#LDTPoll: Who do you believe on the Russian hacking allegations?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Michael, Jan 8, 2017.

  1. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    This shit just gets funnier and funnier.

    A post on 4Chan now claims that the infamous "golden showers" scene in the unverified 35-page dossier, allegedly compiled by a British intelligence officer, was a hoax and fabricated by a member of the chatboard as "fanfiction", then sent to Rick Wilson, who proceeded to send it to the CIA, which then put it in their official classified intelligence report on the election.

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    Hahahahahahahahhahahaha......
    LOL

    Government Bureaucracy: Serving the People at twice the cost and a tenth the value.
     
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  3. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    I see. This shift to the left is not happening now, but will happen in future when the Millenials get organised enough to come out and vote. Well, let's hope so.

    Eminently fair.

    What do you think?
     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Of course. It's the 1993 Republican health care plan, foreshadowed by the 1968 Nixon advisor proposal, specifically written as a capitalist market alternative to head off the growing popularity of leftwing health care (known at the time as "socialized medicine"). It doesn't even have a public option, it's employer based, its method for controlling costs is supposedly market competition between capitalist insurance corporations - what about it could possibly appear "left" to anyone?
    The Federal Reserve Bank of the US - like the Reichsbank of pre-war Germany, and unlike the central banks of China or Cuba or Venezuela,
    All of that is false.
    None of those items is stuff the US Intelligence Bureaucracies informed us about.

    1) They did not inform us that Iraq had WMDs. The W&Cheney administration did that, in conflict with the information gathered by the agencies themselves.
    2) Lying to Congress is not informing us.
    3) They informed us that Russians of considerable skill hacked into the DNC and RNC email systems - not that Putin did anything, and not the "election" was hacked.
    3.5) They did not issue the false report of Russian hacking into the Vermont grid. The Washington Post did that.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2017
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  7. youreyes amorphous ocean Valued Senior Member

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    what isn't funny is that with 9 days left, Obama is starting a Third World War, that is his legacy.
     
  8. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Would you consider the Japanese to be left or right?

    The terms are nearly meaningless.

    If by left you mean, an increase in personal freedoms and civil liberties, then I agree. If by left you mean a decrease in personal freedoms and civil liberties, then I will have to disagree.

    I think violence is not the correct option. Taking a vote doesn't change what it is. A better option would be to not pay for the obligations, default, and to create new competing currencies that the young would have more access to simply because they will pick up on their use and benefit first while their grandparents are still changing their diapies.
     
  9. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is this the particular Federal Reserve Branch you are referring to? Yes, of course, it must have private owners. That's where the orginal capital came from, which was mixed with Statist Magic and turned into Fiat currency.

    It's not capitalistic and it's for spoils, not profit.

    Making a profit in a free market is a virtuous act. It means you have created a good or service that other's want to buy voluntarily, without violating their rights. That is NOT our fiat currency.

    Anyway, there's no way to pay for socialistic programs without a fiat (violence backed) currency. Progressive Socialism is a another form of Nation State Authoritarian violence.
     
  10. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Are you kidding me?
     
  11. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Via Consortium News: US Report Still Lacks Proof on Russia ‘Hack’
    January 7, 2017

    Repeating an accusation over and over again is not evidence that the accused is guilty, no matter how much “confidence” the accuser asserts about the conclusion. Nor is it evidence just to suggest that someone has a motive for doing something. Many conspiracy theories are built on the notion of “cui bono” – who benefits – without following up the supposed motive with facts.

    But that is essentially what the U.S. intelligence community has done regarding the dangerous accusation that Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrated a covert information campaign to influence the outcome of the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election in favor of Republican Donald Trump.

    Just a day after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (this is the same guy who lied strightfaced to CONgress and said the US Government wasn't illegally spying on US Citizens- which is was, and is, and will continue to do.... you know, because Terrorism) vowed to go to the greatest possible lengths to supply the public with the evidence behind the accusations, his office released a 25-page report that contained no direct evidence that Russia delivered hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta to WikiLeaks.

    The DNI report amounted to a compendium of reasons to suspect that Russia was the source of the information – built largely on the argument that Russia had a motive for doing so because of its disdain for Democratic nominee Clinton and the potential for friendlier relations with Republican nominee Trump.

    But the report’s assessment is more than just a reasonable judgment based on a body of incomplete information. It is tendentious in that it only lays out the case for believing in Russia’s guilt, not reasons for doubting that guilt.

    For instance, while it is true that many Russian officials, including President Putin, considered Clinton to be a threat to worsen the already frayed relationship between the two nuclear superpowers, the report ignores the downside for Russia trying to interfere with the U.S. election campaign and then failing to stop Clinton, which looked like the most likely outcome until Election Night.

    If Russia had accessed the DNC and Podesta emails and slipped them to WikiLeaks for publication, Putin would have to think that the National Security Agency, with its exceptional ability to track electronic communications around the world, might well have detected the maneuver and would have informed Clinton.

    So, on top of Clinton’s well-known hawkishness, Putin would have risked handing the expected incoming president a personal reason to take revenge on him and his country. Historically, Russia has been very circumspect in such situations, usually holding its intelligence collections for internal purposes only, not sharing them with the public.
     
  12. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    It is curious how deep your delusions go... though, lets be fair - WWIII is all but inevitable at this point anyway, what with the likes of Russia, China, and North Korea getting continually more rambunctious...
     
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  13. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Trump calls out CNN for the fake news propaganda outlet it mostly is. Why anyone would want to blog for billionaire owners making them billions more (and not just set up their own blog) is beyond me.

    This is a play on the very same meme from 4Chan that is, as we speak, playing the mainstream news. See, that's the funny thing about memes, if you take them seriously, YOU have the problem.

    Trump sums it up with his own very tweet of the meme:

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    Definitions put in practice through exemplification is the best way to come to an understanding of the actual meaning.

    You don't want to accept the Central Bank of New York as an example of Progressive Socialism.

    You claim it's an example of capitalism. But then we disagree as to what is capital. We can agree it's not a free-market currency. It's a fiat currency.

    Are fiat currencies, as a category, examples of socialism?


    How about this: German Green Party to use income tax to pay for prostitutes to have sex with old men.

    Surely this is an example of Progressive Socialism. It's a form of Authoritarianism. So it falls into that broad category. It's within a Nation State, but not Theocratic. It's paid for through fiat currency, which itself gains and looses value (at least partially) via State coercion. So, it ticks all the requirements to be Socialism. Germany is a Republic, thus, presumably it's also an example of Democratic Socialism (according to B.Sanders). And for the Greens at least, it's quite Progressive.

    Now, to me, I think it's aesthetically degenerative. An example of moral decline, IMO. But the sex act itself is amoral, or at least certainly not immoral - both parties freely agree to the behavior/sex. No one is being raped. Other than the tax payer.

    So, is so-called "free" sex with prostitutes an example of Progressive Socialism?

    Oh Gods, the Russian Embassy in the UK sent out a Pepe Tweet.

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    With the following caption: No trust in Britain's best friend and ally?

    This was in response to the suggestion it's a win-loose for the USA to be on better grounds with Russia.

    Putin's approval rating is almost 85%. Obama is 55%, amd Trump comes in at 37%. Yeah, but it's Russia who's run by a dictatorial Government. Meanwhile, a man was ticked $128 for warming up his own car, in his own driveway in MI! GAAAAAAAAASP! Another was issued a DUI for driving after having had a coffee. Land of the free alright. More like fleeced.

    (NOTE: These are more examples of the moral decline I was mentioning. You guys have no idea what your public servants are more than happy to stoop to, in order to keep that fat 6 rolling in. Just wait until you end in a hospital with an MD who can't find a liver on an X-ray).

    Glenn Greenwald writes:

    The distinction between publishing (a) documents and (b) evidence-free *claims* is rather large & glaring. Why do some have trouble with it?

    6 hours ago - Twitter
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 12, 2017
  14. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    You know... I went to a unknown dentist in Brazil (Holiday) the other day to have a few too many teeth removed urgently. I sat in the dentists chair and I was asking myself,
    "Why do I trust this guy with his large needles and huge pliers?"
    "Why am I willing to sit there and place my life in his hands?"
    "How has he earned my trust?"
    "How do I know whether he was having a bad tooth day or not?"

    The only answers I could come up with is that I was obliged to have faith in the system that gave him his license.
    • The relevant Dentist association for accreditation.
    • The Government watch dogs.
    • The threat of a law suit if he stuffed up.
    For all I know he probably was a Russian IT hacker who had a fetish about being a dentist and liked the idea of sticking needles in peoples mouths and inflicting pain.

    I guess the point I am attempting to make is that with out the societal institutions that regulate and manage people's offerings I would have to take out my own teeth.

    The USA has a number of intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and whilst far from perfect THEY are simply all you have. If people can not trust these agencies to do the job they are paid to do with all the over sight being applied then perhaps a fictional God is all you have left.

    So Michael what allows you the privilege of sleeping at night with some certainty that you wont be nuked, murdered, abducted, tortured etc in your sleep?

    The only answer is the good will of those with whom you choose to live with or the country you choose to live in.

    Throw the good will out the window with your paranoia and you have none of that certainty.

    Throw the USA intelligence and law enforcement, legislative, judicial services out the window and suddenly you have no civilization beyond some ancient form of tribalism involving over 200 million souls.

    It is so easy to tear something down, to blow it up, to bomb the sh*t out of civilians, but it is damn hard work to create something that works even if far from perfect.

    So the next time you go to the dentist for that urgent dental work remember to ask you self the question "Why do you trust the doctor with your life?"

    And next time you walk down the street ask yourself why you trust the intelligence and law enforcement services with your life... because whether you like it or not you are and you do.

    Do you trust Wiki Leaks with your life?
    Do you think Julian Assange give one hoot about whether you breath or not?
    Do you trust Putin with your life?

    Yeah even Trump needs and makes use of the protection provided by the very systems he is denigrating.
    end of rant
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2017
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  15. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    This is the thing. I believe you should have the freedom to see an unlicensed dentist. And, actually you do, if you have the money. You could go to a different country, and you could see a dentist that isn't licensed in the USA. And believe me, the standard is much lower in some western countries and higher in some others, and some eastern countries. Even within the USA you can see dentists that are qualified, but are next to clueless.

    Imagine if you weren't allowed to see a dentist in Brazil - unless they were licensed by the ADA in the USA. Just try and imagine that. If a person in Brazil, wanted to practice dentistry, they had to somehow get into a hundred thousand dollar program in the USA - one that favored US undergraduate students (so, they'd have to attend a US University for undergrad too). Now, imagine if the PTB simply said: This is for your safety. American Universities are better, and so this is the law now.

    Would you object? Don't you care about safety?

    Of course you would object. There's a magic that happens within the magical boundaries of Nation States. Suddenly, you're part of the team. Or not. Weird huh? That whole in-group out-group thing.

    So, again, I have no problem with PRIVATE licencing, so long as there's a free market and people are free to set up their own private schools and set their own standards. Then it's up to you, as a customer, to determine which licence you'd like your dentist to have, if one at all, and then go there. The nice thing is, you could probably just check on your smart phone as to if they were the real deal. And the added competition would see to it that the quality, as well as the reference checks went up. I mean, how often do you accidentally go to a fake Apple Store and buy a fake iPhone7S? It just doesn't normally happen in your own town - you know who's who. You don't buy shit out of the back of a car thinking you're not being ripped off, or doing something semi illegal.


    THIS is how we live without fear. In a free society. Not in a Governed society.

    Sorry to tell you, but you have misplaced a lot of faith in public institutions. I know MD's who don't know the difference between mmol and umol. Imagine that. Or cannot find a liver on an X-ray. Or really don't care one way or the other. Others are very good, but the standard is way out of wack. Thanks to government forced regulatory capture and rent seeking through licencing.

    A free market MUST do better - because it'd have to out-compete what is already here, or no one would buy their product. Which is why there isn't a free market.

    Get rid of most of them. For the most part, they're a waste of money and resources. Consolidate at the first opportunity.

    You're more likely to be killed in a US city of medical error (480,000 a year) than anything else (assuming you don't smoke). As for being nuked, we're the only nation to have nuked another (well, France nuked a few nations in the pacific, so, there is that).

    Which is why I keep pushing for a return to a free society with a limited government. The best way to get the best out of people is to force them to work WITH one another by removing the government option (the option to use violence against morally innocent humans). This cannot happen when the name of the game is political control.

    I'm no more paranoid than the framers of the US Constitution. They wrote a Constitution to protect the Citizens FROM their own government. The entire thing is about trying to chain and restrain government - yet, here we are, 200 years later with the largest government humankind has ever seen. And that's the cycle. Freedom leads to prosperity, leads to jealousy, leads to government, leads to decline, collapse of government and social services, and freedom again.

    I didn't say anything about tossing the judicial services out the window. The one primary role a government has is judicial. Most everything else is a form of socialism. As a matter of fact, there's really little need of government, once common law is in place.

    Sound money derived through free exchange with people
    Laws that protect private property and uphold contract
    Civil liberty and the freedom to trade.

    True. I actually think IQ has a huge role to play here actually. It's probably not possibly to maintain society (post-modern) without an average IQ of 95 or greater.

    Yet, we seem happy to blow that up together with Western culture.
    We'll see how that works out for us.

    Law enforcement is not the same as intelligence services. And, again, if you don't smoke, you're probably going to die of medical error - ironically enough.

    These sound paranoid.

    Believe me, the last thing we want, is Trump fixing something. That'll set a very bad example of how to organize society. See, people secretly want a strong alpha male to fix their problems. When they see it happen, they decrease their testosterone production and get a little hit of dopamine. Crazy isn't it? It helps them settle in to the role as a beta.

    #notallmales.

    Females also have certain biological changes.

    This sort of primes society for wanting an alpha. Which is why we have the position POTUS. It's the equivalent of an alpha male in primate social hierarchy.

    I was serious about that IQ, there's no fixing that one. Once it's gone, it's gone for good (well, minus some serious technology we're far from ever inventing). I'd be more worried about that, if I were living in the West. That and the undermining of Western culture - which is, IMO, the greatest example of humanity and blossoming of civilization in history. Though, Japan has turned out well - that said, Graeco-Buddhism had a huge impact on the East. And here we are, watching it's utter destruction, right before our eyes.

    Fascinating. Thank the Gods for the internet so we can capture some of it before it's gone.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2017
  16. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    This is the dangerous thing about Trump and the right wing movement in general; they not only lie with abandon, they delegitimize core institutions upon which we all rely for peace, economic growth and stability. They are eroding the base of civilization.

    Trump, as a case in point, is a pathological liar, and when he is confronted with his lies and inconvenient facts, he attacks the legitimacy of the truth teller, e.g. the free press. Trump would have us replace the free press with his surrogates. That's dangerous. That threatens our democracy. Trump is a fascist and he is emblematic of the American right wing. For more than 2 decades now the American right wing has legitimized not only the free press, but academics. It's kind of reminiscent of Mao's repeated persecutions of intellectuals. Why is it fascist and authoritarian movements fear academics and feel it necessary to persecute them? I think we all know the answers. The truth is a threat to fascists, i.e. folks like Trump. They cannot suffer the truth, because if the truth were known, people wouldn't follow them. That's why the truth is a threat to folks like Trump. That's why folks like Trump try to delegitimize institutions which make the truth known. This is a real threat to democracies.
     
  17. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    I love it...
    Get rid of the intelligence agencies... yeah, I'm sure Russia, China, and North Korea would absolutely love that happening...
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Too bad Marx never realized that one can convert an entire economy from capitalist to socialist by taking it off the gold standard - might have saved a lot of bloodshed.

    You never will understand the difference between currency and capital, because you would have to face the fact that claiming a private investor owned, for profit, incorporated, money-lending, interest paying, bank,
    is a socialist institution
    is a species of bizarre and Orwellian shitspeak whose only qualification for attention is the matter of where it comes from and why it exists.

    And there we have a clue:
    What this is, is an example of the success of the American fascist media campaign to have government itself - all governmental authority, regulation, and power over incorporated capitalist businesses - identified as socialism, and vice versa. Government =Authoritarian = Socialist in any order.

    So if something is not Socialist, obviously it's not Authoritarian Government. And vice versa. Trump, for example, would not be labeled an Authoritarian threatening to impose intrusive and oppressive governmental authority on the country, because he's obviously not Socialist.

    The goal being to prevent rightwing authoritarian government from being identified as such, and therefore rejected by the American electorate.
    In the US? Doesn't happen - government regulation prevents it. In an east Asian country? That's an interesting question. Rolexes, now, brand name clothing - those are fairly easy to knock off. IPhones maybe not as easy.

    That kind of stuff happens all the time in those other countries you celebrate as wonders of free enterprise - like Brazil, where the average quality of dentistry is so much better than in America, according to your reasoning.

    Interesting thing about dentistry is that - almost alone among the medical professions - it's amenable to market economics. Dentists do repeat business involving voluntary customers, and much of their work can be evaluated by their customers over time. So it makes a handy example for wingnut deflections.
    You still haven't figured out your mistake there, have you - your recurrent error in statistical reasoning. You've had it explained to you at least three times now.

    The more obvious and basic error - that you are comparing a system much more reliant on market competition with better systems much less reliant on market competition as if the situation were the reverse - is of course impossible to dislodge from your goggles, and will always be part of your world.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2017
  19. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    LOL
    Nice strawman, the word consolidate is different from eliminate.
     
  20. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Japan spends such less on their public education, and yet are much more successful. According to your logic, we should therefore spend less.

    Our medical and healthcare system is broken due to regulatory capture amd rent-seeking based on licencing.

    Which is only possible due to income tax, fiat currency and government. If we had a free market, sound money and common law, then healthcare would be more than affordable.

    Amd don't worry, it's going to happen eventually. We just have to wait. Just as Charter and Private schools are displacing Traditional Government Schools. If we had Government Care, in a short amount of time, people would demand private and then the healthcare equivalent of charter.

    Why? Because socialism doesn't work.


    As for Socialism being a form of Authoritarianism. This is a definitional fact, particularly at the federal level. At the local level, when a service is provided voluntarily without monetary compensation it's called Charity, when instead the price mechanism is utilized, it's called a business.

    Your single example of a fire department once one time somewhere is dissengenous. It's not analogous to the federal government providing a service.
     
  21. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    LOL

    Said as Venezuela implodes and Sweden is dragged under.

    History is littered with the corpses of left governance.
     
  22. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    Brazil and Communist China are your examples of limited government with sound money, English common law that protects private property and upholds contract, and are regulatory free.

    Apples and Oranges much?
     
  23. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    I see where you are going with all this Michael... no problemo... how ever there is one major flaw in the rational that leads one to think of pies in the sky.
    For the society of your dreams to function what maturity level do it's adult citizens have to be?

    You do realize that some people can not even tie their own shoelaces with out being told to do so and repeatedly being shown how to?
     

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