No conspiracy

[timelets]

It turns out that to advance a preferred candidate, a foreign power can manipulate our election process even without insider assistance. Traitors need not apply.

I'd be really curious to read the entire Mueller report and see how the whole affair transpired.

upd: it would be useful to know during the election process that a foreign power, rather than anonymous hackers, is behind the manipulation efforts.

Comments

Question

[malobukov]

Would it be useful for the electorate to know that one of the candidates was given the list of questions before the TV debates?

I thought the purpose of these debates is to help the electorate make an informed decision about the candidates, is it not?

Re: Question

[timelets]

Of course.

Well then

[malobukov]

So the anonymous hackers working for a foreign power helped the American democracy. Looks like we’re in the same side of this then.

It would be nice to pardon Snowden and Assange next.

Re: Well then

[timelets]

These particular anonymous hackers have Russian names and military ranks. Their goal was not to help American democracy. Rather, they were acting on orders to help an American candidate who signaled that his policies would help their employer.

[malobukov]

And why is their motivation relevant? They helped American democracy, and as it turns out got nothing in return.

I listen to the BBC that us controlled by a foreign power, and their programming may affect how I vote in the next election. I see no problem with that.

[timelets]

Are you playing dumb?

I can't help you if you don't see a problem when Russian government hackers posing as anonymous volunteers help one American presidential candidate vs another, especially if the former signals his positive preferences toward the Russian government.

[ymarkov]

it would be useful to know during the election process
That's easy — the default assumption should be that this is exactly what's going on in every Presidential election.

Patiently

[malobukov]

If you replace “Russian” with “British” in your statement, would it still be true?

If yes, you should be outraged about Christopher Steele and call for sanctions on UK for interfering in US elections. Even more so because his dossier is mostly fake, while stuff leaked through Wikileaks was all true.

If no, then what’s the difference? Both UK and Russia were US allies or foes at some point, never friends.

Re: Patiently

[timelets]

Yes if the "British" violated American laws.

Re: Patiently

[malobukov]

American laws do not apply outside of the US. I’m breaking Russian laws, specifically articles 222 and 223 of their Penal Code, and Pakistani apostacy law (the latter punishable by death). Luckily for me, those laws do not apply outside of Russia and Pakistan either.

Re: Patiently

[timelets]

Guess what? They do!

Wow

[malobukov]

Who would have thought it. From now on I’ll be hiding in Appalachian mountains from russian OMON and pakistani police. Surely neither they nor the US know about sovereignity and jurisdiction.

Re: Wow

[timelets]

I'm talking about American laws. Check with your lawyer before you do something stupid.

Ok

[malobukov]

I follow the law of whatever jurisdiction I’m in. So did the GRU and MI5 agents. They were not in the US, so it is irrelevant whether they broke any American laws, just like it is irrelevant if I break any Pakistani laws while I’m in the US.

Even if those agents were in the US at the time, it still has nothing to do with the law. All intelligence agencies routinely break the laws of countries they operate in, including the CIA.

Re: Ok

[timelets]

I'm not going to argue with you here because it's not my job to give free advice to random people who consider themselves legal experts.

Re: Question

[tijd]

Trump has made the debate a point of pride. He recently boasted to the Times that he’d won it despite being a novice, and despite the “crazy Megyn Kelly question.” Fox, however, may have given Trump a little help. A pair of Fox insiders and a source close to Trump believe that Ailes informed the Trump campaign about Kelly’s question. Two of those sources say that they know of the tipoff from a purported eyewitness. In addition, a former Trump campaign aide says that a Fox contact gave him advance notice of a different debate question, which asked the candidates whether they would support the Republican nominee, regardless of who won. The former aide says that the heads-up was passed on to Trump, who was the only candidate who said that he wouldn’t automatically support the Party’s nominee—a position that burnished his image as an outsider.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house

Re: Question

[malobukov]

I watched the debates. It was obvious that Trump wasn’t prepared. Not even for the hard questions, he missed the softballs, too.

Re: Question

[tijd]

He was prepared for Megyn Kelly's question and for the theatrics of being "the only candidate who said that he wouldn’t automatically support the Party’s nominee".

“I really got out of my chair and said, ‘Whoa, there’s something happening here that’s not like regular politics,’ ” Adams recalled. As he saw it, Trump had deftly defanged Kelly’s accusations by replacing them with a powerful visual: the iconic O’Donnell, “who is very unpopular among his base,” Adams said. “It was the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-22/how-dilbert-s-scott-adams-got-hypnotized-by-trump

Oh, that guy

[malobukov]

Scott Adams has been blowing smoke up Trump's ass since day minus one, telling everyone how Trump is "master persuader" with miraculous powers.

Seriously, you could probably find a much stronger argument than an opinion of a cartoonist who's making money on the controversy surrounding Trump.

Sure

[malobukov]

I wasn't asking for advice, just pointing out that your position is not internally consistent.

Re: Sure

[timelets]

We reached a stable equilibrium: you are not asking for advice and I'm not giving advice.:

Re: Oh, that guy

[tijd]

It was Trump's rehearsed answer to Megyn Kelly's question that instantly turned Scott Adams into a devoted MAGA fan with wild theories about "three-dimensional chess".

And what did you think of Trump’s famous “Rosie O’Donnell” quip at the first debate when asked about his comments on women? The interviewer’s questions were intended to paint Trump forever as a sexist pig. But Trump quickly and cleverly set the “anchor” as Rosie O’Donnell, a name he could be sure was not popular with his core Republican crowd. And then he casually admitted, without hesitation, that he was sure he had said other bad things about other people as well.
Now do you see how the anchor works? If the idea of “Trump insults women” had been allowed to pair in your mind with the nice women you know and love, you would hate Trump. That jerk is insulting my sister, my mother, and my wife! But Trump never let that happen. At the first moment (and you have to admit he thinks fast) he inserted the Rosie O’Donnell anchor and owned the conversation from that point on. Now he’s not the sexist who sometimes insults women; he’s the straight-talker who won’t hesitate to insult someone who has it coming (in his view).
But it gets better. You probably cringed when Trump kept saying his appearance gave FOX its biggest audience rating. That seemed totally off point for a politician, right? But see what happened.
Apparently FOX chief Roger Ailes called Trump and made peace. And by that I mean Trump owns FOX for the rest of the campaign because his willingness to appear on their network will determine their financial fate.
https://blog.dilbert.com/2015/08/13/clown-genius/

The real story is that Rupert Murdoch called Fox News and demanded the moderators to ask hard questions. They obliged but Roger Ailes coached Trump how to answer them in order to create a good TV spectacle. This was Roger's finest work since he came up with Reagan's line "I will not make age an issue in this campaign..." and Bush's "Read my lips..."

Murdoch was not a fan of Trump’s and especially did not like his stance on immigration. (The antipathy was mutual: “Murdoch’s been very bad to me,” Trump told me in March.) A few days before the first GOP debate on Fox in August 2015, Murdoch called Ailes at home. “This has gone on long enough,” Murdoch said, according to a person briefed on the conversation. Murdoch told Ailes he wanted Fox’s debate moderators — Kelly, Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace — to hammer Trump on a variety of issues. Ailes, understanding the GOP electorate better than most at that point, likely thought it was a bad idea. “Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee,” Ailes told a colleague around this time. But he didn’t fight Murdoch on the debate directive.
http://www.newsweek.com/rupert-murdoch-blames-roger-ailes-donald-trump-495407