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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

TheWanted Since: Oct, 2013
#147576: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:32:33 PM

Two? I thought it was one. Not much difference it makes in quantity in why he is hiding I guess.

When did the Russian state media post before wikileaks? About all I know is that they have been released in batches over the last two weeks correct? So someone hit the post button before wikileaks did?

Anyways, is the thinking for why Russia could be for trump because of what's been going on in Syria? Wasn't Hillary in favor of a no fly zone for that?

edited 31st Oct '16 3:35:10 PM by TheWanted

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#147577: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:33:35 PM

The Trump campaign also apparently had access to the content of some of the leaks before Wikileaks made them public.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#147578: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:34:22 PM

I know I'm nitpicking, but how do we know that? I thought Julian As Santa was from Sweden or something, and is now hiding out in the Bolivian embassy in England to escape charges.

The autocorrect didn't commit the most notable major errors in that one.

Assange is Australian, he's accused of crimes in Sweden, and he's hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London because he fears that after being extradited to Sweden he'd be taken to the US for a trial that he believes would be unfair.

You did get England right, although it would be more reasonable to refer to it as the United Kingdom (which also includes Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, and the capital of which is London, where other nations would have their embassies.)

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#147579: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:34:40 PM

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html

Read the whole thing, but here are some highlights.

This spring, a group of computer scientists set out to determine whether hackers were interfering with the Trump campaign. They found something they weren’t expecting.

In late July, one of these scientists—who asked to be referred to as Tea Leaves, a pseudonym that would protect his relationship with the networks and banks that employ him to sift their data—found what looked like malware emanating from Russia. The destination domain had Trump in its name, which of course attracted Tea Leaves’ attention. But his discovery of the data was pure happenstance—a surprising needle in a large haystack of DNS lookups on his screen. “I have an outlier here that connects to Russia in a strange way,” he wrote in his notes. He couldn’t quite figure it out at first. But what he saw was a bank in Moscow that kept irregularly pinging a server registered to the Trump Organization on Fifth Avenue.

The researchers quickly dismissed their initial fear that the logs represented a malware attack. The communication wasn’t the work of bots. The irregular pattern of server lookups actually resembled the pattern of human conversation—conversations that began during office hours in New York and continued during office hours in Moscow. It dawned on the researchers that this wasn’t an attack, but a sustained relationship between a server registered to the Trump organization and two servers registered to an entity called Alfa Bank.

Earlier this month, the group of computer scientists passed the logs to Paul Vixie. In the world of DNS experts, there’s no higher authority. Vixie wrote central strands of the DNS code that makes the Internet work. After studying the logs, he concluded, “The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.” Put differently, the logs suggested that Trump and Alfa had configured something like a digital hotline connecting the two entities, shutting out the rest of the world, and designed to obscure its own existence.

According to Vixie and others, the new host name may have represented an attempt to establish a new channel of communication. But media inquiries into the nature of Trump’s relationship with Alfa Bank, which suggested that their communications were being monitored, may have deterred the parties from using it. Soon after the New York Times began to ask questions, the traffic between the servers stopped cold.

There's no question, now.

Trump is a Manchurian candidate.

New Survey coming this weekend!
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#147580: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:35:30 PM

Trump's platform (such as he has one) involves undermining NATO. As far as Moscow is concerned, Trump will let them have their way with Eastern Europe if they get lucky.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#147581: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:36:32 PM

Note that this association is not being reported on endlessly in the media despite being speculative and based on evidence that's not substantial enough for a trial...

I'd imagine that "Trump is a Russian agent" would make for some spectacular full-day news coverage on CNN as a substitute for "Clinton emails", and be slightly more likely to have actual substance behind it.

edited 31st Oct '16 3:37:48 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#147582: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:36:41 PM

The Russians have all kinds of reasons to pull for Trump. Probably the biggest is his repeated promises to abandon our allies and NATO.

A NATO without the US barely exists and the Russians will get free reign of Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Not to mention the space they'll have if we fall out with Japan and pull out of the Pacific.

Oh really when?
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#147583: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:42:38 PM

And WHY IS THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT OKAY WITH THIS!?!?

Do these fuckers really hate Hillary and Bill so much that they're willing to sell out the entire country?

New Survey coming this weekend!
EpicBleye drunk bunny from her bed being very eepy Since: Sep, 2014 Relationship Status: In Lesbians with you
drunk bunny
#147584: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:45:24 PM

@Tobias: The image actually has Trump clothed in the armor of Gilgamesh from the Fate series... who wants to cleanse the world and get rid of those he views as useless and unimportant. Furthermore, he's incredibly wealthy and has ALL of the weapons. All of them.

So... yeah. Not a good guy.

"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Mae
LinkToTheFuture A real bad hombre from somewhere completely different Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
A real bad hombre
#147585: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:48:54 PM

Fuck, I missed that part. I literally finished Fate/Zero yesterday.

And yes, Gilgamesh is a perfect casting choice for Trump, and definitely not a good guy

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#147586: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:49:48 PM

Meanwhile Clinton and Bernie are wizards and Jeb Bush is a Jedi in the background fighting the robot Rubio.

EpicBleye drunk bunny from her bed being very eepy Since: Sep, 2014 Relationship Status: In Lesbians with you
drunk bunny
#147587: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:50:10 PM

ngl i'd actually prefer Gilgamesh as my president over Trump

because at least gilgamesh doesn't discriminate, he views everyone as less than him

"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Mae
TheWanted Since: Oct, 2013
#147588: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:53:04 PM

I can only speak for myself, but my opinion about NATO is that if Europe wants to constantly criticize the US they can fend for their own damn selves.

You said it yourself, NATO is almost nonexistent without the United States. Making us do all the heavy lifting hardly seems fair, and they should contribute more.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#147589: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:53:16 PM

Gilgamesh also at least has some sense of honor.

Mio Since: Jan, 2001
#147590: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:53:47 PM

See, having never seen that I thought that was supposed to be a Warhammer 40k reference with Trump being the Emperor and Clinton being some unnamed sorceress.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#147591: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:53:55 PM

[up][up][up] That's such an uninformed view of what NATO is and does that I don't even know how to begin critiquing it.

edited 31st Oct '16 3:54:01 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#147592: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:56:23 PM

Good lord the Wanted.

You realize the DAY NATO collapses, as an alliance, Putin would invade the Baltics and the rest of Eastern Europe the day after.

New Survey coming this weekend!
TheWanted Since: Oct, 2013
#147593: Oct 31st 2016 at 3:58:18 PM

It's a mutual defense pact founded during the cold war to mostly protect Europe from the USSR?

[up] I hardly think it's the very next day that would happen.

Something I actually agree with many on the left is that we spend too much money on defense spending. I don't see what the big deal is with us spending less and then spending a bit more

edited 31st Oct '16 4:03:16 PM by TheWanted

BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#147594: Oct 31st 2016 at 4:02:58 PM

The UK, France, and Germany are all European NATO members that are among the top-10 largest military spenders in the world. Together, those three spend much more than Russia does. That's just three European NATO members.

Japan and South Korea are allies of the US in Asia. They are at #8 and #10 on that list. Together, those two spend more than Russia, as well.

The world's third largest defense spender is Saudi Arabia, another US ally.

The only top-10 military powers in the world that aren't the US or its allies are China (#2), Russia, (#4) and India (#6). The US still has an absolutely massive defense budget - more than double that of Russia and China combined.

You shouldn't be too worried about a lack of military spending by the US or its allies. (Incidentally, if you take the top spender list to 15, you'll get another 4 US allies: Italy (NATO), Australia, the UAE, and Israel. #11 is Brazil, which is also friendly to the US.)

edited 31st Oct '16 4:04:10 PM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
TheWanted Since: Oct, 2013
#147595: Oct 31st 2016 at 4:04:43 PM

Then why the panic about if NATO dissolves Russia would invade the very next day if they spend so much?

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#147596: Oct 31st 2016 at 4:06:46 PM

[up]Because the 'very next day' is probably more of an exaggeration than anything else. They might only invade in the very next year or so, but we're basically arguing semantics by this point.tongue

edited 31st Oct '16 4:09:41 PM by kkhohoho

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#147597: Oct 31st 2016 at 4:08:50 PM

And if Russia gets too confident and causes Europe to collectively panic...do remember that the UK and especially France are nuclear powers.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
TheWanted Since: Oct, 2013
#147598: Oct 31st 2016 at 4:11:04 PM

the exact same possibility of MAD then. So what's the point of NATO if Europe is so much closer and has the exact same deterrents as we do?

BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#147599: Oct 31st 2016 at 4:13:32 PM

I'm not on board with that fear, to be honest. Of course, Russia would have less of a deterrent against it, but the armed forces of Europe, if they join together, are still extremely strong. (Russia could take the Baltic states and Finland and so on, but it couldn't go very far into Europe and would eventually get pushed back out.) Even that wouldn't be likely to happen, though, because of the nuclear deterrent.

The benefit of having Baltic states and other potential targets of Russia that might otherwise be easy pickings is that article 5 of NATO says that if any member is attacked, the entire alliance is attacked. That massively escalates the deterrent against an invasion.

In the US, politicians often complain that other NATO members aren't participating sufficiently in all of the illegal wars that the US undertakes. Most of the time, though, those wars aren't strictly defensive actions, so it's hard to justify mandating a defensive partnership to join in. (For instance, Afghanistan was essentially defensive; Iraq was illegal; and the intervention in Libya was mandated by the UNSC, so legal.)

Still, NATO offers a very effective command structure and avenues for sharing technology and tactical innovations and mutually benefiting from this. This means that even if you're taking a military action that is not strictly defensive, the alliance will be a massive help. It's true that NATO members don't always commit as heavily as the US. Part of the reason is that most of the US allies' armed forces tend to be designed for defensive actions, and not force projection (to a great extent). They do still tend to participate in NATO operations in all sorts of ways. For instance, if you look at a list of countries militarily supporting the Iraqi armed forces' attempt to retake Mosul, you'll see basically all of the US' allies listed there.

Japan and South Korea feel threatened by China and Russia, and their close cooperation with the US and Australia - and the link to NATO that this brings - is also a very useful deterrent. It tends to put a cap on other powers' aggression.

EDIT: [nja]

edited 31st Oct '16 4:23:09 PM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
TheWanted Since: Oct, 2013
#147600: Oct 31st 2016 at 4:21:07 PM

So what is so bad about us spending less on it then? To my knowledge Trump hasn't said we should just pack up and leave, just to go back over the terms some

edited 31st Oct '16 4:21:30 PM by TheWanted


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