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

[Michael68]

Never thought I’d see the day when the left would hate Russia. I think that mean they’re doing something right I agree with that twitter campaign. Russia NOT My Enemy !

Its all fake just like this silly investigation

 

[7_Sorrows]

I feel like I can’t vote and that means I can’t see the results

you can see the results without voting first.

 

[J_Peterson]

If you believe that the DNC was working to launch and Arab Spring to undermine the Catholic Church, you were influenced by the Russians.

Funny thing about that. I read an article in The National Catholic Register that convinced me it was all bunk. I think they wanted to blow the story up but they made the mistake of including the background and some quotes from Podesta (a practicing Catholic) that made me realize he has the best of intentions.

I still follow Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and I’m still at a loss how they are going to bring down the Church? I’ve never seen any concrete accusations about what they do to hurt the Church. They are young and politically progressive but seem to me to be in line with Church teaching, not really much different in style than someone like Franciscan Action Network. I could be wrong and would welcome any new info to prove me wrong.

 

[dvdjs]

Funny thing about that. I read an article in The National Catholic Register that convinced me it was all bunk. I think they wanted to blow the story up but they made the mistake of including the background and some quotes from Podesta (a practicing Catholic) that made me realize he has the best of intentions.

I still follow Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and I’m still at a loss how they are going to bring down the Church? I’ve never seen any concrete accusations about what they do to hurt the Church. They are young and politically progressive but seem to me to be in line with Church teaching, not really much different in style than someone like Franciscan Action Network. I could be wrong and would welcome any new info to prove me wrong.

Yep. This was a beaut.

 

[mwigs]

Its all fake just like this silly investigation

This whole affair is a barbarous fraud! All the perpetrators should be charged, tried, and jailed. AG needs to impanel a jury.

 

[St_Francis]

you can see the results without voting first.

:doh2:

Thanks

 

[_Abyssinia]

Telling the truth when it hurts one side and keeping silent when the truth hurts the other side is interfering.

If it was the Russians that tried to hack the DNC and RNC but they couldn’t get into the RNC, who says that if they could of got into the RNC that the Russians, if it was them that did the hacking, would have kept silent? For all anybody knows, if the RNC was less secure and information could been retrieved from them by whoever tried to infiltrate the system, that could have been released like the DNC leaks.

 

[_Abyssinia]

After the investigation into allegations of improper interference in the election from the Russians are they going to move on to investigating CNN and CBS over the same issue?

If they are going to investigate Russia, they need to investigate Ukraine and government officials that have been claimed to have worked with allies of Hillary Clinton to damage Donald Trump and an aide in the US 2016, per Politico. If that happened, that is election interference, is it not?

 

[lynnvinc]

I would agree with this! The poll choices were incomplete in my opinion.

Sorry, I made a mistake and put one answer twice and omitted “The Russians did NOT interfere, but their interference would only acceptable if they favor the same candidate I favor”

But it does seem no one is opting for “acceptable if they favor the same candidate I favor” on the other Q that has that.

You can add the numbers or percentages for the Q I listed twice. Or, add all the “did interfere” answers (29) v. all the “did NOT interfere” (20) to get to a main crux of the issue.

Or, the main crux (that I was interested in) that whether or not one thinks there was Russian interference, it is unacceptable (45) v. it is acceptable (2). Sort of restores my faith in my fellow man.

 

[lynnvinc]

If it was the Russians that tried to hack the DNC and RNC but they couldn’t get into the RNC, who says that if they could of got into the RNC that the Russians, if it was them that did the hacking, would have kept silent? For all anybody knows, if the RNC was less secure and information could been retrieved from them by whoever tried to infiltrate the system, that could have been released like the DNC leaks.

I think from what Comey said they did hack into the RNC, but did not release that info to the public.

It is interesting that both Comey and Rogers talked about how the Russians (and spies in general) would be getting info on their enemies and not release it, but use it in other ways. So that this time it was unusual that they released it, at least re the Democrats.

They also said Putin and associates hate Hillary Clinton. But the gist I got is that they just wanted to disrupt our democracy and society, sow seeds of conflict and confusion, destroy trust in our system. So it seems if the tables had been turned, and they hated Trump instead or were even neutral about both Trump and Clinton (or hating both equally), they could have worked to help Hillary instead. Imagine then how the Trump supporters would have felt if they had helped Hillary and she had won.

In either case, it causes a lot of people in the U.S. to become demoralized & fight among themselves – which is their goal.

So it would be good if all Americans could join together on this one point “Russian interference is unacceptable” and we are going to root it out if it exists and is still going on (as Comey and Rogers said it was), and even if we do not think it happened, we need to safeguard that it never happens in the future.

To me that is the bigger picture that I think we (except for 2 of us here) can agree on.

 

[JanetF]

Sorry, I made a mistake and put one answer twice and omitted “The Russians did NOT interfere, but their interference would only acceptable if they favor the same candidate I favor”

But it does seem no one is opting for “acceptable if they favor the same candidate I favor” on the other Q that has that.

You can add the numbers or percentages for the Q I listed twice. Or, add all the “did interfere” answers (29) v. all the “did NOT interfere” (20) to get to a main crux of the issue.

Or, the main crux (that I was interested in) that whether or not one thinks there was Russian interference, it is unacceptable (45) v. it is acceptable (2). Sort of restores my faith in my fellow man.

I was actually thinking along the lines of:
I am not sure of the Russians interfered in the 2016 US elections because an independent investigation needs to occur…

While I believe that it would be unacceptable for the Russians to interfere in US elections, I also believe it is unacceptable for the US to interfere in other country’s elections. That does not mean US cannot/should not help developing countries conduct democratic elections.

 

[_Abyssinia]

I think from what Comey said they did hack into the RNC, but did not release that info to the public.

It is interesting that both Comey and Rogers talked about how the Russians (and spies in general) would be getting info on their enemies and not release it, but use it in other ways. So that this time it was unusual that they released it, at least re the Democrats.

They also said Putin and associates hate Hillary Clinton. But the gist I got is that they just wanted to disrupt our democracy and society, sow seeds of conflict and confusion, destroy trust in our system. So it seems if the tables had been turned, and they hated Trump instead or were even neutral about both Trump and Clinton (or hating both equally), they could have worked to help Hillary instead. Imagine then how the Trump supporters would have felt if they had helped Hillary and she had won.

In either case, it causes a lot of people in the U.S. to become demoralized & fight among themselves – which is their goal.

So it would be good if all Americans could join together on this one point “Russian interference is unacceptable” and we are going to root it out if it exists and is still going on (as Comey and Rogers said it was), and even if we do not think it happened, we need to safeguard that it never happens in the future.

To me that is the bigger picture that I think we (except for 2 of us here) can agree on.

FBI director James Comey said: “We did not develop any evidence that the Trump campaign or the current RNC was successfully hacked,” - rferl.org/a/russia-fbi-comey-evidence-trump-campaign-hacked/28224353.html

Hope I didn’t copy any other text from that article on this post when I copied and pasted from article. (Bold text my emphasis)

So neither the RNC or the Trump campaign was able to be hacked. But the DNC was hacked. I comment similarly as I did before. If the RNC had a less secure system it is entirely possible that whoever hacked them could of released the information that had been hacked, just as the DNC leaks were released.

Hillary Clinton was the the one who did the Russian reset. According to the New York Times, it was Bill Clinton who gave a speech to a bank in Russia which has links to the Kremlin for $500,000 before the State Department under Hillary Clinton signed off to allow Russians to own a fifth of the production of uranium in the USA. I’m questioning how Hillary Clinton as President would be so bad for Russian interests, given her past record when it comes to Russia, that Russia would go to the lengths to try and interfere in the US Election because they wanted Donald Trump to win.

By, the way, even if Russia did interfere, you note the discord that they may have wanted to create in the US election. If they wanted to create this, it doesn’t mean that they preferred one candidate over the other, but that they may have just wanted to create problems and distrust in general.

 

[lynnvinc]

FBI director James Comey said: “We did not develop any evidence that the Trump campaign or the current RNC was successfully hacked,” - rferl.org/a/russia-fbi-comey-evidence-trump-campaign-hacked/28224353.html

Hope I didn’t copy any other text from that article on this post when I copied and pasted from article. (Bold text my emphasis)

So neither the RNC or the Trump campaign was able to be hacked. But the DNC was hacked. I comment similarly as I did before. If the RNC had a less secure system it is entirely possible that whoever hacked them could of released the information that had been hacked, just as the DNC leaks were released.

Hillary Clinton was the the one who did the Russian reset. According to the New York Times, it was Bill Clinton who gave a speech to a bank in Russia which has links to the Kremlin for $500,000 before the State Department under Hillary Clinton signed off to allow Russians to own a fifth of the production of uranium in the USA. I’m questioning how Hillary Clinton as President would be so bad for Russian interests, given her past record when it comes to Russia, that Russia would go to the lengths to try and interfere in the US Election because they wanted Donald Trump to win.

By, the way, even if Russia did interfere, you note the discord that they may have wanted to create in the US election. If they wanted to create this, it doesn’t mean that they preferred one candidate over the other, but that they may have just wanted to create problems and distrust in general.

Well, maybe I didn’t remember correctly, thinking “tried to hack into” as “hacked into” the RNC and other Republicans.

And maybe both Dems and Republicans have some ties to Russian power & wealth. (I even suggested in a thread on this topic that was closed and eliminated that next election they may be helping the Democratic candidate.)

The main point is still that hopefully we the people of the U.S. are fairly unanimous against Russia (or any other foreign entity) interfering in our elections…even if it turns out that we Americans have done that to others (which is also not good).

And it does seem that we here at CAF (except 2 of us here) still don’t want or accept that interference.

 

[lynnvinc]

Here is the full transcript of Comey’s 3/20/17 testimony on Russian interference in 2016 election:
washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/03/20/full-transcript-fbi-director-james-comey-testifies-on-russian-interference-in-2016-election/?utm_term=.98ad17446e20

In one place he says they did not disseminate RNC info or that gathered from those associated with Trump, but in another place he does say the Russians did get into those sources. The Q&A goes like this:

STEFANIK: Stepping back more broadly, in the case of Russia, we know that cyber hacking is just one tactic that’s typically part of a broader influence or information warfare campaign and we know the Russian government is ready and willing to employee hacking as but one of many tools in their toolkit to obtain information for use against the United States. Is there any evidence that Russia tried to hack other entities associated with the 2016 presidential campaign in addition to the DNC or the Clinton campaign operatives?

COMEY: Yes, many others.

STEFANIK: Can you specify those others? Did that include the RNC? Did that include any of the other campaigns of candidates in the primaries, either Democrats or Republicans?

COMEY: I think what we can say in an unclassified setting is what we have in the report that there were efforts to penetrate organizations associated with the Republican party and that – I think that is what we said in the report. And that there were not releases of material taken – hacked from any Republican associated organizations.

STEFANIK: But the hacking – the use of cyber tools as part of their broader, whether you call it hybrid warfare or information warfare campaigns, it was done to both parties.

COMEY: Correct.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Here is the full transcript of Comey’s 3/20/17 testimony on Russian interference in 2016 election:
washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/03/20/full-transcript-fbi-director-james-comey-testifies-on-russian-interference-in-2016-election/?utm_term=.98ad17446e20

In one place he says they did not disseminate RNC info or that gathered from those associated with Trump, but in another place he does say the Russians did get into those sources. The Q&A goes like this:

STEFANIK: Stepping back more broadly, in the case of Russia, we know that cyber hacking is just one tactic that’s typically part of a broader influence or information warfare campaign and we know the Russian government is ready and willing to employee hacking as but one of many tools in their toolkit to obtain information for use against the United States. Is there any evidence that Russia tried to hack other entities associated with the 2016 presidential campaign in addition to the DNC or the Clinton campaign operatives?

COMEY: Yes, many others.

STEFANIK: Can you specify those others? Did that include the RNC? Did that include any of the other campaigns of candidates in the primaries, either Democrats or Republicans?

COMEY: I think what we can say in an unclassified setting is what we have in the report that there were efforts to penetrate organizations associated with the Republican party and that – I think that is what we said in the report. And that there were not releases of material taken – hacked from any Republican associated organizations.

STEFANIK: But the hacking – the use of cyber tools as part of their broader, whether you call it hybrid warfare or information warfare campaigns, it was done to both parties.

COMEY: Correct.

didn’t you already post this?

 

[St_Francis]

Here is the full transcript of Comey’s 3/20/17 testimony on Russian interference in 2016 election:
washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/03/20/full-transcript-fbi-director-james-comey-testifies-on-russian-interference-in-2016-election/?utm_term=.98ad17446e20

In one place he says they did not disseminate RNC info or that gathered from those associated with Trump, but in another place he does say the Russians did get into those sources. The Q&A goes like this:

STEFANIK: Stepping back more broadly, in the case of Russia, we know that cyber hacking is just one tactic that’s typically part of a broader influence or information warfare campaign and we know the Russian government is ready and willing to employee hacking as but one of many tools in their toolkit to obtain information for use against the United States. Is there any evidence that Russia tried to hack other entities associated with the 2016 presidential campaign in addition to the DNC or the Clinton campaign operatives?

COMEY: Yes, many others.

STEFANIK: Can you specify those others? Did that include the RNC? Did that include any of the other campaigns of candidates in the primaries, either Democrats or Republicans?

COMEY: I think what we can say in an unclassified setting is what we have in the report that **there were efforts to penetrate organizations associated with the Republican party **and that – I think that is what we said in the report. And *that there were not releases of material taken – hacked *from any Republican associated organizations.

STEFANIK: But the hacking – the use of cyber tools as part of their broader, whether you call it hybrid warfare or information warfare campaigns, it was done to both parties.

COMEY: Correct.

So what Comey said (bold) wrt the Republicans is that the Russians *tried *to get in. He does not say they succeeded.

However, his next statement (italics) *implies *that they did get in.

Weasel sentences.

 

[Vanny]

What happened to the argument that the majority of Trump voters were racist and they all turned out on election day, or that Comey interfered? Those myths didn’t’ work so it’s all about the Russians now.

Where the Russians also responsible for the fact that 9 of the 13 states where voter turnout was highest were battleground states?

In Wisconsin, they finally had to show a photo ID. Hilary lost by 22k votes. Milwaukee and Madison saw a reduction in voting numbers. I guess the new photo ID was hard to obtain for the dead people there who voted in past elections.

Lack of evidence of illegal voting does not equate to proof of innocence, it’s proof of lack of an official investigation.

Hillary was the worst Democratic presidential candidate in the modern era. She will be known in history as the single worst candidate ever. Unlikeable, not to be trusted and a corrupt liar. A majority of voters didn’t like her personally and didn’t trust her. Hillary would have sold Alaska back to the Russians if Putin had agreed to dump enough billions of dollars into the Clinton Crime Family Foundation. However, I’d like to wish Hillary a long and healthy life, so that she can agonize every day about losing the election to President Trump.

This. ^^
People did not want Hillary Clinton. I live in a blue state, and on a stretch of road and between the rural area I live and a large town, I saw tons of Trump/Pence signs, and no Hillary/Caine signs. I talked to lots of people who wanted Trump. Our state did go blue, but only because of the large city areas-which typically vote Democratic and outnumber the rural areas.

 

[lynnvinc]

So what Comey said (bold) wrt the Republicans is that the Russians *tried *to get in. He does not say they succeeded.

However, his next statement (italics) *implies *that they did get in.

Weasel sentences.

It is sort of confusing. I don’t think they were at liberty to tell everything, but even if it were just “trying” to hack in, that is still very bad. (But good the Republicans had a more secure server or whatever to prevent the hack.)

By next election we can expect the Russians to have become even more skilled in their abilities to hack in, which is why I think we Americans should be working on preventing that in any way we can.

The Russians are NOT trying to help America by helping elect someone they think will be better for our country (even if you believe Trump is better for our country and even if in fact he is). The Russians are doing all this to help themselves in various ways, and as Comey and Rogers said to harm and undermine America.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I didn’t vote because I didn’t like any of the choices.

 

[lynnvinc]

I didn’t vote because I didn’t like any of the choices.

I did make a mistake on one of the questions, but which question would you like (for which you would have voted)?

Here are the results so far:

The Russians interfered in the 2016 elections and it is not acceptable no matter which candid they favor
29
60.42%

The Russian interfered and it is only acceptable if they favor the same candidate I favor
0
0%

The Russian interfered and it is acceptable no matter which candidate they favor
0
0%

The Russians did NOT interfere, but their interference would not be acceptable no matter which candidate they favor
13
27.08%

The Russians did NOT interfere, but their interference would not be acceptable no matter which candidate they favor [Note this is the same as the previous, so results can be combined]]
4
8.33%

The Russians did NOT interfere, but their interference would be acceptable no matter which candidate they favor
2
4.17%