If You Are Not Nervous About The Upcoming Election...

If you are not nervous about the impending Presidential election I envy and applaud you.

But for the rest of us (the Trembling Majority?), David Sanger of the Times presents a new concern that should easily crack anyone's Top 100 list of potential electoral disasters. As a disclaimer, I should add that when the White House wants an authoritative, sympathetic source to present their spin on international events they seek out Mr. Sanger. So this article is a lightly-edited press release rather than hard-hitting investigative journalism, but still - it is interesting to know what the Administration wants us to believe. Here we go, on cyberwar and the many complexities of a US response:

U.S. Wrestles With How to Fight Back Against Cyberattacks

ASPEN, Colo. — It has been an open secret throughout the Obama presidency that world powers have escalated their use of cyberpower. But the recent revelations of hacking into Democratic campaign computer systems in an apparent attempt to manipulate the 2016 election is forcing the White House to confront a new question: whether, and if so how, to retaliate.

So far, the administration has stopped short of publicly accusing the Russian government of President Vladimir V. Putin of engineering the theft of research and emails from the Democratic National Committee and hacking into other campaign computer systems. However, private investigators have identified the suspects, and American intelligence agencies have told the White House that they have “high confidence” that the Russian government was responsible.

Less certain is who is behind the selective leaks of the material, and whether they have a clear political objective. Suspecting such meddling is different from proving it with a certainty sufficient for any American president to order a response.

Because Obama is far too calm and reflective, don'cha know? I don't think game theorists recommend extreme predictability as a winning strategy, but I am not a genius like Obama either.

Oh, yeah, Obama is a visionary as well, as per this vignette from 2009:

While setting up his new administration, he was also learning the dark arts of cyberwar, descending into the Situation Room to oversee a complex American-Israeli offensive operation to disable Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. He expressed concern to his aides that the operation would help fuel the escalation of cyberattacks and counterattacks.

Right, because no one else anywhere realized that computer power was more widely available than nuclear power. Whatever. On to the new concern:

At the event in Aspen on Saturday afternoon, Lisa O. Monaco, Mr. Obama’s homeland security adviser, sidestepped specific discussion of the D.N.C. hacking but acknowledged that the administration might soon have to consider whether the United States’ electoral system constitutes “critical infrastructure,” like the power grid or the cellphone network.

“I think it’s a serious question,” she said, especially if there is “coercion, destruction, manipulation of data.” Ms. Monaco noted that whenever the United States thinks about retaliation, “the danger of escalation and misinterpretation is such that we have to be responsible about it.” But she also said that if an event were serious enough, “we have to be very clear we will respond.”

The cost of doing nothing could be high. As the United States and other nations move to more electronic voting systems, the opportunities for mischief rise. Imagine, for example, a vote as close as the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, but with accusations about impossible-to-trace foreign manipulation of the ballots or the vote count, leaving Americans wondering about the validity of the outcome.

Oh, brother. Florida 2000 becomes Florida/Ohio/Pennsylvania 2016? With a 4-4 Supreme Court unable to swing the result to Hillary? And who among us honestly believes that Obama, Lynch and the establishment Republicans running the FBI could investigate an election-tampering scheme and conclude that Hillary was the beneficiary and Trump won the election? Well, never ask a rhetorical question - I am confident that Democrats and establishment Republicans would insist that their investigation was fair and balanced, but in a close election, the half of the voters that went for Trump won't buy it.

Of course, if Russian manipulation secretly swings the election to Hillary this will get as much attention from the DoJ as Lois Lerner of the IRS. And whoever wins, the hint of Russian meddling makes it possible that the losers will not accept the legitimacy of the "winner", leaving our next leader in charge of an even-more divided country.

Our leaders and institutions have lost their credibility and the Russians may be inclined to exploit that. Yike.

MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER: Let me just snip a fair-use excerpt form the Foreign Policy link above:

Madman in the White House

Why looking crazy can be an asset when you’re staring down the Russians.

...

Nixon wanted to impress upon the Soviets that the president of the United States was, in a word, mad: unstable, erratic in his decision-making, and capable of anything. The American commander-in-chief wanted the Kremlin to know that he was willing to escalate even localized conventional military conflicts to the nuclear level. Kissinger understood: "I’ll tell [the Soviets] tomorrow night," he vowed. The national security advisor even rehearsed for the president specific lines from the good cop/bad cop routine he intended to put on. "The more we do now," he would tell his Soviet interlocutor, "the better." He was akin to saying: On the shoulders of reasonable men, like you and me, rests the responsibility of preventing a madman, like Nixon, from taking things too far.

It wasn’t the first time the national security advisor had been exposed to the strategic potential of madness. The concept had originated, amid the nuclear anxieties of the 1950s, in the academic circles Kissinger had formerly inhabited. It was a product of game theory, a mathematic discipline — often applied to national security policymaking — that can be used to assess competitive situations and predict actors’ choices, based on prior actions by their competitors. Kissinger himself had endorsed the concept in his writings, as a professor of international relations at Harvard, a full decade before he came to the White House. "The more reckless we appear [the better]," he told Nixon that afternoon, "because after all, Mr. President, what we’re trying to convince them of is that we are ready to go all the way."

In his post-Watergate memoir The Ends of Power, former White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman wrote that his boss’s use of the strategy was hardly unconscious. "I call it the Madman Theory," Haldeman recalled the president telling him. "I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry — and he has his hand on the nuclear button,’ and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace."

Comments

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Actually, Gus, I think you nailed it.

[Beasts of England]

Just channel surfing and I see that the Match Game has been resurrected. Unfortunately, Alec (Alex?) Baldwin is the emcee. Hurl.

[rich]

the critics and fans like it ...

http://www.metacritic.com/music/gore/deftones

tend to agree with the reviews that put it as a more mature work but stylistically looking to their earlier albums (still think that diamond eyes is their best work)

[buccaneer morgan]

mrs. snufflafugus and kai penn, what fresh hell is this?

[clarice]

All right everyone--to your corners.I buzz out for a while, and flying ashtrays are everywhere.

[GUS]

The V has landed. A blonde beauty.

[rich]

>>>
mrs. snufflafugus and kai penn, what fresh hell is this?

Posted by: buccaneer morgan | July 31, 2016 at 10:09 PM<<<

I have no idea what this is about but that is damn funny.

[Miss Marple 2]

Compare and contrast:

You will probably have to right click, but it's very illuminating.

[Threadkiller]

Those are ashtray names, rich.

[buccaneer morgan]

the new match game,

isn't this a wonderful ending of a today show segment,

http://basementrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/sharknado-3-oh-hell-no-today-show-eaten-by-sharks.jpg

[GUS]

Hey Clarice, I think you are bright enough to see what happened here. And I think you recognize that ONE MEMBER of the FAMILY acted a wee bit out of sorts. Let's just call it UNCLE CHARLIE at THANKSGIVING.
I'm not going to ignore the behavior anymore. It's become a pattern.

[clarice]

Love those Maddow screen shots.

[Miss Marple 2]

clarice,

Those screen shots pretty much discredit anything they say.

I am well pleased.

[Janet the expert]

Love those Maddow screen shots.

Me too.

Related - http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/07/19/republican-national-convention-cnn-victims-illegal-aliens/

"CNN cut away from speakers who spoke out against illegal immigration at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Monday night, turning instead to its daily stable of talking heads, and coming back for a conventional politician’s speech."

[clarice]

Gus, I understand entirely even though I love you all. Maybe when people get heated up they might do what I do, draft a heated response and don't post it..go do something else and then come back after a while and see if that's really what you want to say. Usually I don't. But YMMV.
I know for a fact most of us would do anything we could to help any regular poster.

[Captain Hate]

You're right about that, c.

[Threadkiller]

Seconded

[Miss Marple 2]

clarice,

Very good comment. I am very grateful to all of the people on this site for many kindnesses and my welcome when i first arrived.

I think I will let this matter drop and move on.

[Miss Marple 2]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3713478/ANOTHER-90s-scandal-returns-haunt-Clintons-Chinese-billionaire-illegal-donations-Bill-s-election-campaign-faces-Congress-quiz-arrested-FBI-bribery.html

[GUS]

Clarice. Thank you. You are awesome. Over the years here, I have seen certain "Uncle Charlies" get a "pass" when lashing out.
I held back. But I've had enough of Holier than thou Charlie living off some legend.
I edited my words carefully.

[Janet the expert]

Trump, Islam and Presidential Temperament

"Why are Republicans always supposed to be selfless gentlemen, while Democrats get away with endless insults and attacks on anyone who disagrees with them?"

https://drhurd.com/2016/07/31/60246/

[Beasts of England]

Even the pictures accompanying those two articles speak a thousand words. Dispicable. Grrr.

Nytol

[clarice]

Nytol

[rich]

it is that beasts. just damn.

[Miss Marple 2]

New thread.

[Khan!!!]

Well, Hilly asked isis, goddes of war, to make trump recruiting video and they did. So, trump tells rusiians to call FBI about leaks like overseas banking, but they wont, cuz, like the dipo cable system, the computer is designed to leak, except for party stuff, cuz it appears to be not hilly and mitigate hers on spy stuff that possibly killed a bunch of spies who weren't for hilly, DOO, plames cia pants suit revolutions, drone hits and rock star immigration program. Hey, she's from a family of gov employee lifers and future presidents, so what's not to trust?