Political Roundtable Part XVIII

[dckingsfan]

The US government publicly announced in October that it was "confident" Russia orchestrated the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations of the Democratic Party.

You're ready to let that one go?

No. Russia, China, and North Korea hack our systems all the time. Appropriate and measured retaliation is certainly necessary. I'm assuming we have cyberspies attacking their systems as well. But when your password is "password1", expect to be hacked. Also, don't fall for phishing scams. Oh, and keep your professional emails on the protected state.gov server.

This is really the first time (in recent history) that an outside interest has been successful at influencing an election. Shouldn't Trump be outraged by this? Shouldn't he be convening a HUGE effort to battle this?

[nate33]

You're ready to let that one go?

No. Russia, China, and North Korea hack our systems all the time. Appropriate and measured retaliation is certainly necessary. I'm assuming we have cyberspies attacking their systems as well. But when your password is "password1", expect to be hacked. Also, don't fall for phishing scams. Oh, and keep your professional emails on the protected state.gov server.

This is really the first time (in recent history) that an outside interest has been successful at influencing an election. Shouldn't Trump be outraged by this? Shouldn't he be convening a HUGE effort to battle this?

How were they successful? Do you really think the Twitter trolls had an impact? Russia spent a few hundred thousand on our election. Clinton spent 1.2 billion. And the majority of the adds on Facebook were bought after the election. And the adds advocated not just for Trump, but against Trump, for Bernie, and for Stein.

And if you are referring to the DNC hacks, I'm still waiting for real proof that it was the Russians. I'm extremely skeptical of taking the word of CrowdStrike on this issue. The DNC never let the FBI look at their server. I wonder why.

[dckingsfan]

No. Russia, China, and North Korea hack our systems all the time. Appropriate and measured retaliation is certainly necessary. I'm assuming we have cyberspies attacking their systems as well. But when your password is "password1", expect to be hacked. Also, don't fall for phishing scams. Oh, and keep your professional emails on the protected state.gov server.

What are your thoughts on 130 political appointees not having permanent security clearances?
Foremost national security threat of our lifetime superceding The Great Hillary Email Scandal of 2016 or nothingburger?

My thoughts are that the clearance process is too damn slow. I wonder if Obama people in the system are intentionally slow-walking the process to slow down the Trump Administration.

I would like to know if that is the case... it may be one of those tit for tat scenarios. You defund an institution like the state department and they allocation resources elsewhere. I haven't seen an in-depth article on the matter, have one?

[dckingsfan]

No. Russia, China, and North Korea hack our systems all the time. Appropriate and measured retaliation is certainly necessary. I'm assuming we have cyberspies attacking their systems as well. But when your password is "password1", expect to be hacked. Also, don't fall for phishing scams. Oh, and keep your professional emails on the protected state.gov server.

This is really the first time (in recent history) that an outside interest has been successful at influencing an election. Shouldn't Trump be outraged by this? Shouldn't he be convening a HUGE effort to battle this?

How were they successful? Do you really think the Twitter trolls had an impact? Russia spent a few hundred thousand on our election. Clinton spent 1.2 billion.

And if you are referring to the DNC hacks, I'm still waiting for real proof that it was the Russians. I'm extremely skeptical of taking the word of CrowdStrike on this issue. The DNC never let the FBI look at their server. I wonder why.

Interesting. So, your premise is that the Russians work was ineffective until proven otherwise. And that the vast sum that Clinton spent on the election overwhelmed the Russians work.

And yet there is some pretty good evidence that they moved the needle. Let's just say they didn't actually affect the outcome (that Hillary's poor campaign did that for her). But let's say that they are becoming more effective on a geometric basis affecting our (and our partners) elections.

That should still be full out defense mode. It makes Mueller seem like the guy to support, no?

[Doug_Blew]

Russia spent a few hundred thousand on our election. Clinton spent 1.2 billion. And the majority of the adds on Facebook were bought after the election. And the adds advocated not just for Trump, but against Trump, for Bernie, and for Stein.

If by few hundred thousand you mean many hundred thousand, then yeah. The Mueller indictment said that they had an 80 person team and spent $1.2 million per month.

[dckingsfan]

Russia spent a few hundred thousand on our election. Clinton spent 1.2 billion. And the majority of the adds on Facebook were bought after the election. And the adds advocated not just for Trump, but against Trump, for Bernie, and for Stein.

If by few hundred thousand you mean many hundred thousand, then yeah. The Mueller indictment said that they had an 80 person team and spent $1.2 million per month.

Still fractional - 10s of millions vs. billions. What is interesting is that fractional numbers like that may have great leverage in the "new" social media age.

What would you do to stop the behavior?

[Doug_Blew]

Russia spent a few hundred thousand on our election. Clinton spent 1.2 billion. And the majority of the adds on Facebook were bought after the election. And the adds advocated not just for Trump, but against Trump, for Bernie, and for Stein.

If by few hundred thousand you mean many hundred thousand, then yeah. The Mueller indictment said that they had an 80 person team and spent $1.2 million per month.

Still fractional - 10s of millions vs. billions. What is interesting is that fractional numbers like that may have great leverage in the "new" social media age.

What would you do to stop the behavior?

To figure out what happened, I would let the FBI continue to investigate without the impediments of the Deep Staters.

I don't have the answers on how to prevent it from happening again. Servers and Web Applications are getting hacked constantly and without 2-factor authentication, it's as easy to get into a system as the weakest password that accesses that system.

side Note: Two-Factor authentication is the combination of a password and something physical on the user such as a PIV Card, token or finger print.

[nate33]

I am honestly not at all concerned with foreign agents buying ads and utilizing bots on Twitter and Facebook. We live in a free society with open speech. In general, the way to counter speech you don't like isn't to silence it with jackbooted government thugs, it's to prove it wrong with your own superior ideas. People were deluged with thousand of political adds from both parties and from hundreds of special interest groups. I hardly think a handful more add from Russians swayed anybody. And I think any efforts to stop that kind of speech in the future is likely to be corrupted and used against legitimate special interests groups in the future.

If the Russians hacked the DNC server and leaked that information, then that is certainly a more plausible argument that they affected the election. Of course, it must be noted that they only affected the election by bringing more information to the voter.

[gtn130]

Russia spent a few hundred thousand on our election. Clinton spent 1.2 billion. And the majority of the adds on Facebook were bought after the election. And the adds advocated not just for Trump, but against Trump, for Bernie, and for Stein.

If by few hundred thousand you mean many hundred thousand, then yeah. The Mueller indictment said that they had an 80 person team and spent $1.2 million per month.

Still fractional - 10s of millions vs. billions. What is interesting is that fractional numbers like that may have great leverage in the "new" social media age.

What would you do to stop the behavior?

Hold Facebook and Twitter accountable.

Twitter won’t clean up their bots because their active user base is a fraction of what their shareholders would like it to be

[gtn130]

I am honestly not at all concerned with foreign agents buying ads and utilizing bots on Twitter and Facebook. We live in a free society with open speech. In general, the way to counter speech you don't like isn't to silence it with jackbooted government thugs, it's to prove it wrong with your own superior ideas. People were deluged with thousand of political adds from both parties and from hundreds of special interest groups. I hardly think a handful more add from Russians swayed anybody. And I think any efforts to stop that kind of speech in the future is likely to be corrupted and used against legitimate special interests groups in the future.

If the Russians hacked the DNC server and leaked that information, then that is certainly a more plausible argument that they affected the election. Of course, it must be noted that they only affected the election by bringing more information to the voter.

Uhh there were ads saying the pope endorsed Trump when he didn’t. This isn’t about competing ideas

[nate33]

I am honestly not at all concerned with foreign agents buying ads and utilizing bots on Twitter and Facebook. We live in a free society with open speech. In general, the way to counter speech you don't like isn't to silence it with jackbooted government thugs, it's to prove it wrong with your own superior ideas. People were deluged with thousand of political adds from both parties and from hundreds of special interest groups. I hardly think a handful more add from Russians swayed anybody. And I think any efforts to stop that kind of speech in the future is likely to be corrupted and used against legitimate special interests groups in the future.

If the Russians hacked the DNC server and leaked that information, then that is certainly a more plausible argument that they affected the election. Of course, it must be noted that they only affected the election by bringing more information to the voter.

Uhh there were ads saying the pope endorsed Trump when he didn’t. This isn’t about competing ideas

There were lying ads all over the place, not just by the Russians. You are entering dangerous territory if you let government officials (or powerful private monopolies like Facebook and Twitter) be the sole arbiter of what's "true" and what isn't. People know that you can't trust websites you've never heard of. And if they don't know, then we should spend our efforts trying to teach people to be more discerning, not by censoring what they see.

[gtn130]

I am honestly not at all concerned with foreign agents buying ads and utilizing bots on Twitter and Facebook. We live in a free society with open speech. In general, the way to counter speech you don't like isn't to silence it with jackbooted government thugs, it's to prove it wrong with your own superior ideas. People were deluged with thousand of political adds from both parties and from hundreds of special interest groups. I hardly think a handful more add from Russians swayed anybody. And I think any efforts to stop that kind of speech in the future is likely to be corrupted and used against legitimate special interests groups in the future.

If the Russians hacked the DNC server and leaked that information, then that is certainly a more plausible argument that they affected the election. Of course, it must be noted that they only affected the election by bringing more information to the voter.

Uhh there were ads saying the pope endorsed Trump when he didn’t. This isn’t about competing ideas

There were lying ads all over the place, not just by the Russians. You are entering dangerous territory if you let government officials (or powerful private monopolies like Facebook and Twitter) be the sole arbiter of what's "true" and what isn't. People know that you can't trust websites you've never heard of. And if they don't know, then we should spend our efforts trying to teach people to be more discerning, not by censoring what they see.

Dude. We’re talking about Russians targeting swing states with ads saying the pope endored Trump. I think we can mitigate that without making Big Brother the gatekeepers of truth lol

[dckingsfan]

Uhh there were ads saying the pope endorsed Trump when he didn’t. This isn’t about competing ideas

There were lying ads all over the place, not just by the Russians. You are entering dangerous territory if you let government officials (or powerful private monopolies like Facebook and Twitter) be the sole arbiter of what's "true" and what isn't. People know that you can't trust websites you've never heard of. And if they don't know, then we should spend our efforts trying to teach people to be more discerning, not by censoring what they see.

Dude. We’re talking about Russians targeting swing states with ads saying the pope endored Trump. I think we can mitigate that without making Big Brother the gatekeepers of truth lol

How?

[cammac]

I find it strange that Nate and SD20 were up in arms over the Nunes Memo and were all weepy eyed over poor Carter Page. This week Mueller in essence destroys the Memo and say the Russian interference is a nothing burger. What Mueller uncovered is likely only the tip of the iceberg what he knows and was just a sample of his strategic thinking versus the BINGO played at the White House. Trump won the election but it was with significant foreign interference. Did it help turn the tide in Wisconsin, Michigan & Pennsylvania it is impossible to determine. But nothing has been done to countermeasure this aggression as was indicated by the Russian bots supporting the Nunes Memo and lack of firewalls for the upcoming 2018 and 2020 election cycles.

[gtn130]

There were lying ads all over the place, not just by the Russians. You are entering dangerous territory if you let government officials (or powerful private monopolies like Facebook and Twitter) be the sole arbiter of what's "true" and what isn't. People know that you can't trust websites you've never heard of. And if they don't know, then we should spend our efforts trying to teach people to be more discerning, not by censoring what they see.

Dude. We’re talking about Russians targeting swing states with ads saying the pope endored Trump. I think we can mitigate that without making Big Brother the gatekeepers of truth lol

How?

Facebook has already mostly fixed it as it applies to them by implementing a community-driven vetting process for news stories. They also show news content now based more on the media outlet than what they think users want to see. It isn’t that difficult to solve this problem.

Twitter won’t solve it because they’re a house of cards

[cammac]

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Trump's anger boils over with Russia probe
© Getty Images

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump vented his anger with the Russia investigation late Saturday night and Sunday morning, declaring that “they are laughing their asses off in Moscow” over the ongoing probe into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.

In a remarkable burst of tweets sent from his Mar-a-Lago estate, the president blamed the Obama administration for not doing enough to deter Russia and claimed he never denied the meddling took place — all while undercutting his own national security adviser who said Saturday that the interference is now “beyond dispute.”

The tweets revealed the depth of Trump’s frustration in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of more than a dozen Russians accused of meddling in the 2016 election in an effort to boost Trump’s campaign.

Trump has long bristled at the notion that he received help in defeating his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and has resisted calls from members of both political parties to do more to disrupt the Kremlin’s plans to meddle in future U.S. elections.

The president has not criticized Russia for its election-meddling scheme, opting to focus on the ways he believes Mueller’s indictment exonerates his campaign from colluding with the Kremlin.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/374444-trumps-anger-boils-over-with-russia-probe

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/374427-trump-i-never-said-russia-didnt-meddle-in-election

[JWizmentality]

I am honestly not at all concerned with foreign agents buying ads and utilizing bots on Twitter and Facebook. We live in a free society with open speech. In general, the way to counter speech you don't like isn't to silence it with jackbooted government thugs, it's to prove it wrong with your own superior ideas. People were deluged with thousand of political adds from both parties and from hundreds of special interest groups. I hardly think a handful more add from Russians swayed anybody. And I think any efforts to stop that kind of speech in the future is likely to be corrupted and used against legitimate special interests groups in the future.

If the Russians hacked the DNC server and leaked that information, then that is certainly a more plausible argument that they affected the election. Of course, it must be noted that they only affected the election by bringing more information to the voter.

Uhh there were ads saying the pope endorsed Trump when he didn’t. This isn’t about competing ideas

There were lying ads all over the place, not just by the Russians. You are entering dangerous territory if you let government officials (or powerful private monopolies like Facebook and Twitter) be the sole arbiter of what's "true" and what isn't. People know that you can't trust websites you've never heard of. And if they don't know, then we should spend our efforts trying to teach people to be more discerning, not by censoring what they see.

I don't think any consumer of InfoWars or even Foxnews is capable of discerning fact from fiction. The United States is extremely uneducated. It's how a con man got into office. The rest of the world is laughing at you.

[dckingsfan]

Dude. We’re talking about Russians targeting swing states with ads saying the pope endored Trump. I think we can mitigate that without making Big Brother the gatekeepers of truth lol

How?

Facebook has already mostly fixed it as it applies to them by implementing a community-driven vetting process for news stories. They also show news content now based more on the media outlet than what they think users want to see. It isn’t that difficult to solve this problem.

Twitter won’t solve it because they’re a house of cards

Facebook says it will start prioritizing news from outlets that its users think are "trustworthy." So, if a user thinks a Russian source is newsworthy - then all good.

Basically, Zuckerberg said the company wasn't "comfortable" deciding for itself whether a news outlet is reliable.

Twitter seems to be stuck. Twitter's approach seems to be AI with Twitter Moments, although that hasn't been rolled out - I think it has its own problems.

[dckingsfan]

Uhh there were ads saying the pope endorsed Trump when he didn’t. This isn’t about competing ideas

There were lying ads all over the place, not just by the Russians. You are entering dangerous territory if you let government officials (or powerful private monopolies like Facebook and Twitter) be the sole arbiter of what's "true" and what isn't. People know that you can't trust websites you've never heard of. And if they don't know, then we should spend our efforts trying to teach people to be more discerning, not by censoring what they see.

I don't think any consumer of InfoWars or even Foxnews is capable of discerning fact from fiction. The United States is extremely uneducated. It's how a con man got into office. The rest of the world is laughing at you.

America was the only free-market OECD country where the current generation was less educated than the previous one. So, there is that...

[closg00]

Good morning

Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.

The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump - helped along by Aras and Emin.

What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?

I can also send this info to your father via Rhona, but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.

Best
Rob Goldstone

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/07/politics/donald-trump-jr-full-emails/

Rob Goldstone's emails to Don Jr.. Subsequently, the infamous Trump Tower meeting took place.

So we are expected to believe that Don Jr. never told his dad about the Russian effort to help his dad. Just the email exchanges and subsequent Tower meeting, Republican's would have had Hillary's head on a stake in-front of the Capital if she had done this.

Why hasn't Trump enacted the Russian sanctions in retaliation yet?

Just waiting to see if Mueller will be able to fill-in the final gaps in this treasonous timeline.