they stole to influence the election. That's bad, but the information was good. If they had released lies and fabrications to try and tilt the election, I think that would be so much worse.
It's as if two men are running for mayor, and a guy breaks into one's house and finds out he has child porn on his computer. He publishes this fact. Darn, he meddled with the election. Americans must remain free to vote in the dark and maybe elect the child pornographer.
So here is what we need to do:
Punish the burglar. (done, right?)
Everybody keep their stuff locked away well so he can't get in again. (Looking at you, DNC)
is there something in the above two steps that people think I am missing?
Basically, the DNC couldn't keep their own secrets, and having the light of day shined on them hurt them. Take care of business, yall.
What we are really seeing here is a peak into how intel operates.
You talk in terms of confidence levels because you really don't have access to many actual facts. You don't have subpoena power over the enemy. You have a piece here and a piece there, and you try to cobble them together with a bunch of hunches, and then go out and confirm or deny the hunches. Occasionally you have a Bletchley Park or Joe Rochefort situation where you get a good look at the other side's hole cards, although even in Rochefort's case it was more a hunch that he had the chance to test and verify.
Hell yes, you use tools the police don't use. You're not concerned with preserving evidence for trial, you're concerned with figuring out WTF is going on as quickly and accurately as possible.
You don't get the smoking gun very often. It's pretty much all educated guesses. That was one thing that was so remarkable to me about 9/11. Although everyone on every airplane perished, we knew the identities of the 19 hijackers by the next morning. What that tells me is that 9/11 was very preventable, if only agencies had talked to each other.
So what's your stance on the reports that have come out? Are the FBI/CIA lying? Is the media lying? Are sources lying? Is it somewhere in between?
I'm currently at a position where I believe the reports, but am not all in. I am thoroughly behind conducting serious and quick reviews of the situation like some in Congress have pushed for, and for releasing the findings.
I am waiting to see the gist of the reports when they come out. I want to see the things they rely on to determine that the purpose was to help Trump. But for now, like the reporter said at the end, I find it odd that the way the Russians decided to mess with our election was not by actual tampering, but by releasing the truth.
Sorta read it (late and my eyes cross after a while of this bureaucratic double speak)
Some things stand out: No smoking gun, and everything is "assessed" based on what is effectively equal to racial profiling.
"Many of the key judgments in this assessment rely on a body of reporting from multiple sources that are consistent with our understanding of Russian behavior. "
Although I realize that smoking guns are hard to come by and almost every assessment must of necessity be circumstantial in nature, it does strike me as odd that all this rests on a procedure effectively banned for use by local police.
"Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary
Clinton because he has publicly blamed her
since 2011 for inciting mass protests against
his regime in late 2011 and early 2012, and
because he holds a grudge for comments he
almost certainly saw as disparaging him."
could well be. What i find odd here is how her time as SoS was touted as one of her achievements, but this sounds like her main achievement was to so anger a world leader that he not only held a grudge, but acted on it five years later.
...........................................
Moscow also saw the election of Presidentelect
Trump as a way to achieve an
international counterterrorism coalition against
the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL
Well, we sure don't want that, do we? nasty ol' counterterrorism coalitions.
In July 2015, Russian
intelligence gained access to Democratic National
Committee (DNC) networks and maintained that
access until at least June 2016.
A full year. Think about that. it's one thing to leave the house unlocked, it is quite another to leave all the doors and windows open for a year.
............................................
In the 1970s, the KGB recruited a Democratic
Party activist who reported information about
then-presidential hopeful Jimmy Carter’s
campaign and foreign policy plans, according
to a former KGB archivist.
wonder if that happened again? Sure would tie in the Russian hacking with the disgruntled Democrat version.
.........................
All the allegations are listed as "assessments" with High Confidence or sometimes with moderate confidence. On page 13, the definitions for those levels are given. For High confidence, it says such judgments are not a certainty and could be wrong.
.....................
so, lets assume the high confidence means they are right, and Russians hacked into the Dems databases and released the information they stole to influence the election. That's bad, but the information was good. If they had released lies and fabrications to try and tilt the election, I think that would be so much worse.
It's as if two men are running for mayor, and a guy breaks into one's house and finds out he has child porn on his computer. He publishes this fact. Darn, he meddled with the election. Americans must remain free to vote in the dark and maybe elect the child pornographer.
So here is what we need to do:
Punish the burglar. (done, right?)
Everybody keep their stuff locked away well so he can't get in again. (Looking at you, DNC)
is there something in the above two steps that people think I am missing?
Basically, the DNC couldn't keep their own secrets, and having the light of day shined on them hurt them. Take care of business, yall.
Well, for a while you didn't seem convinced that Russia was to blame for the leaks, so I provided you a report on the evidence that had been gathered. But it turns out you never really cared about that.
But I do have a question, can you remind me what was in the DNC emails that was so damning (and, what, illegal?) that comparing it to child porn is apt?
(12-20-2016 02:48 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: So what's your stance on the reports that have come out? Are the FBI/CIA lying? Is the media lying? Are sources lying? Is it somewhere in between?
I'm currently at a position where I believe the reports, but am not all in. I am thoroughly behind conducting serious and quick reviews of the situation like some in Congress have pushed for, and for releasing the findings.
I am waiting to see the gist of the reports when they come out. I want to see the things they rely on to determine that the purpose was to help Trump. But for now, like the reporter said at the end, I find it odd that the way the Russians decided to mess with our election was not by actual tampering, but by releasing the truth.
Sorta read it (late and my eyes cross after a while of this bureaucratic double speak)
Some things stand out: No smoking gun, and everything is "assessed" based on what is effectively equal to racial profiling.
"Many of the key judgments in this assessment rely on a body of reporting from multiple sources that are consistent with our understanding of Russian behavior. "
Although I realize that smoking guns are hard to come by and almost every assessment must of necessity be circumstantial in nature, it does strike me as odd that all this rests on a procedure effectively banned for use by local police.
"Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary
Clinton because he has publicly blamed her
since 2011 for inciting mass protests against
his regime in late 2011 and early 2012, and
because he holds a grudge for comments he
almost certainly saw as disparaging him."
could well be. What i find odd here is how her time as SoS was touted as one of her achievements, but this sounds like her main achievement was to so anger a world leader that he not only held a grudge, but acted on it five years later.
...........................................
Moscow also saw the election of Presidentelect
Trump as a way to achieve an
international counterterrorism coalition against
the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL
Well, we sure don't want that, do we? nasty ol' counterterrorism coalitions.
In July 2015, Russian
intelligence gained access to Democratic National
Committee (DNC) networks and maintained that
access until at least June 2016.
A full year. Think about that. it's one thing to leave the house unlocked, it is quite another to leave all the doors and windows open for a year.
............................................
In the 1970s, the KGB recruited a Democratic
Party activist who reported information about
then-presidential hopeful Jimmy Carter’s
campaign and foreign policy plans, according
to a former KGB archivist.
wonder if that happened again? Sure would tie in the Russian hacking with the disgruntled Democrat version.
.........................
All the allegations are listed as "assessments" with High Confidence or sometimes with moderate confidence. On page 13, the definitions for those levels are given. For High confidence, it says such judgments are not a certainty and could be wrong.
.....................
so, lets assume the high confidence means they are right, and Russians hacked into the Dems databases and released the information they stole to influence the election. That's bad, but the information was good. If they had released lies and fabrications to try and tilt the election, I think that would be so much worse.
It's as if two men are running for mayor, and a guy breaks into one's house and finds out he has child porn on his computer. He publishes this fact. Darn, he meddled with the election. Americans must remain free to vote in the dark and maybe elect the child pornographer.
So here is what we need to do:
Punish the burglar. (done, right?)
Everybody keep their stuff locked away well so he can't get in again. (Looking at you, DNC)
is there something in the above two steps that people think I am missing?
Basically, the DNC couldn't keep their own secrets, and having the light of day shined on them hurt them. Take care of business, yall.
Well, for a while you didn't seem convinced that Russia was to blame for the leaks, so I provided you a report on the evidence that had been gathered. But it turns out you never really cared about that.
But I do have a question, can you remind me what was in the DNC emails that was so damning (and, what, illegal?) that comparing it to child porn is apt?
hard to get a precise one to one measure in an analogy. So change child porn to tearing up the opponents signs. Better?
What I was trying to get across is the unveiling of something the candidate didn't want unveiled. Normally, this is the job of our free press. How often have they uncovered things about our political candidates and elected politicians that the subjects would rather have kept quiet? Is that also "meddling with an election"? I guess we could ask Gary Hart or Thomas Eagleton. Or Nixon or Bill Clinton.
We say the public has a right to know. Should we amend that to the public has a right to know unless a Russian tells them?
Nobody likes outsiders medding in their business (one of the reasons a lot people voted Trump, I believe), and Putin is the ultimate outsider. But all he did was publish things our press should have found and published. What if James O'Keefe had film of the DNC conspiring to deprive Sanders of a fair shot? (Oh, wait, he does).
So, bottom line for me, whether the published stuff was real or made up is the key. It seems to me the left is mostly upset because Putin did the job the NYT is supposed to do but doesn't.
The biggest thing that stands out to me from the report is that Putin did this partially because he hated Clinton. If she screwed up SecState so badly that this happened, did we really think she would do better as POTUS?
I'm largely with Owl69 on this - I look forward to the next four years (really the next two) with a mix of hope and trepidation. But I am willing to give him a chance, something the left asked me to do in 2009, but does not seem willing to return in 2017.
I expect he will disappoint some supporters in some things, but I also think he will do better than detractors expect. Already his detractors are labeling him as corrupt or a puppet or both. How about we wait and see?
My man in the race was Kasich. There were a half dozen or so on the Republican side and one on the Democrats side i could have at least considered, but the parties didn't like who I liked, so I guess I am too moderate for either one. Don't take my positions as being those of a Trump loyalist.
The WikiLeaks revelations brings to mind the old saying that a comedian is only as good as her material. There never would have been a problem if the e-mails hadn't revealed that the Democratic Party was not being democratic in conspiring to give its nomination to Clinton, or one of the party operatives was feeding debate questions to the Clinton campaign, or that there were supposedly-objective journalists actively working to help the campaign, among other revelations. It begs the question of how anyone could consider such a party and such a campaign suitable to govern, given the contempt shown towards the process and the ethical boundaries being skirted.
In terms of the report from the Directorate of National Intelligence, as noted it's a lot of speculation with little evidence. The head of WikiLeaks Julian Assange has stated that the leaked e-mails weren't provided by Russia, and Occam's Razor demands that his explanation is the most likely one.
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Presidential Horse Race Thread
