Lazy8 wrote: 
The issue of what was exposed about the operations of the DNC and the issue of how it was exposed do not have to be considered together.  Sure, partisan anger over Russian hacking of the DNC would be misplaced if it were just based upon the partisan nature.  However, that does not mean that people should not be concerned about Russian hacks related to a component of our electoral process.  And that concern should not be mitigated by whether the information exposed by the Russian hack is considered by some, or even many, to be beneficial.  The outrage, as you call it, does not need to be calibrated on an ends-justify-the-means basis.         , 

 miamizsun wrote: 
Well now I don't know what to believe.

the answers you seek are here!

not here

but here! 

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Well we also know that there was a lot of far more offensive tapes of Trump around that we never got to see either. Maybe he really is a great dealmaker/negotiator?  

I really don't think he will be the end of things unless he gets us into a war. I do think there is a lot of potential downsides, and I think we are going to see corruption and cronyism on a scale not yet seen. I don't think there was a good choice, but I think he was the worst of the two, and many (a lot them his supporters) will suffer for it.  I'll be okay, but it will make me sad to watch it. 

Expanding a bit on the earlier post:

Essentially it seems like if we are going to be informed consumers of news, we are going to have to learn, as individual consumers, to do the job that used to fall to journalists. The ones who make a living from it seem to have gotten lazy or in a hurry to get a scoop. Now breaking news is increasingly likely to come from somewhere other than a traditional media source.

So we need to learn to vet sources and so on to weigh the value of what passes for "news" these days.

Thus, one of the things to be aware of is the question, "who's bringing me this and why?" Should a clear bias or axe to grind lead us to ignore information? Obviously not by itself. Case in point would be the watergate break in story. Felt (aka Deep Throat) turns out to have had ulterior motives besides the overall good of the country for leaking information to Woodward. Interagency squabbling and politics are common motivators in bureaucracies around the world. Should Woodward have walked away from this information? I would say no. If Deep throat had provided publishable information, should they have gone with it, or sought independent confirmation first? Probably smart to take the latter option, particularly if you don't have a good sense of what your source's motives are.

Sadly, performing this sort of analysis and deep digging is something few are going to be interested in doing. Not everyone will be able to suss out motivations or look for original sources or independent confirmations, either. Clicking on "share" and letting people downstream figure it out is so much easier.

Oh, brave new world . . . 

 islander wrote:
My point was this: there were lots of people motivated to hack the RNC, not just state actors. If they succeeded they were quiet about it, which seems unlikely.

Colin Powell, private citizen, the guy not running for anything, not managing a campaign for the chief executive of the US gov't? Him? Uh, OK.

They got my mom too, and she once voted for a Republican I think, so yeah—the Republicans must be really bad at IT too.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Pretty sure I didn't say that.  All illegal security violations are bad. Even more so when they are done by a foreign power will bad intentions. It certainly doesn't exonerate the information exposed, but it is still illegal and pretty telling that the "law and order party" embraced and even defended/justified these actions with glee while it worked to their benefit.

Lazy8 wrote:
If I were a betting man, I'd put money on yes.


Lazy8 wrote: 
Lots of potential actors, and lots of potential targets. We should be unified in our opposition to anyone using illegal means to get any kind of information. Yes we should be mad at what was exposed as well (and we should also be mad at what was likely done by the R's as well), but this is a separate issue.

Your link says this is the same thing that happened to Colin Powell, so it most certainly is not likely that the Republicans have their cyber security all locked down.

Lazy8 wrote:  

And this is why when there is pretty strong circumstantial evidence that points to the Russians, it is easy to support the conclusion that they were the ones who did it.  Even if it weren't them on the Podesta e-mails specifically, crowdstrike has some pretty good evidence against the Russians on the general DNC hack. With the general congressional willingness to investigate anything that makes their opposition look bad, it shouldn't be such a stretch to investigate something that actually involves foreign nations attacking our country. But we are apparently at the point where party trumps (ha) country now.

Trump is the president. I don't think there is anything that can delegitimize his administration at this point. I do think it would be good to acknowledge that he lost the popular vote (or at least stop claiming that he won it) and that some move toward the center is warranted to acknowledge the division in the country (I would have wanted the same for Hillary).  But since no one seems willing to give any ground, we'll all just continue to march forward to the next war, maybe this one will be civil?

 Red_Dragon wrote:
Of course it's terrible that someone illegally exposed the DNC's dirty little secrets. Shame on them. We should immediately stop knowing those dirty secrets, because exposing them was not OK.

And at least half of our political ecosystem has already clearly stopped knowing them, because...well, they're really inconvenient.

 islander wrote: 
So...it would have been OK had there been more violations of email security?

As to point 1: couldn't tell you, tho I bet there'd be something to twist somebody's knickers.

As to point 2: yes. Oh yes. Oh holy crap yes. Remember, the Russians aren't the only ones with an interest here; think about the political center of mass of lulspace.

As to point 3: of course the Russians prefer Trump! He's expressed a desire for better relations with Putin and admiration for the slimy sumbitch, and Trump would be way easier to manipulate.

 kurtster wrote: 
Fill us in, won't you? That is, if your understanding is not "in order to keep people like Donald Trump from getting us all killed." Because I'm pretty sure that's why they made it.

To whom it may concern ...

If you don't understand the purpose of the Electoral College, its your fault not mine.  Also it was one state, California, that put Hillary over the top in the total votes cast where she beat Trump by 4 million or so votes.  That covers the 2 point something million she beat him in the popular vote total.

For those of you who wish the Electoral College abolished, I'll remind you that it is established in the Constitution specifically. 

 Article II

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President.

To change this would require an amendment to the Constitution which can only happen as follows ...

 Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

That would require 13 states to oppose an amendment to prevent its passing.  Presently there are 8 states with 3 votes and 5 states with 4 votes and 3 states with 5 votes, for a total of 16 votes.  Does anyone seriously believe that enough of these states would give up their clout and the attention it brings to their needs to do away with the only thing that gives them any kind of clout or attention at least once every 4 years ?

The intent of the Founders in regards to the Electoral College is clear and valid, even today for the same reasons as then.  One man, one vote holds true in all of our elections except one, the election of the POTUS and VPOTUS.  There is a reason for that.  It isn't obscure.  It doesn't require much thinking to figure it out, if the Constitution is considered as a whole.  A synergy where the total is greater than the sum of its parts.

Pardon my interference with the discussions underway.  I realize that my presence here is unwanted, lately because I openly supported Trump, which makes me an easy target for open hate and intolerance of my views and all that comes with it.  Don't mistake the preceding sentence as an expression of feeling sorry for myself or being butt hurt as the saying goes.  I am not in the slightest.  But the hate and venom is clear as day and I do feel it.  It feels like slime.

Have a nice day.
 

And if you don't like some of the spelling in the text of the Constitution above, blame the Founders and the ABA, not me please.

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
Reading someone's online blog = door unlocked. Acceptable.
Hacking into emails = door was locked and you broke in. Wrong. 

 islander wrote: 
I know, right?

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Well if this is the dark corner, I can't wait until we pull out the fridge and see what's been collecting back there.  Seriously, you think it's only the Democrats who did this?

 Lazy8 wrote: 
I won't argue that. BUT... if I leave my door unlocked, does that make it okay for you to walk in and steal stuff?

 Lazy8 wrote: 
My problem isn't so much the content, but that it appears pretty one sided. I kept waiting for the Republican e-mails to come out and somehow they never did. So either they never wrote anything scandal worthy, they have impenetrable cyber security, or whoever had the info thought there was some strategic reason to be selective in releasing it. Do you really think #1 and #2 are likely?  I'm also surprised that more tape of the Donald didn't come out, it seems odd that such a disorganized campaign had such a lock on that content.

I'm not even particularly outraged by the content, I think it was all pretty expected. But I think it was selectively dispersed and that makes me suspicious as to the reasons.  BTW, I'm not cool with the CIA mucking in other elections either, or staging coups, or a lot of the other stuff they do in our name.

 Red_Dragon wrote:
Of course they meddled. We made it easy for them: they turned the lights on in a dark corner of our politics and the cockroaches are still scurrying about.

We can blame them for the light, but not the roaches.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Here's a point for ya: what matters is not so much what effect Russian meddling may or may not have had on the election, but the fact that they did meddle.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:
Let's look at that thumb. The Russians (again, granting that assumption with, so far, no evidence) didn't write the emails at the DNC, they revealed them. Had that revelation come from a different source would that make everything different? How, exactly? Other than Democrats being able to say "Outrage! Russians!" I mean.

 kcar wrote: 
Your loss. But then I don't read any of yours that are more than a few lines either, so my loss. I'm just simple that way.