U.S. Intel report says key gulf ally meddled in American politics

I love this topic how x country “meddled” and “interfered” in our elections.<p>Go read 1: the Princeton study proving our “democracy” is a sham since the votes of the people have no impact on policy, and 2: the longgg Wikipedia article detailing all the foreign coups we’ve been involved in.<p>Let’s start with overturning Citizens United and congressional term limits, then we can talk about “meddling” in our politics.

&gt; It reveals the UAE’s bid, spanning multiple U.S. administrations, to exploit the vulnerabilities in American governance, including its reliance on campaign contributions, susceptibility to powerful lobbying firms and lax enforcement of disclosure laws intended to guard against interference by foreign governments<p>What can you say?<p>A political system dominated by electioneering, where democratic success is determined by campaign financing, is guaranteed to attract this type of behaviour. Can&#x27;t really even blame the UAE for doing this, no doubt everyone else with the resources is doing likewise. Got a problem with these outcomes? Plug the holes in the governance, reform the political system.

America is the most powerful country in the world. Billions of people in over a hundred countries depend on the moves that America makes. You&#x27;d have to be a fool to think that this is so shocking. In fact, the shocking thing to me is that the US is singling out the UAE here, when it&#x27;s pretty obvious that basically every country out there is meddling in the same exact way.

We do it to ourselves and it was magnified by citizens united which allows unlimited PAC spending by completely anonymous corporations. That&#x27;s not free speech, that&#x27;s pure corruption and opening up avenues for things like this to happen. This and basically legal bribery through lobbyist who can buy time with senators and reps.

Everything points to domestic protocols in 1st world countries.<p>I&#x27;m watching the Medibank hacking in Austrailia too, where abortions and other medical procedure data is being sold by the hackers.<p>I&#x27;ve already laughed at divesting from tcp&#x2F;ip. Nothing changes in the 1st world without tcp&#x2F;ip as a domestic protocol :)

This is hardly news. Without an actual report to refer to, one can&#x27;t help but wonder if this article is part of some kind of narrative building exercise. A few years ago the TV-watching public was introduced to this concept with all of the concern about so-called Russian hacking. All I could think was <i>if you think what our enemies do is bad, you should see what our allies do.</i>

Oh I must have missed their AEPAC (American Emirates Public Affairs Committee) inaugural address.

Does everyone not remember that it is an tradition for every US President to visit Saudi Arabia near the end of their terms?<p>The President of the United States of America goes TO SAUDI ARABIA to basically kiss the ass of the Saudi royal family.<p>There is so much soft money washing around under the surface of Washington. The Trump administration showed where tons of it comes from, because they were so brazen in their corruption compared to previous ones. The inauguration committee, the presidential library, &quot;speeches&quot;, soft lobbying, sweet deals for friends and family, etc.