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The videos weren't directly about bribing. They were more about people talking about someone else taking a bribe. Sadly all of the videos were edited, so we don't have full context.

> interfering in a foreign election should be understood to be grounds for war

Requires a rigorous definition of interference.

The allegations here—trying to catch politicians on tape being sleazy and then releasing them with sketchy editing-doesn’t seem to rise to the level of calling for a kinetic response.

Yes, and the EU, due to this fragmentation, seems to be a fertile playground for all this unacceptable interference by foreign powers.

If this were really taken seriously there would be much more war.

Russia and China are definitely interfering in the US (to spread discord, ex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_interference_in_the_20...), so should the US formally declare war against them?

What I do think is that nations should 1) interfere back, and 2) make their citizens more resilient to foreign propaganda. And I specifically don't mean building a firewall. In fact do the opposite: if a firewalled nation is leaking out propaganda, ensure firewall-breaking tools leak in.

Black cube is a common form of symbolism in occult/Kabbalah traditions

They wanted everyone to know they are the bad guys, just like Black Rock.

Just more cultural appropriation. Black Cube, Blackrock, Blackstone... And not a black person in sight. Someone even took Blackstreet which was already ours. /s

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I think it's also true that government officials around the world are less inclined to just go along with it, since Israel has lost control of public perception. So the tactics have to become more brazen and forceful to achieve the same results, increasing the risk of exposure and/or blowback.

I don't think for a minute that this stuff is anything new ... to the contrary. I think what is new is that, every time they step in it, the whole world now quickly knows.

If they could get people to install a mobile UI app that fetches instructions on what to up/down-vote, what to flag/vouch then they could and unlikely anyone would notice.

It is unlikely that enough people would check their up/down vote history, vouch and flag history and even then some would assume they fat-fingered such things.

Such a UI could also save and upload username and password to another site. Some people use the same creds on multiple sites.

Online community spam/brigading has been a normal occurrence since I've been running a message board 15 years ago. At least in Europe.

Seeing a sudden flood of new messages from low use accounts around elections or referendums is normal these days.

I think a larger question to ask is if could they also be manipulating the people themselves who are reading these message boards prior to this post which later impacts such message board's voting.

Of course. So are their allies in the Trump admin, note also the abuse of the flagging mechanism to take down any news that might not portray them in the best light.

assume this is the case on every platform

Lol. If Israel could manipulate HN do you think so many anti-Israel posts would appear on the front page, and each mitigating or nuanced comment about Israel would be flagged so quickly? No, Israel does not control or manipulate HN.

so, interfering with elections is "kindergarten", compared to leaking secrets?

Actually - it's not Israeli influence. It's pro-Israel influence. Important difference. This includes lobby organisations funded or founded by wealthy Jews, conservative Christian lobbyists, pro-arms trade interests, and geopolitical interests (essentially Israel acts as a US military proxy they can use to keep the middle east in check). Not quite Israel secretly pulling strings (which is quite rightly dismissed as traditional boring anti-semetic conspiracy theory wearing a different hat), more of an alignment of interests, which dictator Netenyahu is currently taking advantage of to pursue his own career agenda (complete destruction of Iran and security of Israel from the mindset of a paranoid Israeli nationalist). Naturally, this involves attempting to buy out journalists and promote propaganda - and the Israeli attempts to do this are usually rather inept. What's far more effective is the already existing domestic pro-Israel lobby groups that have a completely above board, and vastly more effective way of funding Israel (and the vastly more powerful US military-financial-geopolitical interests).

> why are american taxpayers subsidizing Israel exactly?

The same reason USA is subsidizing half the middle eastern countries - its a strategic location near extremely important transit routes, near important resources, and right between major powers so the region doesn't squarely fall in any major power's sphere of influence and thus up to be influenced.

I dont know why all these conspiracy theories think the usa<->israel relationship is so strange, but dont blink at the relationship usa has with egypt, uae, saudi arabia, bharain, etc.

"The SDS says the recordings — which feature a former minister, a top lawyer and other prominent figures — are proof of corruption at the highest levels of Slovenian society; while Golob’s supporters say the scandal is evidence that Janša is collaborating with foreign entities to retake power."

Sounds like they're all just different brands of scum.

The videos weren't directly about bribing. They were more about people talking about someone else taking a bribe. Sadly all of the videos were edited, so we don't have full context.

A bribe in a low trust society is not the same as a bribe in a high trust society.

In this context, a bribe is irrelevant compared to the act of election interference by a foreign actor.

Nawrocki is just incompetent (and to be fair that was his selling point for PiS). Now - Kaczynski, that's where true evil lies

Hey now, there’s a few axis girlbosses out there! Don’t forget Sana’s skin in the game.

Not Meloni, then?

NoKings is this weekend, millions are speaking out together

At the risk of stating the obvious, Black Cube is an actual private intelligence firm that sells spy services [1], while Palantir is a software firm that sells software (even if that software is used by intelligence, gov, etc). You can go spin up a free Foundry instance [2] and test it, and it doesn't have secret buttons to imprison people.

[1] https://www.blackcube.com/

[2] https://www.palantir.com/developers/

Your broader point is true but the characterization of Israel as an extension of America is not.

Israel is happy to be the sacrificial anode for more or less anyone willing to pay and not immediately counter to Israel's own geopolitical interests. This is a service they offer to the world, not just America.

America simply happens to be the largest customer among many.

I agree with everything you said except that the US is able to stop it. Think about it: Wouldn't Israel simply use these same tools in the US to install a puppet president they can easily manipulate?

Can we even prove it hasn't already happened?

Who would be the Terry A. Davis of Israel-as-Ticketmaster?

Yeah, I’ve come to the same realization. Israel does the dirty work for the US and they take all the heat. If the U.S. really wanted Israel to stop, all they need to do is take out special privileges Israel gets and put down economic sanctions.

As the Qatari emir said in the wake of the recent Middle Eastern conflict, it's clear who's running the show geopolitically. Cui bono?

All of this might be true if Israel didn't have undue influence over the American officials who are authorized to pick up that phone. But they do, and so the phone doesn't get picked up.

Also, if your parable about Ticketmaster were true. But it isn't. Most artists do indeed dislike them; the paltry kickback isn't worth the... bad blood... it sends their way. And it's weird that your read is that most artists secretly hold their fans in contempt. I don't know what kind of person just assumes that of others, except that they're that way themselves, maybe.

I’m not a fan of comparing a cruel, genocidal government to a site that jacks up the prices on concert tickets, personally.

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So many countries (Russia is reported to be helping Orban, for example) meddle in other countries' affairs, even when it doesn't affect them at all, directly or indirectly. These days a lot of damage can be done online (propaganda, riling people up, fake news etc) for very little money - how does one even begin to counter this? Especially if you are a small country/poor with limited resources

Is “we” referring to the United States?

Sheldon Adelson's backing helped Netanyahu a lot, and not just by funding the free Israel Hayom newspaper (which generally assumes a right-wing, pro-Netanyahu editorial stance).

This isn't Israel the state, it's a private company that's based in Israel.

When your religion tells you that you're the creator of the universe's Chosen People™, you're going to develop a society-wide narcissistic complex and behave like everyone else is inferior to you and fair game for manipulation, killing, etc.

Always baffles me why some people think and act like being proud of their state/country/race and criticizing its actions are mutually exclusive.

I'm quite convinced that Israelis have an edge in communication and socials.

And god forbid how easily you're labeled as anti semitic for bringing up facts about Israeli spying and lobbying in the west.

Hell, in Italy, neo nazi hooligans go protest for Israel with hundreds of police defending them.

Whereas genuine pro Palestinian protests (99 times out of 100 peaceful) met nothing but batons and condemnation.

Even the tv narratives about these events is disgusting.

It's clear the Israelis know how to do their job.

> Doesn't matter, half of HN will still defend them.

And I would say half can't/won't speak about this. I try to stray away from these discussions sometimes because I feel worried that someone is going to take any comment out of context within these messages which is a bit of a strange way of self censorship actually and I feel like I might not be the only one. It's also worth mentioning that I have found this to be the case especially for Israel.

For example, I feel valid criticizing the current American Regime and Americans themselves would agree with me at a a much higher proportion/magnitude compared to Israel in which from my small sample bias of online acquaintances, I only had one Jewish (Living in America, not Israeli) person agree that Israel is doing some pretty horrendous things and although do take this with a grain of salt as something they told me but they said that Zionism and Antisemitism are effectively something comparable as within the Jewish religion, There is an idea of the world hating the Jews as being a pre-condition within Jewish religion for them to win within the end-times theology of the jewish faith.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog I think they were referencing this: Zechariah 14:2 states, "I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it." The idea is that the Jewish people will have no earthly allies left.

This site definitely has a cohort of completely unhinged war mongers. The same names (and a bunch of random new accounts) never fail to show up to defend genocide or any other atrocities being committed.

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I think you forgot to put the /s at the end there.

The truth is the truth, whether or not it might align with a narrative or stereotype.

For example: NSA wiretapping was a truth that happened to align with pre-existing conspiracy theory narratives. It was easy to dismiss it as a crackpot theory, but that didn’t make the truth any less (or more) true.

If someone says “if you believe this might be true, you’re [a bad person]”, I would consider this person fundamentally against truth, and someone more interested in shaping narratives than upholding accuracy and integrity.

Too many

Something with stars and stripes?

DNC emails weren't fake either but dumping them all right before the election was certainly intended to be election interference.

there are examples of files and tapes which veracity isn't in question in a much bigger and more important country than Slovenia regarding much more important people than the Slovenian prime minister and... it doesn't matter much, apparently

The candidate who stands to benefit from circumstances like this is usually quite corrupt as well. The mere appearance of a foreign espionage outfit helping one candidate should raise questions about their integrity.

Sausage is made by all parties. If you show how one party makes its sausage, and only that party, that is a smear campaign a foreign power must not assist in. Same as donating to one party, it is interfering with electuons

> lot of people were called crazy or worse for believing it might be possible

Sorry, when were questions about Slovenia’s voting system considered crazy?

Who would say that? Elections are rigged all the time.

Mueller correctly stated there was an orchestrated disinformation campaign by Russia. That's different than Russians under voting tables stuffing ballots in their pockets. some like to conflate the two so that they can call it all the 'russia hoax'

Conflict of interests. We were told these things by the very same people who have an interest to rigging an election :-)

at some point, this problem boils down to something like trusting trust and I think that the answer might be similar to how stage0 in compilers work in that smaller stages which can be easily audited combine/compile together to form larger stages. (Not sure if this allegory fits at the moment but I do feel like decentralization can definitely help in these cases which is my point but these same people who told that it wasn't possible aren't looking for/actively hindering any prospects of decentralization due to once again, conflict of interests)

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We should have some benchmark project that bluntly describes the issues with each democracy. Like, did elected officials dramatically change in appearance (length, ears, nose, teeth, chin, eyes), election agenda points that don't match execution, issues with method of voting, issues with vote counting etc

It might be cheaper than we think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSM-JOzL_uU

Giora Eiland is the architect of "General's Plan". If anything, this scumbag criminal should have been locked up the moment he touched down in Ljubljana with his "company".

How are they technically allies? Israel is not in eu or nato.

If you mean broadly, western-minded, yes but slovenia expressed some uncomfortable positions for israel lately

When it comes to IL most of the EU's countries leadership strategy comes down to getting willingly fucked and getting their population fucked for literally no benefit, just so that elites will not be temporarily called "anti-semitic".

It's nuts. Israel's idea of being an ally is fucking all their allies over, with useless war they can't win but that will erase and reverse within a few weeks all benefit countries like mine (Czechia) ever derived from a bilateral trade with them, just based on increased energy prices alone. (Compared to Slovenia, it's well deserved here, though. Czechs should suffer, to learn.)

This little stuff, like meddling in elections, is nothing, compared to big effects of IL state policy.

Israel doesn't have allies aside from US, they nurture a herd of masochist sycophant states.

> but general voting interference seems quite brazzen.

It's also not a new tactic. During his '68 presidential campaign against Lyndon Johnson, Nixon convinced the South Vietnamese to not engage in peace talks with the Communists to weaken Johnson's campaign. The war went on for 7 more years and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/yes-nixon-sc...