Transcript.
CHUCK TODD: What I don't understand is, why do you believe that, if an American is committing corruption, we should ask a foreign government to announce an investigation? Is that appropriate? Or do you go to American authorities?Laughter can be heard in the studio. At this point, I really want to hear the details on how Ukraine supposedly interfered in the election. I've avoided reading up on this story, but now I really want to know because I'm so irritated by Chuck Todd trying to crush it immediately. Todd immediately changes the subject to reasons why Ted Cruz should have a personal animus against Trump:
SEN. TED CRUZ: So I believe any president, any Justice Department, has the authority to investigate corruption. In this case, there was serious evidence, on the face, of corruption. The reason Hunter Biden got that position is because his daddy was Vice President of the United States.
CHUCK TODD: So you believe Ukraine meddled?... Do you believe Ukraine meddled in the American election in 2016?
SEN. TED CRUZ: I do. And I think there's considerable evidence of that.
CHUCK TODD [with intensity]: You do? You do?
CHUCK TODD: He launched a birtherism campaign against you. He went after your faith. He threatened to, quote, "spill the beans," about your wife about something...I wish Cruz had said: Don't change the subject. I just said there is considerable evidence that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election and you very intensely and reflexively tried to block that subject. But Cruz just sarcastically said:
SEN. TED CRUZ: ... I appreciate you dragging up all that garbage. That's very kind of you, go ahead.And that allowed Todd to avoid the subject he wanted to avoid. Todd's next question is:
CHUCK TODD: Is it not possible that this president is capable of creating a false narrative about somebody, in order to help him, politically?This is important, and this is what has been bothering me. Those who reject the assertion that Ukraine meddled in the election restate the issue as whether Ukraine and not Russia meddled in the election. That's a rhetorical trick that can make lazy or inattentive thinkers believe that they have to deny that Russia meddled in order to consider whether Ukraine meddled.
SEN. TED CRUZ: Except that's not what happened. The president released the transcript of the phone call. You can read what was said on the phone call. And let me point out --
CHUCK TODD: Yeah and the Bidens. And you, yourself, thought the Biden part was troubling.
SEN. TED CRUZ: Chuck, Chuck, let me point out a game that the media is playing. You know, a question that you've asked a number of people is you've said to senators, sort of aghast, "Do you believe that Ukraine, and not Russia, interfered in the election?" Now, that, that, in a court of law, would be struck as a misleading question. Of course Russia interfered in our election. Nobody looking at the evidence disputes that....
SEN. TED CRUZ: Look, on the evidence, Russia clearly interfered in our election. But here's the game the media is playing. Because Russia interfered, the media pretends nobody else did. Ukraine blatantly interfered in our election. The sitting ambassador from Ukraine wrote an op-ed blasting Donald Trump --All right. I know this piece of evidence and how it will be minimized, but is this all there is — the op-ed? Todd immediately interrupts (and he's super-excited in a way that undermines confidence in his professionalism):
CHUCK TODD: Do you know why... Do you know why he did that?... What did Donald Trump, what did Donald Trump, as a candidate, say about Ukraine and Crimea during the election that might've inspired the ambassador?Todd interrupts again. He really seems as though he's trying to prevent Cruz from laying out his point. If it's such a bad point, why doesn't he sit back and let Cruz make his own mess?
SEN. TED CRUZ: So you're saying they had disagreements with Donald Trump --
CHUCK TODD: No, I’m just saying --
SEN. TED CRUZ: -- and they wanted Hillary Clinton to get elected.
CHUCK TODD: Okay, so they wrote an op-ed --
SEN. TED CRUZ: I’ll tell you a Ukrainian parliamentarian --
CHUCK TODD: They wrote an op-ed. That is the difference -- what you're saying is, you’re saying a pickpocket, which essentially is a Hill op-ed, compared to Bernie Madoff and Vladimir Putin. You're trying to make -- you’re trying to equal -- make them both seem equal. I don't understand that.Todd was so excited he couldn't think of the word "equate." He's offering his own colorful analogy — the Ukrainian op-ed was the equivalent of pickpocketing compared to the Madoff-level fraud ascribed to the Russians. Notice that's admitting that the Ukrainians did interfere.* Todd has conceded that the Ukrainians had a preference in the election and tried to influence how Americans thought about the candidates.
SEN. TED CRUZ: Chuck, Chuck, I understand that you want to dismiss Ukrainian interference, because, A) they were trying to get Hillary Clinton elected, which is what the vast majority of the media wanted, anyway. And B) it's inconvenient for the narrative. You know, it's hysterical. Two years ago, there was article after article after article, in the mainstream media, about Ukrainian interference in the elections. But now, the Democrats have no evidence of a crime, no evidence of violating the law. And so suddenly, Ukrainian interference is treated as the media clutches their pearls. "Oh, my goodness. You can't say that."...Todd tries to recenter the issue as either/or — Russia or Ukraine:
CHUCK TODD: Okay, so did you get the briefing, from the intel community, that said, the Russian intelligence services are trying to actively use this Ukraine story to frame Ukraine for the Russian -- for the interference in 2016?Cruz — in what turns out to be his last chance to talk in this interview — switches to the general topic of how there are always a lot of countries trying to interfere in all of our elections:
SEN. TED CRUZ: I have been in multiple briefings. I have been in multiple briefings, year after year after year, about foreign interference in our election. Russia has tried to interfere in our elections. China's tried to interfere in our elections. North Korea's tried to interfere in our elections. Ukraine has tried to interfere in our elections. This is not new. 2016's not the first year they did it. And they're going to keep trying. And so we need to be strong in dealing with it. But the media needs to actually report facts.And I still don't know if the accusation that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election is about anything more than that op-ed. Ted Cruz had a little more time in that last word, but not only did he ascend to a high level of generality about interference in elections, he swapped in a preferred topic and ended with:
SEN. TED CRUZ: This is a kangaroo court in the House. They're going to impeach, not because they have the evidence, but because they hate the president, want to do the election. But it's going to go to the Senate. It's going to go nowhere. I think the American people know this is a waste of time. And this is Democrats putting on a circus.Okay. Fine. But I'm going to assume the Ukrainian interference was nothing but an op-ed, and I don't see the problem with other countries having preferences in American elections and explaining their reasons in published essays in American newspapers. If there's some U.S. law against that, it violates our right to receive information.
That said, I wish Chuck Todd would act more dignified and quit stepping on his guests and laughing at them. It makes it seem like he's trying to censor the other side. I think Cruz did get out what he wanted to say about Ukrainian "interference," but Todd made it look like there could have been more! If I'm wrong and there is more, please tell me what it is.
__________________
* The Ukrainian "interference" is right out there in plain sight. Does that mean that there's nothing wrong with it? I observe that Trump isn't given the benefit of the same inference that something done in plain sight is not nefarious. His famous phone call to Zelensky happened with many people listening and he released the transcript, yet his opponents don't infer that absolves him. And Trump — at a news conference, fully out in the open — said "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," and his opponents interpret that as "collusion" with the Russians.
ADDED: A commenter linked to this January 2017 article in Politico, "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire/Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton."
Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.Much, much more at the link. Thanks for pointing to that. I said, "If I'm wrong and there is more, please tell me what it is," and you delivered. I don't know why Cruz didn't try at least to gesture at some of this material or why it's been so easy for the Trump-hostile media to maintain the narrative that Ukraine did nothing.
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia....
Posts
180 comments:
If newspaper opinion letter is OK, how is using Facebook not OK? It is arguably the modern internet era newspaper.
"Todd has conceded that the Ukrainians had a preference in the election and tried to influence how Americans thought about the candidates."
There were many speeches by European leaders, followed by Obama's statements in opposition to Brexit. That's a corrupt exchange to meddle in a foreign election.
The Propaganda media is well trained to switch the subject, whenever it comes close to the truth. How you could actually watch that propaganda show is beyond me, but better YOU than me.
Never mind Ukraine and Russia - I would like to see someone make the case that the UK interfered in our 2016 election.
If there is one thing I am less interested in than Russian interference in the election, it's Ukrainian interference. Stop trying to re-litigate the 2016 election already.
I had a hard time watching that clip. Todd is a tool.
THEOLDMAN
Todd and Cruz are not in opposition. They both had the same message and they both used the time to deliver that message. The message is, Trump is not the legitimate winner of the 2016 election.
Cruz has to pretend he supports Trump because his constituents support Trump, but he does not.
Cruz didn't manage to detail the Ukrainian actions, but managed to say this:
"Of course Russia interfered in our election. Nobody looking at the evidence disputes that..."
"Look, on the evidence, Russia clearly interfered in our election."
"Interfered"
I watched this. The panic that overtook Todd was delicious.
He also said that China and North Korea interfered.
Anybody that doesn’t think that any country will interfere with our elections and that the US will not interfere in foreign governments elections is not very bright.
Todd was flailing. I don't watch Sunday talk shows anymore. Even Fox is unwatchable. This impeachment thing is an obvious fraud to everyone not a rabid TDSer like Inga.
Interestingly, not being a subscriber I did not read then, but WaPoo even has two op-eds warning Democrats that this is not going well for them.
The problem is Americans using foreign sources to bypass prohibitions on spying on Americans. Where did that start and who did it and who is still doing it or covering it up.
What a bunch of foreigners want is of no interest.
It's a coverup that needs to be uncovered, which Trump is trying to do. The apocalypse, accurate etymologically.
It makes it seem like he's trying to censor the other side.
"Seem".
Okay, Russia used Facebook and Ukraine used The Hill. Does Todd think social media is more powerful than old media? Or does he just like the control some people can put on old media that they can't (as easily) on new media?
No mention, of course, of the fact that both Clinton and Obama sent consultant teams to Israel trying to defeat Netanyahu.
"That said, I wish Chuck Todd would act more dignified" -- AA
Never, that has not and will not ever happen.
So you want Ted Cruz be given a national platform to spread lies and Russian disinformation? Some individual politicians in Ukraine did indeed support Hillary (and why not, during the campaign Trump was implying that Russia was justified in invading Crimea), but there was no organized, top down effort, to get Hillary elected. The theory that Ukraine somehow has the DNC server (which Trump brought up in the infamous phone call) is nothing but a lie created in Russia.
Wait a minute, Freder, didn't Crooked Hillary wipe down the server with a cloth? What good would the server be now?
Media is propaganda, not news or information exchange.
All those articles in the MSM about Ukraine interference--what were they about? Is Todd saying they were fake news?
Cruz didn't go for the kill here. Todd is so far off-balance, all he needed was a little shove to go full-Biden with a Nancy flip. The laughter in the studio was a great springboard for Cruz to rip Todd to shreds. Cruz pussy-footed instead.
Todd gave the impression that he was desperate to change the subject, and Cruz looked like there wasn't much to talk about.
Very frustrating. Maybe Ukraine's (like Russia's) success is in creating a situation in which nitwits like Todd can act as guilty as hell in the service of a Clinton/Obama cover-up, and nitwits like Cruz can act like Todd & Co. called their bluff.
I think the fact is that neither Russia nor Ukraine had much impact on the election (their efforts were silly, vapid, and lame), but Brennan/Clapper/Comey used them as an excuse to do some very bad things well outside our post-Watergate traditions. (I will add here that things like this had been routine in American politics before Nixon.) Their real impact has been the way the deep state in the US has used them to obfuscate their own wrong-doing, and the MSM's complicity in a cover-up of the deep state's wrongdoing.
The odds of a whitewash from Durham grow daily. He'll never quite get to unambiguous action ("reasons of national defense prevent us from disclosing"), so he'll never prosecute anyone who perpetrated this fiasco. We have seen it before, and we are seeing it right now.
You don’t suppose that’s our Chuck, do you?
What good would the server be now?
You are conflating two different servers. And I doubt that the DNC server (or at least the data on it) is in one physical location.
What goes unspoken in the references to Ukraine's actions is that they were taken at the behest of Obama administration officials. So who was "interfering" in the 2016 election?
You doubt it, Freder, but you don't know, do you?
Oann interview of lutsenko, whos been challenging the powers that be for 25 years is the big deal,
"You don’t suppose that’s our Chuck, do you?"
Click!
Good one, Mr. Forward
if an American is committing corruption, we should ask a foreign government to announce an investigation? Is that appropriate? Or do you go to American authorities?
The President is the appropriate authority in America.
See if this works:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=KgKGjoIkaXU
You doubt it, Freder, but you don't know, do you?
No I don't. What I do know is that it didn't end up in Ukraine.
They jailed him for a desk, by a corrupt official who himself went to jail, while the countries wealth was being shipped to cyprus.
Go ahead, Freder, tell everyone where the server is.
"So you want Ted Cruz be given a national platform to spread lies and Russian disinformation?"
You and Joe McCarthy would make a good pair, Freder.
Russians! Under your bed! Boo!
Don't we have White House visitor records showing frequent visits to the Obama White House by the Ukrainian agent Chalupa? If so, it's not just an op-ed piece.
What I do know is that it didn't end up in Ukraine.
Field Marshall Freder is now Secret Agent Man Freder. I'm all ears. Tell us where it is.
It probably won't matter. The swamp is closing ranks to keep the secrets.
At a meeting with senior White House officials and senators in the Roosevelt Room of the White House almost three weeks ago, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, made clear that there are not enough Senate votes to approve some of the edgier witnesses that Democrats and Republicans want to call. While he mentioned no names, it was interpreted by those in the room to refer to people like Hunter Biden, the son of the former vice president, whom Mr. Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate.
That's a lefty source, like Freder, but it could be correct.
Who really cares if Russia and Ukraine interfered in the election? What did they actually do? Facebook ads and an op-ed?
Hillary paid a Brit to write some garbage so that she could win.
Hillary lost. Get over it.
Also, while we are speculating about what is being left out of the news, why doesn't anyone look at a timeline of all this?
Assuming that the Brennan/Clapper/Comey (hereinafter BCC) axis was cooking up something, what was the purpose of getting a FISA warrant two weeks before the election (game over on November 8)? The spying authorized by the FISA warrant and renewals wasn't about the election, was it? It was about messing up Trump and his team after the election.
They found nothing, because if they had, it would have been in Mueller's report. But the messing-up continues to this day. Nitwit Nadler wants to include the Mueller Report in the impeachment articles. Great. A report that conclusively and definitively shows that Trump didn't do anything wrong goes in the impeachment record.
This whole situation is a political attack on Trump and the GOP (there is a difference) from the Dems in the media and in government. The only real solution is for the Dems to be obliterated at the polls. But that isn't going to happen, is it?
So, enjoy the show (I want my money back. I want my money back).
Jan 11, 2017 - "Ukrainian Efforts to Sabotage Trump Backfire," Politico, by Kenneth Vogel & David Stern.
Money Graf:
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
Game.Set.Match - Mr. Todd
Here’s your proof Chuck.
“WASHINGTON—Alexandra Chalupa, a contracted opposition researcher working in 2015 and 2016 for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) with extensive Ukrainian sources, met with multiple officials in President Barack Obama’s administration in the White House, according to visitor logs examined by Judicial Watch.”
Todd should be fired.
This is why the media are so horrid. And this is why the GOP need to go in to these interviews ready for battle.
Todd did the same thing to Sen Ron Johnson.
wait!
Now the line is "it's crazy to think there was foreign meddling in the 2016 election?
what's NEXT?
that it was GOOD, that there was foreign meddling?
Cruz:
SEN. TED CRUZ: Chuck, Chuck, I understand that you want to dismiss Ukrainian interference, because, A) they were trying to get Hillary Clinton elected, which is what the vast majority of the media wanted, anyway. And B) it's inconvenient for the narrative. You know, it's hysterical. Two years ago, there was article after article after article, in the mainstream media, about Ukrainian interference in the elections. But now, the Democrats have no evidence of a crime, no evidence of violating the law. And so suddenly, Ukrainian interference is treated as the media clutches their pearls. "Oh, my goodness. You can't say that."...
That is excellent. You have to treat the MSM like they are democratic operatives. Because they are.
BAG--So, Todd pulled it off.
What's the matter with Cruz? Since the Dems are going to try to turn Texas blue (through immigration from California, Mexico, and Central America--and Colorado after they have ruined it), he and his loved ones are in the cross-hairs. How could he watch the Ron Johnson interview a few weeks ago and not see where this interview was going to go?
He should have thrown that Politico story in Todd's face.
I'm so glad Althouse notices and highlights this crap. My favorite was a weaselly worded piece that I've lost the link to: "the debunked theory that there was a top down effort by Ukraine to influence the 2016 election."
This actually belongs in the Rudy Giuliani tweet storm thread, but he's doing interviews on relatively new and obscure right-leaning news outlet OAN, which has also sent reporters to Ukraine to interview some of the folks with firsthand knowledge of the 2016 related shenanigans as well as Obama/Biden era apparent corruption in dealing with US aid money. The destruction of Giuliani is now a huge priority. Here's a relatively deeply reported piece on how Giuliani makes his money. Was this all original research by the WaPo, or is this opposition research laundered into a news article?: "Giuliani carves influencer, shadow adviser roles." Note that it's WaPo, but available for free at the Stamford Advocate among other lowly papers.
They'll dig up dirt about Giuliani, but they won't touch the dirt he's surfacing on Obama era stuff that is looking very, very messy. Because the type of corruption we're hearing about in Ukraine involves lots and lots of people and probably reflects a business as usual M.O., it makes sense to me that Trump would use someone not currently in the govt to pursue it. It would be difficult to trust anyone inside the leviathan with this.
That said, I wish Chuck Todd would act more dignified and quit stepping on his guests and laughing at them. It makes it seem like he's trying to censor the other side.
Take off your clothes, Ann.
BBH--It was excellent as far as it went. Todd was going to cry if Cruz hit him with a specific quote like the one BAG cited.
When you get your opponent down you have to kill him.
"Take off your clothes, Ann."
Hmmm...
I am missing the reference. Is this a policy prescription?
Cruz, like any other guest on a TV show, has to dance the dance. If you make the host look too bad you'll wind up all alone by the telephone, blackballed by that network and possibly others.
I grew up watching the Sunday Newstalk Shows on all the networks. They became unwatchable for me years ago. I had a hard time understanding how they maintained one world view that was often so at odds with what the evidence of my own senses was telling me. This was happening long before Chucky Todd came along. I mean, when ABC took a well-known Clinton operative and played like he was an objective observer of the news, they lost me. But NBC still had Tim Russert who, as it turns out, was the last of the objective reporters on that network. Tim was training Chucky. But Tim died. Chucky got an early break, with no leadership to direct him on how to be an objective reporter.
Chuck Todd has been an embarrassment for years, leading a network that is the worst news organization in the US- aside from CNN which is no more a news network than I am a running back for the LA Rams.
Last week Chuck Todd's embarrassing interview of Sen. John Kennedy was the pinnacle of teenage reporterism. Chuck's voice was cracking he was so out of control with what Sen. Kennedy was telling him about Ukraine. Yet- what Sen. Kennedy was telling him is easy to confirm in other sources, other news sites. There was Chucky- bouncing in his seat, voice cracking, breathing hard...."You can't say that!". He's a mess. I'd say he's a disgrace, but that entire network is a disgrace. (the news network that gave Al Sharpton a show.) Chuck Todd's head is going to blow off his shoulders one of these days. Ever seen a clown head go flying across the room?
I feel like every day is a teaser for the next episode of the impeachment TV series.
Damsel in distress lashed to the tracks in the final scene. What will happen? What will happen? Oh no!
I'm feeling, in short, scammed by both sides.
The presidential election is a year away. I'd say some time next summer, the election will be worth my attention.
Todd was already looking bad, and the studio laughter showed that there was a backstory, probably a smug production crew betting pool on how fast Cruz would raise Ukraine interference--it was very unprofessional, so it should be open season on Todd in that interview.
If the GOP boycotted Todd (appearing on every other show), and made a lot of noise about doing it, he'd be gone. But maybe he is so bad you want him out there, making NBC look bad.
So Althouse doesn’t read the comments and the contrarians are all just spouting what they know to be bullshit. What a fucking waste of time.
See they mention derwick partners and alexander lopez i guess, but they dont mention its the counterpart to fusion gps.
proves how the media are not curious about actual corruption if it lands on team D.
No they would just interview prog shills,
F chuck todd apprenticed under tom red harkin, sandinista and vietcong sympathizer, you expect shame.
If Meet the Press went away next week would anyone ever notice? Its like the debutante balls for the 1920's disappearing. Who really cares? It was from another era when people's eyeballs could be sold to advertisers because it was billed as a serious new show for the serious news consumer. I watched a few months ago and was struck by how many aging medicines, Blood pressure and cholesterol inhibitors they hocked at each commercial break. That Chuck Todd is a mendacious, partisan, prick is the least of their worries.
Chuck Todd and George Clintonopolis - are they the same person?
Devlin barrett full fusion shill, the rest secindary shills
"Did Chuck Todd actively prevent Ted Cruz from detailing how Ukraine supposedly interfered in the 2016 election?"
Is the Pope Catholic? Oh wait.
Here’s the article from Politico in January, 2017, about Ukrainian interference. I think there was also an article in the NYT about the same time but I don’t have access to that. Perhaps Ann can search and find it.
Amadeus 48 said...
"Take off your clothes, Ann."
Hmmm...
I am missing the reference. Is this a policy prescription?
12/9/19, 7:37 AM
Yes. It means "Don't be naive."
Once in class I was classmates with this beautiful Polish chick. I was trying to explain some concept to her, about exploitation or corruption or something. I finally explained to her, If we are alone, and I tell you to take off your clothes, what do you think is going to happen next? She gasped-put a hand over her mouth-so cute.
Yes, at some point you understand that there is going to be sex. (Now, rape, or abuse of power, or a relationship, or whatever, is determined by what happens next, but until then you can have been mistaken about his intentions.)
Ann likes to play the naive blonde bunny, but it drags on after a while. When things get to the point of "Take off your clothes," she would seem to want to go a step farther with the naivete. "Take off my clothes, you say? Oh, are they dirty? Flammable? Carcinogenic? Have they been contaminated with poison? Do they evince a racist message like a Klan robe? Thank you, THANK YOU for warning me! I'll take them off right now! Do you mind turning around? Oh, you want to make sure I don't miss anything? You're so kind..."
Either wake up and smell the coffee, or quit with the act.
F chuck proves even he had graduated from erican u hed still know nothing
narciso, I hate to ask this, but, did you suffer a head injury at some time in your life?
No need to be abusive to our host, i take this like a socratic challenge.
So, how much of the so-called "interference" by Russia and/or Ukraine (just who in those countries - politicians, bureaucrats, general crooks and swindlers in the oil business?) originated in Washington, DC?
Media keep saying Russians meddled by hacking the DNC server, too, and that has not been proven. In fact, it’s unlikely given the amount of time the data took to transfer. It was an inside job.
"So you want Ted Cruz be given a national platform to spread lies and Russian disinformation? Some individual politicians in Ukraine did indeed support Hillary (and why not, during the campaign Trump was implying that Russia was justified in invading Crimea), but there was no organized, top down effort, to get Hillary elected. The theory that Ukraine somehow has the DNC server (which Trump brought up in the infamous phone call) is nothing but a lie created in Russia."
I think Chuck Todd should have questioned him to bring out whatever Cruz was asserting was the substantial evidence, to lay it out very clearly so we could look at it. Yes. Not suppress it.
"But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas — that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out."
I got hooked on the old David Brinkley show on ABC. It had Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts & George Will. But that was 30 years ago. Brinkley was old then (young reporter from WWII), but had had a storied career.
Now, it's George Steponallofus, a former Clinton Buttboy, who's a little less hyper than Chuck Todd, but still equally bad.
The Iowa caucus is 2.3.20. Right after Christmas, right after New Years, right after College Football championship, it'll be here quickly. My gut instinct is that these clowns need to get the impeachment vote done before the new year or else it gets drowned out by Iowa & NH. The problem is that we (the country) are getting into Christmas mode, not bogus impeachment mode.
In any event, the Democrat Party is a disgrace, as is their media enablers, and both should be mocked relentlessly at every opportunity.
Chuck Todd wants to cover the story. With a pillow. And hold it there still it stops moving.
I keep hearing people say, just wait until the trial in the Senate. Republicans will subpoena so and so and they will present evidence of such and such and the whole thing will turn around on the Democrats.
Well if that's the case, what are they waiting for? If they have all that stuff and could drag it into the sunshine, why don't they do it now? Why don't they issue their subpoenas now? The implication is, if the Dems don't vote to impeach Trump, it will all stay secret.
I'm highly skeptical of the Senate Republicans.
Ted Cruz did not mention the DNC server. If that was something he would have said and it's stupid, then Todd prevented us from exposing that contagion to the light.
According to what I interpreted Scott Adams as saying, the DNC server was compromised quickly owing to some other machine with access to it having been compromised, so the downwload from it was at local network speeds. The download from the second machine is where the speed would matter as evidence.
"So Althouse doesn’t read the comments and the contrarians are all just spouting what they know to be bullshit. What a fucking waste of time."
I was out running. Sorry you expect me to be monitoring the blog comments at all times. I'd say more but it might be a fucking waste of my time. I only have so much.
Chuck Todd is not in the lay it out very clearly so we can look at it business.
rhhardin said...
The problem is Americans using foreign sources to bypass prohibitions on spying on Americans. Where did that start and who did it and who is still doing it or covering it up.
It began before you were born, Hardin. The “Five Eyes” countries of the Anglosphere have had formal intelligence sharing agreements since World War 2, billed as a pooling of intelligence assets against common external enemies such as the Soviets. However, for much of that time, there has also been a cozy behind-the-scenes arrangement between these agencies to spy on each other’s citizens, in order to circumvent the laws against domestic intelligence operations. I recall that this was one of the major revelations in The Puzzle Palace by James Bamford, which was published back in 1982.
It gathered speed with the establishment of the ECHELON electronic snooping program in the 80’s and 90’s, and really took off after 9/11 with the PATRIOT Act and similar legislation in the other Five Eyes nations. There have been attempts to bring this octopus under control, like the Church Committee hearings of the mid-70’s, but I think everyone in government who could actually do something about this situation is hopelessly compromised by the intelligence agencies’ snooping into their private lives and financial affairs. Until Trump came along, who is either the boldest or the cleanest politician in our lifetimes.
The pending events of the coming year may be the most consequential to our intelligence community since WW2. I am rooting for a world-shattering Trump victory, a severing of ties with the perfidious foreign intelligence agencies, and a near-complete dismantling of our own CIA, FBI, and NSA. They have shown that they are unworthy of the trust we placed in them.
The attributions by crowdstrike are dubious as they do not prove the malware was proprietary to russia or even to the fsb, so how did you like the theatre.
Russians meddled by hacking the DNC server, too,
Exposing DNC corruption = a good thing.
Exposing or investigating or just mentioning the Biden crime family = a good thing.
The Russian Fecebook posts, etc, were just jokes, and as long as they don't hack computers to change votes, meddle away, foreigners!
The “Five Eyes” countries of the Anglosphere have had formal intelligence sharing agreements since World War 2
What happened in this case though was a faked foreign involvement that became an American intelligence investigation turned crminial, with all American planning. So who was behind it and who is still stonewalling about its investigation.
Nobody cares if the Brits spy on Trump on their own. That's just good old-fashioned spying.
I heard Wolf Blitzer attribute the DNC hacking to Russia this am, while talking to another R congressman. I don’t recall who that was. No one is disputing it and I think they should.
That said, I wish Chuck Todd would act more dignified and quit stepping on his guests and laughing at them. It makes it seem like he's trying to censor the other side.
Watching Chuck Todd's behavior reminds me why I started tuning out the Sunday talk shows about 30 years ago. I wanted to smack the guy across the chops.
It is not good for my blood pressure.
“Cruz has to pretend he supports Trump because his constituents support Trump, but he does not.
Cruz didn't manage to detail the Ukrainian actions, but managed to say this:
"Of course Russia interfered in our election. Nobody looking at the evidence disputes that..."
"Look, on the evidence, Russia clearly interfered in our election."”
Cruz was too easily distracted and was probably relieved too. He got out of having to defend the conspiracy theory it was that Ukraine that interfered with the 2016 election. I wish Todd would’ve shut up and let Cruz explain away.
Inga: "He got out of having to defend the conspiracy theory that Ukraine that interfered with the 2016 election."
LOLOLOL
I swear, its like watching a little wind-up toy when Inga posts.
The MSM was reporting on alot of the Ukrainian actions taken in the 2016 election and now, all of sudden, those reports in the NYT and elsewhere have been "scrubbed" from history....even though they haven't!
The Soviets could only have dreamed of having such a compliant media and moron support base like Inga and LLR-lefty Chuck.
Even now I'll bet the oldest surviving Soviets look at the American left/dems and sigh wistfully!
BTW, polls show Trump winning across the midwest already for 2020 against all democrat opponents and even better, the rampant anti-semitism of the left in Britain has been fully exposed prior to elections on Thursday.
Trump has exposed them all here and others are exposing the left over there.
Althouse, I understand the points you made in this blog post. I am not entirely unsympathetic to you on this discrete matter.
Philip Bump of the Washington Post dove into the Republicans' theories about purported Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. I agree strongly with Bump, that they have little substance, and no relation to the impeachment issues.
Moreover, if the President and the Attorney General and the Intelligence Community leadership felt that it was important to investigate Ukrainian interference, they could do that. And it would not depend on Ukrainian help. Certainly not when conditioned on an investigation of Joe Biden and Burisma in return for the release of U.S. military aid to Ukraine.
You're making a perfectly good point about the limits of Sunday talk show production, and time, and perhaps even the political leanings of the hosts. But nothing in any of this addresses the issue of what is truly alleged about "Ukrainian interference," what the proof is, and whether "Ukrainian interference is first and foremost a Russian intelligence-created myth.
Blogger Breezy said...
Media keep saying Russians meddled by hacking the DNC server, too, and that has not been proven. In fact, it’s unlikely given the amount of time the data took to transfer. It was an inside job.
The Ingas of the world don't understand this and are not interested in learning anything that does not fit the narrative. The download speed was not compatible with an online hack.
By the way, I think I would quite like a debate on this topic. I'd like to see Ted Cruz and Fiona Hill debate it.
In fact, it’s unlikely given the amount of time the data took to transfer. It was an inside job
Without forensics on the systems involved you can't determine that. You certainly can't determine it by file timestamps in a archive.
The counter-argument is that you can't determine that the "Russians did it" without forensics as well.
The only entity that would have forensics is CrowdStrike. That makes the credibility of CrowdStrike a definitive avenue of investigation.
Yeah I don't understand how we know so very hard that there is no Crowdstrike information that Zelensky can find out about (that might actually benefit the US!!! Aren't we trying to find out about 2016 interference?). Everyone says it is debunked without ever really giving the debunking information.
And you know.....how did the Crowdstrike in Ukraine benefit *Trump*? I mean, he might be wrong and it's not there. It shouldn't be impeachable to be wrong. But isn't looking into it in the best interest of the US?
Someone explain that to me.
Good question
https://mobile.twitter.com/themarketswork/status/1204050455753613318
I think Fiona Hill could give everyone an earful of what Putin wants and doesn't want, and I would tell any Democrat (and Chuck) on that to be careful what they'd wish for.
The only entity that would have forensics is CrowdStrike. That makes the credibility of CrowdStrike a definitive avenue of investigation
Exactly. Doesn't that make the Dem/media waving everyone off this aspect look kind of.....weird? Uninterested in 2016 meddling?
Seems to me Democrats and the media should be saying....yes! I want to know if Ukraine does know anything about one of their rich citizens knowing something about those servers!!! How would that help Trump?
so the downwload from it was at local network speeds
Right. Or the timestamps were just modified. The timestamps are in the file recovered but there is no audit trail to them. They could be modified easily enough after the fact.
There's nothing magical about zip files.
but now I really want to know because I'm so irritated by Chuck Todd trying to crush it immediately.
This is not your father's Meet the Press.
Sorry you expect me to be monitoring the blog comments at all times. I'd say more but it might be a fucking waste of my time. I only have so much.
I think the commenter is referring to the fact that we have in the past posted detailed examples of Ukrainian meddling and links to articles about the Ukraine government apologizing for meddling in 2016, up to and including detailed accounts of A Chalupa digging up the Ukrainian dirt that prompted Manafort to quit the Trump campaign. And OANN has interviewed the Ukraine officials who say Obama’s ambassador (Yovanovitch, remember her?) actively blocked their efforts to bring officials here to testify under oath. She denied it on the stand during this circus. But three witnesses contradict her and just because Ted didn’t bring it up doesn’t mean we haven’t here in your comment section noted the same exact fact witnesses. The evidence of Ukraine assisting Hillary’s campaign is overwhelming if you look for non Todd sources.
So I believe my fellow commenter was saying that laying out the facts here does not necessarily mean Althouse will see it read them here.
Timestamps have little to do with, what arethe forensics of the malware, the access point had to be somewhere.
Chuck Todd is just doing what many people, mostly Leftists in my experience, do: he asks for Cruz's opinion and perspective not because he wants to know it but so that he can tell you and advocate for his own.
I speculate that CrowdStrike had a server in Ukraine for the purpose of attracting Russian hacking, so that CrowdStrike could study Russian hacking methods.
CrowdStrike has said that Russian used the same hacking methods on Ukrainian artillery systems that CrowdStrike used on the DNC server. CrowdStrike might have had in Ukraine a decoy server that spoofed a Ukrainian artillery-systems server in order to attract Russian hacking.
I speculate that President Trump wanted the Ukrainian Government to take possession of that CrowdStrike decoy server in Ukraine.
Trump did not mean -- and President Zelensky did not understand Trump to mean -- that the DNC server was in Ukraine.
Election interference is like spying. Everybody does it and everybody gets outraged when they catch somebody else doing it. The fake outrage is how we keep it from getting out of hand.
With Ukraine, Democrats are failing in their responsibility to get properly fake outraged.
As far as I know, Ukrainians did not buy Facebook advertisements that showed Jesus arm-wresting Satan and enabling the Facebook users to "like" the advertisement in order to help Donald Trump win our election.
In that regard, the Russian meddling in our election seems to be more effective than the Ukrainian meddling.
According to the US Intelligence Community, the RT television network broadcast some news stories that criticized fracking. The secret purpose of those RT broadcasts was to meddle in our election, thus causing Americans to lose faith in our Democracy.
I am not aware that Ukrainians broadcast any similar television broadcasts that criticized fracking to Americans.
In that regard, the Russian meddling in our election seems to be more effective than the Ukrainian meddling.
It is amusing to see LLR-lefty Chuck attempt to adopt the Detached Neutral Observer pose after 4 straight years of pushing far left media sources, far left talking points and passionate serial defenses of democrats and their policies over and over again.
Thanks, Mike Sylwester. You know I'm here for anything you have to say.
I just tried to look into this a little, and found a simple USA Today article that says this:
Based in Sunnyvale, California, CrowdStrike is a publicly-traded company co-founded in 2011 by American George Kurtz and Russian-born American Dmitri Alperovitch. It has done cybersecurity work for both the Democratic National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to Federal Election Commission records.
In December 2016, a CrowdStrike report indicated the company found hackers backed by the Russian government attacked a Ukrainian military application with malware that “may have facilitated reconnaissance against Ukrainian troops.” CrowdStrike revised and updated its report after some of its findings were questioned the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank.
It also mentions that it is assumed Trump is talking about the DNC server. Which is interesting. Why must this be assumed, and not asked? Do we know where the DNC server is? Why did Zelensky know what he was talking about?
TIL Chuck Todd doesn't know the word equivocate.
https://nypost.com/2019/11/21/fiona-hill-and-dems-ignore-the-serious-evidence-of-ukrainian-2016-meddling/
According to Andrew McCarthy, there are two Ukraine interference stories: a "loopy" one about Ukraine hacking into a DNC server and a "quite viable" one about Ukraine "meddling" via information/disinformation techniques. Those advocating impeachment deliberately conflate the two theories and then pretend that the entire matter can simply be laughed off (a la Chuck Todd).
"The second theory has nothing to do with Russia. It is supported by significant evidence. It includes public professions of support for Clinton and opposition to Trump by Ukrainian officials. It includes acknowledgments by Ukrainian investigators that their Obama administration counterparts encouraged them to investigate Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
"Bolstering this theory is the fact that Ukrainian officials leaked information damaging to Manafort (a ledger of payments, possibly fabricated) that forced Manafort’s ouster from the Trump campaign, triggering waves of negative publicity for the campaign.
"A Ukrainian court, in late 2018, concluded that two Ukrainian officials meddled in the election. And in 2018 House testimony, Nellie Ohr — who worked for Fusion GPS, the Clinton campaign opposition research firm that produced the lurid and discredited Steele dossier — conceded that a pro-Clinton Ukrainian legislator was a Fusion informant.
"When Republicans and most Trump supporters refer to evidence of Ukrainian collusion in the 2016 election, it is this collusion theory that they are speaking about. This theory is in no way mutually exclusive with the finding that Russia hacked the DNC accounts — it has nothing to do with the hacking.
"There is nothing illogical in believing both that Russia hacked the Democrats and that Ukraine supported the Democrats."
Ann Althouse said...Okay. Fine. But I'm going to assume the Ukrainian interference was nothing but an op-ed, and I don't see the problem with other countries having preferences in American elections and explaining their reasons in published essays in American newspapers
You really shouldn't, Professor.
Here's a Politico article from 2017: Ukraine Efforts To Sabotage Trump Backfire
Subheadline: Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton
Here are 2 of the first few paragraphs of that story:
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
President Trump has latched on to the theory that much of the "hacking" was done via Crowdstrike in Ukraine and not Russia, but that theory is wrong. It is correct, though, that people--including officials--in Ukraine acted to help Clinton and harm Trump through back channel/clandestine ways, and that 100% constitutes "interference" in our election.
So no; it wasn't just an OpEd.
I wish Cruz had said: Don't change the subject. I just said there is considerable evidence that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election and you very intensely and reflexively tried to block that subject.
Later on I’ll bet he did, too.
I'm also trying to figure out how Trump making a comment about Crimea maybe wanting to be part of Russia was enough to make the Ukrainians write op-eds against him, but Hillary was his opponent, and had been Obama's Secretary of State, and Russia attacked both Ukraine and Crimea under Obama. Hillary was the giver of the reset button! So that seems like perhaps a good reason for Ukraine not to support her.
From that same article (from 2017):
But Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy under Shulyar, said she instructed him to help Chalupa research connections between Trump, Manafort and Russia. “Oksana said that if I had any information, or knew other people who did, then I should contact Chalupa,” recalled Telizhenko, who is now a political consultant in Kiev. “They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa,” he said, adding “Oksana was keeping it all quiet,” but “the embassy worked very closely with” Chalupa.
In fact, sources familiar with the effort say that Shulyar specifically called Telizhenko into a meeting with Chalupa to provide an update on an American media outlet’s ongoing investigation into Manafort.
Telizhenko recalled that Chalupa told him and Shulyar that, “If we can get enough information on Paul [Manafort] or Trump’s involvement with Russia, she can get a hearing in Congress by September.”
Chalupa confirmed that, a week after Manafort’s hiring was announced, she discussed the possibility of a congressional investigation with a foreign policy legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus. But, Chalupa said, “It didn’t go anywhere.”
If you want an indication of how bad the dems believe this clear Ukrainian interference in the US 2016 election is for Biden given how he was dirty-dealing for his own financial benefit, Creepy Sleepy Joey B is now literally claiming he had no idea that Hunter was on the Board of Burisma AND that he (Joey B) never knew there was a potential problem with that because his staff did not inform him!!!
LOLOLOLOLOL
And this on top of Warren collapsing so fast she panicked and came out this last weeked and finally admitted what we've all known all along about her native American heritage lies.
And no, I don't care how passionately LLR-lefty Chuck defended dem hack Senator Da Nang Dick Blumenthal with his Stolen Valor lies (which LLR-lefty Chuck loved). No amount of LLR-lefty Chuck spinning can save Warren from what will be her inevitable political fate.
I don't mind him taking an adversarial stance with Cruz, but shouldn't he strike a similar pose with the Democrats. He doesn't even try to appear to be objective anymore....The people in the news media don't seem to understand how they're subverting their own reputations with such displays. Well, Todd is a tad more likable than his predecessor David Gregory. Also, I don't think Chuck Todd would ever anally rape one of his coworkers so in that respect he puts a better face on NBC News than Matt Lauer.
Ted Cruz is one of the few men who looks better with a beard than clean shaven.
He has probably always suffered the defect of his mug.
As for what was actually said, this is TV. Facts and arguments matter to a very few (as in what Althouse wants to hear, the Colonel Mustard in the parlor with a candlestick), but demeanor matters to many more, that it was said by Benedict Cumberbach say. Cruz came across very well.
Michael K: The download speed was not compatible with an online hack.
Can someone explain to me how this bit of evidence is supposed to work? I've never understood it.
Example 1: I download a file from a server in China to my computer's hard drive. Then I copy that file from my computer's hard drive to a flash drive.
Example 2: An inside agent in China copies the file over a direct LAN connection to his computer, then copies that file from his computer to a flash drive.
You are given both of those flash drives. Can you actually tell that one file was downloaded over an Internet connection and the other wasn't? Wouldn't the "download speed" for both of the files you are looking at just show a copy from a local hard drive to a flash drive? How can you know how many times the file was copied before it got to you, and what the speed of any given one of those copies was?
What about the Dems British collusion with the Remington Steele do-si-do?
Was Chuck Todd the guy who ran all those fake stories as editor of TNR?
There seems to be Hysteria about corruption in Ukraine by the Ds and their media partners. They do not want to talk about it only ridicule the idea. It certainly looks like there must something there since they are fighting so hard to stop anyone from investigating. They Cling to it was Russian that meddled in the election like that closes the case on any other country doing it too.
Althouse is not policing the comments. Sads. And Her a law professor.
Anyway, Chuck Todd is DNC clown. Why is he in charge of MTP? There must be 50 other "journalists" who could do better. But these "Chat Shows" have turned into DNC propaganda machines. Every R is debated, every D is given a platform to speak. The amount of actual news produced = zero.
YOutube used to have some of the old shows from the 60's and it was basically reporters asking more-or-less objective questions and Politicians giving their views - without interruption. Imagine that!
BTW, I like Ted Cruz and supported him till Trump became the clear winner, BUT he's not particularly likable or impressive. Based on that MTP performance he would've lost to Hillary in 2016.
"the debunked theory that there was a top down effort by Ukraine to influence the 2016 election."
Yet anything done to influence US politics by anyone in Russia, any Russian anywhere, any "Russian asset", or any person with "Russian connections" is proof that Putin controls Trump, the Republican party, and everyone who didn't vote for Hillary.
"Okay. Fine. But I'm going to assume the Ukrainian interference was nothing but an op-ed, and I don't see the problem with other countries having preferences in American elections"
Well, we know the Ukrainians also paid off the Biden family. Big time. I think that counts as 'interference' much more than op-eds or stupid social media posts or internet ads nobody reads.
Focus on the concrete, not the hand-waiving. The Biden family got a big payoff from Burisma/Ukraine at the time Biden was supposedly the point man for US-Ukraine relations. Full stop.
We haven't even gotten into the China-Biden money trail which probably involves much larger sums.
@SeanF, the operating system log showed how long it took to copy the file. Take the number of bytes in the file, multiply by eight to convert bytes to bits, and divide by the number of seconds it took. The result is a transfer rate in bits per second.
Hoodlum 9:21 is worth reading.
The Dem witness (lawyer) just said Russia alone interfered in the 2016 election. Also said all the witnesses in these hearings agreed that Russia meddled (although I don't believe any of them had any actual knowledge of that), and further that our intelligence had declared that to be true (but why would Trump believe Brennan and Clapper after watching them for 3 years claim they had evidence he was a Russian agent?)
Supposed an exfil from outside would take longer
https://mobile.twitter.com/NathanBrandWA/status/1203811602702766085
Ha, there's Freder upthread with the weaselly "top down" language re Ukraine. I just read that in some news article yesterday.
There are people in Ukraine, people at the top of things, who did things like illegally release info re Manafort. Here's the NYT reporting on it in 2018, before we were supposed to ignore Ukraine stuff.
Anne, please let me help. Democrats and the News Media have been trying to find grounds to impeach the president since shortly after he won election. As their excuse, they have sited collusion with Russians in interfering with our election. After 3 years and 36 million dollars they were unable to provide any evidence of coordination between Trump and the Russians.
However, due to the consistent focus of election interference in an effort to overturn the 2016 presidential election, significant evidence that Democrats used the federal intelligence apparatus to first investigate their political opponents and then fabricate a political crisis ignorer to damage their Republican opponents. Once Trump won the election, they used these same operations to create a situation that would allow them to remove Trump from office.
The Democrats and the Media cannot allow any investigation of these actions to be legitimized as it would devastate the Democrats and it would become quickly apparent that the News Media was not only complicit in these actions but a willing and active participant.
Chuck Todd's behavior during this interview is indicative of the way almost the entire American News Media has been handling this issue since Trumps election.
I don't always disagree with Ted Cruz. Sometimes, and not infrequently, I agree with Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz once called Donald Trump a "pathological liar," "utterly amoral," "a narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen" and "a serial philanderer." I agree with all of that. Although I think that Trump's serial philandering days are over since he is an obese man in his seventies with unpublicized health issues who does not even sleep with his current/third wife.
So I have a lot of room for agreement with Sen. Cruz.
So no, not just an op-ed. From that article:
The Kiev District Administrative Court, in a statement issued Wednesday, said that Artem Sytnik, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the agency that had released information about the payments, had violated the law. The court’s statement said this violation “resulted in meddling in the electoral process of the United States in 2016 and damaged the national interests of Ukraine.”
Unclebiffy said...
Anne, please let me help. Democrats and the News Media have been trying to find grounds to impeach the president since shortly after he won election...
...
Much of the Democratic Party -- virtually all of its pragmatic elements, and especially its Congressional leadership -- resisted calls from the far Left for impeachment. Sometimes angering parts of the Democratic base, they resisted impeachment talk.
Until the Ukraine scandal became clear. Which will form much of the basis for articles of impeachment.
Yes but then they pulled a hawaiian judge gambit and reversed it for reasons
Nobody has investigated Mexican interference in 2016, or earlier/later.
Any media reach that "Russia" could have achieved via RTI (Russian State TV) or $100K in Facebook ads is nothing at all compared to the reach of Telemundo/Univision. Mexican Televisa, the largest Mexican mass media network is an almost-state entity, so intimately connected is it with the Mexican "deep state". It has content and operational deals with both Univision and Telemundo.
It is no accident that the editorial position of both Univision and Telemundo is a mirror image of the official Mexican government line.
Whose the head of telemundo leon black who owns apollo capital which had among its partner jeffrey ePstein
There seems to be a bit of confusion about the terms download and upload in reference to the transfer of data from one computer to another. Whichever direction of the transfer both machines must execute programs that transfer the data. Whether it is dubbed a download or upload is apparently arbitrary in popular usage. I propose a standard based upon the physical location of the machines. To wit, their altitude above Mean See Level (MSL). The transfer from the machine at the higher altitude to the lower is to be called a download. This is possibly ambiguous because the earth is an oblate spheroid and MSL at higher latitudes is actually closer to the center of the earth. It may require international agreements to address this ambiguity.
"Todd immediately changes the subject to reasons why Ted Cruz should have a personal animus against Trump"
Yeah well..he had his graphics folks put together that little montage. He had to make sure it got in the segment somewhere.
I think the remote interview arrangement is especially prone to mynhandling by the host.
"Whose the head of telemundo leon black who owns apollo capital which had among its partner jeffrey Epstein"
Its all one densely interconnected network of ownership and interests isn't it?
And yet people scoff at conspiracy theories.
LLR-lefty Chuck: "Much of the Democratic Party -- virtually all of its pragmatic elements, and especially its Congressional leadership -- resisted calls from the far Left for impeachment."
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
How many lies can a LLR-lefty tell for his lefty amigos?
"Incoming Democrat Chairman: Dems Will Go ‘All-In’ On Russia, Impeach Kavanaugh For ‘Perjury’"
From Nov 7, 2018.
And the entire Mueller dem/LLR-lefty fiasco was coordinated throughout 2017/2018 to ensure the dems/LLR-lefties could maximize their smears to gain the House in order to pull it off.
Impeachment has been the ONLY democrat strategy from the very moment that DJT was elected and LLR-lefty Chuck's lies cannot rewrite that history.
There is no going back Chuckie, in the same way you cannot pretend away your racist posts and your attacks on women and children.
Those will never ever go away....
Here's the link to Hemingway's article where she sat on a train behind Nadler and crew as they openly discussed their plans for impeachment that LLR-lefty Chuck now asserts never existed!
LOL
https://thefederalist.com/2018/11/07/incoming-democrat-chairman-dems-will-go-all-in-on-russia-impeach-kavanaugh-for-perjury/#.XeZsys-OwBI.twitter
Oops
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/09/nadler-failed-to-swear-in-witnesses-at-judiciary-impeachment-hearings/
Largely, and leon has an entiresting family history in the region?
There is still time for Althouseblog denizens to band together to purchase Trump sized Salt and Pepper shakers for LLR-lefty-loser Chuck.
Slightly OT: I assume Trump is reelected in '20, and then I find myself wondering who comes next. He can't be duplicated (and perhaps that's for the best), and can't be successfully imitated, either.
So I find myself wondering who can bring the fight the way he can, because I cannot be enthused about any Republican who declines to take on the media and the crazy Dems 24/7 (or at least 8/5).
Cruz may be the best shot.
Nobody has investigated Mexican interference in 2016, or earlier/later.
Or their 100 US consulates. Why so many ?
Char Char Binks at 9:52 AM
any person with "Russian connections" is proof that Putin controls Trump
If the Russian person is a businessman, then you say that he is an "oligarch", which is proof that the person is "close to Putin".
Seems like the old days around here.
That is not a compliment.
or why it's been so easy for the Trump-hostile media to maintain the narrative that Ukraine did nothing.
Because if the Russians - and only the Russians - interfered in the 2016 election, it supports the narrative that the election was improper, Trump didn't really win, and impeaching him is a moral obligation of the Democrats rather than a craven power grab to nullify a legitimate election.
Mattman26: "Slightly OT: I assume Trump is reelected in '20, and then I find myself wondering who comes next. He can't be duplicated (and perhaps that's for the best), and can't be successfully imitated, either."
Haley and Cruz are clearly the most active in attempting to position themselves to step in for 2024 by going after the dems and embracing many of Trump's policies.
It's also clear the dems/LLR-lefties fear Haley the most, for obvious reasons, so they are already attempting to move to disqualify her by smearing her as a white supremacist.
If that sounds crazy to you, well, it is. But that's the kind of stuff that works on the Ingas/LLR-lefty Chucks of the world.
In the media, the entire topic of Ukrainian interference has been turned into denial of Russian interference.
And as long as one cannot consider the topic, one can't discover any evidence of it.
Likewise, in the media, the topic of Hunter Biden's corruption is linked to Trump's defense.
They know of "no evidence" to support Biden's corruption either...
Computers have different speeds for data transfer, depending on the method.
Think of the top speed possible for a car on a freeway with no traffic vs a Single lane, windy country road.
The speed possible to move files via the usb drive, is different than across the network and over the Internet.
You pay for internet access for the speed offered to you. And with shared bandwidth in a larger organization, the speed possible goes down.
There was some software that tracked files being moved / copied and how long that took.
>Can someone explain to me how this bit of evidence is supposed to work? I've never understood it.
In regard to Russian meddling in the 2016 election, it's important to keep in mind that, according to the FBI, Russian Intelligence had four secret agents in Donald Trump's campaign staff:
1) Paul Manafort
2) Carter Page
3) Michael Flynn
4) George Papadopoulos
As the campaign manager, Manafort had access to the Republican Party's opinion polls, which were secret. Manafort gave those secret polls to Page, who hand-delivered them to Russian Intelligence in Moscow.
Based on those secret polls, Russian Intelligence was able to determine the so-called "battlefield states" in the election. Russian Intelligence then purchased Facebook ads (e.g. Jesus arm-wrestling Satan) that targeted those "battlefield states".
Because Russian Intelligence thus was able to acquire and use strategic intelligence from its agent network in Trump's campaign staff, Russian Intelligence helped Trump win the election.
Ukraine did not have such Intelligence assets or methods that were so effective in meddling in our election.
the operating system log showed how long it took to copy the file.
What log file though? Only CrowdStrike (and the DNC) had access to operating system log files (not archive files that were transferred to WikiLeaks).
Anything that was transferred to WikiLeaks could have been compromised. There's no chain of custody.
From all my research the "Intelligence Community says Russia hacked the DNC period full stop" comes from at its root CrowdStrike's analysis. I'm fine with that, but if they are the only ones with the chain of custody then that entity should be subject to cross examination. In evidentiary matters we shouldn't take anybody's "word". Especially with regards to forensic data.
But saying that it was an "inside" job based on timestamp data from files sent to WikiLeaks is also false. There's still no chain of custody. It could be easily falsified.
Don't fall for it just because you wish it to be true. Plenty of people falsely convicted for heinous crimes on DNA evidence because the investigators "knew" they were guilty.
"Largely, and leon has an entiresting family history in the region?"
And what relationships with US intelligence agencies (your KGB)?
Or other players out there?
Also notably Black's Apollo was a major player in scavenging value out of the S&L crisis, through the RTC. Private-Public partnerships indeed.
Also notable is that Apollo is also effectively in the "wealth management" game, on the actual investment end, as Tom Steyer has been on the customer-relationship-intake end. A private investment firm catering to big players, and to a degree a cutout in the business of money laundering.
This is one of those nodes on the conspiratorialists cork board, with many colored strings attached.
Mike Sylwester, I was getting really bummed at your 11:00 post, and then I realized it was satire. Right?
Thats an intriguing question, now whose clients was he managing. Leon lost a chunk of cash in a clean energy (strategy) with epstein
Nichevo at 8:01 has the comment of the week.
There was some software that tracked files being moved / copied and how long that took.
Sorry but that is just wishful thinking. A log file saying that files were copied or moved across a network a thumbdrive is meaningless unless the system that stores the logs is secure. I can create a log file that shows whatever I want it to show and store it someplace that it's sure to be found in order to hide my tracks. Or give plausible deniability, etc.
Without a chain of custody you can't determine shit. If the FBI analyzed the servers, then their analysis should be subject to cross examination. If CrowdStrike did it then they should be. But you need the image of the servers to determine anything. And even then it's problematic. Determining whether Russia did it, some insider, or little green aliens from space, requires analysis of multiple systems to ensure that the data you are using to determine culpability hasn't been tampered with.
The analysis I saw that says it was from an inside job was basing the "file transfer speeds" based on the individual file timestamps stored in the zip file. Their reasoning was that whenever the files were transferred it was transferred so fast that the time stamps of the files were too close together to be transferred over the network,, so they must have been transferred to a thumbdrive.
That theory breaks down though when you realize that in modern systems the difference between a user at a keyboard and a user remotely is nothing. A remote user (from Russia) could have easily copied it to a thumbdrive or any other thumb drive, and then copied the resulting data off in a separate step! Or modified the file time stamps inside the archive file itself!
Was it Russia? I don't know. Was it China? I don't know. Was it some disgruntled DNC staffer? I dont know. It could be any of them.
It's just as lazy analysis to say it was an "inside job" as to say "it was from Russia, case closed".
Don't fall for it.
Publishing propaganda is normal operating procedure for domestic and foreign interests. What happened in Water Closet is still unknown, and the principal of interest was rendered nonviable soon thereafter. What matters is violation of civil rights including domestic spying, imprisonment, witch hunts, warlock trials, cancellation, etc. that enjoyed sustainable, renewable progress for more than 12 trimesters.
Brian wrote:
"From all my research the "Intelligence Community says Russia hacked the DNC period full stop" comes from at its root CrowdStrike's analysis. I'm fine with that, but if they are the only ones with the chain of custody then that entity should be subject to cross examination. In evidentiary matters we shouldn't take anybody's "word". Especially with regards to forensic data.(emphasis added by myself)"
Indeed, I have made this point until I am blue in the face- and, yet, taking CrowdStrike's word on it is all that the Obama intelligence team and the Mueller investigation actually did in the matter. The entirety of the assertion that the Russians hacked the DNC rests on that CrowdStrike analysis, and the assertion that the Wikileaks got the e-mails from those Russians rests on no evidence whatsoever.
Ukraine did not have such Intelligence assets or methods that were so effective in meddling in our election.
They had Obama, Clinton, Biden, the DNC, FBI, NYT, WaPo, CNN et al. handlers, in what appears to have been a quid pro quo relationship.
It is no accident that the editorial position of both Univision and Telemundo is a mirror image of the official Mexican government line.
Press one for Spanish. Press two for English. Also, the different flavors of PBS preparing Americans for assimilation, presumably with the purpose of moderating conflict through empathy and division. The same justification given for immigration reform. Join the revolution!
Hey LLR-lefty Chuck, you'd better get busy with a new set of Impending Recession Doom lies!!
LOL
You're gonna need it.
Re: Allegations of serious meddling by Ukraine in 2016 election. I've been reading Andrew McCarthy's book, Ball of Collusion, which examines the entire Russia narrative and the investigation of Trump and his associates. The book was released recently but before the new impeachment narrative of Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine. To my surprise, McCarthy's book deals extensively with Ukraine and how they and their oligarchs have been exerting tremendous power in world politics, including direct involvement with promoting Hillary and damaging Trump before the election. It's too complicated to re-cap here but I was impressed the McCarthy is so well-informed on Ukrainian interference and that the subject was included in his book before anyone knew Ukraine would become central to the impeachment charges.
It needs to be remembered what the Russian Collusion story was. Mike Sylwester had summarized it above in several comments, but I want to focus on just this one right below:
"In regard to Russian meddling in the 2016 election, it's important to keep in mind that, according to the FBI, Russian Intelligence had four secret agents in Donald Trump's campaign staff:
1) Paul Manafort
2) Carter Page
3) Michael Flynn
4) George Papadopoulos
Mike isn't lying or exagerrating in any way- these four men were accused by the FBI of being Russian agents in the opening of Crossfire Hurricane. This has been confirmed by both the use of the Steele Dossier in the Page FISA warrant and by the assertions contained within the 4 applications/renewals; and by testimony from James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and others. Additionally, we know this was the FBI's position because we now have the Mueller Report.
We now know today that none of these four men were Russian agents or even colluded with Russian agents in the 2016 election. The entirety of Crossfire Hurricane has been demonstrated to be false- all of it.
Big Mike: @SeanF, the operating system log showed how long it took to copy the file.
What operating system log? Specifically, the log of what operating system? The one on the server, or the one on the client?
If they have the OS log of the client, how do they not already know what and where the client was?
And if they're looking at the OS log of the server, how does it tell them the begin and end times of the copy job, but not the destination location?
Scioux: from NYT, 12-12- 2018:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/world/europe/ukraine-paul-manafort.html
Ukraine Court Rules Manafort Disclosure Caused ‘Meddling’ in U.S. Election
Dec. 12, 2018
MOSCOW — A court in Ukraine has ruled that officials in the country violated the law by revealing, during the 2016 presidential election in the United States, details of suspected illegal payments to Paul Manafort.
In 2016, while Mr. Manafort was chairman of the Trump campaign, anti-corruption prosecutors in Ukraine disclosed that a pro-Russian political party had earmarked payments for Mr. Manafort from an illegal slush fund. Mr. Manafort resigned from the campaign a week later.
The court’s ruling that what the prosecutors did was illegal comes as the Ukrainian government, which is deeply reliant on the United States for financial and military aid, has sought to distance itself from matters related to the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential race.
NYT, 12-12- 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/world/europe/ukraine-paul-manafort.html
Ukraine Court Rules Manafort Disclosure Caused ‘Meddling’ in U.S. Election
Dec. 12, 2018
MOSCOW — A court in Ukraine has ruled that officials in the country violated the law by revealing, during the 2016 presidential election in the United States, details of suspected illegal payments to Paul Manafort.
In 2016, while Mr. Manafort was chairman of the Trump campaign, anti-corruption prosecutors in Ukraine disclosed that a pro-Russian political party had earmarked payments for Mr. Manafort from an illegal slush fund. Mr. Manafort resigned from the campaign a week later.
The court’s ruling that what the prosecutors did was illegal comes as the Ukrainian government, which is deeply reliant on the United States for financial and military aid, has sought to distance itself from matters related to the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential race.
"Did Chuck Todd actively prevent Ted Cruz from detailing how Ukraine supposedly interfered in the 2016 election?"
No, see Betteridge's law of headlines. Here's the proper way to headline this blog post:
"Was there a Trump tweet directing us to start believing Lyin' Ted?"
Democrats with bylines. That's all they are.
Next.
The entirety of the assertion that the Russians hacked the DNC rests on that CrowdStrike analysis, and the assertion that the Wikileaks got the e-mails from those Russians rests on no evidence whatsoever.
Said better than I did, appreciate the clarity, Yancey.
My point is that it could still be the Russians or little green men from outerspace. It's a null value. We just don't know. And won't be able to now because everything was wiped.
Point taken. I hereby rescind my “inside job” comment.
I meant that the story that you added to your post and many more have been referenced here and discussed dozens of times since this Ukraine thing came up. From The Nation, Politico, New York Times, The Hill, The Intercept... I have linked them all until I am blue in the face [old timey enough for you?]
It was a waste of time on my part, carefully typing in the HTML each time so that it was easy to click on, keeping bookmarks to stories, for whatever I thought my goals were, I guess, which were maybe to win people over with evidence and logic.
I see that the Democrats finally conceded today that the “do me a favor” bit was about election interference, and not investigating Biden, which Zelenski brought up first, BTW. This is what I am talking about, the Democrats in the press would rather lie when they must know the truth, because lying supports the will to power in a way that objective truth does not, and their overarching motivation is the will to power.
Drago said...
"It is amusing to see LLR-lefty Chuck attempt to adopt the Detached Neutral Observer pose after 4 straight years of pushing far left media sources, far left talking points and passionate serial defenses of democrats and their policies over and over again."
Dunning-Kruger writ large.
From televised interview:
'Chris Wray, the FBI director nominated by Trump, tells @ABC: “We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 election."'
Horowitz p. 130—"Avatar" Steele provides 2 fraudulent Ukraine-related allegations to FBI for spy warrant on Trump campaign.
Fake Ukraine allegations are central to anti-Trump operation from pre-election to present.
the DOJ IG report says Crossfire Hurricane team tasked confidential human sources that resulted in multiple interactions w/Page & Papadopoulos
But they didn’t “spy spy."
Cass Sunstein, whom Nadler impeachment committee is relying on as impeachment expert, is married to Samantha Power, who is implicated in NSA unmaskings of Trump campaign officials
Imagine if we had a real press in America, not this Party propaganda apparatus of the Democrats.
Very interesting video. Cruz is much smarter than typical politician and really makes Todd look bad to an informed and objective observer. Todd survives with his friends on the left and the uninformed because he is able to remember enough lines.
I wish Chuck Todd would act more dignified...
How dignified is it for Ted Cruz to push a debunked conspiracy theory that receives no support from any government but Vladimir Putin's, since it's nothing but a part of his own disinformation campaign? I notice you selectively edited that part out.
Get a grip. Gain some perspective.
I was out running. Sorry you expect me to be monitoring the blog comments at all times. I'd say more but it might be a fucking waste of my time. I only have so much.
Did you read the part where Chuck Todd reminded Cruz that the only source repeating his claim was Vladimir Putin? Because that might be worth noting and you did after all have enough time to re-post a very lengthy rehash of nearly every other part of that interview.
Are you selectively reading these reports in such a way as to intentionally undercut the logical and rational interpretations? It seems impossible to conclude otherwise at this point.
I think Chuck Todd should have questioned him to bring out whatever Cruz was asserting was the substantial evidence, to lay it out very clearly so we could look at it. Yes. Not suppress it.
There was no "substantial evidence" because it's completely false. It originated in a Russian disinformation campaign. Why is that so hard to believe? Just because our Banana Republicans have nothing to run on but what the KGB's brightest and finest have to present doesn't make what they say true. Jesus.
@SeanF, I recently retired from job where I reported directly to our Corporate Information Security Officer where I worked, and I even more recently retired from teaching cyber security at a local university, and I cannot educate you in a couple of (necessarily) terse comments to the extent you probably need. There are plenty of courses out there, and Microsoft certifications you can learn, and if your questions are a genuine desire to know, then I recommend you sign up for one. The new semester should be starting next month.
Instead I will point you to this article in The Nation. This is not because it has the technical details you are demanding, but because The Nation is a somewhat left of center publication that seems nevertheless to be genuinely interested in looking for the truth. There are links inside this online report that you can follow to learn more.
The key takeaway is here:
"Forensicator’s first decisive findings, made public in the paper dated July 9, concerned the volume of the supposedly hacked material and what is called the transfer rate—the time a remote hack would require. The metadata established several facts in this regard with granular precision: On the evening of July 5, 2016, 1,976 megabytes of data were downloaded from the DNC’s server. The operation took 87 seconds. This yields a transfer rate of 22.7 megabytes per second.
These statistics are matters of record and essential to disproving the hack theory. No Internet service provider, such as a hacker would have had to use in mid-2016, was capable of downloading data at this speed. Compounding this contradiction, Guccifer claimed to have run his hack from Romania, which, for numerous reasons technically called delivery overheads, would slow down the speed of a hack even further from maximum achievable speeds.
What is the maximum achievable speed? Forensicator recently ran a test download of a comparable data volume (and using a server speed not available in 2016) 40 miles from his computer via a server 20 miles away and came up with a speed of 11.8 megabytes per second—half what the DNC operation would need were it a hack. Other investigators have built on this finding. Folden and Edward Loomis say a survey published August 3, 2016, by www.speedtest.net/reports is highly reliable and use it as their thumbnail index. It indicated that the highest average ISP speeds of first-half 2016 were achieved by Xfinity and Cox Communications. These speeds averaged 15.6 megabytes per second and 14.7 megabytes per second, respectively." [Emphasis mine]
As to your question about whether the metadata should show the destination, the destination would have been to an IP address or perhaps a MAC address. If you have the physical device you can determine its MAC address, however having the MAC address, or at a high level of abstraction, the IP address, doesn't tell you the true destination. Again, I am being terse here, but if you are genuinely interested you can certainly learn how things like File Transfer Protocol (FTP) work and how a MAC address differs from an IP address, etc.
One final note. It is quite possible that Crowdstrike really did find evidence of Russian hacking on the DNC server -- the DNC and RNC servers, like Clinton's private Email server, would have been treated by the Russians (and Israelis, the British, the French, the Chinese, and everyone else) as an excellent target for espionage. And in fact, I aware of anecdotal evidence that the RNC was attacked, but their IT staff was a bit more on the ball than the DNC's people and succeeded in shutting down the attacks. What Crowdstrike did not prove was that the Russians were the source of the leak to Assange. And what the independent forensic experts conclusively proved was that the claim by Guccifer to have been the hacker and the source of leaks to Assange were absolutely false.
Hope this helps.
The more loud and aggressive, and frankly desperate Ritmo sounds, the more convincing his is.
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