Russian hackers targeted U.S. conservative think-tanks, says Microsoft
reuters.com
reuters.com
That's why Russia didn't want Mitt Romney to become Trump's secretary of state:
"Weeks after Donald Trump was elected president, Russia-backed online “trolls” flooded social media to try to block Mitt Romney from securing a top job in the incoming administration, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows."[1]
"Putin’s former secretory, Igor Sechin counts Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s secretary of state, as a close personal friend, after the two men — during Tillerson’s time as Exxon Mobil CEO — struck a 2012 agreement that entailed investments by Exxon and Rosneft worth $500bn. When sanctions imposed on Sechin and Rosneft imperilled that deal and banned him from visiting the US, Russia’s response was to lament that he could no longer “ride the roads of the United States on motorcycles with Tillerson”."[2]
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-trolls-tried-to-torpedo...
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/dc7d48f8-1c13-11e8-aaca-4574d7dab...
"War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence"
I'm not saying it isn't, but WSJ and FT as sources? Really?
"How Russia won the World Cup" by the The Guardian[1] is a one of them.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/14/how-russia-won-...
He did turn out to be right, but Im not sure how useful a Cold War mindset of guns and bombs rather than bits and propaganda really is in the 21st century.
put differently: all of the international relations theorism that has been dominant in the last 70 years says that for every inch they gain, we must lose an inch, and vice versa. you could substitute in several other parties like china and say the same thing. this is a good situation for everyone to be in.
the thing to remember is that there are many of these inches trading hands at all times. no major player is about to risk trying to grab a mile or inflicting any kind of serious blow that could be overtly attributed to them as an act warranting retribution. remember, for every effort the players make, it opens them up to opportunism by the others who aren't affected by that effort.
so, russia is, almost by definition, a threat. but that's business as usual, not cause for alarm. the threat is not an existential one, at present.
i'm also of the mind that romney's interpretation of russia being a threat was primarily military in nature rather than political. that interpretation -- implying russia could invade europe or something similar -- was ridiculous at the time, and has been proven false given the difficulty that russia has had in ukraine.
You're assuming that "human prosperity" is the game being played, as opposed to "national power", which very much is zero-sum.
Nationalism is a choice, one embraced by the current U.S. administration (and others), but it's not the norm: Since WWII the U.S. has been the leading supporter of internationalism.
“One of” is a key phrase here, because...
> all of the international relations theorism that has been dominant in the last 70 years says that for every inch they gain, we must lose an inch, and vice versa.
...this is not true in a situation where Russia is one of our geopolitical rivals, only where they are sole meaningful rival. That arguably was the model of the early Cold War (prior to the significant split between China and Russia), but bilateral relations with Russia are not zero-sum when we have other geopolitical rivalries.
> no major player is about to risk trying to grab a mile or inflicting any kind of serious blow that could be overtly attributed to them as an act warranting retribution.
That's manifestly false; Russia has fairly brazenly conducted several such acts recently against members of the Western Alliance. (Particularly Brittain of a new objective and 8.)
> implying russia could invade europe or something similar
In what continent does one find Ukraine?
> was ridiculous at the time, and has been proven false given the difficulty that russia has had in ukraine.
You mean, was correct at the time and has been proven true by Russia's invasion of the Ukraine and conquest of significant portions thereof.
Earlier you accused Russia of meddling everywhere, just to pull Ukraine out of the hat.
Completely omitting that Ukraine didn't start with Crimea, it started on Euromaidan [0], with heavy involvement of "Yat's our man" [1] and even that was only the ultimate result of decades, and millions of US$, in "regime change" efforts [2].
That's the actual context of Ukraine and not "Russia having ambitions to invade all of Europe". The annexation of Crimea wasn't an offensive play, it was a desperate defensive play trying to hold to as much ground and, and military industrial infrastructure [3], as possible.
The way all of this is constantly omitted, in favor of the "Russia just went into aggressive expansionist mode" narrative, is pretty good evidence for how one-sided this whole topic has become in the public discourse.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
[1] http://openukraine.org/en/about/partners (Originally he was the face of the org, they later replaced him with his wife)
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
[3] https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-military-equipment/25...
As Ukraine was a part of USSR, there are people sympathising with the West and people sympathising with Russia. And when one part comes to power, other feels disappointed.
Russia uses this distrust in its propaganda to divide the society, spreading ideas like the Ukranian government is going to ban Russian language at public schools and sadly the government doesn't take steps to reassure Russian people in Ukraine. Russian is not an official language in Ukraine or in any of its regions (except the annexed ones).
Your point about annexation of Crimea is similar to what Russian propaganda says: if we didn't take a part of Ukraine then there would be new NATO bases (another excuse: "Crimea has always been our land and people living there are mostly Russian"). But it is nothing more than an excuse - you can justify anything this way. USSR earlier did similar things - in 1939 they annexed a part of Finland [1] using an excuse that the Leningrad city was too close too the border so they needed to push the border further.
It is like US foreign policy - they always have a good excuse to bomb some country and pretend to be the good guy saving people from a dictator.
It was a bit more complicated and chaotic than that, but you can't just brush aside US involvement as "inconsequential" like that because Euromaidan saw literal US Senators (McCain), and many other foreign nationals, interfere in the elections.
In times where every random Russian doing something remotely shady in the US is instantly connected to the Russian government as some kind of "professional agitator" this whole reasoning seems quite a bit hypocrite.
> It is like US foreign policy - they always have a good excuse to bomb some country and pretend to be the good guy saving people from a dictator.
It indeed is, that's why many people think the US is in no position to be hysterical about "election interference".
The cold war might have officially been over, but spheres of influence, and the mostly covert fight over them, still exist and persists to this day.
In that context, it's a bit like the US playing the game all the time and mostly winning, but as soon as Russia manages to win a round, the US starts complaining how evil Russia is for playing the game in the first place.
killing a dissident abroad isn't a major blow in any real terms. it grabs headlines, but nobody is willing to disrupt world order over a small number of people, so it isn't even a big risk. russia was not trying to kill whoever because they thought it would be a massive geopolitical gain in any event.
ukraine is an example of how they cannot invade. ukraine's military had extremely low levels of readiness, yet they still hold most of their country. remember, russia views ukraine as its backyard. ukraine was its puppet state for most of the post-soviet era. the idea that ukraine pulled away -- toward the US -- warranted a full court press, but they couldn't hack it. they lost ukraine to the US orbit despite their best efforts.
imagine what luck they'd have against a western european military, backed by the rest of NATO. it isn't anything they'd even consider attempting because they are not suicidal.
one of their last military readiness estimates found that their black sea fleet couldn't hold out for more than eight hours against the US in a war, and that's right in their back yard, far from core NATO territory.
i just really want to drive the point home here: the russian military did not even supply all of their army units with socks (!) until the end of 2013 (!). they used the same footwraps they had used for hundreds of years up through that point. their military is strong, but their ability to project force is nowhere near what it was during the soviet era for a plethora of reasons.
moldova may be up next for annexing, but that doesn't imply european security is threatened, nevermind US security.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine should be counted as a success for Russia, rather than a failure; they wanted a buffer zone and have got it. They're operating under the logic that every inch they destroy is an inch the "West" has lost, the same logic that led to Napoleon's defeat.
Same goes for Syria. The goal is to keep the fire burning and refugees fleeing, to prevent the Middle East from stablising in a West-friendly state. Keeping Assad in power is beneficial but not critical to the overall pro-chaos project.
Some articles about refugees returning to Syria and who is even interested in that or rebuilding Syria.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-russia-syr...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-seeks-u-s-help-in-return...
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/return-of-...
The article [1] estimates the number of members of anti-governments on order of tens or hundreds thousands people. You cannot just hire 100 000 people out of nowhere and send then to Syria. Most of them are local people.
Surely all those countries were just one step from becoming best uncle Sam's friends before Russia came. Right.
the russian invasion of ukraine was an attempt to salvage a geopolitical rout in which the US politically captured ukraine, an area under russia's dominion for roughly a hundred years.
the attempted salvaging has mostly failed; an overtly anti-kremlin government sits in ukraine.
importantly, they have retained the strategically critical hinge point of crimea (militarily one of the doors to control of eurasia), which was the most valuable piece of ground at risk in the entire debacle, independent of the political aspect. note that their access to crimea is now much weaker than it was before because of how close it is to a US-orbit government.
you will notice the difference in importance of the objective by seeing how they did not leave the invasion of crimea up to their proxy/"rebel" forces, which are currently in eastern ukraine. indeed, as soon as it was at risk of being out of their hands, the russian marines were in crimea in force, with only a minimal denial of the effort. the justification for it was invented later.
they were scrambling, and the rough edges of their plan were heavily showing.
the russians are not wantonly destructive. the refugees are indeed helpful for their global position, and they do want to prevent the middle east from entering the western orbit -- you will recall that the US has been cozying up to russia's major client state in the area, iran.
but they don't want chaos. they would prefer it if there were no chaos, at this point. chaos costs them money, increases the chances of them not being able to react to another crisis, and damages the stability of their client states. furthermore, trouble in the middle east ends up coming home to russia fairly frequently thanks to their longstanding conflict with the sunni muslims.
I'm almost certain that the above is false, but perhaps you can cite something? Trade, as an easy example, is believed to benefit all participants. A rules-based international order and sufficient international institutions to support it, is believed to benefit all, just as the rule of law is necessary domestically. Specific rules such as human rights, including liberty, the outlawing of war (with exceptions), sovereignty, and others also are believed to benefit all. Those things are not only theory, but they have produced outstanding results: An era of peace and prosperity that is orders of magnitude beyond anything in human history.
There still are zero-sum situations, but that is what the rule of law is for, both domestically and internationally.
your point regarding trade is interesting, but it still falls within the zero-sum selfishness paradigm. trade implies a need which one party helps another to address, so it implies a reduction of autonomy, however small.
i agree that the formation of international institutions and a semblance of world order has allowed states to ease up on pushing every interaction to the limit as a result of the interactions being zero-sum. i also agree that human rights etc benefit the people of the world. i think we should have more systems like these, and we should force states to buy into them even more.
but these things are theoretically inconveniences for governments because they restrict their range of actions. their ability to preserve the power of the state may be threatened in some cases. like i said, thankfully, governments are starting to recognize that these tiny concessions of power can smooth over a lot of relationships with other states without causing any larger problems. yet they are still making concessions of their power.
to be clear, i do not enjoy the idea that international relations are zero sum or that realism is the only way for interstate relationships to be regulated.
it's just the model that most states run on when push comes to shove and their power is deeply threatened. but when conditions are very favorable, they can cover up the unsightly edges of the zero sum game.
Realism is just one school of international relations; based on my limited understanding, it's not the most prominent; constructivism may be (and there are others too).
> your point regarding trade is interesting, but it still falls within the zero-sum selfishness paradigm. trade implies a need which one party helps another to address, so it implies a reduction of autonomy, however small.
Trade implies that the parties each have a comparative advantage in a different area, which is always true.
> these things are theoretically inconveniences for governments because they restrict their range of actions
The logical inference from the quoted comment is that anarchy provides the most freedom of action, but clearly it does not; it greatly restricts action.
International institutions restrict countries' ranges of actions in some cases, and greatly expand them in more. Even the most powerful country, the United States, cannot make and enforce an international rule/law by itself; the United Nations can (though it doesn't always do it).
The weakness of international institutions greatly restricts action on many issues, from health to climate change to resolving Russia's invasion of parts of Ukraine, Syria's civil war, and human rights violations in China (to pick just a few examples of very many).
It's one thing to see the future. It's totally different when you recognize a threat or a weakness, then actively exploit that very weakness for your own gain, or at least look the other way.
When Romney was so prophetic in his analysis, did he factor that his own party would be actively working with them to undermine American Influence over the world? Did he consider that, now that they are such a threat to America, that he himself would prioritize his political party over country?
I hate to be that guy, but from the perspective of large parts of the world, "American Influence" could well use some undermining.
The USA have played the game of meddling in other countries' internal affairs for over a century, from the very subtle (trade policies, tariffs, etc.) to the rather overt (invading a country and forcefully overthrowing their government). Now it turns out others can play that game, too. It's not as much fun being on the short end of that particular stick, now, is it?
Pardon me if I sound cynical, but that is like somebody who beats up their family on a regular basis decrying domestic violence when the wife begins learning Karate and strikes back for a change.
If the USA started treating other countries as sovereign nations instead of sorting them into the lackey/enemy buckets, the world might start to look a lot less threatening...
/rant
Can you at least recognize at least a little irony that group that typically advocates the loudest for swinging Uncle Sam's dick around whenever possible seem to be looking the other way when a foreign adversary is undermining our country and in the process diminishing our influence?
You know that guy that always yelling about America being number 1, wearing an American flag, living in the greatest and most powerful country in the world, complaining about the UN won't do everything the USA wants whenever it wants? Same person is at least ignoring, and more likely welcoming, Putin's help in getting Trump like GOP politicians elected. And in the process we have less sway with our allies in Europe. It's pretty extraordinary isn't it?
You do have a point there; it looks like something from a surreal political satire.
Many Americans don't realize just how small Russia is in terms of the real numbers that matter. Their GDP is less than half of California's. (You can see why they've been funding Californian secessionist efforts - an independent California is a bigger threat to America than Russia is - but so far these have pitifully low traction amongst actual Californians.) Their population is less than half of the U.S, and is shrinking. Their military is a pale shadow of its Cold War size. Many people have this image of them as the second world superpower, which was always a bit of a mirage, but is doubly false after the breakup of the Soviet Union, which took away half their population and 25% of their land area.
There's a certain irony where most Americans think the biggest threat to American hegemony is either Russia, North Korea, or Islamic fundamentalism (the former two of which are bit players with outsize threats, and the latter of which has the organizational & technological sophistication of 200 years ago), while the real threats are either an ascendant China (4x the U.S. population, 60% the GDP and projected to overtake the U.S. by 2029, already the world's largest trading partner) or domestic disturbances that lead to the breakup of the U.S, much the same way the USSR broke up.
That's somewhat debatable, if you mean 'expansionist' like Russia would like to rebuild the USSR or a new Russian Empire.
What Russia is trying to do is ensure it has a strategic buffer zone between it and the West and friendly rulers and states on its borders, much like any state with Russia's military history would be interested in doing. Combined Russian/Soviet casualties in WW1 and WW2 were on the order of ~60mm people out ~160mm total.
Both NATO and the EU have progressively expanded towards the former Soviet bloc since the fall of the USSR. From the West's perspective, this is bringing liberal multiparty democracy and stability to an unstable Eastern Europe. But from Russia's perspective, why should it fully trust the West that was so recently its enemy, and when the attempted adoption of liberal democracy and capitalism in the 90s failed so spectacularly (Russia's GDP fell by a full 50% and life expectancy dropped by years [2]).
Not trying to shill or defend Russia's invasion of Crimea or Ukraine here, but if you just look at the map of a formerly hostile alliance moving steadily eastward and you were Russia, would you really just throw up your hands and say 'yes, that is how the world should be' and tacitly accept it? [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Vilnius_Gr...
You say this is because of the failure of liberal democracy and capitalism but your citation says it was most likely caused by:
"rising poverty rates, unemployment, financial insecurity, and corruption"
Perhaps the Russian state should focus on addressing those issues instead of invading and trying to destabilise other countries.
> Not trying to shill or defend Russia's invasion of Crimea or Ukraine here, but if you just look at the map of a formerly hostile alliance moving steadily eastward and you were Russia, would you really just throw up your hands and say 'yes, that is how the world should be' and tacitly accept it?
Here you describe NATO as a hostile force but it's clear that the countries joining NATO were wise to do so as a defense against a hostile Russia.
The cause and the effect. 'hostile Russia' is a result of NATO expansion (among other things), not vice versa. From Russia's perspective it was not wise from NATO to accept those wise countries, expecially considering NATO had an aggrement with Russia on this part.
>Perhaps the Russian state should focus on addressing those issues instead of invading and trying to destabilise other countries.
Usually you have to deal with both internal and external issues at the same time.
> The cause and the effect. 'hostile Russia' is a result of NATO expansion (among other things), not vice versa. From Russia's perspective it was not wise from NATO to accept those wise countries, expecially considering NATO had an aggrement with Russia on this part.
The argument that Russia is just defending itself against hostile expansion rather falls down when you count the number of countries that are members of NATO who have been the victim of Russian expansion (0) compared to the number that are not a member of NATO who have been the victim of aggression (more than 0). That rather implies that being a NATO member protects you from Russian invasion and explains the desire, for every country that can, to join NATO.
>> Perhaps the Russian state should focus on addressing those issues instead of invading and trying to destabilise other countries.
>Usually you have to deal with both internal and external issues at the same time.
Perhaps but Russia does not appear to be dealing with the internal issues which is my point.
I see no contradiction here. Yes, Russia won't attack a NATO member and yes Russia will attack non-NATO member if Russia thinks this is an appropriate action. What countries did Russia attacked before NATO decided to go back on their word and started their expasion?
Offence is the best defence.
>Perhaps but Russia does not appear to be dealing with the internal issues which is my point.
Corruption is high, yes, unemployment is pretty low. Some issues are being addressed better than the others surely. Things like corruption which is almost part of culture and inactivity of locals will take a long time to change.
Russia never stopped being hostile. They were hostile long before the existence of NATO.
Nothing about their behavior has fundamentally changed. Much like China with Tibet, Taiwan or Hong Kong, they believe that they have a right to the conquest and control of numerous free countries on their borders. Any excuse will do to justify the annexations, whether cultural great nation beliefs, or NATO, or inventing conflicts & slights, or pretending that they have to protect 'ethnic Russians.'
Russians will be sensitive to what happens in their frontier regardless of who sits in the Kremlin, or which party dominates the Duma. They don't want to see an alien military alliance straddle their borderlands. That's the story. That's the WHOLE story. And it won't change even if Putin drops dead today, and Navalny is elected president tomorrow.
And all countries that bordered Russia don't want to see Russian military straddle their borderlands.
So... the obvious solution - counterbalance.
Considering that St. Petersburg is now well within NATO's artillery range, I don't see how NATO is not hostile from Russia's perspective.
Finland has nothing to do it. My point was that it's not that difficult for Russians to consider NATO a hostile force even if the West calls it a defensive force. NATO already outguns Russia on many parameters. If there is a full-scale war and China supports NATO, then it's pretty much game for Russia.
Oh, you mean when the oligarchs/mob bosses robbed the country blind and seized all power?
Yeah, that's totally the fault of the West, or some abstract notion of capitalism or democracy.
It is just an excuse. If the country wants to invade another country, they will always find a good excuse. This is not only about Russia - take any recent war US took part in or any other war. Nobody wants to look evil.
Regarding NATO expansion, of course it serves the interests of USA but it can be also good for other countries. For example, the presence of NATO troops in Baltic countries helps them to stay independent and avoid repeating the situation that has happened in 1939 [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Baltic_state...
Any idea what will be the next excuse?
Ukraine didn't have NATO bases - and lost its territory. This is a reminder for other countries.
And after that Crimean people expressed that they don't like that by voting out of it.
Regarding referendum, it's results (95-96% vote for independence) are obviously falsified. There is nothing new: in 1938 Hitler also got 98-99% votes in occupied Austria [1]. Those 95% in Crimea as real as Hitler's.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Anschluss_referendum,...
Let's take a look at the ethnic groups in Crimea - 2014 census:
Russians - 65%
Ukrainians - 15%
Crimean Tatars - 11%
Please note that, of the 15% of Ukrainians living there, most (60%) speak Russian as their first language.
We may argue if the 97% referendum result was rigged or not - we may never know.
But based on the above numbers I think that the people in Crimea really prefer to be part of Russia - because they are Russian!
Europe in 1939 was a completely different place than it is today. To say that we need NATO because of something that is extremely unlikely to happen today is a weak excuse. Honestly if such a situation was to be repeated today I think there would be a lot more problems in Europe than just the Baltic countries.
Not that I am against NATO in any way, in fact I strongly believe that we do need a way to bridge different nations and my country has greatly benefited from the stability that NATO has brought to the area( with the annual tax paid to the American military-industrial complex for new weapon systems of course).
It's not debatable, Putin said in the recent press-conference that "they're lost Ukraine and other Soviet republics", effectively claiming other countries as "runaway" parts of Russia.
And as for NATO "expansion" - Russians can blame themselves for attacking Baltic states in 90s or messing things up in Moldova, trying to be a 'peacekeepers' there.
Actually, Soviet Union started WW2 together with Nazi Germany by signing Molotov–Ribbentrop pact [1] and annexing Estonia [2], Finland [3], Latvia [2], Lithuania [2], Poland [4] and Romania [5]. Quite a nice buffer zone there.
So now Russia (legal successor to the USSR) is considered a victim of WW2 and is afraid of invasion from the very same countries it has annexed by force before?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Baltic_state... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_of_Bessarabi...
The media does a great job perpetuating this illusion too. Even the more independent and supposedly "impartial" networks like NPR participate in propagating these minuscule issues. You hit the nail on head with your remarks on domestic disturbances though - the damage from that alone is severe.
Imagine, for example, that California secedes (or more to the point, the northern California coast secedes). What would Seattle and Portland do? How about Vancouver? After all, Vancouver has far more in common culturally and historically with San Francisco than it does with, say, Nova Scotia.
And why would LA and San Diego join San Francisco's revolution? Their dominant culture has more in common with Tijuana. Part of the author's argument is how much sense it would make for what is currently northern Mexico and southwestern USA to break off and become an independent nation together.
China is doing 'interesting' expansionary work encroaching on territory in the South China Sea. America has no doubt spawned a generation of enemies in the Middle East from the last 15 odd years of warmongering.
The Russians have no demonstrated ability to do anything dangerous politically, or any particular motive not shared by the ~20% of the world population living in China. To even influence the conversations in American politics they will have to wait in line behind a maelstrom of corporate interests that have the political scene quite neatly locked down.
It is heartbreaking to see the usually vibrant US political scene get so lost in the bushes on foreign policy and threat assessment.
Huh, I dunno I've been watching first hand how russians on social media have been stirring up conservative vs liberal shit storms. The election was a close one so any one of a thousand small influences might have shifted it into it's current disastrous state. When people are at a tipping point it doesn't take much.
That's the point. The election was so close there were likely at least a thousand different things that, had they gone slightly differently, would have shifted the election to Hillary.
Russian interference accounted for a small number of these, but there were so many more that aren't getting any attention.
There's a lot more, but most if it was fair game / water under the bridge. Interesting in a historical context or to internal party strategists, but doesn't deserve attention in the public context of upcoming elections.
So you're right. It does sometimes seem that commentary about Russia dominates, but it probably isn't strangling focus on other important issues.
The conspiracy theories ignore the main reason that TV news covers Trump all the time: he improves ratings and profits. Millions of morons invited him into their homes when he had that awful reality show, and now they can't get enough of him. He has carefully cultivated the same persona as president and that's just fascinating to people. Those fascinated people are watching a lot of TV news even now. The only candidate who could counter this strength would be someone with her own reality show. One might wonder, given that the TV news organizations continue to make bank with Trump ad nauseum, why we'd expect the results to be any different the next time Trump runs...
White people voted for Trump in a majority in both the educated and uneducated categories. People making more than 50k voted more for Trump and people making less voted for Hillary. Trump pulled in more independents than Hillary.
Don't repeat the trope that Trumps supporters are 'old and unsophisticated'. It does a disservice to any actual debate and results in completely incorrect analyses of why he won (e.g. your assessment that only tv-watching morons voted for him).
https://verdict.justia.com/2018/02/16/trumps-base-broadly-sp...
This "white people" argument looks silly as soon as you do some arithmetic. Whites' preference for Trump was less than nonwhites' preference for Clinton. If either was a bad thing, they were both bad things. In fact, there was nothing wrong with either one of them. Candidates adjust to the electorate. When Don Jr. runs against Chelsea, he'll be saying awful things about someone besides Mexicans.
TV news dominance is a contingent thing, not important for the long term. Even now, TV news is almost more important in how it steers the online conversation than in what it directly reports. In the long term, TV news will cease to exist as such, and the desultory performance over the last three years will be one reason why. (again, not the only reason why...) Right now, however, Trump is still on TV...
I don't know how you jump from organic "shit storms" with a declining economic and social future for a lot of people, to a blanket Russia is doing this.
It's exactly what should be happening as we have a racist shit-for-brains in the White House. People are pushing further right and further left and the political atmosphere is exactly what you would expect. Things shouldn't be calm.
Do you have any evidence that all 'shitstorms' are created by Russia? I bet you can't provide evidence that even 0.01% of 'shitstorms' are created by Russia. Apply some Occam's Razor here.
Or the United States in our case.
Or Syria (Russia is assad’s Primary backer)..
So yeah, remember when Democrats ridiculed Romney for his Russia statements and Obama and HRC declared it was time for a “reset button” for the bad relationship betweeen the Bush white goose and Russia?
Or how about their efforts to back certain black lives matter groups and pro police group on the other hand to stroke racial tension does that not matter?
Or their current effort to discredit Republican Who have split from Trump.
We still live in that world, And the consequences for people both in the United States and outside of the United States are immense.
At some point this stops looking like normal relationships and start looking like an act of war
Yes, Russia would be a concern to me if I lived in Europe.
> Or the United States in our case.
That is neither an argument nor a fact, so I can't really address it.
> Or Syria (Russia is assad’s Primary backer)..
Isn't Russia supporting the legitimate government in Syria? Obviously that isn't supporting US interests, but it is hardly a radical position.
> So yeah, remember when Democrats ridiculed Romney for his Russia statements and Obama and HRC declared it was time for a “reset button” for the bad relationship betweeen the Bush white goose and Russia?
No, don't follow US politics that closely. It would be nice to see the US reset its bad relationship with Russia if I'm reading that right. The world is better if we all try to get along civilly.
> Or how about their efforts to back certain black lives matter groups and pro police group on the other hand to stroke racial tension does that not matter?
Pardon? I don't understand.
> Or their current effort to discredit Republican Who have split from Trump.
Approximately half the political apparatus is constantly trying to discredit the other half, and the other half is usually infighting quietly and jocking for positions. Russian trolls aren't going to be able to get in before the Democrats have started savaging them.
> We still live in that world, And the consequences for people both in the United States and outside of the United States are immense.
Yes.
> At some point this stops looking like normal relationships and start looking like an act of war
No they don't. Acts of war involve material harm at some level. I know Trump isn't that popular, but he has ballpark similar ratings (~1 person in 20 difference) to Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or even Obama at this point is the presidency [1]. If the Russians are somehow having an impact, it isn't upsetting anyone unduly, let alone an act of war.
[1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
Regardless, a little history lesson. One of the things Obama ran on was that the United States policy towards Russia was needlessly antagonistic due to the influence of evil neo-conservatives. Hillary went so far as to buy a staples "Easy Button" and present it to the Russian diplomats in her fist meeting with them afterwords... The same HRC that the Russians just mucked with massively during the last election.
I've really come to the conclusion given their support and attacks against both Democrats and Republicans, White and Black, liberals and conservatives that the current Russian government doesn't care about helping a candidate - they want to destroy the civil fabric of the United States.
So yes, enabling dictators to gas their own people, encouraging race riots, and attempting to subvert Democracies by interfering with elections are Acts of war.
Presumably, it is based on claims by Russian and Syrian authorities. These are not impartial sources, and they delayed access of international inspectors to the site.
OPCW has confirmed use of chemical weapons by Syrian government during the civil war at several separate occasions.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-g...
This might by one of those rare instances https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=58259
However, outside MSM, there are questions across the political spectrum however. Such as...
https://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/what-really-happen...
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2018/04/12/idiocy-is-br...
However, Iraq WMD's were all reported by legitimate news sources at the time. Sometimes in the present, it is never clear as to what may or not be ultimately revealed.
Leave all that aside. The way to contradict an on-the-ground report the bias of which is obvious and unacceptable to you, is to show us an on-the-ground report that contradicts it, the bias of which is more acceptable to you. This has the benefit of being less insulting than shallow assumptions about my media habits, oh and also it has the benefit of making any logical sense whatsoever, in contrast to the three sentences of meaningless pablum we see here.
Tick-tock.
While Assad is a dictator, he has support from a part of a population (and is hated by the other part). If you side with one part and drop bombs on another, the conflict won't go away. If you just look at the Wikipedia page [1] you'll see how many military groups and countries are taking part.
Generally, I am not a fan of the US's "regime change" strategies, at least in the middle east. They were unmitigated disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya is still struggling with warring factions, Syria would have descended into chaos with 3 interested parties struggling for control (pretty safe to say the Saudi-backed fighters would have won, after another bloody conflict, of course), and of course, it will remain to be seen what happens in Yemen which curiously has very sparse media coverage here in the US.
Warning - my own opinion - I think historically, American regime change efforts were more likely to be accepted and succeed when the values of America roughly aligned with the values of the nation in conflict. This is clearly not the case anymore in the Middle East (maybe once was in the US, but not anymore) One thing Western Cultures just can't seem to be able to grasp is just how large the resistance of a country that takes their faith seriously to the liberal agendas that have taken root and are antithetical to Islam. It's the one thing governments fail to understand time and time again.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_naval_facility_in_Tart...
One thing is for sure, these proxy wars constantly make people rich and powerful despite screwing over the masses, so I expect it to remain this way for many years to come.
Well, as far as 'normal relationships' are concerned, the USA have quite a reputation to uphold. E.g:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/sunday-review/russia-isnt...
https://www.dw.com/en/merkel-testifies-on-nsa-spying-affair/...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/congress-intel-committee-to-pr...
If I were Putin, I would provoke tensions between China and the U.S. and profit. Yes, China has ambitions to become a greater power, and U.S. has its interest to curb China. Russia, as other emerging economies, has geopolitical fears of an expanding China.
China is powerful, but has actually been rather docile, historically. They have none of the expansionist instincts that still come natural to Russia–the only exception being a few tiny islands. The US, Great Britain: every superpower in history was more aggressive than China today.
Russia has unfortunately proven that they are very much capable of inflicting some serious harm. They are partly responsible for millions of deaths in Syria, they are undermining 70 years of rather successful attempts to make the forcible taking of territory a thing of the past at least among some nations. They are undermining the singularly successful effort to abolish chemical weapons (both with their support in Syria and their executions in GB). There's some real fear that they could test NATO, and that he-who-shall-not-be-mentioned might be willing (eager?) to let NATO fall apart. That would be an existential threat for every independent country east of Germany, and it doesn't entirely not be plausible as an inflection point that future history books cite as the cause for the next big war.
Sure, it was all good and dandy for a while, especially in the context of economic cooperation and dismantling communism. But when you look at deeper issues like national security, you can't deny that Russia got completely tuned out by the West. I still don't understand what the US was thinking when they tried to expand NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, two critical security frontiers for Moscow (even as they said they wouldn't do it [1]).
And in case you missed it, we voiced our opposition to NATO expansion loudly, bitterly, and repeatedly over the last two decades. You just chose to ignore it. And now the West collectively acts like the resulting conflict is some kind of unexpected flare-up of Russian paranoia/empire syndrome/general wickedness. John Mearsheimer put it best [2], so I don't want to keep beating a dead horse.
In the end, if you are trying to build a more integrated and safer world, you have to take the interests and sensibilities of all major stakeholders into into account. That's how you build mutual trust. If you don't thread carefully you risk signaling disingenuousness and opportunism. So you get what you get.
PS As a side note, I do find the cartoonization of this conflict very bizarre. Russian are the orcs, completely alien and wicked, Putin is the omnipotent Sauron, US is the noble and selfless Aragon, Trump is turncoat Saruman, and Europe and the wider world in general are apparently hobbits, plucky but completely clueless on their own. It's like an echo chamber.
[1] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...
[2] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2014-08-1...
There's _nothing_ about NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine in that link.
That was actually a promise about NATO expansion to _East Germany_ and it was to a President of USSR, who was deposed in couple of years.
>The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory.
And that's like the second paragraph in the link. So apparently you didn't read the link (?).
edit:
You make one good point. The promises were made to Gorbachev in his capacity as leader of the USSR. And just few years later USSR blinked out of existence, so whatever promises were made to Gorbachev were non-binding in relation to Russia, technically a new state. The problem here, is that just 2 years later Yeltsin was made similar promises. Throughout the 1993-1996 period American officials went to great lengths to convince Yeltsin that direct NATO expansion was not on the table [1]:
>[In] a conversation that took place in Moscow in October 1993. U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher had traveled to Moscow to explain in advance of the January 1994 NATO summit that the United States would not support new members joining the alliance, but would rather develop a Partnership for Peace that would include all states of the former Warsaw Pact. Yeltsin’s relief was palpable. He thought he had dodged the NATO enlargement bullet at a time at which he was in a raging political battle against hardliners at home. A year later, when he discovered that enlargement was not only on the table but would in fact be proceeding, Yeltsin was apoplectic.
We can go back and forth with how non-binding and ambiguous these conversations were, but we can agree that Russians feel mislead. Furthermore, they now attribute active malice on the part of the West. Ultimately, this conflict didn't come to be in 2014 (or 2008), as some momentary caprice of Putin's. It was brewing since the late 1980s.
[1] https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/promises-made-promises-bro...
The state of the world didn't change. The Chinese didn't stop and Russia didn't just start. These types of things have been going on by multiple actors for a long time. Only the narrative changed due to opportunistic political advantages.
I'm also very skeptical (uninformed?) of the evidence that ties Russia to all of this.
In this case:
"Microsoft said its digital crimes unit (DCU) had acted on a court order to take control of six internet domains created by a group known variously as Strontium, Fancy Bear and APT28, which it said was associated with the Russian government.
As well as the two think-tanks, other home pages had been set up to mimic the websites of the U.S. Senate and Microsoft’s own Office software suite, it added. "
So, these sophisticated Hackers registered web pages under their own organization names? Is that not a bit like robbing a bank and leaving your business card behind?
And in the case of the former Russian hackers in the news, I may be wrong but is it not ip addresses that were used as evidence? If so, I've always been under the impression that ip addresses can be spoofed, and so the rumor goes the CIA (at least) possesses a wide variety of cloaking techniques.
https://www.eff.org/files/2016/09/22/2016.09.20_final_format...
https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/
To be clear, I'm not claiming this proves (or disproves) anything one way or the other, what I am saying is that the "evidence", at least what I've seen, leaves me feeling rather skeptical. In it worries me that there aren't very many people in the skeptical centre here with me, most everyone seems to be out on the polar opposite ends of the spectrum on whether Russia did this or not.
EDIT: Downvoter(s) - feel free, but if you are downvoting based on disagreement, would you mind posting a link to an article that explains the method(s) by which we can conclude definitively that all of the alleged Russian attacks were indeed committed by Russia, rather than a 3rd party posing as Russia? If my skepticism is "simply wrong", then it should be easy to simply demonstrate that. It's a pretty sad state of affairs if people can't address sincere, worthy questions, but "know" they are wrong.
There is no shortage of incredibly intelligent people on this website, far more intelligent than me no doubt, but this particular topic has quite the "elephant in the room" feel to it, no one will address it.
I feel no shame in stating my biases up front - I am a small government advocate, history very clearly demonstrates that governments (including the US) have a tendency to bend the truth now and then to achieve a state in public opinion conducive to particular policy goals and actions, and because of that I am distrustful.
But that said, above all I am interested in the truth. If this is in fact a simple open and shut case, as seems to be the general consensus, then so be it. But why such secrecy around the evidence demonstrating this fact?
EDIT: Some good technical discussion in here for those who are interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16653671
No, there are plenty of people who notice it. We've learned to keep our mouths shut on the topic because the coordinated downvote attacks by FVEY sycophants on this site make attempting discussion pointless.
Find a different site if you want to raise even the merest, slightest questions with CIA talking points.
I have noticed this as well, here and elsewhere. The level of discourse on the internet, even among genuinely intelligent people, is becoming absolutely shameful imho. I used to thrash out like everyone else but am trying to learn a smarter approach: ask very specific questions, and as soon as an answerer shifts the conversation into a large, complicated narrative encompassing many additional ideas that are not part of the original question, calmly and respectfully call them on it and restate the original question.
My guess on why this particular question gets only downvotes and never answers is that it is just this type of question: simple and precise. And on top of it, I suspect no one actually knows the answer - the story has been repeated ad naseum in the media for long enough that it doesn't even occur to people to ask any questions.
Well surprise surprise: You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks.
Meanwhile, numerous other accounts have no such restriction. This error message seems incorrect.
We made major strides in our relationship with them and now it seems like those have been erased in the name of local politics. Doesn't seem like a wise decision.
Unfortunately, they decided to commit murders on foreign soil, invade other countries and other nasty things that made this relationship a lot less attractive than it could have been.
Had Russia become a democracy, it'd be different, but an autocrat with profound disregard for foreign democratic institutions would never be a good friend.
The cold war was an entirely different thing. It wasn't a local skirmish, it was doomsday hanging over the world every day for 40 years.
Is this not exactly what the US (and its allies, including my country) are doing in the middle east?
That describes US policy over the last 20 years. The lack of self-awareness is astounding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
As an individual American who is not involved in intelligence or military work, I can condemn such actions by any nation while maintaining moral consistency.
So then why do you feel the need to justify yourself by saying that you don't work in defense? :) You basically stepped into the same trap you warmed me against :) Maintaining moral high ground seems to be a vital need, something on the level of instinct it seems. 'Tu quoque' or no 'tu quoque' we like to feel morally justified.
A = [commit murders on foreign soil, invade other countries and other nasty things] B = [made this relationship a lot less attractive] C = [it is wise to improve our relationship]
The original claim is A -> B, A(Russia) -> True.
The response is that A -> B, A(US) -> True. Therefore, if C(US), C(Russia) is also not ruled out. Logically sound.
This isn't claiming that rbanffy's argument is wrong because A(rbanffy). I suspect rbanffy is probably not even committing murders on foregin soil, le alone the other stuff, so it isn't a tu quoque fallacy. It is just pointing out that A isn't an international norm for cutting off productive relationships.
For example, whenever someone brings up Ukraine, when is the last time they also provided the historical context just prior to the Russian escalation?
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/americas-ukra...
Just a bit of what you might missed.
"...It was a grotesque distortion to portray the events in Ukraine as a purely indigenous, popular uprising. The Nuland-Pyatt telephone conversation and other actions confirm that the United States was considerably more than a passive observer to the turbulence. Instead, U.S. officials were blatantly meddling in Ukraine. Such conduct was utterly improper. The United States had no right to try to orchestrate political outcomes in another country—especially one on the border of another great power. It is no wonder that Russia reacted badly to the unconstitutional ouster of an elected, pro-Russian government—an ouster that occurred not only with Washington’s blessing, but apparently with its assistance..."
And whatever US did doesn't justify using political instability to annex a part of Ukraine. Russia did it because it could and there was an opportunity.
The point is that there is only one prevailing viewpoint without the context of contributors to the conflict. Why would this not be included? Maybe everyone would still reach the same conclusion; however, if historical context is being withheld, how can anyone know if their assessment is logical.
This is the author of the content.
https://www.cato.org/people/ted-galen-carpenter
There are other articles and sources events described
The goal is to incite and inflame partisan distrust and anger in order to foment political paralysis, hence the Russian support for extreme fringes of both factions. This strategy has been incredibly successful.
Every time Trump mentions Russian interference it's to blame it all on fake news from the media and Democrats. Every time the media or Democrats talk about it, they frame it in terms of Trump providing cover for the Russians. Both sides expend all their ammunition on each other.
This is arguably the similar goal of hyperbolic reporting about the effects of Russian influence and the frequency of these stories in the news cycle
Putin must be wetting himself laughing.
I don’t like what has happened to the internet, and I’m not sure there is a way to fix it.
It should also be mentioned that this has been Putin's strategy since he's been in power: blur the line between political/historical fact and fiction, and exploit the ambiguities that arise.
Adam Curtis' film _Hypernormalization_ provides quite a bit of insight into this strategy and its consequences.
Say what you will about Adam Curtis, he's no Alex Jones, which I hope would be obvious from his Wikipedia entry and filmography below.
I heard a lot about Hypernormalization online and finally gave in and watched it. I almost gave up 20 minutes in or so as there's no doubt it has a conspiracy theory feel to it, but am I glad I hung in there as it gets much, much better as it progresses. I found the portions on the history of Syria and the US Government's on again, off again, conveniently malleable relationship with Muammar Gaddafi particularly interesting.
I should also note, this documentary isn't a one-sided hit piece by any means, there's something for people of all political stripes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis
Agreed. Despite posting the parent comment, I'm not a huge fan of Adam Curtis because I feel like his ideas are often a bit wishy-washy and lacking in analytical rigor.
The point at which I almost gave up on Hypernormalization was when the narrator basically declares the Raegan administration retreated from the Middle East because it was "too complicated". No explanation, no analysis of _why_ it was too complicated... nothing.
That said, the film left a lasting impression. I've decided to take it as something more holistic/descriptive than analytical/proscriptive, and even though I find much of it unconvincing, I think he does describe a few phenomena quite well.
Which one would that be?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ... https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/space/why-does-u-s-use-russian-...
crimea and russia making us look stupid in syria happened long before the election, btw.
etc.
Just because the beloved 'news' which you bemoan losing 'legitimacy' used editorial bias to marginalize a nation in its coverage does not make it actually marginal..
Good? Read Manufacturing Consent. Mainstream media shouldn't be trusted at all. They lie us into war, into conflict, shift opinions on our rights, and ultimately help us in no way, all for the benefit of shareholders. Independent third party media should be the fallback.
But "Independent third party media" is more directly controlled, propagandized and filled with lies than the mainstream media. You would have people fall back from the frying pan and into the fire.
With regards to influencing elections (not only by hacking, but using any other 'legal' - yet not-so-ethical - means) I wonder, if after the supposed effectiveness of the (still under investigation) previous election meddling (and also with parties like Cambridge Analytica in mind), anyone involved in the mid-terms can afford to not go all-in with these same kind of tools (like a digital arms race)?
And if they want to go further and create fake news, use botnets to spread it, and hack opponents to get dirt, how easy it is to make it appear like Russia is behind it (could even be a possible win-win if you are anti-Russia)?
I am honestly wondering if this is the case.
Also it would be theoretically possible (and easy?) for someone from outside Russia to e.g. hire some Russian hackers, would it not?
This happens for a variety of reasons, some technical, some political. The technical ones are when indicators for an active APT group are released it becomes easier for others in the industry to see them and to catch them or report on their activity. This results in that group having more attention in the media as firms publish their findings.
The prior US administration took the step of sharing many of those indicators with the industry and so the Russians are getting caught more often.
This has happened before. Remember the 'Aurora' incident that Google had around 2010? That time frame from 2006-2014 the Chinese were dominating the news for this sort of espionage.
In short, I think that we are simply catching the Russians more often right now as they haven't had time to retool or cover their tracks and there are active defensive campaigns targeting their teams. Obviously other countries have an interest (including the US - remember the Vault7 leaks?). As an example, there was an article on HN just recently about how the Chinese rolled up the CIA network in their country via a compromise of the CIA's messaging system.
As far as hiring Russians, the specific groups that firms like Microsoft track are ones composed of government entities (hence the article notes 'Hackers linked to Russian government entities..'). They are not generally hirable by third parties.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=-russian+hackers&t=hg&iar=news&ia=... https://www.google.com/search?q=hackers+-russian&source=lnms...
Lots of stories about generic hackers, Chinese hackers, North Korean hackers, etc. within the past 24 hours. You can even take this a step further and search "<country denonym> hackers -russian" and see what comes up. Apparently some Canadian hackers recently came into a windfall of bitcoin.
At best a responsible journalist should mention the possibility, with some technical skepticism, inside the article. Not the headline.
This includes things like encryption keys and other non-public identifiers. Should those items be made public, the adversary they are combatting would then roll those indicators and leave Microsoft blind. This isn't unique to Microsoft either, most security / threat intelligence companies have their own swath of private signatures.
The sites reporting on this are aware of that issue (non-public signatures) and as such do not need to offer a disclaimer. Microsoft is the one making the claim and they have the reputation to back it up. Unless there are solid reasons to question Microsoft's work there is no need to include your unlikely scenario.
Influencing political outcomes was what a lot of the cold war was. So, what are the actual "norms" these days. Are the recent Russian actions in the US new? Does it go both ways? Is it only the US?
It suspect that the main novelty here is how much publicity an otherwise secret subject is getting. I definitely could be wrong though, I don't know anything about spies.
I'd think behaviour like this should be condemned every time and wherever it is exposed even if it is not unique to one country (and it isn't). "Everyone does it" is a piss poor excuse for pretty much anything.
But to also answer few of your questions...No, it is not new. It is not limited only to US. Russia is not the only one doing it, but it seems to be more aggressive than most. And not all of them do it the same way (I think there's an ethical difference between pushing a favourable view of your country or trying to destabilise one).
it does if selective coverage reinforces a specific foreign policy at the expense of another one without making the actual differences between these policies explicit.
It's really not. If doing "it" gives you some advantage, and not doing "it" means you're going to get outcompeted by someone else who is doing "it", then it's in your interest to do "it", which is a perfectly fine reason for doing things. If you can manage to get everyone not to do "it", or make doing "it" disadvantageous, then by all means. But that is not always a viable option.
It's probably not a viable option in this case. You can try to make it less advantageous by attempting to punish other countries that engage in it, while downplaying it when you do it, but it's still going to be worth it for countries to try.
Sometimes, not playing the game is suicide.
And this is not a situation in which all sides doing it makes any less likely to continue. It is more akin everyone polluting because everyone else does.
Not all polluters are equal, but they should all be condemned and if possible stopped.
My comment does not assume that everyone does it or that everyone does it to the same extent.
>And this is not a situation in which all sides doing it makes any less likely to continue. It is more akin everyone polluting because everyone else does.
You've lost me completely. What did I say to suggest that everyone doing it makes it less likely to continue?
>Not all polluters are equal, but they should all be condemned and if possible stopped.
It's a bit easier to pin blame for pollution on someone than it is to pin blame for meddling in another country's politics, which is almost necessarily clandestine. That's why it's reasonable to expect that countries will be able to make and keep agreements to limit pollution, even if they don't have a great relationship, but not particularly reasonable to expect that they will be able to make and keep agreements to not interfere in each others' internal affairs.
I for one think this could be a cracker of a fantasy novel but if you struggled to connect with LOTR because Orcs seemed just too unrealistic you may struggle with this book's plotline.
Lastly, I'm not sure how MS made the connection to Russia. Did they shared some data, IP, etc. with US government to verify this? Does MS have the kind of cybersecurity forensic to independently determine the source?
This reads more like fluff at this point.
I don't know how they are tracking these, maybe they have some kind remote backdoor to the OS to verify its russian intelligence?
my-iri.org
hudsonorg-my-sharepoint.com
senate.group
adfs-senate.services
adfs-senate.email
office365-onedrive.com
The technology is free of charge to candidates,
campaigns and related political institutions
using Office 365.
Microsoft AccountGuard is offered free of
charge. Organizations must be using
Office 365 to register.
[1] https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/08/20/protect...
It's scary how few people are asking this question, particularly on sites like HN, and I've yet to come across anyone who's explained the method by which Russian involvement can be concluded definitively. Maybe the answer is out there, but I've never come across it.
It's just plain hard to get unfiltered news these days. I rely on 'RealClearPolitics' to give me wildly biased headlines from both sides, then try to extrapolate where the truth must lie.
But the issue is many readers do not disassociate Op-ed from news anymore.
[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/the-...
Because of the viewership these shows attract, traditional media outlets are now also less straight news and more opinion.
I generally feel it's pretty clear when I'm listening to an opinion show versus a news show, but I'm not sure how many others do.
The two were basically the same article, but the headline changed to disagree with Trump.
Hmm...downvotes without response? Guess this hit a nerve.
Plus, anytime an article has a question in the title, the answer is no[1]. So, you're already dealing with a low-quality data situation.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...
Still, perhaps we can agree that, clickbait or bias, it's untrustworthy.
(And Betteridge's Law wouldn't apply to the statement in the first headline, "NFL ratings are down again this season.")
I guess that would depend on how often Trump has been right.
You appear to have skipped the "clickbait" part of what I wrote.
And Betteridge's Law wouldn't apply to the statement in the first headline, "NFL ratings are down again this season."
I never said it did. In a parallel of misunderstanding, I would point out that "NFL ratings are down again this season" isn't political.
When reading the article, one will find that Trump lost the second to last fewest followers in absolute terms (204,000) and the fewest in relative terms (0.4 %) out of all the Twitter users mentioned. The closest relative loss was 1.7% of "the main New York Times account". President Obama lost "nearly 2.4 million" followers, or 2.3%.
Given these facts, I believe it is an indication of political bias on behalf of the CNN to mention "President Trump" as the first thing when tweeting about the article.
[1] https://twitter.com/CNNMoney/status/1017936776298680321
EDIT: It could be argued that CNN mentioned Trump first for the maximum clickbait effect. But if that is the case, why did the tweet have to cast Trump in a negative light? It could have just as well been "Trump lost barely any followers compared to Katy Perry and Barack Obama! What a whopper of a surprise!".
You label her crazy. May be you are right. But the same crazy person was the inside person for couple of years and was also paid $180K. Sure it makes them opportunist/immoral/backstabber. Crazy? I don't think so.
And I didn't read full details about the rally, but I do know out about the skirmish between antifa and the alt-right. Also Fox news reported about it extensively. So what's your point? Are you saying that there's a liberal/progressive bias in media?
yes
Here are some more examples, they report for weeks on Gazans violently protesting and attacking the boarder and sympathise with the Gazans, but when was the last time that you heard about the ongoing Darfur genocide? When Obama imprisoned illegal immigrates in separate cells based on age and gender, the media parley said a word, but when Trump did it... How about a CNN reporter admitting that the Trump - Russia scandal is a nothing burger?
I don't have to. I can clearly see that you are just a right-wing whiner. I am pretty sure you enjoyed the frivolous bashing of democratic president, but now complain about the same thing when it is dished out to the republican president. Your comment history is self evident.