Russian Cyber Offensive And Trump's 400 Pound Man

The most pessimistic Kremlin watchers worry how far Putin will go with the combination of psychological manipulation and cyberwarfare. They view the pattern of Russia’s electoral meddling in the context of Putin’s recent embrace of what is known as the Gerasimov doctrine, a nontraditional approach to military conflict named after the chief of the Russian general staff, Valery Gerasimov, that relies heavily on cyberwar and influence operations. “A perfectly thriving state can, in a matter of months and even days, be transformed into an arena of fierce armed conflict,” Gerasimov posited in a now famous 2013 manifesto, through “political, economic, informational, humanitarian and other nonmilitary measures applied in coordination with the protest potential of the population.”

the Russians understand that the real power of this domain is in influence operations, psychological warfare, changing people’s perceptions of what’s truly going on.”

As results came in on election night in 2012, he falsely tweeted that the Republican had won the popular vote and urged an uprising. “The phoney Electoral College made a laughingstock out of our nation,” Trump tweeted. “The world is laughing at us. More votes equals a loss … revolution! This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!”

Trump’s former campaign manager worked for Putin’s proxy in Ukraine until the pro-Western uprising there, and Trump, his family and a foreign policy adviser have done tens of millions of dollars of business in Russia. The exact amount is unclear, and Trump has declined to disclose details of his Russian business partners.

Trump Lied About Income

The bombastic Republican presidential candidate said on Monday night that his FEC filing showed income of $694 million for the past year. It doesn’t, because in the document he freely mixed revenue with income, and it covers a period of 17 months.

This Fifth Avenue glass skyscraper signaled Trump’s arrival as a proper Manhattan mogul. But the contractor he hired in 1980 to demolish the existing Bonwit Teller department store allegedly used a small army of undocumented Polish laborers, who were paid off the books when paid at all, to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Trump spent years in court battling a ruling that he was involved in the scheme before reaching a confidential settlement in 1999. He still denies wrongdoing. 

Trump bought two buildings overlooking Central Park in 1981, hoping to demolish them to make way for a new skyscraper. But first he had to get rid of dozens of rent-controlled tenants in Trump Parc East (the other was a hotel). According to court filings, residents claimed Trump let the building fall into disrepair. He even publicly offered to house the city’s homeless in the vacant units. Tenants sued for harassment and claimed the place was uninhabitable. Trump disagreed, saying that he cut back on high-end services that the low rents couldn’t cover. 

Trump Wanting To Surprise ISIS

Donald Trump will not reveal his strategy to deal with ISIS because, as per him, that will take away the element of surprise.

What is troubling is he seems to want to surprise ISIS on all policy issues except one. His only coherent policy proposal is he wants yuge tax cuts for the rich.

On everything else, on infrastructure, on education, on his wall, on North Korea, on inner cities, on everything else he would like to surprise ISIS. There is nothing from him. No policy proposals, nothing.

Just trust me. I alone can fix it.

This dude has turned fascism into a caricature. I can imagine Hitler and Mussolini turning in their graves.

Scariface

On the debate stage I saw Hillary Clinton. I also saw a guy who was pouting. Who was that?

Gender

People’s beliefs about truthfulness and credibility, like those about leadership and competence, are structured around gender roles – who they think men and women should act - and what’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander.

many voter’s belief that a “powerful woman” is not only an oxymoron but a serious danger to the nation.

In a society that is structured, both micro and macroscopically by gender binaries, segmentation and stereotypes, how can people reconcile the office of the presidency, not only with a woman, but with a woman who works and doesn’t smile on cue, has a high voice and is intensely private and resilient?

Trump’s main qualification appears to be that he’s a dangerously overconfident wealthy white man with opinions. By virtually any measure, he is horribly unprepared to be the leader of the country.
............ Her candidacy is not only a challenge to Trump’s, but to deeply held beliefs about men’s and women’s roles and relative status. Regardless of what people think, their implicit biases have sexist outcomes and one of them is that we are being forced to take Trump seriously as a presidential contender.

Trump Would Not Be First

How did Adolf Hitler — described by one eminent magazine editor in 1930 as a “half-insane rascal,” a “pathetic dunderhead,” a “nowhere fool,” a “big mouth” — rise to power in the land of Goethe and Beethoven? What persuaded millions of ordinary Germans to embrace him and his doctrine of hatred? How did this “most unlikely pretender to high state office” achieve absolute power in a once democratic country and set it on a course of monstrous horror?

Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who “only loved himself” — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what Mr. Ullrich calls a “characteristic fondness for superlatives.” His manic speeches and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his capacity for self-control, even his sanity.

A former finance minister wrote that Hitler “was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth” and editors of one edition of “Mein Kampf” described it as a “swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.”

...... feeding off the energy of his audiences .... he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. Here, “Hitler adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners,” Mr. Ullrich writes. He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order......

Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising “to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,” though he was typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden age for the country, Mr. Ullrich says, the better “to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay.”

Hitler’s repertoire of topics, Mr. Ullrich notes, was limited, and reading his speeches in retrospect, “it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences” with “repeated mantralike phrases” consisting largely of “accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future.”

there was an “erosion of the political center” and a growing resentment of the elites. The unwillingness of Germany’s political parties to compromise had contributed to a perception of government dysfunction

“Why not give the National Socialists a chance?” a prominent banker said of the Nazis. “They seem pretty gutsy to me.”

Early on, revulsion at Hitler’s style and appearance, Mr. Ullrich writes, led some critics to underestimate the man and his popularity, while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating “evening’s entertainment.” ......  “his conservative coalition partners believed either that he was not serious or that they could exert a moderating influence on him. In any case, they were severely mistaken.”

 a turning away from reason and the fundamental principles of a civil society — namely, “liberty, equality, education, optimism and belief in progress.”

Why Is Trump Even Running?

At some level Donald Trump must have known all along he simply is not presidential material. So why is he running? Maybe he is sadomasochistic, besides being a sociopath. He likes being the butt of jokes.