Obama imposes sanctions on Russia, expels 35 diplomats

[AZJoe]

Due credit and Remembrance to Seth Rich, likely true hero behind the DNC leaks.

[TheTexan]

We need to impose sanctions on HB34. He's a Russian sympathizer, and very likely Russian spy.

Its possible he also contributed to these hacks.

[Zippyjuan]

The only people who will see it as weak are the people who are actually buying the bull$#@!, and they are a minority. Though, they are a very LOUD minority, and could be mistaken for popular opinion.



I'm more alarmed by Obama's actions. He's got less than 30 days to start a war.

Pressure's on.

He has had eight years. He would have done so by now.

[TheCount]

If you look at different sources it either says 35 diplomats or 35 spies. If you are another country are you going to give the Russian diplomats in your country a second look?

They're both. The head spy at an embassy is often known to the host country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_spy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_chief

[phill4paul]

Much ado about nothing. "And the eagle and the bear shall unite against the dragon"

[Brian4Liberty]

http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/16/...oreign-policy/

More at link.

Zippy is hitting this thread hard. Must have come down as a priority. Budget may allow for overtime on this one.

[nikcers]

They're both. The head spy at an embassy is often known to the host country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_spy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_chief

Are you saying that if you are the government you won't give the Russians a second look, and count your votes twice? I think a lot of you guys are downplaying the results of this election. I bet the next election is going to have hyper redundant voting recounts. Especially after this disaster.

[UWDude]

Obama said he would restore relations with Russia and end the Iraq war. Then reality hit.

"reality"
The reality of who actulaly controls the presidency and foreign policy was the only reality he met.

[timosman]

We pretty much told the world not do business with Russia or they will get their $#@! messed with. Not by us, by Russia, this wasn't a message to Russia per say but to the whole world not to trust them. This could severely crash their economy if it is taken seriously. Depending on the intelligence the United States shares with our allies and leaks out. If you see Russia bending over backwards to kiss our ass, or any sort of serious response from them, then it had teeth. My bet is we will see a serious response from Russia.

[TER]

When Putin heard this happen, I think he probably laughed out loud.

He really is up against amateurs and clueless politicians.

What a sad joke this administration, and by extension, the Democrats, have become.

[nobody's_hero]

Are you saying that if you are the government you won't give the Russians a second look, and count your votes twice? I think a lot of you guys are downplaying the results of this election. I bet the next election is going to have hyper redundant voting recounts. Especially after this disaster.

What exactly is there to downplay?

Americans were pissed off. Hillary was a sh.it candidate. Trump was perpetually energized by his haters, and the media, in typical fashion, tried to use polling to mold public opinion rather than measure it.

In other words, it's not like the results were unexpected. I suppose it came as a shock to people who spend their time bouncing reaffirming opinions off one another in safe liberal bubbles, but for most of us, the dislike of Hillary by average Americans was pretty obvious, and that was even before the emails were released.

The media, the Clinton camp, the SJWs, they all thought they had this one in the bag. Undoubtedly they went into a crisis mode and have yet to recover (in fact, doubling down on the insults to injury). The only real disaster now is being caused by their tantrums on the way out, which only serve to amplify their already-obtuse sense of entitlement. In their minds, they weren't supposed to lose. They can't lose.

I'd go so far as to say Clinton was made assurances of a 2016 victory back in 2008 when she had to step aside for Obama. So these people had a lot of time to build up their hopes to epic heights, and I'm sure it makes it a truly devastating loss in their eyes.

But for most of us, it was an election. One candidate deemed slightly less sh1tty than the other one came out on top. I suppose it's been happening like that for a couple centuries in this country.

[DamianTV]

Ive heard Putin say on several occasions he respects the American people because he knows our people are damn well fed up with the Warmongers in office. I think he knows damn well the US Warmongers trying to lay a trap by provoking him to attacking us first. Once they attack us, then it would be relatively obvious to most of the people who are still asleep that Russia is the enemy. Russia is NOT our enemy. Our greatest enemy is within our own country and operates outside the moral and legal boundaries of humanity. I, for one, am thankful that Putin has shown the citizens of our country nearly infinite patience. Russian sympathizer? Hardly not. I think the shoe is on the other foot. There are many Russians who are American sympathizers, hopefully since they see us generally as a people trying their best to survive a tyrannical regime that has metastasized like a cancer in the land of the once free that now threatens the people of both nations.

[nikcers]

What exactly is there to downplay?

Americans were pissed off. Hillary was a sh.it candidate. Trump was perpetually energized by his haters.

There is more to this hacking that the feds aren't letting on. The government has to use kid gloves with the American public. I am still not entirely convinced Clinton and Trump are enemies. Remember how its just a WWE match, I think the establishment wanted Clinton to be the winner so they could push the agenda they wanted. The big tip at the end came from Russia and it was rumored that Clinton was behind the opposition that was running against Putin that ended up dead a couple years ago. The establishment is going to use this to enact plan 2 of their strategy and this just gave them fodder for the public. The UN has been circling Russia like sharks, and they want to push for Taiwan to take control in China. China is trying to respond by instituting reforms to stop any of the poor from wanting to rebel.

[goldenequity]

Ann Coulter Verified account
Obama expels 35 Russian diplomats, closes NYC compound & gives them 72 hours to leave.
Fortunately for Russians, NYC is a sanctuary city.

[CPUd]

How Russia Recruited Elite Hackers for Its Cyberwar


An internet security firm in Moscow. While much about Russia’s cyberwarfare program is shrouded in secrecy, details of the government’s effort to recruit programmers in the months before the American presidential election shed light on the Kremlin’s plan to create teams of computer hackers. Credit Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

MOSCOW — Aleksandr B. Vyarya thought his job was to defend people from cyberattacks until, he says, his government approached him with a request to do the opposite.

Mr. Vyarya, 33, a bearded, bespectacled computer programmer who thwarted hackers, said he was suddenly being asked to join a sweeping overhaul of the Russian military last year. Under a new doctrine, the nation’s generals were redefining war as more than a contest of steel and gunpowder, making cyberwarfare a central tenet in expanding the Kremlin’s interests.

“Sorry, I can’t,” Mr. Vyarya said he told an executive at a Russian military contracting firm who had offered him the hacking job. But Mr. Vyarya was worried about the consequences of his refusal, so he abruptly fled to Finland last year, he and his former employer said. It was a rare example of a Russian who sought asylum in the face of the country’s push to recruit hackers.

“This is against my principles — and illegal,” he said of the Russian military’s hacking effort.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage

The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S. DEC. 13, 2016
Obama Strikes Back at Russia for Election Hacking DEC. 29, 2016

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/wo...-cyberwar.html

[Dangergirl]

Once again I don't understand the relevance of the argument of liberal/progressives like Zippy here that the Russians hacked the election. If the e-mails presented were still actual e-mails of the DNC providing evidence of their own foul plays, then what does it matter if John from down the street or in Russia hacked them? The e-mails are still real and the relevance is what's inside them. The issue with the e-mails is that it doesn't show the DNC as god-faring honest beings, it shows them in various nefarious light. Notice they still don't denounce the contents of the e-mails because they can't. They've been caught with pants around their ankles and they're arguing about being caught.

Presenting facts is not cheating the system. It's actually encouraging honest perpetuation of our political condition. That's what whistle blowers and journalists do.

[AZJoe]

[silverhandorder]

Are you saying that if you are the government you won't give the Russians a second look, and count your votes twice? I think a lot of you guys are downplaying the results of this election. I bet the next election is going to have hyper redundant voting recounts. Especially after this disaster.

Lol smells like a democrat.

[silverhandorder]

There is more to this hacking that the feds aren't letting on. The government has to use kid gloves with the American public. I am still not entirely convinced Clinton and Trump are enemies. Remember how its just a WWE match, I think the establishment wanted Clinton to be the winner so they could push the agenda they wanted. The big tip at the end came from Russia and it was rumored that Clinton was behind the opposition that was running against Putin that ended up dead a couple years ago. The establishment is going to use this to enact plan 2 of their strategy and this just gave them fodder for the public. The UN has been circling Russia like sharks, and they want to push for Taiwan to take control in China. China is trying to respond by instituting reforms to stop any of the poor from wanting to rebel.

Hey everyone this is what a hallucination looks like.

[CPUd]

[osan]

Obama imposes sanctions on Russia, expels 35 diplomats in response to election-related hacking

I swear the patterns are so predictable, one could correct the errors of a class-1 cesium fountain clock by them.

President Barack Obama retaliated Thursday against Russia for cyberattacks aimed at interfering with the 2016 presidential campaign, imposing sanctions on top Russian intelligence officials and agencies and expelling 35 Russian operatives from the U.S.

Eight years and all of a sudden Obama acts as if he had some small fraction of a testicle? Probably borrowed it from Michelle or Hillary.

As part of the administration's response, the FBI and Homeland Security Department also were set to release a report with technical evidence intended to prove Russia's military and civilian intelligence services were behind the hacking to expose some of their most sensitive hacking infrastructure.

Note the wording. "Were" set. Are they no longer so? This sentence is most curious and I am wondering whether we will ever see this purported "evidence".

Among those targeted in the sanctions announced by the Treasury Department were the chief and deputy chiefs of GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency. Cybersecurity experts in the U.S. have linked GRU to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and party officials through a group they have nicknamed APT 28 or Fancy Bear. The U.S. also is sanctioning the Federal Security Service and Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian state and cyber companies associated with them.

Why Treasury and not State? Serious question there.

What are these vaguely referenced "cyber companies associated with them"? US companies? Russian? Eye-Rain-EEan? What?

Lots of words. Lots of innuendo. No substance I can detect.

Those expelled were described by Obama as intelligence operatives and the U.S. also shut down two Russian compounds — one in Maryland and another in New York — used for "intelligence-related purposes."

What is meant my "Russian compound"? It cannot refer to embassies, as those are sovereign Russian territories. It would be interesting to know more about these establishments - how long they have been there, for one.

The moves will ratchet up tensions with Russia less than a month before Trump's inauguration.

Possible money-shot right there. To my eyes, Obama is a wildly pathological narcissist, though he does manage to keep it under wraps fairly neatly - an indication to me that the pathology is excessive. America has largely turned its back on him and I suspect he is experiencing some butthurt he never anticipated, particularly since the defeat of Clinton. Granted, he may hate Hillary, but she was the one who stood to carry the torch of his legacy and cement it into our crooked history. But it now appears that this may not happen. What do ill-bred children do when they do not get their ways? Tantrum. Some are so bad that they will throw and break things in front of mommy and daddy, just to show 'em. I am suspecting this will prove the case with Obama: hurt America as much as possible and make the nastiest mess for Trump that he is able. If Trump spends the next 4 years dealing with this mess, Obama's stunted logic may go, he will have no time to deal with the dismantling of his legacy.

Of course, this too may be more theatre, whether planned at higher levels, or just some smoke Obama blows for his own purposes other than what I have already speculated. Obama is a king-schmuck, dishonest to a fault, and a pathetic weakling, but he is decidedly not stupid, and dangerously treacherous. The next three weeks could see some interesting developments. How predictable would it be if on inauguration day we found ourselves at loggerheads with Russia, just this side of war? I will not say that it will go that far, but will not be surprised if it does. One thing Obama is not is a diplomat, so far as I can see, what with all this bowing $#@! that he does to foreign heads of state and all that rot. This feeble attempt to display a borrowed scrotum and its contents strikes me as a dangerous move by a "man" who clearly grew up as a typical weasel with a milquetoast bent. I don't think he knows the first thing about standing up to his tranny "wife", much less to the town dog catcher. Trying this $#@! with Russia as his "cherry" event strikes me as ill-advised.

The president-elect, who has said the hacking could have been the work of "somebody sitting in a bed someplace," told reporters Wednesday that "we ought to get on with our lives."

Bad choice of words IMO. If we have been hacked in that manner, getting on with life would mean getting to the bottom of it. Trump is still putting a toe in his mouth here and there. That boy needs to slow down and think a bit more prior to operating the vocal cords. IMO, of course.

They also raise the possibility of an escalating cycle of finger-pointing and retaliation between Washington and Moscow despite Trump's pledge to seek better relations with Putin. The Russian government, which has denied responsibility for the hacking, has vowed to respond to any new sanctions with unspecified counter-measures.

It should be noted that Putin != Khrushchev, who was mostly a blowhard whose bluff Kennedy successfully, if very riskily, called. I don't think Putin bluffs much. I could be wrong. Getting into it in this way with Russia seems unnecessary and not advised, particularly if the Russians are not guilty as claimed.

The actions announced Thursday may be matched by covert countermeasures intended to warn Russia that the U.S. is able to breach its most sensitive computer systems, while preserving public deniability.

Now you see, THIS statement cries "bull$#@!!" from every tower in London. If we have the ability to breach Russia's "most sensitive" systems, you had best believe it has been done already and is being done. If we can do this, you bet your ass we have been sucking the technical specs of all their "blackest" militaria. Statements like this make a thinking man suspect that the Fourth Estate is some sort of a fifth column for Themme. Otherwise, why publish so stupid a statement as this? Certainly it is not fooling the Russians, nor is it intimidating them.

"I'm going after Russia in every way we can go after Russia," Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CNN this month. "I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay a price."

Graham. How comforting.

[vita3]

Just a coincidence that Russia & Turkey signed peace agreement within Syria yesterday?

perpetual war mongers be doing their thing

[Jamesiv1]

Do you think a significant % of Americans see thru this bullsh*t? Or at least scratch their head and go 'hmmmm'?

Prez and pundits indignant that foreign govs tried to influence our elections... seriously?

Like we don't do it all over the world and have been for decades.....

[Son_of_Liberty90]

Yea, that doesn't look like a propaganda toon at all.

[Son_of_Liberty90]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/wo...-cyberwar.html

Wow, stop the presses, an propaganda NYT article.

[osan]

He has had eight years. He would have done so by now.

Why?

I see every reason to wait until the 11:59 mark to get this going.

[osan]

Do you think a significant % of Americans see thru this bullsh*t? Or at least scratch their head and go 'hmmmm'?

Prez and pundits indignant that foreign govs tried to influence our elections... seriously?

Like we don't do it all over the world and have been for decades.....

Either they do not, or the lack of substantive response would indicate they have other things on their minds. Perhaps they have simply given up on anything good happening. IOW, they have become weaklings going along to get along.

[osan]

/////This is where Trump Truly stands on Russia, otherwise they would of tried to oust him at the convention.

Interesting how you do not state when and where he supposedly said this. Granting that he did say it, I would wager this was campaign rhetoric, which one must take with boulders of salt, whether you like or hate what has been said.

Your attempt to paint has failed. Your art is weak.

[goldenequity]

'...humiliated by their own president': US imposed new set of anti-Russian sanctions










PUTIN: NO RETALIATION / INVITES US-MOSCOW FAMILIES TO THE KREMLIN NEW YEARS PARTY

Putin said that, unlike the Obama administration,
Russia will not target foreign diplomats and their families
days before New Year’s celebrations.

“We will not forbid families and children
from spending the New Year’s holidays at the places they are used to.
Moreover, I invite the children of all American diplomats with accreditation in Russia
to New Year’s and Christmas festivities in the Kremlin”.

Putin said he regretted that US President Barack Obama
is ending his term “in such a way,”
but that he extended his New Year’s congratulations
to the outgoing US president and his family nevertheless.

“I congratulate President-elect Donald Trump and the entire American people.”

The Kremlin said it will send a government plane to the US
to evacuate the expelled diplomats and their family members.
Earlier, there were reports that the diplomats were having problems buying tickets on such short notice,
with airlines already booked by New Year’s travelers.

fAKe nOOz
THE GUARDIAN: Russia plans immediate 'counter-measures' after US ejects 35 diplomats

(good thing it was archived.... cuz you are now 'redirected' here.
The 'old' article has been disappeared.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/30/russia-plans-immediate-counter-measures-us-diplomats

[AZJoe]

Once again I don't understand the relevance of the argument of liberal/progressives like Zippy here that the Russians hacked the election. If the e-mails presented were still actual e-mails of the DNC providing evidence of their own foul plays, then what does it matter if John from down the street or in Russia hacked them? The e-mails are still real and the relevance is what's inside them. ... They still don't denounce the contents of the e-mails because they can't. ...

Yes. While it is certainly courteous to be able to thank the whistle blower [Seth Rich] that brings us the truth, which whistle-blower to thank for exposing the corruption is minor compared to the actual corruption and crime that took place.

Since Seth Rich is already dead, they can't keep punishing him and they can't utilize a DNC whistle-blower for war agenda, so why not instead distract from the wrong-doings and simultaneously exploit the leaks for another round of neoconservative propaganda by simply leveling a continuous string of non-stop accusations without any evidence [sound familiar] for half a year to promote the same old warmongering neoconservative MIC agenda.

The spectacularly hyped "joint report" is nothing but a bad joke. The joint FBI/DHS report is simply an advisory letter of basic 101 advice to avoid hacking , with a few pages of continued accusation of hacking by Russia without anything backing it up. Simply keep repeating allegations as unquestioned facts, while offering no evidence.