Fake News (the fight we needed to have?)

[Pete at Home]

LR, even for sake of argument the Russians were behind this, it still would be a left wing media conspiracy to focus on this to obfuscate and distract from the actual contents of the spilled emails.  E.g. Obama and Clinton knowing that the Sauds and other "allies" are directly funding DAESH.

[yossarian22c]

LR, even for sake of argument the Russians were behind this, it still would be a left wing media conspiracy to focus on this to obfuscate and distract from the actual contents of the spilled emails.  E.g. Obama and Clinton knowing that the Sauds and other "allies" are directly funding DAESH.

The whole world basically knows the Saudi's fund all that stuff and spread the seed of Jihadi Islamism through Wahhabism. Therefore it isn't exactly shocking that Obama and Clinton are aware of those facts as well.  We don't talk about it much because of all that gooey black stuff the have under their sand.  The only real way (long term) to cut off the funding for Islamism is to develop an energy source that eliminates the need for oil.

[TheDeamon]

The only real way (long term) to cut off the funding for Islamism is to develop an energy source that eliminates the need for oil.

Or failing that, find ways to produce it and bring it to market that undercuts what it costs them to extract and transport it. Either road leads to the process being unprofitable for them so long as it can be sustained.

[Pete at Home]

LR, even for sake of argument the Russians were behind this, it still would be a left wing media conspiracy to focus on this to obfuscate and distract from the actual contents of the spilled emails.  E.g. Obama and Clinton knowing that the Sauds and other "allies" are directly funding DAESH.

The whole world basically knows the Saudi's fund all that stuff and spread the seed of Jihadi Islamism through Wahhabism. Therefore it isn't exactly shocking that Obama and Clinton are aware of those facts as well.  We don't talk about it much because of all that gooey black stuff the have under their sand.  The only real way (long term) to cut off the funding for Islamism is to develop an energy source that eliminates the need for oil.

That helps, but ceases to be a complete fix when Obama expedites immigration from Muslim areas where Christians are being murdered, while allowing only 0.5% of Christians from those areas to immigrate.  Plus like you said, the fact that most of our Muslim communities have some degree of funding from Saudi wahabist rascals, means that we get "home grown" Islamist terrorism in proportion to a growing Muslim population.

And there's a difference between funding Islamism generally, and funding DAESH specifically.  At least a difference of plausible deniability, since Obama (like Bush and Clinton before him) refused to ever acknowledge the problem of Islamism.  Ironically, by embracing the right wing turd "radical Islam", Trump avoids dealing with the Wahabist funding disease and Islamism generally, just as deftly as Obama and the BushClintons.

[Fenring]

The whole world basically knows the Saudi's fund all that stuff and spread the seed of Jihadi Islamism through Wahhabism. Therefore it isn't exactly shocking that Obama and Clinton are aware of those facts as well.  We don't talk about it much because of all that gooey black stuff the have under their sand.  The only real way (long term) to cut off the funding for Islamism is to develop an energy source that eliminates the need for oil.

I wish that this was the extent of the relationship with the Saudis. But the petrodollar consists of far more than "we need oil". It would be more accurate at this point to say that it is one of the fundamental bases of the currency and that the balance of trade relies on weapons exports to places like Saudi Arabia. The current configuration of political alliance in the mid-East is also fixated on Saudi Arabia being pitted against Russia, Syria and Iran, whilst simultaneously allowing proxy armies to operate out of Saudi Arabia that can do various dirty work that official governments don't have a local mandate to do any more (such as attack Syria). And this is without getting into the really nasty stuff!

[Pete at Home]

LR, even for sake of argument the Russians were behind this, it still would be a left wing media conspiracy to focus on this to obfuscate and distract from the actual contents of the spilled emails.  E.g. Obama and Clinton knowing that the Sauds and other "allies" are directly funding DAESH.

The whole world basically knows the Saudi's fund all that stuff and spread the seed of Jihadi Islamism through Wahhabism.

Actually there are several forum members who pretend at least not to believe this, at least while arguing with me.  Some even say that it violates "freedom of religion" to block immigration of people who think that DAESH is Allah's authorized Califate.

Therefore it isn't exactly shocking that Obama and Clinton are aware of those facts as well. 

But it was certainly shocking to see them acknowledge it in actual words.  Bear in mind that these guys never even use the word "Islamist" in their whole freaking reign.

[linuxfreakus]

Wow I've been away from this board for too long.  So refreshing to say things and actually have people give thoughtful responses.  Have been getting used to getting flamed on social media

you seem to think the PHP code was the only thing used, and concluding the hackers were unsophisticated, what is your basis for that belief?

Sorry, definitely didn't mean to imply that, and even if code is PHP that in no way intrinsically implies it is not sophisticated.  I'm very language agnostic myself, you can write good or bad code in any language.... though for low level stuff, you certainly can get to it easier in C or C++ which have long been my languages of choice.  The reason I conclude that the Hacks were unsophisticated is mainly from public statements and reports which indicate that simple tools were used that are easily obtained and require little experience to use.

It would confirm the content of any logs as far as the from where and when.  Also as I said the logs weren't necessarily compromised.

But what would you expect to find in said logs?  IP addresses?  I've already looked at what they put forward for such evidence, and it looks very contrived.  Unless the ISPs were actively sucking up a lot of data on all these IPs you'd still have no idea about what data was going back and forth or who was behind those IPs.  ISPs don't log that level of detail on a large scale.  It would be outrageously expensive.

Please feel free to quote the report, I didn't notice anything in the report that said or implied what you did.

Which report, the blog post by Counterstrike or the Grizzy Steppe report? My citation was cut and pasted from the blog post.

Because sometimes the hackers have to bring out the more sophisticated tools and leave traces.  They do as much as they can with the tools that aren't specific to themselves, but usually that isn't sufficient to compromise the target to the degree required.  Also hackers are often careless and leave other traces - such as the times that things are carried out and not carried out.  It is also often the case that hackers have hubris and will leave signatures that they figure the investigators will be too dumb to figure out.

Sure, I understand that.  But also, it would be easy to use these same tools to generate false signatures, just like the CIA has been doing as documented in the recent "vault 7" wikileaks stuff.

There are also nondeliberate signatures such as order that commands are carried out; what directories are explored first; etc.  Decisions that don't matter but there is no reason for any two hackers to choose the same order - but the same hacker will tend to stick to whatever order they happen to choose.

Again, all stuff that could easily be replicated using automation tools.  I don't see what this proves.

The logs would provide a signature of what was being done, that a forensic investigator would be able to determine.  That is one of the points of logs...

Logs don't necessarily provide a lot of info unless you've gone to painstaking effort to audit the slightest details on your system.  Based on what I've seen, I don't think the IT folks in charge of this stuff put that much work or effort into security.  I don't think they have a lot to go on there.  Certainly in the case of Hillary's private server, the contractors were so inept that they had to go on reddit asking how to do stuff.  Not as much is known about the setup at the DNC, but considering how easy it was to get in... I'm assuming it was not better.

It is also consistent with exfilitration designed to limit risk of detection.

That doesn't make any sense. They knew or should have known that there was not much in the way of security in place.

They knew or should have known nothing of the sort. There is different security at different layers.  Abnormal traffic is often an ISP level feature, whereas the type of security they compromised is a hosted system.

No, I'm gonna have to disagree.  Abnormal traffic at least in the small amounts it would represent to transfer a relatively small compressed email archive is NOT anything that is a normal ISP feature would flag or stop.  The signal to noise ratio on something that inconsequential would not be worth dealing with.  Yes there could be machine learning algorithms that might flag stuff that isn't normal for a specific connection, but even that stuff makes way more noise than they want to deal with.

[linuxfreakus]

IMO, the bottom line is that computer forensics can (if properly planned before there is a problem which seems highly doubtful here) provide a lot of insight into what was accessed and when.... but it is exceedingly difficult to answer questions about who did it (impersonation is not that hard) or most especially why an event took place.

[LetterRip]

IMO, the bottom line is that computer forensics can (if properly planned before there is a problem which seems highly doubtful here) provide a lot of insight into what was accessed and when.... but it is exceedingly difficult to answer questions about who did it (impersonation is not that hard) or most especially why an event took place.

The 'who' in this case is derived from what exploit code/tools were left behind - if tools are proprietary to a particular hacking group (say a tool that exploits a previously unknown zeroday in a particular way), then if that code is used for an attack it is a good indicator that that group carried out a specific attack.  The Grizzly Steppe report provided hash signatures of tools that were unique to active campaigns previously attributed to FancyBear and that importantly the knowledge of these campaigns and tools was classified and therefore unless the someone recently hacked by FancyBear during these recent campaigns is doing a false flag operation (basically the CIA or NSA but possibly there are a few other nation states such as China; but also our allies such as Israel, France, UK that could do it) then there is high confidence of the attribution.

What was lacking in the Grizzly Steppe report was the origination of the knowledge of these tools and why they can be uniquely attributed to FancyBear - that is because the report was meant to be advisory (check for these hash signatures of all software on your server, if you find them it means you were probably targeted by FancyBear and should contact the FBI) rather than evidentiary (here is the chain of reasoning for why we uniquely associate these hashes with FancyBear).  Of course once the hash signature is made public the coder can change the code such that the tool will generate a unique hash signature (although I'm surprised that this isn't common practice already ... but then many hackers are lazy).

[linuxfreakus]

So where do they say that they've never seen these particular tool(s) other than from the two groups they're looking at? ... and how do they know the precise hashes? the stuff that ends up on a server isn't always the same stuff that granted you access...   I've not seen any such claims or evidence.  What I've seen are generic explanations of how phishing and malware attacks work, which makes me think thats what happened (if not straight up leaks from insiders)... but not specific evidence or information.

Hiding behind claims of "trying to protect methods and information" are ridiculous.  They already named the groups and if they aren't pulling it out of thin air, those guys know full well what they used to gain access and if they were made, then they already know what tools to not use going forward if they don't want to leave "fingerprints".

[Seriati]

So Fox News is reporting that Susan Rice ordered the unmasking of the Trump associates and that they were monitored for over a year.  No headlines on CNN or CBS, maybe they are asleep at the switch?  lol.

[TheDrake]

Actually, it was Bloomberg that reported it, and it is on CBS as of 3 hours ago.

[Seriati]

I wasn't trying to say who got the scoop, just that it was being reported on a major network and ignored on others.  Taking almost a day to report on what could be a major scandal is bizarre, especially in an environment where they are leading with unconfirmed anonymous reports when they are critical of the President.  It's pretty clear that the delay was almost completely for spin purposes.

I note CNN's "response" (can't call it a report anymore) hangs its hat on a single anonymous source disputing what happened.  Best part here is with how hard Fox went one way and CNN and CBS the other way, someone owes us a retraction down the road.

[linuxfreakus]

Yeah, CNN is pretty much instructing people to ignore it.  Chris Cuomo said it was "demonstrably untrue"... they did the same thing with wikileaks in the leadup to the election... told people not to look and just leave the reporting to them.  We know how that worked out.

[TheDrake]

This is in most ways, a prematurely reported possible scandal. BBC's Zurcher sums up as follows:

Former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice says that while she did request the "unmasking" of some Americans in contact with foreign subjects under government surveillance, she did not do so for "political purposes".
If that's where the story ends, then she was almost certainly legally exercising the broad powers high-level US national security officials have to review reports produced by the intelligence community. There were growing indications that the Russian government was attempting to influence the US presidential election, and a national security adviser would be remiss not to closely inspect any information about possible American involvement.
If, on the other hand, Ms Rice widely disseminated information about US citizens or leaked it to the press, as some Republican critics allege and she adamantly denies, then the picture grows much darker.
The bottom line is that someone, somewhere did reveal details about conversations Michael Flynn, Ms Rice's successor as national security adviser, had with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak. That leak, while it revealed that Flynn was being less than truthful with the US public, was illegal.

I think this is a good even handed report. I wouldn't read CNN as anything but entertainment these days, and I would expect news organizations to take their time and do some research for at least 24 hours before blasting a bunch of unconfirmed information.

This is especially true when the original article is written by Eli Lake, who contributes to Daily Beast, Washington Times, and other highly partisan sites.

[Fenring]

Maybe the solution to this situation is to rigorously define what "news" means in legal terms, and require any media outlet to follow those stringent rules if they want to include the word "news" in their self-description. This may sound a bit trivial, but I think the populace puts a lot of trust in the letters "n-e-w-s" and there is power in perceived meaning. I think it could make a big difference if you had some networks like CNN forced to use descriptors other than news, and for other ones to have to 'pass muster' in qualifying for the descriptor "news" to be used in their title, advertising, descriptions, and web options. There could then be a list of "approved" news networks, and I think a good chunk of the public would probably try to get their information from them rather than from "information sources" that are not news sites.

Right now it seems like people get their information from all over the place, including Facebook, stupid sites, and who knows where else. Part of that is laziness, but I think part of it is also that "news" has become so watered down that there is a general perception that since there is no gold standard there is basically no standard at all, and so people will gravitate towards whatever media source will say what they want to hear. But I think it would be a lot harder to fool oneself if the site where you were getting your info is blatantly "not a news station". The difficulty, of course, would be in setting some basic controls so that "news" stations didn't devolve into partisan clearinghouses, and part of that goes into budget constraints and having to get information second-hand, which is often from partisan sources. It's hard to solve all of this at once, and to an extent it's a technological problem of having easy access to an audience but very little access to primary information.

[DonaldD]

Fox News is reporting that Susan Rice ordered the unmasking of the Trump associates

If that's what Fox is reporting, then Fox needs to make a correction, don't you think?

And if Fox isn't reporting that, maybe you should correct your attribution..?

[linuxfreakus]

I don't know how far this story will go either, and secondly whether or not it was illegal, and thirdly whether anyone would actually "go down" over it are completely different issues.  It takes a LOT for it to get to stage 3.  There is so much grey area in the laws that they can basically do whatever they please as far as I can tell, so aside from public outrage, I don't know what else can come of this unless a whole lot more info is yet to come. Rice sure has changed her story quite a bit as details unfold

The part that is unsettling about CNN (in this example) and much of the rest of the MSM is that they *are* taken seriously by a lot of people, and the stuff that gets broadcast/published is often full of wrong information, speculation presented as facts, etc, etc... and the coverage more closely resembles a sporting event than documentary.  We end up with an awful lot of people who believe things that aren't true, or at least do not deserve nearly the level of credibility/certainty that is attached.

This is in most ways, a prematurely reported possible scandal. BBC's Zurcher sums up as follows:

Former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice says that while she did request the "unmasking" of some Americans in contact with foreign subjects under government surveillance, she did not do so for "political purposes".
If that's where the story ends, then she was almost certainly legally exercising the broad powers high-level US national security officials have to review reports produced by the intelligence community. There were growing indications that the Russian government was attempting to influence the US presidential election, and a national security adviser would be remiss not to closely inspect any information about possible American involvement.
If, on the other hand, Ms Rice widely disseminated information about US citizens or leaked it to the press, as some Republican critics allege and she adamantly denies, then the picture grows much darker.
The bottom line is that someone, somewhere did reveal details about conversations Michael Flynn, Ms Rice's successor as national security adviser, had with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak. That leak, while it revealed that Flynn was being less than truthful with the US public, was illegal.

I think this is a good even handed report. I wouldn't read CNN as anything but entertainment these days, and I would expect news organizations to take their time and do some research for at least 24 hours before blasting a bunch of unconfirmed information.

This is especially true when the original article is written by Eli Lake, who contributes to Daily Beast, Washington Times, and other highly partisan sites.

[TheDeamon]

The part that is unsettling about CNN (in this example) and much of the rest of the MSM is that they *are* taken seriously by a lot of people, and the stuff that gets broadcast/published is often full of wrong information, speculation presented as facts, etc, etc... and the coverage more closely resembles a sporting event than documentary.  We end up with an awful lot of people who believe things that aren't true, or at least do not deserve nearly the level of credibility/certainty that is attached

As I think about it, that is probably one of the most apt descriptions of CNN I've seen in a while. It IS almost like watching a sporting event broadcast, brought to you by one of the teams involved.

Substitute Democrat and Republican with Patriots and Falcons (in any sequence), and have the Anchor announce that the Patriots are down by 6 point, are in a 3rd down and 12 yards to go, and cut to analysis of what the Falcons can do to prevent a first down.

[LetterRip]

Maybe the solution to this situation is to rigorously define what "news" means in legal terms, and require any media outlet to follow those stringent rules if they want to include the word "news" in their self-description.

I was thinking either consumers should be able to sue companies that have news in the name for fraud/false advertising when they behave like some of the cable 'news' channels.  Or actual news organizations such as BBC should be able to sue Fox, etc. for damaging the reputation of actual news organization.

[Wayward Son]

Right now it doesn't sound like the "unmasking" accusation will go far.  Unmasking requests can't be used by themselves to spy on an American citizen, from what I understand.

The FBI and NSA regularly produce reports for government customers. The customer could be another investigating agency, Congress, the Justice Department or the White House. If an American’s name appears in a piece of intelligence — for example, if agents intercept a conversation between two foreign nationals who mention an American friend in passing — those preparing the report generally "mask" the American’s name, replacing it with something like "U.S. Person."

The recipient of the report might decide that in order to fully understand the intelligence, they need to know the "U.S. Person’s" identity. So they make a request for the name to be unmasked, and the agency that produced the report either approves or denies the request. The NSA approved 654 requests in 2015, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

It’s not just agencies conducting criminal or counterintelligence investigations that make the unmasking requests, as Cotton said. It’s anyone who consumes intelligence reports.

So the person requesting the unmasking doesn't know from the report who will be unmasked.  So unless she has prior knowledge of who's name will be unmasked, it is useless for finding out any particular individuals who might be in the reports.

The official who wants to abuse the process would have to get agency workers on board with her plan because they would have to make sure she receives reports about the American in question. They would also have to make sure that any unmasking request would be granted, said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty & National Security Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, a civil liberties group.

"It’s certainly not an easy or direct route to spying on political opponents," she said, adding that there are other provisions of surveillance laws that are far more susceptible to abuse.

Stonekettle Station goes into more detail (or at least uses more words ).

So no one can say that Susan Rice purposely unmasked Trump associates names, because she wouldn't have known the masked names were their names until she unmasked them.  And while not usual, it would be part of her job if she had reason to find out who the mysterious, masked person's name was.

So until they find evidence that she had prior knowledge of those names, I don't see anything to this story.

[D.W.]

Took me awhile to find this original post. 
The AI generated fake puppet show video is back in the news.  Or at least the social media. 

This time it was Scarlet Johansson raising awareness of people pasting whoever they want onto porn star's bodies.  Maybe this will be the thing that gets attention to this threat? 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/business/technology/deepfakes-how-a-new-technology-is-being-used-to-put-womens-faces-on-porn-stars-bodies/2018/12/30/af0cff27-f7d1-4fcc-bb4f-011e6e086f30_video.html?utm_term=.231f04fc44f3

[TheDeamon]

Good thing CNN can spot fake news so readily. Don't want a misinformed populace.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/local-san-diego-tv-station-schools-cnn-on-reality-that-border-walls-worksan-diego-tv-station-schools-cnn-on-reality-that-border-walls-work.amp

[D.W.]

While that is interesting, and I'm all for highlighting news distortion for political ends, that's not the kinda thing I was talking about.

Unless I missed it and they turned the hosts of the station into digital sock puppets against their wishes and made them say exactly what they wanted, when the real reporting didn't line up with the political goal?

We're approaching, or already at a point that any scandalous accusation can be furnished with a believable fake video.  Selective reporting and biased propaganda will soon be "the good ol' days" of media manipulation.

[cherrypoptart]

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/critics-of-10-yearold-boy-charged-in-classmates-dodgeball-injury-blame-racism-191039356.html

So you read the story and the children were playing dodge ball in school and one child got hit in the face and the child who threw the ball at him is now charged with assault. You look at the comments and logically enough the consensus is that that is what sometimes happens when you play dodge ball.

Nowhere in the story does it mention that they were not in fact playing dodge ball but a different game called tips that is nothing at all like dodge ball because you throw the ball up in the air instead of at each other and then one child purposefully threw the ball at another child's face and said that's what he gets.

Calling super duper fake news on this story. Unless the other information is wrong, this story deliberately omits crucial information and in fact tells outright lies to promote an agenda.

[TheDrake]

Back in my day, even when kids threw punches, nobody called the police. I'm the wrong person to ask. The article is almost incoherent, I recommend not using yahoo lifestyle as a source.

Is it racial? Not enough information.

[Seriati]

Here I thought the fake news point for today would be on the hundreds of articles and hours of television news coverage on how Republicans don't want secure elections, because they refused to allow a series of partisan house bills to pass without debate.  Hmm...  a news media labeled the Senate Majority leader "Moscow Mitch" and decried him for refusing to allow a bill to pass the Senate with a single (and I mean one) Republican supporter in either house of Congress.   

I read over 20 articles on this yesterday, and the ONLY one that even tried to explain why McConnell opposed the bills was, in of all places, MSNBC.  And of course there they were very dismissive.  None of them linked to the bills that were being considered.

So, the only one I identified at all, seemed to have 2 critical items, paper records (which I support) and de-linking all voting machines from the internet (which I can not support).  While I understand the "appeal" of de-linking to limit hacking, I can not agree that local control without any oversight, which has in fact lead to manipulation in the past, is a good thing.  I'll be honest, I don't trust Democrats to run fair elections where they have control over the ballot boxes, and I know they don't trust that Republicans can't control the machines.  So to me, having paper copies and centralized electronic records is the best layering of protections.

Instead of reasoned discourse we get dozens of headlines about "Moscow Mitch" and literally, "Republicans oppose election security bills."  With many including call backs to the Mueller testimony where he emphasized the threat posed by Russia.  Not one mention of the nearly half a billion dollars allocated to support state efforts to harden their systems, or the money already spent at the state level, nor the federalism or Constitutional issues that would be involved in federal take over of elections.

Fake news, with a narrative timed to link off of Mueller, designed to set the stage on an issue to benefit one party. 

We have a state media now, it just supports what it believes is the government in exile.

[ScottF]

Makes you wonder if the democrats regain control whether they'll work with state media to ensure a new "standards" bill that eliminates dissenting news outlets like Fox to prevent this kind of travesty from happening again.

[D.W.]

Fake news, with a narrative timed to link off of Mueller, designed to set the stage on an issue to benefit one party. 

This issue must be answered now.  Honestly, it should already have been.  As you point out, there's no trust, so a solution that either restores that trust, or makes trust irreverent needs to happen. 

I get it, nobody cares about the midterms, but we need to go into 2020 confident that A: the mechanisms of voting are protected from outside aggressors, and preferably, also proof against internal meddling. 

Guess what, the party in power, particularly with a President who denies there even IS a problem, is gonna take the most *censored* about this.  Boo hoo politics?  Quit being a sore winner.  Fix the issue.  Reassure the public.  Preserve democracy.  Do your GD jobs. 

That anything short of this looks like treason should be a sufficient motivator to do all the above.  If not, you get what you deserve.  Fear of looking too political is a large part of what got us into this mess.

As I told my siblings growing up:  If you don't want to be picked on, quit being an easy target.

[NobleHunter]

If the objection is over the details of the bill can't the Senate make changes and send it back to the House? Why prevent a vote on it outright?

[Seriati]

If the objection is over the details of the bill can't the Senate make changes and send it back to the House? Why prevent a vote on it outright?

They didn't 'prevent it outright,' they voted not to pass it without debate.  So, yes NOW they can make changes and send it back to the House.

Fake news, with a narrative timed to link off of Mueller, designed to set the stage on an issue to benefit one party. 

This issue must be answered now.  Honestly, it should already have been.  As you point out, there's no trust, so a solution that either restores that trust, or makes trust irreverent needs to happen.

Agreed, and it helps nothing when the media apparently in coordination with the Democrats hard presses on a one-sided lie to try and flood the debate and set the terms.  We've actually done a lot to limit foreign influence, yet the media seemed to have missed that (and failed to write hundreds of articles on it and devote hours of air time to it).

I get it, nobody cares about the midterms, but we need to go into 2020 confident that A: the mechanisms of voting are protected from outside aggressors, and preferably, also proof against internal meddling.

There's still NO EVIDENCE that the mechanisms of voting were breached in 2016, or 2018, and they have gotten harder since. 

Guess what, the party in power, particularly with a President who denies there even IS a problem, is gonna take the most *censored* about this.

Do they?  Thune was on Fox last night and flat out said that not one single Republican Senator denies there is a problem or that its critical.

Do you have support that the "party" is denying a problem?  This is why fake news (ie propaganda) is so dangerous.  It makes even reasonable people think they know something that isn't true.  And how would you learn any different when the media won't cover truth?

Boo hoo politics?  Quit being a sore winner.  Fix the issue.  Reassure the public.  Preserve democracy.  Do your GD jobs.

I'm going to expressly posit that there is no action, and no reassurance that the media will accept, if Republicans win elections, and if Democrats win?  Well then the problem has been fixed and the elections were fully fair and free without interference.

How do I, or anyone else, "fix the issue" and "reassure the public," when the media defines fixed by a specific outcome, not whether there is actually interference? 

I mean honestly, it was asserted to be almost treason that Donald Trump said he wouldn't agree to accept the results of the election, if he felt they were rigged against him.  Uniform condemnation by Hillary, every Democrat and just about the entire media.  Almost treason level assertions.  Here we are 2 and a half years later and every single one of them is a flaming hypocrite for still not accepting an election result.

[NobleHunter]

They didn't 'prevent it outright,' they voted not to pass it without debate.  So, yes NOW they can make changes and send it back to the House.

Oh good.

[D.W.]

Agreed, and it helps nothing when the media apparently in coordination with the Democrats hard presses on a one-sided lie to try and flood the debate and set the terms.

It's not a lie though.  Was the timing / coordination political?  I sure think so, but it is accurate.  The issue isn't solved.  Now it looks like one party wants to fix it with a sense of urgency, and the other doesn't. 

Why?  What are they hiding?  Are they traitors?  Getting kickbacks from voter machine suppliers?  Afraid of the will of the people should a fair and accurate election occur?  Have they calculated that without Russian help Trump cannot win another term?

All this and more can be the narrative until action is taken.  Is it unfair?  Sort of.  But as it's a problem with a simple solution.  This falls under self harm.  Rather than fretting over what such acts may do to Trump's legitimacy, he could be doing all he can to make this a priority, 'proving' to everyone he cares about our country more than his own reputation.  I know, I know, silly thought.

There's still NO EVIDENCE that the mechanisms of voting were breached in 2016, or 2018, and they have gotten harder since. 

This is every bit as much a PR problem and a voter confidence problem as it is a security issue.  We are hyper polarized and elections teater on a razor's edge.  Any shred of suspicion is too much.

Do you have support that the "party" is denying a problem?

Is the problem solved?  I don't care one lick of they agree there is a problem.  They need to act. 

I'm going to expressly posit that there is no action, and no reassurance that the media will accept, if Republicans win elections, and if Democrats win?  Well then the problem has been fixed and the elections were fully fair and free without interference.

You may be right about the first part.  Does that mean it's not worth putting the good of the country as a priority, even when it won't score you political points?  I guess we'll see on the second part.    I expect you're wrong.  Probably not about the media's interest unfortunately, but I feel the Democrats will move a lot more aggressively to trying to solve foreign interference issues.  As opposed to the current administration who waffles on whether he'll take outside help or not.

[TheDrake]

If they mentioned Moscow mitch, I imagine it is in the context of reporting on the viral hashtag. I don't think they made up a nickname to demean him, that's our President's favorite pastime.

We also know that McConnell has rejected a series of recent proposals intended to bolster our domestic defenses. Some of those measures were written by Democrats; others were bipartisan; but the Senate majority leader hasn’t been willing to advance any of them.

We also know that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) last week said on the chamber’s floor, “I would suggest to my friend the majority leader: If he doesn’t like this bill, let’s put another bill on the floor and debate it.” McConnell, at least so far, hasn’t expressed any support for any election-security bill.

This isn't one bill being rammed through without debate. McConnell has systematically opposed any measure, while never proposing one of his own. This includes bipartisan bills.

We also know that one of McConnell’s top lieutenants, Senate Rules Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), recently conceded every bill on election security is likely doomed because McConnell has insisted that the debate “reaches no conclusion.” Blunt went on to suggest that the prospects for any legislative progress on this issue simply do not exist.

His opposition is against any federal involvement in elections, declaring it should be done at the state level. Wonder why that could be *cough* voting rights act *cough*.

I'll take any of that back and join you on fake news in full throat when I hear Mitch has scheduled the bill for floor debate.

It is quite true that Democrats tried to expedite this bill without Republican co-sponsors via unanimous consent, probably because there shouldn't need to be a debate about a bill that is mostly common sense.

I don't see anything in the bill about "being connected to the internet".

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1540/text

There's bug bounty program in sec 502. In any event, no voting machines I've ever heard of are connected wirelessly or otherwise.

[TheDeamon]

Back in my day, even when kids threw punches, nobody called the police. I'm the wrong person to ask. The article is almost incoherent, I recommend not using yahoo lifestyle as a source.

Is it racial? Not enough information.

,
Well, going by one of the clickbait headlines I've seen on the matter it seems that the kid who threw the ball may have been black, which is part of how it's getting the attention it is. There might be a inter-racial component in the mix as well based on that. Can't be bothered to care enough to really dig into it deeper myself.

[TheDrake]

Back in my day, even when kids threw punches, nobody called the police. I'm the wrong person to ask. The article is almost incoherent, I recommend not using yahoo lifestyle as a source.

Is it racial? Not enough information.

,
Well, going by one of the clickbait headlines I've seen on the matter it seems that the kid who threw the ball may have been black, which is part of how it's getting the attention it is. There might be a inter-racial component in the mix as well based on that. Can't be bothered to care enough to really dig into it deeper myself.

Yes, and the claim being made is that if a white kid threw the ball, they wouldn't be facing juvenile detention. There is no evidence, however.

[Seriati]

Agreed, and it helps nothing when the media apparently in coordination with the Democrats hard presses on a one-sided lie to try and flood the debate and set the terms.

It's not a lie though.

It is a lie.  Specifically, the implication that Republicans are blocking election security is a lie.  They've already acted and are serious about acting further.  I don't see any way to parse a disagreement on that point.  It's just factually misleading.

Second, and I'm less concerned, implying (or flat out stating as some news sources did) that McConnell was doing Putin's bidding is a lie.  In fact Mitch's record on Russia is better than pretty much the entire Democrat party.  Do we remember Obama telling Romney that the 80's wanted their foreign policy back?

Was the timing / coordination political?  I sure think so, but it is accurate.

It's my opinion it was coordinated.  Mueller makes statement about election security.  Democrat senator calls show vote on Democrat-centric House resolution to pass them without debate.  Hundreds of articles hit the media within 24 hours.

That's more evidence of collusion than Meuller found.  But it's still an opinion.

However it's not accurate.  One form of propaganda works by tieing a true fact to a misleading or lying opinion.  True fact - We need to solidify election Security.  Lying opinion - Republicans are acting to prevent election Security.  It's 100% a lie.

The issue isn't solved.  Now it looks like one party wants to fix it with a sense of urgency, and the other doesn't.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!  It looks like one party wants to fix it and the other doesn't.  You just, with 100% accuracy recited back the exact propaganda point that was intended.

Nevermind that factually Republicans have already acted, nevermind that they are 100% in agreement that we need to implement controls, nevermind that the Democrats pushed a completely partisan bill in the House that I believe is designed to enhance their ability to manipulate elections, nevermind that the media deliberately didn't cover the actual reasons and deliberately put out misleading headlines, you now think that the Democrats are the good guys and Republicans are bad because this is an important issue. 

That's a perfect demonstration of propaganda in action, and fake news.

[TheDrake]

Show me one federal bill proposed by a republican and supported by the congressional leadership. It's not optics, or grandstanding, although both are being used to illuminate the inaction.

Here's the full text of McConnell's floor speech in response to the public outrage.

“My opposition to nationalizing election authorities that properly belong with the states is not news to anybody who’s followed my career or knows anything about Congress.

In other words no bill can possibly exist that would satisfy him if it sets a Federal standard of any kind.

Here's another bill he didn't allow to go to a vote or a debate. It has been referred to committee.

To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to clarify the obligation to report acts of foreign election influence and require implementation of compliance and reporting systems by Federal campaigns to detect and report such acts.

That seems easy and straightforward.

[Seriati]

Here's another bill he didn't allow to go to a vote or a debate. It has been referred to committee.

To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to clarify the obligation to report acts of foreign election influence and require implementation of compliance and reporting systems by Federal campaigns to detect and report such acts.

That seems easy and straightforward.

It's straightforward until you try to implement what appears to be an attempt to criminalize talking to foreign people.

And how will it be implemented?  Fairly applied to both parties?  How do you deal with a Clinton running, where she was the Secretary of State and certainly received support from non-US persons?  I can already guess, after watching a hearing that cites to about "150 contacts" between the Trump campaign and Russian persons but hasn't said a word about how many there were with the Clinton campaign - which would be a useful baseline to give that context don't you think?  Fusion GPS hiring a Russian spy to work indirectly for the DNC?  Is that covered too?

How does it address the inherent First Amendment problems?  Not just speech but free association?  Answer, it doesn't.  It's unConstitutional on it's "straightforward" face.

Again, it's a bill that's written to sell a propaganda point, not because it's a practical piece of legislation.

[D.W.]

I can already guess, after watching a hearing that cites to about "150 contacts" between the Trump campaign and Russian persons but hasn't said a word about how many there were with the Clinton campaign - which would be a useful baseline to give that context don't you think?

And it would matter if she had won.  The DNC *censored*ed up in nominating her, and paid for it.  She's not running this time, (though perhaps the only person who isn't...)  All this, "but, but, Clinton!" is pathetic after 2 years.  She DOES NOT MATTER anymore, thank God.

Start trying to set standards you want everyone to live up to instead of trying to be only as good as those you loath who came before.

[D.W.]

How does it address the inherent First Amendment problems?  Not just speech but free association?  Answer, it doesn't.  It's unConstitutional on it's "straightforward" face.

Any suggestions?  What do you do when an adversarial (or at least competitive) foreign power wants to tip the scales?  How do you address a candidate/campaign who invites any advantage they can find? 

[Fenring]

It occurs to me that there's a false binary present in the insinuation that someone "won't do anything" about a problem, the binary being "will they or won't they". But when the answer is something like "it isn't our job or technically within our purview to do this" it ends up looking like "they won't do anything about it", which is sort of like saying my plumber "won't do anything about" the bad bricks on the outside of my building.

I don't know if that applies to this case at all, but the possibility that a certain problem shouldn't be handled by the Congress at all is probably a position that doesn't have any realistic optics that look good in the mass media.

[Fenring]

How does it address the inherent First Amendment problems?  Not just speech but free association?  Answer, it doesn't.  It's unConstitutional on it's "straightforward" face.

Any suggestions?  What do you do when an adversarial (or at least competitive) foreign power wants to tip the scales?  How do you address a candidate/campaign who invites any advantage they can find?

If a foreign power can make hay over your politicians being corrupt, maybe the solution is...I dunno...fix the political system so that no one can rightfully point fingers at one side or the other? Currently the system is structured (IMO deliberately) so that both sides can point fingers at each other and both be right, thus guanteeing a divided public.

[Seriati]

I can already guess, after watching a hearing that cites to about "150 contacts" between the Trump campaign and Russian persons but hasn't said a word about how many there were with the Clinton campaign - which would be a useful baseline to give that context don't you think?

And it would matter if she had won.  The DNC *censored*ed up in nominating her, and paid for it.  She's not running this time, (though perhaps the only person who isn't...)  All this, "but, but, Clinton!" is pathetic after 2 years.  She DOES NOT MATTER anymore, thank God.

Start trying to set standards you want everyone to live up to instead of trying to be only as good as those you loath who came before.

I think you're missing my point.  How many contacts does the average campaign (read everyone involved) have with nationals of any particular country?  Is 150 an outlier?

I seriously doubt that a similar investigation of all contacts by each campaign, with nationals from each country would have shown the contacts with Russia by the Trump campaign to be an outlier.  That's the context that's missing.

Over 150 dentists recommend toothpaste x; has a different meaning if no other toothpaste has more than 2 or 3 recommenders than it does if tooth paste y is recommend by more than 100,000.

Again, the narrative here requires that you only consider facts in isolation to exploit the manipulative narrative your mind fills in.  I note this directly, where on at least 3 occasions during Meuller's testimony it was pointed out to him that someone was questionably identified (in one case a person labeled as a "Russian" was a US citizen from Georgia, on 2 others persons were labelled as Russian agents, when they have contacts to US intelligence as well as other western intelligence services).

In any event it should be - obvious - that citing to a number of Russian contacts without providing any baseline for how many typically occur is designed to be misleading.

[D.W.]

We had a SOS vs a global business man pursuing ventures with Russia.  The question you posit is a good one.  This time, I expect, was an aberration on both sides of the ticket.  If you want to compare oranges to apples instead of noting they were both rotten, leave me out of it.

I think part of the reason I, and many others, are so harsh, is because we concede that it IS difficult to set hard and fast rules.  The 'solution' is in large part to make the political cost SO high, that nobody dares any but the most innocent contact at all, if any.

[Seriati]

There's nothing "rotten" about talking to foreign nationals.  There's nothing rotten about them providing some services to campaigns (and it's perfectly legal in some contexts).

Meuller was flat out wrong that receiving dirt without compensation is a crime.  If you look at his analysis it's clear the theory has never been upheld by any court, that he didn't think he could even prove it and that it may have violated the Constitution to treat it as a crime.  It's one of those "handwaives" that people do over the legal analysis in the report.

I'll give you a direct example.  There was absolutely nothing illegal or wrong about pursuing a deal for a Trump tower Moscow.  The only "wrong" event was Cohen lying about it (assuming you believe he told the truth the second time).   It was bad optics, but not remotely illegal.

There are 600,000 people of Russian descent in NYC alone.  There is zero chance that a Russian descended person wasn't working on both campaigns.  Again nothing illegal.

This whole idea is to turn the trivial and normal into impeachable conduct.  Don't buy into it.  You don't need an all encompassing solution.  We need to protect our systems.

But how could you ever eliminate speech on social media and through the media without grossly violating the Constitution?

[Seriati]

Any suggestions?  What do you do when an adversarial (or at least competitive) foreign power wants to tip the scales?  How do you address a candidate/campaign who invites any advantage they can find?

First, all campaigns in the last 30 years(?) have invited any advantage they can find.  Bill Clinton had to give back  direct contributions from Chinese Nationals seeking to influence the election (Trump would already be impeached on similar facts).   I'm still baffled why "Russian" lies that represented a fraction of a fraction of the total election spend seem more damaging in your mind that lies by US citizens that were powered by much bigger campaigns?

As to how to address it?  People are the voters, sway them with policies and they become "Russian propaganda" resistant or even immune.   Hillary was susceptible hear for two primary reasons, (1) she deliberately didn't want to run on issues, and (2) the primary thing that harmed her was true (the stolen DNC emails).  Russian propaganda?  No evidence it swayed a single voter.  Stolen emails and Comey's bungling, probably cost her the election.

My empathy for the stolen email harm is limited.  She, her campaign and the DNC are open liars, seeing the proof in their own words just lifted the veil for some who deluded themselves otherwise.

[cherrypoptart]

I'm curious if all of the proposed solutions also apply to the U.S. attempting to influence elections in other countries. Would we be making it illegal for foreigners to do something regarding our elections that it will remain perfectly legal for us to do regarding theirs?

[TheDrake]

It isn't legal for us to interfere in foreign elections according to most nations' laws. I'm definitely not a fan.

[Pete at Home]

I can already guess, after watching a hearing that cites to about "150 contacts" between the Trump campaign and Russian persons but hasn't said a word about how many there were with the Clinton campaign - which would be a useful baseline to give that context don't you think?

And it would matter if she had won.  The DNC *censored*ed up in nominating her, and paid for it.  She's not running this time, (though perhaps the only person who isn't...)  All this, "but, but, Clinton!" is pathetic after 2 years.  She DOES NOT MATTER anymore, thank God.

Start trying to set standards you want everyone to live up to instead of trying to be only as good as those you loath who came before.

Where do you disagree:

1. Russia intended to interfere with our 2016 election.

2. Russia will probably interfere again if it can get away with it.

3. It behooves is to understand what Russia did and why, in order to know our enemy and preserve our system of government, or lack thereof.

4. Therefore reporting only part of the Russian operation, misrepresents what Russia did and how it did it, and damages our ability to protect our elections.