Here’s a news story that outlines the confirmed allegation that a Bush White House aide edited certain EPA reports in 2001/2002 to soften and downplay language linking greenhouse gases to global warming/climate change.
That instance is completely different from this one since most of the key leaders of the intelligence agencies, including the National Director of Intelligence (who is about two weeks away from retiring and really doesn’t have much to lose at this point by caving to political pressure from a lame duck administration), the military director of the NSA, Admiral Mike Rogers, who was being considered by Trump’s people to be the next NDI, and outgoing CIA Director John Brennan, have officially affirmed their support of the report and its conclusions and (with the exception so far of Director Brennan) have testified to this before Congress.
Are all of these people, particularly the ones who also testified before Congress, going to risk their reputations and any possible future employment on lying or grossly exaggerating anything based on any possible fading political pressure of Obama to come to a fabricated conclusion? It would be one thing if no officials would officially confirm or testify about the report or its conclusions, but there appears to be unanimous agreement about the evidence and the conclusions they drew from the evidence from all U.S. intelligence agencies. Sen. John McCain, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and even Speaker of the House Ryan are convinced. It is unclear where this lingering, ever-persistent doubt is coming from.
These two statements by you, over the course of a couple of hours, seem to be pretty contradictory. Could you explain it a bit more to me? Is it that you think that whether the Putin’s overall goal was to install Trump in the White House or not is just a “detail”? I thought that was the entire point of this whole “Russia hacking” narrative.
Note: I haven’t read the report yet, so I haven’t drawn my own conclusions. I’m just going off what you said here in this thread.
I don’t think the EPA “reversed” their judgements after Obama got elected, more like shaded them up a bit instead of shaded them down a bit. I wouldn’t expect the intelligence community to do a full reversal either, but in the months ahead if they de-emphasize and soften their position on Russian hacking, I’ll take it as confirmation that they’re politicized and if they don’t, I’ll be delighted to have some evidence that they’ve resisted the political influence that has infected so much of the rest of the government.
About a year ago a friend asked me if I though trump had a chance of being elected. I said: “Not unless he’s made a pact with Satan.” I may have been closer to the truth than I realized.
I report into the UK. I have got endless shit since the election because I have been telling my British bosses and colleagues that Trump can’t possibly win.
I offered to bet my Father in Law $10,000 Trump wouldn’t win. I was dead serious, and willing to put the money in escrow. Thank god he didn’t have the balls to take the bet. I would have paid up, but it would have been the DUMBEST financial decision I have ever made.
Agree, and I have to add that what I fear a lot is what I pointed months ago: I do think that Trump and his goons are the kind of president and administration that will not mind to see right wingers to take over in many nations of Latin America, just like in the old old times “when America was great”.
I do think that as soon as Trump takes office it will be a signal for many strongmen to make stronger efforts to undermine a lot of democracies all over the Americas and in other countries of the world under the guise of fighting terrorism, drugs, or old fashion communism (just for old timers in his administration).
It is what a mentality that favors torture and authoritarianism leads one.
That’s flat-out insane. What Russia wants out of Syria is a reliable shipping route. They want access that is not controlled either by hostile nations that will support American sanctions or the vagaries of Russian winters. Exacerbating the Syrian civil war does not help them achieve that goal, because war zones make bad trade routes.
You should be asking whether the West is exacerbating the Syrian civil war to get back at people they don’t like. Because while Russia has a clear motive for wanting to ally themselves with Assad because they want Assad to let them use his ports, the main reason America is arming the Syrian rebels is because they want to fight a proxy war against Assad.
It’s more than just economic. Russia wants to retain an ally in Syria, a continuing market for its arms, and maybe most of all establish itself as a key player in the Middle East and internationally. Its moves in Georgia, Ukraine, the Baltics and its mock bombing runs near/just inside the airspace of nearby countries and the West are about re-establishing a sphere of influence and domination and generating fear to compel respect and attention to Russian considerations and goals.
Outside of the YPG, the U.S. has provided limited arms to Syrian rebel groups and even then, would at least require a nominal pledge from the respective group that they viewed fighting Da’esh as the number one priority. The Gulf states have been far more generous in both arms and funding to the rebel groups and without any of the U.S. pledges to target Da’esh first and foremost. The U.S. would certainly like to see Assad gone, if not to see some kind of democratic state to replace him, then at least to de-couple Syria from Iran and Hizbollah (and possibly even Russia, before they became more involved). But the Gulf states and previously Turkey were much more motivated to see Assad gone than the U.S. since they see Assad as Iran’s key ally and key outpost preventing true containment in the region, outside of a very weak Iraq.
Since I’m currently using my phone, I can’t copy and paste sections of the report, but the intelligence agencies were unanimous in their assessment that Russia was behind the hacking and leaking of the materias to Wikileaks. There appears to be mild disagreement (strong confidence versus moderate confidence) about the exact goals behind the operation. If I had to guess, I would say the NSA’s moderate confidence level also considered the possibility that Russia just wanted to destabilize the election process period and might not have specifically wanted Trump to win. Even then, thy were still moderately confident that Russia undertook the hacking and leaking to help Trump and weaken Hillary.
So, there appears to be strong unanimity about who was behind the hacking and leaking but somewhat less so about the goals behind it. Regardless, the point of all the hearings and the bipartisan anger on Capitol Hill has been about the hacking and leaking. Trump’s apparent view that if he acknowledged that Russia was indeed behind the hack and leak and that Russia did so to try and influence the election or destabilize the U.S. must mean his election win was illegitimate reveals a profound fragility and insecurity on his part. That would help explain his refusal to consider the probability that this was Russia and his quickness to call this unfair and try to point to other hacks.
Trump was willing to see a conspiracy behind every corner before the election about possible ways a win could be stolen from him, but suddenly refuses to even consider an actual conspiracy when presented with a compelling one that he views could undermine him if he were to consider it.
The New York Times is reporting that intelligence officials have concluded that Russia’s efforts were specifically aimed at denigrating Clinton and creating a preference for Trump. http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/us/politics/russia-hack-report.html
The fourth paragraph contains something that I find particularly disturbing.
Elements of state or local electoral boards? WTF does that mean? Electoral boards consist of people, right? Not hacked databases.
Practically every single intelligence gathering agency has formed a consensus on this issue. What is it that you know that somehow people who spend 10 hours or more per day investigating this don’t?
IIRC that had more to do with a response about our greatest threat. As it turns out, having a Russian puppet as President might actually make Russia our greatest threat.
Well, they are if they can drag us down to their level, which appears very possible.
Did the report have anything about hacking of members of the RNC? Early reports were that the RNC was hacked, but information not released. Is that still the prevailing view?
Oh it’s not just in Latin America. Look at Duterte in the Philippines who makes Trump look like a pussy cat or some of those right-wing Europeans who are just waiting to take over.
The white working classes in wealthy countries are upset about being ignored and they’re having a temper tantrum.