CIA: Russia manipulated the election to install Trump

Rocketman1981, I'm not sure why I'm causing you any upset in this thread. We agree (with a bipartisan group of senators) that we need to figure this out.

I'm not "subverting" transfer of power. I am not like some of my more liberal pals who think electors should change their votes -- I think that's nonsense. The election is over but let's learn what we can from what happened. I do think some people (maybe you, maybe not, but definitely some conversatives) are calling the Russian involvement hearsay and choosing to totally ignore our intelligence agencies, who, long before the election, had said Russia was involved. To be honest, this would be MUCH less of an issue is Trump just shrugged and accepted the statements of the CIA and FBI and said "yeah, I agree we have to figure this out and do what we can to prevent it moving forward." But no, like he seems to do with any single fact that he doesn't like, he disputes it and attacks it.

I only brought up Assange (speaking of 'shadowy figures') b/c some had said he was more trustworthy than our own president, which I wasn't going to debate. I just more think it's a sad state of affairs and on that we should be able to agree.

Cheers and happy Friday.

 

I like that questions of known hacks are considered "political lynching", a highly charged term I didn't come across when Birther b**** Candidate Trump persistently questioned Obama's legitimacy over the years.

 

Well for example, you had officials in the DNC working with Hillary against Bernie, you have evidence that the Rhode Island Governor reduced the number of polling stations open for the primary due to Hillary trailing Bernie by 4 points in the polls, emails that prove the DNC was trying to force Bernie out as early as April.....I mean there's tons of evidence that the DNC was actively in the tank for Hillary and doing all they could to harm anyone who ran against her.

Also, that's ignoring that the system itself is anti-democratic given that superdelegates can essentially pick the nominee no matter what the results of the votes say. If the Republicans had a superdelegate system, Trump wouldn't have won for sure. Also, throughout the whole election they touted the superdelegate count to make it appear as if Bernie was way behind when really, he was doing pretty well against her head to head.

Perhaps all of this is "standard practice" for the DNC, but it's certainly anti-democratic...and that's just talking about the primary.

 

With that logic, why was Obama chosen as the 08 DNC candidate when Hillary was the expected heir apparent to the mantle? She clearly had the establishment's political and financial backing even after some surprise upsets in early primaries.

Hillary didn't even have Email-gate or Clinton Foundation to hold her back.

 

"Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave" if he knew how many Republicans approve of Putin. - Obama

I guess the 1980's finally stopped calling Obama. Now perhaps he can use this moment of clarity for the next month to govern as though Russia is a geopolitical threat.

 

Have you forgotten about the excitement about his candidacy? People were WAY in the tank for him from day one. Sure there were some Hillary holdouts, but damn near the entire DNC was in the tank for Obama and that's why he got over 60% of the superdelegates. It was a bit closer, sure, but Obama is who the DNC establishment wanted, and that's who got it.

 

Trump also had record primary turnouts and most of Trump's opposition wasn't because of his inexperience (like Obama) but rather his offensive down and dirty style that wasn't appropriate for children (or for most adults). Like Obama, Trump was outspent early on and the donor class was clearly in Hillary's pocket before nomination.

I highly doubt Trump would've been outmaneuvered by hypothetical GOP superdelegates because it would risk voter wrath and splitting the vote in House and Senate races. Look at poll numbers for politicians who refused to endorse Trump and magnify that if there was a wholesale snub of Trump with a different candidate elected by superdelegates. Or just look at the trainwreck in Dem numbers as millennials and Bernie supporters chose more to stay at home than walk over to polls and pick Hillary.

There was also early rumblings for a split GOP convention by #NeverTrumpers, but GOP chairman, now Trump Chief of Staff, stepped in and squashed it. So it's not like Trump would have been or had been hostage to some elite GOP consipiracy.

 

With superdelegates, they'd have put Trump in an early hole that he couldn't have climbed out of. He could win a state and end up further behind in the delegate count as happened to Bernie Sanders on a few occasions. What you seem to forget here is that more Republicans voted against Trump than voted for him in the primary. I'm not sure who the GOP would have picked if they had an anti-democratic primary system like (ironically) the Democratic party has, but it sure as hell wouldn't have been Trump.

Perhaps it would have been Jeb Bush, John Kasich, or maybe Marco Rubio. However, since there was a democratic system in place, Trump was able to win enough states with a plurality to where he became the guy.

 

Regarding the RI polling thing, as far as I can tell, had no effect on the outcome there, even if some people in the Sanders camp suspected the decision was intended to help Clinton. I don't see that as evidence of rigging anything.

But, in general, I guess I don't see a pro-Clinton bias as such a big surprise or even consider it a major scandal. I don't particularly like it, but I didn't have any expectation that the DNC would be impartial when a prominent figure from the Democratic party was contesting against a person who's not even a Democrat.

 

Obama is suppressing a lot of what he wants to say to protect the smooth transition of power. He went as far as he seemed to feel comfortable in calling out the election interference from Russians without steeping on that principle by calling into question the legitimacy of Trump's electoral college victory.

There a number of threads in the story of the 2016 election, the least of which are voter suppression and the FBI Comey story. I dig Obama chastising the media for reporting too much inconsequential gossip and thusly inflaming "scandals" that didn't exist. But I don't agree with him giving Comey cover.

Thing is, we don't want to set precedents for disrupting the smooth transition of power. But we see that the GOP doesn't really care about that as per NC and we see Trump's team isn't having problems playing president and "shaking" things up before the oath of office is even taken. And it is imperative that election interference and propaganda be confronted and not just pushed aside to play nice. Playing nice (empathizing with the "other side", avoiding name calling (even embracing a new PC of obtuse terminology), compromising with and obstructionist party) hasn't exactly worked out for Obama lately.

 

Is CNN down for anyone? Russians hacking it up ereywhere.

 

Yeah, Obama didn't consider Russia a geopolitical threat just like you're not a Trump apologist.

 

Obama is suppressing his voice by telling Russia to stop hacking or else? And are you alluding one should question Trumps electoral college victory? Especially in light of what was exposed in Detroit?

Obama, stop calling the Podesta emails a hack. It wasn't a hack. Learn what hacking means and quit hacking up the English language.

 

I have never said to let them off the hook. I said we should use what we know about the mistakes they made to increase security. I haven't said to leave anyone off the hook. But whether or not we let them off the hook doesn't change the seriousness of what Russia did.

 

Actually Clinton in 2008 got more actual votes than Obama and won several late primaries such as California. The only reason why Obama finished so soundly was that Clinton decided not to contest the election at the convention and asked for the convention to support Obama.

 

There were more cyber attacks than just the Podesta email. There was more to their attempt than just computer espionage as well.

 

The FBI is just in on the conspiracy. What sore losers they are. They wouldn't care at all about that stuff except that they are sore losers.

 

If you count the "no candidate" votes in MI for Obama , then It changes the popular vote count.

 

I actually agree with much of your post. I do believe that Trump has been so beat up by media and attacked more viciously
that his instinct is to be defensive.

When all the facts come out, we hope to be able to sort through who did what in an informed capacity and not on the eve
of the electoral college vote as a way for people to try to stifle that time honored process before all has been determined.