Russian Sanctions Announced

[Jhhnn]

It is kind of amazing what people come to believe and how facts twist in people's minds over time. For example, Brazille's question controversy involved her work within the Democratic Party and took place during the primary. In his mind this somehow became Brazille being a government official (false), helping the Democratic Party against the Republicans (also false).

Their opinions weren't based on fact in the first place but rather on shitty attitude. Facts won't change that.

 

[Jaskalas]

President Obama, the 1980s called. They asked for their foreign policy back.
As the world turns...

There was a time before Crimea when I hoped we could negotiate with Russia on NATO / missile defense.
To come to terms on the world stage. Now it seems things are far more hostile and complicated.

 

[realibrad]

No, I don't feel that way about the FBI and its director, why would I? His actions were foolish, unprofessional, and self serving, but I don't think he was deliberately trying to elect Trump. I imagine Comey thinks Trump is as big of an idiot as the rest of us do.

Of course intel agencies can have their own motivations, but if you can't accept the unanimous judgement of every intelligence agency as the most likely answer absent significant evidence otherwise then your course of action is clear: disband all intelligence agencies and pocket the money.



That's already been provided, including IP addresses, aliases, and signatures associated with Russian intelligence.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3248231/Report-on-Russian-Hacking.pdf

The IP addresses come from a list of IP addresses to look for, but it does not explain why they think those are RIS. To be fair, it might be reasonable not to explain why because it may give away our methods, but the list of ip addresses to look for is not really evidence.

The document you linked too explains what they claimed happened, but its not proof that Russia did it.

I would be interested to see one of the phishing emails and then see where that came from, but that is of personal interest. I would argue though that the document you just linked is not proof but an explanation. Hopefully more can come out about the methods and put this to rest. Nothing good can come from Russia hacking the US. Russia has a nasty track record of killing and hacking.

 

[realibrad]

President Obama, the 1980s called. They asked for their foreign policy back.
As the world turns...

There was a time before Crimea when I hoped we could negotiate with Russia on NATO / missile defense.
To come to terms on the world stage. Now it seems things are far more hostile and complicated.

Russia has no interest in negotiations. Putin seeks power, and any negotiations are to that end. Russia is in a bad place economically and Trump is his saving grace. If people think the US is bad in what it does, then Russia will be a sad surprise if/when it grows to power.

 

[Thebobo]

Yes, we should do nothing. This isn't really proportional. Proportional would have been hacking them back. Preferably with a phishing email that has a big USA flag on it.

How do you know they aren't doing that as well?

 

[fskimospy]

The IP addresses come from a list of IP addresses to look for, but it does not explain why they think those are RIS. To be fair, it might be reasonable not to explain why because it may give away our methods, but the list of ip addresses to look for is not really evidence.

The document you linked too explains what they claimed happened, but its not proof that Russia did it.

I would be interested to see one of the phishing emails and then see where that came from, but that is of personal interest. I would argue though that the document you just linked is not proof but an explanation. Hopefully more can come out about the methods and put this to rest. Nothing good can come from Russia hacking the US. Russia has a nasty track record of killing and hacking.

It seems like you're asking for an ever increasing spiral of proof. Our intelligence agencies are UNANIMOUS in their opinion that Russian intelligence did this and they explained why. If that's not good enough for you in the absence of contrary evidence then again, disbanding all intelligence is the answer. Think of the savings!

 

[Thebobo]

I have a friend here at work that he 100% opposite of me politically and we try and avoid political talk but I slipped today and we got into a heated argument about the whether the Russians are hacking us. shocking to hear the reason he came up with claims like its "fake news," that our intelligence agencies are not sure. Same trump talking points. I ask him to check on line but if the site does not fit his view he calls the site biased.

 

[fskimospy]

I have a friend here at work that he 100% opposite of me politically and we try and avoid political talk but I slipped to day and we got into a heated argument about the whether the Russians are hacking us. shocking to hear the reason he came up with claims like its "fake news," that our intelligence agencies are not sure. Same trump talking points. I ask him to check on line but if the site does not fit his view he calls the site biased.

That's what 'fake news' now means to conservatives: news that isn't right wing.

 

[Starbuck1975]

What about this scheme was elaborate? It was actually super simple.



Mass executions of a foreign country's diplomats sounds like one of the worst foreign policy ideas in history.

If we are accusing Russia of attempting to sway our elections via targeted hacking and misinformation campaigns, orchestrated by agents posing as diplomats, is that not arguably an act of war? Or at the very least something we should try in a court of law given the implications?

 

[fskimospy]

If we are accusing Russia of attempting to sway our elections via targeted hacking and misinformation campaigns, orchestrated by agents posing as diplomats, is that not arguably an act of war? Or at the very least something we should try in a court of law given the implications?

Diplomats are spies all the time, nothing new there. As for an act of war, no.

Why try anyone in a court? We know it was them, so let's just act immediately. No need to wait years.

 

[werepossum]

tl;dr: Old man yells at cloud.

lol I read this while drinking tea and simultaneously laughed out loud while snorting tea out my nose. It did not go well. Now my cow-orkers are looking at me wondering WTF?

"There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America's elections...There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this time...So I'd advise Mr. Trump to stop whinning" - Barack Obama, October 2016

lol +1

In Obama's defense, when he said that he had no idea that Hillary might lose.

Your concern is touching, in that usual bad touching sort of way.

Ejection of diplomats is a common way for a country to express displeasure with another. It's been that way for hundreds of years.

We already have an imbroglio with the Russians over Ukraine & Syria.

The US & the rest of the world have never granted Israel the right to dispossess the Pals. Our Israeli friends have lied to us every inch of the way wrt "seeking peace" & the two state solution. Their actions wrt settlements & now Bibi's own words reveal that to be true. Trump's new ambassador to Israel & Ivanka's father in law have long supported the most radical settlers. Friedman recently offered this-

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.726779

Of course Obama let the UN resolution pass. He has to put this squarely on the Trump Admin where it belongs wherever it goes. Trump has to brand it to do it. I'm sure he will.

Syria? Wut? Trump told the Russians to take care of it, and they will. Trump rendered us irrelevant, not Obama.

To buy that line of "thought" one has to first accept that Obama himself is a total non-entity even while in office, whereas Trump was THE major force in American politics even when virtually everyone was sure he would lose. Also, I don't think Trump is going to lose much political capital for doing the exact same thing Obama did until his last-month-in-office tantrum.

President Obama, the 1980s called. They asked for their foreign policy back.
As the world turns...

There was a time before Crimea when I hoped we could negotiate with Russia on NATO / missile defense.
To come to terms on the world stage. Now it seems things are far more hostile and complicated.

Exactly. We thought the Cold War ended. In reality it never ended, it's just that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it took a couple decades before the Russians were once again strong enough to make us notice them. If one has a feud with a mortal enemy, and that mortal enemy can't call or come out because his mom grounded him, then one tends to forget him, even though he's home stewing in his own impotent juices getting more and more angry.

If we are accusing Russia of attempting to sway our elections via targeted hacking and misinformation campaigns, orchestrated by agents posing as diplomats, is that not arguably an act of war? Or at the very least something we should try in a court of law given the implications?

Given the efforts Obama made trying to influence the United Kingdom's and Israel's elections, your "logic" would imply that he declared war on the UK and Israel. This is simply Obama's tantrum geared toward preserving his true believers' faith, nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Sonikku]

Poor John McCain. The man he can't stand is taking the hard stance against Russia he agrees with enthusiastically, while the new leader of his party is taking a stance he can't stand.

Guy must be beside himself.

 

[fskimospy]

Werepossum just tried to equate hacking and covert espionage with the president saying something. Lol.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Your concern is touching, in that usual bad touching sort of way.

Ejection of diplomats is a common way for a country to express displeasure with another. It's been that way for hundreds of years.

We already have an imbroglio with the Russians over Ukraine & Syria.

The US & the rest of the world have never granted Israel the right to dispossess the Pals. Our Israeli friends have lied to us every inch of the way wrt "seeking peace" & the two state solution. Their actions wrt settlements & now Bibi's own words reveal that to be true. Trump's new ambassador to Israel & Ivanka's father in law have long supported the most radical settlers. Friedman recently offered this-

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.726779

Of course Obama let the UN resolution pass. He has to put this squarely on the Trump Admin where it belongs wherever it goes. Trump has to brand it to do it. I'm sure he will.

Syria? Wut? Trump told the Russians to take care of it, and they will. Trump rendered us irrelevant, not Obama.

If ever there was a rationale for the UN, Syria would be it. Instead, the UN likes to posture and talk tough on Israel while completely ignoring the humanitarian crisis in Syria. The UN was similarly ineffective in Africa and the Balkans.

 

[baydude]

Why didn't Obama request US diplomats in Russia to return home?

 

[IGBT]

Why didn't Obama request US diplomats in Russia to return home?

Once again, Putin demonstrates that he's the only adult acting on the world stage these days. Let the obama struggle in the quicksand he willingly jumped into proving yet again..the obama was never the wizard of smart.

 

[IGBT]

Putin Stunner: "We Will Not Expel Anyone; We Refuse To Sink To 'Kitchen' Diplomacy"

..."when in a stunning reversal, the Russian leader took the high road, rejected the Lavrov proposal, and in a statement posted by the Kremlin said that Russia won’t expel any Americans in retaliation to US moves, in a brutal demonstration of just how irrelevant Obama's 11th hour decision is for US-Russian relations."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...-not-expel-anyone-we-refuse-sink-obamas-level

 

[HamburgerBoy]

It seems like you're asking for an ever increasing spiral of proof. Our intelligence agencies are UNANIMOUS in their opinion that Russian intelligence did this and they explained why. If that's not good enough for you in the absence of contrary evidence then again, disbanding all intelligence is the answer. Think of the savings!

The document you linked contained no IP addresses nor really much direct evidence about who was involved, as mentioned above it was an explanation of how it went down. There is that accompanying spreadsheet which contains a lot of IP addresses, although apparently only two originate from Russia. Obviously hackers could/would work with proxies, but a nice bit of evidence would be something to conclusively tie any of these IPs to earlier verified Russian government hackers. Presumably at least one of the IPs has been previously logged/documented in an earlier government report.

 

[desura]

So.. where ya from?

Honestly, I recognize the comma sequence. Guy is Chinese. Chinese English writers don't know to put spaces after commas.

 

[IGBT]

I seem to recall, the obama whispering to Medvedev that "after the election (2012), we will have more flexibibility." And, I also seem to recall Hillary chortling about some sort of "reset button" when she met with Lavrov back when she first started her benighted and corrupt role as Secretary of State. Well, look at the obama now, he is sniveling, whining and squirming in his last role as president, a feckless, incompetent lame duck of the first order swinging his dirty diaper around in a crowded room.

 

[Thebobo]

Putin Stunner: "We Will Not Expel Anyone; We Refuse To Sink To 'Kitchen' Diplomacy"

..."when in a stunning reversal, the Russian leader took the high road, rejected the Lavrov proposal, and in a statement posted by the Kremlin said that Russia won’t expel any Americans in retaliation to US moves, in a brutal demonstration of just how irrelevant Obama's 11th hour decision is for US-Russian relations."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...-not-expel-anyone-we-refuse-sink-obamas-level

Why caps? And its not that stunning.

 

[fskimospy]

If ever there was a rationale for the UN, Syria would be it. Instead, the UN likes to posture and talk tough on Israel while completely ignoring the humanitarian crisis in Syria. The UN was similarly ineffective in Africa and the Balkans.

The UN has spent a huge amount of time and effort on Syria. Here's a list of resolutions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Syria

In addition to resolutions the UN is doing a large amount of work in the region to deal with the Syrian crisis. In fact I have a friend who works for UNMAS who is set to return to the region in a month or so in fact, explicitly for more Syria work.

The UN has a responsibility to address all areas, the humanitarian crisis in Syria AND the humanitarian crisis currently being perpetrated by Israel.

 

[OrByte]

Putin Stunner: "We Will Not Expel Anyone; We Refuse To Sink To 'Kitchen' Diplomacy"

..."when in a stunning reversal, the Russian leader took the high road, rejected the Lavrov proposal, and in a statement posted by the Kremlin said that Russia won’t expel any Americans in retaliation to US moves, in a brutal demonstration of just how irrelevant Obama's 11th hour decision is for US-Russian relations."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...-not-expel-anyone-we-refuse-sink-obamas-level

Seems like Russia is admitting guilt to me

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Seems like Russia is admitting guilt to me

They want Trump to let them off early on good behavior.

 

[IGBT]

Seems like Russia is admitting guilt to me

Classy and deadly... the mark of Russian modern foreign policy. This drives a stake through the heart of whatever was left of the obama's "legacy". Thus, we become the laughing stock of the entire world...and the obama gets to wear the yolk of shame and incompetence in his post pres.years.