Not that I don’t appreciate getting texts and emails asking me about breaking news… So let me just start with: I have no idea.
I watched the press conference, I’ve read The Washington Post‘s reporting on this, and I’m basically like, (except with much more facial hair):
The Washington Post provides us what I think are the important details:
The technical data embedded in the emails did not make immediately apparent who was behind the messages. But metadata gathered from dozens of the emails pointed to the use of servers in Saudi Arabia, Estonia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, according to numerous analysts.
The hosting service that previously carried the Proud Boys domain canceled the registration after Google Cloud notified the customer that a nonprofit group had raised concerns about the controversial organization, said Ladd, the Google Cloud spokesman.
Following the action from the hosting service, the domain appears to have been left unsecured, allowing anyone on the Internet to take control of it and use it to send out the menacing messages, said Trevor Davis, CEO of CounterAction, a Washington-based digital intelligence firm.
I have no idea what other, corroborating information that the CIA, NSA, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA, which is part of DHS), National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NSCS, which is part of ODNI), and the National Security Division at the FBI have, but this doesn’t scream Iran to me. Could it be Iran? Sure. Can I say it is or isn’t definitively based on what I know about how Iran behaves after working on issues dealing with Iran for the Army and DOD for over a decade? I can’t. With this information I could just as easily make an argument that this is an Emirati Crown Price Mohammad bin Zayed and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman effort intended to make Iran look bad, which is a fair amount of the attempted covert and clandestine efforts made by the Emiratis and the Saudis. The whole point of the recent agreements between Israel and the UAE, Israel and Bahrain*, and attempt to get agreements between Israel and Saudi Arabia are really attempts to formalize and make overt the decades long covert and clandestine relations that these states have had with Israel in order to establish an anti-Iranian regional alliance.
Part of the problem here is that DNI Ratcliffe has no credibility. Especially as I’m not sure anyone who isn’t a partisan would classify emails like the one below as being anti-Trump.
My read of the email above is an attempt to deactivate Biden voters through intimidation. And based on what was said, I’m not even sure these were the emails that DNI Ratcliffe was referring to.
This leads to my other concern here, especially given what Ratcliffe said and what FBI Director Wray did not. DNI Ratcliffe stated that the intelligence points to Iran and Russia, and that in the case of Iran he generically referenced intimidatory emails and then specifically stated that these Iranian efforts are intended to harm the President’s reelection chances. He provided no details regarding whatever Russia is doing. Director Wray said nothing specific at all; he just provided a general warning that both Iran and Russia are actively trying to disrupt the election and that the US government has thwarted one such attempt.
DNI Ratcliffe is both highly partisan and highly unqualified for the position he is currently serving in. My worry is that by making the statements that he did, and rushing to do them tonight before 8 PM EDT, he has provided the President with talking points for his rally tonight. Something the President can pitch to the rally goers as “Did you hear what Director of National Intelligence Ratcliffe – great man, great man – said earlier tonight? He said the Iranians are interfering in the election to get Sleepy Joe elected. Can you believe that? Can you? It’s true, it’s true!”
Frankly what was presented by DNI Ratcliffe was very thin and very concerning because it was very thin. The more generic statements of Director Wray was better largely because he didn’t provide just enough details to make people question the integrity of what was being briefed.
I want to make one final point. What Director Wray told Americans tonight was what should have been announced back in August, September, and/or October 2016 in regard to what Russia was doing in 2016. The Obama administration wanted to do it, but decided it also wanted bipartisan buy-in, so the President pitched it to both the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress. Senator McConnell killed it by threatening to use any announcement, no matter how appropriate and how non-partisan, as a weapon to politically attack both President Obama and Secretary Clinton. My issues and concerns here are not that a press conference to warm Americans about foreign election interference was done. My issues and concerns of the lack of specificity except in regard to one statement from DNI Ratcliffe that the interference was intended to harm the President and his reelection chances and the need to do this tonight before 8 PM when there’s nothing that couldn’t have waited till 9 AM tomorrow morning.
We are off the looking glass and through the map!
Open thread!
* Just earlier today we learned that Israel has been running a clandestine embassy in Bahrain that was being presented as a development corporation. This reporting raises the questions of 1) how many other Gulf States has Israel done this in, 2) how many US companies, defense or non-defense sector, have been compromised by doing business with companies that are secret Israeli embassies that only Israel and the host country know are fronts, and 3) how much US intellectual property, especially critical for US national security, wound up being stolen as a result?
Obama Live: Let’s Listen To A Real President Speak
PsiFighter37
If anything, this bullshit presser reinforces my view that Wray is another tool and deserves to be fired on Day 1 along with every other Trump appointee not named Jay Powell.
Cheryl Rofer
I think Joe Cirincione gets part of the motivation right. There may be more, but, as Adam says, Ratcliffe is a serial liar, incompetent, and Trump partisan, so it’s hard to tell.
It would make a lot of sense for a person with those characteristics to try to step on Obama’s speech to placate the Toddler-in-Chief, so that he doesn’t continue to flip out through the debate tomorrow. I have my doubts it will work, but no doubt a sycophant would want to try.
Baud
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
So? What’s so concerning about it? You said yourself Ratcliffe has no credibility and I don’t think this is going to have much effect on Trump’s base (knock on wood); they’re all a bunch of nutcases who will vote for him no matter what
TS (the original)
@PsiFighter37:
As I wrote on the end of the last thread
So he says there is an “attack designed to hurt President Trump” (via Rachel, I didn’t see the statement)
Whereas from all the media reports – it is related to the attack against Biden voters in Florida.
This is the worst administration in any democratic country. No responsibility and only lies.
lamh36
Apparently internal polling shows Chump is underperforming with the voting bloc that helped him beat HRC…so they gotta try to energize the base who might actually fall for the “Iran want to hurt Trump via emails” bullshit
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: I think you and Joe are on the target.
Crashman06
@Cheryl Rofer: if this interpretation is right, sounds like this isn’t really the vanguard of some kind of grand strategy. Just more flailing.
SiubhanDuinne
Rachel led with this story. She doesn’t know what’s going on either.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: I saw that earlier. I cannot stress enough how conflating opposition to Israeli government policies and actions with anti-Semitism pisses me off, especially as it is basically itself a form of anti-Semitism.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Apparently those orgs are being labeled “anti-Israel” or some such bullshit by the right wing. Again, for the 100,000th time, morons: being against the Israeli government’s policies is NOT the same thing as being anti-semitic
HumboldtBlue
While the political shit keeps being flung at the walls NASA attempted to land a probe on an asteroid yesterday.
So there’s that.
TS (the original)
@SiubhanDuinne:
Appears to me they checked out what turned 2016 towards trump & decided to do it again.
lamh36
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: Rachel’s actual specialty is environmental policy and regulation.
Cheryl Rofer
@Crashman06: indeed
patrick Il
I don’t get what Iran’s motive would be. It has been my sense that Iran has been just been trying to wait Trump out in hopes the next president honors the treaty they agreed to. Sanctions imposed by Trump are hurting them badly during the pandemic. Why would they help him get re-elected?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
What’s even more ridiculous is labeling orgs like Amnesty International as anti-Semitic. I mean, I guess Trump and the GOP expect the rest of the world to go along with the absurdity just because?
As for Oxfam, perhaps this is why they were being targeted. From Wiki:
hells littlest angel
It seems to be all over now but the wild flailing of a mortally wounded monster (which can do a lot of damage, it’s true).
Adam L Silverman
@patrick Il: That’s why this seems weird to me. This isn’t usually how Iran operates.
Martin
@TS (the original): I don’t know, the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is pretty bad.
Baud
@patrick Il:
“President Trump said tonight that Iran is interfering in the election to destroy ndermine America by helping him win reelection.”
PsiFighter37
@TS (the original): I couldn’t care less about the content, because I think the electorate is so tuned out to Trump’s bullshit after 4 years.
The only meaningful takeaway is that Wray should be fired Day 1. Ratcliffe is a goner because he’s a fucking idiot, but Wray should be canned right away as well. I never trusted that slimeball one bit from the day he took over from Comey.
Adam L Silverman
Before anyone asks, yes I’ve seen the below. Provided Cheryl doesn’t decide she wants to deal with it before I get to it, I’ll get to it sometime tomorrow afternoon.
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer: That’s impressive stupidity, even by the standards of the Trump administration, and therefore is very plausible. I mean, Obama probably won’t give another speech tomorrow (debate…), but likely will on Friday etc.
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
Yes, I know.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t think it is anything other than the constant working, by Bibi and his ambassador to the US, and their American Jewish and evangelical allies, to conflate criticism of Israel’s policies and actions with anti-Semitism so that it becomes impossible for anyone, even Jews, to legitimately question what Israel does.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman:
The headline is unclear. Is the jist that the emails were being circulated before the laptop was allegedly dropped off?
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: Please see Anne Laurie on the Mezzanine Level to collect your prize!
TS (the original)
Schumer doing his each way dance on Rachel. It never stops.
Adam L Silverman
@TS (the original): He’s got to get his steps in or his Apple Watch gives him grief.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Obviously a dead drunk Hunter Biden dropped off the computers after wandering around Ukraine trying to get the emails recovered so he could hide them better.
The computer store owner wasn’t there when Biden dropped them off, and was there but was in another room, and in addition, he’s blind so he couldn’t hear what Hunter Biden was saying.
It’s all so obvious. Why are we pretending to have any doubts at all?
TS (the original)
@Martin:
I guess they call themselves democratic – but they are obvious about their dictatorship. Trump does it by stealth.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
OT: What would happen if somebody posted on the “I Voted” thread they voted for Trump? Would they still get a sticker? Or banhammered?
P.S. I already voted for Biden, at comment #266
different-church-lady
Is it just me, or has today been the longest five years ever?
dmsilev
@Baud: The article said that alleged H.B. emails were being offered for sale in September of 2019. The supposed laptop-repair story keeps shifting around, but at least the current version has Giuliani acquiring the laptop in April of 2019. And then sitting on it, enjoying the emails and child porn, for over a year.
different-church-lady
Stop today, I want to get off…
(DCL, +2 or so…)
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: This feels like some crazy backflip GOP scheme. Send intimidating email to Dems, which might work, blame it on Iran as a tough on Iran stance, say that it was intended to hurt Trump, and provide no backing for any of it.
Pretty good response time to blame this on Iran just hours after the emails went around.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: I like how Derkach says there’s another laptop that will come out. So your theory that he took one to Kyiv for tech support appears to be on the nose.
Adam L Silverman
@different-church-lady: It’s not over yet…//
dmsilev
@different-church-lady: I’ve seen people joke that future historians will write dissertations on specific days of 2020. “My doctorate was about October 23rd”.
Adam L Silverman
@Martin: I’m just going off of what is being reported in open sources and my experience from working on Iran issues for the Army and DOD for over a decade. If I actually had any specific information I’d not be able to talk about it. But I don’t, so I can.
mad citizen
I watched some of trump’s rally tonight on youtube on my tv, via Right Side Broadcasting Network (of course the youtube algorithm suggests it to me now). My wife asked why I was watching it. Well, entertainment value, and I said it will soon be over. Wonder where his last one will be–is any place sentimental to him? I did notice 133K people were watching the stream, which is kind of alarming. It’s amazing to me how enthusiastic his marks are.
43 million votes cast
Every day is very long, yes. There’s always a positive chance for anything to happen. Like tomorrow night, will trump show to the debate? Why?
different-church-lady
WHEN. THE. FUCK. DOES. GIULIANI. GO. TO. JAIL??????????
(DCL, still +2 or so, but you know it takes time for CnH2n+1OH to do it’s little dance…)
Baud
@jl:
I feel like someone should start a tweet storm where everyone says “I have Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
Middlelee
@Baud: My instant response to this is to figure out if I can donate to these organizations in the next couple of months. Jesus, I hate the trump people so much. They just don’t have any limits when it comes to their evil bullshit.
Baud
@mad citizen:
Maybe all those people watching are just like you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: the story just gets more and more believable and sounding like totally normal behavior from all reputed to be involved
jl
@Baud: “I hold Baud 2032’s beer’ has been a real winner, so why not try it?
different-church-lady
@dmsilev: Fuck, WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS COMING FRIDAY???
Adam L Silverman
@TS (the original): Actually, his remarks on the intel briefing were appropriate. His remarks on how the Democrats are going to proceed regarding the Coney Barrett nomination were very good.
jl
” Not that I don’t appreciate getting texts and emails asking me about breaking news… So let me just start with: I have no idea. ”
MAYBE IF WE SENT THE TIPS IN ALL CAPS WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS IT WOULD HELP!!!!!!?
@different-church-lady: YEAH, THERE YA GO, THAT WAS VERY CLEAR.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@jl:
My local rag is actually taking this shit seriously. They had an editorial up in today’s edition:
Beware of the power wielded by social media
UMMM, how about not be fucking credulous and buy into Russian disinformation pushed by people with no credibility?! Normally I’d agree with being wary of the power of tech giants, but using this example is terrible. Twitter and Facebook did the right thing here. There’s nothing fucking there!
The paper is a shadow of it’s former self imo. It’s politically “independent” and ran a Robert Reich column about the hypocrisy of the GOP, but I think that’s a fig leaf to cover for the GOP leanings of the owners, Ogden.
Mary G
I’m not sure even the most gullible MAGAt is going to see this as a reason to rush out and vote. They would probably have done better to let Obama’s magnificent speech be praised and remind them how much economic anxiety he causes them so they’re motivated to lift up their White guy who speaks their gibberish.
HumboldtBlue
different-church-lady
@jl: I’M TANNED, RESTED, AND READY!!!
Jeffro
I’m reading this
and going, “yuuuuup”
Just more poo from the poo-flinging monkeys, hoping that something will stem the tide here.
MC
What this means is that tomorrow yet another public figure will start cranking it on camera, and nobody will remember that there was some intelligence something-or-other today.
different-church-lady
CAN WE MAKE THE REST OF THIS THREAD ALL CAPS??!?
dmsilev
@different-church-lady: According to my calendar, that’s when the Gerbil Uprising is scheduled to start.
VOR
@PsiFighter37: Anyone who Trump appointed ought to be viewed with suspicion.
different-church-lady
@MC: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DROP A GISH GALLOP IN A NUCLEAR REACTOR???
Adam L Silverman
@different-church-lady: You know what you did or will do…//
Jeffro
Because then Fox News doesn’t get to do that pavlovian gong-thing with the screaming “BREAKING NEWS” header. Ya gotta have a live presser WITH THE DNI AND FBI CHIEF NO LESS to really get the rubes not-thinking
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Unlike Cole, I actually do reply to emails. It’s something I’m very conscientious about.
Baud
@dmsilev:
I thought only bad things happened in 2020.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Provided the Dems win Congress and Biden the presidency, what do you think foreign relations are going to be like with these states? Bolsonaro’s Brazil? Johnson’s UK? Bibi has revealed himself to be a shameless, authoritarian snake
WaterGirl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
As the official sticker hander-outer, they would definitely get a sticker. Maybe this one:
Adam L Silverman
@HumboldtBlue: I did not know that AOC was commenting her under the gym of HumboldtBlue.
I guess the secret is out.
Gravenstone
@different-church-lady: I do hope your C stops at 2 …
Winston
It was proud bois. They should be arrested, stomped to the curb and shit upon
ETA Goulliani has the hard drive.
Jeffro
@jl: hey, you made more sense than Rudy 9/11, so there’s that…
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
Good on her for doing that, but my God that was boring. I can’t imagine why the youngs love it so much.
PsiFighter37
And I just read that stupid Donnie wants to fire Wray after the election for not behaving more like Comey.
Honestly – be my fucking guest. Fire Wray, be too lazy to appoint a permanent director, and let Biden appoint someone who won’t actively try to fuck us over at every turn. I’m cool with that.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
Perfect!
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev:
Hahaha
Obama Friday: Did you see that “debate” last night? Could you believe that stuff coming out of Donald’s facehole?
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I have no idea. The State Department, as well as USAID and the US Agency for Global Media have been badly brutalized.
dmsilev
@different-church-lady: I am saddened to report that my attempts to answer you with a giant ASCII-art ALL CAPS were a miserable failure. Darn variable-pitch fonts.What I wanted to post
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
What, video game streaming? Eh, it depends on both the content and the personality of the streamer. The best streams to watch imo are the ones of bad games (aka shovelware) and the streamer riffing on the game. Kinda like Mystery Science Theater 3000
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’ve never watched any. That two minute clip was it. It did not interest me.
different-church-lady
@Gravenstone: IF YOU’RE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION, YOU’RE PART OF THE PRECIPITATE!!!!
different-church-lady
@dmsilev: COMEDY IS NOT PRETTY!!!
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Quel surprise.
Patricia Kayden
Yep.
Kristine
@different-church-lady:
CHEMIST HUMOR!!! ?
I’ll see myself out….
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic:
via GIFER
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
It’s not for everyone. I generally prefer to watch shorter videos of my favorite YT personalities playing games (usually only 15-20 min long)
different-church-lady
@Kristine: I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW MY C GOES TO 11!!!
jl
@Kristine: Baw ha ha ha. My release of the all caps virus seems to be working. My work here is done. It. Will. Go. Everywhere. There is no herd immunity.
Edit: yes I did get some bedtimes snacks from Steve and Rosie for the job. Just came in the mail.
piratedan
look at all of this fuckery this way… we’ve likely banked a significant portion of our vote already. That hasn’t changed unless the mail stops getting delivered.
So all of this last minute virtue signaling isn’t going to have the desired effect because of the following:
so while we can expect the media to clutch their pearls and locate the nearest fainting couches while in search of a race track to pontificate at… try to take the distractions in stride and understand that outside of some incredibly sophisticated election fuckery, these people are going to lose but on their way down in flames, we have to fully expect them to try everything and anything to “make a difference”.
so seriously, fuck these people, we’ll see them at the ballot box and in a few months time, on the witness stand.
Gin & Tonic
2020 continues to suck. James Randi has died.
patrick II
Brian Kilmeade explains science.
Brian on FOX radio this morning, a paraphrase, but close:
Kilmeade: NASA landed a spacecraft on an asteroid to collect samples of rocks. Asteroids are very old, going back to the beginning of the universe, which is older than anyone alive today.
Later.
Kilmeade. Nasa wanted to show they could hit a fast moving target, unlike the moon which is standing still.
Thank you Brian.
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
guess they never noticed that a bunch of EatYourFacesBook engineers, resigned and went public with the fact that Facebook algo’s are designed to suppress left and lean left media.
and have so for over 20 years.
now, finally, Zuck suppresses the American Nazi Party, but for decades it suppressed Mother Jones.
same, right?
TS (the original)
@Adam L Silverman:
Appropriate isn’t enough for me any more. He refused to acknowledge that the discussion probably related to the so called “proud boy” emails.
He also forgot to mention a major problem with Amy Barrett relates to interference in areas that should be state responsibilities – as the 4 RW Justices are currently doing in regard to election rules to assist covid issues. Election rules are a state issue. Be nice if it was federal & they could be the same in each state, but it is not, & SCOTUS should not be legislating for states (or the Feds).
Jeffro
@Patricia Kayden: Yep indeed.
Could we pretty please hear more about that there Russian interference, Mr. DNI? And also how Iranian emails promoting trumpov somehow damage trumpov?
Just grab a podium and start talking, I’ll tune in.
Gin & Tonic
@patrick II:
Well, he’s not wrong.
Jeffro
Excellent points!
Also: “Who would you rather be, 12 days out from the election: them, or us?”
I like our chances.
Gravenstone
@different-church-lady: Branched or straight chain?
jl
@Jeffro: Don’t be impatient. You need to lead up gradually to Hunter Biden laptop levels of incoherence and dubiosity. Lke all shaggy dog stories, need to work up some suspense before you land the lack of punchline for real laffs.
Gin & Tonic
@Jay:
Considering it started in 2004, this is a hell of a trick.
Adam L Silverman
This was what I had planned to post on tonight, especially as the reporting is coming from Fox News national correspondent covering the 2020 election:
Winston
TRUMP PAID MORE TAXES IN CHINA THAN IN THE USA!!!!!
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: At 92 he had a very good run.
Ken
@jl: @different-church-lady: @dmsilev:
I was trying to use the <h1> and <font> markup to make really shouty all-caps text, but although it shows in the editor it doesn’t persist when you hit post. Probably for the best, it could break some people’s margins.
mrmoshpotato
@patrick II:
I love one-liner jokes! (You really didn’t have to type the rest, but thank you.)
ETA – did he actually say the rest of that?
HumboldtBlue
@different-church-lady:
I can hear the indignation and it can’t be too soon.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Gin & Tonic:
TBF, I tend to round up/down a few years when describing how old something is/how long ago something happened. 2024 would be 20 years. Man, imagine that: a social network being several decades old
Winston
DEMS WAITING FOR OCTOBER SURPRISE !!!!
Ken
Yet somehow in an impressively wrong way.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
damn, Texas reported 6,000 covid cases today.
dmsilev
@Ken: I was hoping the code tag was supported, because fixed-pitch fonts are what you need for ASCII art, but Sadly No.
mrmoshpotato
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Did they win today? (Oh to have an actual adult as President…)
Gin & Tonic
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Usenet started in 1980.
mrmoshpotato
@Gin & Tonic: What day – so we can add one to determine when ASCII porn started?
patrick II
@mrmoshpotato:
yes, he said every bit of it and more. He asked his producer if he thought it was actually true.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
srry, 16 years, 8 months and 17 days,
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Adam L Silverman:
When this is over, Russia, Ukraine and Cyprus need to be sliced off of SWIFT on January 22, 2021.
mrmoshpotato
@patrick II: It would be hilarious if people didn’t watch that trash and consider it to be real news.
ETA – Gidney and Cloyd: Does this guy think the Sun revolves around the Earth?
PsiFighter37
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Here is my “not sad” face. That is what those fuckers get for electing people who couldn’t give two shits about them for a generation.
Kay
It’s hard for me to take this seriously. The email is ridiculous. They don’t need to have access to “the whole voting infrastructure” to find out I’m a Democrat – all this information is public.
Also- I, like millions of other people, already voted. So are they still “coming after me”? Was I supposed to vote twice?
Aleta
Opportunity for T. to claim election tampering or fraud.
Jay
Gin & Tonic
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Ukraine? Fuck yourself. While it has its share of problems, it is fully cooperative with international financial control institutions. It has also shown itself to be a lot better at running elections and abiding by their results than the US.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
I had no idea that the Amazing Randi was Canadian-born. And 92 — he had a good run. RIP, and thanks for all the debunking.
patrick II
@mrmoshpotato:
Brian lives in a made up world and cannot tell the difference.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Winston:
The Great Pumpkin will come this year!
I read yesterday that one of the Goliath streaming services has bought up all the Peanuts specials.
Patricia Kayden
This is so sweet.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ya – AppleTV.
Kristine
@Gravenstone:
I was going to ask whether aliphatic or aromatic?
Kay
Is this it? This is the tampering? They sent a bunch of crazy emails claiming they had accessed the publicly-available voter file?
They’re going to have to try harder than this. I’m not scared.
Patricia Kayden
@Winston: The October Surprise is that many of the state polls are still so close despite all that Trump has done to this country.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Patricia Kayden: how ’bout it? I keep saying, to think all these years my liberal if non-coastal elitism was overestimating my fellow Americans.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Gin & Tonic:
Damn, 40 years ago? Wow. BTW, anybody noticed over the last 5 years or so a lot of 80s nostalgia in advertising and TV shows? For a long time, it seemed like 60s nostalgia dominated media
Anyway, I guess I was thinking more along the lines of social networks like FaceBook, Myspace, and Twitter, and Friendster. The latter obviously isn’t still around and while Myspace still is, it’s a shadow of it’s former self. FaceBook and Twitter (and I guess Tumblr) have survived. I guess I find it weird that something that was so new when I was younger is as old as it is now
Patricia Kayden
??
Kay
Sometimes I think we have to get rid of everyone who is a manager or in any supervisory role in the federal government because Trump has driven them all stark raving mad.
I have no idea if any of these people are even sane let alone working in any way on my behalf. Just clean house and start over. If they’re not corrupt they’ll be hopelessly traumatized.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: All yours, Adam!
Kent
I have a hard time believing that Israel needs to go through that sort of process to gain access to US military technology. I would assume they get whatever they want from the front door. Don’t we already share just about everything with them?
What would a US company be selling to Bahrain that they wouldn’t also be allowed to sell to Israel?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
Sorry for punching a button, but this flood of Putin-align people that Giuliani surrounds himself with bugs me – it just feels like corrupt men are taking over the entirety of that quadrant of the world.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Tracking. I’ll double check to make sure I don’t bigfoot you again.
jl
This blog is proof that Bigfoot lives.
Should have busted it up into an almost top 9,000 blog that pays for itself.
Winston
@Patricia Kayden: I don’t see how you could top today. For a Dem surprise, that is. ??
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: We do not. The reason we have the F35 was not because the F22 was not suitable. It was because of military sales. We couldn’t put the F22 up for military sales because we knew that if we sold it to the Israelis then they would sell the tech specs, if not the actual tech, to the PRC, Iran, Pakistan, and the DPRK under the table. So we had to create an additional fighter that could be put up for military sales that wasn’t the F22.
And what we don’t give them or sell them, they just steal. My understanding is that their original batch of fissile material was stolen from a facility outside of Pittsburgh. Though if Cheryl comes along and says that’s apocryphal it wouldn’t surprise me either.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: SKYNET STARTED ONLY FOUR YEARS LATER.
jl
@Kay: If it’s true it seems to me that the main problem is that in states with partisan registration, they can target R and D voters specifically.
NotMax
“Hey Jared, wanna head the FBI?”
//
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@jl:
If voter rolls with partisan registration have always been public, I wonder why this didn’t happen even 10 or 15 years ago? Was technology really that primitive then that it couldn’t have been done?
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
Idly wondering if this is a favor/peace offering to Sheldon Adelson.
That guy has done and continues to do enormous long term damage to Israel. IMO.
jl
@Kay: The threat shown in the post seems almost like a gag, or written by people completely unfamiliar with how elections work in the US. What in the voter registration files, any election ‘infrastructure’ tells anyone how anyone voted? Who would take it seriously? I wouldn’t.
Kent
Former federal manager/bureaucrat here.
I guarantee there are a lot of civil service managers across the Federal government who are keeping careful notes on two things:
First, Trumpistas who are trying to convert from political appointees to civil service positions and “burrow” into the bureaucracy. Some might be decent folks, but they merit watching, and assigned to count paperclips in the basement if they are problematic. It’s very easy to assign folks to dead end jobs with no responsibility to serve out their time if necessary.
Second, Trump era regulations that are flawed. Were I still with NOAA and involved in pushing through improper regulations, I’d be writing all sorts of memos “to the file” describing all the procedural and legal flaws with the action in question, peppering like-minded colleagues with emails saying the same thing, inserting it all into the administrative record, and then letting environmental groups know where to find it all when they start up the lawsuits challenging regulations in January 2021. “Oh Gee, look! There’s a perfect paper trail in the administrative record that lets us overturn this illegal regulation in court! Imagine that! Look! The agency even knew what it was doing was illegal and did it anyway!”
Jay
jl
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): Seems like a crude effort to intimidate very low information voters. Don’t have to know much to know it’s ridiculous.
And, now that you mentioned it, I wonder why it’s taken so long to catch on too.
Kay
@jl:
Target how? By sending them emails? People will get that email and then vote for Trump?
99% of voters won’t even know who the “Proud Boys” are and it reads like it was written by a 12 year old. “Vote for Trump or else!” Okey doke, 6th grader.
I don’t know- I guess I thought it would be more sophisticated than this.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
Wouldn’t a presumptive Biden admin simply rescind those regulations anyway?
Kent
15 years ago they probably didn’t have email addresses in the voter registration records. So one would have had to spend a million dollars mailing out first class letters.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
So the answer is that Obama should give a speech every day until the election.
Bill Arnold
Until provenance of these emails is established convincingly, we should feel free to presume or at least suspect that it is a low-rent influence operation funded by some ally of Trump[1] and perpetrated by a (at least) middling competent contractor. Pro-Trump, just because Trump is attempting to weaponize it through his corrupt hench-DNI, though the net effect may be to damage Trump.
[1] Or maybe even the Trump campaign!! This sort of thing can be dirt cheap compared to advertisements.
mrmoshpotato
@Kent: Oh back when it took money and effort to do mass spammings…
Winston
@Kay: Let the proud bois deny it and defend themselves. PROUD BOIS THREATEN VOTERS IN FLORIDA !!!!!
Kent
You can’t just rescind regulations without going through the notice and comment rulemaking that implemented them in first place. So, proposed rule, public hearings, hundreds of pages of analytical documents, consultation with a bunch of agencies, weeks or months of industry lobbyists badgering your bosses and looking for the weak links, respond to comments, then final rule. Can take years. And then you get sued by the industry groups who are losing whatever loophole Trump put in for them. We are talking hundreds or even thousands of staff hours, staff who have shitloads of other things to get done too.
The way to short cut that is to just have a court declare the regulation illegal. But you have to have a plaintiff to get into court, and they have to have grounds upon which to sue. Like an analysis was improperly done, or process was skipped, etc. Then the agency can just announce an emergency rule stating that the regulation is suspended. If they want, they can just settle the case and not even defend the regulation in court.
Biden can rescind most presidential executive orders, but not agency regulations. That process is governed by NEPA, the Administrative Procedures Act, and a whole bunch of other process-related statutes.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie: And two on Sunday. (Second one is just titled Fuck You, Orange Assclown.)
Kay
@jl:
I thought like “attacking election infrastructure”. The real one. This to me is the email equivalent of a prank call.
If this is it you can color me “relieved”. I think I can resist running down and changing my registration to Republican based on emailed playground taunts. How many “Proud Boys” could there possibly be? They’re going to all our residences? My ass they are. There’s maybe 100 of them.
Bill Arnold
@jl:
Yeah, there’s a chance it’s somebody goofing. (Who among us hasn’t pranked the US intelligence agencies? :-) What’s not clear to me is the motive or who it’s intended to harm or help. Need to do a deep look.
mrmoshpotato
I don’t want my phone to send out a shockwave, Tim.
Kent
I’d rather think that Trump isn’t just a Russian asset, he’s also an Iranian asset. That’s actually the simplest explanation.
Heh.
HumboldtBlue
Barry and Joe in the heartland lookback tour.
Kay
@Winston:
Honestly the FBI didn’t see fit to warn us in ’16 when 4 states had actual incursions into election systems but they hold an emergency press conference for this?
Get to work. Go protect the actual election infrastructure. I knew they had my address at the bd of elections. They send me mail all the time. It’s not top secret.
piratedan
@Kent: to be fair, I have no issue believing that Donald Trump will sell anything to anyone that pays him for the opportunity.
Jay
@Kay:
there are around 63,000 Proud Boys, affiliates, and not yet confirmed Proud Boys in the US and Canada.
Bill Arnold
Remember this?
Russian hackers cloak attacks using Iranian group (Gordon Corera, 21 October 2019)
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s pretty well supported
Winston
@Kay: True, but it is restricted to party officials
ETA so it is either a dem false flag or a rep false flag
eta When I access my info, I have to know my address.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You’re all just wrong. It was a good polling day! 7.5 in PA is just fine.
Cheryl Rofer
@debbie: I’m okay with that.
Although I suspect the strategy is to save him for the big stuff. I doubt there will be more than two more Obama speeches before polls close on November 3. Possibly only one. But he’ll be seen in various high-value places.
Bill Arnold
@Kent:
Ah, quite parsimonious!
Probably Trump is an asset of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; they weren’t happy (IIRC) with the JPCOA, and Trump withdrew from it because he was(is!) afraid of the compromat they have on him.
This is fun. :-)
Kay
@Jay:
Jay, I apologize but I refuse to be afraid of The Proud Boys. They’re going to have to do more than send me a ridiculous email if they’re planning a coup. Iran too, although all these people lie so much I have no earthly idea who sent the email. It could have come from the Trump campaign for all I know. They’re insane enough to send it.
If Wray isn’t a liar he’ll be the only Trump hire who isn’t, so as far as I’m concerned he’s a liar unless it’s proven otherwise. I don’t know who sent the emails but I’m not scared of whoever sent them, because I think the premise is ridiculous.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
Pity. The counter-programming would be entertaining.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I didn’t say it was a bad polling day, but the fact that trump isn’t down below the proverbial 27% is depressing
Kent
@Kay: The Proud Boys around here (Portland metro) are a bunch of loser bar brawlers and meth heads who are living in their grandma’s basement. They wouldn’t know how to set up a mass emailing anyway.
Jay
@Kay:
for the most part, Proud Boys and other flavour of Nazis, arn’t people to be afraid of,
Winston
@Winston: and my birth date
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: What about the Ooga Booga Buggin’ Out Boys?
Calouste
@Jeffro: I wouldn’t believe them that it was an Iranian email promoting the shitgibbon. I would assume that indeed both Russia and Iran have done things to interfere with the election, and that the email was part of those things. But that doesn’t mean that email was send on behalf of Iran.
Just a reminder, everyone is this administration lies all the time.
Winston
@Winston: The access to voter information is available to the major parties in Florida. If a leak of information occurs it would be from one of the major parties
eta they would be able to identify your name, address, party affiliation, and birth date. Your email address is optional.
Cameron
We are all Hunter Biden’s laptop now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
they’re back to trying to convince people that it’s weird that Joe Biden loves his son. It has provoked a twitter meme, but no hashtag. I think you can see it if you scroll up, or maybe down.
Winston
Oh man. I just finished watching “Alone, The Arctic”, on Netflix, 11 episodes.
Kent
@Winston: Was that the one with the guy who took a moose with a bow and the woman with all the rabbits? Those were some serious baddass survivalists. Watching all their back stories it is striking how poor they all really are and how much that $500,000 means to them. I could never imagine doing something like that.
JaySinWA
@Jeffro: They are trying to sell the emails as a false flag operation. Double super secret 11 dimensional chess. The less they explain it the less low info voters have to think about it, so they just dump it with no details that people have to worry about. The faithful already have the talking points, the uninformed will largely stay uninformed.
Winston
@Kent: That’s the one. They didn’t even get to winter. I thought if the gal just got one more rabbit…
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): Because you used to have to go down to each county’s supervisor of elections office and get hard copy. Now you don’t.
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: The burrowing in probably is going to be significant. By now Stephen Miller has spread his catspaws far and wide in DHS and DOJ and the portions of State that deal with immigration and refugees.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: That was what I thought, but it is nice to know I have it right.
Sally
@different-church-lady: I love this! May I steal? For my family of chemists, molecular biologists, materials scientists and physicists.
Brachiator
@Gin & Tonic:
Very sad news. I greatly admired his battle against ignorance and pseudoscience.
Bonus bad pun. Where do skeptics’ children sleep?
On debunk beds.
germy
Ramalama
@Adam L Silverman: Have you seen NYT reporter Nicole Perlroth whose tweet makes it seem as if the domain registration was just not renewed by the Proud Boys and therefore open to anyone with a credit card to purchase (lease) it?
Adam L Silverman
@Ramalama: I’ve seen it.