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I guess some congratulations are in order for one Vladimir Putin, the Russian kleptocrat who used strategic leaks of hacked information to win the election (or at least the electoral college) for Donald Trump, a thin-skinned narcissist and easily manipulable geopolitical naif.
I mean, we knew that before. But now it’s pretty much official.
The Washington Post reports:
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
Yep, that’s right. The outcome of our election was essentially determined by a hostile foreign power — with the active encouragement of Donald Trump, the candidate who benefited from Russia’s interference.
It’s also now clear just how selective Russia’s use of hacked information was. The New York Times reports that the Russians also successfully hacked the Republican National Committee’s email servers, but chose not to release any of these emails.
No wonder Trump is skipping most of his intelligence briefings.
Some people are comparing these revelations to Watergate. I don’t think that’s fair. This is ten times more significant than Watergate. It calls the whole election into question.
Trump is not our President. And he should not be sworn into office unless and until we have a full public reckoning of how exactly he “won” this election.
<3 IP,
There will be no final victory of love over hate, not until people lose the capacity to hate, and I don't think that's possible. That's the down side. The up side is that love will never lose, either, not until people lose the capacity to love, and that's just as unlikely.
Love wins, because love encourages generosity, and a will to struggle for the sake of someone else. Love is cooperative and giving. It is coordinated, and humans are social animals who do better in groups.
Hate loses, because hate encourages duplicity, and discourages helping others. Hate is fractious and selfish. Because of this, it can't coordinate in the way that love can. Hate builds lonely bastions, love builds communities.
Hate's going to lose in the long run – not entirely, but definitively. It's been losing for a long time now. There's currently a bit of a swell in the tide, but overall the waters have always been receding.
Take care of yourself and lovely Otter. Don't sweat the racists and jerks.
(also, unrelated, I often feel like a goldfish brain trapped in a human body :o)
@ valentine
That was an interesting piece; thanks for the link. My memory though is similar to Numberobis. In the UK press the commentary was essentially that the elections certainly weren’t 100% kosher but that was a common feature in the birth of democracies. So whilst Yeltsin might be playing a bit fast and loose, fundamentally he was heading in the right direction so we might raise an eyebrow and a wry smile but we’d cough and look the other way. Remember, we were just emerging from the cold war so the attitude was anything has to be better than the old system. The last thing the western powers wanted to do was to undermine the new vanguard and provide material for the old regime to exploit.
A little bit of voting anomalies versus returning to decades more of nuclear standoff was deemed a price worth paying.
Even Putin got favourable early reviews. He was seen as someone who could wield enough power to ensure the collapse of the Soviet Union didn’t end up as a total uncontrolled fragmentation and Yugoslavia writ large. It wasn’t until it became apparent that his way of dealing with the growing organised criminal elements in Russia was basically to be the biggest gangster on the block (and hopes of ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ became ‘poacher buys out or eliminates all gamekeepers’) that people started getting concerned.
Anyone else see this?
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-intelligence-briefings-smart-person-82553641164c#.q6rc4yk8z
As they say in the classics … What could possibly go wrong?
The position of First Lady isn’t always filled by the POTUS’s wife. If Trump is smart, he’ll pick Ivanka to be his First Lady, since she has the charisma that both he and his wife lack.
@midlymagnificient : I tried to count, but I had to stop before I could enumerate all things that could go wrong. The numbers were so high and remote from mundane reality that they turned out being eldritch abominations from behind space and time.
@ mildlymagnificent
http://www.duffelblog.com/2016/12/joint-chiefs-limited-to-140-characters-for-presidential-briefings/
Yeah, numbers do that when they get big.
Well, that’s not really right, the term “big” sort of loses meaning after you’re up there for a while.
Numbers do that when they get more number’y
@ mildlymagnificent
There was a Duffel Blog story the other day:
“Intelligence chiefs told to limit presidential briefings to 140 characters”
(I’d link to it but WordPress won’t cooperate)
@Alan : the link worked.
That’s, litteraly, unbelievable. The military have to have made that one up.
@ ohlmann
Duffel Blog is like the military equivalent of The Onion.
Although it’s a sign of the times how often both of them have spoof ideas that then crop up in real life.
@Ohlmann
Your post reminded me of this site:
http://literallyunbelievable.org/
😀
Well, I guess my sarcasm detector isn’t entirely broken. But I might have to check it.
I literally can’t believe it!
@Croquembouche
I’ve got many feminist reasons for disliking the fact that the president’s wife is expected to be First Lady.
But I should be careful what I wish for, because now Melania Trump (who apparently agrees with me) is (sorta, kinda) First Lady.
If they said briskly that Melania has a life, and will not be playing White House hostess and having her charity projects photographed, I would accept that. But they’re just leaving it vague, and I’m quite certain that she will pop up to do anything that is glamorous, or costs the taxpayers money. No feminist points.
I do wonder what’s gonna happen with that marriage. She’s past forty-five, and I would expect him to ditch her and find a new wife soon. But he’s in the White House. So…no idea.
@Scildfreja
I’ve seen sentiments like this one around in the past month, and I’m just not sure I can believe it anymore. Hate is working like gangbusters for the haters. I’m sick of playing nice with conservatives and appealing to their better angels, because they’ve made it abundantly obvious that they don’t have any. I feel like we’ll never be free unless we manage to turn their own vicious tactics against them, HATE them as much as they HATE us, and show no mercy.
If the only way for us to win is to become as evil as they are, at least it will be our evil, and not theirs, that wins. And I hate feeling this way. But I don’t know what else to think anymore.
According to Encyclopedia Dramatica.
I can’t tell if ED is mocking ignorant Trump voters or if ED actually supports this idea. Either way, it’s always been clear since the election that the people did not want Trump. First, Hillary won the popular vote, now Putin rigged the election. The people sure wanted it.
I, for one, totally disagree with Islamaphobia. My Muslim buddy and I like to picket abortion clinicks together. I love dividing the leftist “oppressed victims” coalition!
Hey, why am I not banned yet? The Lord hath rejoiced greatly in the greatness of the children of Israel! And he hath mocked the pathetic opponents of the Third Rome, Moscow!
Now is the autumn of our diſcontent
Made winter by the Beckett trolles return;
He wotteth nought but thinketh he knows all,
And ceaſeth neuer to aſſert the ſame.
Awaie, o foole, and trample Legoes ſhoeleſſe!
@nurembiosis
I feel that since it is still only a claim by CIA that they have evidence rather then evidence itself i am only concerned that this may be overreaction. Obviously i am bias, and this may come off like arrogant but propaganda isn’t just the tool of ‘the enemy’. I feel there is much to gain for some people in US to say Russia hacked to get Trump elected. There is also something to gain by making anti-russian thoughts popular again, maybe.
@Alan
Yeltsin was 100% an embarassment. He did no good destroyed the russian economy and resigned and gave us Putin. His leadership was not voting anomalies either, i believe at least, US has something to answer for. It says something abnormal that your leader should be more popular with a historic enemy than with his own people. The only reason Putin got favorable reveiw at first i believe is because of Chechnya. It made him look feirce and strong. But really putin is just the face for the machine. He was a good follower of orders before, he knows the system in and out and thats why it is not really about him, not the way it is with trump. Putin does not lead the government, the government leads through putin, all he is is the face on it. Not to say he is a puppit. Not like that, more that the machine needs a face and putin is the perfect candidate because it is his natural environment.
@Valentine,
I think I see what you’re saying, and that was an interesting link (and a timely reminder). In Australia we don’t have quite such an intense history with Russia, compared to the US.
I’ve certainly seen a degree of knee-jerk anti-Russian commentary, during the US election campaign, and more so in recent days as the hacking/interfering stuff has gained momentum. Some people even sound like they’re still in the middle of the Cold War – “well of course the Russians hacked the election!” And then from another direction, there are people shouting down the whole hacking issue with “you’re just anti-Russian!!”.
It’s all the more important to be clear about the evidence and one’s own stance, given this difficult backdrop and the historical legacy.
I appreciated your thoughts. Apologies if I’ve misunderstood what you were getting at 🙂
They let you work 20 hours a day in coal mines these days? I’m not sure I would want someone operating on four hours of sleep–assuming you just sleep in the mine where you drop–working a coal face next to me, just saying.
And the lady who drives my bus is black and from Richmond, CA, so I’m reasonably goddamn sure she did not vote for Donald Trump.
I have three female Muslim friends who agree with me that Mozart predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the election of Donald Trump through secret messages in the Magic Flute. Why are you questioning the right of marginalized women to make their own choices?
I have FOUR female Muslim friends, and they say it was The Marriage of Figaro, so I win.
Satire is satire. But then again Poe’s Law.