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Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

nytimes.com

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Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#111

Post by matt4077 »

dmoy wrote: post #75
serf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYT is a media outlet that requires additional personal scrutiny, espescially with regards to any active U.S. government talking points. I'm not the biggest Chomsky fan, but I feel a lot of his opinion about NYT [0] are probably right on. [0]: http://www.salon.com/2015/05/25/noam_chomsky_the_new_york_ti...

Similar to that Chomsky criticism is Robert Fisk's constant railing on LA Times (and others') constant use of "US government sources say". Anything that comes after such a phrase needs to be taken with a giant grain of salt.

That use is problematic, but it's worth pointing out why. Just like this, I fear many people will understand your comment as an insinuation that the LAT et. al. just made up these quotes. I haven't read all of Fisk's criticism, but I believe his case is mostly that it allows those government sources to spread misinformation behind the cover of anonymity.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#112

Post by matt4077 »

golergka wrote: post #89
rakoo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the basis for any conflict resolution is dialogue ?

It's the side who stands to lose from the conflict which usually tries to solve it. US is losing almost nothing from it strained relationship with Russia — why should it bother with it?

I'd argue both sides stand to lose more or less everything 500 time over, if I believe the union of concerned scientists.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#113

Post by mejari »

chroem- wrote: post #24
etchalon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That documentation does not exist. You could argue it is "hinted at" in the emails made public, but cannot argue it is documented or proven.

Well, it was apparently convincing enough for the former DNC chair to lose her job, and for the subsequent DNC chair to be fired from her position at CNN. If you choose to ignore what happened, then that's your own perogative.

If your "evidence" is that people in public positions are removed from public positions because of public backlash, then that is no evidence at all. Public opinion often rules out over actual facts in such cases.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#114

Post by tomohawk »

dragonwriter wrote: post #103
tomohawk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's starting something he won't be able to finish. Not very wise. At this point, the focus should be on an orderly transition of power instead of making waves and creating problems for the next guy to handle. Whether he likes it or not, Trump is the next guy, and Trump's going to have to handle it one way or the other. Trying to cast the die like this is just counterproductive.

> He's starting something he won't be able to finish. Pretty much every Presidency has some things started late that are known to carry over into the next administration; quite often (especially when there is a change of parties) this something the incoming President would have handled differently. That's sort of inherent in the nature of having a crisp point-in-time transfer of power.

It's the point-in-time transfer of power that makes this unwise. He has less than a month to go and his top priority is what exactly? It should be on the smooth transition of power. Starting a tit-for-tat with Russia should be left to the next guy.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#115

Post by rakoo »

golergka wrote: post #89
rakoo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the basis for any conflict resolution is dialogue ?

It's the side who stands to lose from the conflict which usually tries to solve it. US is losing almost nothing from it strained relationship with Russia — why should it bother with it?

The US can't be the police of the world for all eternity and act on its own in any conflict that arises. Acting unilaterally is only going to bring more and more problems; I hope you're not suggesting that the US should just oust Russian troops from wherever they are if it doesn't please the US.

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#116

Post by rqebmm »

tomohawk wrote: post #110
rqebmm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obama's reaction was - nothing Nothing publicly. There was a public reaction to this issue because when "some elites of his own party got egg on their face" it was front page news for months that potentially effected the integrity of our election process. The OPM hacks were a disaster in terms of information security, but disappeared in a few news cycles because it didn't effect everyday citizens and had nothing to…

Are you kidding? Getting the inside scoop on a very large chunk of the federal workforce has "nothing to do with the fundamentals of our democracy"? This is nothing short of an act of war. What do you think will happen to the US if suddenly a large number of people in the federal workforce wake up to no money in the bank? Do you think the government will be able to respond effectively to whatever crisis (likely invol…

> Getting the inside scoop on a very large chunk of the federal workforce has "nothing to do with the fundamentals of our democracy"?

Yes. It has nothing to do with the fundamentals of our democracy. It absolutely has to do with the fundamentals of our government, but how we elect that government is not directly effected.

>If you have some evidence that Obama did something then present it. If not, just wishful thinking.

I obviously have no evidence, but I think it's more educated guess than wishful thinking considering that high level government officials have publicly said that's the M.O.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/us/politics/biden-hints-at...

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#117

Post by ZenoArrow »

etchalon wrote: post #108
ZenoArrow wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Russia, a state-actor, coordinated an cyber-attack on an American political party." Is there any evidence that the hacks came from Russia? From what I've seen, the Russians have just been the scapegoats. Just because something is repeated a lot on the news, doesn't make it true. If there's evidence the hacks were orchestrated by the Russian government (or even involved Russia at all), let's see the evidence. Withou…

Both the FBI and CIA have publicly stated they believe the hacks came from Russia. Whether they'll release their evidence publicly remains to be seen, however, even GOP senators acknowledge it was likely Russia. We can assume they were briefed.

>"Both the FBI and CIA have publicly stated they believe the hacks came from Russia."

Let's imagine you're the President and you discover the leaks came from US citizens with ties to the DNC (e.g. DNC employees with access to emails). Would you have anything to gain from pointing the finger at foreign political actors interfering in US politics?

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#119

Post by ZenoArrow »

etchalon wrote: post #97
ZenoArrow wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe the DNC tried to slow down the momentum of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries?

No, I believe they did not specifically help him. I have not seen evidence they went out of their way to hurt him. The most "damning" thing you could point to would be the debate schedule, which was scheduled before anyone knew Sanders would be a nominee.

>"I have not seen evidence they went out of their way to hurt him."

Here's one example to start...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/wikileaks-emails-de...

Re: Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking

#120

Post by pavlov »

delinka wrote: post #77
pavlov wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same YouGov poll shows that 46% of Trump voters believe the inane "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory is true: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/12/28/am... That is a scary example of what we can look forward to. Now that people don't believe in "mainstream" journalism, they'll latch on to wild speculations with no actual research or journalistic ethics. That is net loss for the truth, no matter how m…

"...wild speculations with no actual research or journalistic ethics." Which is often what "mainstream journalism" offers. So how do we get back to Ethics in Journalism when what we have is driven by number of visitors?

Quality news tends to be behind a paywall. That really is the best indicator these days.
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