Yes, Russia Hacks. And you sound like an idiot joking about it.
January 9, 2017

 
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It was welcome news to finally hear universal agreement (sans Trump himself) over the weekend that Russia did indeed hack DNC computers in an attempt to meddle in the 2016 election. I find it astonishing how many Trump supporters are quick to ridicule American intelligence and defend Vladimir Putin in their desperate attempt to protect the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency. Of all people to rush to the defense of: a former KGB agent who has had his political enemies arrested (from those who dared run against him to three teenaged girls in a band called “Pussy Riot”), his critics assassinated (Alexander Litvinenko poisoned with polonium-210), invaded the former Soviet nation of Georgia and annexed Ukraine, sided with Assad in its massacre of Syrian rebels, and provides weapons to Iran that find their way onto the battlefield to kill U.S. troops. Of all people to doubt of possibly seeking to interfere with our election, why on earth would anyone give freakin’ Vladimir Putin the benefit of the doubt? Putin rose to power in 2000 when Boris Yeltzen resigned and appointed him the new president of Russia. And when term-limits forced him out after eight years, he appointed himself “Prime Minister” for four years while Medvedev kept his seat warm. Then it was back to being “president” in 2012. That’s not the history of someone who believes in democracy. That’s someone who longs for the bad old days of Soviet “dictator for life” authoritarian rule. And Putin has been anything but subtle about wanting to return to the “good old days” of Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe. To hear people joke “Must be Russia’s fault! Har har!” every time our own government announces something they decide doesn’t seem credible to them, only makes them sound ridiculous. “Ha ha! That Galileo guy thinks the Earth orbits the Sun! Must be Copernicus’ fault! Ha ha!” Did you hear Issac Newton thinks the ground reaches up and pulls objects down to the ground??? I guess no one told the birds! Haw haw!” Climate Change isn’t real either. Just look at all the snow we got this Winter! Ha ha!

Nearly ten years ago, I wrote an op/ed entitled “Debunking the Four Basic 9/11 Conspiracy Myths” after getting fed up with all the arm-chair physicists, fools and idiots during the Bush Administration… which I despised… claiming “9/11 was an inside job” based on “evidence” that was more a demonstration of their own ignorance than proof of their fever-dreams. It remains one of my most visited posts to this day, and sadly, I find that I still must direct people to it now that we’ve just elected a Conspiracy Theory devote’ president of the United States. Keep in mind that the same tinfoil hat wearing “InfoWars” viewers telling you Russia did not hack our election are the same disgusting troglodytes that insist “Sandy Hook” was a “False Flag” operation and “no child actually died” in that shooting in Connecticut. Once you’ve reached that level of disconnect from reality, you seriously need to take a step back and realign your moral compass.

And that’s why I was so relieved to hear even members of Trump’s own staff (though not the man himself) finally concede the fact Russia hacked DNC computers during the election, saving face by arguing instead that, “yes, the evidence of Russian meddling is undeniable, but no evidence exists that the vote itself was hacked, changing the outcome of the election.” Problem is, NO ONE EVER CLAIMED THEY DID. The laughing hyenas that have been cracking wise for weeks now dismissing every report of Russian hacking have been pointing to a lack of evidence of Election Day hacking as “proof” that reports of Russian hacking are not to be believed.

So I went back and did a little digging through the news archives for other examples of Russian hacking prior to the election to demonstrate they have a history of doing this sort of thing, and not just since the election:

    • July 2013, four Russian and one Ukrainian hackers hack NASDAQ servers and steal 160 million credit/debit card numbers and the passwords of 800,000 customer accounts.

 

    • February 2014, the U.S. State Department is forced to warn anyone traveling to Russia for the Sochi Winter Olympics that their phones & laptops are being hacked by the Russian government almost from the moment their plane touches down.

 

 

    • July 2014: FBI finds evidence suggesting the Russian government itself “slipped a digital bomb” onto NASDAQ servers with the intent of wreaking havoc on the U.S. economy (suggesting this was a continuation of the July 2013 NASDAQ hacking.)

 

 

 

    • November 2014: Following the October hack of low-level White House computer systems, additional information emerges of FOUR such hacks by Russia into Washington government computers systems, going back as far as a 2008 breach of the Pentagon.

 

    • December 2014 report finds the U.S. Energy grid was hacked 79 times in 2014… down from 145 times the previous year. Russian malware called “BlackEnergy” was discovered on computers that control turbines that generate electricity that could have been devastating if it had been activated.

 

 

    • June 2015: German Chancellor Merkel’s computer became “patient zero” in a hack that involved the planting of trojan malware by Russian hackers to give them access to German government computers.

 

    • July 2015: Russian Hackers use sophisticated malware called “Hammertoss” to hack U.S. government computers via Twitter and Github.

 

All of these reports (sans the last two) of Russian hacking took place before the 2016 election was officially underway, and NONE of them had anything to do with the election. But Russia (and hackers originating in Russia yet received no prosecution at their hand) was already frequently caught intruding in secure computer systems, committing crimes and in several instances endangering the security of the American public, clearly testing our cyber-defenses and making the process of hosting IT infrastructures difficult for us in each step. And in the instance of the planting of malware on Chancellor Markel’s own computer spreading throughout the German government, it is clear they were not focused solely on hacking the American government. These are bad actors. We don’t need to be “praising” Putin or talking about how best to become “friends” with him.

Personally, I believe Trump’s love of all things Russia started with a single ridiculous comment when he inadvertently was forced to defend Russia rather than admit he made a mistake (possibly his “they won’t invade Ukraine if I’m president” gaffe). Because as I’ve repeatedly pointed out on here, Republicans would rather make up nonsense than admit they might have been wrong or made a mistake. Their absolute paranoia of being caught admitting they don’t know something they probably should… thus opening them up to ridicule… forces them to say something blazingly stupid that opens them up to ridicule anyway. Be it Sarah Palin’s “I read ALL the papers” when asked to name just one, George Dubya saying “Can’t get fooled again” for fear of admitting he could possibly be fooled twice, and the master of Conservative paranoia over fear of being called stupid: VP Dan Quayle who said so many dumb things trying not to sound dumb, it actually became his public persona. And now Trump is stuck defending Russia and praising Putin because the alternative would be to admit he made a mistake by praising & defending Putin/Russia.

Yet, now, having been briefed by his own security forces, not even Trump himself seems to be denying that government computers were indeed hacked… by “someone”. He still leaves open the possibility it was “China or some guy in a bed somewhere”, but even his Chief of Staff Reince Priebus conceded on Fox “news” Sunday yesterday that the findings of the intelligence community that not only did Russia hack DNC (and RNC too BTW) computers, and did so with the express intention of helping Donald Trump. We know the later to be true because why else would they release only the information stolen from the DNC and not the RNC as well?

Just like with the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, we see a lot of people who don’t know all the facts making fun of things they don’t know a whole hell of a lot about, looking like idiots in the process, but not being shamed because the people they’re making their ridiculous assertions too don’t know any better themselves. I saw a Trump supporter yesterday refer to “ObamaCare” as “Commiecare” and what a failed “program” it is. Just to reiterate for the zillionth time, “Obamacare” ISN’T A PROGRAM. IT’S NOT INSURANCE. YOU CAN’T BUY “OBAMACARE”. And millions of Trump supporters want him to repeal something that DOESN’T EXIST because they believe it’s not doing something Republicans made sure it could not do by law: control costs.

One last important point: JUST BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT HASN’T CONFIDED IN YOU PERSONALLY just how it is we know for a fact Russia is behind the hacking of computers related to the election does NOT mean they don’t have proof that’s exactly what happened. The last time the White House revealed classified information, revealing sources, endangering the lives of countless intelligence agents and their sources, and rendering an entire CIA front organization that took a decade to establish at a cost of billions in tax-payer dollars useless just so it could save face, was when Dick Cheney exposed Valery Plame. So when you whine about the government not providing YOU with enough proof to prove to YOUR satisfaction that Russia was behind the hacking of computers seeking information to assist Donald Trump and/or embarrass/hurt Hillary Clinton, maybe it’s because YOU’RE JUST NOT THAT DAMNED IMPORTANT. It happened. It’s a fact even members of the incoming Trump Administration now concede is true. Sorry if you think you need to be inside the loop on this one. Get over yourself.


 

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January 9, 2017 · Admin Mugsy · No Comments - Add
Posted in: Crime, myth busting, Politics, Rants, rewriting history, Scandals

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