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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1920 on: January 06, 2017, 02:27:18 PM »
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/top-russians-celebrated-when-trump-won-intel-report-says-source-n703741

You don't have to be the CIA to figure that one out. Putin was extremely positive in his post-election remarks.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1921 on: January 06, 2017, 03:38:00 PM »
True, it IS kinda unusual but like I said in the other thread, I don't blame him for doing it.  I think Obama saw the writing on the wall as "Fuck you, we don't care how nice you are we still hate you and your party".  So he did what he thought was right, not what was politically correct.  Which, ironically, is what America seems to want now.
Well, yes, by being "nice" he set a precedent of overreaching and ignoring the will of those he's supposed to work for/with for the sake of what he considered to be "right". No wonder people told him to fuck off. Deliberately damaging the country now is not gonna make the Democrats any more popular. Perhaps The Donald paid him off to ensure a lasting reign for the Republicans?
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Offline Lord Dave

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1922 on: January 06, 2017, 04:26:22 PM »
True, it IS kinda unusual but like I said in the other thread, I don't blame him for doing it.  I think Obama saw the writing on the wall as "Fuck you, we don't care how nice you are we still hate you and your party".  So he did what he thought was right, not what was politically correct.  Which, ironically, is what America seems to want now.
Well, yes, by being "nice" he set a precedent of overreaching and ignoring the will of those he's supposed to work for/with for the sake of what he considered to be "right". No wonder people told him to fuck off. Deliberately damaging the country now is not gonna make the Democrats any more popular. Perhaps The Donald paid him off to ensure a lasting reign for the Republicans?
I'm not sure anything Obama can do is going to change a thing.
He could have God bless him in front of the world and he'd still be hated.
He could rubber stamp every single republican policy from now until January 20 and it wouldn't matter.
Nothing he does now is going to really change anything one way or another with the exception of declaring martial law or launching military attacks.  People's minds are made up.  The country has chosen.  America is going down a polar opposite route. 

Democrats want to fight for the health care law but they should give up.  It's a lost cause.  If you aren't a Trump supporter, you should give up, find someplace relatively safe, and hope whatever happens, it's either not as bad as we think or it's reversible.
If you are going to DebOOonK an expert then you have to at least provide a source with credentials of equal or greater relevance. Even then, it merely shows that some experts disagree with each other.

Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1923 on: January 06, 2017, 04:27:46 PM »
Well, yes, by being "nice" he set a precedent of overreaching and ignoring the will of those he's supposed to work for/with for the sake of what he considered to be "right". No wonder people told him to fuck off. Deliberately damaging the country now is not gonna make the Democrats any more popular. Perhaps The Donald paid him off to ensure a lasting reign for the Republicans?

What now? How did Obama deliberately damage the country? Are you saying he acted as president with the intent to make the country worse?

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Offline xasop

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1924 on: January 06, 2017, 11:05:20 PM »
And what part of that says that citizens of the state of Utah will not be hired by the federal government to assist in maintaining the land?

Yes, if you take your poorly worded summary literally, then I can see how you would come to that conclusion. But nowhere in that article do they literally say that it "keeps Utah people from maintaining that land". Those are your words, not theirs.


Except the money the federal government uses to maintain the land frees up the money the STATE used to maintain the land.  So now the state has more money it can use to spend on whatever it thinks it needs.

Until you account for the fact that the state now cannot develop the land to improve its economy.


Improve the lives of Americans?   Ok, first off, it hasn't.  The state has had that land for I don't know how long and has yet to develop it.  It's possible it's value is insignificant compared to the political backlash of destroying the landmark.  But things have changed.  Anger is in.  Development is in.

What is your point here?

You start out by saying it hasn't (yet) improved the lives of Americans because it hasn't been developed. You then go on to say (in a very roundabout and confusing fashion -- what does "anger is in" even mean?) that they are likely to develop it soon. You've not only nullified what vestige of a point you had initially made, but failed to produce a coherent sentence in the process.


And Obama chose those two spots so odds are, he knows something we don't.  Otherwise, why would he bother?  What would be the motivation?

As SexWarrior says, it fits in with his pattern of making things as difficult as possible for Trump in two weeks.


The problem isn't some people doing a bad job, it's that the system of punishing that bad job is inadequate so much so that it's is cheaper to pay the price of disaster than to do things correctly in alot of cases with regards to resource extraction.  And the businesses can't be shown to self regulate.  When they've gotten what they want, they leave.  The people affected are minor compared to the whole US and thus, the PR damage is simply listed as a cost of business.

Again, does that mean we shouldn't try to improve? We should just give up and never develop anything else again?


Think about the oil pipeline.  The Obama administration spent years blocking it.  A Trump administration plans to allow it to go through.  With the support of Trump, even a "Destroying these old buildings is good for business." could be enough to crush any opposition.  Hell, just look at the natives who have that oil pipeline going through their burial land.  Look how much they're being pushed aside and arrested.  And that's with a sympathetic president.  Now picture an unsympathetic one.

I assume that by "the oil pipeline" you mean the Keystone XL extension. Since you've failed to actually explain what you mean, probably because you're too busy implying Trump is Satan incarnate, I did a little research for you and found this example of an arrest. The guy decided it was a spiffing idea to burst into song while the Senate was in session. I'm sorry, but impeding the functioning of your federal legislature is a great way to get arrested in any country.


Most people do.  Most people, however, don't run development companies.  Or resource extraction companies.  Or deal with the financial burden of fixing what they destroyed to get said resources that may, in fact, make the whole thing financially burdensome.  The idea is to maximize profit and if you can do that by not replacing the rock you removed when you mined out the copper, then why would you?

A number of potential reasons:

1. You get fined for not doing it.
2. The bad publicity will bring a reduction in business, or even a boycott.
3. Your right to operate within the state of Utah might be taken away.
4. You actually want to leave things as you found them, and the state of Utah provides you with a grant to make that fiscally justifiable.

There are various things the state of Utah and the people of America can do to discourage this behaviour. I'm not sure why you seem to think it's a choice between an executive order from Barack Obama and a free-for-all.


Great!  How many requests to develop buildings, factories, or mining do they get?  Cause it seems to me that it operates as a park with people who live there and farm and not as development land.

Did you actually read the link I posted? From (the very top of) the same page:

National Parks contain small towns and villages as well as more isolated farms. Some areas of towns or villages are protected as conservation areas to keep their traditional look and feel.

Some families have lived in the area for many generations. Traditionally people would make money from the landscape around them, as farmers, fishermen, foresters, miners or as craftsmen.


How about "The damage to this area by development will not offset the social benefit gained." ?

You have yet to demonstrate that. Either way, it should be up to the state of Utah to decide for themselves, not Barack Obama in the final two weeks of his presidency.
when you try to mock anyone while also running the flat earth society. Lol

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1925 on: January 06, 2017, 11:11:57 PM »
What now? How did Obama deliberately damage the country?
By triggering two diplomatic crises over two weeks, neither of them with any good justification.

Are you saying he acted as president with the intent to make the country worse?
Yes, recently. I made the accusation openly and directly a couple of times now (go back a couple pages). I also explained why I believe this assumption explains his actions better than the alternatives.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2017, 11:22:51 PM by SexWarrior »
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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1926 on: January 07, 2017, 01:23:45 AM »
If Obama is receiving the same info that was in the partially declassified report released this afternoon, I don't think he's doing it without any good justification. He's using the time he has left to respond to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Every intelligence agency around him is saying that they strong believe Russia interfered to have Trump elected president, and he only has two weeks left to do anything about it.

Even if you think these charges are false, you must admit that he does have some justification for his actions given what experts on intelligence are telling him.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2017, 01:27:55 AM by trekky0623 »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1927 on: January 07, 2017, 11:49:50 AM »
Okay, I'll go with negligible justification then. This report notably doesn't say much about the DNC hacks (other than that the Russians did it oh God please believe us this time), and instead focuses on social media efforts (which I have no problem accepting as true) and RT's pro-Kremlin bias (which shouldn't be news to anyone).

If Obama doesn't want Russians influencing his citizens online, perhaps he should get in touch with China and ask them about their firewall. If he doesn't want people to watch Russian-owned TV... honestly, I dunno, but I don't think starting a standoff that could have turned into a war was the way to go.

The report makes assessment based on patterns. While I don't claim to be as good at it as the FBI+CIA+NSA, I am seeing a clear pattern in Obama's actions, and I'm making my assessment based on that. Particularly damming is the Israel incident, which everyone seems to conveniently ignore when I bring it up.

Also, lol:
« Last Edit: January 07, 2017, 12:05:27 PM by SexWarrior »
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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1928 on: January 07, 2017, 02:10:55 PM »
The report makes assessment based on patterns.

Actually, it is making this assessment based on patterns as well as classified evidence, and they say as much:

Quote
The Intelligence Community rarely can publicly reveal the full extent of its knowledge or the precise bases for its assessments, as the release of such information would reveal sensitive sources or methods and imperil the ability to collect critical foreign intelligence in the future.
Thus, while the conclusions in the report are all reflected in the classified assessment, the declassified report does not and cannot include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence and sources and methods.

So yea, they aren't going to release the evidence to back up their claims that the DNC hack was perpetrated by the Russian government. Whether you ultimately accept that it did happen depends on whether you are willing to trust the FBI, CIA, NSA, as well as private security firms that have backed up their findings.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1929 on: January 07, 2017, 03:03:45 PM »
Whether you ultimately accept that it did happen depends on whether you are willing to trust the FBI, CIA, NSA, as well as private security firms that have backed up their findings.
Which I absolutely am not, given the immense scale of the accusations, the extremely low likelihood of appropriate evidence existing, and the extremely high likelihood that the person behind the "hack"* was a script kiddie. This is Cybersecurity 101 stuff. If the FBI/NSA/CIA said that the Czech government is actually a shadowy conspiracy type of dealio that runs all the banks and has funded every single war since 1720 BC, and kept saying "trust us, we have proof", I would also reject it outright until at least a shred of evidence was presented.

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« Last Edit: January 07, 2017, 03:23:02 PM by SexWarrior »
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Offline Blanko

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1930 on: January 07, 2017, 03:48:35 PM »
Regardless of whether Russia was involved, I think the whole perspective of this narrative is completely manufactured. Why is Russia treated as a "cyber threat" when the real threat is the complete lack of cybersecurity in the DNC (seriously, anyone can send a phishing email to Podesta. Not that they even had to, since according to Assange the password Podesta used was literally "password")? Why are we more concerned about potential influence on an election than actual corruption?

Even if the "hacks" did influence the election, the people deserve to know what terrible shit their government is up to. This is just a convenient excuse for the DNC to absolve themselves of any guilt.

Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1931 on: January 07, 2017, 06:01:31 PM »
Why is Russia treated as a "cyber threat" when the real threat is the complete lack of cybersecurity in the DNC?

Because if foreign governments are allowed to influence US elections without consequence, it will continue to happen. Foreign governments will continue to leak information about whichever political party they don't want to win, and the American people will feel their election was fine because at least now they know the losing party's dirty laundry (forgetting that the other political party is most likely just as corrupt.)

Why are we more concerned about potential influence on an election than actual corruption?

Is a lack of cybersecurity really corruption?

Even if the "hacks" did influence the election, the people deserve to know what terrible shit their government is up to. This is just a convenient excuse for the DNC to absolve themselves of any guilt.

They deserve all the information, not information selectively presented to them by a foreign government in order to sway an election.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1932 on: January 07, 2017, 06:11:08 PM »
Because if foreign governments are allowed to influence US elections without consequence, it will continue to happen.
It's been happening for centuries, and nowadays it's usually America doing it and bragging about it. The USA is in no position to talk about how dangerous the precedent might be here.

Foreign governments will continue to leak information about whichever political party they don't want to win, and the American people will feel their election was fine because at least now they know the losing party's dirty laundry (forgetting that the other political party is most likely just as corrupt.)
Okay, let's ban all forms of investigative journalism because we can't ensure that it will target everyone equitably.

They deserve all the information, not information selectively presented to them by a foreign government in order to sway an election.
Assuming the information was presented to them by a foreign agent (even though a lot of it was presented by the US State Department in response to a FOI request, but I guess they're foreign now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), are you suggesting that foreign individuals should be prohibited from whistleblowing? Why should they withhold information from the general public if said information is true and accurate? Should we expand this to US citizens as well, just so we can make Edward Snowden's case easier? Whistleblowing bad, mainstream media good, right?
« Last Edit: January 07, 2017, 06:13:25 PM by SexWarrior »
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Offline Blanko

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1933 on: January 07, 2017, 06:16:36 PM »
Why is Russia treated as a "cyber threat" when the real threat is the complete lack of cybersecurity in the DNC?

Because if foreign governments are allowed to influence US elections without consequence, it will continue to happen. Foreign governments will continue to leak information about whichever political party they don't want to win, and the American people will feel their election was fine because at least now they know the losing party's dirty laundry (forgetting that the other political party is most likely just as corrupt.)

Actually, it wouldn't happen if foreign governments didn't have information to leak. I'm actually concerned this strategy will have the opposite effect of what you're suggesting. Given what we know about the security practices on Hillary's server, DNC's servers and Podesta's inability to not click on obvious phishing links, it seems almost painfully obvious to me that Russia is not the only foreign power with intel from US government or its officials. If any semi-competent skiddie can """"hack"""" them, then so can any intelligence service in the world. And by asserting that "Russia is behind this 100% please trust us", the US is essentially saying to every other foreign power that they don't care what they know.

Quote
Why are we more concerned about potential influence on an election than actual corruption?

Is a lack of cybersecurity really corruption?

I'm talking about the contents of the emails, not what led to them leaking.

Quote
Even if the "hacks" did influence the election, the people deserve to know what terrible shit their government is up to. This is just a convenient excuse for the DNC to absolve themselves of any guilt.

They deserve all the information, not information selectively presented to them by a foreign government in order to sway an election.

Well, it's not like anyone else is giving them that information.

You know why I'm not concerned about Russia influencing the election? It's because they're not using propaganda or false allegations to do it. They're using real information that should influence a voter's decision. The voter is objectively more informed as a result of these leaks.

Am I supposed to be upset about that?

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Offline Lord Dave

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1934 on: January 07, 2017, 07:12:44 PM »
I think they did use propoganda.  Like fake news.
If you are going to DebOOonK an expert then you have to at least provide a source with credentials of equal or greater relevance. Even then, it merely shows that some experts disagree with each other.

Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1935 on: January 07, 2017, 07:25:42 PM »
Assuming the information was presented to them by a foreign agent (even though a lot of it was presented by the US State Department in response to a FOI request, but I guess they're foreign now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), are you suggesting that foreign individuals should be prohibited from whistleblowing? Why should they withhold information from the general public if said information is true and accurate? Should we expand this to US citizens as well, just so we can make Edward Snowden's case easier? Whistleblowing bad, mainstream media good, right?

Unless there was something illegal in the leaked E-mails, it wasn't whistleblowing, at least not under US law. It was a leak of embarrassing information. Are there any examples in the E-mail leaks of illegal activities taking place?

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Offline Fortuna

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1936 on: January 07, 2017, 11:29:17 PM »
Assuming the information was presented to them by a foreign agent (even though a lot of it was presented by the US State Department in response to a FOI request, but I guess they're foreign now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), are you suggesting that foreign individuals should be prohibited from whistleblowing? Why should they withhold information from the general public if said information is true and accurate? Should we expand this to US citizens as well, just so we can make Edward Snowden's case easier? Whistleblowing bad, mainstream media good, right?

Unless there was something illegal in the leaked E-mails, it wasn't whistleblowing, at least not under US law. It was a leak of embarrassing information. Are there any examples in the E-mail leaks of illegal activities taking place?

Technically, one does not have to expose illegal information to be considered a whistleblower. Remember Snowden? The NSA wiretapping and surveillance was technically allowed with FISA court warrants, however what he exposed was still highly unethical.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1937 on: January 08, 2017, 12:35:15 AM »
Yeah, sorry, I don't agree with your understanding of what whistleblowing is under US law, and neither does Wikipedia. I must admit I much prefer the wording of UK law, which focuses on the public interest of the information more than the exact nature thereof, but the two definitions seem largely compatible with one another.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2017, 12:39:06 AM by SexWarrior »
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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1938 on: January 08, 2017, 01:48:26 AM »
Yeah, sorry, I don't agree with your understanding of what whistleblowing is under US law, and neither does Wikipedia. I must admit I much prefer the wording of UK law, which focuses on the public interest of the information more than the exact nature thereof, but the two definitions seem largely compatible with one another.

It seems your right.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the government and political parties should be withholding information from the public, even thought that is always going to happen. I just do not think that illegal cybersecurity breaches from foreign powers that effect elections should go unpunished. If they do, then the elections just become a sham as nations continue to influence them for their own gain. Had Clinton won, and it turned out a foreign nation had leaked information on Trump to influence voters, I'm sure Trump supporters would also be up in arms about the election results.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2017, 01:50:37 AM by trekky0623 »

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: 2016 US Presidential Race
« Reply #1939 on: January 08, 2017, 01:57:53 AM »
I just do not think that illegal cybersecurity breaches from foreign powers that effect elections should go unpunished.
Would this be different if the much more likely scenario was true, and the breach came from a hobbyist or a Nigerian prince? Let's say, hypothetically, that he was an American citizen and a committed Democrat, to make things less ambiguous. Should he be punished for releasing information of public interest to the public?

If they do, then the elections just become a sham as nations continue to influence them for their own gain.
Again, America's been doing it for ages.

Had Clinton won, and it turned out a foreign nation had leaked information on Trump to influence voters, I'm sure Trump supporters would also be up in arms about the election results.
Of course, but you most certainly wouldn't see Obama double down on trying to instigate international crises (unsuccessfully, thank fuck) over unsubstantiated allegations.
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