Tag: Russian Election Interference

Saturday Soother – August 5, 2017

(Sunday Cartoons will appear on Monday as Wrongo is attending a family event on Saturday)

The Daily Escape:

Mt. Bromo volcano Java Indonesia, 2016 – photo by Reynold Riksa Dewantara

We flushed another week down the crapper. A few things to think about: At a rally in Huntington, WV, Donald Trump characterized the investigation into his campaign as a “total fabrication” and again demanded Hillary Clinton be investigated.

The US Secret Service couldn’t agree on a lease with the Trump Organization to keep a command post in Trump Tower in NYC, so they have moved to a trailer outside. Do ya think that Trump could call Trump and worked this thing out?

But, everyone is talking about Special Counsel Mueller’s convening of a Grand Jury. As important, the Senate blocked Trump from being able to make recess appointments while they are on their August break. This requires the agreement of every senator, so the Senate will be in session every three business days throughout the August recess. That means Trump can’t fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions and/or Robert Mueller, and use the recess appointment process to appoint a successor without Senate confirmation of the appointment.

And Trump is going on vacay just like the Senate. The guy who once asked, “What’s the point?” about vacations, left on Friday for a 17-day vacation at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort. While he’s away, the White House will undertake a number of repairs, including replacing the heating and cooling system, and repairing steps on the South Portico.

Is that why Trump called the White House a dump?

Too much to think about, so let’s take a Saturday Soother break. Get yourself an iced La Colombe Pure Black Cold Brew coffee, sit in a cool dark room, and watch this video of a flash mob doing Gustav Holst’s “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity“, the 4th movement from Holst’s “The Planets”. It is performed by the Berklee Contemporary Symphonic Orchestra (BCSO) in November 2016 at Boston’s Prudential Center:

Why doesn’t this happen when Wrongo is at the mall?

To cap off our Saturday shout-out to Gustav Holst, this same movement of Holst’s “The Planets” was also used to set the following poem by Sir Cecil Spring Rice to music, and is a hymn to Britain:

I Vow to Thee, My Country

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,

Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;

The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,

That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;

The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,

The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

 

And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago,

Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;

We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;

Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;

And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,

And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

 

It was sung at the funerals of Winston Churchill, Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher.

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – July 16, 2017

Trump just returned from France. French President Macron apparently became the “Trump Whisperer” while escorting His Orangeness around Paris, because nothing terrible happened. Trump returned to the incessant talk about who attended Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Russians, what was discussed, and what Trump Sr. knew about it all. OTOH, Mitch McConnell tried to breathe new life into the GOP Health Insurance Plan.

Replacing Obamacare still is looking mean:

 

One insurance option that never made it into the bill:

Putin said he would help Donny find the hackers:

People talk about the uncanny resemblance between Sr. and Jr.:

Baseball’s All-Star break gave the GOP an idea:

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Parsing the “Russia Hacked Our Democracy” Meme

The Daily Escape:

Kangaroos in a vineyard in Barossa Valley Australia, June 2017 – photo by David Gray

People can’t stop talking about the Donny/Vlad meeting in Hamburg, and the idea that Trump’s position regarding the potential Russian involvement in the 2016 election is: “Let’s move on”. Then, we learned that our new Syria strategy is driven by Russia and its plan for a cease fire.

But, Russia is the story of the Trump presidency. We learned over the weekend that Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr. met with Russian lawyers back in June of 2016. But, despite the continued news about meetings with the Russians, appearances don’t make the Trumps guilty. Mueller and his team will examine and understand the full extent of what the Russians did, and what they attempted to do. Only then will we determine if the Russians efforts had any effect.

There are two broad areas of potential Russian involvement to consider:

Interference in the electoral process: Russians attempt to manipulate domestic politics of many countries, including the US. We do the same. How serious is the threat? Political candidates already use a full array of tools and technologies to persuade voters toward specific social and political agendas. This persuasion effort is as old as humanity itself.

Whether tech-centric forms of propaganda, employing social media, fake news and data-mining techniques are effective remains to be proven. America has been engaged in exactly this sort of exercise in foreign lands for a long time, without significant (or lasting) success.

These technologies can only support ideas and feelings that are already out there. So, what was out there? Consider these:

  • Hillary’s emails threatening national security!
  • Dispensing contradictory, or conflicting, information like “Hillary Clinton is very sick”.
  • Using social connections to generate, or modify, beliefs, like “Trump is a successful executive who can fix the government”.

This type of information warfare is a lot like managing a stock portfolio. Hackers write small, diverse news stories and then wait to see what pays off. It is unclear that hackers were the tipping point in the election, and it is far from clear that the Russians were the sole party behind them. We don’t talk about the many countries that tried to influence our elections, including Saudi Arabia, China, Israel, and Ukraine. Is it more acceptable that the Saudi’s did it the “right” way, by donating massive amounts to their candidate’s campaign?

It is highly unlikely that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians regarding interference in the 2016 election.

Hacking into political databases: the “Russian hacking” stories are not just that Russians hacked the computers of US political operations including the DNC, but that the Russians have somehow delivered the election to Trump. Thus, the story morphed from “Russians infiltrated DNC computers,” to “Russians hacked our democracy.”

The first is both possible and probable, but the second is just wrong.

Hacking our democracy requires changing or destroying votes for one side in the presidential election, or suppressing voter turnout. Not even the Russians have the resources to pull off that feat. They may have preferred that Trump win, they may have done a few things, and Trump won, but that isn’t “hacked our democracy”.

Wrongo thinks it is probable that “Russian hacking” occurred. It is a serious story, but it needs to be placed in context. Yes, Russia has a political agenda. Yes, they use dirty tricks to influence political outcomes. Yes, this needs to be taken seriously. The problem is that once that is taken out of context, everything is reduced to political talking points. We are asked to choose between two absurd choices: Either Trump is a Russian stooge, or accusations against Trump are a baseless pack of lies.

The likely “truth” is that Russians were doing something, but what they did wasn’t material to the (relatively) close outcome of this election. This has been crowded out of serious discussion.

And who hacked us is still not definitively attributed: there are too many suspects with a motive, means, and opportunity. We can’t yet discount the possibility of domestic operatives (or disgruntled campaign workers) or political plants within campaigns doing mischief.

Sooner or later, we will figure out the definitive attribution for the hacks. And 2018 will bring new tools and techniques.

Who falls short may depend more on message, and less on technology.

Time for a tune. Here is Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit doing “Hope the High Road” (leads you home again):

Takeaway Lyric:

I know you’re tired
And you ain’t sleeping well
Uninspired
And likely mad as hell
But wherever you are
I hope the high road leads you home again
To a world you want to live in

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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