Why does Russia want The Rump to be POTUS so badly?
- Thread starter VirginiaBrave
- Start date
50PoundHead
Hessmania Forever
Oligarchs are probably laughing at oligarch wannabes.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cyber-strike-against-russia-n666636
The Obama administration is contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia in retaliation for alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.
Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging "clandestine" cyber operation designed to harass and "embarrass" the Kremlin leadership.
The sources did not elaborate on the exact measures the CIA was considering, but said the agency had already begun opening cyber doors, selecting targets and making other preparations for an operation. Former intelligence officers told NBC News that the agency had gathered reams of documents that could expose unsavory tactics by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Not to parrot Trump here, but really ... how can it be covert if our media is reporting on it?
The Obama administration is contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia in retaliation for alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.
Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging "clandestine" cyber operation designed to harass and "embarrass" the Kremlin leadership.
The sources did not elaborate on the exact measures the CIA was considering, but said the agency had already begun opening cyber doors, selecting targets and making other preparations for an operation. Former intelligence officers told NBC News that the agency had gathered reams of documents that could expose unsavory tactics by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Not to parrot Trump here, but really ... how can it be covert if our media is reporting on it?
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
Fellow Hawk, I'm curious as to your stance on this media related question. One of my faves to detest "media wise" is Sean Hannity. I read something he said the other day when confronted with yet another mountain of bull****e he was shoveling under the guise of reporting "news" of something that he wished to report on. His response to their rebuke of his latest nonsense was that "he was a talk show host, he was not a newsman". That may not be an exact quote but it was pretty close.
So, if we're going to critique the media, which IMO we desperately need to do, don't we need to establish what IS the news media, and what ISN'T the news media and then at least try to hold them to some sort of standards?
What is your take (and anyone else's too for all who want to get involved on this) on this question?
So, if we're going to critique the media, which IMO we desperately need to do, don't we need to establish what IS the news media, and what ISN'T the news media and then at least try to hold them to some sort of standards?
What is your take (and anyone else's too for all who want to get involved on this) on this question?
I've heard this from Fox News a couple of times. Sam Shepard and Bret baier are the hard news guys and the rest of the Evening staff are opinion guys.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
Agree about Shep and Bret and the other guy (Wallace?) but what about the others? Should you be able to call yourself Fox News (or any other for that matter) and make millions off of acting like you're "the news" until somebody calls you on your bull****e and then all of a sudden you're an opinion show? If we're going to make the media accountable (and I for one believe we should) we can't let ahole Goebbelsesque manipulators of the gullible jump back and forth across that line of "Hey we're the news", "Hey did we say we're the news? We're really only opinion shows" back to "Hey we're the news", back to "Oh we're really only opinion shows".
How much longer should we allow them to do this?
If this isn't the definition of a slippery slope, I don't know what is. Obama went here on Thursday though, suggesting that we employ a "curating function" on news/information that "passes some basic truthiness tests". I mean, don't you find that language just a tad Orwellian?
It's worth noting that Google started doing precisely this (https://blog.google/topics/journalism-news/labeling-fact-check-articles-google-news/) on the exact same day as Obama's remarks.
I watched a clip of Ben Carson on "Morning Joe" yesterday. He asked Scarborough, and I'm paraphrasing because I'm too lazy to find the transcript; 'Is there bias at your network?' to which Scarborough flatly responded, 'There is bias at every network.' This is the type of sentiment we need to embrace, and accept as a premise, if we are truly interested in a thoughtfully frank and honest critique of the American news media.
In another life I once studied literary criticism, and one of the schools I could never willingly wrap my brain around was new criticism which basically theorized that (and I'm really boiling this down) text should be treated as its own aesthetic object, completely separate from the author and his/her intentions. Of course, this type of close reading is meant to be undertaken in an artful analysis of poetry, for example, but I feel like this is essentially the same thing anybody - even tacitly - suggesting or arguing for any kind of media oversight or 'truthy' categorization of outlets expects information consumers to be able to do/accept.
The recent Wikileaks have revealed that multiple writers at the Huffington Post/Politico approached the Clinton campaign 'pledging their allegiance' by offering to manipulate readers through the publishing of intentionally slanted/false articles (and fire others for penning pieces questioning her health). They have unearthed various degrees of collusion between the campaign and CNN/MSNBC/CNBC. Some, like Brazile funneling the debate question directly to the campaign, are particularly egregious. If anything, what we are learning about underscores the recently re-popularized notion of implicit bias and how, especially in the context of the media, it can be used to trample all over the transparency of our democratic processes. Now, believe me, I accept that the knife cuts both ways. Fox should not be exempt from criticism, nor should digital publications like Breitbart or Drudge.
Scarborough later added, after being pressed by Carson about what he was going to do to 'destroy the culture of bias' at MSNBC, responded that he 'leaves that up to the viewer to decide'. I believe that is the right approach, but, boy, this campaign cycle serves as perhaps the perfect illustration of why that is also a potentially dangerous fallacy. For so many people the assessment of whether something is true or not ends with the assumption that if it's being reported on by a major news outlet it has been properly vetted. Or, at the very least, prominently stated as alleged. I think that's one of the things that bothered me so much about the Times' piece on Trump's airplane accuser. As I mentioned in another post, when Dan Rather and his production team were compiling the GWB National Guard story, the amount of fact checking and background investigation that went into the report was mountainous. They defended it for a long time, providing every ounce of their corroborating evidence, until the fatal error (faked documents) was discovered.
Why hasn't the New York Times been as open with their reporting on the Trump accusers? Why not put out the reporters notes, reveal the details (beyond 'we got an e-mail') behind how they obtained the story and authenticated it? At the very least, don't you think that it is in the interest of the reader for the paper to acknowledge that one of the two reporters credited in the byline wrote a similar piece in the spring that was subsequently criticized by the primary subject of the article for falsely attributing that she was 'debased' by Trump? Going back to my earlier comments about the expectation of 'close reading' and deciphering truths, how do you read the word 'debase' and not come away with a negative, insidious representation? How is that bias not overtly evident?
Dan Rather's report aired in early September, the Times' piece in early October and on the heels of the now infamous Access Hollywood tape. I mean, where is the integrity here? The consideration of confirmation bias? And to add insult to injury, the Times stoops to Trump's level and insults his reputation instead of issuing a thoughtful and logical rebuttal. At best the NYT is engaging in yellow journalism, at worst, it's a case of collusion.
The CBS story leads me to my next point. The faked documents weren't exposed by the Bush campaign, they weren't discovered by CBS' crack team of fact-checkers, but rather by a network of bloggers across the country. Mind you, this was prior to the advent of social media. The Internet is our single greatest media outlet and the exchange of ideas and information here should be uninterrupted and relatively unregulated. I have a dual monitor setup with one screen dedicated to monitoring newswires/Twitter and the other for browsing/work related stuff. Twitter universally breaks the news, and traditional outlets serve to confirm it. Now, where it gets murky is when you have the 'alt-right' (Alex Jones) types on the right and the 'CTR' (David Brock) types on the left actively publishing/posting blatantly false information that is then lapped up by desperate minds seeking any sort of loose confirmation they can find to help them believe what they want to believe. And the scary part is, if any of it sticks ... it spreads like absolute wildfire into susceptible minds across Facebook, Twitter, forums, spammy blogs.
So, to me, where this all kind of ends up is education. Teachers like you need to encourage your students to get out there and consume all of the information that is available right at their finger tips. But also to approach everything with a skeptical mind. What is this story telling me, who is telling it ... and why? Is CNN really the 'Clinton News Network' ... don't believe the first result on Google, but pour over videos and polls and forums and take in all sides of the story and make your own deduction. Further, our journalists need to learn how to better adapt to the digital age. They've got to better learn how to properly balance the desire for virality and the essentiality of clickable content with legitimate, useful, and well-sourced information. And readers need to hold them accountable in comments sections and on their own social media platforms. Everybody has a voice. Use it.
We shouldn't need a 'Department of Accuracy and Truth' to tell us that the Daily Mail is the equivalent of the National Enquirer. That Breitbart is to the right as Politico is the left. We've got to use our own brains sometime. Traditional broadcast media is a tougher nut to crack, but we need to absorb this one basic truth: when only one side of the story is being presented, something is horribly awry. And that's what we are seeing right now with a lot of the major news media outlets in this country, and it is downright scary.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
Oh I"m definitely NOT saying we need the government to police these things, that would mean the same thing we've had for decades now, Dem politicians point to Fox, talk radio, and far right websites as disgusting, which IMO is the truth, and we have Repubs pointing out that the mainstream media is "the liberal media" and shouldn't be believed, which is also pretty much true. What you seem to be calling for, and correct me if I"m wrong, is for every American to be educated enough to see the truth for what it is and we both know the government setting a fair and totally accurate policing of all media will happen long before the average dumbass American even cares enough to try and get educated, let alone actually accomplishes it.
Sadly there is no good answer, not even a slightly bad answer. All the answers suck. Be honest, how many people do you know who will believe the truth if they hear it, IF it isn't already something they believe to be true? Repubs believe Repubs and Dems believe Dems and never the twain shall meet. Neither side needs to tell the truth to anyone because those on the other side will never believe it anyway, and those on their own side will believe anything they're told so they need not worry.
Do you have a solution? I don't. I just know that when you accuse either side of wrongdoing, no matter how much evidence you have, they still won't believe their people are guilty of it because "the other side is full of liars", which is bad enough, but do you know how many pro-Trump morons I"ve seen stuff from on social media since his "grabbing" video became public. The worst part of these posts, etc., is that they aren't refuting what he said, even they can't do that when it's right there, they're actually excusing what he said, they're finding ways to justify it and they're climbing into the pig pen with him, even religious folk, who will somehow in their deluded, Pavlovian classically conditioned minds (if you want to call them that) they have decided that they can offer absolution for his sins and as long as they cover for him he can still be the voice of their perceived morality. Can Christian beliefs be polluted any more than this? What's going to be the short and long term effects of this climbing into the bed of the whore of Babylon? What exactly is keeping us afloat as a nation now? If you know I"d appreciate it if you'd tell me.
Oh and don't bother telling me how bad Hilldog is. I already know and have never said otherwise. I"m not talking about the dirty Dems right now, I"m talking about those who claim to be Christians while they campaign for a modern day Nero
Sadly there is no good answer, not even a slightly bad answer. All the answers suck. Be honest, how many people do you know who will believe the truth if they hear it, IF it isn't already something they believe to be true? Repubs believe Repubs and Dems believe Dems and never the twain shall meet. Neither side needs to tell the truth to anyone because those on the other side will never believe it anyway, and those on their own side will believe anything they're told so they need not worry.
Do you have a solution? I don't. I just know that when you accuse either side of wrongdoing, no matter how much evidence you have, they still won't believe their people are guilty of it because "the other side is full of liars", which is bad enough, but do you know how many pro-Trump morons I"ve seen stuff from on social media since his "grabbing" video became public. The worst part of these posts, etc., is that they aren't refuting what he said, even they can't do that when it's right there, they're actually excusing what he said, they're finding ways to justify it and they're climbing into the pig pen with him, even religious folk, who will somehow in their deluded, Pavlovian classically conditioned minds (if you want to call them that) they have decided that they can offer absolution for his sins and as long as they cover for him he can still be the voice of their perceived morality. Can Christian beliefs be polluted any more than this? What's going to be the short and long term effects of this climbing into the bed of the whore of Babylon? What exactly is keeping us afloat as a nation now? If you know I"d appreciate it if you'd tell me.
Oh and don't bother telling me how bad Hilldog is. I already know and have never said otherwise. I"m not talking about the dirty Dems right now, I"m talking about those who claim to be Christians while they campaign for a modern day Nero
sturg33
I
This Russian is so bizarre I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.
The DNC has been exposed as so corrupt that they aren't even bothering denying it. Instead, they are blaming Russia for exposing them, and announcing on every news network that the US is going to retaliate with a cyber attack directly at Putin.
This is the most obvious bull **** propaganda I've ever seen. I'm dumbfounded about how ignorant our country is.
The DNC has been exposed as so corrupt that they aren't even bothering denying it. Instead, they are blaming Russia for exposing them, and announcing on every news network that the US is going to retaliate with a cyber attack directly at Putin.
This is the most obvious bull **** propaganda I've ever seen. I'm dumbfounded about how ignorant our country is.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
That thought has been at the root of just about everything I've said today
I know you aren't - was just kind of musing about the current national attitude toward that course of action between Clinton's 'just ignore it' and Obama's 'curating truthiness' comments.
And you were half right. I think the truth, except in the case of a smoking gun, is always going to be debated on issues like the ones we're parsing through now. Where I think people should get educated is in accepting that bias is absolute and correspondingly factor that into their own opinions and beliefs. And most importantly, always avail themselves to the full spectrum of information available. Don't limit yourself to one viewpoint.
But yeah, hah, I agree that is wishful thinking.
I'm not so cynical :> Look at 2008. That metaphorical bridge you are speaking of can most definitely be gapped with the right message. Now, what happens in Washington is another story completely, as that's mostly out of the hands of the citizenry. But the way we've trended, globally and domestically, in support of populist (read: anti-establishment) candidates the past decade or so does demonstrate that people are slightly more aware ... at the very least.
Hey - if there's one thing this election has taught us, it's that everyone and their dog is a damnable hypocrite. Self-righteousness is the new black. But get off social media. **** rots your brain.
I know (but shhh on that nickname, remember?). And no comment on the religion. It's 2016: Year of the Politically Correct ... gotta know better.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
Putin's testing us, I say it's time to get a look at all that military crap we've been paying for over the last 20-30 years. Putin doesn't want war over this, he's just being the tiny penised bully that he is.
They took down Reddit. Now I don't have anything to do at work
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
Twitter/Spotify/Yelp to add a few more major sites, but there were dozens and dozens. Mobile payment platforms also targeted. Two separate DNS providers (one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast) hit with DDOS attacks. Massive outages reported in Europe as well.
This is either one hell of a shot across the bow, a false flag, or just really odd coincidence.
This is either one hell of a shot across the bow, a false flag, or just really odd coincidence.
Oklahomahawk
Boras' Client
The problem with this sort of thing is, it could be "one of us" just as easily as it's "one of them". I realize it's most likely the Russians but this country has no shortage of enemies, foreign AND domestic.
57Brave
Well-known member
note the date -- and an interesting look back
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
you have a choice of technical terms:
1) willful obtuseness
2) extreme averting of the gaze
either one is a correct diagnosis