I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/14/...ts-not-enough/

Now go on and claim this is biased because it's Greenwald affiliated.

Significantly better - actually deals with some of the evidence. Some of.

For example, part of the rationale for identifying Cozy Bear as Russian is based on the full scope of the 1800 identified hacks in 2015: if you look at those 1800 parties, you find a whole lot of folks who are military personnel (especially NATO) or defense contractors or journalists who have particular interests in Russia or the Ukraine and who generally are not alligned with the Russian state itself. You may want to look at some of what Matt Tait, for example, has written (yes, including his tweeted analysis) for what some of the deeply immersed infosec people think on this stuff.

That's just one point he's ignoring. There are others.

On the other hand, he says some absolutely redickulous stuff in there. Like saying it's unusual to get information on hacks from private security firms hired by the hacked parties. WTF? There is a whole fucking industry that is focused on this. And it's a big industry. Huh?

Also, remember, there are a lot of people who have seen more of the evidence we're not seeing (and, yes, I'm completely on board with more of this data becoming public, preferably in the context of hearings and testimony where some intelligent people can drill down on them), including Graham and McCain. Likewise, while it looks like the FBI relied heavily on Crowdstrike for info, it also looks like they saw a ton more Crowdstrike data than we've seen.

But I'm glad you've found some non-Breitbart hacks to get your "news" from.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Look. I'm sure Russia was up to serious shenanigans here. But this is an argument of degree. How much hacking did they do, and what was the impact? We should investigate it fully and take action top prevent it in the future. But the Administration and the Democratic Party are trying to make this an argument of absolutes, and they look pretty stupid for the effort.

Screaming over and over, "Look at the hacking! Look at Russia's hacking!", isn't going to move any serious person's eye off the real issue: How much did the hacking impact the campaign? The answer to that will be, not enough to have changed the outcome. It probably caused a bunch of Bernie Bros. to feel a lot better about staying home or voting for Stein or Johnson. But not enough to have made a difference in enough of the "blue wall" states in which Trump beat Hillary. And again, all this hacking did was expose the truth about collusion between a bent DNC and the Clinton Machine. The most one can charge Putin with exposing is, well -- facts. Ugly facts.

That's not actually true, since his people also exposed faux email as if they were true. But that's a quibble, and there's no point in quibbling over the facts with you because they're irrelevant. What you're doing is trolling. "Sure, Russia did some hacking and influenced the election, but it's Hillary's fault that she lost because she was a crappy candidate." The rest of us live in a world where things can have more than one cause. Maybe Hillary lost because she did things wrong AND because the media did a shitty job AND because James Comey is an ass AND because Russia was doing what it could to get a friend elected. The margin was super-close -- all of these things could have been material, and probably were.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

WaPo, at Bezo's request, staffed something like 20 people on the task of digging up any and every thing it could on Trump. It then embarked on an amazing campaign of opinion articles smearing the shit out of the guy every day. This even bled over to its news division, which became largely indistinguishable from its opinion pages.

This is total horseshit. Show me the single worst WaPo news article which could not be distinguished from its opinion pages. Just one.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

If you have to defend what was done to Bernie on the grounds that wasn't a real Democrat, wouldn't it be wiser to refrain from replying? Really. That's not a strong angle.

Bernie was a legitimate candidate running on a platform more traditionally Democratic (read: Pre-Clinton triangulation) than Hillary. Staffers didn't prefer a Democrat over an independent. They were in the bag for the Clintons, and they preferred the success of the Clinton machine to a truly fair nomination process.

I would like to win the lottery, and I might buy a ticket, but that doesn't mean I can take the money. I don't think you responded to my post yesterday: the DNC was full of establishment Hillary fans, but that doesn't mean that it made a difference. Do you think it made a difference? How?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

If staffers preferred the Democrat in the nomination race, who was the non-Democrat in that race?

Read the part about how Bernie was given every opportunity, including quite a few more primary debates than normal.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

That's not actually true, since his people also exposed faux email as if they were true. But that's a quibble, and there's no point in quibbling over the facts with you because they're irrelevant. What you're doing is trolling. "Sure, Russia did some hacking and influenced the election, but it's Hillary's fault that she lost because she was a crappy candidate." The rest of us live in a world where things can have more than one cause. Maybe Hillary lost because she did things wrong AND because the media did a shitty job AND because James Comey is an ass AND because Russia was doing what it could to get a friend elected. The margin was super-close -- all of these things could have been material, and probably were.

Perhaps most relevant, there are other elections going on in the world where pretty much the same type of hacking appears to be happening. Maybe it is a good idea to discourage that?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

WaPo, at Bezo's request, staffed something like 20 people on the task of digging up any and every thing it could on Trump. It then embarked on an amazing campaign of opinion articles smearing the shit out of the guy every day. This even bled over to its news division, which became largely indistinguishable from its opinion pages.

WaPo made the Times look quite even-handed this election.

CNN did give Trump loads of airtime, but as Fox did regarding Hillary, every report on Trump was tinged with subtle negative commentary. And CNN's morning guy, Cuomo, beat Trump like a gong every chance he got.

I blame 538 more than anything because the 3rd party voters felt safe. Hil had it anyway, so they were safe.

But then someone (maybe Less whom I met in November, being in SF as someone from Michigan, man we got called out (not by less) and had to talk about what happened) said there is no showing that 3rd party voters would break more for Hil than Trump. That strikes me as crazy talk.

Question- can you say who you would have voted for between the two?

Question- have you been out of state since the election, in a blue state? You get questioned?

edit- and I'm not dogging on you. seriously interested

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Wow. As a former civil servant, I can say that this is awful.

eta: Just to expand on that, it's not just a problem that Congress can decide to essentially fire civil servants for doing their jobs. The political appointees in the executive branch can't really protect them. Suppose that you are a staff lawyer at DOJ, and you bring a case that your bosses in DOJ, including the political appointees, want you to bring. A Congressman doesn't like it, and persuades his colleagues to reduce your compensation to $1. What can the AG and the other political appointees do? As a practical matter, nothing. This gives Congress way too much control over what the Administration does.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Wow. As a former civil servant, I can say that this is awful.

eta: Just to expand on that, it's not just a problem that Congress can decide to essentially fire civil servants for doing their jobs. The political appointees in the executive branch can't really protect them. Suppose that you are a staff lawyer at DOJ, and you bring a case that your bosses in DOJ, including the political appointees, want you to bring. A Congressman doesn't like it, and persuades his colleagues to reduce your compensation to $1. What can the AG and the other political appointees do? As a practical matter, nothing. This gives Congress way too much control over what the Administration does.

Seems akin to a bill of attainder.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Adder

Jesus, you've just given up on reasoning, haven't you?

Given up?

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Given up?

TM

Fair point.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Bernie and Trump were quite similar. Both were unique candidates loathed by the establishment arms of their (adopted?) parties. The only difference I see is Trump beat the Establishment, and Bernie did not.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Seems akin to a bill of attainder.

Congress has the power of the purse. If it wants to stop paying for something going forward, it can.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Adder

Fair point.

Timing.

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/id...ce=CSAMedition

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Congress has the power of the purse. If it wants to stop paying for something going forward, it can.

Sure, but "no funds for climate research" seems different than "no salary for Ty (because he did climate research)." Perhaps not in a constitutionally meaningful way, though (quick google did not show any litigation over the Holman Rule).