... reminding me of the old Mick Jagger questions: "Am I hard enough? Am I rough enough?... Ain't I tough enough?"
I don't know who Mick was talking to, but Chuck was talking to Robert Gates on "Meet the Press" yesterday. And Robert Gates said:
I think that Putin saw the United States withdrawing from around the world. I think actually the problem has been that President Obama's actions often have not matched his rhetoric. His rhetoric has often been pretty tough. But then there's been no follow up and no action. And if you combine that with red lines that have been crossed, demands that Assad step down with no plan to actually figure out how to make that happen, the withdrawal from the Middle East, from Iraq and Afghanistan and essentially the way it was done, I think it sent a signal that the US was in retreat. It was always going to be complicated to withdraw from those wars without victory without sending the signal we were withdrawing more broadly from a global leadership role. I think some of the things that have been done have accentuated that impression around the world. And I think Putin felt that he could take advantage of that.Chuck Todd came back reminding Gates of the time President Obama got tough in his own special way by telling Putin to "cut it out." Obama himself claimed that it was effective to tell Putin to "cut it out," but Todd, for all his bolstering of Obama, said it was "obvious that lecture didn't do anything." Todd, wondering how we should retaliate, asked Gates to "characterize" exactly what it was that the Russians did. Gates said:
Well, I would characterize it as a thinly disguised, covert operation intended to discredit the American election and to basically allow the Russians to communicate to the rest of the world that our elections are corrupt, incompetent, rigged, whatever and therefore no more honest than anybody else's in the world including theirs. And, you know, the US oughta get off its high horse in telling other nations how to conduct their elections and criticizing those elections and so on. Whether it or not it was intended to help one another candidate, I don't know. But I think it clearly was aimed at discrediting our elections and I think it was aimed certainly at weakening Mrs. Clinton.I still don't understand how our getting to read email that was intended to be kept private corrupts the election. There are always disclosures of secrets before an election. We always know some things and not others, and the information flow is not organized and orchestrated. What is the big deal? If, as Gates said, the Russians' idea was to get out the message that our elections are corrupt, incompetent, rigged, why are we helping him? Wouldn't the strongest defense against Putin be to act as if nothing of any significance happened, and he's a puny little man?
Podesta's dumb assistants got phished. That's all. And we got to read some real email that meant not very much. Why are our news media and the Democrats bending over backwards to pump up Putin? Why are they doing something that must delight the hell out of him?
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93 comments:
Why are our news media and the Democrats bending over backwards to pump up Putin?
To discredit and hurt Trump.
Why are they doing something that must delight the hell out of him?
When have they ever done anything that hasn't?
"Do you think all of this, that Putin over time read this as weakness?" Asked Chuck Todd..."
Uh. Yeah.
"I still don't understand how our getting to read email that was intended to be kept private corrupts the election."
Getting to read email that was intended to be kept private has no more bearing on the integrity of the election process than, oh, a video nobody watched had to do with a terrorist attack on a US consulate on the anniversary of 9-11. But it fits a nice, neat narrative. It's just an example of fake news.
We know full well who Mick Jagger was referring to. He was referring to the woman who wanted him to be her beast of burden, even though he'd been walking for miles and his legs were hurtin'.
It's not Putin who is calling the legitimacy of our election into question.
there's much less than meets the eye here:
http://icitech.org/its-the-russians-or-is-it-cold-war-rhetoric-in-the-digital-age/
I understood Obama to say he had told Putin to "cut it out" with reference to hacking the voting process itself, which is something I do not think the Good Lord himself could do the way elections are done here in the U.S.
Election fraud there can be, but you have to have people on the ground in all 50 states and 3 territories, or you have to figure out beforehand which states are going to be critical and go there. If our marvellous "experts" can't figure it out, the Russians, or other foreigners, with their poor understanding of American peculiarities certainly can't either.
As for weakness, yes. Obama has consistently worked to pull back the U.S. presence from around the world, transfer funding from the military to welfare, and thinks he can convince gangsters to behave like good citizens by the power of his mellifluous rhetoric, which is what you would expect from an intellectual leftist.
And yes, the gangsters see this as either weakness or foolishness, either of which they will take advantage of.
I still don't understand how our getting to read email that was intended to be kept private corrupts the election.
It doesn't, of course, any more than publicizing Romney's "47% comment" did. But there's currently a well-established process in which the media follows the commands of the Democratic party leadership and provides the stupidest 90% of Democratic voters with the pre-approved talking points to mindlessly parrot.
Unfortunately in this day and age tough enough seems to be sending and keeping more troops in the Middle East something Obama has been reluctant to do as part of his policy to keep from doing stupid things. It should be noted that Russia has nibbled and eaten at the borders that it considers part of its historical territories and just how tough are we to be in those cases? Sanctions are the best bet, but of course Trump and Manfort will dismantle those. How Russia's involvement in Syria will turn out is yet to be determined-- note the shooting, today, of its diplomat in Turkey.Just remember Red lines are drawn in blood-- whose do you want to shed?
"Do you think all of this, that Putin over time read this as weakness?"
Obama was elected president and his only accomplishment was voting present, I'm pretty sure Putin had Obama sized up from the start.
Clinton/Obama need to corner Trump by making the coming Russo-American Detente into an issue ala Joe McCarthy spotting Traitors everywhere.
The nice Trump is front and center now. He has a lot to get through Congress first. But watch the Al Smith Dinner Trump on YouTube before you think The Warrior Trump will let those two actual traitors off easy.
"And we got to read some real email that meant not very much...."
... and were thinly reported.
The Democrats now claim that the media obsessed over the emails but the facts are the opposite. I was shocked when I watched Meet The Press the weekend that Podesta's emails came out. It was also the weekend of the Billy Bush tape. MTP spent the entire show on Trump, with less than 1 minute at the end mentioning the emails. I found it shocking.
Obama: "I told him to cut it out."
Stronger message to follow. Laughable.
Wouldn't a predicate to this investigation have to be the subject of the leaks (e.g., Podesta) coming forward to either authenticate or dispute the content of the emails?
You really can't investigate the leaker's intent without knowing whether the emails were forged or doctored.
I suspect Putin slapped Obama hard across the face for that remark.
Ann Althouse said...Why are our news media and the Democrats bending over backwards to pump up Putin? Why are they doing something that must delight the hell out of him?
You keep asking this, Professor, but I'm pretty sure you know the answer: because it protects Obama (and to a lesser degree Hillary Clinton). It's not that the Obama Admin was incompetent; that the Obama Admin's vaunted Russian reset and repudiation of cowboy diplomacy (a change carried out by the Clinton State Dept) utterly failed; it's not that the US got its butt whipped--to a scandalous degree--in the realm of cyberwarfare during the Obama Admin...not, it's just that Putin's so darn tricky and evil and powerful that it couldn't be helped. Obama didn't make these mistakes--he's not responsible for these failures, you see--it's all Putin. It's the same with Clinton--she's not an historically bad candidate who ran a truly awful campaign (losing to frickin' Trump, for God's sake)...Putin and his hackers are just that good.
It's a way to deflect blame away from the Left, cast doubt about/question the legitimacy of Trump's win/a Republican administration, and imply that Trump/the Republicans (by being insufficiently anti-Putin) are unpatriotic.
It's pathetic, sure, but it's also obvious.
Podesta and his dumb assistants got phished.
There, Althouse, I fixed it for you.
Want proof? Look at how frequently the Media is conflating "hacked into & released private emails, possibly minorly affecting the election" with "hacked the election." That's the phrase they've all settled on--hacked the election.
Nevermind that the phrase makes people envision voting machine tampering or some other form of direct fraud (and that no one serious is making claims of those sorts)--that's their rhetorical choice and the reasons why, as I explained above, are obvious.
This is the same Media, of course, that cries "dog whistle" at every other Republican utterance.
"And we got to read some real email that meant not very much."
Democrats are now claiming that some emails were altered or fabricated. Maryann Marsh did it this morning on Fox. When asked for specifics she didn't have any, but trotted out this story how the first ones were real to get our trust but later ones were altered. "I promise you" that's the case, she said, with no evidence.
They are making an excuse to save face.
I told Putin to cut it out, and then Putin took two of his fingers on his right hand and poked both my eyes, like I was one of the Three Stooges!
"Chuck Todd came back reminding Gates of the time President Obama got tough in his own special way by telling Putin to 'cut it out.'"
That's funny right there. Gates says Obama talked tougher than his actions, and Todd's comeback is another example of "tough" talk. Does Todd even realize he just made Gates' case? The press is just sleepwalking thru their memes.
Meanwhile... back at the ranch. Trump continues to Make America Great Again.
I think some of the things that have been done have accentuated that impression around the world
No, that's impossible! Obama himself said that "almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago when I took office" and Politifact rated that "Mostly True" so Gates must be wrong here.
If the Media was fair they'd do that cheeky chyron shit to Obama: "Obama says most Countries See America as Stronger and More Respected Now (They Don't)."
I think actually the problem has been that President Obama's actions often have not matched his rhetoric. His rhetoric has often been pretty tough. But then there's been no follow up and no action.
What a stupid, silly objection! We've been through this; Obama & the American people who voted for him WANT empty rhetoric. Don't you people remember Obama's "Words, Just Words" speech (in WI) & ads from 2008? Here's a YT clip (comparing Obama's speech to an earlier speech by Deval Patrick) and here's a Slate article arguing that Hillary Clinton's campaign was wrong to call Obama a plagiarist for that very speech/using that quote repeatedly on the campaign trail. Obama explicitly made the argument that the rhetoric--the words--matter, and his Administration has shown that he believes that the words matter MORE than the actions. You might think that's idiotic...but people voted for it--Obama won. It's seems downright uncharitable for someone to object to it now!
And, you know, the US oughta get off its high horse in telling other nations how to conduct their elections and criticizing those elections and so on.
One has to sigh. It's possible our current Commander In Chief would argue in just the same way, Mr. Gates! President Barack Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2015: "And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.
In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."
So anyway, who are we to object!?
An instructive post. People to really know who they want to reach and why or else, they'll have no way to know what they're trying to achieve. People need to hear this and have it drilled in their brains..
Thanks for sharing this great article.
family conflict resolution
I still don't understand how our getting to read email that was intended to be kept private corrupts the election.
Because the democrats and their media said so, that's why.
There is a time honored process in the United States concerning elections. The Democrats and our media work together to defeat the Republicans. This is all right and good because the Republicans are evil and all right thinking people want them defeated. The end justified the means.
When the tables are turned, it's the end of the world as we know it. This must be stopped. This can't happen to us! This is our playbook. How is it possible the Republicans used our own tactics against us?
Russians!
"Sanctions are the best bet, but of course Trump and Manfort will dismantle those. "
You are a bit confused. The "sanctions" were dismantled by your hero.
Gates is a real gentleman and a very competent official. He was polite to Obama in his book, which everyone should read, and criticized "Obama officials" with restraint but obvious contempt. He was also polite about Hillary and had a few complimentary things to say about her but I assume he expected her to win the election. He was uninterested in any office. He gave up being president of Texas A&M, a job he loved, to take the DoD when Bush let Rumsfeld go. He was astonished when Obama asked him to stay,
Chuck Todd is not as dumb as he sounds sometimes, as I have heard Hugh Hewitt interview him on the radio. I.m sure he has to satisfy the Hillary bots at NBC.
Why are our news media and the Democrats bending over backwards to pump up Putin?
Because the Electoral College is about to officially make Trump President and they're still trying to flip Electors to prevent that. If you don't believe me, watch how little you hear about all this after today.
After today, it can't help the Democrats any longer. After today, it will become an insignificant story in relation to the next story that can.
Why are our news media and the Democrats bending over backwards to pump up Putin? Why are they doing something that must delight the hell out of him?
Yeah, this is really starting to bug the hell out of me. The media are conflating hacking emails and hacking an election, which is very different. And did the leaked emails even make a difference in the election? How would we ever know. And why are they doing this? Are they really that corrupt? And why are others going along with it (Looking at you, establishment Republicans like McCain, et. al.) I have to think that this is what everyone is talking about in the DC cocktail party circuit, so that's all they hear and think about and they go home with an idea for their next morning's broadcast or column or whatever. It just feeds on itself like bad gossip. Which I think it is! Can't they see that it is stuff like this that makes the voters not trust them - both Democrats and Media? It's the blame-Benghazi-on-a-video thing all over again.
Dr. Althouse: Podesta's dumb assistants got phished. That's all. And we got to read some real email that meant not very much. Why are our news media and the Democrats bending over backwards to pump up Putin? Why are they doing something that must delight the hell out of him?
Because the alternative is to confess to their mind-boggling incompetence with respect to the security of their information processing infrastructure (remember the OPM hack?) and to lower the standard, in the general public's mind, for what constitutes a "sophisticated hack." My blood-boiling yardstick for this is that Aaron Swartz is dead largely because he editing some URLs in a browser at MIT.
This article is a good example of the problem: it details a very straightforward phishing attack, offers one piece of evidence that connects it to the "Fancy Bear" group, waves a magic wand claiming it's "widely believed to be connected with the Russian government" (the Wikipedia page cites CrowdSrike, an internet security firm I'm acquainted with, as having "medium confidence" of this), and then says, with a straight face:
“We are approaching the point in this case where there are only two reasons for why people say there’s no good evidence,” [Thomas Rid, a professor at King's College] told me. “The first reason is because they don’t understand the evidence—because the don’t have the necessary technical knowledge. The second reason is they don’t want to understand the evidence.”
Well, I understand the evidence we've been presented, and Dr. Rid has been presented unless he's been placed under NDA and presented with more, perfectly well, and it adds up to exactly the same probability the Russian government is involved as we'd have with no evidence whatsoever: 0.5. It's actually probably less, as it's at least as credible, and perhaps more credible, that Fancy Bear decides what government and general political targets to pursue based on a combination of their personal interests and ease of targeting. Phishing someone's GMail account is what's known technically as "not just low-hanging fruit; fruit that's already fallen from the tree."
If it takes the Russian government to do that, we should be profoundly embarrassed.
The Russians, and others, for that matter, only care because "children" are prone to break things: nations, bodies, promises, etc.
As for delegitimizing our election, that honor goes to JournoLists and partisan operatives in both the public and private sectors. A first-order cause was Democrats' traditional reliance on fomenting class diversity in order to disenfranchise their competitors.
Obama's "soft" touch left a trail of bodies from Benghazi to Aleppo to Kiev to Paris and globally, really. The Russians have made great strides to confront the consequences of his "peace"-mongering at their source before redistributive change (e.g. immigration "reform").
This Russia stuff should be ignored but the Dems must have an excuse for losing to Trump.
"Chuck Todd is not as dumb as he sounds sometimes"
He's not dumb, he's unprincipled.
I wonder if we will ever learn the identity of Deep Plunger who overflowed WaterCloset and leaked DNC secrets.
Did he? DID HE?
That is the most comedy gold thing I have ever read in my entire life.
Did he? ROTFLMMFAO.
The second reason is they don’t want to understand the evidence.
Motivated reasoning.
ROTFLMMFAO
MMFA? My massively fat ass?
Whoever leaked the emails deserves a bigly thank you for exposing the corrupt, criminal and treasonous Democrat Party. As for the Russians, using the principle of follow the money it makes less than zero sense for them help Trump out. Not only had they already bought Hillary, she and her party are yuugly in favor of reducing domestic fossil fuel production which greatly increase the world price of oil and gas (the Greens want this) which would greatly benefit Russia but the Left also wants to push fantasy energy solutions which will also greatly hurt the US economy (also to Russia's benefit). Putin has no reason from his perspective to had helped Trump win. The Democrats just haven't been able to comprehend that eight years of Obama have been instructive to the voters but the lesson learned isn't the one they intended.
Dear Democrats, "She lost, get over it." It's a thankless task to explain why.
Frankly, all the educated Democrats I know had absolutely absurd reasons for voting for Hillary Clinton. They thought she was more prepared but couldn't come up with any real accomplishments. Mostly they hated Trump but couldn't come up with genuine criticisms of him, just the media's misrepresentations. So much for being educated. More like being closed-minded.
the alternative is to confess to their mind-boggling incompetence with respect to the security of their information processing infrastructure (remember the OPM hack?)
There is a good reason why secure networks are not connected to the internet and why copying and transferring classified information to an open system is a felony. That is what Hillary's staff did with classified e-mails from the closed system and had to scan them into an open system to send to Hillary on her private server.
The OPM hack was facilitated by placing a Chinese national as administrator.
The people who voted for Obama must eventually come to appreciate the full nature of their failure.
McCain should perform seppuku.
Chuck Todd came back reminding Gates of the time President Obama got tough in his own special way by telling Putin to "cut it out."
I know Obama thinks he sounds like the "adult" in the room when he tells those pesky child-like foreigners to "cut it out," but I can't help but fill in the next panel of the comic, in which Putin tells Obama, "Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!"
Someone needs to get Donna Brazile on board as she made this statement after Obama let everyone know that his tough stance "Cut it out" worked back in September:
"They came after us absolutely every day until the end of the election. They tried to hack into our system repeatedly,"
This from his Secretary of Defense.
The moment Hillary and the state department pulled the "reset button" fiasco, Putin knew he was dealing with children. So did the rest of the world.
(When that story first came out, I honest to God thought it was a story from The Onion.)
I am still trying to figure out which fake news stories in particular cost our own version of Tallyrand the election.
Trump isn't making a big deal about it. He and his administration actually have to work with Russia and other countries. Getting hysterical like Hillary's surrogates in Congress and the national media is useless.
You may have missed the forest: When Gates speaks of Putin communicating "that our elections are corrupt, incompetent, rigged, whatever" doesn't Gates mean specifically the Democratic primary election? He is not at all saying that "our getting to read email that was intended to be kept private" corrupted the general election. Other people may be suggesting that, but not Robert Gates.
The reset button actually said "overcharge" not sure if Putin felt overcharged for the Uranium One deal and killing Keystone or not.
The Democrats are all butthurt because the leaks of internal DNC, NOT government, emails exposed that they are corrupt. That they were manipulating the primary process. That THEY were actively interfering in the process by hiring people to protest at Republican events. That they were cheating Bernie and his voters by colluding with the press. That THEY were releasing the questions unfairly to Clinton. And on and on and on.......
They are mad because their corruption has been exposed and need to try to pin it on someone, anyone else.
Their emails were leaked and they are mad that people were exposed to the truth.
Obama: "I told him [Putin]to cut it out."
Next Obama is going to threaten to pull over the car and make Putin sorry.
Unruly kids in the back seat.
Dad:"Knock it off back there"
Laughing, obnoxious kids now teasing Dad. Tee Hee!!!
Dad: "I said, knock it off!!! Don't make me stop this car and come back there!!!"\
Kids knowing that Dad is full of shit because he never does what he says he is going to do....continue to tease and poke at each other.
Dad: .......fuming...white knuckles on the steering wheel....nothing happens.
Putin rides a horse shirtless.
Obama rides a bicycle with a helmet.
Putin drew the obvious conclusion.
"Do you think all of this, that Putin over time read this as weakness?" Asked Chuck Todd..
Well, look who just caught up...
I'm guessing that the Russian ambassador to Turkey is not thinking that Putin is too tough today.
>>Getting to read emails that should have remained private.
Nixon intended to keep the Oval Office tapes private as well. That's why the Dem's never used them against him.
In an echo of his infamous ISIS-"JV team" comment, back in 2014, Obama snidely dismissed Russia as a "regional power". From the Russian point of view, that dog simply won't hunt, though it think the comment itself says more about Obama than it does about the Russian leadership.
Dear Leader ominously said that there would be repercussions for the Russian hack. So now the Russian ambassador to Turkey has been assasinated, and my very first thought was Obummer repercussing.
- Krumhorn
"we got to read some real email that meant not very much. Why are our news media and the Democrats bending over backwards to pump up Putin? Why are they doing something that must delight the hell out of him?" Faux questions, right? The email meant that we got to see the real Dems for who they really are. MSM and Dems are bending over backwards because they want to deflect blame. They do something to delight him because all they care about is themselves, their power, their party, country be damned.
OT: "I don't know who Mick was talking to" Now that's funny. Mick was always "talking" to chicks, ma'am. But no, Tony Rezko's pal wasn't rough enough.
"I'm guessing that the Russian ambassador to Turkey is not thinking that Putin is too tough today."
Putin, I suspect, unlike Obama does not make loud noises and then do nothing.
Did ever read about the time the Muslims kidnapped three Russians in Lebanon ?
Putin is an old KGB hand. He knows what to do.
The newspaper quoted "observers in Jerusalem" as saying: "This is the way the Soviets operate. They do things--they don't talk. And this is the language Hezbollah understands."
"'Podesta and his dumb assistants got phished.' There, Althouse, I fixed it for you."
I think Pedestal is responsible for having dumb assistants, but my guess is that he never saw the email or had anything to do with the decision to change his password by using the link in the original email.
I would like part of the investigation -- at least the Democrats internal investigation -- to be into why these people were working in such a position of trust for Podesta.
"President Obama got tough in his own special way"
is a code for VAGINA.
Turkey: Assassination of Russian ambassador caught on camera
If Obama was smart he would have had Michelle tell Putin to "Knock it off!"
Blogger AReasonableMan said..."I'm guessing that the Russian ambassador to Turkey is not thinking that Putin is too tough today."
You're right. That Obama's a bad ass!
I'm looking ahead 3 years when some foreign power is tired of Trump winning all the time and wants to interfere with his reelection through cyberwarfare.
>>why these people were working in such a position of trust for Podesta.
Let's ask Craig Livingston.
DBQ, you missed the part where Dad would have enough and, driving 60 on a 2-lane blacktop, would turn around and take a swipe at the kids in the back. But the cars were so big in the Good Old Days that there was no way his arm was long enough to reach. More teasing ensued.
"I'm guessing that the Russian ambassador to Turkey is not thinking that Putin is too tough today."
I suspect we will see how the world views Putin shortly.
I viewed the video. Where the hell was the real security? And I don't mean before the shot. But the shooter stood there ranting for a long time without hindrance.
DBQ, you missed the part where Dad would have enough and, driving 60 on a 2-lane blacktop, would turn around and take a swipe at the kids in the back. But the cars were so big in the Good Old Days that there was no way his arm was long enough to reach. More teasing ensued.
Yeah. And there was no such thing as car seats or strapping the kids in, so we could dodge the backward swipe. If it was a station wagon, we could climb over the back seats and wrestle in the rear of the car. Ah.....good times.
I'm pretty sure my parents seriously considered dropping us off, several times, at some gas station or diner on Route 66 while driving from LA to St Louis.
DBQ & Jack Wayne
You had sheltered childhoods, The Colonel knew what rest areas and historical marker pullovers were for.
AReasonableMan: "I'm guessing that the Russian ambassador to Turkey is not thinking that Putin is too tough today."
A few islamists in the past have made that mistake as well.
These new ones will learn a lesson about dealing with the Russians as the Russians have far fewer qualms about such things:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Group
AReasonableMan: "I'm guessing that the Russian ambassador to Turkey is not thinking that Putin is too tough today."
And that sums up the views of the islamist terrorists towards the US, as evidenced by Benghazi.
Or are you guys still desperately clinging to "The Video Did It!!!"?
Meanwhile, Raul Castro certainly has taken the full measure of the children in the White House: http://indianexpress.com/article/world/cuba-cracks-down-on-dissidents-after-fidel-castros-death-4434573/
I told Putin to cut it out, and then Putin took two of his fingers on his right hand and poked both my eyes, like I was one of the Three Stooges!
I hope you placed your right hand vertically against your forehead, palm to the right, to block the poke--catching the bridge between those two fingers.
Chuck Todd came back reminding Gates of the time President Obama got tough in his own special way by telling Putin to "cut it out."
Talk is cheap. The fact that Todd thinks that telling Putin to "cut it out" is "tough" simply reveals that he has never been punched in the face.
Its all talk with people on the left. They think that talking is the same as doing. That having discussed a solution is he same thing as actually solving the problem.
Said Curious George: If Obama was smart he would have had Michelle tell Putin to "Knock it off!"
If Obama were smart, he would tell Michelle to tell Putin what to eat.
Curious George said...If Obama was smart he would have had Michelle tell Putin to "Knock it off!"
--
She could have issued a dour hashtag pic of that
I would like part of the investigation -- at least the Democrats internal investigation -- to be into why these people were working in such a position of trust for Podesta.
Nepotism. They've got family with pull.
Freeman Hunt said...
Putin is the new Cheney in the imagination of the American left. Remember how Cheney was supposed to be the evil architect of all terrible things?
Before Cheney it was Gingrich. They hang the albatross around Limbaugh's neck when there is no high profile politician available.
And there was Hastert, an ex high school wrestling coach, with homosexual relations with under age boys in his past, and the left never caught on.
They are unimaginative, rigid thinkers.
A couple of days ago I happened to catch part of a WH press briefing. Josh Earnest had apparently been asked about the atrocities at Aleppo. Instead of just denouncing them as the barbarism they are, he went into a diatribe about how hard it was to conceive of people deliberately planning and executing such horrific actions. Specifically, targeting civilians, including children.
My first thought was. "you have got to be kidding me." Has this guy or anyone else at the WH ever read a book on the ME or warfare in general? Is their reality distortion field that strong? Who do they think they are dealing with?
Has the fbi discovered who leaked trumps tax return? And has the nyt apologized for corrupting the election by publishing it
I don't think the Trump tax return schedule from many years ago is a good analogy, given that it is traditional for candidates to release their tax returns. Pence followed tradition. Presumably Trump's untraditional ways will continue for the next four years. And his opponents in 2020 will release their returns.
If publishing old tax returns of Trump from years ago is corrupting the election just imagine what would have happened if Trump release his current tax returns.
Liberals confuse talking with concrete actions. That's pretty much the problem right there in a nutshell for the obama foreign policy. "Talk softly and waddle with your pants down around your ankles" has been the motto the last 8 years.
Yes, I'm a dog worrying an old bone, but this is still pissing me off. Remember, it's supposed to be a "slam dunk" that Russia is behind this. But:
"The hackers created them with with two Bitly accounts in their control, but forgot to set those accounts to private, according to SecureWorks, a security firm that’s been tracking Fancy Bear for the last year.
SecureWorks was tracking known Fancy Bear command and control domains. One of these lead to a Bitly shortlink, which led to the Bitly account, which led to the thousands of Bitly URLs that were later connected to a variety of attacks, including on the Clinton campaign. With this privileged point of view, for example, the researchers saw Fancy Bear using 213 short links targeting 108 email addresses on the hillaryclinton.com domain, as the company explained in a somewhat overlooked report earlier this summer, and as BuzzFeed reported last week.
Using Bitly allowed 'third parties to see their entire campaign including all their targets— something you'd want to keep secret,' Tom Finney, a researcher at SecureWorks, told Motherboard."
Yeah, because GRU-based hackers are totally likely to use a URL-shortening service under US legal jurisdiction, and are totally likely to "forget to set those accounts to private."
"It’s unclear why the hackers used the encoded strings, which effectively reveal their targets to anyone."
Unless, y'know, whoever crafted these phishing expeditions wanted their targets to be identified.
"The use of popular link shortening services such as Bitly or Tinyurl might have a simpler explanation. According to Rid, the hackers probably wanted to make sure their phishing attempts went past their targets' spam filters."
Or it could be used by script kiddies who think you can't recover the full URL from the shortened one. Security (for the hackers) by "obscurity." Or it could be used by clueful non-GRU/non-Fancy-Bear hackers as one more layer in the layer cake of "evidence" pointing at Fancy Bear and/or the GRU.
Honestly, this whole thing can be read so many different ways, it's just shocking that it's being insisted—on the basis of "Almost two weeks ago, the US government took the rare step of publicly pointing the finger at the Russian government, accusing it of directing the recent string of hacks and data breaches. The intelligence community declined to explain how they reached their conclusion, and it’s fair to assume they have data no one else can see"—that we know Russia is behind it, when any serious student of intelligence and counterintelligence is familiar with Operation Mincemeat, which this mess sounds like a possible digital variation of.
One of the factlets thrown out early was that most of Fancy Bear's activity took place mostly on Moscow time workdays, UCT +3:00. Being something of a geographer, I went to wikipedia to see what other places that with lots of Russian speakers that sort of had the same workday as Moscow. Bingo, Israel. UCT +2:00.
When Obama sent one of his political operatives along with $5 million in State Department cash, I forget what the excuse was. But, guess what, it was to support the Israeli left against Bibi. Bibi's also been personally snubbed at the White House. IIRC, I believe Bibi is also a former paratrooper and combat veteran. Mr. Putin is not the only tough guy in the world.
You can look it up.
Which domestic political party here is most pro-Palestinian?
Which party wants to frack like hell, further damaging the Russian economy?
Just sayin'.
Jack Wayne said...
DBQ, you missed the part where Dad would have enough and, driving 60 on a 2-lane blacktop, would turn around and take a swipe at the kids in the back. But the cars were so big in the Good Old Days that there was no way his arm was long enough to reach. More teasing ensued.
***********************
Heh.
I remember my dad driving with one hand while his other swept like the Grim Reaper's scythe
trying, but never quite reaching, us kids in the back seat.
" Bibi's also been personally snubbed at the White House. IIRC, I believe Bibi is also a former paratrooper and combat veteran. Mr. Putin is not the only tough guy in the world."
I've thought all along that Israel was behind Wikileaks. They are as skilled at programming/hacking as the Russians and had plenty of provocation.
Shhh
Dems and the media are still in denial. Hillary ran a great campaign for Governor of California, and she succeeded as far as that went. Huge popular vote. Even playing the Alicia Machado card over and over probably helped her there.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the race she was in. She ran a very poor campaign for President. The e-mail stories reverberated because they kept reminding everyone of old charges that the Clintons are both secretive and dishonest--the former partly because of the latter. She did nothing to dispel this impression. She didn't go to Wisconsin, etc. As our host says, it is pathetic to now say the election was rigged by Putin; worse than pathetic.
Even electors whose only job was to vote for Hillary didn't want to vote for her: she has set some kind of record for unfaithful electors.
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