So, here we are again, repeating history, deja vu Iraq war and WMD's that our intelligence community was so sure existed.

I for one would really like to see this evidence and I'm very reluctant to just assume these people have it right as they have had it wrong so many times.

If you remember, the US intelligence community was hardly convinced that WMDs existed in Iraq. This was one of the most contentious things about the lead-up to the war. Many high-ranking officials lost their jobs because their organizations were not producing intelligence that confirmed the "Saddam has WMDs" narrative for the administration. Cheney essentially set up his own small intelligence organization that was distinct from the CIA, DIA, etc. in order to scrounge up smoking guns that the administration thought the rest of the US intelligence community was failing to locate.

It might not be that different this time. Hard to tell yet. In that the administration attempts to present this as one unified voice.

We have only a very general statement that does not say anything is actually 'confirmed'. It is speculative, so you could say the intelligence isn't convinced this time either. However, politicians are already spinning it for their agenda. https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-pr...

It gets better than this. Because regardless of the source, the contents of these emails is something the american public should be a lot more alarmed about.

Anyway, the sheer fact that a phishing attempt at a personal email accout yielded anything already points to gross incompetence in the government. The miasma of email scandals around Clinton and her friends just keeps on spreading...

I think most people would consider an organisation running ancient badly configured un-patched mail servers much grosser incompetence than a gmail user getting phished.

I'm not American so I have no skin in the game, but I'm surprised that Trump keeps banging on about the email server. If that (and that someone in her organisation got phished) is the worst you've got on Clinton, I'm glad that you're going to have such a clean president.

It's not by a long shot.

lol but it's not... it's the actual contents that really matter! Google around...

> Because regardless of the source, the contents of these emails is something the american public should be a lot more alarmed about.

Not sure why you feel a risotto recipe is supposed to be critically important to the American public.

I mean, don't we already know to add the broth in a little at a time? Are there really people that dump the entire broth in at once?

No you add one part FEC-regulated campaign for federal office, two parts questionable journalistic ethics, and half a cup of PAC. Stir together until message and strategy are sufficiently coordinated and the desired component rises to the top (you should have already ensured this result before consulting the public). Then, as you said, slowly heat while adding the remaining broth.

Non-partisan outrage and country-before-party are necessary reguardless of the names or affiliations.

> I personally believe it does

Not to sound arrogant, I really like to know some reasoning behind it. I'm even more curious to understand if you are an American citizen.

Yes, American citizen here.

With the lack of any publicly available evidence, I guess the reasoning behind it largely comes down to trust. You either trust the government on this or you don't. On this issue, I do, but again, I wouldn't fault you for disagreeing. If I had to elaborate, I'd say:

The cost of being caught in a lie is sufficiently damaging to the organization that makes the claim. What benefit do they gain by making such a claim? does the risk of getting caught in a lie outweigh the benefit? I just don't see the lie as being a risk worth taking.

There have been many times in the past where 'blaming it on Russia' could have been politically convenient. If you do it too often, you become the boy-who-cries-wolf. Would the risk of reputation loss outweigh the benefits gained by telling the lie? again, I don't see the lie as being worth the risk.

>What benefit do they gain by making such a claim?

Not losing the most important general election of this first half-century?

What do you mean, losing? The intelligence community isn't up for election.

The intelligence community feather their nests through control of the executive. They've been collecting skeletons in Clintonian closets for decades, so they own HRC as completely as they owned GWB. They might actually have some shit on Trump as well, but he DGAF. They can imagine pissing him off enough to hurt their own pocketbooks.

This might actually explain KGB/FSB's apparent preference for Trump: the enemy of one's enemy...

So you reckon Trump has no skeletons? And even if he doesn't, I think it's clear he would be child's play to manipulate. Basically if the intelligence community is as corrupt as you suspect, you're in trouble who ever wins the election.

Certainly, this election offers little hope for curbing the surveillance state or the military-industrial complex. Trump is probably an awful person, but he doesn't really cultivate a different image from that on the stump. Even when his opponents think they have a real bombshell (he doesn't respect women!!1! how could anyone have guessed based on his marital history?!?), it seems to have little effect on his popularity.

I only intended to point out that various agencies do have interests in the outcome of elections.

I'd argue that Trump's recent issues with women have actually hurt him a lot. RealClearPolitics runs a poll of polls, where they average dozens of polls. While any individual poll may have oddities that cause it to lean left or right, averaging the polls reduces the odds of a few outliers throwing everything off.

Before the first debate Trump was down by 1 point (but trending upward) according to the RealClearPolitics average. That's within the margin of error on even the largest polls, meaning he was basically tied with Hillary. Then the Alicia Machado story broke at the end of the first debate, and his poll numbers went down to about -4. Then the bus tape came out, and he's now at roughly -7. That's well outside the margin of error. In fact, his poll numbers are now at the point where no one has ever won the presidency while being this far down so close to the election. He might still pull it off, but he's got a steep road ahead of him.

So he's gone from basically tied, to the point where he'd need something huge to happen in order to win. The biggest stories in that period of time were Alicia Machado and the bus tape. Most of the polls give detailed demographic breakdowns. He's dropped a little with men, but most of the damage was with women, where he's seen a double-digit loss of support in some polls.

Suspect?

What do you mean if?

Well sure. But I thought the same about WMD.

If there isn't any evidence why would you be inclined to believe it?

There's a difference between "no evidence exists" and "evidence exists, but we haven't disclosed it".

Perhaps my original comment was unclear, but I believe the statements made in the article imply the latter.

It doesn't matter, the outcome is still the same - if there's no evidence presented then it might as well not exist.

Why do you think the American spooks have any credibility?

IMO, the most American of traits is a deep seated disbelief that their own government has private citizens' best interests at heart.

Many people do not agree, believing that their government (as defined by what they think it should do) is on their side.

It is a matter of trust or distrust by default. Personally, I believe the spirit of the US Constitution is to distrust those in charge.