patrick.net

Dutch report points at Russian-made missile shot from "rebel-controlled territory". Solid evidence has been presented, but you refuse to accept it as such. For folks like you, only Putin's own admission is proof solid enough, just like it was with Crimea: denial all the way until that government-sponsored movie "Crimea: way back home" (he must be super vain to allow bragging rights for this admittedly masterful military operation to run over pretense of integrity)
Please stop this nonsense about not having a motive. Swapping result and intent for the sake of seeking motive is intellectually dishonest, otherwise every convicted murderer would be screaming "I didn't have a motive!" and demanding retrial.
Of course they didn't have a motive in the end result of this major screw-up. Evil intent (Russian or Ukrainian) was never a working theory for anybody in the right mind. All they wanted was to have some fun with easy target (transport aircraft), shoot down some kakhly (because they deserve to die for fighting for their country), and enjoy some positive media (hey, we got another one down, stay out of our skies!). Some dumb ass mistake - and instead they got international investigation and all the crap that comes with being labeled baby killers.

Your arguments are fully consistent with the approach to investigation that Putin's team employed from day 1: death by a thousand paper cuts. Thousand red herring theories, each one taking time and energy to rebutt. Among them: Dutch team quitting (ordinary attrition made sound as something else), re-routing the plane (ordinary practice in the industry given the conditions), Russian satellite photos (Bellington says that they are forged and explains why) Let me help you with others: Ukrainian SU-25 (they temporarily changed SU-25 flying characteristics on Wikipedia to make it fit!!!), Spanish dispatcher, HIV scientists, they were already dead, what else? Oh, good one: that photo of the air-to-air missile flying towards the aircraft.

This issue is resolved

mostly reader says

Dutch report points at Russian-made missile shot from "rebel-controlled territory". Solid evidence has been presented, but you refuse to accept it as such. For folks like you, only Putin's own admission is proof solid enough, just like it was with Crimea: denial all the way until that government-sponsored movie "Crimea: way back home" (he must be super vain to allow bragging rights for this admittedly masterful military operation to run over pretense of integrity)

For Russophobes, Russia is always guilty. Russia should be under a mafia figurehead until it can be split into 5 pieces. Saudi Arabia agrees (that's who really influences US elections)

Let's play your game:
mostly reader says

1: death by a thousand paper cuts.

Domino Theory! If Vietnam Falls, they all Fall, even Thailand!!! (Within a few years of independence, Cambodia and Vietnam were at war).

mostly reader says

Thousand red herring theories, each one taking time and energy to rebutt.

Believe the intelligence services! They've never lied! Remember the Anthrax Warheads, ready to be launched in 15 minutes! The Mobile Biolabs!

mostly reader says

Bellington

Bellingcat. About as unbiased as Salon on the subject of 32 Genders.

And don't forget the big budget for 'correct' opinions on the internet:

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".

I'm not accusing YOU of being a paid shill. I only want you to be aware there's an "Obama Shill Army" out there.

Not just the government. Correct The Record has volunteer and paid shills.

Ironman says

ASSANGE: Yes. We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party... Obama is trying to say that President-elect Trump is not a legitimate President....

As I've been saying, the key question is "Who else Hacked the DNC?".

The FBI, CIA, etc. are being tendentious, only talking about breaches and evidence they can circumstantially leak with Russia. They probably have a lot more breaches done by random kids all over the world, hell there's probably a file uploaded that sez "THIS WAS HACKED BY FINNISH METAL DEATH COMPUTER CLUB. We are BROTHERS OF METAL. Hail Odin!!! Check out our latest C64 Demo with a Gwar MIDI file at fun.fi.net".

www.youtube.com/embed/-0FwiHstrhQ

Remember, they aren't lying if they say they think Russia hacked the election. They just didn't mention that they can see plenty of other actors did.

T L Lips says

For Russophobes, Russia is always guilty. Russia should be under a mafia figurehead until it can be split into 5 pieces. Saudi Arabia agrees (that's who really influences US elections)

Putting aside your emotional non-sequitur about splitting Russia and Saudi Arabia... Are you blaming results of the official Dutch investigation on russophobia? Really?? Please answer this one. It's not a tricky question, and a simple "yes" or "no".

T L Lips says

Let's play your game

You are not playing my game. I pointed out: from day one, team Putin came up with thousand theories, most of them obviously nonsensical. They invented and/or fabricated "facts" and "witnesses". They forged documents. They threw it all into the wall hoping that something would stick and seed "reasonable doubt". That's what I called "death to investigation by thousand paper cuts" - they overwhelmed informational space with conspiracy theories and demanded that each one of them be considered. Your references to Vietnam, Thailand, and intelligence services are complete non-sequitur to that.
T L Lips says

Bellingcat. About as unbiased as Salon on the subject of 32 Genders.

Bellingcat, indeed. And your response is a textbook Ad Hominem.
I referred to something very specific: image that you used as an argument is a forgery. You did nothing to rebutt their reasons, but chose to attack the source instead. Here, enjoy: http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1201635/mh17-anniversary/ Remember: Tungstène (used to analyze the photos) is just software, it's not russophobic.

Funny you decided to talk about paid shills. You may have heard about Russian troll farm in Olgino.

Ironman says

that you're an idiot. No make that, VERY possible.

LOL

I thought he was just going to starve Rosie O'Donnell and lena Dunham, keep them in a pit and throw his victims to them to devour alive??

He enlisted Kim Jong-un as his hanging advisor, but that turned out to be a mistake, because all of the first round of names were Korean.

Trump just told Putin "tell them to take a vacation, they'll all be back Jan. 20th."

The US Government Publishing Office has been ordered to include Ayn Rand centerfolds in each day's copy of the Congressional Record.

Tim Aurora says

So if you cannot argue a point and are totally outsmarted , call the guy names.

Shhh. He doesn't know that everyone knows that.

If it could be easily destroyed by the very people it was meant to police, then it was sadly flawed at inception, just like most of Democrat-inspired legislation.
I'm for oversight, but it needs to be a real law not just a "rule" that can be overturned as soon as it becomes unpopular to the people it is supposed to police.

Assange is not clairvoyant. He can be duped as well as the next guy and is going out on a limb to claim he knows the source of his info. He has also offered no proof as far as I know.

YesYNot says

Assange is not clairvoyant. He can be duped as well as the next guy and is going out on a limb to claim he knows the source of his info. He has also offered no proof as far as I know.

EXCEPT he's released millions upon millions of documents and has yet to have been duped by an fraudulent one.

An unbelievable accuracy record.

Tim Aurora says

And surely the Russians would tell him that. It is quite possible that they used a American ( or somebody from a different country say Nigel Farage) middleman, provided him with all the data to distribute. You can always provide the data to a person whom you know will follow a predictable path.

Or, it was one of the other half dozen or more actors that hacked into the DNC we weren't told about, because if the government talks about other breaches, their circumstantial case falls apart.

Again "Who else hacked into the DNC?" Question needs to be asked.

T L Lips says

EXCEPT he's released millions upon millions of documents and has yet to have been duped by an fraudulent one.

I don't know if he's been duped or not. There's no proof of his record. Plus, comparing him to a news organization that regularly publishes on all newsworthy topics is silly. Assange publishes on a tiny subset of 'news' that he has access to. In addition, if no one has tried to dupe him into publishing fake news, it's only a matter of time. Does he have examples where someone tried to dupe him and he figured it out? Why should we suspect he has a better handle on the source of the leaked info than the CIA/FBI etc?

Here's the proof:

States all over the world have had their dirty laundry aired by Wikileaks. They have every incentive to find any leaked document that is fraudulent, so thy can say "Aha, one document out of millions was fraudulent. Now anything Wikileaks puts out is suspect."

It hasn't happened.

YesYNot says

The vast majority of women perform at minimum 200% of work at home then men.

Because unlike the FBI/CIA, Wikileaks has a perfect record, and doesn't have a boss over him who wants him to push a particular narrative.

Ironman says

Please give us the list of people who have been prosecuted an have gone to jail since 2008.

I'm sure that list is extremely long....

We had a freaking Wall Street criminal as Treasury Secretary. But is is bad PR.

I'll spell out my argument for you.
Corruption is bad, especially when politicians commit it.
They should be policed.
The fact that the politicians were able to easily cancel their oversight means that it wasn't strong enough to do its job.
We need more effective oversight.

Quigley says

I'll spell out my argument for you.

Corruption is bad, especially when politicians commit it.

They should be policed.

The fact that the politicians were able to easily cancel their oversight means that it wasn't strong enough to do its job.

We need more effective oversigh

Yup and trump agrees. I think the GOP base hates the GOP congress critters more than they hate dems and have been trying several seasons to try and bring in soem new blood and egt rid of the corrupt trash. Wish the dems would wake up-Bernie was clsoe, but the dems need the same energy, the same questioning. Then finally we will realize that on most important things dems/repubs are probably aligned 95% -jobs, economy etc-the remaining stuff we cna figure out. United we stand, divided we fall.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/01/trump-blasts-idiot-gop-leaders-focus-tax-reform-healthcare-not-ethics-watchdog/

I didn't say anything about the vast majority of women doing anything. There appears to be a glitch in the matrix. As for Assange, the absence of objections is not proof that something is true. I suspect his record is good. But, people have an incentive not to go through and confirm or deny information piece by piece.

Oops

YesYNot says

But, people have an incentive not to go through and confirm or deny information piece by piece.

Wikileaks puts out the stuff only after serious vetting. That's why the time between receiving source material and publishing the leaks is weeks and months.

Maybe the FBI/CIA should put out the server 'evidence' and have 1000s of highly competent independent experts weigh in.

Quigley says

We don't like old guard republicans any more than we like democrats, and we look forward to working with democrats who actually represent the people and not the plutocrats. The old two parties are being destroyed or subsumed. The democrats are self destructing in an orgy of ridiculousness. The republicans have been infected with the Trump parasite that is slowly purging the elitism from the party until the organism can be ready to MAGA.

This move by the congress is just elite GOPers pushing back against popular will.

They will be reigned in.

The thing the Republicans don't realize is that they have something very much in common with the Democrats: they lost the 2016 election.

This seems to be the case. It'll be interesting to see the Media attempt to lionize the old guard GOPe when they offer resistance to Trump's reforms, esp. on Trade and possibly Corporate Inversions. They've already done so by celebrating Bushite support for Hillary.

May the 6th/7th Political System be inaugurated, least we remain trapped in the culture war BS.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/after-backlash-house-gop-backs-down-from-plan-to-gut-ethics-office-172736628.htmlegas-170017907.html

And The GOPe rethinks their move after Trump jerks their chain.

Trump put those fuckers back in place. All of your corruptions is reserved for the executive branch. Thank you for your concern.

Should Obama attend all his PDBs, too?

Given that he is still President, with all the terror attacks around the world?

Here's the WaPo defending Obama not having an in-person briefing every day:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-bogus-claim-that-obama-skips-his-intelligence-briefings/2012/09/22/100cb63e-04fc-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_blog.html?utm_term=.e448deb93f30

In other words, Trump is reading some of the briefings instead of having it in-person. Other times Pence is going. When Obama reads instead of goes, that's okay. But when Trump, who is not even President yet, reads instead of attends, that's irresponsibility.

"Oh, but Pence isn't POTUS." Well neither is Trump yet, but according to WaPo's Fact Checker :

That column also includes the White House’s response — that Obama reads his PDB every day, but he does not always require an in-person briefing every day. The White House argument is that this is how Obama structured his White House operation, so it is specious to say he has “skipped” a meeting that was not actually scheduled.

Looks like the WaPo forgot to consult their own Fact Checkers. Wouldn't be Confirmation Bias at all, Amirite?

How's the Vermont Power Grid Russian Hack going?

Well, I'm certain we aren't trying to hack them. At least we take the high road.

This thread has more levels of deception than a 7 layer bean dip. Just off the top of my head:

There are just as many reports claiming Russia had nothing to do with any hacking as reports stating they did.
Obama has spent 8 years playing golf, and doing jack shit, now that he's almost out he should act?
The CIA has rigged more elections/puppet dictators than Russia, maybe a dose of our own medicine should teach us to leave other countries alone.

And the biggest problem, truth cares not what false dichotomies you subscribe to, only the facts. And the facts are the above, wouldn't matter who was about to be president, they wouldn't change.

T L Lips says

Wikileaks puts out the stuff only after serious vetting.

This is the assertion that Wikileaks and supporters keep on making. I've not seen any description of said vetting.T L Lips says

That's why the time between receiving source material and publishing the leaks is weeks and months.

Between the release right before the DNC convention and the release right before the election, I believe that they were blatantly timing the releases for maximum political effect. That's not the sign of a neutral third party and the long delay that was required for this timing is not proof of serious vetting.

YesYNot says

This is the assertion that Wikileaks and supporters keep on making. I've not seen any description of said vetting

Again, Wikileaks has made a nuisance of itself from Qatar to the USA to the Caymans to Panama to Germany to Russia (inc. Putin) to China.

If any actor could prove one document false, they could then dismiss all future (and some past) Wikileaks leaks as fraudulent.

Don't think for a moment EVERYTHING wikileaks puts out is vetted by their Secretive Anti-Transparency Opposition and Intelligence Agencies worldwide, each with their own axe to grind.

YesYNot says

Between the release right before the DNC convention and the release right before the election, I believe that they were blatantly timing the releases for maximum political effect. That's not the sign of a neutral third party and the long delay that was required for this timing is not proof of serious vetting.

Assange never said they were timed for any other reason.

It was to stop the MSM for covering it for a cycle or two, and then forgetting about it. Each tranche of leaks had so much vital information, they felt it needed the attention of coming out in pieces rather than all at once.

The Washington Post would be well served by consulting their own fact checkers before unloading on Trump, and certainly before accusing the Russians of hacking a Vermont Utility.

Amazing to see how many liberals don't give two shits about transparency when they are their team is the 'victim' of it.

YesYNot says

Trump put those fuckers back in place. All of your corruptions is reserved for the executive branch. Thank you for your concern.

Give him a break: He's just not accustomed yet to the idea that he's setting the standard on how low every politicians in the country can stoop.
As a business man he could loot and abuse while everyone else was forced to just do their work.

Yup.

"Trump is revealing state secrets by tweeting about a Briefing on Russian Hacking" - tomorrow's headlines.

As if anybody with half a brain wouldn't have figured it would feature in his briefings at some point in the near future, if it hadn't already.

it is going to be delayed until the 20th. Useless's laywers will present the "evidence" in a bunch of suitcases filled with toilet paper.

Same things that Bush left to Obama.

Ironman says

CNSNews.com) - The federal debt climbed by more than a trillion dollars during 2016, according to data released today by the U.S. Treasury.

On Dec. 31, 2015, the last business day of 2015, the federal debt was $18,922,179,009,420.89. On Dec. 30, 2016, the last business day of 2016, it was $19,976,826,951,047.80.

(Damn, he didn't get it up to $20,000,000,000,000 before he left)

The one-year increase in the federal debt during calendar year 2016 was therefore $1,054,647,941,626.91.

And what does he have to show for it? A slow and lethargic economy.
Thanks for nothing.

Like the other Democrat president in the last 36 years, Obama continuously lowered the deficit. Like all republicans in the last 36 years, Trump will make the deficit grow and increase the speed at which we take on debt. The streak will be extended to 40 years. Yay!