Iran sent threatening pro-Trump emails to American Democrats, Russia close behind, says US intelligence Menacing emails to Democratic voters, telling them to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming US elections or else, were sent by Iran, US intelligence claimed on Wednesday night. The flood of messages, sent to citizens in Florida, Arizona and elsewhere this week, were addressed from the Proud Boys, a fringe group of far-right …
We've got a surprise for him for after the results are tallied. We installed a catapult into his chair & an escape hatch in the roof. Once the results show he's on his way out we'll hit the switch to fling him out the hatch. It will be COMPLETELY accidental if the contracter measured wrong and installed the hatch a bit off to one side or the other. Sorry for the mess -- we'll be fumigating the place to sterilize it anyway...
Getting Trump out of the White house at the end of his term will not be a problem. If he does not leave of his own accord he will be dragged out by the security services. That really will be a popular video on youtube.
Once out of the White house he will say ever more stupid stuff in an attempt to stay in the news. The only thing that will really finish off Trump is some raving QAnon becoming the next Repubilcan presidential nominee and stealing his covfefe. This has already started as a google image search for him currently only shows him in five of the top twenty results.
"Correct, whether it's the orange douche or the senile douche, a douche will win. Hence why no country should adopt the US system of government."
And the UK hasn't had it's share of political demagoguery and dysfunction, especially lately?
Many countries are fighting rampant nationalist ideology, the US is not alone in this. We're trying to get a handle on it, crush the threat, before it become the poison that filters through the system and destroys it beyond repair. Trump perfectly represents the sprouting authoritarianism that most often accompanies nationalism, and why more and more Americans are now seeing the movement as a threat to our true quality of life, our system and our laws. Hopefully enough of us will vote for sanity, but I'm not holding my breath, what comes will come and I can't change that outcome beyond the small sphere of life around me.
@Snake
"Trump perfectly represents the sprouting authoritarianism that most often accompanies nationalism"
How? Its a fun statement to say but hasnt he been repealing laws instead of just piling them on. With Covid some were shouting at him for not imposing a national lockdown (dont think the president can) but then condemning him for the rulers of some states refusing to open up (even after Trump asked them to)?
Under Trump Israel and Bahrain and UAE have improving relations. ISIS got a whacking. Russia/US relations improved after the Syria situation inherited from Obama. The Iran deal which Iran was breaking was finally dropped for being a sham. A fair swing was made at diplomacy with N.Korea.
As for in the US the economy has performed better than under Obama who called low growth the new normal. Obama hit by recession performed worse than Trump and Covid yet Biden praised Obama's economy and complains about Trumps (yeah its politics I know). He reclassified nuclear waste that is harmless as such.
If he was authoritarian the riots wouldnt have gone on so long when Democrats preferred to pose with BLM instead of protecting citizens. Trump offers them help but the feds step in when federal property is being destroyed.
He is the least authoritarian authoritarian I can think of.
codejunky>>>He is the least authoritarian authoritarian I can think of.
Really? Trump thinks he is an emperor with ultimate power. And then rages in apoplexy when his supreme will and whims are thwarted by the constitution and the rule of law. It has been the funniest part of his reign to see this slowly dawn on him.
@codejunky
He was (wrongfully) boasting about his "Total Authority", like some grotesque real life Cartman, about 6 months ago. And there are plenty of other examples. He has has zero knowledge or understanding of how anything in the political system works and even "boasts" about this. His only recourse, on losing a legal challenge to his many edicts, is to cry about it on Twitter like a child. Luckily we have a solid constitution and a supreme court system protecting us from his attempts at being a king. For now.
@AC
"He was (wrongfully) boasting about his "Total Authority","
There is plenty of rubbish he has said, he is short of the political polish filter the others have, But by action he has not even tried to be authoritarian, instead going the other way.
"He has has zero knowledge or understanding of how anything in the political system works and even "boasts" about this."
This was part of his appeal I think. He isnt a politician. He has more sense of the real world.
"Luckily we have a solid constitution and a supreme court system protecting us from his attempts at being a king. For now."
So not an authoritarian. The scary part is the democrats seem to be considering court packing which would actually be an authoritarian step (as they are being warned) and as their previous changes would come back to bite them.
unless he is dragged kicking and screaming from the White house in handcuffs and an orange jump suit.
If Trump can say 'Jail Hillary, Jail Biden' with impunity, I can say 'Jail Trump'.
Sadly, I think that the lawyers for Trump are already preparing the legal ground to make the election invalid even if there is a landslide for Biden.
Jail the lawyers! Yep, that sounds better.
It could be more straightforward - maybe sowing fear was the purpose, because the (Iranians?) actually do want Trump to win, he's easily led. So they picked a far-right group they've heard of (Proud Boys) and shotgunned a threatening email that is bound to reach some people who do legitimately worry about far-right types coming for them in the night, wrecking their shops, harming their family. Minorities who have seen the police fail to protect them from far-right supporters (#BlackLivesMatter) and aren't confident in the anonymity of the voting process. The targeted emails casting doubt over that anonymity.
All the media and investigation followup might not be enough to undo the FUD.
"BLM are far left."
Er, no, they really, really aren't. Unless your definition of "far left" includes not wanting police officers to kill people in the street or shoot children in their own home for the lulz and not wanting them to escape all legal consequences if they do those things, in which case call me Mao.
@goodjudge
"Unless your definition of "far left" includes not wanting police officers to kill people"
Far left for wanting to bring in a glorious communist revolution and opposition to capitalism. The excuse being black lives but since segregating into different groups is again a left thing (gender, race, etc) leaning is still there. Its calls to defund police.
I know! Capitalism, that god-given right to make money off of someone else regardless of repercussions or even morality, needs to be saved by the horrible, evil concept of trying to do right by as many people as possible. Because even outright bartering between equals does not qualify as "capitalism".
Thanks for posting the pre-programmed response of the day.
@Snake
"I know! Capitalism, that god-given right to make money off of someone else regardless of repercussions or even morality"
Which has led to actual progress of most people not being peasants working in a field and an industrial revolution which allows you to type your comment on technology that only exists thanks to capitalists. Combined with free markets has not only lifted some people out of poverty but is causing the greatest rise out of poverty globally.
"evil concept of trying to do right by as many people as possible"
Why do you believe that isnt part of capitalism?
"Because even outright bartering between equals does not qualify as "capitalism"."
When you say capitalism do you mean free trade? Capitalism is about who owns the means of production. About gathering that capital to invest into what will hopefully be productive.
@Snake - You have a very cynical, and ERRONEOUS, definition of capitalism.
According to Webster (and Oxford's definition is almost identical) - "Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods..."
Therefore, "outright barter" IS capitalism... if the two people doing the bartering actually own the goods that they trying to barter.
ARE there "evil capitalists"? Hell yes. No one with an average (or better) IQ denies it... not that I've ever heard.
Probably the best and most accurate defense of capitalism that I've ever heard/seen can be summarized like this... It's the LEAST EVIL economic system we (humans) have yet discovered/invented.
No, sir, I have it exactly correct, sorry.
"According to Webster (and Oxford's definition is almost identical)" - and there's your problem. You are using a dictionary definition to try to base your declarative on.
Barter, yes, is declared within the realm of a loose "capitalism" structure - note small "c". But no economist considers barter to be Capitalism, big "C", in that they (somehow) consider that a strict-barter system just isn't good enough for a macroeconomic construct. Read: none of the people who have declared what functional capitalism is considers barter "good enough" to be, and only be, the system that everyone would operate under. Somehow, it's good enough for individual workers to barter their goods and/or services to one another, and in that they can be considered "capitalists" in that they have capital, trading value, but yet conversely that isn't a system actually wide and broad enough to be considered "Capitalism" for sustaining growth and an entire economy on.
Good enough for one, not good enough for all. We're all supposed to work for something "meaningful" in barter or trade, not just subsistence or enough to make one happy and / or comfortable "Meaningful" has become "aspirational", and that has been declared not within barter's circumstances.
Don't ask me, but I've yet to see any economics study discuss barter in anything less than looking-down terms.
Okay... I think I see your (their) point about barter...
EVERY economic system of which I can conceive uses barter, if you distill it far enough.
Even using cash, you're trading one item for another... bartering.
Since cash and coins go through a "manufacturing" process, they are both also still "products" in and of themselves...
Therefore, in order to distinguish different types of economies, they need to overlook/ignore "barter".
The BLM wanting cops to quit shooting unarmed Black people is NOT "far left".
THAT is actually something that MOST of USA can support.
What makes BLM "far Left", and they ARE... are some of their OTHER demands...
They have six "demands"... here they are, as listed on their Wikipedia page:
1) End the war on black people.
2) Reparations for past and continuing harms. (Reparations)
3) Divestment from the institutions that criminalize, cage and harm black people; and investment in the education, health and safety of black people. (Invest-Divest)
4) Economic justice for all and a reconstruction of the economy to ensure our communities have collective ownership, not merely access.(Economic justice)
5) Community control of the laws, institutions and policies that most impact us. (Community control)
6) Independent black political power and black self-determination in all areas of society. (Political power)
So, why are they "far Left"?
So, addressing each of their demands, in order, with the same numbering:
1) Alleges, states as a fact, that there IS a war on Black people... as if there is no room for debate for much less dissent... This is "problematic", but not of itself "far Left".
2) Reparations... The Left are the only ones in USA who propose reparations, and not even universal, not even close, within the Left... ergo, it is, by definition, a FAR Left agenda, and not Moderate or Right.
3) "Divestment from... police" - defunding the police. In the US, the Right are also often called "the party of Law and Order", ergo, this is also a Leftist agenda. Yes, in the US, the Reps are usually the ones calling for stronger punishments for criminals, such as the "Three Strikes" policy, which calls for far stronger punishments for the conviction of a third crime. Further, not even most Liberals/Leftists want the police to be defunded, so this is not a Moderate Leftist agenda, much less Centrist, so can only be FAR Left.
4) "Economic justice", "reconstruction of the economy", "collective ownership"... That last one, COLLECTIVE OWNERSHIP... can you say 'Socialist'? That's FAR Left.
5) N/A, since it isn't a Leftist point... nor Centrist nor Right. It's actually supposed to be something that all of us SHARE... have in COMMON... (for all of us who live in Democracies.)
6) This is a WTF... but I don't know how to classify it as either Left or Right... but it sounds a lot like diplomatic immunity for all Blacks... OR segregating them all to their own areas where they CAN have their own laws... but it's also another way to say, 'one rule for thee, another for me'. This biggest thing about this "demand", is that whatever side it is... you can't reasonably deny that is is effing EXTREME.
Proud Boys? \
Oh yeah. The same Proud Boys that Trump failed to condem. Instead, they were told to stand down and stand by.
If they were a Biden conspiracy would Trump really not come out and tell the world every other sentence that 'they are out to get me! and it is all Biden's fault'.
If the threats were sent to republican voters then you'd still claim it was to hurt Trump, you'd just reverse your logic and claim threats against republican voters are obviously meant to depress his turnout.
You Trumpies are so used to grievance, whining and thinking the whole world is conspiring against you, you can no longer see things in any other way.
The real goal is to sow discord and widen the partisan gap, a US bogged down in red/blue bickering isn't likely to start a war against Iran. That kind of a US is good for Putin too, he knows Russia will never be anything more than a pathetic second rate has been so long as he's in charge. The easiest way for him to reduce the economic gap between the US and Russia is not to increase Russia's economy, as that's impossible with him running it, but to take the US down a few notches by helping to further paralyze our government.
Look at what the article says...
The emails were sent to DEMS... who are NOT going to vote for Trump... and claims to be from a Right-wing group. According to the article, though, it appears that it was actually sent by Iranians... and Iranians have NO reason to like Trump or want him to win reelection... quite the contrary.
So, what could be the intent?
Piss off the Dem voters... get them mad at the Proud Boys/Trump... the latter of which is already done, as you can tell just by reading the other comments on this article.
WHY piss them off?
The only conceivable reasons are to further divide the US, and perhaps to further inflame the Left's anger to get them out to vote for Biden.
I can't see any way that this will benefit Trump.
Complete quote from the article:
[ ... ] the emails also made claims about America's "entire voting infrastructure" being compromised, though that's an obvious lie to sow doubt in people's minds.
To a rational American[1], yes, that might register as an obvious lie.
To a person who believes in QAnon conspiracy theories - such as Hillary Clinton controls the 5G towers causing COVID-19, and she is also in cahoots with Bill Gates who's waiting in the wings to sell COVID vaccines, which is why we're not wearing masks - it's not an obvious lie. Quite the opposite. It's a conspiracy theory that's ripe for adoption.
Mission Accomplished. The QAnon crowd - overwhelmingly Trump supporters - will accept only one of the two possible outcomes in the upcoming election.
-----
[1] Currently on the US Department Of Interior's Endangered Species List.
Information can be twisted to suit the beliefs of those you wish to manipulate. Like the hard drive story, no forensic proof. If the Bidden story is true hand the drive to international journalists to prove and follow the story. The Panama Papers was excellent work, let these guys do the same with the hard drive, then I'll take it seriously. News Corp is the swamp
Of *course* the FBI has the laptop and are investigating - it is an accusation that needs proof.
But to believe that just because it exists at all...on a readable-writable hard drive...given [conveniently] to someone...who conveniently (and illegally, I might add) searched and read the files...all with no provenance given during the reporting...
is, in a polite word, foolish. Dumb is another polite work. Moronic is less polite but more to the point.
Disclaimer - Limey here.
The thing I find interesting is once Trump was in power, the amount of effort the opposition spent trying to get rid of him. I don't remember that with previous POTUS - even Reagan? Still a limey - don't really follow English politics, let alone foreign ones!
I don't remember that with previous POTUS - even Reagan?
Well, OK, you're from outta town. Perhaps you should read up on Moscow Mitch's "taco counter meeting", where he plotted to make Obama a one-term president
>The thing I find interesting is once Trump was in power, the amount of effort the opposition spent trying to get rid of him. I don't remember that with previous POTUS...
Try Obama. The Repuiblican leadership got together shortly after he was elected and went on record as doing whatever it took to make sure he was a one term President. There followed years of obstruction.
Its actually the American way. Its politics. Its also a direct consequence of movement that's been building for some time that first surfaced in the 1990s with Newt Gingrich and his 'Contract with Amerca'. The Democrats have been somewhat slow on the uptake, they've tended to play traditional politics long after the game was changed to 'winner take all regardless'. There are signs that they're catching on but its not a desirable direction for the country as a whole, even if its a necessary step.
(For a local perspective, look at the hatchet job done on Corbyn.)
AC>I don't remember that with previous POTUS -
Do you not remember the whole "Birther" attempt to get Obama's presidency declared void because he was Black.... I mean... "not born in the USA". And the reality TV show host who was pushing that? [checks notes] A Mr Donald J. Trump.
If only recipients used SPF!
You know a lot of places don't bother with SPF? All the domains I manage have their SPF properties correctly set but I still get lots of bounced mails where the originals claim to be from one of my domains..
And it's quite clear (looking at the headers) that the scumbags that sent them are using mail servers that don't even make a pretense of looking at SPF (my servers are neither in Brazil nor Russia. Or Thailand or China[1] or some parts of Eastern Europe).
[1] A lot of those places are geo-blocked on my firewall - I know it's not going to block everything but it does vastly reduce the attacks on my webservers and also the amount of spam that I get. And every little helps.
“As we enter the last weeks before the election, we urge every American – including members of the media – to be cautious about believing or spreading unverified, sensational claims related to votes and voting," the pair said in a statement."
Uh... just so you know...
BIDEN is Iran's "preferred candidate", if they have one at all.
He was VP when Obama put USA in that recent treaty... "the ran nuclear deal", which THEY wanted.
Trump pulled USA... OUT... of it.
The treaty = "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action", AKA, "the Iran nuclear deal"
BIDEN presented the Treaty to the Senate Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee,
on July 15, 2015. That was during the Obama admin. (which lasted until mid-Jan 2017).
Trump pulled the USA out of the treaty, and doing so appears to have hurt the Iranian economy.
One reason they don't like him.
He also killed one of their national heroes, alleged to have been a mastermind of "Iranian terror operations"... via a drone strike, IIRC... He was "Qassim Suleimani", and you can find many articles about his death by using that BIG famous search engine...
I'm not making any judgement about the treaty itself, or Trump's actions, or Suleimani's alleged activities... only pointing out that Iran has NO reason to prefer Trump over Biden.
You can read about Trump pulling USA out of the treaty here, and it contains links to the article about the treaty itself...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action
You're presenting facts, expect to be down voted and vilified.
Even if I don't like Turnip head for the way he talks, you are correct.
Just to make sure I get downvotes to, when I watched one of Biden's meetings and he told the guy that asked a question (politely even, to give Biden a chance to clear up an accusation, as he was a Biden support) and Biden told him he was fat, stupid and "to old to vote".
Be independent, hate both gangs - it's only fair.
Thanks, Mahhn,
Yes, I expect I'll get a lot of down-votes for some of my posts in here. It seems that our El Reg community has quite a few people who belong to the "shoot the messenger" school of thought,
which I observed on some of my earlier politically related posts.
After reading that whole article it ends with 'For what it's worth, Reuters reported the emails are still under investigation, "and one intelligence source said it was still unclear who was behind them."', so it's basically bollocks by their own admission and they are the scaremongers. Jeez.
For him, it's just a tactic to get re-elected with no regard to the long term effects.
For all those with a vested interest in undermining the public trust in any US democratic process it's an opportunity not to miss. It will serve to undermine future white house incumbents no matter what the outcome.
....misinformation from the FBI....because what ACTUALLY happened was.....
....the NSA created the emails.....
....masquerading as the Proud Boys....
....masquerading as the Russians....
....masquerading as GCHQ.....
....masquerading as the Iranians.....
Phew! But then, after all this masquerading, we get ----- The FBI blaming the Iranians.
But maybe it was the Chinese all along (more sophisticated masquerading than the NSA can achieve)?
William Burroughs: "The paranoid is a person who knows a little of what is going on."
The good old trusty "Blame Wheel of Public Opinion", currently has Iran, China, Russia and North Korea, subject to change. A quick spin and a call to the media and off we go. Our analyst know it was Iran because they used spaces instead of tabs for the indent on line 32 of the emails. This matches previous emails that we were never able to conclusively prove came from Iran but we will reference them anyway to add more weight to our bullshit.
"We’re not going to tolerate foreign interference in our elections or any criminal activity that threatens the sanctity of your vote or undermines public confidence in the outcome of the election "
You might want to have a word with OHSG currently lounging his fat ass in the Oval Office.
He's been undermining public confidence in the outcome of the election since he understood that he can't win it.
I started getting bombarded with emails pushing Trump from Right Country about a week ago, looking at the emails they are full of links that track anyone who clicks on them. I run Spam Assassin so it's easy to create rules to flag all political emails and send them to everyone's Junk folders.
was this quote -
"This information typically includes things like names, addresses, voting preferences, and the like."
Putting voting preferences into a voting record undermines he idea of free and secret votes surely? I may tell people I vote Monster Raving Loony Party, but I sure as fuck don't want that knowledge in any document availble to government or marketeers!
“As we enter the last weeks before the election, we urge every American – including members of the media – to be cautious about believing or spreading unverified, sensational claims related to votes and voting," [Rubio and Warner] said in a statement.
Well, were we to follow that sage advice, we'd ignore everything that has been uttered by the Orange-utan for the last year and a half.
Waddya think the chances are that Rubio actually meant that?
Russia Today has a website that's quite well produced that includes a variety of pro-Trump articles. The reason for this is that they seem to fill the site up around the stories they want to tell with pieces written for distribution by well known but invariably fringe people. In these times the most common fringe messages tend to be variations on "Trump is a misunderstood Messiah" and "Covid is a global conspiracy". Hardly voter intimidating stuff.
Iran doesn't seem to have much of an interest one way or another. The most potent propaganda I've seen from that part of the world are personal travel videos from people in the country. They appear to depict a normal sort of a place with life going on just like anywhere else. Its the sort of thing that makes our Secretary of State (Pompero) look really out of sync with the times. My guess is that after years of sanctions regimes countries and their people adapt, they find ways to interact and trade with their neighbors, they're really not at all interested in the 'from the Beltway' perspective (they have their own traffic jams to cope with).
Since we invest a lot of money and resources promoting 'pro-democracy' movements around the world, movements that could be called 'interfering with other countries politics', we shouldn't be surprised to learn that individuals and even governments want to make their voices heard about our politics. I don't know why the Intelligence Services (who are they, anyway?) feel that its a threat.
No compulsory voting. The obvious chance for mail-in voter fraud.
In Aussie and I guess the UK you need to register to vote, be ticked off a roll when you do vote in person and it would be obvious if you voted more than once. In the US, mail in voting ballots could be harvested by anyone, filled in by one person and then mailed. In one California county apparently their are 20% more registered voters than residents. Their elections are a farce.
Election rules vary by state, but they all have procedures in place to check that votes are valid. In many states you need to produce ID to vote. Postal votes need to be witnessed.
There is almost no voter fraud in US elections. Claims to the contrary are BS.
In reply to your question though, technically the answer is no. It is a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
The electoral college decides the president, which is made up of electors from each state. How states decide who the electors will be is up to them according to the constitution. They currently use a popular vote of the states citizens, but this isn't actually stipulated in the constitution. The state could pass a law to flip a coin to decide them if it wanted. In most states it is winner takes all. Whoever gets the most votes, gets all the states electors. A couple of states divide the electors based on the vote. This is how Trump won the presidency despite polling millions of votes less than Clinton nationally.
Hopefully enough states will sign up to the popular vote compact, then the president will be elected by a majority of the US population. This is a very cunning scheme where the president is still decided by the electoral college, but the makeup of the college is decided on the turnout of the popular vote. This lets it take effect without any change to the constitution. All it requires is that enough states sign up to it so that they have more than half of the total college votes. It needs states with at least 76 more college votes to sign up before it can take effect.
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/
Anyone can buy voter registration data, driver registration data and criminal/felon data as well as a host of other data from most states. Why is even a story? This data includes full name, usually full address, sometimes DOB, voter party registration...link this to the state criminal data base info - usually also available from most state law enforcement agencies, sheriff's offices and the courts - as with business registration data...And you have a grove of data on US citizens - for free.
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