Why would they lie? What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid? Why would you do anything other than take allegations of yet another Kremlin attempt to interfere in fair elections as seriously as the people of Europe and Ukraine have learned, the hard way, that they must?
One reasonable reason for why they would lie is that their jobs are somewhat political and the person being targeted is likely going to be their boss soon. Claiming Russia is behind the hacks draws attention away from the hacks themselves, the shady campaign finance allegations they brought to light and the fact that Clinton was storing classified data in her home (I know the hacks were not of that particular server, but the two are still related.)
In a world where James Clapper is willing to egregiously lie, under oath, to congress, the default assumption that these people can be trusted to automatically tell the truth is suspect.
So far, the main evidence that I can find that links the hacks to the Russian government are two things:
1. Some of the documents had Russian metadata added to them. 2. The timing of the attacks seems to follow public holiday schedules for the Russian government.
These are both reasonable items of circumstantial evidence but it doesn't seem to be enough to accuse a foreign government directly.
Since this event has national political implications, and since the people making the statements have good reasons for being less than truthful, I am happy waiting for better evidence before making a decision one way or the other.
As well as, from the private sector:
Various forms of infrastructure correlation analysis [1]
Correlation with past Fancy Bear breaches [2]
Very similar phishing tactic of link shorteners to steal email credentials (see for details) [3]
Similar RATs and C&C protocols [4]
Google independently correlating attacks with what they believe to be state-sponsored TTPs [5]
Correlation between all targets associated with a shared set of indicators, and the Russian government's geopolitical goals [6]
Additionally, Kaspersky, a Russian infosec firm founded by Eugene Kaspersky (Kaspersky is highly suspected to have had Russian intelligence ties, so of anyone he would want to challenge the US's story here) and who broke several stories about NSA's attacks and tools, names one of the groups as CozyDuke. [7] They do not explicitly say they're Russian, but they agree that they are one of the groups responsible for attacks against the US government. Crowdstrike calls this same group Cozy Bear (Kaspersky named them CozyDuke after Crowdstrike already established Cozy Bear) and other firms strongly believe them to be tied to the Russian government. They do not provide any evidence confirming or denying attribution either way. If they had even the slightest inclination that it wasn't Russia, I imagine they'd be pushing it hard.
Plus, probably a whole bunch of classified information gathered by US intelligence agencies if they're willing to make this claim publicly now.
And anecdotally, everyone else I know in the infosec industry agrees it's probably Russia. No company in the US or in countries with governments that oppose the US have provided differing stories. Admittedly, the fact that it's mostly US companies tying it to Russia should cause you to be skeptical, but you can read their actual analyses and fact-check them easily. No competing firms or competing countries have questioned their facts.
That's not necessarily proof Russia is trying to influence the election, sure, but they're definitely trying to piss in the US government's cheerios at the least. And I wouldn't doubt NSA has made plenty of Russian infiltrations of their own in the past; probably how Kaspersky got their hands on some of their tools in the first place.
[1] https://www.threatconnect.com/blog/tapping-into-democratic-n...
[2] https://www.threatconnect.com/blog/fancy-bear-it-itch-they-c...
[3] https://www.threatconnect.com/blog/guccifer-2-0-dnc-breach/
[4] https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
[5] http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/08/dnc-staffer-got-pop-...
[6] https://debugged.wilsoncenter.org/evaluating-the-dnc-hack-b0...
[7] https://securelist.com/blog/research/69731/the-cozyduke-apt/
When they're willing to lie to our face under oath, trying to sell us secret evidence isn't going to buy much.
All signs point to Russia; no signs (currently) point away from Russia; the public and private sector are in agreement; Obama is ballsy enough to call them out on it to their face; Russia has plenty of motive and more than enough talent to do it; it's probably Russia.
I'm not saying I trust the current administration or the intelligence community at all. I also wouldn't put it past Clapper to lie to other countries about various matters (just as he repeatedly lied and probably will continue to lie to the American public and Congress). Their job is to lie. I'm sure they lie about a lot of things.
But it would be dumb of them to make this particular accusation formal without pretty good proof, and all other independent analyses published support the accusation.
Doesn't that sound just a tad wild even for a conspiracy theory?
The server was a simple 'mistake' anyone could 'accidentally' make; I honestly think people don't understand how easy it is to accidentally configure a mailserver, happened to me just this morning.
>Doesn't that sound just a tad wild even for a conspiracy theory?
Sadly, it doesn't sound wild at all.
Should be "... how easy it is to accidentally configure a Sendmail server..."
Frankly, it's hard to do that in a post-Snowden, post-Comey world.
I'd say it's completely impossible to do that :)
I'll repeat the question:
> Why would they lie? What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid?
This is ridiculous. Why would they not lie? The US intelligence community appears to lie reflexively about everything. Why would anyone take their words at face value?
Are you joking? Do you not see the massive political motivation there?
And of course, the US government has a great track record with telling the truth about security issues.
No one who gets any position that requires Senate confirmation is "not really a politician" (and, yes, that includes general/flag officers in the military) -- they may be purely bureaucratic rather than electoral politicians, but they are politicians nonetheless.
But, yeah, I don't see a lot of evidence that Clapper is a Democratic (or other) partisan.
> What gives you reason to think they (not the DNC!) be that colossally stupid?
The political motivation is what would make lying here colossally stupid.
Technically all officers also have this treatment but Senate oversight and intervention is much lower, and the batches are much bigger.
I am aware of no commonly used definition of "political appointee" that does not include (among others) all officers of government that go through the appointment-by-the-President-and-confirmation-by-the-Senate process that applies to -- as well as to officials that get more media attention for this process -- all military officers (and with notably more personal attention in the process to 1-star and higher ranks -- generals and admirals.)
(There's almost no chance there is a conspiracy here. I think it is probably Russia.)
- To distract us from their own incompetence. - To avoid talking about the content of those leaks (from memory, the WaPo is an arm of the DNC that they hold illicit fundraisers with, the DNC funneled all of the money to Hillary from the outset so Bernie never had a shot, etc.) - To paint Trump as an agent of a foreign power (he's bad enough even after you filter out the nonsense).
They turned off logging on those servers to avoid transparency. If they want me to believe claims like this, I'll need to see the full server logs from the email server. Oh, wait, they destroyed those. How convenient.
My thoughts are that the elections will continue to get worse as long as we keep voting for lizards to keep the wrong lizard from winning. Anyone who tells you you're limited to the choices made for you on the ballot bears some personal responsibility for the mess.
The worst thing is that you tend to get blamed for "victim-blaming" when you point this sort of thing out. No one ever wants to admit that they should have paid attention to security instead of jury-rigging things together incompetently.
People like to make analogies to hackers being street-robbers attacking interesting-looking defenseless people. If you suggest that people should have secured their infrastructure better, they look at you like you suggested that people walk around on the street with body armor. No! Most hacks you hear about are like if a bank kept everyone's money in a pile in the corner of the front lobby and insisted on an honor code to make people stay away from the pile. Yes, the thief that takes something from the pile committed a crime, but that bank was incompetent in securing what their consumers trusted to them and has a great share of the blame.
However, the government, and the DNC too, are only interested in security when they can't just use their thugs instead. We're way behind in cyberwarfare precisely because our federal government thinks like a thug ... or in other words, like a big dumb criminal.
The DNC gets political mileage out of being hacked because they can create a controversy (blaming Russia) and look good (their opponent isn't as anti-Putin as they are).
Why should they ask their contractors for better security? They pay top dollar and are getting what they want: none of the hassles of real security, and if ... when they get hacked, they get to choose their response:
(1) blame Russia
(2) blame Trump
(3) blame the contractor
(4) blame the government
I'm sure there are more response strategies, I'm just too lazy to think them all up. The point is, they're not ignorant of their incompetence. No, they are very competent and manipulating the ignorant masses who will believe them when they announce "Russia did it!"
(Everything I just said applies equally to the R party as well.)
If the DNC, RNC, or federal government was even halfway smart in their criminal mindset, they'd secure their systems. Maybe plant some honeypots. Probably fire all the government contractors who are leaving them wide open.
Your thesis: They purposefully left their security shoddy because maybe they'd get hacked and then blame Russia. This was worth the cost of all their e-mails being out in the open.
What do you think is more valuable? This accusation? Or not having to worry that every e-mail will be leaked.
Ocamm's razor (DNC is run by people with no notion of security and nobody cared) is a lot easier to believe, because it matches what basically every non-tech organization does.
Yes, the Democrats servers may not have been well secured.
How does that affect the issue of whether or not the Russian state was responsible for the hacking or sought to influence the election?
With a much larger pool of potential actors, it's more difficult to conclusively assume that exactly one actor is behind all of the hacks to the exclusion of all others.
The argument that Russia did it has never been that "only a nation state could do it" (which would leave lots of possibilities besides Russia).
It was that forensic analysis revealed specific indicators of specific threat groups that have been previously identified as being operated by specific components of the Russian government being the parties involved in the attacks. Motive is also a factor.
I mean, yeah, the door being unlocked means anyone could have gotten in without breaking it down and killed the guy, but its kind of natural to zero in on the guy whose fingerprints were on the knife and who had a motive to commit the murder.
What would you say if a guard let a foreign spy walk into the pentagon? Blame the spy?
Yes, you don't get immunity from espionage if the job was easy.
Trump is playing up the strong man role to the hilt. Clinton is playing up the strong woman role.
No matter how fond Trump is of another stereotypical strongman, do you really think that if he gets in to office and then tells Russia to get the fuck out of the Ukraine or Syria that he's going to take no for an answer?
Clinton will be much the same, except maybe not quite so batshit insane.
I'm afraid that no matter which candidate gets in to office, it's almost a certainty that there'll be war. We'll just be lucky if we scrape by without it turning nuclear.
The problem for Russia skeptics is that as easy as it was to own up the DNC, it is in fact very difficult to own it up in a way that points a finger back to Russia, because the "finger" in this case is a collection of IOCs forensically taken from previous attacks that are in most cases known only to law enforcement and to a few very reputable attribution firms.
If anyone truly wants to refute it, they just have to visit the forums SABU found and figure out if it's the right tool or not.
No one in eastern europe knows how to run a honeypot? Or the article is wrong that Russia attacked them? If they are attacking non government computers that doesn't include every candidate's website?
I have no question that Russia has infiltrated these machines and is as interested in manipulating elections as the US is capable, but manipulation through public disclosure of data is not a precedent Russia should want. I think the treatment of Russia is clearly a boogey man response and everyone would know that and know they needed such a deflection, if they were going to mount such a rough shod attack.
Forensics could only deal with a serial killer who collected used condoms to confuse them since he used too many. I have to wonder how many were cleverer and didnt make it into tales of the forensic experts.. Digital forensics can only recognize patterns and know what the chosen style was, which can at most eliminate amatuers that are too low value to attract attacks.
We're getting into Calvinball territory here.
(Nowhere did I say Russia attacks without traces, script kiddies just watch ninja films. They are among the tens of thousands of attackers that leave traces of attempts every few minutes. The only inherent advantage state attackers have is that they don't need to monitize so 90% of the ways they should get noticed are gone, leaving them to get noticed more by honeypots than people running machines on the open Internet with no specific plan to detect intrusions.)
It seems to me that embarassing leaks are best distracted away from the political news cycle by manufacturing a sexy story about Russian interference instead of trying to spin the content of the leaks themselves.
One, coverage of Trump in Russian media (which is almost entirely government-owned or controlled) is generally positive, and that of Clinton is generally very negative. You can clearly see the political preferences they're trying to push.
And two, it's actually a fairly easy sell to the public, because it plays well into the "degenerate West" narrative that Russian propaganda has been using as one of its lynchpins for several years now. When Trump comes out and says that he's against political correctness and immigration, he becomes a part of that narrative, as some sort of valiant crusader against "degeneracy", and his popular support becomes a "proof" of its existence.
1.) Paul Manafort, Trump's previous manager, received a cash payment of more than $12 million from Pro-Russia party in Ukraine
2) Donald Trump's campaign's ONLY intervention in the entire GOP platform was to remove anti-Putin language from the platform re: Ukraine.
3) Not only that, but just days before the RNC, Carter Paige, one of Trump's foreign policy advisers traveled to Russia and gave a speech attacking America's policies towards Russia, calling America's focus on democratization and fighting inequality "hypocritical."
4) The Intelligence community has confirmed that Russian Intelligence is responsible for the hacking of the DNC, which is an obvious attempt to harm Hillary Clinton's campaign.
5) Furthermore, Donald Trump called on Russia to release/hack any emails they could get their hands on.
6) Trump's campaign manager has ties to pro-Putin oligarchs who were propped up by the Kremlin. This isn't new information. As long ago as 2005, there were calls to McCain's people to try and do something about Manafort because he was working against American interests in the region.
7) Trump has praised Putin numerous times, calling him a far better leader than Obama.
8) Donald Trump has taken an anti-NATO stance.
>campaign ties to the Kremlin
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-clinton-foundation-state-and...
>speeches in Moscow that benefit the Kremlin
https://www.quora.com/Who-paid-Bill-Clintons-2-5-million-com...
We can play this game all day. Both US major federal political parties are neck deep in Kremlin corruption and ties to each other. Trump has also never taken an 'anti-NATO' stance, he wants to shake down NATO countries for cash to pay for protection, and so did Dubya, who threatened my country into joining the Afghan military adventure with that whole 'you are with us or our enemy' speech.
The question is, is Russia trying to get Trump elected which is hard to believe since they enjoy a pretty good relationship with the Clintons, but who really knows I will concede. I'm also not buying the secret IOCs that "verify" state sanctioned involvement, they verify similar attackers, that use a Russian VPS.
The end result is basically the same, but I feel like the second is easier to prove (By your points)
That's not the only plausible interpretation of the intervention. A desire for weak (perhaps particularly in terms of international standing) US leader could lead to efforts to specifically weaken Clinton's standing and nothing against Trump if Trump was seen as either unlikely to win in any case or already weak (or both). Or, perhaps, the overt manipulation on behalf of Russia that favors Trump is, itself, an attack on Trump's standing, while the overt content leaked is an attack on Clinton's.
A desire for Trump to win is not necessary to explain Russian intervention of the type that is alleged and apparent here.
I think it was a timely reminder to Putin that NATO has no interest in playing nice with Russia, and informed his actions in Ukraine and Syria.
And when the massive pro-democracy protests against electoral fraud in 2011 election started 2 months later, he started to take it as a personal threat. The rumor claims that this emotional response was a significant contribution to the course change (towards more authoritarianism) that followed.
Historical & Groundbreaking Endorsements Compiled:
The Chicago Tribune endorsed a Non-Republican for only the 2nd time in 163-years by supporting Johnson
The Atlantic endorsed a Presidential candidate for only the 3rd time in 159-years by supporting Clinton
The San Diego Union-Tribune endorsed a Democrat for the 1st time in 148-years by supporting Clinton
Detroit News endorsed a Non-Republican for the 1st time in 143-years by supporting Johnson
The Arizona Republic endorsed a Democrat for the 1st time in 126-years by supporting Clinton
Philadelphia endorsed a Presidential candidate for the 1st time in 108-years by supporting Clinton
The New Hampshire Union Leader endorsed a Non-Republican for the 1st time in 100+ years by supporting Johnson
The Cincinnati Enquirer endorsed a Democrat for the 1st time in 100+ years by supporting Clinton
The Desert Sun endorsed a Democrat for the 1st time in 90-years by supporting Clinton
The Dallas Morning News endorsed a Democrat for the 1st time in 76-years by supporting Clinton
The Tulsa World refused to endorse a Republican or Presidential Candidate for the 1st time in 72-years
The Houston Chronicle endorsed a Democrat for only the 3rd time in 70-years by supporting Clinton
The Richmond-Times Dispatch endorsed a Non-Republican for the 1st time in 36-years by supporting Johnson
USA Today gave a endorsement/non-endorsement for the 1st time in 34-years by opposing Trump
The Dallas Voice endorsed a Presidential candidate for the 1st time in 32-years by supporting Clinton
Wired endorsed a Presidential candidate for the 1st time in 25-years by supporting Clinton
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/the-wrap/article/Donald-...
so everyone is stupid in your opinion?
These are great days we're living, bros.
I'd much rather that people vote for Clinton because they made up their own mind and decided she was the better candidate, not because "well everybody told me to so I guess I better do what they say". That's scary.
No, I do not think it is a problem for any person or editorial body to share an opinion. I do not see it as a form of mind control to be exposed to other people's worldview. And Trump is exactly as hideous a human being as everyone has pointed out, besides being a deeply flawed candidate who is in over his head and has no capability to deliver on even a fraction of (what little) he has promised.
"Endorsements might taint the objective reporting we were trying to do in the rest of the newspaper. Moreover, [USA Today founder Al Neuharth] felt it was elitist to assume we know better than everyone else when it comes to voting."
[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/10/04/disendorsem...
Or, you know, doesn't want WWIII, like the rest of us.
They neutralised Georgia after Georgia attacked and killed several of their soldiers.
They seized (bloodlessly I might add) Crimea after the new western-imposed government threatened to end the perpetual lease of the Sevastopol naval base. I might also add that 'Maidan' was the 2nd western-sponsored 'revolution' in Ukraine in a decade.
Now Russia is defending a long-time ally in the middle east from western-backed terrorists.
Then there's also NATO advancing all around Russia, the various 'defensive' missile systems being installed by US-allied countries who happen to encircle Russia, etc...
> Could you count how many times in history yielding to bold advances of power hungry ruler served as effective deterrent to war?
The only one making bold advances is the US, and yes, Russia isn't yielding, and the US is making it a problem. But you're right, it is a deterrent to war - if a weak ruler like Yeltsin were still in power Russia would probably be in another dozen pieces right now, with wars raging in half of them...
wow, what universe do you live in where conquering a whole nation is justified by a few lifes lost or stopping a commercial agreement? disgusting
A twice elected democratic government of Ukraine was overthrown in a violent coup, orchestrated from abroad, that used neonazis to do the dirty work.
When this happened, the people of [what was then called] the "Autonomous Republic of Crimea" voted in favor of leaving what was left of Ukraine and rejoining the Russian Federation - which they were originally part of for longer than the US has existed.
Ukraine as a country has only existed for 20 some years. Before that is was a loose territory of different regions. The East was mostly ethnic Russians, the West was mostly other groups. And Crimea was always Russian.
The majority of the force used in Crimea composed of Russian solders that stood outside the gates of Ukrainian military bases, blocking them from leaving, to carry out orders to stop the referendum... Which turned out to be over 95% in favor of rejoining Russia.
> would you recognize the right of any of the Russian regions to vote for their independence?
Has the Russia government been overthrown? When it is, lets talk then, because the answer will depend on the circumstances of the event.
USSR/Russian overthrows/subversions so many it's not even funny. From which year do you want to count? 1917 1920 1964 1991 1993 1996 2012
Perfect example of russian propaganda.
> leaving what was left of Ukraine and rejoining the Russian Federation - which they were originally part of for longer than the US has existed.
Crimea was part of Russian Federation _for longer than the US has existed_???
Dude, stop smoking whatever you're on.
And which whole nation was conquered?
We already have a deterrent for war with Russia. Russia knows this, I think the US is forgetting it.
Should other countries have a plan in case of USA collapse? At least our codes got upgraded from a string of 0s... But I imagine there are some foreign officials worried. Russia has started calling America "not-agreement-capable" after recent events in Syria and a UNSC meeting.
But it cannot be allowed to dictate the bilateral terms between other countries. If Ukraine or Poland wants to be in NATO, it's not up to Russia to say "no". Especially given the histories of those countries, and Russia's role therein.
And that's basically what that "OMG NATO is surrounding Russia" thing boils down to.
It is if they have the power to stop it. The whole "moral justification" part is for plebes like us. If powers feel threatened by the movements of other powers in neighboring countries, they will act[1]. How they spin it to the public is secondary.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Quarantin...
The Kremlin had operational control of all nukes pre and post the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
There was no negotiations required to get them back except for a procedural "note of record". They would have been taken by force if necessary.
Russia is little more than a petro state whose economic fortunes are almost completely related to the price of oil.
Putin should be focusing on broadening the Russian economic base but is instead engaging in stupid military endeavors that are only kidding Russia friends. The EU would love to trade with Russia but his European tinkering had made it impossible for them to do so. The US is obviously not a fan. Give it a few years and he'll probably piss off China too (or they'll find the US and European relationships more useful) and the Ryssians will have little more to do than reminisce about the time they annexed Crimea.
The more probable reason in my eyes is that criminal Hillary is more likely to engage Russia in conflict.
Assumes the conclusion. Possibly they have been hacked, but the hacker sees no value in releasing that information. The publicly available data at hand may not be enough to reach a conclusion here.
I think what will probably happen is that the decreasing political power of conservative older (mostly white) people will lead to even more national extremism, and then the demographic changes will force the republicans to change to attract conservatives who aren't white. It saddens me to feel this is all but inevitable. I'm from a southern state but now live in one of those economically successful liberal coastal tech hubs. I wish there was more opportunity in the state I grew up in, but mostly I just see them wasting time and passing laws against gay people and transgenders in my home state.
Interestingly there is a similar issue facing China. If China and the US can avoid fighting a war against each other for 15 years, then the population of China will experience a movement to having many fewer workers per retired person, partly caused by having had so many more male than female children, they will get older. For example, see http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/chinas-t....
My fantasy then is China and the US don't destroy the world in a fight, and by 2030, China will be more focused on internal issues around retirement and economic retraction than trying to take small south China sea islands from the Philippines. Of course, US history shows that there's nothing that excites the population than a good war. Similar forces are at work in Russia too, with an aging population. And then China can gradually transition to being a real democracy (yeah, just like russia did, for a little while :-)). Putin is not going to live forever, but will he still be in power in 30 years?
So there might not really be a big RNC target. Also Republican outfits tend to be naturally more leaky anyways, so there's probably not much to have leaked.
Neoconservatives are typically of the opinion that the US can effectively intervene in foreign politics through the use of force, and they view such intervention through a moralistic lens. They typically attempt to justify interventions by using typically progressive causes such as "freeing women from oppression under Saddam's rule" or preventing other illiberal practices from happening.
While the circumstances used to justify military action are sometimes true, the defining characteristic of the neoconservative view is that the US should be actively promoting "democracy", "freedom", "women's rights", etc. all around the world.
When it comes down to it, these things are typically used as an excuse for the US to destroy lots of infrastructure, kill lots of people, and attempt to enact regime change.
Some notable examples of neoconservative intervention are the US invasion of Iraq and the US invasion of Libya.
What's interesting is the way that highly politicized statements about other countries, their customs, and their leaders are taken seriously in the US. At this point, most American support a neoconservative view of the proper US role in world affairs, and the moral high ground the US has with which to judge foreign situations.
Statements made advocating a neoconservative approach to world affairs must be political (and persuasive) in nature, because unlike the traditional causes for war (invasion, invasion of neighboring territory, etc.) without quite a lot of convincing it would not be apparent that intervention would be helpful or the alleged outcome possible simply by projecting force.
I'm not sure this is completely true. It's how conservatives frame liberals, but that's part of scoring political points. It does have some truth, but the mainstream of the Democratic Party, for example, is strongly free-market (ask the progressives, who despise them), and conservatives prefer a powerful government for security and law enforcement, religion (prayer in schools), abortion, etc.
I'm saying this in as non-partisan a way as possible: Encapsulating the opinions of a hundred million people in a sentence is tough, however. The best generalization I can come up with is that 'liberals' seek progress and change, and 'conservatives' seek to protect what they already have - and those perspectives apply to the economy, culture, and much more. Liberals want to develop clean energy to deal with climate change, conservatives want to preserve existing oil and gas industries. Liberals want to promote integration and the rights of minorities, conservatives want to protect traditional mores. Liberals believe the world can move forward and become more peaceful, conservatives believe humanity will never change and want military power.
Of course, very few real people actually fit those definitions.
My take is that both parties are both conservative by your definition... The majority of the policy objectives have to do with strengthening established interests and established money flows, and keeping established winners on top.
I also think both parties have a similar fondness for authoritarianism that you ascribe to conservatives.
On social issues there are bigger differences, but ultimately not many that would actually become law. When you filter the two parties alleged ideals and remove the things that would never become law, there is not much difference at all.
For instance, both parties strongly support the US foreign military intervention (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.) and massive public/private partnerships for the financial services industry and healthcare industry. These industries (defense, financial services, healthcare) make up the majority of campaign contributions to both parties.
> keeping established winners on top
On one hand, the unfortunate nature of politics is that interests obtain power, and then use it to protect it. However, minorities such as LGBTQ people, Black and Latino people, etc. are not vested interests.
> both parties strongly support the US foreign military intervention (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc.) and massive public/private partnerships for the financial services industry and healthcare industry. These industries (defense, financial services, healthcare) make up the majority of campaign contributions to both parties.
(... and oil and gas.) Yes and no. Both parties supported Iraq and support defense spending, but Iraq was GOP led and the GOP advocates military force far more often. Both are influenced by powerful interests, but the Dems want to regulate financial services more, the GOP wants to cut back. There is a vast difference between the parties' budget plans and vision of government. Positions on climate change and immigration are night and day.
I'm not sure how to characterize it more generally though, where they are the same and where they differ. It's an important, interesting question.
Yet no matter which party holds the presidency and controls the legislature, we end up with the same status quo year after year.
This would simply not be possible unless both parties were heavily invested in maintaining the status quo.
On the other hand, the best rhetoric to use when fundraising is about things that will not happen (overturning Roe vs Wade, for example) because then there is no accountability when the status quo continues. Not coincidentally, both parties use this particular issue as a major fundraising plank.
As I said, in some ways that is true and some ways it's not, but now we're going in circles.
The budget and economy, foreign policy (including wars), health care, and more were much different when Bill Clinton left office, when Bush left office, and now near the end of Obama's terms.
The courts have been and will be much different depending on who is elected. Congress acts very differently depending on which party controls it.
EDIT: LGBTQ rights are a big change of the status quo, as is a black President and changes in national health care. And before that, pre-emptive war, torture, Guantanamo, and mass surveillance were big changes. Congressional gridlock is ironically a big change, as is only 8 Supreme Court justices.
It would have been interesting to learn something about in what cases it's true about the status quo and in what cases it's not.
While politicians like to pretend that they are a source of progressive energy, any member of a major party will typically lag by at least several years on any important issue... until it's "safe" or "mainstream" enough not to threaten the status quo too much.
I simply do not believe that HRC and Obama suddenly realized that LGBTQ rights mattered, they are self-serving self-promoters who calculatingly switched their opinions only when it was advantageous to do so. Such horrible, unprincipled people do not deserve our support!
Communism is just as enemy of liberalism as Fascism is and for all intents and purposes both modern and classical liberalism are by far more compatible with current US conservatism than with either of those. And historically the opponents of laissez-faire capitalism were the conservatives who did not like the political and social changes that economic liberalism brought.
However the GP is quite correct that these days liberalism in the US is not focused about it's original or historic core values, modern US conservatives are the ones who root for the causes of traditional liberalism.
Liberalism in the way it was adopted by the left in the US is very much focused on statism and socialism way beyond what one might be considered traditionally liberal, especially considering that historically liberalism fought against taxation (especially progressive taxation) and government intervention.
What was and should be liberal today in the US is more in line with the "libertarian" worldview, while the "liberals" are more in line with socialism and it's various offshoots.
All this stuff about "in the US" and "typically of the opinion" is exactly why it's important to know which of the many definitions for terms like this an individual is using when they write or say something. I'm not trying to litigate what the "right" definitions are! I'm trying to understand one person's communication.
I wonder if there was no possible way to identify Russians (disregard the question whether the evidence is reliable and sufficient for a moment), or worse, if there was valid and sufficient evidence that the perpetrators were completely domestic, would this change the dialog at all? As in, would they suddenly start saying that they are taking measures to better protect government systems? Let's put aside the hope that they'd admit they screwed up and apologize. When was the last time you heard an intelligence official say that? Just hearing them say that they'll be securing systems better would be astounding for me, and I wonder what it would take to get an announcement like that.
Not that Putin doesn't want war.
This by the way was also the justification to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. Again, whether the fears at the time were correct (they weren't) is a different question. But if the mistake had been honest, I would say the attack would've been morally justified.
Do you agree? (I'm just trying to understand whether you really see the world in black and white in which case I'm not really interested in talking to you, or whether you can see that some times circumstances can be quite extreme which might call for extreme measures, in which case I'd be interested in finding out where we're disagreeing.)
Neville Chamberlain? Really? And who, in this curious conception, fits the role of Hitler?
I am embarrassed to say, but you've just changed my mind to vote for Trump.
I'm fundamentally a single issue voter. I think the most important problem is one that no one in the world is talking about right now: escalation with Russia. The situation has slowly been getting worse since 2002 when the US withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty [1] and is getting worse faster.
I also think there's a massive misinformation from the US government about its interactions with the Russian government. What I mean is that the narrative that the US government tells its citizens is that anything that the former does is very well justified (eg bombing Syria) whereas anything that the later does is just because Russians are evil (eg invading Ukraine). Yes, obviously the Russian government uses the same misinformation on their citizens, the difference is that the US is much more successful at this game at the international level. The problem with the citizens specifically is that if two governments are enemies and they have the support of their respective populations... you can imagine what a small leap it is to start war.
Yes, Trump is a racist dimwit, but I think that is secondary compared to the consequences of more war.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty
When I heard in the debate what Clinton wants; She wants to let Russia improve their nukes but not the USA's. Clinton Likes to call out Russia in public and calls for responses in public. ( I think calling this out in public isn't the most tactical thing to do, its not called poking the bear for nothing )
But, I am aware of Trump saying contradicting things. So its going to be a surprise.
Yeah, who knows, the guy is a moron, I'm not sure he himself knows what his position on the subject is.
> When I heard in the debate what Clinton wants; She wants to let Russia improve their nukes but not the USA's.
That definitely does not sound like Clinton. Reference?
> Clinton Likes to call out Russia in public and calls for responses in public.
Putin does that all the time too. I think they're both posturing for their domestic audiences, who want them to be strong against the "enemy".
Trump might be a moron in your eyes, I think he is very untalented in the political way of talking.
I don't think being comparable to Putin is good or smart.
I get what you're saying, but this has been textbook politics since forever. The most reliable way to rally people around you is convince them there is a great danger in X, and only you can save them from X. Every single politician does it. And it's easier if X is external. Clinton does it with "the Russians", Putin does it with "the Americans", Trump does it with "the Muslims and the Mexicans". In the UK Nigel Farage does with Europe/the immigrants.
I'm not saying that aren't some times external dangers. But these four characters I mentioned use this just as a political tool.
And this is was brought me to what I wrote at the top of this thread. This is very concerning especially in the case of Clinton/Putin, because when they've been using each other as a political tool eventually your population have been fed so much shit for so long, they actually hate the enemy country. And when that happens it gets even easier to start war. And that is really concerning :-/
[1][2] Trump is the only candidate who has openly floated the idea of using nuclear weapons. [3] Trump is ready to start a political pissing war with Mexico over a wall. [4][5] Trump wants to ban all Muslim travel to the US, and profile all US Muslims. [6] Trump, the "Law and Order" candidate, would prefer to convict minority men based on police testimony alone, never mind the courts [7] Trump is more militaristic, by his own admission, then George W. Bush [8] Trump called for direct intervention in Libya just like other leaders [9] Trump basically wants to steal oil from Iraq using our troops as the muscle [10] Trump is doing more sabre-rattling with China than Clinton, by a mile [11] Trump wants China to invade North Korea, or just have its leader assassinated
Trump, the anti-conflict vote? He makes everyone an enemy, including and especially our own citizens. His followers like him because he's a strongman, a bully. But sure, he's the anti-conflict vote because he admires Putin. Never mind the fallout for everyone else, especially poor, non-white citizens.
I suppose if you think an actual war is likely or possible with Russia then your fears are founded. That seems more than outlandish to me, and far from justification for putting a racist, misogynist bully in charge or the country and nominating Supreme Court justices.
--- 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCHQPCXbt1w 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVTAaJ1fzfc 3. Do you need a citation for this? 4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/07... 5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06... 6. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-s... 7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PakHtuTrvV8&feature=youtu.be... 8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnZFQiDR4hQ 9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZxD_RFvXpA&feature=youtu.be... 10. Watch the debates 11. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/09/27...
(Cited from another reply.) This misses the point. Most importantly, like Clinton (but really far MORE than Clinton), nothing he says has any particular aim other than objective emotion of the moment (except in the rare case there is another equally vacuous cause). Nor can you reliably predict behavior based on past statements by presidential candidates. It's a joke that people citing these clowns have clearly not understood. That being said, Trump likes economic and populist conflict, not actual war. He defers to experts for physical conflict and has no incentive to initiate as he is fundamentally an egoist. Would he rather spend 100 million on moving some ships around, or put his face on Rushmore. It's that simple.
Unfortunately, I don't think war with Russia is outlandish at all. Like I said, for the past 10 years Russia has been repeatedly saying that the US's missile "shield" is threatening their nuclear capabilities (please please see [1], or you won't understand where I'm coming from). Obviously, there is the question of: do they really believe their nuclear capabilities are threatened, or are they just using that as a talking point? If they actually do, that's by far more dangerous than anything Trump can do. You know what happens if you corner a rat, right?
All I said is that the above is more important than Trump's idiocy. I'm not sure why you think this is a myopic view. It's not like I don't know about the things you mentioned. I know about them and took them into account. In fact, I've always said I'd vote Clinton because Trump is too much of a wild card. But actually... as things are, I'd rather take the wild card.
[1] If you're actually interested in informing yourself about this, start with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqD8lIdIMRo The bit I'm talking about starts at 4:00 to roughly 9:00.
And just to get ahead of it: I've seen that video. I'm familiar with the topic. I think the idea of an actual war with Russia is very outlandish.
I think that we humans find it hard to conceive such humongous changes in the world around us. We're used to a certain background in our lives and under-estimate the likelihood of any scenario that changes that a lot. Evolutionarily this makes sense: if you always think that the things you've never seen changing will never change, you will be right almost all of the time (and I could just as well call you myopic for not believing _my_ scenario).
But at the same time if instead of going with your instinct of how likely it is that such an outrageous scenario would occur, you instead follow simple game theory, there is only a few ways out of this situation, at least that I can think of:
A) The USA says We acknowledge your concerns and and actually, we're not gonna build that shield after all (or some variation of this)
B) Russia says Actually, I'm just gonna lay down and be bullied into irrelevance
Do you see either of these happening? Things will have to get much worse before either of these happens. Do you see other alternatives?
The most obvious potential solution is some sort of tit-for-tat diplomatic agreement where both sides appear to win while both lose something. If your requirement to believe that is likely is for me to draft the proposal then your fears will be validated because I'm not qualified to do so.
To me it is more than far-fatched to believe 1) that the end-game of a highly multi-faceted socio-political issue has only a dichotomous outcome with no middle-ground, 2) that the "Law & Order" bully candidate would abandon the missile shield even though he admires Putin, or 3) even if the worst comes to pass that Russia would put itself into a position to fight the world's strongest military + an entire continent it neighbors, all with a questionable economy.
Of course you could call me myopic for not believing your scenario. 9/11 Truthers could say the same. But I'm not the one betting on a super long-shot hypothetical while ignoring the near-certain other negative outcomes that a Trump presidency brings. To ignore those factors can only be done from a place of privilege where his white male supremecist rhetoric isn't interpreted as a personal threat to your own well-being.
Dude, no need for this style of conversation.
2.) You, being "single issue" voter, ignore that trump is a psychopathic, women-hating, racist, tax-dodging, russia-affiliated antichrist who will bring shame and destruction to America.
3.) You are so afraid of Russia (they're failing economically, politically, and technically) that you would vote a madman into the US office. You are the type of people that would vote in Hitler.
No, I'm assuming that hillary would be very similar to obama and bush. You're the one making the wrong assumption.
> 2.) You, being "single issue" voter, ignore that trump is a psychopathic, women-hating, racist, tax-dodging, russia-affiliated antichrist who will bring shame and destruction to America.
Like I said above, I don't ignore any of the things you mentioned, as I've been following the subject extremely closely. In all likelihood I'm better informed about how flawed Trump is than you are.
> 3.) You are so afraid of Russia (they're failing economically, politically, and technically) that you would vote a madman into the US office (doubtful you're american anyways)
I'm not afraid of Russia, I'm afraid of war. War isn't "we win they lose". More likely, we both lose. In any case, you're mistaken in saying that they're failing in any of the categories you mentioned. Russia was failing in the 90s. I guess you haven't been keeping with the world outside of your bubble since then.
> You are the type of people that would vote in Hitler.
Aright buddy, just lost interest :D
It's worse than that. If Hillary was going to be similar to Obama, I'd be ok (not happy, but ok) with electing her.
Based on the available evidence though, Hillary is actually far more hawkish than Obama. She was the one pushing for intervention in Libya, Biden was entirely against it - and IIRC Obama has mentioned that as possibly the biggest mistake of his administration. She's also been repeatedly posturing for more intervention in Syria, as if that place isn't enough of a clusterfuck already.
She appears to lack any kind of introspection whatsoever about use of force (look up her comments on the aftermath of Libya...), and worse, appears to view it as some kind of a dick measuring contest (remember the whole "under sniper fire" thing? She clearly has a need to be seen as appearing tough...).
Frankly, I don't know which of Hillary or Trump is more scary. As flawed as Obama has been, I would vote for him in a heartbeat over either of them. Or Romney, for that matter (and I was a Bernie supporter, so that should tell you something).
lol you lost my interest here too. anyone who thinks obama and bush are the same has no clear grasp of reality
No, what this really is is an information campaign that both countries are playing against each other. You've got Crimea, Syria, other hotspots. Check out Trump's rhetoric: he admires Putin, he clearly doesn't want war. Check out Clinton's rhetoric: conflict.
Donald Trump being a racist Neville Chamberlain should make no one excited, but the neoliberal part of the Democratic party (which is clearly ascendant and has been for some time like the neoconservatives) doesn't like getting bullied in retaliation for being a bully.