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I guess some congratulations are in order for one Vladimir Putin, the Russian kleptocrat who used strategic leaks of hacked information to win the election (or at least the electoral college) for Donald Trump, a thin-skinned narcissist and easily manipulable geopolitical naif.
I mean, we knew that before. But now it’s pretty much official.
The Washington Post reports:
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
Yep, that’s right. The outcome of our election was essentially determined by a hostile foreign power — with the active encouragement of Donald Trump, the candidate who benefited from Russia’s interference.
It’s also now clear just how selective Russia’s use of hacked information was. The New York Times reports that the Russians also successfully hacked the Republican National Committee’s email servers, but chose not to release any of these emails.
No wonder Trump is skipping most of his intelligence briefings.
Some people are comparing these revelations to Watergate. I don’t think that’s fair. This is ten times more significant than Watergate. It calls the whole election into question.
Trump is not our President. And he should not be sworn into office unless and until we have a full public reckoning of how exactly he “won” this election.
Huh. It’s no secret Putin preferred Trump, but this came as a surprise to me. As others said, it’s a bit strange in light of the not-too-distant US past with Russia. I expect many older/more experienced Republicans won’t be happy (maybe not for the right reasons, but anyway) if Trump is found to be collaborating in some way.
Okay, I guess they’re not happy already (and yes, McCain was one of the ones I was thinking of).
@Imaginary Petal – Ugh, that sounds awful. And I feel bad for any people that guy meets who are Muslims, or look like they could be.
I don’t have any solutions, but I think you were right in telling him to get lost. Sometimes people need to be told bluntly that they’re being racist and what they’re saying is bullshit.
Not offering this as proof of anything, obviously, but shortly after the US election, Putin’s ‘political guru’, Aleksandr Dugin, celebrated on his FB page, writing “Washington is ours” & claiming similar Russian victories in Bulgaria & Moldova. Among the comments was this one:
Again, this is not presented as evidence of corruption or crime. I found the alliances fascinating – some members of the alt-right clearly see their interests, Trump’s, and Putin’s, as intertwined.
btw, Richard Wolstencroft, I am ashamed to report, is Australian. He runs the Melbourne Underground Film Festival despite some controversy over his political leanings.
@Orion
And there’s Laurie Penny: if hope’s not doing the job, there’s always spite.
Or words to that effect.
The only hopeful thing in all this, and as an American socialist it makes me feel super gross to say it, is that Trump appears to have pissed off the CIA.
Not answeing their phone calls immediately after the election, not taking daily intelligence briefings, generally treating the spooks like so much wet garbage is probably not the smartest idea he’s ever had in a long line of stupid ideas.
It’s not like they don’t know how to topple governments, and it usually starts with this kind of report. Of course, their government toppling coming home to roost isn’t good news for us either. The best case scenerio would be a complete re-do of the election, but I’m not gonna hold my breath.
What do you think would happen otherwise?
Going right back to the first page here, but I’m seeing this heiling point all over the ‘net from I’m-not-an-alt-rightist-buts, so whatever:
TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT, YOU TREASONOUS BLITHERING VACUUM-HEADED COCKWARTS, YOU FASCISTURBATING PRINCE ALBERT PUS EXPLOSIONS, YOU OMNICIDAL WASTES OF PERFECTLY GOOD COLONIC BACTERIA.
CAPSLOCK.
=__=#
@ podkayne & sinkable john
Ah, thanks for digging that out for me. Yeah that’s the thing I was thinking of.
Theoretically you could cobble a criminal case together based on those comments. They’re actually quite explicit but interestingly common law jurisdictions have always recognised the concept of dog whistles even before the term came into common usage. As one of the key cases puts it:
“You can enter into a conspiracy with a nod and a wink”
The necessary elements for counselling and procuring an offence under federal law are merely that you intentionally offer encouragement knowing (or ‘should have known’, it’s an objective test) that the relevant person may carry out the offence.
Intention isn’t synonymous with ‘wanting’. You can intend something, even if it’s not something you want to happen, if the outcome is a logical consequence of your deliberately chosen action.
It’s also not a defence that the person would have carried out the offence regardless of your encouragement.
Having said all that, for both practical and legal reasons, it doesn’t seem likely that the authorities would try to prosecute/impeach in the circumstances. There are a number of legal and factual hurdles to overcome. For example, you can only encourage someone before the fact. Expressing approval for an action already carried out doesn’t count as counselling or procuring, so we’d need to check the timing.
All in all it’s an interesting legal question, might even be worth an article, but probably not something to pin any hopes on.
Except the hacking predates the comment.
I have trouble believing you can legally nail Trump for his public pronouncements, under US law. We don’t know what happened in private. There’s decent odds we’ll learn, but we don’t presently know.
@IP:
Ugh, that sounds awful. What an asshole.
(If he left South Africa in 1995, then he’s a very particular sort of asshole, too. Apartheid was declared ended in 1992 and the first free elections were in 1994, which concluded with a Black person becoming President. If he left in 1995 then he would have left in response to that. There’s a whole lot of White South Africans who left then because they didn’t want to live in a free country, and good riddance to the hateful pieces of shit. My apologies to the rest of the world that we inflicted them on you.)
Yeah, the prospect of a Trump-Putin axis (complete with a NATO dominated by a US that wants to stop anything happening) coupled with an increasingly divided and nationalist Europe is my recurring nightmare. Europization will be the new Finlandization for 2017. For the first time since WW2, one power bloc will have nuclear supremacy and like Regan, Trump would rather be friends with right wing tyranny than left leaning democracy. You gotta wonder about the Republicans: wanted to invade Iraq to keep WMD out of the hands of a reckless dictator, did everything they could to stop the Iran nuclear deal because “unstable mullahs with nukes” might happen, voted to put giant arsenal of WMD into the hands of an unstable and reckless autocrat. Go figure
Oh, the irony of birtherism’s loudest mouth using a law designed to keep foreign influence out of the Whitehouse to try and unseat the Prez on a technicality. Here he comes with foreign business interests all over the world, riding in the pocket of hostile power, to claim the presidency for himself. I want to see his birth certificate to prove it doesn’t say “born if a jackal” under ‘Mother’
@Rafael
Who’s asking for sympathy?!
But if you live anywhere near planet Earth, you should be very, very concerned.
Hello again!
I’ve only just started posting here on-and-off in the last couple of months, but it’s a site I’ve enjoyed reading for much, much longer.
Now I want to share something going on with a Democrat Congressman, and what he recommends happen with the Electors come December 19th.
Quote from the article: “Cicilline appears to be the first member of Congress and the highest-ranking elected official in the country to endorse the notion that electors aren’t simply rubber stamps for their states’ popular vote.”
ARTICLE HERE
We need to get more Congressmen supporting this. We really need to. I also think, as I mentioned previously in this comment thread, that a REVOTE is essential to have faith in our election process. Even former CIA member Robert Baer has said the same thing now on CNN:
VIDEO HERE
People really are talking about this everywhere. I just think we have to fight however we can, and with every ounce of passion we have left to us. It’s just too big to give up or to feel hopeless this time – too many lives at stake, and I think with the news of Russian interference, that number has only gone up.
Russia influenced how people voted by selectively revealing information, but ultimately the voters made the decision themselves. It’s underhanded and took advantage of the easily influenced, but it doesn’t actually delegitimize the election. It’s not like messing with the vote count or something.
@itsabeast
Yes, true, but that leaves out any discussion of voter disenfranchisement, or whole ballots that were totally discarded or never counted. The recount in Wisconsin from Jill Stein’s efforts, as far as I heard, also revealed that Republicans had been padding the votes for Trump there in some counties.
There’s just too much wrong with this election. Trump winning the presidency by a margin of people so small “they would fit in a college football stadium.” Clinton being 2.8million+ votes ahead of Trump overall. CIA confirming Russia intervened to influence this election.
We now have all this knowledge – we should be doing something with it.
At the very least, the recount effort should be completely and thoroughly performed (not dismissed as it has been now in Michigan). At best, a total re-vote is really warranted and was also recommended by former CIA member Baer.
@hottotrotsky : if the CIA depose Trump (or if Trump mysteriously die along with all the russian-influenced advisors), that may very well spark a civil war. Not to mention that the martyrisation of Trump will make the far right even stronger.
So this happened. . . .
Donald Trump’s Harassment of a Teenage Girl on Twitter Led to Death [Threats] and Rape Threats
http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/12/trumps-harassment-of-an-18-year-old-girl-on-twitter-led-to-death-threats.html
@ Kat: that’s appalling. Shame the First Lady Elect seems to have abandoned Twitter – this sort of thing apparently used to deeply concern her.
@Croquembouche
She’s busy raising Barron.
And giving a pussy-bow blouse to the maid to wash by hand. (I wonder if all her outfits while she’s First Lady will have a pussy bow?)
@ Kat, I’ve always found the public expectations of the First Lady to be a gracious public figure creepy, but I find the current invisibility of Melania even creepier. If it’s because she doesn’t want to be a public figurehead, it may be the most feminist thing she’s ever done. Even though Hillary rose to the challenge, and even Bill would have given it his best shot.
If it’s because she’s being erased for PR reasons, it’s yet another whole new level of yuk.
@Croquembouche
I’ve got many feminist reasons for disliking the fact that the president’s wife is expected to be First Lady.
But I should be careful what I wish for, because now Melania Trump (who apparently agrees with me) is (sorta, kinda) First Lady.
http://exiledonline.com/how-the-west-helped-invent-russias-election-fraud-osce-whistleblower-exposes-1996-whitewash/
I didn’t know that i shiuld post this link but i just feel conflicted regarding this information, looking from this side and the history experienced in eastern Europe.
I dont mean to undermine either. The article on this link is interesting and also maybe will give some clue of worst case scenario.
I hope this is not ofensive.
Valentine: what’s offensive about that link? There’s little in it that’s news to me: I thought it was common knowledge that Russian democracy in the 90s was weak but promising, and fell over in the 2000s, so that now nobody really believes Russia is democratic.
The article sensationalizes the reporting. I recall the overall gist through the 1990s was that it was imperfect but improving. I recall worries when Putin took power, but there was a feeling of wait and see. Pretty quickly, Putin started tearing down the apparatus of freedom.
The headlines couldn’t go into details — that’s what a headline specifically doesn’t do –, but the articles did.
@nurembosis
I was concerned it would be considered part of that arguement, us influenced foreign elections too and so we shouldn’t care this might be true in the US now. My concern is the anti-Russian panic really. But to be honsest many people Yeltsin was a funny joke, but not for russians. And i can see many similarity between a incompetent drunk in russia (helped by american government) and an incompetent fool in us (alleged helped by russian government).
And it’s not just 1990s russian government being week I thought might be a problem, but the point that US government got Yeltsin incharge. Or helped.
I have very bad internet at the moment so i can’t see the news and videos, but it seems there is not much evidence or that CIA has not released the evidence. So i was just putting the article up to say that US and Russia have long been doing this to eachother. But what concerns me is the reaction and ‘red scare’ thoughts i have seen.
It seems incoherent to argue both that US and Russia have been interfering in each other’s politics AND that the claim of Russian interference is a mere “red scare”.