The Next President is...

[nsplayr]

4 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

You mean central committee? Because it’s apparently not their electorate from the last round of shenanigans. 

Can you be more specific on how any shenanigans that did happen changed the outcome?

The DNC staff definitely favored her and that's not right. I support the new DNC Chairman Tom Perez and his work to change the primary system and the relationship the DNC has with candidates. That being said, Hillary Clinton received 3.7 million more votes in the primary than Bernie did. It's pretty hard to "rig" that many more votes spread out across 50+ states and territories. Hell, the GOP establishment tried pretty hard to "rig" their primary for anyone but Trump and they were spectacularly unsuccessful.

In fact, if "the system" has screwed anyone in politics, it's screwed Hillary pretty hard twice. She got (barely) more primary votes than Obama in the 2008 primary, but he won the nomination because he won more delegates, including more superdelegates. In the 2016 general she got almost 3 million more popular votes than Trump, but he won the Presidency because he won more electoral college votes.

So for all that "rigging" in favor of "Crooked Hillary," she sure did manage to win more votes a bunch of times and yet not get elected to shit in over a decade. Bangup job by those political masterminds in Brooklyn :/ They forgot to rig the things that actually mattered somehow...

And all this is coming from someone who has never been a big Hillary fan. My personal picks were Obama in his primary campaign over her in 2008 and I wanted Biden to run in 2016 instead of her.

[SurelySerious]

9 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Can you be more specific on how any shenanigans that did happen changed the outcome?

The DNC staff definitely favored her and that's not right. 

Hah, no; it’s definitely way more fun to spin you up with cheeky, baseless statements. 

 

And the second is more what I was getting at, if anything, and the DNC superdelegates construct compounds it. 

Edited February 1, 2018 by SurelySerious

[drewpey]

On 1/27/2018 at 3:51 AM, tac airlifter said:

 I am curious if you are concerned about the DNC collusion with Russia to invent fake dossier claims which are then used as evidence to authorize FISA wiretaps of political opponents?  Because those are unbiased facts in public record.

Surely you won't mind if I source check your "unbiased facts in public record"...can you specify what "fake" dossier claims were used as evidence in a secret FISA warrant request?

Are you concerned that the FBI was able to produce enough evidence to convince a FISA court there was probable cause Carter Page was involved in criminal activity with foreign agents?

Law enforcement gets leads from everywhere...why would the dossier be treated any different?  Given Steele's background, he was likely a credible source to the FBI.  Simpson testified to congress that the dossier was taken seriously because of how many details corroborated the ongoing FBI investigation.  The FBI did their job of investigating and requesting a warrant through a FISA court.  If you have a complaint about the FISA court process and what their standard for probable cause is, then by all means lets have a public discussion about what power we've given these courts.  To say the FBI broke the rules and somehow pulled the wool over a FISA court judge who was appointed by SCOTUS Chief Justice is a very strong charge with little supporting evidence.  Nunes is trying to drive a narrative that the FBI is tainted and being used for political purposes...which is rich when you compare the 2016 coverage of Clinton's emails vs Russian interference.  For all the "collusion" the DNC did to dig up the Russian interference they sure did a bad job of actually weaponizing it for political purposes.

The memo will come out in a few days, and it will be red meat for you and the rest of the (R) base.  Crafted by one side to support a narrative, while conveniently leaving out the full picture.  In the end the FBI convinced a judge there was probable cause Carter was up to no good, and were allowed to look into it.  I see no reason to doubt the system worked the way it was intended.

[di1630]

Imagine your friend watched an unreliable weather report and was convinced that the weather over the weekend would be bad.

Instead he wakes on Saturday to clear skies and 80F. You tell him to join you for some fun outside but he refuses to even consider it and doesn’t even look out his window.

Instead he stays inside, tells everyone on social media how bad the weather is and complains about how it is only getting worse and the weather is probably really bad in the next town over.

When friends say “look outside, it’s gorgeous” he tells them they are idiots and he knows more about weather than they do, they must be watching the wrong weather channel and they are not empathetic to the suffering of the people affected by the weather.

Finally he looks outside and sees neighbors returning from boating on a sunny day realizing it was nice...but is upset.....he doesn’t own a boat as nice as theirs and what about the people who don’t own a boat at all? How could they enjoy a sunny day?

This is how I feel around my Democrat friends post 2016 election.

[nsplayr]

10 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

Hah, no; it’s definitely way more fun to spin you up with cheeky, baseless statements.

In that case, well played 

[drewpey]

14 hours ago, di1630 said:

Imagine your friend watched an unreliable weather report and was convinced that the weather over the weekend would be bad.

Instead he wakes on Saturday to clear skies and 80F. You tell him to join you for some fun outside but he refuses to even consider it and doesn’t even look out his window.

Instead he stays inside, tells everyone on social media how bad the weather is and complains about how it is only getting worse and the weather is probably really bad in the next town over.

When friends say “look outside, it’s gorgeous” he tells them they are idiots and he knows more about weather than they do, they must be watching the wrong weather channel and they are not empathetic to the suffering of the people affected by the weather.

Finally he looks outside and sees neighbors returning from boating on a sunny day realizing it was nice...but is upset.....he doesn’t own a boat as nice as theirs and what about the people who don’t own a boat at all? How could they enjoy a sunny day?

This is how I feel around my Democrat friends post 2016 election.

I feel like Republicans will stand in a monsoon and tell me it's clear skies and 80F outside.

Politics aside, Russia hacked our elections and has faced no consequences.  Everyone in the know is warning they will continue to do so.  Right now it's fun because your team is winning, but Russia doesn't care about republicans or democrats in the long run.  They want the US in disorder and for us to cede power around the world, which is happening everywhere you look if you're willing to see it.

This place never ceases to amaze me...on one thread you've got salty guys willing to crucify their USAF leadership for being shitty leaders and not caring for their people, while at the same time in another thread cheering for the chaos happening in our government for the same leadership transgressions on a larger scale.

[Homestar]

Running an influence campaign against the United States is not "hacking" an election.  Hacking an election implies that the Russians somehow manipulated the vote count by accessing databases and/or voting machines and creating and/or deleting votes.  Is that what you're claiming happened?

[drewpey]

3 hours ago, Homestar said:

Running an influence campaign against the United States is not "hacking" an election.  Hacking an election implies that the Russians somehow manipulated the vote count by accessing databases and/or voting machines and creating and/or deleting votes.  Is that what you're claiming happened?

Well I guess you can unilaterally define "hacking" how you'd like, but the rest of the world disagrees with you...even Trump himself.  I know it's been a busy news year, but try and keep up.

"As far as hacking, I think it was Russia" ~Donald J. Trump, 11 Jan 2017

Russia hacked the DNC, RNC (no success), and attemped to hack at least 21 states election systems with varying degrees of success.  Should we just sit on our thumbs until we have verified proof they changed a vote and then decide to act?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/23/what-we-know-about-the-21-states-targeted-by-russian-hackers/?utm_term=.5b2e53a5cdaf

https://time.com/5124313/cia-mike-pompeo-russia-midterm-elections/

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jan/11/donald-trump/trump-says-russians-were-unable-hack-republican-na/

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/22/electronic-voting-state-hacking-russian-government-cyber-actors/

https://time.com/4828306/russian-hacking-election-widespread-private-data/

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article191857354.html

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article174950031.html

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article157039299.html

You guys beat Democrats over the head for years when Obama said Russia wasn't our enemy and the "cold war was over" when debating Romney.  Democrats were wrong, but now Republicans have done a 180 and are content to sit idly by while Russia continues to influence our democratic process.  You can try to act like we are being alarmist, but if Saudi Arabia used money and hacking to support Hillary and she had won the election, there would be a civil war going on right now.  You need to take a step back, remove the politics and realize what foreign entities are doing to our country, and the long-term damage it could have.  We need to sanction Russia into the stone age, and sit down and have an honest discussion about our antiquated voting systems.

[di1630]

Oh, yay, the Russian argument.

1. Show me the proof of “hacking”...it’s been over a year.

2. The US influences elections all the time.

3. If Russia did cause Hillary to lose, we should be thanking them.

4. Remember “it’s not rigged, your just losing” from the dems just before the election? If Hillary had won it wouldn’t be an issue.

Hacking the DNC for politicL intel is not hacking an election. The dems keep changing definitions and metrics to fit your poorly founded “Russia” argument and whine fest.

We hear about it every few months when the racism, sexism arguments don’t pan out.

Truly desperate and really sad to watch the sinking ship of the left.

[drewpey]

32 minutes ago, di1630 said:

Oh, yay, the Russian argument.

1. Show me the proof of “hacking”...it’s been over a year.

2. The US influences elections all the time.

3. If Russia did cause Hillary to lose, we should be thanking them.

4. Remember “it’s not rigged, your just losing” from the dems just before the election? If Hillary had won it wouldn’t be an issue.

Hacking the DNC for politicL intel is not hacking an election. The dems keep changing definitions and metrics to fit your poorly founded “Russia” argument and whine fest.

We hear about it every few months when the racism, sexism arguments don’t pan out.

Truly desperate and really sad to watch the sinking ship of the left.

1. Welp you could ask DHS since they notified the states of the voting system breaches, or even the CIA or FBI.  You could also pour over the many emails that wikileaks, a well-known front for the russian government, released from the DNC.  You can keep moving the goalposts all you want...until a guy named Ivan comes into your home and shits on your desk you will continue to say you demand more proof despite it being everywhere.

2. We do a lot of shit I would never be ok with other countries reciprocating to us because we are the biggest, baddest country on the block.  I don't give a fuck about your moral equivalence.  Each country acts in their own self-interest.  We need to make it clear that it's not in Russia's self-interest to fuck with us. 

3. Irrelevant

4. It would have been.  You'd be screaming about dead people and illegal immigrants voting, and you'd probably even say the russian hacking benefited Hillary (which is already a Republican talking point)

It happened, face it.  Like I said...Russia isn't pushing for any political party to win...they just want disorder, infighting, and for people to lose faith in the democratic system.  This is just the tip of the iceberg unless we fix it. 

You can count us out, but we'll see what happens in November.  Lots of (R)ats jumping off the ship lately.

[nsplayr]

56 minutes ago, di1630 said:

Oh, yay, the Russian argument.

1. Show me the proof of “hacking”...it’s been over a year.

2. The US influences elections all the time.

3. If Russia did cause Hillary to lose, we should be thanking them.

4. Remember “it’s not rigged, your just losing” from the dems just before the election? If Hillary had won it wouldn’t be an issue.

Hacking the DNC for politicL intel is not hacking an election. The dems keep changing definitions and metrics to fit your poorly founded “Russia” argument and whine fest.

We hear about it every few months when the racism, sexism arguments don’t pan out.

Truly desperate and really sad to watch the sinking ship of the left.

We've circled on this before, but here's the initial DHS/DNI statement from October 7th, 2016 (i.e. before the election happened) and here's the full IC report from January, 2017. Without revealing sources and methods it's pretty damn detailed, and I've read the entire report. I would encourage you to read it too.

To answer your point #1, from the initial statement put out before anyone knew the outcome of the election:

• The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.

So you can choose to believe the US intelligence community or not;  I'm going to believe their assessment.

The rest of your points follow an interesting narrative arc. You start with (sic), "I don't think they did it, show me the proof that they did." Then you move to, "We do the same thing all the time, not so bad." Next up is, "If they did do it, we should thank them because my preferred candidate won!" And finally you end with, "Well, they did something, but I'm moving the goal posts and pulling a Bill Clinton-esque argument to quibble over what 'hacking' means."

NO ONE IS ARGUING that the Russians literally changed vote totals. Luckily enough for us our system of elections is arcane and diffuse enough that it's pretty hard to change vote totals enough to tip national elections. Kinda like why we still use 8" floppy disks to launch nukes.

Russia ran an pretty wide-ranging influence campaign that included the use of hacked and stolen emails released through intermediaries. They wanted to cause chaos and they wanted to make the US political system look bad and divide us against ourselves...unfortunately I'd say mission accomplished. Those actions are "hacking" by any reasonable definition, that's still a direct attack on our electoral process, that's why the GOP-controlled Congress voted 517-5 to sanction Russia (among other bad actors) for their actions.

I will also stand up and say absolutely, 100% I would have still cared about this issue if Hillary had won. In fact, if the Russians intervene in our elections in 2018 or in 2020 trying to defeat Congressional Republicans or President Trump, I'm against those actions just as much as any Republican. If Vladimir Putin goes on Russian state TV and personally releases the infamous (alleged) pee tape as an October 2020 surprise that sinks the President's reelection chances, fuck that guy, although I still reserve the right to at least lol as a partisan Dem.

The voters of this country should decide who our leaders are, free of malevolent influence by an foreign nation. I'm not sure that exactly should earn a Profile in Courage, but apparently it needs to be said because for some, it seems partisanship is trumping patriotism when facing this threat.

Edited February 2, 2018 by nsplayr

[di1630]

I’m fairly certain many nations/groups have tried to sway US politics over the years, we just are hearing a lot about Russia because the left threw a fit after losing.

I just always assumed this stuff happened but ultimately, the US voters chose our president, not Russia.

Sadly, it took Wikileaks etc to expose to the American people facts about the Democrat candidate because our news wouldn’t present it.

Move along.

Frankly I’m more concerned about CNN feeding debate questions than Russia posting stuff in Facebook.

[MooseAg03]

A report from the DNI who perjured himself before Congress when he said the US government was not collecting massive amounts of data on all Americans? Forgive me if I take anything with his name attached with a huge grain of salt.

[Lord Ratner]

It is also important to note that the hacking of Democrats' emails by Russia would have been insignificant had certain Democrats not been engaging in phenomenally unethical shit.

This is different than if they had actually hacked voting machines.

No one on the left threw a fit when Donald Trump's (authentic) tax documents were illegally obtained and published, so why the sudden fit when illegally obtained (authentic) emails are released? Because both sides will disingenuously ignore data that doesn't support their side, even here.

They are all crooked. We know this. But Donald Trump had everything in the world working against him and he still won. If you want to blame Russia as the final 2% that pushed him over the line, fine, but it wouldn't have mattered if the other 98% of factors that contributed to his win had been thwarted-- or in many cases, addressed at all.

I sincerely hope Democrats continue on their present path. Focusing only on the president's personality and Russia has set them up for some pretty spectacular policy losses, and they managed to paint themselves in a pretty tight corner with the shutdown over DACA.

Congressional Democrats seem to be operating as though they are contending against someone like Paul Ryan, whose ultimate goal is the advancement of Neo conservative principles. This is not Donald Trump's interest; rather, it seems like his primary interest is in undoing Obama's legacy as pay back, and getting legislation passed despite Democratic resistance, even if that legislation is not particularly conservative.

For now, it just so happens to be suiting my political interests very well.

[matmacwc]

Who hacked the Demo's emails?

[Vertigo]

 

On 1/13/2018 at 10:03 AM, waveshaper said:

Here's just one "small" indicator that the Presidents policies and agenda might be racist:<) If these numbers continue to fall the Presidents in deep shit and he will, at a minimum, probably see an attempt by the Democrats in Congress to censure him:<) 

Excerpts;

- Almost unnoticed by the mainstream media, unemployment rates for Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians have not only fallen, but are now at all-time lows. That's right: Unemployment has never been lower for minorities, at least not since 1972, when such records first started being kept.

Yes, thank you DJT. It's obvious from this graph that it was HIS policies that clearly created this trend that lowered the unemployment rates for blacks. Proof positive there's not a racist bone in his body. /sarcasm

 

 

Edited February 2, 2018 by Vertigo

[waveshaper]

56 minutes ago, Vertigo said:

Yes, thank you DJT. It's obvious from this graph that it was HIS policies that clearly created this trend that lowered the unemployment rates for blacks. Proof positive there's not a racist bone in his body. /sarcasm
 

Yep, you nailed it and I will have to add this to my list of key indicators that Trumps a racist. President Trump being smart enough to take advantage of this great trend started by President Obama's outstanding economic policies is definitely something he is guilty of. President Trumps very own policies are now stoking the U.S. economic engine and they're a complement to President Obama's efforts to get this bull market started. I'll bet the white supremacist/KKK are as enthusiastic about these stats as the democrats were during the Presidents first sotu address.

 

Edited February 2, 2018 by waveshaper

[MooseAg03]

I wonder if those charts are consistent unemployment numbers. We all know the Obama administration began reporting a more favorable unemployment rate leading up to his re-election to make the economy look better. This omitted those who had given up looking for work by removing them from the labor pool. Those numbers are still in use, so I wish we’d go back to the actual numbers. That’s another Obama legacy that could be undone to make our country better.

[waveshaper]

The Full Text Memo; House Intelligence Committee Report On FISA Abuses;

https://www.scribd.com/document/370598711/House-Intelligence-Committee-Report-On-FISA-Abuses#from_embed

[Lord Ratner]

Who hacked the Demo's emails?

I get your point, and agree. But even if you accept it was "the Russians," the content of the email is unchanged.

[17D_guy]

1 hour ago, waveshaper said:

The Full Text Memo; House Intelligence Committee Report On FISA Abuses;

https://www.scribd.com/document/370598711/House-Intelligence-Committee-Report-On-FISA-Abuses#from_embed

Read it...whole lot of nothing outside the Ohr stuff.

Unclassify the FISA warrant and get this over with.  No bombshell as promised from the right, no huge threat to national security as promised from the left.

[Vertigo]

10 minutes ago, 17D_guy said:

Read it...whole lot of nothing outside the Ohr stuff.

Unclassify the FISA warrant and get this over with.  No bombshell as promised from the right, no huge threat to national security as promised from the left.

Very underwhelming considering the hype that was coming from the right about this.

It's essentially a hit piece trying to discredit Steele by saying he's biased against Trump. Well, that's like saying that cops are biased against criminals. Steele felt like the US was in danger and that the information he had was reliable. Of course he viewed Trump as a threat.

It claims he's an unreliable source because he talked to the media, not that his information is bad or unreliable.

The memo omits certain information to alter people's perception of the timeline. It talks about the dossier being used by the FBI to get a FISA warrant against Carter Page in 2016 in an effort to take down Trump's campaign run. The reality is Carter Page was under a FISA warrant since 2014, well before Trump entered the race. The dossier was used to get an extension on that FISA warrant, not that it was used to create a warrant.

The memo even goes on to state the dossier has been corroborated, if even "minimally".

 

[MooseAg03]

So if it’s nothing, why was the argument made that its release was a danger to national security? I think everything should be released, then maybe we can see why the FISA warrants were renewed multiple times. I think the very existence of a classified court is un-American.

 

[Prosuper]

So some Democrats did not want Trump to be president. I'm Shocked! Other news water is still wet.

[tac airlifter]

The memo is another interesting case study in people looking at the same thing and walking away with very different impressions.  I see senior DOJ/FBI leadership scheming with a political campaign to manipulate the outcome of an election.  Other folks don't see it that way, which is fine.

 This memo will not change anyone's opinion here, but I'm glad it's in the public record and I favor release of the Dem counter-memo as well.  Let's get everything out there and embrace open government.  I tire of closed door sessions, allegations and anonymous sources.