What’s the deal with this argument that Russian hacking did not influence the election?
Spilling embarrassing internal Clinton campaign and DNC emails, and spreading lies about Hillary all over the Internet, might not be empirically provable as affecting the outcome, but proving the opposite is equally unknowable.
The hackers did not need to somehow change votes to affect results. Leaking stolen emails and distributing falsehoods was effective.
There seems to be a move afoot, even by some Democrats, the media and intelligence officials to persuade Donald Trump to get on board with the revelations by giving him cover that none of this questions the legitimacy of his election.
Question it.
boss, the good gov guys are torn between
1. showing the world the beauty of peaceful transitions of power through democracy as can happen only in america
and 2. exposing the ugliness that can result from unfettered greed freed from the constraints of truth, accountability and compassion….. which also can only happen in America bigly.
“Drumpf (I just read where we should not call him names)”
bbronc, is it okay and are we able to fly under the radar by referring to him as another or the other “he who must not be named” ?? since twitter world is the new reality, am I safe still using “the twit” being it’s ubiquitous and applicable to so many of us at any given time out there?
probably doesn’t matter anyway as the trail by now makes up a fat file if not it’s very own filing cabinet of dossiers.
craig, awaiting your literary take on chapter one of “you don’t know jack or jake as the case may be” from last thread.
Patd
Which seems to have started Chapter 2 or Chapter 1 extended. Might be a good idea to ignore until needed for the next of election hangover insanity.
Russian assistance by itself might not have swung the electoral college, but the constant “Fake News” headlines on Breitbart, Drudge, Bernie Bros tweet storms and most of all checkout lines of National Enquirer probably did put a thumb on the scale. I know it did within my family and people who had previously supported Hillary in 2008.
I know there wasn’t a whole lot of difference among MAGA racists, misogynists, right wing nut cases, Bernie supporters, and the simply low info economically distressed.
Hillary won the popular vote!
Either it was an epic fail by the Russians, or, they magically targeted EC-important areas…where folks were already NOT voting for Hillary because she did not address their concerns.
1) Hacking was wrong & dangerous; it must be stopped.
2) The truth can be embarrassing, but sunlight is the best disinfectant.
3) Blame the MSM, as well, for not doing a proper job.
Patd, ha I made the mistake of reading it upside down, got really confused. Plus my internet painfully slow, think I need a new router
Drumpf is his family name – too bad if he doesn’t like it. And if there is one person in the country who has no standing to complain about being called names -it is Donald Drumpf. Screw him.I for one will call him whatever I choose to call him.
Truth is a defense to defamation, not to theft.
Agreed. But both happened; theft and truth. Since both happened, we are left to deal with both.
Rosey Grier is running for Gov of CA.
Craig
Once you get it right side up, it is one for the Trailmix archives. We lost so many of those in all the moves. I can preserve it on my site for you to access later if you like.
The EC important states were also ones where people were willy nilly getting thrown off voter rolls and other shenanigans to keep them from voting. It didn’t take much to amass that 80,000 margin of EC loss. It certainly demonstrated exactly why the EC needs reformation. Again see Maddow from last night about the history of the EC and just why it was so wonky this time around.
She didn’t even need to include my favorite of how the frozen size of the House limits the votes available to the high population states once the low population states get their heavily weighted minimums.
Jamie, good idea to let chapter 1 marinate for awhile in the archives. it will be like comfort food during the inevitable times of stress certainly to come during 2018 election campaigns if not before… like as early as January 20th.
speaking of comfort food and the coronation
abcnews: Pot Advocates Plan to Hand Out 4,200 Free Joints on Inauguration Day
example of headaches to come. from nytimes:
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition staff has issued a blanket edict requiring politically appointed ambassadors to leave their overseas posts by Inauguration Day, according to several American diplomats familiar with the plan, breaking with decades of precedent by declining to provide even the briefest of grace periods.
The mandate — issued “without exceptions,” according to a terse State Department cable sent on Dec. 23, diplomats who saw it said — threatens to leave the United States without Senate-confirmed envoys for months in critical nations like Germany, Canada and Britain. In the past, administrations of both parties have often granted extensions on a case-by-case basis to allow a handful of ambassadors, particularly those with school-age children, to remain in place for weeks or months.
continuing from above; but not the entire article, just the conclusion:
Some expressed dismay that Mr. Trump, whose wife, Melania, has chosen to stay in New York to avoid moving the couple’s 10-year-old son, Barron, to a new school midyear, would not ensure that such allowances were made for American ambassadors.
They are weighing a direct appeal to Rex W. Tillerson, Mr. Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, or other top transition officials to reconsider the policy.
Derek Shearer, a professor of diplomacy at Occidental College who is a former United States ambassador to Finland, said it was difficult to see a rationale for the decision. “It feels like there’s an element just of spite and payback in it,” he said. “I don’t see a higher policy motive.”
The State Department informed all politically appointed ambassadors in a letter the day after the election that they were to submit letters of resignation effective Jan. 20. It instructed those who wanted to seek extensions to submit formal requests explaining their justifications.
Incoming presidents of both parties have often made exceptions to allow ambassadors to wrap up personal affairs and important diplomatic business while their successors were in the confirmation process, which can take months. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Mr. Obama all granted extensions for a few politically appointed ambassadors.
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell offered particularly wide latitude to ambassadors facing family issues, said Marc Grossman, a longtime diplomat and former top State Department official who is vice chairman of the Cohen Group, a Washington consultancy.
“This was something that was important to Secretary Powell because of his own experience living and serving all over the world, so when people asked him, ‘Could I stay another couple of weeks, couple of months; my kids are finishing school,’ he was very accommodating,” Mr. Grossman said, adding that his flexibility was an “exception” to the general practice. “He was trying to, I think, send a message that family was important.”
No, the selective truth aspect has been dealt with – drumpf won, Dems lost. Now only theft remains to be addressed.
Jamie, I noted that about a week ago – the largest states’ voters’ votes in presidential elections are worth about 60% of the smaller states’ votes on average, just as their representation in Congress is diminished in the same proportion. New York and California have the most legitimate beefs.
Jamie, would be good if you could archive it and give us a link. Right now I am locked in mortal combat with Verizon. Turns out they’re cutting DSL speed in my area in order to force everyone to more expensive FIOS, which I don’t want. I’ve read in some forums that they’re basically getting out of the DSL business. Working my way up the food chain in their bureaucracy until I find someone who can help. Doing everything on my phone now, and I hate thumb typing.
Holy firewall! Happy New Year to the trail. We don’t need no stinking wall on the NM border, we already have one with a port-of-entry, thank you. I am building a firewall, however. A wall against herr drumpf’s reign.
Russian hacking and wikileaks. fbi was late to the game on this as comey did not want to influence the election with the russian hacking truth. Hah!
Must get back to building a firewall. Is there a 25th amendment cure in our future? Or are we headed to a bankrupt nation with a weather forecast of nuclear winter??
To the extent practicable, mission exigencies permitting, the military would accommodate family situations when planning reporting dates at new stations. These accommodations happened often enough that we were understanding when the inevitable disappointments occurred. Our last two moves both girls, then 20, chose to stay put which was okay although we weren’t thrilled.
Happy New Year Blonde Wino
now if Tony would come back……..
When I was a teenager – if you were hacked, you were angry as in I am hacked off…I don’t know if it was just that period or just people in Canton, Ohio.
Craig
Verizon used to be our home phone co until they sold us to Frontier. I have found when dealing with them an email to a member of the executive staff gets a response. They list the executives and emails online. Usually get a phone call or email back within 24 hours with a suggested course of action. A friend of mine had a similar issue with ATT slowing down the dsl speeds.
Rosy Grier is 84 and a Trump supporter – California voters have made bad choices before but this won’t be one of them.
For those who would like to read “You Don’t Know Jake” from the beginning, it has now entered the domain of the intertubes
https://jamiesplace.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/you-dont-know-jake/
The Prez has only 13 days to approve the apprehension and arrest of the deadbeat, herr bannon, and herr hannity, for failing to register as agents of a foreign power, and for espionage, sabotage, and conspiracy to disrupt the presidential election process.
Glenn Greenwald doesn’t believe it’s the Russians but although I admire what he has done very much — I think he needs to reassess himself. He said the Guardian sometimes is carrying out grudges and I think that is now something he is doing himself.
Jamie, thanks for preserving our art.
and mucho thanks for telling us about Rachel’s show last night. I didn’t catch the one you mentioned about the enquirer but did come upon this one which is fascinating. well worth the 20 minutes…. but especially the last 10 when she talks about indivisible (my link here is occupy.com’s article entitled “Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda”).
mr doodlesdog, hope you don’t mind me reposting your comment that missed making today’s thread earlier. it’s worthy of repeating and hinting to those to whom it might concern.
Why doesn’t someone in the Intellience Community leak Teump’s tax returns? When are we going to see those? Will we only lay our peepers on them when Vlad leaks them to Hannity?
Patd
Here’s the episode on the Enquirer that everyone was seeing at checkout
DDog
To do so would be an absolute violation of our sworn oath. FWIW, the vast majority of intel people are forbidden by law from ‘looking’ at our citizens here in our country. That is as it should be.
Pogo,
This time Auburn has fallen to the mighty Gamecock women– 73-47 was the final score. USC continues to build the depth of its team by playing its new players in their forecast positions. It was Coach Dawn Staley’s 200th win as coach of the team. She’s doing good, real good.
Where is chelsea manning when we need her ?
Interesting push on the Dow today
52 Week Range 15,450.56 – 19,999.63
xr, Isn’t she still in the USDB?
Flatus, congrats to Coach Staley and the Lady Gamecocks. They are indeed impressive. The NCAAW top 25 is crowded with great teams. Should be an interesting season and tournament.
Poobah, I didn’t know DSL was still offered by any major carrier. Don’t know whether CityNet is in your neck, but if so, give them a call. They have great offerings and we saved a bunch by moving our phone & internet service to them.
Hey BlondeW…. happy new year to you and yours…. give Bologna a hug.
When I was a teenager…. to be hacked happened to boys with long hair…. as in “my father made me hack my hair off or he said he’d disown me”.
If something is going to come of this, methinks it better happen quickly.
Jamie, thanks for posting the novella by committee. luv the concept and the execution.
KGC, thanks for the Verizon advice. I did find a customer relations VP who is sending me an updated router/modem for free. Hopefully that will help.
Jamie, thanks for the enquirer story. ny magazine did a story in 2015 “Donald Trump’s Alliance With the National Enquirer” that should have been reviewed and reported on during the time period Rachel’s story was about.
Pogo,
One of the things that has impressed me about USC is how they present their teams. Here, it is the Gamecocks Men’s Basketball Team and the Gamecocks Women’s Basketball Team. Both are composed of warriors. Tea is not served, just energy drinks. I am waiting for their women’s football program to start.
Yeah, and you dismissed these concerns when they mattered, and mocked those who were concerned. Dick.
CBS/RPI ranks the Minnesota men’s basketball team (14-2) @ #5. The other polls seem to be antiques; they even include such mediocre teams as Indiana. Ohio State plays here on Sunday. This is the sport with the huge orange puck.
The Gopher women’s hockey team is #2 in US. Ski-U-Mah!
The U of MN (Duluth) Bulldogs men’s hockey team is #1 in US.
The russians hacked and published some of Panetta’s emails via julian assange. Having ‘established their credentials’, they were then free to interlard their subsequent leaks with cooked, grilled, and deep fried lies. Now, would you like fries with your whoppers ?
The for profit electro-media is only concerned with show biz. The for profit research and destroy work is only allowed when it is cheap and boosts ratings (that means revenues). Looking for actual events and facts (rather than pre-packed, pre-cooked, and predigested newsfood) is beyond the corporate mission. Corporotisserie tv news ought to be called reveNews.
re enquirer/drumpf friendship, what’s puzzling is why the f.e.c. isn’t questioning whether this isn’t a case of campaign contributions in the form of free advertising and should be reported accordingly.
here’s an excerpt from that nymag piece which hi-lighted enquirer trashing ben carson and other drumpf opponents:
Trump and Enquirer CEO David Pecker have been friends for years. “They’re very close,” said a source close to the Enquirer. In July 2013, Trump even tweeted that Pecker should become CEO of Time magazine, which at the time was being spun off from its corporate parent, Time Warner. “He’d make it exciting and win awards!”
This person also said that Trump’s campaign was a source for the article: “His campaign provided information that was used,” he explained. A Trump friend said that in the days leading up to the article’s publication Trump was telling people that Carson “had a lot of medical malpractice suits” and “almost killed a guy.”
[….]
Whether or not Trump has been a source for the Enquirer, his friendship with Pecker has paid dividends. At key moments during the GOP primary the Enquirer has helped boost Trump’s campaign by attacking his rivals and fawning over him. Two weeks after Trump launched his campaign in mid-June, the Enquirer reported that Jeb Bush was “involved in the drug trade in Florida” in the ‘80s and that, as governor, he was plagued by “sleazy cheating scandals … [with a] Playboy Bunny turned lawyer.” In September, the Enquirer published an unflattering photograph of Bush’s adult daughter apparently taking cigarette breaks at her office. The article hit just days after Jeb told Americans they needed to work longer hours.
Carly Fiorina has also been slimed. After the former Hewlett-Packard CEO bested Trump at the second GOP debate last month, the Enquirer ran an article headlined “Homewrecker Carly Fiorina Lied About Druggie Daughter.” The article attacked one of Fiorina’s best moments at the debate: her emotional account of her daughter’s struggle with drug addiction. “The National Enquirer has exclusively learned that Lori Ann Fiorina, who died in October 2009, was in fact Carly’s stepdaughter,” the tabloid reported. “She was brought up not by Carly but by her biological mom, Patricia Fiorina, whose marriage allegedly was wrecked by the 61-year-old White House hopeful who is determined to knock Donald Trump from his superior front-runner status!”
The tabloid has also gone after Hillary Clinton, of course. A series of cover stories has alleged that Clinton is on her deathbed and is “engaging in a massive cover-up about her health.” The Enquirer claims she is suffering from strokes, brain cancer, depression, alcoholism, multiple sclerosis, endometriosis, and paranoia, among other dire conditions.
Meanwhile, Trump has been exclusively celebrated in the Enquirer’s pages. As talk of a Trump candidacy heated up last winter, the tabloid published an article headlined “Trump’s the One!” that reported him leading in the polls. In September, the Enquirer published a three-part series by Trump himself under the headline “The Man Behind the Legend!”
Trump’s scandal-filled personal life would be yuge! for the supermarket tabloid, but to the Enquirer, it seems, friendship is forever.
I will state unequivocally that the Russians were trying to break into a lot of locations. The Chinese might be the one still trying, no matter if Chinese or GRU, I can tell his shift from the time of the attempts to break in. It all ended when the spooks were told to pack up and depart. Too bad the house on the Chesapeake Bay, actually up a river slightly, was not taken as it was. There was a lot of interesting equipment in it.
As I said earlier that if we know they got in it is too late. Then it is time for lessons learned. In almost all cases it is that someone used their dog’s name as the password or they clicked on spam which contained a bit of code. Or, they did not install a defense system. Microsoft Windows Defender. Free, just download from Microsoft and install. Spybot Search and Destroy (S&D) is an other free tool (but send in a donation – it is like shareware). Use strong passwords, twelve to sixteen characters of a random pattern is real strong. Do backups all the time, just in case you need to restore you computer.
My website was hacked a little over ten years ago. It was benign, they deleted all my pictures and put their own in, it looked like a hackers party was going on. Then the next time was about four years ago, this time much nastier. Screwed up the content and changed the admin names and passwords. I expect the same if the current attacker ever finds a hole and gets in. Why? I do not know. Harassment? Why does the GRU/SVR/FSB do what they do?
Training
odd little story (plus picture of drumpf ivanka & pecker and the jr drumpfs) from last march in idahofallsspokesperson:
#TrumpLovesPecker is a trending topic on Twitter right now. What exactly does this mean? No, we don’t think Donald is infatuated with male anatomy. The Pecker Twitter is referring to is David Pecker, the Chairman and CEO of American Media. His company is the publisher of National Enquirer, Star, Sun, Weekly World News, Globe, Men’s Fitness, Flex, Pregnancy and Shape magazines. Donald Trump is friendly with David Pecker.
[….]
The David Pecker and Donald Trump connection became newsworthy when the National Enquirer published a story about Ted Cruz allegedly having an affair with five different women. Two of the women pictured in the article were former aides. The denials from Ted Cruz’s campaigns and the women named have been widely published. Cruz blamed Trump for his sleazy tactics and credited him for the story.
Donald Trump’s close ties with the publisher of National Enquirer have called into question the accuracy of the article.
cnn: Fort Lauderdale airport shooting: Multiple people killed, suspect in custody
Pat, there must be a tremendous amount of respect for the two of them within the organization. Aren’t they known as Mr Pecker and the Pecker Head?
US intelligence report: Putin ordered a hacking campaign to ‘harm’ Hillary Clinton
A declassified version of a US intelligence report on Russian hacking has concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to influence the US presidential election with the aim of hurting Hillary Clinton’s chance of winning.
The report, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, encompasses US intelligence efforts to determine who is responsible for hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election,” the report stated. “Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”
The report also concluded that Russia aimed to help President-elect Donald Trump win the election.
“Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump,” the report stated.
It continued: “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.” The report stated that the CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment and the NSA has moderate confidence.
Blue, thanks for the heads up on web security. FYI, i have installed state of the art security here as best I know how. We have a vigorous spam filter that has not allowed any unfriendlies on the site for quite some time. Our captcha for new registrants has blocked all bots for months. Trackbacks and search engines are totally blocked (the source of our meltdown a year or so ago). My admin account is only accessible thru my server and your contributor accounts are firewalled, cannot be hacked to the server. There is always something new around the corner but I feel confident we are secure for now.
Your donations have helped me maintain these and many other features. Thank you.
Compared to many blogs I suppose we’re a bit like a gated community, but that’s OK, best to keep out unwanted solicitations and evil doers.
patd, I’m guessing that the Tang president will not accept at face value the report.
Too late – he didn’t.
From Greg Miller at WaPo this afternoon:
“Trump emerged from a briefing on the report by the nation’s top intelligence officials Friday seeming to acknowledge for the first time at least the possibility that Russia was behind election-related hacks. But he offered no indication that he was prepared to accept U.S. spy agencies’ conclusion that Moscow sought to help him win.
“Instead, Trump said in a statement issued just minutes after the high-level meeting ended that whatever hacking had occurred, “there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election.”
“Trump’s statement seemed designed to create the impression that this was the view of the intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and CIA Director John Brennan, who had met with him.”
pogo, how ’bout at two-faced value?
from reuters by msn:
President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday that the outcome of the 2016 U.S. election was not affected by cyber attacks after intelligence agencies briefed him on their conclusion that Russia had staged cyber attacks during the campaign.
Having hours earlier dismissed the controversy as a “political witch hunt,” Republican Trump later issued a statement whose main aim appeared to be to deflect questions about the legitimacy of his Nov. 8 victory over Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton.
Trump said that “Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people” seek to attack U.S. institutions including the Democratic National Committee. “There was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”
The New York businessman, who is to be inaugurated as president on Jan. 20, said he would appoint a team to give him a plan within 90 days of taking office on how to prevent cyber attacks but suggested that he would keep their recommendations secret.
“The methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe should not be a public discussion that will benefit those who seek to do us harm,” Trump said.
Trump issued the statement after receiving a briefing from intelligence officials on their conclusion, first made public in October, that the Russian government had directed the cyber attacks, which embarrassed the Democrats.
Russia denies the U.S. government’s allegations of hacking during the election campaign.
The briefing coincided with deep tension between the intelligence agencies and Trump, who has disparaged their conclusions that Russia’s cyber attacks were intended to interfere in the election by hacking Democratic Party institutions and Clinton campaign staff.
In a telephone interview with the New York Times before the briefing, Trump had dismissed the controversy.
“China, relatively recently, hacked 20 million government names,” Trump said in a telephone interview with the New York Times, referring to the Office of Personnel Management breach in 2014 and 2015. “How come nobody even talks about that? This is a political witch hunt.”
anybody got a post for tomorrow? My thumbs are worn out typing on this phone, waiting for new and hopefully faster modem/router.
Also, avoid kaspersky.
In fact, don’t buy anything from russia.
Here is the declassified version of the report given to the drumpf:
Today’s fun: Mexico’s President, Vincente Fox, is trolling the Drumpf
Everybody go buy a bottle of Glenfiddich
Donald Trump’s Scottish love affair on the rocks after whisky award slight