US imposes sanctions on Russia

[mr friendly guy]

Just for interest, what are these policies the outgoing administration is using? Because Trump might very fuck things over if we starts putting tariffs on not just China, but other countries he has his sights on. A trade war is going to suck for everyone.

[Dragon Angel]

I am curious what these policies are as well. This is beginning to sound conspiratorial, erecting a shield to deflect future criticisms of Trump by merely stating "But Obama laid these traps to screw Trump from the start!"

Also: What motivation would we have to piss off Russia beyond the assumed scope of petty politics? How much benefit is there at this moment to falsifying or exaggerating charges of Russia interfering, and taking real, diplomatic actions on those charges? Why would Obama want to threaten greater instability between us and another nuclear power for the sake of scoring a few political points for his party?

These are questions I've yet seen to be answered. It sounds like people want to believe so hard that Trump will not be so bad, that they are willing to disregard any evidence that something may possibly be afoot to support that belief, to the point where they don't want any action taken whatsoever.

[Simon_Jester]

ALLEGED actions, get it right you dumb fuck. What the US did to the Ukraine is an action since we have proof of it in the form of taped conversations among senior US diplomats. What Russia supposedly did to the US is based on oh, that's right, NOTHING.

Russian involvement in the Ukrainian Civil War is 'alleged' now?

Shipping arms to one side of an ongoing civil war, including surface to air missiles that were used to shoot down a civilian airliner, is not "alleged" in this case. It's fact.

Not sure how that compares to taped conversations, of course.

I wonder if Trump will reverse this when he becomes PoTUS. In which case will this just add more fuel to the fire of Trump is Putin's bitch claims. Which makes this move by Obama pretty sly.

It's among the best work that Obama's done in politics in terms of walking others into a trap. It's kind of an interesting pattern I've noticed, ever since Trump was elected, the outgoing administration has been setting as many traps as possible to ensure that Trump's presidency will be a failure. They've damaged relations with Russia as much as possible...

Your conspiracy theory about attempts to damage relations with Russia is rendered irrelevant if Trump simply disavows the Obama administration's claim that all these things happened. If Obama is lying about Russia's actions, then all Trump has to do is say so and act accordingly, and Putin has no reason to blame him for Obama's actions. Conversely, if Obama is telling the truth, then as soon as Trump takes office Putin has exactly what he wants, and there is no reason for relations to be "damaged" by the actions of the president Putin sought to replace with Trump in the first place.

Either way, Trump is not harmed by Obama's actions that offend Russia, so long as he does not continue the claim that the Russians have wronged the US, and disavows that claim.

Which he will, realistically, do anyway. Whether he is guilty or innocent of collusion with Russia, of course he'll disavow this stuff. Because Trump is a corrupt fuck. He will never want anyone investigating him for any reason. And moreover, because Trump is a narcissistic fuck as well as a corrupt one, he doesn't grasp that this makes him look bad. All he can do is bloviate about how the numerous investigations into various forms of fraud, criminality, and dishonesty are just his enemies out to get him. Amazingly, despite decades of us being given excellent reason to believe otherwise, a frightening number of people seem to believe him. You included.

So only a complete and utter moron would believe that this is going to do any real damage to relations with Russia under a Trump administration. Anyone dumb enough to think that would work is too dumb to have thought of it in the first place.

...screwed up relations with the EU by keeping Victoria Nuland over there to throw tantrums at everyone the US isn't sucking up to,

Relations with the EU were pre-emptively screwed the moment Trump got to make a victory speech. Because you see... on the whole, foreign politicians and citizens despise Trump. There are exceptions, but not many. There is no possible way that Trump could have anything other than "screwed up" relations with the EU, and only in the most bizarre of fantasy-lands could anyone picture Trump handling relations with the EU well.

Trump was supported by a Republican constituency who wanted him in office so he could screw over foreigners and Make America Xenophobic Again. Foreigners know that.

So only a fool would seriously think that Obama can "screw up" relations with the EU any worse than Trump himself is likely to do with a few months running the presidential Twitter feed.

and putting in fiscal policies which pretty much guarantee the US federal budget and economy will implode.

Please be specific. Unless this is more of you just throwing random shit at a wall because Trump apologism tickles you in some obscure way.

[mr friendly guy]

ALLEGED actions, get it right you dumb fuck. What the US did to the Ukraine is an action since we have proof of it in the form of taped conversations among senior US diplomats. What Russia supposedly did to the US is based on oh, that's right, NOTHING.

Russian involvement in the Ukrainian Civil War is 'alleged' now?

Shipping arms to one side of an ongoing civil war, including surface to air missiles that were used to shoot down a civilian airliner, is not "alleged" in this case. It's fact.

Not sure how that compares to taped conversations, of course.

Er dude, he clearly meant Russian involvement in the hacking DNC claim, not Russian involvement in the Ukraine civil war. What else could he be referring to when he says "What Russia supposedly did to the US," unless Ukraine is now part of the US now.

[Simon_Jester]

Ah, sorry. That was not so clear to me.

See, that chain of comments runs back to TRR saying:

"I'm not saying America's hands are completely clean here (though I will demand a source from you just because I can), but I don't feel that that excuses the extent of Russia's belligerent and provocative actions, including the outright armed invasion of the Crimea and eastern Ukraine"

Which was in itself a response to Aerius mocking TRR for saying:

"Though I'm of the opinion that Putin is more to blame for the Ukrainian mess," which was part of a reply to Joun_Lord's point.

So it sure seems to me that what Russia did in Ukraine is relevant to the actual question aerius has been trying to obfuscate. Namely, whether or not Aerius is justified in mocking someone for saying "the Ukrainian mess" is more Russia's fault than it was the US's fault.

The site motto says "mockery of stupid people." It does not say "mockery of people who are probably telling the truth, but you don't like them and trolling them is fun." So when people engage in intellectually dishonest mockery of a statement, I'm inclined to call them on that.
_________________________________________________________________________

And that is the context in which I brought up the fact that Russia has done a lot to fuel the Ukrainian Civil War. Sure, that has nothing to do with Russians hacking American emails. But then, neither did the comment Aerius responded to, when he decided to touch this off.

So when Aerius was writing "ALLEGED actions, you dumb fuck" at TRR on the previous page... There are only two possibilities.

One possibility is that Aerius is so busy shouting at whatever TRR says, that he can't even keep track of what TRR is talking about. So he's fooling himself into thinking that TRR is talking about Russian hacking of the DNC, when in fact TRR is replying to stuff someone else said about the Ukraine.

Now, Aerius forgetting what he's talking about is sad at best. At worst, it's a sign of Aerius being more interested in prosecuting a vendetta against TRR than he is in responding to what TRR actually said. But either way, it's less bad than the other possibility.

The other possibility is that Aerius thinks that Russian involvement in the Ukrainian Civil War is "alleged." In which case he is now contending with Archinist for "dumbest thing said on SDN in 2016." He probably won't manage to win the gold medal. But that says more about the quality of the competition than it does about the grade-A premium stupid required to believe that Russia's involvement in the war is "alleged" and not "proven."
_________________________________________________________________________

Of course, Aerius could have taken the high road, the one where you back up what you say instead of throwing up protective clouds of bullshit.

In that case, he could have argued "despite Russia massively backing one side of the civil war, to the point that a civil war could even happen, the civil war is still more a US responsibility because of the US's involvement in the coup that triggered the uprising that ballooned into a civil war in the first place." And presumably he could have defended that and we could have had a rational discussion about the merits of the issue.

There's room to argue about which of two aspiring imperial powers is to blame- the big one with the red, white, and blue flag, or the smaller one with the white, blue, and red flag.

But see, that would have required Aerius to remember that he's sticking up for Russia, not for Donald Trump. Or for some sort of weird Trumprussia amalgam.

And in turn, that would require him to have both:

1) The power to keep track of what he's talking about, AND
2) An IQ higher than that of a beetle.

Clearly, Aerius lacked one or the other of those things.

[aerius]

Just for interest, what are these policies the outgoing administration is using? Because Trump might very fuck things over if we starts putting tariffs on not just China, but other countries he has his sights on. A trade war is going to suck for everyone.

Treasury and T-bills. Basically, Treasury under Obama's administration has continued and stepped up the earlier policy of stacking all the maturity dates at the beginning & end of the curve. There's a disproportionately large amount that matures in 0-5 years and over 20 years, the percentage that matures in 5-20 years has gone down. This makes the interest expense of the US government a lot more sensitive to short term interest rate moves, it's like a variable rate mortgage where everything's great as long as rates are going down, but if rates go up you're kinda screwed if you didn't budget for it.

The problem is the 30 year trend of falling interest rates has ended and they're now on the way back up. Somewhere around 1/2 of the outstanding US T-bills will mature during Trump's 1st term, they'll need to be rolled over into a rising rate environment which means the interest expense for the US is going to go up significantly. Right now the interest expense is about 6-7% of the US budget, if rates go back to the low side of the historical average that cost goes to 15% or so by the end of Trump's term as all those short term T-bills get rolled over. That's gonna blow a nice hole in his budget and all that infrastructure spending he says he wants to do is now toast.

Add in potential damage from tariffs & rising healthcare costs and it gets ugly. Rising interest costs by itself is not too terrible, painful, but it's not going to explode the budget. Add in rising healthcare spending and potential damage from tariffs, both of which will need to be paid for by selling more T-bills into a rising interest rate environment and now you've got a problem. Might be avoidable in the next 4 years, but after that the next person's screwed.

[FaxModem1]

Russian response:

Washington Post

Putin says he won’t deport U.S. diplomats as he looks to cultivate relations with Trump

What the U.S. measures against Russia mean for the relationship between the two countries Play Video2:40
The Post's Karen DeYoung looks at the implications of the latest measures taken by the Obama administration against Russia and its interference in the U.S. election. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
By Andrew Roth December 30 at 11:09 AM
MOSCOW — In a rare break from the diplomatic tradition of reciprocal punishment, Russian President Vladi­mir Putin said Friday he would not deport U.S. diplomats in a tit-for-tat response to U.S. hacking sanctions, as Russia looks to cultivate relations with the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

“We won’t create problems for American diplomats,” Putin said in a statement released by his press service Friday afternoon, adding that Russia retained the right to punish U.S. diplomats in the future. He said he would “plan further steps for restoring the Russian-American relationship based on the policies enacted by the administration of President Donald Trump.”

In a terse response, the State Department said Friday: “We have seen President Putin’s remarks. We have nothing further to add.”

Putin’s surprising decision came just hours after the Russian Foreign Ministry suggested that Putin expel 35 U.S. diplomats and close two properties used by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as part of a growing diplomatic slugfest over Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

[Obama announces measures to punish Russia for election interference]

These are the measures Obama is taking to punish Russia over election interference Play Video1:22
The announcement culminates months of vigorous internal debate over whether and how to respond to Russia’s unprecedented election-year provocations, ranging from the hacks of the Democratic National Committee to the targeting of state electoral systems. (The Washington Post)
The measures were suggested one day after President Obama announced he would expel 35 Russian “intelligence operatives” from the United States and order the closure of Russian-owned facilities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and on Long Island in New York believed to have been used for intelligence purposes.

“It is regrettable that the Obama administration, which started out by restoring our ties, is ending its term in an anti-Russia agony. RIP,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wrote Friday on Twitter.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a statement carried by the Interfax news service, called for 31 employees of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and four diplomats from the U.S. Consulate General in St. Petersburg to be declared “persona non grata” and forced to leave the country.

Further, he suggested the Russian government ban the use of a vacation cottage, or dacha, on the outskirts of Moscow often used for holiday receptions and a warehouse in the Russian capital used by diplomatic staff.

[U.S. officially accuses Russia of hacking campaign]

“We hope that these proposals will be considered as quickly as possible,” Lavrov said, portraying the response as symmetrical to the U.S. measures. “Of course, we cannot leave such acts unanswered; reciprocity is a diplomatic law in international relations.”

Lavrov also denied accusations made by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russian state-backed hackers had leaked information about former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in order to sway the election in favor of her opponent, President-elect Donald Trump.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia. (Dmitri Lovetsky/AP)
Russian politicians and officials have been sounding off for the last day on how to respond to the Obama administration’s sweeping measures against Russia, the largest mass expulsion of diplomats since the United States expelled 51 Russian diplomats in 2001 for spying. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, promised Friday that Russia’s response would “cause serious discomfort to the American side.”

[U.S. intelligence says Russian hacks were aimed at Democrats]

But other Russian officials have suggested hedging the response, so as not to antagonize the incoming Trump administration, which Moscow has hoped will be more amenable to its interests. They, like Medvedev, have sought to focus blame for the new sanctions on the Obama administration, which is in its final month.

"Countermeasures, which are typically mandatory, should be weighted in this case, considering the known circumstances of the transitional period and the possible response of the U.S. president-elect," said Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of Russia’s upper house of parliament.

Carol Morello in Washington contributed to this report.

[Dominus Atheos]

So, who bets that Trump folds like a cheap suit and immediately retracts these sanctions as soon as he is in office?

Damn right it should be the first thing he does, these sanctions based on absolutely zero evidence are complete horseshit.

So if it wasn't the russian government, what did happen? Experts said that it was the entity "fancy bear" (aka strontium, aka apt28) that hacked the dnc, and that fancy bear is the russian government. Which of those things are false? And what's the true story?

Because right now you sound like a creationist, just throwing out random isolated criticisms that don't tie together and never offering your own explanation of what's true.

[aerius]

So if it wasn't the russian government, what did happen? Experts said that it was the entity "fancy bear" (aka strontium, aka apt28) that hacked the dnc, and that fancy bear is the russian government. Which of those things are false? And what's the true story?

Because right now you sound like a creationist, just throwing out random isolated criticisms that don't tie together and never offering your own explanation of what's true.

They got phished, I made a longer post about this in an earlier thread.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 7#p4003867

[Elheru Aran]

Russian response:

Washington Post

Putin says he won’t deport U.S. diplomats as he looks to cultivate relations with Trump
[snip]

So in other words, "meh, we don't care, our good buddy Trump is going to be President soon anyway"?

[cosmicalstorm]

Well played Putin.
Have not seen Obama so embarrassed since the Red Line incident.

December 30, 2016
Master Judoka Putin "The Gracious" Outclasses "Lame Duck" Obama

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/12/ma ... obama.html

The typical pettiness and vengefulness of the Obama administration was at full display with yesterday's expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and the closing of two Russian estates in New York and Maryland. Obama also sanctioned the Russian external intelligence service FSB and the military intelligence service GRU as well as some of its leaders for doing their job.

The move was ostensibly over alleged but completely unproven Russian "hacking" to influence the U.S. election. But the real reason is likely Obama's loss of face after being left out of the successful negotiations of a new ceasefire in Syria.

True to form the Russian government responded with high-class trolling and generosity.

The first move came through the Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom. It tweeted about the current status of the Obama administration:


bigger

The tweet gained so far more then 17,000 retweets and 19,000+ likes - certainly a "best of the year" candidate.

In response leaks and speculations appeared in the U.S. aligned media about the bad, bad Russian responses to Obama's moves.

CNN claimed that Russia would close the American school in Moscow:

The nonprofit day school, which enrolls international students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, will be closed along with the U.S. Embassy vacation dacha in Serebryany Bor on the outskirts of Moscow, according to a CNN report.
Then BBC and others said that Russia would expel 35 U.S. diplomats and spies.

But showing real greatness is not about hitting back in kind. The Russian President Putin (again) outclassed Obama with this response:

Putin decides not to expel US diplomats from Russia

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a decision not to expel any US diplomats from Russia in retaliation for Washington’s latest sanctions against Moscow.
Putin also said that Russia would not prevent the families and children (of diplomats) from using the customary rest and leisure facilities and sites during the New Year holidays.

"Moreover, I am inviting all children of US diplomats accredited in Russia to the New Year and Christmas parties in the Kremlin," Putin said.

The Russian compounds in Maryland and New York Obama closed are used for vacations of Russian kids in the U.S.

Putin's counter is using his opponent's moment of inertia to bring him to fall. A classic judoka move by a high master of the art.

"We reserve the right to take retaliatory measures but we will not stoop to the level of the so-called kitchen diplomacy, so we will take further steps to restore Russia-US relations taking into account the Trump administration’s policy," Putin said.
Ouch. The "lame duck" tweet must have already hit Obama, but this is so far out that Obama has no chance to ever catch up.

The foreign policy of two Obama administrations has been a terrible mess. Think about his big initiatives and the results at the end of his rule:

"Reset" with Russia: FAILED
Negotiations with Iran: Somewhat succeeded but not institutionalized and in high danger of being reversed
"Pivot" to Asia: FAILED
TTP and TTIP trade pacts: FAILED:
New Middle-East peace initiative: FAILED
Regime change in Ukraine: Somewhat succeeded by ended in a huge fascist mess
Regime change in Libya: Somewhat succeeded by ended in a huge terrorist haven mess
Regime change in Syria: FAILED
About the only thing Obama achieved in foreign policy was to keep the European poodles in line. An easy task due to the lack of good European politicians. He had no chance though against the great and gracious opponent Putin can be.


bigger

Putin's high class move today set the tombstone over a presidency history will judge far worse than its contemporary media echos reflect.

Posted by b on December 30, 2016 at 09:03 AM | Permalink

[Simon_Jester]

I see that Cosmicalstorm's efforts to cosplay as Baghdad Bob are going well. And that Aerius has chosen to quietly bury the whole thing where he forgot what he was arguing against in order to get another shot in, in hopes that everyone will forget it happened.

Treasury and T-bills. Basically, Treasury under Obama's administration has continued and stepped up the earlier policy of stacking all the maturity dates at the beginning & end of the curve. There's a disproportionately large amount that matures in 0-5 years and over 20 years, the percentage that matures in 5-20 years has gone down. This makes the interest expense of the US government a lot more sensitive to short term interest rate moves, it's like a variable rate mortgage where everything's great as long as rates are going down, but if rates go up you're kinda screwed if you didn't budget for it.

The problem is the 30 year trend of falling interest rates has ended and they're now on the way back up. Somewhere around 1/2 of the outstanding US T-bills will mature during Trump's 1st term, they'll need to be rolled over into a rising rate environment which means the interest expense for the US is going to go up significantly. Right now the interest expense is about 6-7% of the US budget, if rates go back to the low side of the historical average that cost goes to 15% or so by the end of Trump's term as all those short term T-bills get rolled over. That's gonna blow a nice hole in his budget and all that infrastructure spending he says he wants to do is now toast.

Do you really expect this to fly as an "Obama is doing this to screw over Trump" argument? This is getting pathetic.

Only a miniscule fraction of the US government's total borrowing has been, or will be, done during the ten weeks or so between Election Day and Inauguration Day. If Obama's been systematically unbalancing the Treasury's bond issues in a way that sells future interest rates short, and if this is going to have real consequences on the scale of the federal budget...

Obviously, Obama's been doing this for a long time. In which case the Obama administration's policy of preferentially using <5 year bonds and >20 year bonds rather than intermediate bonds would have hit a Clinton administration just about as hard as it would hit a Trump administration. Because Obama has already done most of the borrowing and bond issuing that he will ever do. Even if he 'steps up' the rate of issuing short-term bonds, he can't possibly step it up enough in two months to be significant compared to the ninety-four months of bond issuing he did prior to Election Day 2016.

Unless you're proposing that Obama was planning to wave a magic wand and- Abracadabra! Suddenly all those five year bonds coming due during Clinton's first term turn into ten year bonds!

Is that what you expected? Do you think Obama is secretly a wizard and is just withholding his magic powers to spite Trump?

Or are you just trying to retcon a policy Obama enacted to minimize federal interest payments in the short term, into a policy specifically intended to "get Trump?"

Add in potential damage from tariffs & rising healthcare costs and it gets ugly. Rising interest costs by itself is not too terrible, painful, but it's not going to explode the budget. Add in rising healthcare spending and potential damage from tariffs, both of which will need to be paid for by selling more T-bills into a rising interest rate environment and now you've got a problem. Might be avoidable in the next 4 years, but after that the next person's screwed.

Obama isn't responsible for Trump's desire to enact tariffs. The fact that Trump wants to enact a policy the federal government can't pay for reflects poorly on Trump, not Obama. I mean, there was nothing stopping Trump from looking at the distribution of Treasury bills in October 2016 and realizing an awful lot of them would be coming due in 2018 or whatever. He could have seen this coming and said "actually, we may not be able to enact those tariffs after all."

Isn't The Donald supposed to be a genius businessman? Shouldn't he be good enough at finance to spot something like that? Or maybe it was a bad idea to elect a guy who, whenever one of his businesses doesn't do well, gets a cushy bankruptcy deal so he can make the same mistakes all over again and never actually learn from them...

Furthermore, healthcare costs are rising, but Trump wants to cut and run rather than fight that battle. He made "sink Obamacare" one of the major planks of his platform. So what if he has to gut Medicaid and Medicare and deregulate the health insurance industry to pay for his tariffs and tax cuts? That's what he wanted to do all along anyway! That's what America voted for! Well, sort of.

Trying to pitch this as a consequence of Obama trying to damage Trump by screwing up the US economy is an obvious and pathetic move. The consequences would have hit Clinton just as hard as Trump. The difference is that Trump's campaign promises were based on an ignorant, distorted picture of how the US economy works, and were unattainable all along. You can't blame the Democrats for a predictable train wreck they've been trying to warn you about for a year. People were warning that Trump would get painted into a corner by the logistics of the federal budget, long before anyone seriously believed your party would be foolish enough to nominate this babbling idiot narcissist huckster. Let alone to elect him.

[cosmicalstorm]

Remember when I was Bagdadbobbing that Trump had a good shot winning the election?

[Solauren]

I have to wonder if the departing administration is doing this as an unofficial favor for Trump?

Trump gets in, repeals sanctions, and starts off on a good foot with Russia.

Then again, this could work for the Democrats to.

"Look at Trump! He's soft on national security!"

[Dragon Angel]

I think at this point, Trump could announce he would be considering suspending elections in November 2020, and his supporters would take it as something a leader should be made of. Nevermind any savvy political move the Democrats may believe they are doing (and by all accounts, it would seem they haven't learned a bit for me to believe this).

Let's see how people think in two more years...

[Pelranius]

There's not really much that Trump could do for Putin, since McCain, Graham and Rubio are guaranteed to join the Democrats in killing it.

After all, Trump can't sell out NATO members, there's really no way to increase any sort of intelligence sharing/CT efforts (seriously, Mattis would explain to Cheetos Fuhrer why you can't trust the FSB and co), he definitely can't sell military/dual use items to Russia, and we really don't have any leverage in the Middle East (i.e. Syria) that Putin cares about/realistically could expect something.

Sure, he could roll back some of the sanctions, but McCain could just insert something into the next NDAA and nullify it.

[Joun_Lord]

Though I'm of the opinion that Putin is more to blame for the Ukrainian mess, this is otherwise a very reasonable and balanced post, much more so than I usually see on this topic.

Sorry for the late reply, anywho.......

Yes and no on Putin being more to blame. I'd say the West is more to blame for the initial conflict but Pootin is more to blame for the continued violence and bloodshed.

Putin's own version of the "One China" policy where the Ruskies have trouble thinking of former Soviet states as separate from Russia really didn't make too many friends in some countries like Ukraine and Georgia (as to why he'd be interested in Georgia I have no idea, maybe he's a real big Walking Dead fan). The US exploited this unease to try to drive those countries away from Russia, to even interfere in the legally elected governments in what is probably ironic assuming I'm using irony correctly, damn you Alanis Morrisette!!!!!!!

The US and the West amped up the mess in both places by needlessly antagonizing Russia by trying to make the two countries NATO members. Again not to condone Russia's action, they were pretty inexcusable, its easy to see where Russia would be worried about having to potentially hostile countries snuggling up against them, two countries part of a military alliance designed to be pretty much against Russia. Of course looking at it from another perspective it makes it harder for Russia to push around its neighbors. Both are valid arguments.

We have no way of knowing if Russia wouldn't have omnomnom'd up part of Georgia and Ukraine anyway but we certainly know the West sticking their dicks in what is essentially Russia's sandbox didn't help matters any. That shit gave Soviet Russia the excuse to do drastic shit. Russia certainly began to take more of the lions share of blame for the conflict once they decided to roll tanks and troops over the borders and seize part of sovereign nations.

Neither side is blameless though, both acted like pig headed morons whose approach to foreign policy is about as elegant as a horny virgins approach to sex the first time, messy, sloppy, lots of crying (maybe that was unique to my experience), and with no real plan beyond sticking their dick in something. I personally think foreign policy needs less dicks.

[Simon_Jester]

Remember when I was Bagdadbobbing that Trump had a good shot winning the election?

I also remember when you were Baghdadbobbing that Russia was about to invade Sweden. So how are those Russian occupation troops working out for you?

Interestingly you seem to have become a hell of a lot more pro-Russia in the past year or so, now that Russia is promoting a right-wing agenda in other developed countries. Rather than just being the Vague Ominous Threat About To Randomly Invade Sweden...

I blame the cumulative buckyball poisoning.

There's not really much that Trump could do for Putin, since McCain, Graham and Rubio are guaranteed to join the Democrats in killing it.

After all, Trump can't sell out NATO members, there's really no way to increase any sort of intelligence sharing/CT efforts (seriously, Mattis would explain to Cheetos Fuhrer why you can't trust the FSB and co), he definitely can't sell military/dual use items to Russia, and we really don't have any leverage in the Middle East (i.e. Syria) that Putin cares about/realistically could expect something.

Sure, he could roll back some of the sanctions, but McCain could just insert something into the next NDAA and nullify it.

Trump doesn't have to give Putin anything, because Putin doesn't need anything the US has. What Putin really needs is for the US to not do anything. To not effectually back up countries on Russia's borders, to hem and haw, to fail to organize a NATO response (or better yet, alienate NATO nations with xenophobia and right-wing lunacy).

Putin doesn't need Trump to do him a favor. He just needs Trump to half-ass any American response to, say, Russians bullying Georgia. While looking and sounding tough and pretending to be in charge of the (ineffectual, useless) response.

And Trump has been preparing to play that role all his life. He does it even when nobody wants him to. He is very, very good at half-assing things, being useless, and pretending to be in charge.

...

Putin knows Trump running America is good for him. Because Putin looked the man in the eye. He was able to get a sense of his lack of a soul. That is enough for Putin.

[cosmicalstorm]

Remember when I was Bagdadbobbing that Trump had a good shot winning the election?

I also remember when you were Baghdadbobbing that Russia was about to invade Sweden. So how are those Russian occupation troops working out for you?

Interestingly you seem to have become a hell of a lot more pro-Russia in the past year or so, now that Russia is promoting a right-wing agenda in other developed countries. Rather than just being the Vague Ominous Threat About To Randomly Invade Sweden...

I blame the cumulative buckyball poisoning.

My dark imaginations of the future are hopefully wrong Simon.

Maybe on a december day in 2026 I will log into this forum and mock my past worried minds failed predictions of war and instability. Maybe this will be the Singularity century, widespread automatization, rejuvenation medicine, neural implants, artificial intelligence will combine to create a world of richness and peace we can hardly dream of given another decade or two. Damn I want that.

But back to topic, I'm no stupid Russian fanboy: The current Russian leadership deserves respect because they are playing smart moves, so far.
I remember seeing Putin on TV 2000, hearing experts gloss about Russian Democracy, knowing in my heart he was going to be another Tsar. Anna Politskovaya, polonium, Georgia, Crimea and I don't doubt the FSB played a part in the election now, not hacking the voting machines perhaps, but certainly I sense their hand in Podesta, by softly and subtly managing Wikileaks and Snowden.

On one hand I wish Russians well, they suffered tremendously the past century under Nazi invasion, crazed Communism, a drunken fool and Oligarchs of the 90s.

On the other hand I DO fear they will make a move on Gotland in a not so distant future.

The Sweden rationale is simple: Easy target, makes NATO backup for the Baltics hopelessly impossible. The election of Trump made this even more plausible.

Swedens armed forces are lacking in all respects and not NATO members. There was a hope that NATO would defend Sweden for free if Russia moved, but with Pay for your NATO Trump POTUS that hope is now gone.

For Swedens sake it would be good if they suffered another Afghanistan or some kind of internal Moscow strife, robbing them of the ability to make another Crimea move against Europe.

- Sweden is unstable because of a combination of

1. Wishful thinking based immigration policy (My home town is the ISIS capital of Europe per capita, I have fucking seen martyr portraits hanging from balconies while riding my bike to work).
2. Underfunded police and military and every other piece of vital government.
3. The kind of nonsense borrowing printed money to maintain basic economic function that could come crashing down...? well, when, we've been waiting since 2007, waiting, watching international finance that nobody seems to understand wiggle like a pen on its head.

In Sweden and many other countries there is a brewing discontent that may not be obvious from the outside but it is here. There is a situation where nationalists with little political competence will be launched into power in 2018.
Maybe that's when the borrowing can not go on?
When it stops Sweden is forced into the same kind of misery and despair as Greece.

Sweden contains hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Middle East, disproportionally many are young men with literally no hope of ever landing a wife because we are now at Chinese level men/women gender-gap.
The great majority are currently living of welfare, quite happy lives, many of them want nothing to do with violence or religion, but a sizeable minority of them do and that's enough (how many % of Afghanistan's population are card carrying Talibans? Not that many, but they rule it all)

What happens if a financial crisis, a ultra nationalist elected goverment or maybe both at the same time, suddenly makes this welfare dry up?
Will they overnight turn around and create a functional suburb-economy and be self supporting or will they riot and set up ethno-religious separate states?

At this time of national despair the vultures collect: The Russians could make a move towards Gotland. Learning from Syria, Russia might supply rebel groups inside Sweden to destabilize us even more.

I will happily come back here and ask to be named Bagdad-Bob-Storm if some disaster along these lines have not played out in Europe/Scandinavia by New Years eve 2022.

(Ceased buckyballs since a year ago due to production uncertainties, the basic product is probably hell of good but the oil peroxidised and became toxic all too easily, I use MitoQ as my mito-antioxidant of choice now, should start a thread about that but I have too little time to post now)

[Wild Zontargs]

Ars Technica isn't exactly a friend of the right, Trump, Russia, or the GOP, but they're not buying what the White House report on Russia's hacking is selling:

White House fails to make case that Russian hackers tampered with election
US issued JAR billed itself as an indictment that would prove Russian involvement.

by Dan Goodin - Dec 30, 2016 6:09pm EST

Talk about disappointments. The US government's much-anticipated analysis of Russian-sponsored hacking operations provides almost none of the promised evidence linking them to breaches that the Obama administration claims were orchestrated in an attempt to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

The 13-page report, which was jointly published Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, billed itself as an indictment of sorts that would finally lay out the intelligence community's case that Russian government operatives carried out hacks on the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Clinton Campaign Chief John Podesta and leaked much of the resulting material. While security companies in the private sector have said for months the hacking campaign was the work of people working for the Russian government, anonymous people tied to the leaks have claimed they are lone wolves. Many independent security experts said there was little way to know the true origins of the attacks.

Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate. Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups.

"This ultimately seems like a very rushed report put together by multiple teams working different data sets and motivations," Robert M. Lee, CEO and Founder of the security company Dragos, wrote in a critique published Friday. "It is my opinion and speculation that there were some really good government analysts and operators contributing to this data and then report reviews, leadership approval processes, and sanitation processes stripped out most of the value and left behind a very confusing report trying to cover too much while saying too little."

The sloppiness, Lee noted, included the report's conflation of Russian hacking groups APT28 and APT29—also known as CozyBear, Sandworm, Sednit, and Sofacy, among others—with malware names such as BlackEnergy and Havex, and even hacking capabilities such as "Powershell Backdoor." The mix up of such basic classifications does little to inspire confidence that the report was carefully or methodically prepared. And that only sows more reasons for President elect Donald Trump and his supporters to cast doubt on the intelligence community's analysis on a matter that, if true, poses a major national security threat.

The writers showed a similar lack of rigor when publishing so-called indicators of compromise, which security practitioners use to detect if a network has been breached by a specific group or piece of malware. As Errata Security CEO Rob Graham pointed out in a blog post, one of the signatures detects the presence of "PAS TOOL WEB KIT," a tool that's widely used by literally hundreds, and possibly thousands, of hackers in Russia and Ukraine, most of whom are otherwise unaffiliated and have no connection to the Russian government.

"In other words, these rules can be a reflection of the fact the government has excellent information for attribution," Graham wrote. "Or, it could be a reflection that they've got only weak bits and pieces. It's impossible for us outsiders to tell."

"Both foolish and baseless"

Security consultant Jeffrey Carr also cast doubt on claims that attacks that hit the Democratic National Committee could only have originated from Russian-sponsored hackers because they relied on the same malware that also breached Germany's Bundestag and French TV network TV5Monde. Proponents of this theory, including the CrowdStrike researchers who analyzed the Democratic National Committee's hacked network, argue that the pattern strongly implicates Russia because no other actor would have the combined motivation and resources to hack the same targets. But as Carr pointed out, the full source code for the X-Agent implant that has long been associated with APT28 was independently obtained by researchers from antivirus provider Eset.

"If ESET could do it, so can others," Carr wrote. "It is both foolish and baseless to claim, as CrowdStrike does, that X-Agent is used solely by the Russian government when the source code is there for anyone to find and use at will."

The doubts raised by Lee, Graham, and Carr underscore the difficulty members of the US intelligence community face when taking findings out of the highly secretive channels they normally populate and putting them into the public domain. Indeed, the Joint Analysis Report makes no mention of the Democratic party or even the Democratic National Committee. The lack of specifics and vagueness about exactly how the DHS and FBI have determined Russian involvement in the hacks leaves the report sounding more like innuendo than a carefully crafted indictment.

The intelligence community has found itself in this position before, including in attributing a highly destructive attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014 to North Korea. In fairness, the reticence in both cases is likely justified by the interest in protecting sources and methods used to detect such attacks. And as Lee was quick to note, strong technical evidence is likely to be included in reports to Congress that later may be declassified. Still, it's hard to escape the conclusion that Thursday's Joint Analysis Report provides almost no new evidence to support the Obama Administration's claims Russia attempted to interfere with the US electoral process. Absent something more, the increasingly bitter debate may rage on indefinitely.

TL;DR: hopefully the classified version has a lot more evidence, because the public version is a crock of shit.

[Grumman]

TL;DR: hopefully the classified version has a lot more evidence, because the public version is a crock of shit.

Hopefully the classified version doesn't have a lot more evidence. If the options are that Obama is trying to pull another "No really, murdering people with anti-tank missiles is totally legal, guys!" and that the neocons actually have something they'd use to excuse committing more shady CIA bullshit, the former is preferable.

[Wild Zontargs]

TL;DR: hopefully the classified version has a lot more evidence, because the public version is a crock of shit.

Hopefully the classified version doesn't have a lot more evidence. If the options are that Obama is trying to pull another "No really, murdering people with anti-tank missiles is totally legal, guys!" and that the neocons actually have something they'd use to excuse committing more shady CIA bullshit, the former is preferable.

As much as I personally suspect it's bullshit, and I don't wish to believe that Russia actually did something worse than possibly air the DNC's dirty laundry (or not even that, if Wikileaks' claim of sources is accurate), I do wish to believe that the US Government isn't pulling another "Iraqi WMDs" on the world to advance their own personal agendas.

...Actually, yeah. It's a shit sandwich either way, just decide whether you want it on Russian or American bread.

[Simon_Jester]

TL;DR: hopefully the classified version has a lot more evidence, because the public version is a crock of shit.

Hopefully the classified version doesn't have a lot more evidence. If the options are that Obama is trying to pull another "No really, murdering people with anti-tank missiles is totally legal, guys!" and that the neocons actually have something they'd use to excuse committing more shady CIA bullshit, the former is preferable.

I'm not sure I follow.

Why would it be better if Obama is making baseless accusations, than if we're actually being told the truth about a thing that happened?

If "Russia hacked the election" is true, then I want to know that it is true. Don't you?

[Raj Ahten]

Don't worry everyone, Trump's got this. Apparently he has exclusive info on the hacking he will reveal early next week. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of the Trump presidency!

The man is completely incapable of talking without adding in some outrageous bullshit. I'll be waiting for his exclusive new info with baited breathe. Maybe he tripped over the 400 pound hacker in the basement of Trump Tower?

From the New York Times

Trump Promises a Revelation on Hacking

By MAGGIE HABERMANDEC. 31, 2016
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald J. Trump, expressing lingering skepticism about intelligence assessments of Russian interference in the election, said on Saturday evening that he knew “things that other people don’t know” about the hacking, and that the information would be revealed “on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

Speaking to a handful of reporters outside his Palm Beach, Fla., club, Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump cast his declarations of doubt as an effort to seek the truth.

“I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge,” Mr. Trump said of the intelligence agencies. “If you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster, and they were wrong,” he added, referring to intelligence cited by the George W. Bush administration to support its march to war in 2003. “So I want them to be sure,” the president-elect said. “I think it’s unfair if they don’t know.”

He added: “And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.”

When asked what he knew that others did not, Mr. Trump demurred, saying only, “You’ll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

Mr. Trump, who does not use email, also advised people to avoid computers when dealing with delicate material. “It’s very important, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way, because I’ll tell you what, no computer is safe,” Mr. Trump said.

“I don’t care what they say, no computer is safe,” he added. “I have a boy who’s 10 years old; he can do anything with a computer. You want something to really go without detection, write it out and have it sent by courier.”

The comments on Saturday were a departure from a statement that Mr. Trump issued through transition officials last week, in which he said that it was time for people to “move on” from the hacking issue but that he would be briefed on the matter by intelligence officials early in the new year.

On Thursday, President Obama ordered a set of retaliatory measures against Russia over the election hacking. The United States expelled 35 Russian diplomats and shuttered two estates that it claimed had been used for intelligence-gathering.

The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, declined to respond in kind to the measures, a gesture that Mr. Trump appeared to view favorably. He praised it on Twitter and criticized news media coverage that had been harsh about Russia.

Mr. Trump, who has sought a warmer relationship with Mr. Putin, has repeatedly scoffed at the notion that Russia was behind the hacking, a stance at odds with members of his own party. At one point, Mr. Trump declared that the hacking may have been the work of “someone sitting on their bed weighing 400 pounds.”

[Grumman]

If "Russia hacked the election" is true, then I want to know that it is true. Don't you?

If. Yes, if you start from the assumption that the Obama administration's claims are true, it is a good thing if we become better informed about the state of the world. But the Obama administration has not yet provided good cause to believe the Obama administration's claims are true.

I was saying that given the facts as we know them - that the Obama administration is making accusations against the Russians and unilaterally placing sanctions upon them with an executive order - we're better off if the Russians are not actually doing the things they are being accused of.