Russia Intervened to Help Trump
You can find this all over the interwebs. Just put the sentence in your search engine.
Foreign intervention in our elections goes back at least to the XYZ Affair. Probably still stinging from the Zimmerman Telegram, the German government of 1940 openly distanced itself from the American nazi party ("German American Bund"). During the Cold War, the Communist Party of the USA had zero status in the public eye. "Fair Play for Cuba" and other front groups were known, of course.
Allow me to deflect those here who would disparage the CIA and other intelligence agencies by saying that they serve the Democratic administration in opposition to President-elect Trump. Such ad hominem arguments do not address the facts... if facts there be.
President Obama tasked the entire intelligence bureaucracy to investigate those findings from the CIA. Whether induction will validate the hypothesis remains to be seen.
The deeper question is about Donald Trump, a man who is famous for deal making and infamous for his lack of principles. He is a range-of-the-moment pragmatist for whom even America's Constitution is on the table for a price.
Foreign intervention in our elections goes back at least to the XYZ Affair. Probably still stinging from the Zimmerman Telegram, the German government of 1940 openly distanced itself from the American nazi party ("German American Bund"). During the Cold War, the Communist Party of the USA had zero status in the public eye. "Fair Play for Cuba" and other front groups were known, of course.
Allow me to deflect those here who would disparage the CIA and other intelligence agencies by saying that they serve the Democratic administration in opposition to President-elect Trump. Such ad hominem arguments do not address the facts... if facts there be.
President Obama tasked the entire intelligence bureaucracy to investigate those findings from the CIA. Whether induction will validate the hypothesis remains to be seen.
The deeper question is about Donald Trump, a man who is famous for deal making and infamous for his lack of principles. He is a range-of-the-moment pragmatist for whom even America's Constitution is on the table for a price.
And, the U.S. has never tried to influence a foreign election? Hell, Obama threatened the people of Britain that if they voted for Brexit the U.S. would put them at the "back of the queue" for trade deals.
For your second point, two wrongs do not make a right. Whatever the US government may have done in the past is not the issue here, and is irrelevant to this discussion. If you want to start a topic, fine. There's a lot of that to talk about, CIA involvement in South America, and much, much more.
Also on that same point, the concern is not for overt influence, but covert involvement. The government of Russia fed information to Wikileaks which publicized it for them.
I always respect your thoughts and opinions.
My only comment to your article is contained at the conclusion of an article I recently sent to my email distribution list. It follows this response.
Respectfully,
Dave
Friends:
I have previously published articles wherein I urged that we end the on-going wars in which America finds itself endlessly engaged. Contrary to what comes to mind with many readers, I am NOT thinking of the many and seemingly endless military engagements with which we also now seem to struggle. Yes, they too should be ended.
I tend not to mention them however because they are more obvious in their negative consequences, and require little emphasis as to their folly. No, the wars to be ended are "The Big Three:" 1) The War on Poverty; 2) The War on Drugs; and 3) The War on “Terror,
There is now appearing on the horizon the initial stirring of several new wars consistent with the attributes of the three above. They involve the usual suspects taking the initial intellectual/political steps necessary to set the stage for their actual unleashing. Should these wars actually materialize, they will embody varying combinations of attributes as do their three brethren I cite above. 1) They will further destroy freedom and the political institutions and protections created by our founders; 2) they will further bankrupt us economically; and 3) they will remain unending in their on-going failure.
These potential new “wars” are: The War on Cash (freedom of commerce); the War on Automobiles (i.e. freedom of travel); the War on the Internet (freedom of information); the War on Undesirable News, Literature, and Speech (freedom of dissent)
1. The War on Cash
Under the guise of reducing/eliminating crime, this war would possess two actual goals. First and foremost is that it assures that another “undeclared” war gains a critical ally. The undeclared War on Privacy will gain the means to essentially “win” said war. Should the elimination of cash become successful, literally every transaction in which each of us engage can be tracked and stored in a database for future “analysis” and use - for whatever purpose.
As its logical corollary, should any transactions become deemed as “suspect” or “undesirable,” and further, should SOMEONE be deemed, by some definition, to be on a financial version of the “No Fly List,” then ALL of that person’s attempted transactions can be easily prevented. In today’s political climate I need not spell out the vast potential such an eventuality precipitates.
2. The War on Automobiles
I have nothing against technology that enhances freedom by enabling automobiles (and whatever else) to be “self-driving.” What I rationally fear however is the political mandating that ALL vehicles become such, with someone taking control of their automobile becoming illegal. Illegal because such behavior is again, "suspect" or "undesirable." It takes little imagination to envision where such an eventuality will lead. Just apply the same principles as I cite above in the war on cash, to travel.
3. The War on the Internet
Actually this war is the “lead-in” to #4, The War on Undesirable News, Literature, and Speech. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo News and other internet gatekeepers have declared war on the internet in an attempt to control and suppress information they don’t want you to see.
For years, nearly all independent media organizations — the only real “free press” in the western world — have been banned from Google News and Yahoo News. Now, Google is blacklisting independent media websites from its Adsense program as a tactic to deny revenues to websites that publish information who those at Google decide they prefer not be read.
Facebook, too, has announced a new strategy to highlight “hand-picked” news publishers such as CNN, MSNBC, NYT, Washington Post and others that have demonstrated they knowingly, deliberately and maliciously fabricate fake news. In doing this, Facebook has decided to diminish and suppress independent media news websites, effectively driving their visibility into the margins of public consciousness.
Twitter, similarly, has already threatened to ban Donald Trump’s account if he gets out of line, and Yahoo News has systematically removed nearly all conservative news websites from its index.
I’ll close this article with a reminder and a footnote.
When you decide, for whatever claimed purpose, whether useful, necessary, or noble, to erect the machinery of potential tyranny, that machinery will be used – for whatever purpose those empowered to use it deem to be in their interest. The human nature from which our founders tried to protect us, assures it. It also assures that whatever those so empowered deem as "in their interest," they will somehow justify as being in "our" interest. Recent events have reminded us of this incontrovertible certainty through several uncontested facts.
1. The IRS(ervice) has been demonstrated to have become a tool of political tyranny wherein selected categories of Americans have been targeted for persecution.
2. The Justice (for all) Department has demonstrated that it will not prosecute selected actual and potential criminals, depending on the political ramifications. To anyone with even a modicum of awareness, the decision by Comey, and those for whom he toils, not to prosecute Hillary after meticulously documenting the instances of her criminal behavior, becomes obvious. To do so he/they would have had to pursue those to whom Hillary criminally communicated. Take a wild guess where that would have immediately led.
3. The Bureaucracy at the VA has reached the point where it knowingly allows its “customers” to die while awaiting the care it is charged with providing them.
4. The fact that an on-going list of obvious Wall Street criminals have gone uncharged or not prosecuted by the SEC. John Corzine, remains but one example of a list of bankers, investment bankers, brokers, etc., all who have remained free from prosecution.
As a footnote to this article, consider this. In view of the examples above of agency/department/commission tyranny, what do you think the likelihood that the alleged “Russian hacking” supposedly responsible for “tilting” the election against Hillary and the Democrats was actually, if it indeed occurred - of which I am in no way yet convinced, was instead actually done by our own security services? Services which in recent years have gained incredible power to wreak havoc on several of the first ten Bill of Rights? Potential machinery of tyranny as I have cited above, used "in the interests" of those empowered to determine such things.
If such a speculation were true, then a thorough investigation into “Russian hacking” will never occur. It would heighten the possible risk that were indeed the election “hacked,” and the revelations by Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and others, NOT the means whereby John Pedesta, the Democratic Party, and the “Mainstream Media,” were exposed in their “fake news” and other shabby behavior, then who might come to light as perpetrating such exposes'?
I seriously doubt it was the Russians……….
Dave
Not according to Assange of wiki leaks.
But I suppose a unnamed senior official would know more than wiki leaks about their source.
Same CIA that said WMD's In Iraq.
That does not make Russian interference (if any)correct or acceptable, but the fein shock and dismay that it happens is ridiculous. It happens all of the time. It seems this could be another Democrat ploy to delegitimize the Trump victory.
and a second comment here. If you don't want your dirty laundry out in public, then don't put it into an e-mail or better yet, don't have any in the first place. Then it won't matter who hacks your servdr, because there is nothing there.
Howls of outrage coming from Democrats over alleged Russian "hacking of the election" are a thinly veiled effort to refocus the American public away from WikiLeaks revelations of corruption and connivance at the DNC and Clinton Foundation. Far easier to attack and discredit the messenger, and, by so doing, get everyone to forget about the message while simultaneously calling unfavorable election results into question.
Yes, WikiLeaks truths (were they ever denied?) were obtained without DNC permission. But, given this fact, even the semantics/phraseology in "hacking the election" is a gross and purposeful obfuscation-- almost on a par with semantically converting wholesale border invasion into "immigration."
For a history of US intervention in China in World War II, see The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave. Chiang Kai-shek was an admirer of Hitler and Mussolini. Italy sent aviators to train the Chinese air force. They lost five planes on graduation day. So, Madame Chiang, who was educated at a small Christian college in Georgia, came here and hired the pilots who became the Flying Tigers. Meanwhile... anyone who fought in Spain on behalf of that government risked losing their American citizenship. So, yes, the histories are replete with examples of perfidy.
In any case the whole idea is nonsense. How does anyone know A - that Russia was involved B - what their motivations are C even if a few polling booths were hacked, which I doubt, that could not influence an election. Machines are not tied to the internet so they couldn't be hacked. They would have to send an agent to change the hardware.
It is so absurd a theory that it has zero probability of being credible. It is just a another paranoid smear from the opposing Political party who are willing to believe anything
that will point away from their own failure.
Truth is the Russians already have influenced the country since the '50s with their communist propaganda that half the country has accepted.
Political correctness is Russian Political correctness not our original Political system. Trump is fighting that.
2) What about CNN and the other media influencing the presidential election?? They did far worse than any whistleblower to slant the vote.
3) I like whistleblowers. They bring out the truths that the crooked people try to hide from us. If the democrats were hacked and they didnt like what came out, maybe they shouldnt have done those things in the first place !!
4) I hope Trump does "drain the swamp". I am willing to give him a chance to do what he promised. He seems to be doing just that already, and he isnt even president yet.
Wikileaks has denied the Russians provided them any information, and that the DNC hack came from an American source.
I've worked with the intelligence agencies, and I can tell you that cybersecurity and investigation are weak spots for them. Ever since the Carter era, intelligence gathering has emphasized sensor detection and communications intercepts. Digital invasive efforts have been considered a diplomatic time bomb, so they may be lacking in the skills to find a foreign hacker with any degree of certainty.
Find Trump's own statement of principles and post it. (Triple dog dare.)
I'll take a blowhard American-loving blundering bulldozer over a bribed and totally corrupt self-loving evil hag of the Teflon Democrat elite any day.
Especially if it saves the Supreme Court from being capsized by life-long appointments!
Your statement was made based on your conviction. I asked for your reason to make that statement. I am not a Trump apologist but I did vote for him. BTW I have a lot of respect for him after the last 6 mo.s he endured a concerted effort to destroy him and he withstood the daily onslaught. I will be disappointed if you don't respond to your claim.
Respectfully,
DOB
Re: (triple dog dare)
Donald Trump "I would center my presidency on 3 principals. One Term, two fisted policies, and no excuses. For voters it would be a business approach and the best one available in the market place. I'd lead by example."
April 2 here:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/p...
Nov. 22 here:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/22/politic...
December 12: "President-elect Donald Trump: "No, no, I get it when I—first of all, these are very good people that are giving me the briefings. And I say, if something should change from this point, immediately call me. I’m available on one minute’s notice. I don’t have to be told—you know, I’m like a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing and the same words every single day for the next eight years."
I will grant that "no excuses" is closest to an actual guideline that he seems to follow consistently. He is a bully - "two-fisted policies" - but he does not back down in a confrontation. So, I will give him that. He does prevaricate, but never says, "I'm sorry."
Peter Bull identified the following evasion tactics
For answering questions:
#1 ignore the question
#2 acknowledge the question without answering it.
He finishes with "placing the responsibility to answer on someone else"
You employed those three so far!
If.
By Paul Waldman
Updated 7:34 PM ET, Sat December 10, 2016
"Paul Waldman is a senior writer with The American Prospect, a left-leaning magazine, and a blogger for The Washington Post. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/10/opinion...
You have your axe, he has his. Blog away...
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/
Was Fox News silent? Did Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh cave to pressure? I mean to ask you: Just who is "not discussing" the Clinton situation that you want to be discussing it?
This entire claim is so bogus that a kid should be able to see through it. Of course, as usual, it is aimed at adulting American public, which has less critical thinking skills than a kid.
I do believe the various towns, cities and states that have recounted or investigated and come up zilch.
1. Podesta ran the campaign from a gmail account and I'm doubting he used a 20 character alphanumeric and symbol password. This wouldn't require Russian state-sponsored security, only to snag his Galaxy phone - Hillary went through dozens of them after all.
2. If you listened to Comey, you would have thought he was recommending the death penalty, then nothing, no one would bother with this.
3. Huma thought her pedophile pervert husband'a laptop that he gets Lolita sexting on would be the perfect place for 6 years of state dempartment archives on.... I'll just let that one hang there.
If the Russians did it, it's because Putin couldn't stomach another 8 years of this. We're not his best friend, but the US brings stability.
If he turns out to me a monger, he'll be controlled by the rest of the government, and ousted handily in the next election, if not sooner. That part will be bad for the Constitution.
We say, colloquially, that he lacks principles, but without specifics. Such a position has a way of sobering a person. I am very encouraged by his cabinet. Time will tell.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.” -- The Washington Post, December 9, 2016, here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...
Fact checkers at SNOPES concur:
" A key point of evidence was the fact that both Democratic and Republican National Committee servers were hacked, but no information from the latter was released:
As summer turned to fall, Russian hackers turned almost all their attention to the Democrats. Virtually all the emails they released publicly were potentially damaging to Clinton and the Democrats, the official told Reuters.
"That was a major clue to their intent," the official said. "If all they wanted to do was discredit our political system, why publicize the failings of just one party, especially when you have a target like Trump?"" -- SNOPES here: http://www.snopes.com/2016/12/10/cia-...
http://yournewswire.com/snopes-caught...
"Especially when you have a target like Trump" the official said. That inference is typical of Clinton collectivist statist backers .Where is the substance?
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