Enjoy President Trump, Courtesy of The Kremlin

[Forty Two]

Well, my denial is not a denial, but merely a recognition of exactly what they've said. They may have unexplained bases for their conclusions, and solid evidence. In a case such as this, where we are talking about accusing Russia, a nuclear power, of essentially an act of war - interfering with our Presidential elections, hacking major political organizations, stealing emails, all in an attempt to install their preferred leader -- that requires more than faith in the CIA and other intelligence agencies, who are not exactly foolproof or completely honest. These are the same agencies that have helped install and depose dictators, mounted coups, and set up "incidents" to spark conflicts. If policy is going to be made based on what these agencies tell us, then we need more than just "confidence" in "methods" being "consistent with..."

[Tero]

And completely consistent with Putin. He has threatened the US now if Trump bombs N Korea with retaliation. For breaking missile treaty.

[Brian Peacock]

Well, my denial is not a denial, but merely a recognition of exactly what they've said. They may have unexplained bases for their conclusions, and solid evidence. In a case such as this, where we are talking about accusing Russia, a nuclear power, of essentially an act of war - interfering with our Presidential elections, hacking major political organizations, stealing emails, all in an attempt to install their preferred leader -- that requires more than faith in the CIA and other intelligence agencies, who are not exactly foolproof or completely honest. These are the same agencies that have helped install and depose dictators, mounted coups, and set up "incidents" to spark conflicts. If policy is going to be made based on what these agencies tell us, then we need more than just "confidence" in "methods" being "consistent with..."

Do you think that intelligence reports should be scrutinised on a par with scientific papers, that they should published, deal in categorical statements, and produce their methodologies and datasets along with their analysis thereof? Do you see any value in intelligence reporting, and if so on what basis do you, or would you, value such analysis? Do you think that the current activity of the intelligence and secret services of the US is fundamentally compromised by their historical participation in action at the behest of (or under the watch of) previous administrations, and to such an extent that any public statement regarding their activity cannot be trusted and/or taken at face value? Do you think the government can no longer be trusted to address national security concerns in the national interest, or just the security and intelligence services?

[Animavore]

On a lighter note.

Two popular conservative Twitter personalities were just outed as Russian trolls.
Jenna Abrams and Pamela Moore were followed by tens of thousands, including members of Trump's campaign.

Jenna Abrams was a popular figure in right-wing social media circles. Boasting nearly 70,000 followers, Abrams was featured in numerous news articles during the 2016 election, spotlighted by outlets as varied as USA Today, the Washington Post, the BBC, and Yahoo! Sports. Her tweet about CNN airing porn during Anthony Bourdain’s show (it didn’t) was reported by numerous outlets.

But Abrams never existed.

According to information released by House Democrats earlier this week, Abrams was one of more than 2,750 fake Twitter accounts created by employees at the Internet Research Agency, a “troll farm” funded by the Russian government based in St. Petersburg. In addition to the Abrams account, several other popular conservative social media personalities — @LauraBaeley, SouthLoneStar, Ten_GOP — were all revealed to be troll accounts. All have been deactivated on Twitter.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/polit ... 71103.html

[Brian Peacock]

Awww, it's sweet when adults have lots of imaginary friends.

[Tero]

Congress not backing Mueller, on his own
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/ ... 6?lo=ap_b1

[Seabass]

Mitch McConnell is as dastardly as he is grotesque. That bastard is as bad as Trump if not worse. He doesn't get nearly the amount of hate that he deserves.

Ok, maybe not worse than Trump. I got a little excited there. But he's pretty awful.

[Tero]

McConnell has built an entire career on resisting Democrats. When he has to solve a problem on his own, he has no skill.

[pErvinalia]

I'm offended by his face. It needs punching.

[Forty Two]

Well, my denial is not a denial, but merely a recognition of exactly what they've said. They may have unexplained bases for their conclusions, and solid evidence. In a case such as this, where we are talking about accusing Russia, a nuclear power, of essentially an act of war - interfering with our Presidential elections, hacking major political organizations, stealing emails, all in an attempt to install their preferred leader -- that requires more than faith in the CIA and other intelligence agencies, who are not exactly foolproof or completely honest. These are the same agencies that have helped install and depose dictators, mounted coups, and set up "incidents" to spark conflicts. If policy is going to be made based on what these agencies tell us, then we need more than just "confidence" in "methods" being "consistent with..."

Do you think that intelligence reports should be scrutinised on a par with scientific papers, that they should published, deal in categorical statements, and produce their methodologies and datasets along with their analysis thereof? Do you see any value in intelligence reporting, and if so on what basis do you, or would you, value such analysis? Do you think that the current activity of the intelligence and secret services of the US is fundamentally compromised by their historical participation in action at the behest of (or under the watch of) previous administrations, and to such an extent that any public statement regarding their activity cannot be trusted and/or taken at face value? Do you think the government can no longer be trusted to address national security concerns in the national interest, or just the security and intelligence services?

I think, first of all, that people misunderstand what intelligence reports are saying. One way this is done is by attributing accuracy to a report which the writers state is drawn to "moderate confidence." And, as such, the report is not to be taken as "true." Further, reports are misunderstood when they are not read carefully, and with the Russia situation, the report we've talked about many times involves Russia engaging in a concerted effort to interfere with the US election, like they've done for decades upon decades, and most of the activities that are recounted are your standard propaganda stuff - most notably publication of crap in Russia Today and other publications. The bit about hacking is dubious, and vague. They've not examined the Clinton servers to determine if there has been any hacking, and what they've concluded with "moderate confidence" is that the Russians had the motive and the ability to hack, and that the "methods" used by alleged hacking entities appear to be "consistent with" what the Russians would do and have done in the past (at least that the methods were used by hacker groups who were "linked" to Russia in the past (linked having a very broad and vague meaning)).

One way of putting it is that the actual report - when I read it - does not go as far as you seem to think it does. It does not make the conclusions, explicitly, you seem to attribute to it.

Your first question: "Do you think that intelligence reports should be scrutinised on a par with scientific papers, that they should published, deal in categorical statements, and produce their methodologies and datasets along with their analysis thereof?" I think that's a red herring question, as there is no one way scientific papers are scrutinized, and scientific papers often do not deal in "categorical statements," etc. And, I would say that as to methodologies, the methodology should be explicitly laid out, and if datasets are analyzed then there would seem to be no reason not to publish them.

Second question "Do you see any value in intelligence reporting, and if so on what basis do you, or would you, value such analysis?" Yes, and I would value it as a means of informing the person to whom the report is made of the truth, or the best analysis of the truth that can be mustered (while carefully expressing how close to the truth the writer thinks they can get).

Third question "Do you think that the current activity of the intelligence and secret services of the US is fundamentally compromised by their historical participation in action at the behest of (or under the watch of) previous administrations, and to such an extent that any public statement regarding their activity cannot be trusted and/or taken at face value?"

I would say that some of the bad activities engaged in by the intelligence agencies are and were done with and some without the knowledge or approval of past administrations. We don't have to go far back in time - like with Snowden's revelations - to see that blind faith is not the order of the day. I do not, of course, dismiss "any public statement regarding their activity" and I do not suggest that no statement can be trusted. However, much depends on what the statement is about.

In the present case, we are talking about an allegation that would necessarily effect not a tactical or local issue, but rather a global strategic level issue - we're talking about an accusation that Russia, a massively powerful nuclear power, illegally meddled in the US election, not through propaganda and whisper campaigns, and the like, but through the alleged illegal hacking - and that the winning candidate conspired with the the Russians who were doing that in order to win the election. This is not a small thing. It may be an act of war. It may be something that poisons any possible relationship with Russia for a generation.

So, I am fine with the report as it stands, and I read it as it is written, without imputing greater certainty than it expresses, and by noting that the report had about 1 page out of 25 dedicated to hacking, and none of it concluded that the Russians did it (only that they had the means, motive, and opportunity to do it, and they can't see anybody else doing it, so they have moderate confidence it was them, probably). Great. In response to something of that ilk, I say call me when you have something concrete to show me.

Now, if they have more, and they can't show me because I'm just the public, but they're going to show my elected representatives or a comittee thereof in the US Senate or what have you, then fine - the elected officials taking action based on that intelligence have the responsibility to do what is right and make sure they have enough information and proof. It's on them if they act and the information was vague, unclear or inconclusive.

Eventually, though, the secrecy gets out of hand. Take the information just recently set to be released regarding the Kennedy assassination, like 53 years ago. All of a sudden, the CIA comes forward and puts the breaks on it because of national security. For reals?

Now, I'm the one people accuse here of being Mr. Right Winger -- and yet, it seems, I'm the one being skeptical of CIA claims and reports? I'm here simply suggesting skepticism, and a healthy demand for truth, accuracy and evidence, and yet some of you are expressing exasperation that we might have some reticence in taking CIA claims "at face value?" Really?

Are there not claims of intelligence agencies that you would hesitate to take at face value?
Are you willing to simply accept unsupported and unproven allegations at face value, even when they are going to effect policy on a strategic and global level?

Often, we are told we get the democracy we deserve, and that it's the people's fault that things are so bollocksed up because we elect the people who create the governments we get. Well, if we let government agencies, under the rubric of national security, determine policies and practices and actions of our government, and our military, especially our military, based on "moderate confidence" reports which contain qualifiers, vague statements, and inconclusive statements, all with little to no disclosure of the actual factual bases for those reports, aren't we just ceding our responsibility as citizens?

I'll give you an example of why I have suspicious. I was an adult in 2002 in the run-up to the War in Iraq. I remember, to this day, the presentation made by Colin Powell on behalf of the US trying to sell the world on the proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He had poster boards up, and they had overhead views of Iraqi real estate with buildings on it, and trucks, etc. He had a pointer and was looking at the picture and the camera saying - here is a chemical weapons factory -- here are trucks and such that are working to transport the materials needed - here we think there a nuclear development facilities - here's a bio weapons lab - etc. - that kind of thing. He was very clear. He was very certain in his delivery. I remember speaking to a friend of mine on the phone at the time, and I said that I hoped it was true that they had intelligence to back up those statements Colin Powell was making - because, I said, what colin powell showed us could just as easily be an overhead shot of a Walmart with delivery trucks, or a factory making any of a myriad products - how did we know what was in there? I said "they better have a fuck load more than that, because what they told us is not enough..."

The "intelligence report" shared with the public was the genesis of the expansion of the war on terrorism into Iraq. We never found the facilities that Colin Powell pointed to - those buildings he said were bio or chem weapons factories ultimately were not. If they had intelligence, it was dead wrong on that point. Dead wrong.

Here's a summary of the stuff the NSA does, according the Snowden documents released - http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden- ... ine-2016-9

What ought we take at "face value" indeed?"

[L'Emmerdeur]

More for the 'skeptics' to chew on and spit out:

'Russia Was Helping Trump Just Days After He Entered the 2016 Primary'

A U.S. intelligence assessment earlier this year reported that Russian Twitter accounts began backing Donald Trump as early as six months into his bid for the presidency, but new data shows pro-Trump and anti-Hillary Clinton activity started within weeks of him entering the race.

In the three-month period after Trump announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015, tweets from Russian accounts pushed praise for him over criticism by close to a 10-to-1 margin, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of 159,000 deleted tweets from 2,752 accounts named during congressional hearings last Wednesday on Russian interference in the election.

The accounts, which Twitter identified as run by the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency, by equal or greater margins criticized Clinton and early Republican frontrunner Jeb Bush.

...

The U.S. intelligence assessment released at the beginning of this year had cited December 2015 as the earliest suspected time that Russian Twitter accounts rooted for Trump.

Kremlin preference for Trump ratcheted up as the November election neared. In the two weeks before the election, pro-Trump or anti-Clinton tweets numbered 236, versus seven that were pro-Clinton or anti-Trump, a 30-to-1 ratio, the Journal found.

The tweets analyzed represent only a fraction of those disseminated by Russian-backed accounts because Twitter removes posts from deleted or suspended accounts.

Trump has dismissed claims that Russians interfered in the election and tipped it in his favor as a “hoax.”

Why Russia supported Trump right off the bat, when many people doubted he would become a viable candidate, remains a mystery, but one possible reason is that the Kremlin used him as a test to see how effective they could be in influencing American public opinion.

Twitter link to the initial story about this, which will allow non-subscribers to read it.

[Tero]

A Russian lawyer said Donald Trump Jr. told her that once elected, Donald Trump would review a US law sanctioning Russians in exchange for dirt on Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.
It was the second of at least three times that a Trump campaign official alluded to swapping access to Trump for favors from Russia.
The pattern is likely to be of interest to Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to undermine Clinton before the election.

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-ca ... es-2017-11

The act (Trump Jr. was referring to the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which Veselnitskaya has been lobbying against along with the Russian-American political operative Rinat Akhmetshin since at least last year.) is linked in the article. At this point it is irrelevant who the Russians are. It may be business, it may be Putin. The president was going to mess with Russia policy in exchange for dirt.

[Tero]

On November 2, 2017, Page testified to the U.S. House Intelligence Committee that he informed Jeff Sessions that he was traveling to Russia to give a speech in July 2016.[38] Sessions was an advisor on national security to the Trump campaign, and after Trump won, he nominated Sessions to serve as United States Attorney General.[39] Page's testimony was contrary to Sessions' testimony during his confirmation hearings in January and February 2017, in which he denied any knowledge of anyone from the Trump campaign interacting with anyone from Russia.[39] On November 3, news reports indicated that in his testimony, Page admitted to having met with Russian government officials during this trip, and his subsequent post-meeting report via email to at least one member of the Trump campaign.[40] Page's testimony contradicted the claims of Trump and his associates that no one from the campaign met with Russian officials or had any dealings with them in the months leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[41][42][43][44]

see links therein
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Page

[Tero]

Franken: "How did Facebook, which prides itself on being able to process billions of data points, and instantly transform them into personal connections for its users, somehow not make the connection that electoral ads, paid for in rubles, were coming from Russia? Those are two data points — American political ads and Russian money, rubles. How could you not connect those two dots?"

Stretch: "... In hindsight, we should have had a broader lens. There were signals we missed and we are now focused ..."

Franken, interrupting: "People are buying ads on your platform with rubles. They're political ads. You put billions of data points together all the time. ... You can't put together rubles with a political ad and go, 'Hmm, those two data points spell out something bad'?"

Stretch: "Senator, it's a signal we should have been alert to and in hindsight, it's one we missed."

[Tero]

“I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal-food-trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.”
OR
Trump blasts Gillespie over Va. loss: He 'did not embrace me or what I stand for'
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Trump blasts Gillespie over Va. loss: He 'did not embrace me or what I stand for'