I'd have a grudge too.
IMO, it was likely a joke.
Speaking for myself I know I would never say that, so the response would be "No, I never said that."
I would also add that to the American people and to our friends and partners, I want you to know that we are taking aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information.
https://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/11/1...
I had a quick search around to see what I could find, and I did find a recent tweet from Wikileaks showing a clip from some pundit on Fox News called Bob Beckel calling for exactly that: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/763380671796678656/vide...
But a little further checking showed that despite this being tweeted in August this year with a headline and hashtag suggesting a link to the leaked emails, this video is actually from 2010, moreover from my exhaustive five minute search (it wasn't exhaustive really) I couldn't find any evidence of a link to Clinton's campaign, in fact according to Wikipedia the last campaign this strange chap worked on was Walter Mondale's in 1984.
http://truepundit.com/under-intense-pressure-to-silence-wiki...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQW0US2sJw
(not particularly partisan, many calls for his death-- honestly mostly from the right but not exclusively.)
>Sarah Harrison, a British journalist and a longtime WikiLeaks editor, says that the organization would publish documents damaging to Trump if it had them.
The bloomberg article also quoted someone from reddit as evidence that the right wing was 'shivering in anticipation' of leaks damaging to clinton. It's not great journalism and seems biased but it doesn't seem there is any evidence that assange is pro trump.
But if there is no agenda, it does make one wonder why the Wikileaks of late have focused on Clinton in the run up to the election
Seems to me like anyone with credible evidence against Trump can sell it to the highest bidding mainstream media org and be sure it will get national attention. Why would a Trump leaker need wikileaks?
Nerddom and the left (and I'm somewhere in the overlapping circles on that Venn diagram) have a powerful rooting interest in Julian Assange and Wikileaks, who many of us see as a vanguard of an effort to disrupt politics and the media, both of whom we as a demographic have little respect for. The simple fact is that Assange is campaigning for Donald Trump. But that's very hard for us to admit, regardless of the amount of evidence we're confronted with.
One possible explanation for this is that Assange will support the candidate that he believes will hurt US interests most.
Assange is savvy enough to know their position inevitably supports Trump, but there isn't any reason to think if they viewed Trump as more corrupt they would be against him. So it is possible they take a principled position while wrongly accused of having a preference in who wins the election.
But very few observers of US politics believe Trump is the anti-corruption candidate. A more widely held belief is that he's the most corrupt major party nominee in the history of US politics.
Clinton's happens in secret and is masked by insincerity, lies, etc.
I think there's a brain glitch at play here -- corruption in the style of Clinton feels more corrupt because it's secretive, even if the out-in-the-open corruption is just as bad or worse.
Only this time, it seems the Clintons were trumped...
Disclosure: I support neither candidate and will probably vote the Party for Socialism and Liberation this cycle.
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/politics/hillary-clinton-donor...
There really are people who believe that.
In fact, depending on where you get your news, you might also believe that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are actual literal demons, who smell of sulfur.
I definitely don't think you should disregard others opinions just because,
"There are also people who believe Obama created Hurricane Matthew to suppress turnout without, using his network of wind farms."
That has no weight, and is just a deflection.
But, again! This is an unproductive political argument. If you support Trump, your support for Wikileaks is entirely coherent. I'm not here to argue that people shouldn't support Trump (I hope those arguments are self-evident). I'm here to point out that people who oppose Trump should recognize the role Wikileaks is playing.
Again, what you said has no bearing on what I said... I wasn't even discussing wikileaks - I was responding to the parent, mentioning how nothing sticks.
As for political ideology, again I made no comment. It's fair to call Hilary corrupt because she is, there's no political leaning involved in my comment. She clearly did a bunch of stuff on the edge of what was moral/legal. She clearly makes deals to gain favors - that's basically what politics is. I made zero comments on trump.
Finally, I am not a supporter of either candidate - they both suck and both aren't representative of my views. Nor are either going to improve my quality of life or increase my personal (or family) security.
Pointing to fringes to discredit the mainstream of said fringe is just a cheap tactic, not something worth doing out of concern for the truth.
It is not only possible but actually somewhat likely that her mails were safer on her own server.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/magazine/anatomy-of-a-medi...
In contrast, a wide range of right-wing people have spent three decades and many millions of dollars going after both Clintons, with considerable personal demonization over that time. When Obama was elected, the GOP's goal was to limit him to one term. That means a bunch of people had angles to exploit anything remotely plausible: it kept the base riled up and voting accordingly, it helped attack the sitting president by association, and maybe damage his most likely successor. The entire email story was only discovered as part of the endless attempts to trump up a scandal from the Benghazi attack, by which time the pattern of relentlessly litigating everything was just the assumed default.
There just isn't an equivalent on the Democratic side. Yes, there are people who don't like Bush (or now Trump) but there aren't rich people pushing to scrutinize his private life and the members of Congress don't seem to think that's a good use of their time.
I'm sorry, none of these seem like witch hunts to you?
- He wasn't born in the United States
- He's a Muslim
- Connection to William Ayers
- Connection to Jeremiah Wright
- Connection to ACORN
- IRS targets enemies
- Benghazi
- Fast and Furious
- Solyndra
- Death Panels
- Not saluting soldiers
- Not putting his hand on his heart during anthem
And let me highlight that Colin Powell referred to Benghazi as a "stupid witch hunt".
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/14/politics/colin-powell-benghazi...
Um, are you just blanking 2004 out of your head? This is just the same stuff all over again. All of the screaming and shouting about birth certificates and generally shady connections? His ultimate Muslim agenda to bring down the Great Satan that is America?
Absolutely nothing of worth is coming from the leaked documents, despite all hell being raised about a smoking gun (that no one can point to) in them. It literally is a witch hunt. If these past 4 elections aren't going to kill the GOP in general, I don't know if anything will. It should be disgusting the out right lies and propaganda that they employ, with a complete lack of integrity and standards. But people still buy into the juicy conspiracy theories and the generally "known and accepted" unknowns.
If HRC is the dirtiest candidate in the history of politics, then then last 4 decades of investigations and general obstructionism were undertaken by the most incompetent politicians in the history of politics. Not just one, a whole collection of individuals (senators, house members, governors) from one party who despite their best efforts continually fails at proving claims they have no problem repeating until people start to believe them.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/29176...
Of course, that's not what's going to happen, because Wikileaks is in effect if not design a propaganda organ of the Russian Federation.
This is classic US politics. This A vs B mentality is what leads to such a fierce two party system.
If you don't support choice A, then you are assumed to support choice B. Any attack on Hillary is viewed as support for Trump and vice versa.
I don't think that's a fair interpretation.
Assange is many things, but "stupid" isn't one of them. Running Wikileaks as a year-long oppo research firm for Trump has the obvious impact of helping Trump, which is why the Trump campaign claims to coordinate with him.
And it's not because I think security experts are stupid and don't realize the obvious commercial impact that a security vulnerability has.
If I was to favor the majority opinion, to oppose both Trump and Clinton is to campaign for democracy. If I had to guess what motivities Assange, if Clinton win people won't trust the government and if trump win people will fear the government. It is possible that the later will slightly produce more Snowden's.
It is still a lizard that get voted into office at the end of the day.
Some would point to the political events that the dc leaks talked about.
In favorability or approval (whatever that means in the context of a nominee) ratings? They mean different things, and aren't always directly related[1]. I could definitely see how Sanders would be liked more, but people would believe he's less likely to do a good job.
1: http://www.gallup.com/poll/14797/presidential-approval-vs-fa...
Say I rated taco, pizza and Italian salad as 10, 8, and 2, and you rated them as 2, 8, and 10, we can easily see that pizza wins even if neither of us has it as our primary pick. pizza in this case has highest opinion rating while the other two choices are quite far behind.
So, what I wonder is what questions are actually asked regarding candidates? There isn't any data on them doing the job itself yet (unless they are an incumbent, which none are this cycle), so are they asking about how much they like the person, like the policies, or how confident they are the candidate can perform well? The answer to that question may lead to different likely reasons for the question at hand. Sanders is a likable guy. I like him. I'm also not convinced his policies, as expressed on the campaign trail, are feasible. Conversely, Hillary Clinton isn't very likable. I don't really like her. I do agree with many (but not all) of her policies, but most importantly I think her policies are feasible and have a chance of being implemented if she's elected. I am, in fact, the exact sort of person that might have expressed a favorable opinion for Sanders but voted for Hillary.
Says right in the article, it was Russian hackers aiming to undermine the US democratic system. They saw this beautifully pristine, perfect and fair democratic system and said to themselves "let's undermine the fuck out of this thing".
Surely if it was already undermined to the point of being utterly broken they wouldn't have to bother, right?
Your choices are Clinton + Kaine (Dem), Trump + Pence (Rep), Johnson + Weld (Lib), and maybe Stein + Baraka (Grn). No one else could win without deadlocking the electoral college.
To oppose Clinton is little more than calling a turd sandwich a turd sandwich. One does not also need to point out that her douche opponent is a douche.
While the US elections systems virtually guarantee a two-party system, it does not mean the two on top always have to be the same parties. If the Republicans fall apart after this, Libertarian, Green, and Constitution will certainly devour the corpse, and one of them will eventually grow fat enough to take its place and push the others back down and away from the table.
I do wish a pox on both houses--along with a hemorrhagic fever, parasitic worm infection, and some kind of blotchy skin rash. I am not staying out of the election. I think Clinton would competently lead the country in the wrong direction, and I think Trump would be a national embarrassment on multiple fronts. Strategically, the best strategy I could follow would be to bash the presumptive front-runner, whomever it may be, to keep the two major candidates as close as possible, and hope that the minor candidates can somehow win enough states to deadlock the electoral college.
Note that it is unlikely that is the primary motivation for Wikileaks. But it does show that this game is not a zero-sum either-or.
But they do not have those votes--largely because many people who share your general opinion keep hammering home the message that if you do not vote for one of the top two candidates, then at best your vote does not matter, and at worst it destroys America.
My concerns are that Trump is a misogynistic sleaze who will undermine US diplomatic prestige, be generally ineffective as a government executive trying to act like a business executive, and will damage international trade; and that Clinton is a corrupt politician who will undermine US liberty, continue indefinitely the harmful policies of Bush II and Obama, and will damage the rule of law. The fact that those third-party candidates have a statistically zero chance of winning actually makes me more comfortable in voting for one of them.
On the off chance that the Republican party could finally destroy itself by choosing an even more unsuitable candidate next time around, I want the Libertarian Party to be strong enough to take its place. And on the even more remote chance that the Democrats self-destruct, I want the Greens to be big enough to step into their shoes. Having lived in Chicago, I have had enough of oily, corrupt Democrats in power. And having lived in the South, I have also had enough of smarmy, bigoted, hypocritical Republicans in power.
They are never going to die out if people keep voting for them and sending them money!
> On the off chance that the Republican party could finally destroy itself by choosing an even more unsuitable candidate next time around, I want the Libertarian Party to be strong enough to take its place.
Don't kid yourself about some other party ever taking the place of the Democrats or Republicans. The best you can hope for is that the libertarians gain more influence than they currently have through the larger Republican party consuming them. Whether you view this as a needed shift in the right direction for the Republicans or not enough of a shift and at the cost of any power the libertarians had likely depends on how far you lean libertarian. Same with the Democrats and Green Party.
Our two party system hasn't survived for as long as it has because each party innately catered to it's constituents needs from the beginning. Each party has shifted greatly over time to track what their constituents cared about.
> Having lived in Chicago, I have had enough of oily, corrupt Democrats in power. And having lived in the South, I have also had enough of smarmy, bigoted, hypocritical Republicans in power. ... They are never going to die out if people keep voting for them and sending them money!
They are never going to die, period. But that's okay. They don't need to die, they just need to change, and there's plenty of precedent for that.
In presidential elections, because of the US political system, you really do have just two choices. You may lament this - I have! But it's the world we live in. Saying you'll vote for a third party candidate to "register your complaint" is a null gesture.
If you really care about politics, you'd have to work to push the party of your choice in the direction you want. This is long, hard work, and happens outside the presidential cycle. You have to march with signs, attend boring meetings, and persuade people you just met.
Complaining about the broken system every four years is neither mature nor effective.
I am moved to write this because, for multiple election cycles, I was that guy, until I realized my folly.
I think it's far more likely that if the Republicans fall apart, a large component will pivot and eat up one or more of those other parties to retain a Republican designation with slightly different values. It's a mistake to think of either of the two major parties as static.
This is in strong contrast to Westminster parliaments, where political parties are for the most part a monolith, only occasionally allowed a "conscience vote" (that's not to say there isn't infighting). To vote against the party is a very good way to get booted from the party, which as far as I'm aware is practically impossible in Congress, the closest you have is being expelled from a caucus.
well, when the system is this broken, the only throw away vote is a vote for either Clinton or Trump, because it validates the system.
you are right that my idealistic attitude might end up getting Trump elected. but that's the kind of attitude that makes clinton the alternative.
Imagine a lake of piss, next to it, a mountain of shit.
Now I dump a whole bunch of garbage onto one of them.
Which am I supporting?
Or maybe you can explain this bit from the article that really mystified me: "[Russian hackers did something] with the aim of undermining the US democratic process". We've all seen what this democratic process looks like on TV, so what does it actually still mean, to undermine this democratic process?
Most Americans, do not really want to support Clinton over Trump or vice versa, they're angry and disappointed that from a nation of several hundred million people, apparently these two are the choices given to them by "the democratic process".
And apparently this is the way it is, because the election system makes it that way. It's probably the same causes that make just about every US election for as long as I remember end up just about this close to 50/50. Which, if you know anything about voting systems theory, is the number one failure mode of majority voting. But nobody finds this cultural either/or winner/loser fixation alarming at all, apparently. So again, what's left to undermine, really?
It's just like accusing someone of trying to undermine freedom of speech in China.
If anything, Assange would want the third party libertarian to win since he is the only guy advocating to stop the wars and reduce American involvement overseas, which is what Assange wants. He sees America as a menace and wants to stop the brutality of American "peace" in countries they have no business being in.
As an anarchist, Assange probably wouldn't care about the libertarians more than any other candidate, since any candidate would only futher the existence and legitimacy of a state which he would rather see destroyed. If he did support Trump, it would be because he believes a Trump Presidency would only hasten America's demise.
Citation please. I haven't heard anything about that.
> Running Wikileaks as a year-long oppo research firm for Trump
Wikileaks can only leak what they've been given. Maybe people are feeding them more info about Hillary, but I would respect Wikileaks far less if they withheld information during an election year to protect a candidate.
The voters deserve to know everything there is to know about their candidates. It's an assault against the voters to withhold negative information about a candidate because you don't want their opponent to win.
Obviously, he doesn't have to say anything positive about Trump at all to support him, and in fact the kind of support he's offering (a drip-drip feed of the products of Russian hacking calculated to create an "October Surprise") is far more valuable than any verbal support he could give Trump directly.
I mean here to be dismissive without being too disrespectful. But I'll be candid: people who say Assange isn't supporting Trump sound pretty silly. Like, the claim says more about them than it does about the election.
Believing that sort of dichotomy is "pretty silly" and says plenty about you.
Neither case really paints a good picture of Wikileaks as an impartial journalistic organization.
Through I must say, it does making viewing news more interesting. Someone say a negative about a product, I wonder which competitor paid them? Someone released a security vulnerability, I wonder what competing product they are trying to sell.
It basically makes all negative statements into a conspiracy, which honestly is silly, but fun thought experiment.
And the proof is...
Hillary has made it quite clear that would never happen however Trump has been far more supportive of Assange especially since Wikileaks has been his biggest asset.
Secondly, and with a little more convoluted reasoning: it seems to be a truism that Republican/Conservative presidencies are harder economically for people living in poverty. Republicans are less socialist, in other words. I think it's pretty clear that Assange would like to see a revolution in the US, and revolutions tend to happen when the people don't have enough to eat. Hoping for Trump to win could be seen as hoping for a revolution in that light.
1. http://truepundit.com/under-intense-pressure-to-silence-wiki...
If I could, I would encourage Julian Assange to stop fearing for his life, and start living it, whatever precious little (or lot) of it he might have left. Unfortunately, if he can't access the internet, he can't read this comment.
It's true that the whole world is watching this, and a lot of us in the US care not only for the fate of Assange, but also for the fate of our nation, how these two have become intertwined, and what it will mean if Assange does indeed come to harm as a result of his journalistic actions.
If I were Julian, I would use right now as the perfect opportunity to walk out, and face the charges in Sweden. At least then I could serve actual time (if necessary), and have an end to my imprisonment within sight.
Above all, this is certainly an excellent opportunity for Hillary to show that she can resolve a crisis diplomatically. If she could just tone things down a bit, she could assure Julian (and the world) that she does not actually mean him any harm. Of anyone, I would think that Hillary could be quite good at projecting soft power globally.
Besides, can you imagine what it would be like if they killed him now? The Hollywood trailer of his biopic would have to start with, "First, they cut your internet access ..." ;)
If the answer is "no", you're not part of the left and you're likely more of a liberal then.
Aristotle said there are 6 kinds of government, 3 good ones and 3 bad ones. The bad ones are where the ruler rules in their own interest. The good ones are where the ruler rules in the public interest. How many people rule: In Tyranny - 1 person rules in their own interest Monarchy - 1 person rules in the public interest (a good tyrant is a monarch) Aristocracy - a few people rule in the public interest Oligarchy - a few people rule in their own interest Democracy - all people rule in the public interest Bad Democracy - all people rule in the interest of the majority and oppress the minority
Let's take a few highly profitable corporations as examples. How do workers seize the means of production of Apple or Google?
Particularly, how do they do it without destroying the said means?
>http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/08/26/assange-trumps-ever...
This is hard to swallow.
There is nothing in Wiki/Assange past behaviour that would indicate they would like to support Trump.
Unless: They like 'whoever is against Hillary'
OR
Wiki is getting a lot of support from Russia, and they may be indirectly leaning towards conspiring with them for political favour etc..
Putin just might have enough pull to eventually get Assange out of his prison.
And despite his 'vendetta' I have no doubt that he would release anti-Trump bits if he had them.
Wikipedia - whatever it's credibility - is headed by a dude with somewhat demagogic and self-glorifying tendencies himself.
This kind of language is common for propaganda and astroturfing.
HRC likely just has a larger attack surface.
[1] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-...
[2] http://www.salon.com/2016/10/11/russian-propaganda-on-wikile...
Increasingly I think every citizen of the world has a stake in this election, given how global the reach of the US is.
For a high profile "wanted" man like Assange, I can imagine it's much more than us regular people.
He's in sanctuary, in part, because of fear of extradition to the US. So yeah, he does have a stake.
If Clinton wins she has no motivation to stop an extradition, since she figures in WL and other leaks.
If Trump wins, and Assange/WL is seen to have implicitly supported him, there is a hope for Assange that President Trump could prohibit his DoJ from extraditing, and his DoD from rendering. Not from gratitude, but because Trump is vindictive and that would be a way to stick it to ... to ... The Global Media/Banking/Government/NotWhite Conspiracy.
I'm kind of amazed that WL or someone else hasn't hacked and released Trump data. Do they just not use computers?
Who knows what they have?