Biden Announces New Sanctions on Russia, Expulsion of 10 Diplomats, in Retaliation for Hacking and Election Interference (apnews.com) 184
The White House is announcing the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and announcing a new round of sanctions against Russia. From a report: The moves are in response to interference in last year's presidential election as well as the hacking last year of federal government agencies. The U.S. for the first time explicitly linked that intrusion to a Russian intelligence service. [...] The sanctions, foreshadowed for weeks by the administration, represents the first retaliatory action announced against the Kremlin for last year's hack, familiarly known as the SolarWinds breach. In that intrusion, Russian hackers are believed to have infected widely used software with malicious code, enabling them to access the networks of at least nine agencies in what U.S. officials believe was an intelligence gathering operation aimed at mining government secrets.
So what's the reaction? (Score:2)
What's the Republican/Trump Supporter reaction to this?
Re: So what's the reaction? (Score:2)
Look at the AC below you to see...
Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can tell you what it's going to be on this discussion: they're going to cry about the "russia hoax" and they will likely use the phrase "russia russia russia" ala the Brady Bunch. They're going to call us idiots and sheep for believing that Russia might want to influence our elections, while others of them will call us idiots and sheep for believing that it's wrong that Russia wants to influence our elections.
Partly insightful [Re:So what's the reaction?] (Score:5, Insightful)
The question isn't whether or not Russia wants to influence our elections (they always have) or if they prefer Trump to Hilary or Biden (they do).
Good to have at least one person acknowledge that.
The question is whether a few hundred thousand impressions on Facebook ads caused Hilary to lose the election in '16.
That is one question, but no, it's not the only question, nor is it even the main question.
It's also worth noting that in fact Russia did a hell of a lot more than merely buying facebook ads. That's just the part that is trivial to verify. Hacking into DNC email, for example, is specifically illegal.
And if you believe that, yes, you've been mislead (I hate to say sheep, since it's been promoted by just about everyone in the media).
Not clear, especially without detailed knowledge of the Russian hacking, much of which is not fully disclosed. The 2016 election was extraordinarily close; it turns out that pretty much everything mattered that time.
Democrats have yet to confront the fact that they ran the only person in the world who could've lost to a fucking dim-bulb reality TV show star. If Russia is such a serious threat, why the fuck did the Democrats have 87-yr-old Dianne Feinstein running the Russiagate committees?
Turns out that she's a Senator. Who knew? (not you, apparently.) Senate rules favor seniority. And note she was the ranking minority party member of the Judiciary Committee (which is the committee that reviewed the FBI report)... she didn't run it. So your comment actually makes no sense.
You know, the lady who loses her train of thought in mid-sentence and often can't find her own office?
Now you're just parroting Republican talking points. If they don't have anything else to say, they say "oh, that person is senile".
Meanwhile, the military/industrial complex is pivoting away from the War on Terror and back to the Cold War, and so we've decided to start caring about Russian and Chinese human rights violations. (But let's not talk about what Saudi Arabia and Israel do constantly, out in the open).
Classic whataboutism. Saying "what about Saudi Arabia and Israel?!?" does not in any way excuse Russia or China.
If you want anything to change, you have to stop blaming Russia
Acknowledging the Russian attacks on the US electoral system is nevertheless worth doing. We are under attack. This is clear. The main objective of the attack was (and continues to be) to disrupt American society, discredit democracy, and drive a wedge between the US and Europe, but yes, a secondary objective was to support Trump, who Putin found supportive.
and realize that Trump won because he spoke to the working-class people that have been hurt by neoliberal policies, which have been pushed by both parties since Jimmy Carter. Now, Trump didn't DO anything for those people, but he at least acknowledged they exist, which is more than we can say for Hilary.
As for that statement... I have to say you are absolutely accurate and should be moderated +1 insightful.
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First of all, thank you for the thoughtful reply.
Thanks.
Allow me to retort:
>> Not clear, especially without detailed knowledge of the Russian hacking, much of which is not fully disclosed. The 2016 election was extraordinarily close; it turns out that pretty much everything mattered that time.
Let's be clear: nothing Russia did affected the outcome of the '16 or '20 election.
'20 election: correct.
'16 election: Unless you are with the CIA and have access to information that the general public does not have, you don't know that; you don't know the full extent of what they did. Most probably, however, Russian interference very likely did affect the 2016 election outcome... but not due to Russian Facebook posts.
Again: the election was extraordinarily close, and very small effects in a handful of states would have changed the outcome; the collective effect of the Russian h [cnn.com]
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The question is whether a few hundred thousand impressions on Facebook ads caused Hilary to lose the election in '16. And if you believe that, yes, you've been mislead (I hate to say sheep, since it's been promoted by just about everyone in the media).
I would counter that with enough targeted misinformation on social media one could make a lot of people do even more completely crazy things - like storming the capitol for example.
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If you want anything to change, you have to stop blaming Russia and realize that Trump won because he spoke to the working-class people that have been hurt by neoliberal policies, which have been pushed by both parties since Jimmy Carter. Now, Trump didn't DO anything for those people, but he at least acknowledged they exist, which is more than we can say for Hilary.
Beware of people who provide easy answers. Hillary also had ideas to help the working class but they didn't sound as easy and didn't fit into catchy sound bites the way Trump's answers did. The best example of this was the loss of coal jobs. "Bring back coal" just sounds so much better than "retrain the coal miners so they can work in a different industry."
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The question isn't whether or not Russia wants to influence our elections (they always have) or if they prefer Trump to Hilary or Biden (they do). The question is whether a few hundred thousand impressions on Facebook ads caused Hilary to lose the election in '16. And if you believe that, yes, you've been mislead (I hate to say sheep, since it's been promoted by just about everyone in the media).
I fail to see the relevance of that to... well, pretty much anything. No, it's not clear that Hillary could have won even without Russian interference (though the interference that mattered most wasn't the ads, or the social media manipulation, but the email hacking that brought the email issue back to the forefront and motivated Comey's October Surprise). But that doesn't change the fact that Russia clearly did attempt to manipulate the election in Trump's favor, and that Trump not only tacitly (and even o
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They're definitely NOT better off. We've got 2 generations now (millenials and zoomers) who can't afford to marry, buy houses, or have kids.
Those aren't the working class voters Trump is talking to. The millennials and zoomers are quite liberal, even leftist / anti-capitalist. This is a big problem for the GOP. Actually, I think the anti-capitalism streak among the younger generation is a big problem for everyone. All of the most successful nations are heavily capitalist, because markets work better than any other system of economic optimization we've found.
The yawning gap of inequality is turning us into a third-world shithole.
Spoken like someone who has no personal experience of third-world shitholes. I actually
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Hillary was a terrible choice, especially given how the choice was made.
However, given that it was close enough that the EC and the popular vote differed, it's not at all far-fetched to think that an outside influence made a real difference.
Just look at how big the stink was with the Trump supporters even with a margin large enough that the EC and popular vote matched.
But Hillary is gone now.
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Here's the thing.
Trump ran for president because he was the leader of a failing brand. His businesses were in debt, and he's basically becoming a has-been and completely irrelevant to the world. Running for president could do nothing but at least show the world Trump is relevant again. At the very least, he could use that new found publicity to keep his business going. President Trump did a lot promotion for the Trump brand, and his sphere of influence grew.
Trump has a lot of debts, so Russia saw a double
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they will mod down anyone who accurately describes their actions, and there will be zero repercussions because the slashdot moderation system was designed to enable abuse
Do you want some cheese with that?
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Except his prediction proved accurate. While his comment did get modded up overall, someone threw in a 'troll' mod.
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'there will be zero repercussions because the slashdot moderation system was designed to enable abuse'
From my vantage point, the slashdot moderation system rewards friends and punishes enemies, real and imagined. It's become surprisingly arbitrary
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. . .noting that none of the similar activities by China were even mentioned ??
China sanctioned for election interference too... (Score:2)
Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:5, Informative)
US intelligence agencies found other attempts to sway voters, including a “multi-pronged covert influence campaign” by Iran intended to undercut Trump’s support. The report also punctures a counter-narrative pushed by Trump’s allies that China was interfering on Biden’s behalf, concluding that Beijing “did not deploy interference efforts.” “China sought stability in its relationship with the United States and did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk blowback if caught,” the report said.
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In comes Salgak1 the first of the anti-China idiots to deflect against Trump.
Where is the evidence of anything of the sort Salgak1 ?
Those of us who do Threat Intelligence for a living, know that Chinese hacking is every bit as prevalent as Russian hacking.
This has nothing to do with Trump. You might also recall the OPM hack [wikipedia.org], which was linked to the People's Republic of China, and also compromised large amounts of sensitive information. That's one of the big exemplars. . . . .
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Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Georgi Arbatov said it best, in the late 1980's; “Our major secret weapon is to deprive you of an enemy”; “It’s historical, it’s human, you have to have an enemy,”; “So much was built out of this role of the enemy. Your foreign policy, quite a bit of your economy, even your feelings about your country. To have a really good empire, you have to have a really evil empire.”
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What's the Republican/Trump Supporter reaction to this?
To your attempt to blame even your lackluster "win" on Russia? (A sort of anti-matter red scare ... the left can't forgive them for going un-red.)
Reaction. Well, mostly a snort. Well, maybe more of a chortle. Possibly a guffaw? Then there's always the horse laugh ...
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Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm old enough to remember when Russia was the Republican's #1 enemy.
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Something along the lines of ...But his laptop
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Probably along the lines of "Biden copies Trump -- again".
You may be old enough to remember the 2012 presidential debates, after the Republican candidate identified Russia as America's greatest geo-political adversary, and Joe Biden's ticket-mate dismissively responded: "the 1980â(TM)s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back".
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To be fair, China is eclipsing, or rapidly eclipsing, the threat Russia poses. Russia is by and large a regional power now. Yes, it has nukes, but it simply does not have the economic engine or the captive group of partners like the Warsaw Pact. That's not to say Russia is not a threat, it most certainly is, but it is not what the Soviet Union was.
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A critical distinction is that the soviet union was effectively shut out and mostly isolated in just about all respects. China is not; to the contrary, a lot of companies, huge american corporations are completely reliant on trade with China. I think this whole anti-russia angle isn't completely without merit, but mostly a red-herring, where Biden et al. are looking for an antagonist in their narrative, more for the purposes of internal consumption. Who cares if you offend a country that you don't really tr
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All election interference should be dealt with exceptionally harshly, but it's telling that Iran interfered in favor of Biden, Russia interfered in favor of Trump, and only Russia's getting heat on it. While the US is forging along with a favorable Iranian nuclear deal.
They should both be sanctioned.
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
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Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:5, Informative)
So Biden admits he got the presidency illegitimately?
That's a reasonable interpretation of events if you have your head lodged solidly up your ass, and therefore don't read this paragraph from TFA:
So the assertion is that Biden won the election despite interference from Putin, not because of it.
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Does anybody else feel worried when the common narrative is: "when your guys wins, it's because of foreign interference but when my guy wins, it's despite foreign interference."
Trump was an arsehole but don't dismiss that:
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Reason and facts are lost among so many here in America. Many of us have a hard time tolerating truth.
Yes, indeed, consider the likelihood that both Russia and China have made significant and effective efforts to 'interfere' with our elections, and actually both for and against all candidates, and not merely for the office of President. Any form of disruption and confusion serves their causes.
Sadly, I pay little attention to politics in the EU beyond the unpleasant Brexit squabble, so I miss if any of the m
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Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anybody else feel worried when the common narrative is: "when your guys wins, it's because of foreign interference but when my guy wins, it's despite foreign interference."
Only when people are lying about it.
The fact is that in both 2016 and 2020 foreign interference was not only predominantly in favour of Trump, but Trump was the only candidate to actively encourage and welcome foreign interference.
Blaming both sides when only one side is to blame just gives bad actors cover to keep acting badly.
Trump was an arsehole but don't dismiss that:
For sure, he did build domestic support, though he also managed to build a lot more domestic opposition (which is why he lost his job).
That the same report mentioned in TFA talks of Iran trying to sway the election to Biden.
If I recall Iran & China supported Biden, but didn't actually follow through with an active interference campaign because they were worried about getting caught and being sanctioned like Russia is now.
that intelligence agencies routinely lie (WMDs in Iraq; illegal wars in Central America funded by arms sales to Iran to circumvent Congressional approval etc etc)
And, no, I am not a Trump supporter. I'm one of those horrible, slightly socialist Europeans as my 10 year history of posting on Slashdot will demonstrate.
Not to beat a dead horse but the WMDs in Iraq wasn't intelligence agencies lying as much as the administration lying about what the intelligence agencies found. As for Central America, intelligence agencies can get directed to do bad things by the administration in charge, and Trump, despite controlling the intelligence agencies and being up to his neck in shenanigans never really demonstrated any evidence of election interference in favour of Biden.
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No one denies the power of the Faux News/Russia propaganda machine. And, like clockwork when shit implodes on them like the Trump administration they start up with the "both sides" narrative.
I'm curious what talking points the Iranians generated to make Biden more popular. Biden's win was driven the same way as Obama's; Americans watching a moron fumbling about in office.
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"Trump was an arsehole but don't dismiss that:
about 10 million more people voted for him in 2020 than 2016,"
I dismiss it because it is not relevant.
He still couldn't win the popular vote, which is also not relevant.
Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see. Trump slapped sanctions on Russia so Putin wanted him to win reelection.
Trump's toy sanctions are irrelevant.
Were the unnamed intelligence officials the same fifty who signed the letter insisting that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian spycraft? It's hard to tell, isn't it?
I don't get what you're trying to imply here. Unnamed intelligence officials say that Russia meddled in our elections. And so do those fifty named officials.
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Acceptance of abuse is not tolerance. It's just being abused.
Feel free to inspect the moderation history
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My comments about this are being moderated up and yours aren't.
Perhaps you aren't as clever as you imagine.
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Being modded up doesn't make you right
Never said it did.
just like being modded down didn't make you wrong.
Never said that did, either.
Your point was valid.
I know.
Your subsequent descent into whiney stupidity was not.
So my point was valid, but don't make it? \/\/
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My comments about this are being moderated up and yours aren't.
Perhaps you aren't as clever as you imagine.
Or perhaps I don't base my personal worth as a human on /. moderation. Stop being such a baby.
Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump didn't slap sanctions on Russia, Congress did.
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Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:5, Informative)
Trump was tougher on Russia than Obama or Sliden...
Unfortunately not. Trump was trying to normalize relations with Russia and reduce the sanctions. He suggested giving Crimea to Russia [politico.com] and denied that Russians conducted cyberattacks [forbes.com] against the US. Trump only put in the sanctions when he was forced to do so by a veto-proof supermajority of Congress [slashdot.org], supported by both parties, and even then he delayed it as long as possible.
Trump was the only one who seemed to disagree with this position.
There's no chance biden will put that many in place with the millions his family is getting from russia.
So in response to an article where Biden added sanctions to Russia, you claim that Biden will not add more sanctions to Russia.
Just musing here I don't understand why there are individuals who defend Trump for things he *didn't do* Like, nobody posts a comment thanking George Bush for avoiding a conflict with Iraq, since that didn't happen. Nobody posts a comment thanking Ronald Reagan for passing a comprehensive healthcare bill, since he didn't do that. Yet you see posts thanking Donald Trump for bringing manufacturing back to the US, imposing Russian sanctions, and all sorts of things. Some of them are the very opposite of what he stood for! That's really weird! I wonder what the reaction would be if I trolled these people by doing the same thing.
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Sorry for the bad closing tag! Apparently I failed to preview and half my comment and the link was lost...
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It isn't spin. It's a simple fact. In fact, Congress pretty much ignored Trump's attempts to minimize or mitigate sanctions, and handed him a veto-proof bill on sanctions, pretty much tying his hands. So the only spin here I see is your attempt to make something that wasn't Trump's idea, and in fact ran counter to what Trump wanted to do, as somehow being Trump's big accomplishment. Congress, in bipartisan votes, gave Trump absolutely no choice on the matter.
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Russia has been cultivating the con artist for 40 years [theguardian.com].
The orange buffoon is so simpleminded and easily manipulated that he paid for Russian propaganda to be printed:
âoeThis is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: it is people like him who could change the world. They fed him these so-called active measures soundbites and it happened. So it was a big achievement for the KGB active measures at the time.â Soon after he returned to the US, Trump began exploring a run for the Republican nomination for president and even held a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On 1 September, he took out a full-page advert in the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe headlined: âoeThereâ(TM)s nothing wrong with Americaâ(TM)s Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone canâ(TM)t cure.â The ad offered some highly unorthodox opinions in Ronald Reaganâ(TM)s cold war America, accusing ally Japan of exploiting the US and expressing scepticism about US participation in Nato. It took the form of an open letter to the American people âoeon why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselvesâ. The bizarre intervention was cause for astonishment and jubilation in Russia. A few days later Shvets, who had returned home by now, was at the headquarters of the KGBâ(TM)s first chief directorate in Yasenevo when he received a cable celebrating the ad as a successful âoeactive measureâ executed by a new KGB asset.
As we saw during the previous four years, the con artist never said a single bad word about Russia or its actions. The con artist even
Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:5, Interesting)
interference in last year's presidential election as well as the hacking last year of federal government agencies
So Biden admits he got the presidency illegitimately? Where is the investigation into his ties with Putin? How about a few rounds of impeachment?
You should be that lucky, but keep comforting yourself with wishful thinking. This is exactly what Sergei Lavrov and Dmitry Medvedev (who reportedly opposed any interference in US elections including the DNC and RNC hacks) predicted would happen after Putin pulled the DNC hacking stunt back in 2016; i.e. that the Trump presidency might lead to short term benefits for Russia if Trump won but that long term it would lead to a lengthy string of Democrat led administrations who would be extremely hostile to Russia. This is made even worse for Russia given that their interference does not seem to have had any truly decisive effect on the 2016 election outcome while the consequences will be keenly felt by the Putin regime for years to come.
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This would be a point of concern only if there was any consensus that the Russians had somehow actually been hopeful that the Democratic Party would be elected in the first place.
Re:So what's the reaction? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't be an ass, Putin hates Biden and vice versa. Putin loves Trump, who has been laundering money for the Russians since the late 90s. Don't pretend Putin helped get Biden elected, that's a schoolyard-level "I know you are but what am I" retort.
Go ahead and try an impeachment if your side thinks it has the political capitol to pull it off. You'd be shooting yourselves in the foot, and I like to see traitors harming themselves. It helps the country when corporate loving, America hating, power hungry GOP assholes do stupid shit that illustrates who and what they really are. And unlike the GOP, I want the country to succeed.
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aw.
is someones wittle feelings hurt.
aw w w w w w w w
Retaliation (Score:1)
They should have retaliated against SolarWinds, who has shown they can't even remotely keep their software secure. Also there are plenty of alternatives to SolarWinds now, so there is no reason to keep using anything from that company.
So much for (Score:2)
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The dumbfuck is the person who doesn't know those upgrades are within the treaty's limitations, and the new weapons systems developed by Russia are not. And then think lying about it is a good line of attack.
Putin didn't overthrow Canada and tried to bring it into the Warsaw Pact,
The US doesn't have a recent history of conquering its neighbors (1812 and 1848), nor have they taken large chunks of the territory of those neighbors in the last few years (Crimea wasn't Putin's first conquest).
It's idiotic to think those neighbors will just sit there and cede territory instead of tur
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Ooo, another swing and a miss. The willful dumfuckery is pretending that America updating its arsenal is okay, but Russia doing a fraction of that in response is bad.
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The 80's where the CIA was overthrowing democracies and deploying death squads, and giving money and weapons to the future Al Queda, not to repel Soviet forces, but to lure them into Afghanistan? Then there's the fact that the Donald J. Obama's nuclear upgrade program would fund Russia's entire military for more than 20 years. American Exceptionalist hypocrite, heal thyself.
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Your fascist butthurt and inability to deal with basic facts is noted.
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Willful dumbfuckery. China doesn't have multiple carrier fleets, a thousand military bases around the world, had a worldwide kidnapping and torture program, invaded or bombed a dozen countries for bullshit reasons, and overthrown multiple democracies. Just this century. That would be you, Sparky.
Dumb.
Fuck.
Er.
Eee.
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Just because the US and their western european pals were all about colonialism and empire, doesn't mean China (or anyone else) wants to do the same. Hong Kong and Taiwan were parts of China until the aforementioned colonialism came along.
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Hilarious projection. It's not China that has overthrown dozens of democracies post WWII, it's not China that is occupying the majority of the planet, it's not China that has 1,000 overseas military bases when it's faced only a single invasion of its country in its entire existence (in a war it started), it's not China that is bombing a dozen countries right now for bullshit reasons.
That's all you, Sparky.
Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election--an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted.
Oh, the horror.
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The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election--an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted.
Oh, the horror.
Um, yeah. That's their self-evaluation of it. Duh.
They "protected the election" by massively coordinating, suppressing speech they didn't like, changing laws and regulations at the last minute, and causing a massive change in how people vote (making fraud way easier).
But yeah, Russia bought some facebook ads or something. So okay ...
Election Interference (Score:1)
Well, here's the kettle calling the pot black!
How long do you think it will be (Score:3)
Before Glenn Greenwald objects?
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Anyone who doesn't have their head up their ass is already doing so. The rest are sure Saddam's WMD's and 911 masterplan will surface any day now. Any day now....
WW III (Score:2)
Why can't we do more covert acts instead? What does the CIA do with its $15 billion budget? .. could lead to WWIII.
This act is too overt and destabilizing
Not Just the Election (Score:2)
This was also a response to the SolarWinds hack, a massive breach of the US Government by Russia.
And what was Trump's response? Defending Russia and spreading election conspiracies instead [wikipedia.org].
This is exactly one of the reasons why candidates should reject foreign election interference. Leaders are supposed to be loyal to the country they lead. But when a foreign power played dirty to get you elected you now have split loyalties and end up doing bizarre stuff like defending a hostile power that just attacked yo
Watch "Spinning Boris" (Score:2)
A fine, funny movie with Jeff Goldblum, Anthony LePaglia, and basically all true.
America has this law against state actors "interfering" in elections, by providing any information, lies, or truth, to the populace to help(?) them decide how to vote.
There's no such law against British Petroleum (American branch office) electioneering, just Britain itself.
In Russia, they didn't know HOW to run an election campaign when Boris Yeltsin actually needed to, so they hired American consultants, who showed him how to
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So... you are saying the U.S. had cured itself of racism until that rascally Putin came along? I laughed so hard milk came out my nose. And I'm not even drinking milk.
Re:Dementia Joe (Score:5, Funny)
“Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor
and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good
genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton
School of Finance, very good, very smart —you know, if
you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if,
like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m
one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s
true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they
try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start
off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there,
went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to
give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little
disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the
thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy,
and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is
powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many
years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he
would explain the power of what’s going to happen and
he was right—who would have thought?), but when you
look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it
used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and
even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger;
fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they
haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now
than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about
another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators,
the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just
killed, they just killed us.”
--Donald J. Trump 2015
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Ya know... People will remind you that half the country voted for this guy and tell you that many people can't be wrong. Then you hear/read something like this again and you remember, yes they can.
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This looks like the kind of statement you get when you just continually accept the auto-suggested word over and over again when typing on an Android keyboard.
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Of course it makes no sense without the delivery. 100 years from now, things like this will be studied from the original audio-visual sources, and maybe we'll understand how a properly inflected word salad can sway minds.
This isn't a speech, so much as it is a song. Trump speaks of the pompatus of hate, and his audience eats it up and wants to make sure that the show goes on?
Trump has a mental state? (Score:2)
Is that a real quote or cobbled together from a number of the stupid things he said? The problem is that never could listen to him for more than a a couple of sentences and reports of his stupid sayings were often reduced to the highlights.
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https://youtu.be/Elhyo-_fR0E [youtu.be]
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Projection much?
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Causality works in an interesting direction in your universe.
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You think that Ukraine got the balls to do something all of the sudden without US backing?
Do you think seizing another country's territory is an acceptable act? And what, exactly, should that country do in response?
Also, do you have any idea that history started before 2014?
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Do you realize the history before 2014?
Yep. For example, I'm aware that Russia also annexed parts of other countries before Crimea.
Which made the Ukraine reasonably uncomfortable with Russia's territorial ambitions. Which made Ukraine start talking to the EU and NATO, because they didn't want Russia to carve them up like Russia did to Georgia.
The point is Russia wouldn't have seized Crimea if the US wasn't fucking around in the first place.
Again, history did not start in 2014, as much as you want to ignore everything Russia did between 1990 and 2014.
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that caused US to think Russia was such a huge threat
Wrong countries.
The subject is Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia, and similar countries thinking Russia is a huge threat.
The US isn't terribly concerned that Russia will try to annex Alaska. But that doesn't mean Russia won't try to annex parts of other neighbors. And, in fact, has.
US fucking hammers nails into the bear's feet and expects that Russia doesn't lash out.
You realize "but our economy isn't doing well" is not an excuse for annexing parts of your neighbors, right?
NATO was fucking around with Georgia since early 2000
And Russia has been fucking around with Georgia for centuries. For some odd reason, they felt they needed to talk to NATO afte
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Seriously. It was Russia that invaded and annexed Crimea and effectively seized other parts of Ukraine's territory. If anything it was Western dithering, and not offering more fulsome support to Ukraine, that lead to this event. And frankly, maybe it's time NATO actually put significant forces in Ukraine, rather than just "military advisers", but a lot depends on Germany these days, who is less than keen to kick the bear.
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NATO and the US were fucking around and cross Russia's red lines
And Russia was fucking around and crossing Ukraine's red lines. And Georgia's red lines. And a host of their other neighbor's red lines.
Oh, and there's also the lengthy history of Russia repeatedly conquering these countries, which for some reason makes them a tad antsy about an expansionist Russia that starts seizing chunks of their neighbors.
How dumb do you have to be to think those neighbors aren't going to turn to the only powers that can make Russia think twice?
Be nice to your neighbors, and they don
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You think Russia is expansionist? Try looking at the US, who the hell has been bombing the whole fucking world for the last 30 years
What territory has the US annexed from another country in the last 50 years?
Just to save you the effort of trying to claim a lease on a base is exactly the same a conquest, the answer is none.
That's not to say the US's history is all wonderful. It means we're not going around saying "This land is the US now!!".
How dumb do you have to be to not notice US bullying
How dumb do you have to be to think annexation and bullying are the same thing?
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Nope. Because then you'd have to give them rights and let them vote
Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and our other territories would like to remind you they exist, and don't get to vote.
Also, Russia has plenty of economic resources for a similar economic domination of others. But Russia is unwilling to reduce corruption enough to pull it off, and isn't willing to use the diplomatic techniques required to pull it off.
After all, the main reason the PNAC idiots drove us into Iraq was fear of the power of a less-corrupt Russia.
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Damn, it's almost like there was a reason I included "That's not to say the US's history is all wonderful."
US uses proxies to fuck up the world, threaten security of nations around the world, uses US law in an extraterritorial fashion.
Yep. It's an economic domination. Russia has the resources to do it too. However they aren't willing to cut down on their corruption, so those resources aren't used to greatest effect.
Would Russia have taken Crimea if US wasn't fucking around?
Again, you're pretending history started in 2014.
- Russia starts fucking around with its neighbors, including annexing 20% of Georgia
- Ukraine becomes concerned that its also a target, starts talking to NATO.
- Russian
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Here's the funny thing. You focus on "annexation". Others focus on how much territory US has fucked up over the last 30 years.
Here's the funny thing. You focus on murder. Others focus on theft...
Similarly, annexation is significantly worse than economic domination.
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Attempting to influence the election is not the same thing as interference. Attempting to influence the election through nefarious means, like fake social media posts is also not the same thing as interference.
Interference would include things such as disrupting the delivery of ballots to polling places or to voters, sabotaging voting machines, casting fraudulent votes, hacking voting machines or counting machines, etc.
As far as I know, none of that was done by the Russians. Everyone in the world has a ve
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I'll point out that whatever else you can say about him, Trump didn't get us involved in a single new war.
Let's see how long that lasts.
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Time didn't start today.
Russia has a long history of conquering its neighbors. Putin and friends already started ripping off chunks of those neighbors before they ripped of a large part of Ukraine. It's idiotic to think those neighbors are not going to turn to the only powers that can make Russia think twice.
Also, Russia was given plenty of chances to become an ally after the cold war. They weren't interested. They still aren't. Putin wishes to recreate "Greater Russia" from its history. And if you ac
P.S.: This was not trolling, you moderatrolls! (Score:2)
You might disagree,
but you do not get to censor something by calling it trolling, just because you're deluded, prejudiced and triggered like a baby.
I suggest getting a therapy instead. After renoucing Trump/Biden as your deity.
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