Did Russians interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections and is such interference acceptable?

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lynnvinc

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Some links re this topic:

“Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections” at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections
The United States Intelligence Community has officially concluded that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections.[1] An intelligence community assessment stated, “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Hillary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”
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“FBI Director Comey’s FULL Testimony On Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election” at youtube.com/watch?v=FlKMELRxP9Q

“Independent investigation into Russian interference needed” at thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/325388-independent-investigation-into-russian-interference-needed
 
Did Russians interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections?
There is enough evidence to warrant a serious, bipartisan investigation.
Is such interference acceptable?
No.
 
dvdjs said:
Did Russians interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections?
There is enough evidence to warrant a serious, bipartisan investigation.
Is such interference acceptable?
No.
Click to expand...
Good for you.

It seems many here CAF will be in disagreement.
 
lynnvinc said:
Some links re this topic:

“Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections” at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections

“FBI Director Comey’s FULL Testimony On Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election” at youtube.com/watch?v=FlKMELRxP9Q

“Independent investigation into Russian interference needed” at thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/325388-independent-investigation-into-russian-interference-needed
Click to expand...
It seems probable to me that Putin would like to have affected American elections, including congressional elections and all sorts of elections, including the presidential election.

It’s hard to know what his preferences would have been in this presidential election. His choices weren’t all that 'good". Hillary Clinton has proved herself a war-lover and a war-starter, and Putin could have worried about that. I would have if I was him.

On the other hand, Trump spoke in favor of a military buildup and put pressure on NATO countries to increase theirs. Putin couldn’t have favored that, and I wouldn’t if I was him.

I can see how Putin might have preferred Trump over Clinton. Clinton has seemed unstable to me, in thought and action if not in speech. Trump seems wild in speech but very rational and measured in what he actually does.

But I am not yet convinced that Russia actually engineered the Wikileaks disclosures. As we know, some intelligence people think they saw Russian “hack marks” on the DNC email server. But we also know “hack marks” can be faked so that Russia could make it look like a hack came from Iran, or vice-versa.

At the same time, it would not be surprising if Russia did hack the DNC, just as it is said they tried to hack the RNC. If Russia did, what did it accomplish? Maybe it disaffected a few Bernie Sanders people to learn how he had been stabbed in the back by the DNC for Hillary. Also it possibly disaffected a few faithful Catholics to learn how anti-Catholic the Dem party really is. But likely it didn’t increase the numbers greatly, because likely they were disaffected already anyway.

The Russians didn’t keep Hillary Clinton out of the “rust belt” states she didn’t visit and lost. They didn’t force her to take millions from Arab states that abuse women. They didn’t force Bill Clinton to accept hundreds of thousands in “speaking fees”. They didn’t force Hillary to tell coal miners she had some nice welfare for them in lieu of jobs. I say Hillary Clinton lost the election without needing any help from Putin to do it.

But it’s true Russian operatives are much more prevalent than we “peasants” really know. After all, our own intelligence services discover a spy now and then in their own ranks. I think we would be making a big mistake to imagine that even if Putin preferred Trump, he would remain “faithful” to him. Right now our intelligence services are in disarray, seemingly full of somebody’s moles and leakers. If they’re not Putin’s, then who are they? Maybe Putin likes the chaos he’s seeing in U.S. governance, and maybe George Soros is not alone in funding it.

This country is entirely capable of governing itself without the necessity of worrying more than usual about Russian penetration. But again, no matter what Putin thought about Hillary vs. Trump before, the Trump haters are now his allies in fact, if not in intent.
 
lynnvinc said:
Some links re this topic:

“Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections” at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections

“FBI Director Comey’s FULL Testimony On Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election” at youtube.com/watch?v=FlKMELRxP9Q

“Independent investigation into Russian interference needed” at thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/325388-independent-investigation-into-russian-interference-needed
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Hmmmm. They only got 20 Democrats to sign onto that nasty article? Maybe the others have better sense than I thought.
 
dvdjs said:
Did Russians interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections?
There is enough evidence to warrant a serious, bipartisan investigation.
Is such interference acceptable?
No.
Click to expand...
What votes, if any, did Putin shift from Clinton to Trump, and by what means? Let’s be specific.
 
Oops! Did not see until now that there was a (very stacked deck of a) poll with the OP.

My vote is as follows, though only really ridiculous answers were allowed as choices:

“It’s entirely possible the Russians tried to interfere with the presidential election, but there is not the slightest evidence that it succeeded if they did. It is a virtual certainty they have at least conducted clandestine surveillance of political parties and will do it again. And so will we to them.”
 
Ridgerunner said:
Oops! Did not see until now that there was a (very stacked deck of a) poll with the OP.

My vote is as follows, though only really ridiculous answers were allowed as choices:

“It’s entirely possible the Russians tried to interfere with the presidential election, but there is not the slightest evidence that it succeeded if they did. It is a virtual certainty they have at least conducted clandestine surveillance of political parties and will do it again. And so will we to them.”
Click to expand...
👍

And we need to ask if Obama and the democrats interfered with the last Israeli elections and
was that acceptable?

Why aren’t they investigating George Soros?
 
My own thoughts are it is about as likely that the Russians influenced the election as it is that 3 million illegal votes were cast…the contentions of many of the die-hards on both sides of your country’s political spectrum are equally sad yet amusing.
 
The poll is too broad to be meaningful.

What kind of “interfere”?

Did the Russians spy on political candidates? That would be interference, which makes no difference whatsoever.

Did the Russians change the result of the election by causing votes to be counted that did not exist or by causing votes that did exist to not be counted? That would be interference, which would make a massive difference and DOES matter.

Did the Russians hack the DNC and reveal the contents of Hillary’s email server, exposing to the American people the truth of her irresponsible handling of American intelligence? That would be interference, which probably would make a difference, but would also be an act of service to the American people. The revelation of truth is a good thing.

Which parts of these possible “interferences” happened, and which did not? I think that’s a better poll question, rather than “Did the Russians interfere in the 2016 election”.
 
7_Sorrows said:
👍

And we need to ask if Obama and the democrats interfered with the last Israeli elections and
was that acceptable?

Why aren’t they investigating George Soros?
Click to expand...
And the British parliament probably did more to harm Trump than the Russians did to harm either Trump or Clinton. One recalls some of the MPs attempting to ban him from Britain altogether, for all the awful reasons they offered.

Compared to that, Russian hack of DNC headquarters (if they did it) is pretty puny stuff.
 
dvdjs said:
Did Russians interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections?
There is enough evidence to warrant a serious, bipartisan investigation.
Is such interference acceptable?
No.
Click to expand...
I agree. We have to find out what they did and how we can prevent this from happening again. I’ve been reading quite a bit about their cyber strategies I hope we are up to task in meeting the challenge…
 
linus1987 said:
My own thoughts are it is about as likely that the Russians influenced the election as it is that 3 million illegal votes were cast…the contentions of many of the die-hards on both sides of your country’s political spectrum are equally sad yet amusing.
Click to expand...
Why do you think that the FBI is investigating the forum and not the later?
 
Ridgerunner said:
And the British parliament probably did more to harm Trump than the Russians did to harm either Trump or Clinton. One recalls some of the MPs attempting to ban him from Britain altogether, for all the awful reasons they offered.

Compared to that, Russian hack of DNC headquarters (if they did it) is pretty puny stuff.
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That’s a really good point. I don’t remember any European leaders supporting Trump. I do remember they all trashed him publicly.
There should be an investigation into that attempt to interfere in our elections.
 
Ridgerunner said:
What votes, if any, did Putin shift from Clinton to Trump, and by what means? Let’s be specific.
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Oh, well, there was Bill Johnston, from Paducah…and oh, here’s Susan Miller from Jacksonville…hm…Larry Rodriguez, from St Paul…

C’mon, you know that’s an unanswerable question.

Anyway, I think we need to define what we mean by “interfere.” Did the Russians literally hack the voting machines to change the vote counts? Doesn’t look that way. At least, no evidence of that. Did the Russians attempt to undermine the Clinton campaign by leaking damaging information about them? Yep, looks that way. Did a lot of Trump campaign members have a lot of close ties to the Kremlin? Absolutely.
 
Ridgerunner said:
What votes, if any, did Putin shift from Clinton to Trump, and by what means? Let’s be specific.
Click to expand...
Not surprising that seek to apply a wholly idiosyncratic definition of interference.
At least try to be subtle about shifting the goals posts.
 
Sojourner003 said:
I agree. We have to find out what they did and how we can prevent this from happening again. I’ve been reading quite a bit about their cyber strategies I hope we are up to task in meeting the challenge…
Click to expand...
The amiable dunces will make this harder than it should be.
 
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