When Beyoncé's album, Lemonade, was released this year, everybody assumed it would be a hit with audiences. It was, and it showed at Grammy Awards. Beyoncé received 9 nominations, among others, Album of the Year (Lemonade), Best Music Video and Song of the Year (Formation).
Adele was nominated for the same categories, for her album 25, and her magnificent, melancholic ballad, Hello.
Friday, 9 December 2016
Wednesday, 30 November 2016
Hillary, U.S. Election 2016, and Russian Hacking
H, AS IN HOPE, HERO, AND HILLARY
November
9, 2016 caught the world off guard.
Everybody
expected Hillary Clinton to win. It seemed almost certain. The last day of her
campaign was celebratory. All the politicians, reporters, artists who stood
with her, all her trusting voters, her supporters all over the world, those who
were there with her in New York, and those who watched her on the Internet in
faraway countries – we were one big, happy family.
I went
to sleep knowing that the world’s future would be safe in Hillary’s steady,
strong, elegant hands. For the first time in history, a woman, a mother, a
grandma would be the leader of the world.
I was
excited about Hillary’s leadership. I admire and envy her persistence that she
worked hard for her goals from her high-school years. I love her drive and strength.
I love that she is an introvert and carefully filters what she is willing to
share about herself. I love that she has pets, she loves good books, and she
likes Meryl Streep. I love her well-cut pantsuits, her styled blond hair, and
her face with makeup and without makeup.
In the
morning, I switched on my laptop and looked at the results. I was baffled. It
gave me a headache and nausea.
In a few
minutes, my mama called me. Her voice was happy and trusting, asking me how
things were going for Hillary. I told her what I just saw. She could not
believe it, she was alarmed, I heard the shock in her voice. It just hurt me
more.
Right
now, Hillary’s story has a powerful and sad message to women all over the
world. No matter how intelligent, driven, and qualified they are, they are only
second-best alternatives, even against a mediocre or downright stupid man.
Women just have to accept gender roles. In the end, they have to put up with
physical violence, since they are smaller and thinner than men. It is not a
happy thought.
A
Pantsuit Nation member shared a moving story. She wanted to purchase a dress
for her newborn daughter, however, she changed her mind and bought her a tiny
pantsuit – since “someday, somebody will . . .” Certainly, somebody will. It
should be Hillary. In 2020. With a strong, solid team which includes Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as her closest advisors.
The
media, analysts, the polls predicted Hillary’s victory. How could they be so
wrong?
Were they wrong? Ms. Clinton won the popular vote
with the widest margin in modern history. Her numbers are nearing President
Obama’s 2012 record, the highest number of votes a candidate has ever received.
She had a spectacular early voting lead in Florida, a key state.
In the
end, she lost to a person who never had a decent education in politics or
anything else for that matter. Donald Trump’s campaign speeches reminded Dr.
Jane Goodall of the dominance ritual of male gorillas.
Election Fraud
Hillary
Clinton has said in October that 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and
military, claimed that the cyberattacks against the Democrats came from the
Kremlin so that to meddle with the U.S. election.
FBI
director James Comey – someone who wanted Trump to win – came up with a new
investigation against Hillary, only 11 days before the election.
On 9th
November, Sergei Markov, Putin’s advisor and political analyst, admitted that
Russians “helped a bit with Wikileaks.”
Help
meant hacking the email servers of the Democratic National Committee and
Clinton’s campaign staff, and offering damaging details to Wikileaks, a radical
transparency group with a strong dislike against Hillary Clinton and with
Moscow connections.
Two
Russian hacker groups, Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear committed the cyberattacks;
they have lready hacked other countries’ governments, for example, Germany’s
Bundestag. According to a senior Justice Department official, both groups are close
to the Russian government.
Russia’s
Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov has admitted that Russians have
contacted members of Trump’s inner circle during the campaign. Trump’s
spokeswoman, however, said they had nothing to do with Russians.
Is the U.S. voting system impenetrable?
According
to the FBI, in the fall of 2015, Russian hackers breached Florida’s election
system, stealing personal information of ten thousands of voters. However, the
Florida Secretary of State did not admit that they had any problem. There was a
similar hack in Arizona. Illinois officials also complained about a possible
breach, as a result, 90,000 Illinois voters’ data were exposed.
The Director of National Intelligence and the Homeland
Security Department accused Russia of hacking email servers of U.S. individuals
and organizations, the Democratic National Committee among them.
According
to anonymous U.S. officials who had an insight on the investigation, the FBI
did not warn the DNC for several months that they were the target of Russian
hackers connected to the Russian government. Why? The FBI did not want to
reveal classified information while the investigation was ongoing – or did they
have other reasons?
According to a
Homeland Security official, hackers attacked the registration systems of 20
states during the months before the election.
Leading
computer security experts like J. Alex Halderman advise Hillary Clinton to
demand a recount in at least three states, Wisconsin, Michigan, and
Pennsylvania. The computer scientists suspect that the results were hacked
right from Russia. Russians could have sent malware to unprotected voting
machines, a malware that falsified the results and deleting itself afterward.
Russia used similar methods to hack the Ukrainian election
and set up a pro-Russian president in Ukraine.
Why Putin Was After Hillary
Richard
Shirreff, a senior British army officer and former deputy supreme allied
commander Europe, says Russia is a threat to the U.S. and the European Union,
just like it was in the Cold War years. Putin wants Russia to replace the U.S.
as the world’s superpower, and he wants to dominate Europe. He has
side-thoughts about a “Eurasian Union”, he openly advertises Russian
superiority.
According
to a senior U.S. intelligence official, Russia has enormous cyber capabilities
and is willing to use it against America, so the U.S. should worry about it.
Russia
is a petro state, without a strong economic basis. Putin’s power comes from on
fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
When Ukraine
ousted its pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, Russia intervened and
annexed the Crimean Peninsula, a Russian-speaking, oil-rich region of Ukraine.
President Obama imposed economic sanctions on Russia. So did European leaders
like Angela Merkel. Every affected country’s economy suffered, but Russia had
it worst. Its currency inflated as oil prices dropped.
The U.S.
sanctions also affected Russia’s Arctic drilling project. Deep sea drilling is
an unknown area, it requires plenty of research and the latest technologies.
Obsolete Russian technologies were not good enough for this project, Russians
wanted advanced machinery from the United States. The sanctions made it
impossible for them to purchase them. It was another way to hurt Russia’s
economy.
According
to experts, deep sea drilling is unsafe, since we do not know its long-term
effect on the environment. Russians did not have the proper emergency measures
in case an oil spill disaster occurs.
However,
Trump has no intention to stop Putin. He wants to lift the sanctions. He does
not want to focus on international politics. Instead, he wants to stop
renewable energy research and produce more fossil fuels within the U.S. Trump’s
presidency will be a disaster, and not just for humankind but other species and
the environment, too.
Is It Possible to Prove the Russian Connection?
According
to computer security experts, it is possible to trace hackers, even if the
hackers use servers like TOR or VPN. TOR is a server that can keep you
anonymous on the web, using encrypting technologies. However, when you use TOR,
you still use somebody else’s network. Experts can decrypt your messages. Human
error also helps authorities like Justice
Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual
Property Section and the Secret
Service’s Electronic Crimes Task Force trace hackers.
The Consequences of a Rigged Election
Economists are not optimistic. They do not think, however, that Trump's presidency will start out as a failure. There will be a short-lived economic boom. After that, we may very well face a recession, high inflation, and growing social inequality.
Trump
supporters are rallying on the streets with Confederate flags and flags with
huge swastikas. Hate crimes are on the rise across the U.S. The New York Police
Department reported that hate crimes rose 31 percent since Election Day.
African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, Jews, LGBT people, even women or Hillary
voters are targets now, in the cyberspace, at school, in the workplace, on the
streets. Catcalls, swastikas, graffiti, hate mail, physical violence.
An
African American woman’s door was spray-painted with the words N* - KKK.
A
seven-year-old white boy told a six-year-old black boy that “Trump is president
now,” so he can’t swim in the same pool where white persons swim.
Trump’s
staff includes radicals like Steve Bannon.
He shuns
intelligence briefing sessions, unlike President Obama, ever the overachiever,
who was eager to study more from them.
Trump
wants more pipelines. He happens to have financial interests in the Dakota
Access Pipeline, he owns stock in the company that builds it. This is a clear
conflict of interests.
He wants
to stop climate change research and research on renewable energies.
He wants
to give tax cuts to the largest companies.
Instead
of “draining the swamp”, he plans to take down his perceived enemies and build
a solid network of his family members and all his friends that money could buy.
Trump
wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act i.e. Obamacare while Ms. Clinton wanted
to expand it, she wanted to add a public option of Obamacare, competing with
private insurance companies.
Republican-dominated
Congress wants to cut Social Security and Medicare from retired people.
Paul
Ryan wants to privatize Medicare.
Ways to Stop Trump
The
emoluments clause says that public officials must not get payments from foreign
states or leaders. According to Norman Eisen, an ethics counsellor, Trump’s
foreign investments mean such payments, and it violates the constitution. Other
experts like Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor, or Richard Painter,
George W. Bush’s chief ethic counsel, agree with Eisen.
According to the Strategic Institute of Intersectional
Policy, an alt-right network, with the support of the Tea Party and the
Republican Party, are behind James Comey’s announcement and Wikileaks, they
also have Moscow connections.
They suppressed the votes of people of color in strategic
areas like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Florida. The
Strategic Institute of Intersectional Policy wants the White House to stop the
transition of power to Trump and investigate these states, seeking for evidence
of voter suppression and other abuse of power. They should also demand a
Suppression Extension in the said states, which means those who were blocked
from voting should cast their votes now.
The
Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense should
investigate Russia’s email hacking, since it had a direct influence on the U.S.
election.
American Icon
The
world was not ready for Hillary and female world leaders. Somehow, female world
leaders, with all their greatness, have had something tragic about them. Indira
Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto were assassinated. Margaret Thatcher lost her
position because her own party rejected her. Hillary Clinton lost an election,
because Russia’s aggressive president could meddle with U.S. integrity.
After
the migrant crisis of EU, we can only hope that Angela Merkel remains
Chancellor. My mother says, “It would be great to have at least one sane person
on the crew.” By crew, she means world leaders.
Hillary
is already an American icon, not unlike Susan B. Anthony, Marilyn Monroe,
Martin Luther King, or Beyoncé. She has changed lives for the better. Thank
you, Hillary. You are and always will be wonderful.
References:
Luke Harding and Shaun Walker, “Putin Applauds
Trump Win and Hails New Era of Positive Ties with US,” The Guardian, last
modified November 9, 2016,
J. Alex
Halderman, “Want to Know if the Election
was Hacked? Look at the Ballots,” Medium.com, last modified November 23,
2016,
Ellen
Nakashima, “U.S. Government Officially Accuses Russia of Hacking
Campaign to Interfere With Elections,” The Guardian, last modified October 7,
2016,
Andrew Grossman, “Federal Agents
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2014,
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Evan
PerezShimon
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