reddogblitz

I had a similar experience with a friend of mine. She played me the quote from Trump and I'm thinking this is pretty much word for word what the Governor of Virginia said. She said he was pulling it out of his you-know-what. She didn't even know about the quote from the VA Gov. This is a very smart person but only reads one side of the story like Cuomo I guess. When I called her attention to it I was told I was backing up Trump. Sad.

Immigration has been a political football my entire voting life which spans 5 decades. It was even before that. If you think candidate X from the D (or R) lineup will fix it, good luck.

IT'S a shame we hired the prosecutor we did instead of one of these 700 other people.

As always, thanks for the thoughtful response Deranged. I did only mention Russia but really I think other countries were in involved in the social media part of this. Like China probably as well as some 400 lb guys in beds with laptops. These people were not so much trying to influence the outcome of the election as in sowing unrest and division in the USA. A house divided cannot stand. That's the plan and we're falling for it. We know they did this with stuff like organizing online competing protests on the same day or the Hillary Rape Ring run out of a Pizza Parlor. Caused a lot of division and unrest and people got hurt. WMD Agreed. That's why one other thing I'd like to see is for Congress to pass a law for a public service campaign with people like Bill Clinton, W, Obama, Carter say we got snookered last time. We gotta be smarter. Don't believe everything you read or hear. Simple, but might cause some people to think. You're not understating me correctly. My idea is for congress to pass a law that from 6 months before a presidential election until the day after it's decided, no social media posts, tweets, zings, Instagrams, Pinterest whatevers, etc. can be shown in the USA that originated outside the USA. You could still search the internet on what other countries think of our candidates or what disinformation they're pedaling to your heart's content. It just won't be pushed to you. That's not censorship. If a tech company violates, they pay a hefty fine. Offer a reward for hackers to find them and turn them in. Let's just talk it over amongst us Americans. Amen. That's what it's all about. And yes, we have our own large sophisticated cyber/information warfare apparatus. And they're good. Stuxnet was effective for example. That's the reason I think we are looking silly over this whole thing. We've done worse. Stop whining. Move on.

Freedom and information in America is what needs to be protected. And as I said, my plan is not to censor anything. If you want to find out what Russia thinks about the election and what disinformation they're pedaling by all means, look it up. Just don't let them push it to us just as we would not let them push a bomb in our direction. America First. As Ted Cruz would say, if all you got is people should be smarter, you ain't got nuthin'.

Did Russia participate in the Brexit or French or Ukraine elections? Did Russia not try to influence things here in 2016 at all? What was the IRA doing? Again, there were many bad actors. I'm just trying to plug one hole. I can't believe people are so adamant about protecting our Information Warfare enemy's 1st amendment rights. And don't hand me the censorship thing, we're already heavily censored. Besides I don't want to censor anyone. Look it up if you want. Just don't let them push it to us. And you don't need FaceBook ads when news outlets like CNN and the New York Times are using your disinformation as a source for their stories. How do we get all these people to be smarter again? They're getting dumber by the minute thanks to the greatest population control device ever invented (so far). As I said in my initial post, information warfare has been around forever. It has now risen to a much loftier/effective level than at any other point in human history by far. We might need to re think this IMHO.

It was both.

Prepare to lose. We're well on the way. You already do. the other side is heavily weaponizing information and using it against us, so we'll just sit back and hope people get smarter. Sounds like a plan.

Yes, but a lot of it did come from there in the form of tweet bots etc.. My friend is an avid social media person and she knew it was going on at the time. It was that obvious to those smart enough. The Mueller Report talks about it. Since we don't have Obama in the White House this time perhaps not nearly as much of the internal stuff will happen. https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/technology/article229433499.html Unless you don't believe the Mueller report?

If people want to find out what Russia thinks about our election during that 6 month period, they can google or if they're smart DuckduckGo it. Just don't let 'em push it to us, ,that's all. No one's being censored or deprived of information. Think of this way, Americans have the right to go anywhere and do anything, should we also allow foreign troops to do the same? This is INFORMATION WARFARE. I just don't think we can sit back and hope it doesn't work this time because people will be smarter.

Looks to me like letting it all don't work worth a darn. In 2016, Letting it in and getting people all freaked out and having our legit news organizations using it as sources helped our external Information Warfare enemies immensely. It's a new world, we may need to change our tactics.

You got a good point there. Got a better idea? People being smarter. Like I said, good luck with that. Serious question: What do you think are the odds of that happening? I do agree that this would be THE BEST way to fight it. Instead of the time and energy spent trying to get Trump which will do NOTHING to help the 2020 election, we should be ramping up a public relations campaign with commercials with Bill Clinton, W, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Kimmel, etc. telling people to be smarter this time. Like you say, it's our best chance. But no, impeach Trump! Blue vs Red.

Sure, it wouldn't stop them. Nothing is 100%, especially in this game. But it would cut out a lot of it. Sure there are things like IP spoofing and so forth etc, but they could also be detected and squashed. Information Warfare is a game of whack a mole no doubt. But we gotta do something. Just hoping people on social media will get smarter is a fools errand and recipe for tyranny, a race war, and blood in the streets IMHO. We saw it last time and are seeing it again already. We gotta fight back in the Information Warfare space to have any chance IMHO.

Good luck with that. for the most part, people are not getting better at discernment but are getting worse at it. And will continue to. Social media makes people dumber, not smarter. the real problem IMHO is that a majority of people on earth have decided to voluntarily sign up and participate in the greatest population control device ever invented (so far). Russia is doing this to countries all over the world. Brexit, France, Ukraine. We can sit back, and as you suggest, hope people are smarter this time, or do as I suggest, fight fire with fire. Block everything that comes from there for six months so we can at least try to have a more sane less disinformed election cycle. 2016 seemed pretty tyrannical to me. 2020 is gonna be even worse for the same reasons IMHO.

I agree in principle. In a perfect world without foreign governments and other bad actors trying to manipulate our citizens to sow division and perhaps even sway the outcome of or elections. This is information warfare. I've read of it for years and it has been around, but it has now been bumped to a whole new level. We must react accordingly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_warfare Sounds like the 2016 election to me. I don't think we can depend on Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter and Google to weed out all the offending stuff and protect us from foreign disinformation. Until we can come up with a better way to fight this, just shut it all down 6 months before the election. Let us Americans have an internal discussion about our own election. I know Zuckeberg can do this because he censors things in countries like China and not elsewhere. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/facebook-secret-software-censor-user-posts-china You could still read foreign news sources and email with your rooskie friends and relatives. They just can't push to us. I could do it in 100 lines of code or less: if(ipAddress not in usListOfIPs) { tweet >> /dev/null; }

It was, but this is the bigs. You gotta make that catch.

A number in the 50s like 56 would be sweet IMHO.

because they're trying to F¿©K with us. And they're good at it.

93

Fun while it lasted. Hopefully the new XFL in 2020 will do better.

Sounds Nixonian if true. https://www.alternet.org/2015/08/huge-role-alcohol-has-played-oval-office/

Reminds me of all the hullabaloo when the Bush twins flashed the hook 'em horns sign.

My bad, I took GW to be George W Bush. So we agree

Miss out on the whole LBJ /Nixon thing? I never had sexual relations with that woman ... It's been going on a lot longer than since W. Probably since W(ashington).

I have now watched some of the testimony and questions, or lack thereof and reminds me of something I heard Molly Ivins say in a speech on the North Texas State University campus in the early 2000s. "When it comes to government and the legislature you are paying for it, so you might as well watch it and enjoy it." Truer words could not be expressed in regards to this hearing. Some of my favorite parts so far: Senator Hirono railed onto Barr and insulted him for 5 1/2 minutes and then says "I have a few questions." What a way to set up a witness to get truthful answers form them. Ted Cruz' butter up technique probably would have worked better if she really had any questions to ask. Senator Fienstien not asking a single question but instead gave a 10 and a half minute speech culminating in trying to get Mueller to testify. On a side note, she is really old school. Her name plate reads "Mrs. Fienstien". Senator Klobuchar using the first 4 1/2 minutes making a campaign speech about all the good work she has done in congress. Then doing her "preponderance of the evidence" routine. Senator Cruz buttering up General Barr and then only asking a yes/no question or two and the rest of the time just making a speech. Senator Harris castigating Barr for not reading all the underlying evidence before writing his report. Is he supposed to re investigate the whole investigation to make sure an honorable man like Mueller didn't hoodwink us? It always kills me in these things where Congress needs to bring these people in and have to ask them all these important questions that the American People have a right to know and then when they get in there. the Congress people just make speeches primarily. They collude on what questions are best to ask and all ask the same thing. This time it was "The Letter". The last one I watched was for Brett to ask for an investigation. Again, we're paying handsomely for it, might as well enjoy it. I know I got a few LOLs in.