bigredfish
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Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear has said he had received information from multiple officials reportedly indicating that McConnell has passed away, per New Republic
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US Elections (& Politics) :)
- Thread starter sdkid
- Start date
bigredfish
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bigredfish
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bigredfish
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bigredfish
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bigredfish
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bigredfish
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bigredfish
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bigredfish
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"...And our own CIA worked to make sure the r President wasn’t aware of any of this information, they literally removed it from his daily briefing.
Literally treason“
In the summer of 2020, as we're heading into the election, in the intelligence community there were indicators of this Chinese influence operation. Influence operations means that you're trying to affect the outcome of how people vote or their sentiment about a presidential candidate.It's different than an interference operation, which is penetrating voting rolls and voter systems. And this whistleblower was raising the alarm about the influence operation, and then suddenly it all was suppressed”“In some of their reports, there were in officials' own handwriting that they wanted everything out that could help President Trump in his reelection. So there was clear evidence of political and personal bias” They wanted to remove EVERYTHING that could possibly help Trump win reelection
Again, literally treason
Also if you remember awhile back, a former CIA officer named Pedro Israel Orta who worked at the CIA during the Trump Administration said the CIA didn’t even recognize him as the President, they wouldn’t even put his picture up on the wall which was customary for all Presidents They were actively working against him
Literally treason“
In the summer of 2020, as we're heading into the election, in the intelligence community there were indicators of this Chinese influence operation. Influence operations means that you're trying to affect the outcome of how people vote or their sentiment about a presidential candidate.It's different than an interference operation, which is penetrating voting rolls and voter systems. And this whistleblower was raising the alarm about the influence operation, and then suddenly it all was suppressed”“In some of their reports, there were in officials' own handwriting that they wanted everything out that could help President Trump in his reelection. So there was clear evidence of political and personal bias” They wanted to remove EVERYTHING that could possibly help Trump win reelection
Again, literally treason
Also if you remember awhile back, a former CIA officer named Pedro Israel Orta who worked at the CIA during the Trump Administration said the CIA didn’t even recognize him as the President, they wouldn’t even put his picture up on the wall which was customary for all Presidents They were actively working against him
Oceanslider
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Everyone Needs To Know The Real Story of Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone was one of the greatest frontiersmen to ever live. This is his real story.
VorlonFrog
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bigredfish
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You realize that dozens of countries and hundreds of organizations try to “influence” our elections every time, just like the US does to dozens of countries.
If you scroll back a page or two you’ll see the clear proof that Israel is “influencing” our elections as we speak with a heavily financed and paid campaign. Look up Brad Parscale. This is happening on a scale that makes “Chinese influence” look like child’s play.
I think folks conflate “influence” with “voter fraud” and “stolen elections” because most don’t take the time to understand the difference. A large part of the US electorate spends more time deciding what new car to buy or at the other end, how to pay for groceries, than they do digging into the real big issues facing the nation.
They catch a 5 minute “story” on Fox News or see a headline and that’s the extent of their real knowledge on a given issue. They’re being groomed by the very people who they “trust” because they’re easily “influenced”.
As far as the CIA, they’ve been rogue since at least 1963
None of this sheds any proof that there is mass fraudulent voting or that the election was “stolen”.
It’s a campaign tactic and it’s being promoted by Trump now, conveniently, to justify future possible actions in the near future (like November) and the Cult is eating it up
ATTENTION!
MAGA/Cult members: Don’t read this
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bigredfish
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And btw- you don’t think the current group of hustlers and grifters that are Trumps Cabinet aren’t keeping things from him right now?
Even his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has openly complained about it.
Intelligence and political operatives feed the President what they want him to hear. Always have. In a way, that’s their job. To decide what’s important for the President to deal with.
Frankly keeping certain things from a President with an emotional maturity of a 13 year old girl is probably a good thing at this point
And while it hasn’t been brought up, how do you think former Allies that he’s pissed off, and openly said again just yesterday that we don’t need, will react when they discover foreign interference in US politics?
Even his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has openly complained about it.
Intelligence and political operatives feed the President what they want him to hear. Always have. In a way, that’s their job. To decide what’s important for the President to deal with.
Frankly keeping certain things from a President with an emotional maturity of a 13 year old girl is probably a good thing at this point
And while it hasn’t been brought up, how do you think former Allies that he’s pissed off, and openly said again just yesterday that we don’t need, will react when they discover foreign interference in US politics?
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bigredfish
Known around here
How about for once addressing the actual facts/issue?
Explain this for example:
===========
Trump spent primetime warning America about foreign election interference.
His administration cut CISA's election-security staff, dismantled key information-sharing programs, disbanded the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, gutted ODNI's influence center, and left the Election Assistance Commission without leadership.
If the threat is as serious as he says, why weaken the people responsible for finding it?
A warning carries more weight when you don't dismantle the smoke detectors first.
Explain this for example:
===========
Trump spent primetime warning America about foreign election interference.
His administration cut CISA's election-security staff, dismantled key information-sharing programs, disbanded the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, gutted ODNI's influence center, and left the Election Assistance Commission without leadership.
If the threat is as serious as he says, why weaken the people responsible for finding it?
A warning carries more weight when you don't dismantle the smoke detectors first.
bigredfish
Known around here
The article referenced above, with receipts at the bottom when you open it
========•
Summary
A government reveals what it truly believes not just through speeches, but through budgets, staffing decisions, and institutional priorities.
President Trump devoted a primetime address to warning Americans about foreign election interference, portraying it as one of the greatest threats facing the country. If taken at face value, that would suggest an administration committed to strengthening every tool available to detect, investigate, and respond to foreign influence operations.
Instead, the record points in the opposite direction.
The contradiction is difficult to ignore.
The policy question is simple:
If foreign interference is a serious national security threat, should the government strengthen or weaken the institutions responsible for finding it?
Over the past two years, the administration has repeatedly chosen the latter.
Nearly one-third of CISA's workforce has departed or been eliminated, while proposed budgets would significantly reduce the agency's funding. Election-security personnel were placed on administrative leave. Federal support for major election information-sharing programs was discontinued, and later budget proposals went even further by seeking to eliminate CISA's dedicated election-security program altogether.
Those aren't symbolic changes.
They reduce the government's capacity to identify threats, share intelligence with states, and coordinate defensive responses before problems become crises.
The FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, created specifically to investigate covert foreign influence campaigns, was disbanded.
ODNI's Foreign Malign Influence Center, designed to integrate intelligence across agencies regarding foreign attempts to manipulate American political opinion, was significantly reduced.
The State Department closed its Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office, eliminating another channel dedicated to tracking propaganda and coordinated influence operations originating from adversarial governments.
Meanwhile, the Election Assistance Commission, the only federal agency devoted exclusively to assisting state and local election officials, was left without functioning leadership.
Each decision can be defended individually on policy grounds.
Taken together, however, they reveal something more significant.
The federal government's overall capacity to detect and respond to foreign election interference has been reduced.
If foreign election interference is important enough to justify a nationally televised presidential address, why reduce the institutions responsible for discovering it?
If these agencies were ineffective, the administration could have replaced them with something stronger.
If they were politically compromised, it could have created independent alternatives.
Instead, much of the institutional capacity disappeared without an equivalent replacement.
That leaves fewer investigators.
Fewer analysts.
Fewer intelligence coordinators.
Fewer cybersecurity advisors assisting state election officials.
Fewer formal channels for sharing threat intelligence.
In other words, fewer people looking for exactly the danger described in the speech.
That is a legitimate argument to make.
Every government institution should be accountable.
But accountability and elimination are not the same thing.
A democracy still requires credible mechanisms capable of determining whether allegations are true, regardless of which political party benefits from the answer.
Otherwise, the public is left with speeches instead of evidence.
Claims instead of investigations.
Personal assurances instead of independent verification.
It is about incentives.
When leaders simultaneously elevate the importance of a threat while reducing the government's ability to verify that threat independently, they ask citizens to rely increasingly on political trust rather than institutional competence.
That is a dangerous trade.
Institutions exist precisely because presidents, members of Congress, judges, and political movements all eventually change.
The machinery that protects elections is supposed to outlast whoever occupies the White House.
A speech can warn the country.
Only functioning institutions can prove whether the warning is true.
And if those institutions are weakened, the country doesn't become better at detecting foreign interference.
It becomes worse.
That is the contradiction at the heart of this debate.
========•
Summary
- President Trump warned of foreign election interference as a major threat in a primetime address.
- His administration cut nearly one-third of CISA's workforce, proposed slashing its funding, and sought to eliminate its election-security program.
- The FBI Foreign Influence Task Force was disbanded, ODNI's center reduced, and State Department interference office closed.
- These actions weakened institutions for detecting threats, sharing intelligence, and assisting states.
- Rhetoric elevated the danger while capacity to verify it independently declined, shifting reliance to political trust.
A government reveals what it truly believes not just through speeches, but through budgets, staffing decisions, and institutional priorities.
President Trump devoted a primetime address to warning Americans about foreign election interference, portraying it as one of the greatest threats facing the country. If taken at face value, that would suggest an administration committed to strengthening every tool available to detect, investigate, and respond to foreign influence operations.
Instead, the record points in the opposite direction.
The contradiction is difficult to ignore.
If the threat is real, why weaken the response?
Whether one believes Russia, China, Iran, or another foreign power poses the greatest election threat is almost beside the point. Modern administrations of both parties have acknowledged that hostile governments attempt to influence American politics.The policy question is simple:
If foreign interference is a serious national security threat, should the government strengthen or weaken the institutions responsible for finding it?
Over the past two years, the administration has repeatedly chosen the latter.
Nearly one-third of CISA's workforce has departed or been eliminated, while proposed budgets would significantly reduce the agency's funding. Election-security personnel were placed on administrative leave. Federal support for major election information-sharing programs was discontinued, and later budget proposals went even further by seeking to eliminate CISA's dedicated election-security program altogether.
Those aren't symbolic changes.
They reduce the government's capacity to identify threats, share intelligence with states, and coordinate defensive responses before problems become crises.
The cuts extended far beyond CISA
The pattern didn't stop with one agency.The FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, created specifically to investigate covert foreign influence campaigns, was disbanded.
ODNI's Foreign Malign Influence Center, designed to integrate intelligence across agencies regarding foreign attempts to manipulate American political opinion, was significantly reduced.
The State Department closed its Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office, eliminating another channel dedicated to tracking propaganda and coordinated influence operations originating from adversarial governments.
Meanwhile, the Election Assistance Commission, the only federal agency devoted exclusively to assisting state and local election officials, was left without functioning leadership.
Each decision can be defended individually on policy grounds.
Taken together, however, they reveal something more significant.
The federal government's overall capacity to detect and respond to foreign election interference has been reduced.
The contradiction
This creates a simple logical problem.If foreign election interference is important enough to justify a nationally televised presidential address, why reduce the institutions responsible for discovering it?
If these agencies were ineffective, the administration could have replaced them with something stronger.
If they were politically compromised, it could have created independent alternatives.
Instead, much of the institutional capacity disappeared without an equivalent replacement.
That leaves fewer investigators.
Fewer analysts.
Fewer intelligence coordinators.
Fewer cybersecurity advisors assisting state election officials.
Fewer formal channels for sharing threat intelligence.
In other words, fewer people looking for exactly the danger described in the speech.
Trust requires institutions
Supporters of these reductions often argue the agencies themselves became politicized.That is a legitimate argument to make.
Every government institution should be accountable.
But accountability and elimination are not the same thing.
A democracy still requires credible mechanisms capable of determining whether allegations are true, regardless of which political party benefits from the answer.
Otherwise, the public is left with speeches instead of evidence.
Claims instead of investigations.
Personal assurances instead of independent verification.
The deeper issue
This isn't simply about Donald Trump.It is about incentives.
When leaders simultaneously elevate the importance of a threat while reducing the government's ability to verify that threat independently, they ask citizens to rely increasingly on political trust rather than institutional competence.
That is a dangerous trade.
Institutions exist precisely because presidents, members of Congress, judges, and political movements all eventually change.
The machinery that protects elections is supposed to outlast whoever occupies the White House.
A speech can warn the country.
Only functioning institutions can prove whether the warning is true.
And if those institutions are weakened, the country doesn't become better at detecting foreign interference.
It becomes worse.
That is the contradiction at the heart of this debate.
bigredfish
Known around here
bigredfish
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How many people caught this ir even know the difference?
The voting public are by and large ignorant
===================
Trump's election narrative quietly changed.
It used to be about illegal votes.
Now it's largely about registered noncitizens.
Those aren't the same claim.
Meanwhile, he spent most of his speech warning about foreign interference... after dismantling many of the federal teams responsible for detecting and stopping it.
If foreign interference is the real threat, why weaken the country's defenses against it?
If illegal voting is the real problem, where's the evidence of widespread illegal ballots instead of registrations?
Sometimes the biggest story isn't what's said.
It's what's no longer being claimed.
The voting public are by and large ignorant
===================
Trump's election narrative quietly changed.
It used to be about illegal votes.
Now it's largely about registered noncitizens.
Those aren't the same claim.
Meanwhile, he spent most of his speech warning about foreign interference... after dismantling many of the federal teams responsible for detecting and stopping it.
If foreign interference is the real threat, why weaken the country's defenses against it?
If illegal voting is the real problem, where's the evidence of widespread illegal ballots instead of registrations?
Sometimes the biggest story isn't what's said.
It's what's no longer being claimed.