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> Nobody said Russia rigged the election. Obama and Josh Earnest have not gone as far as using the word "rigged" but they have essentially implied as much. Oth

by 3131s 10y ago

> Nobody said Russia rigged the election. Obama and Josh Earnest have not gone as far as using the word "rigged" but they have essentially implied as much. Other large media outlets have done the same and yes, some have used the word "rigged" directly [1] (and if I dug through CNN / MSNBC / ABC reels I am positive I could find many more examples). Lesser known media outlets and internet commentators have been using the word "rigged" profusely, so it's not "nobody". > Diplomatic sanctions have been the correct response and I don't see anyone asking for an escalation of that. Hillary Clinton herself is on video calling for an escalation of that in the form of a military response, shortly after some saber-rattling about the US nuclear arsenal [2]. > And please remember why Russia's relations with almost all of the world deteriorated in the first place. It's because they annexed Crimea (unprecedented for our generation) And you should remember the unprecedented actions that have caused the United States' relations with almost all the world to deteriorate. Claims of influencing foreign elections (c.f. the entire history of the CIA) and widespread hacking (c.f. the NSA essentially pwning the world) are particularly hypocritical. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/how-to-rig-an-election.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/opinion/how-to-rig-an-elec... The election was rigged by Russian intelligence, which was almost surely behind the hacking of Democratic emails, which WikiLeaks then released with great fanfare. [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ahr0-KpvLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ahr0-KpvLM

ZeroGravitas 10y ago
As a non-American, the long history of the US meddling in elections may make the claims hypocritical, but it makes me very open to suggestions that Russia would do it too.
- knz 10y ago
  Are you European by chance? If so, don't worry, your country also likely has a long history of meddling on local affairs either through colonialism or parts of the cold war, especially if you are British! Yes, the US has meddled in international affairs but let's not pretend that US is unique in doing so or that Russia is some benign country that has no history of actively working against the interests of Europe/US/NATO or that Russia doesn't have its own agenda. For all of the faults of the US/Europe I'm glad I grew up in the "west" rather than behind the Iron curtain. I also don't see millions of people who fled western nations to Russian states - the single direction of political and economic migrants over the last 70 years speaks for itself.
  - dijit 10y ago
    "But they did it, it's ok" please, are you going to use that argument to bring back slavery? trite and baseless.
    - knz 10y ago
      Who said anything about slavery? We are talking about meddling in the political affairs of other countries and espionage. That's been going on ever since lines were drawn on a map.
      - dijit 10y ago
        Correct, your defence of the US Govt's meddling was "but Europeans did it" Which is an absolutely incorrigible position.
        knz 10y ago
        I didn't say anything about it being justified. I said "let's not pretend that US is unique in doing so" to someone who implied the US deserves it...
  - vectorwhat 10y ago
    First there are many countries in Western Europe with no significant colonial history. Greece for example. Italy's colonial history is insignificant. As to being glad that we grew up in Western Europe during the cold war, I have an Albanian friend who is now a professor of economics in the USA. He said that, although living in communism as an adult (Albania had the worst communist, btw) would have sucked, he wouldn't trade his childhood for anything. I've never met tougher mofos than my Albanian friends or my wife. They know how to have fun, how to behave in groups and nothing scares them. By comparison how many of my peers (or myself) suffer from anxiety, are anti-social (being on your phone in public is very anti-social) or just weird?
    - knz 10y ago
      Most do have a colonial history though, a history often partly responsible for much of the strife we see today - was Italy not involved in Ethiopia/Eritrea/Somalia? And Greece certainly had political strife during the Cold war and world wars.
sverige 10y ago
The most ironic part of the Clinton camp using the term "rigged" is that the original use of the term was by Bernie Sanders against Clinton during the primaries. His claims were proved by the emails that were released by Wikileaks. But somehow this has become a discussion of whether the Russians were behind it, rather than the uncontested content of the emails showing the Clinton campaign's malfeasance. It has also morphed into a large percentage of the population believing that Russia hacked voting machines and vote tallies, for which there is absolutely no evidence. This furthers the agenda of deligitimizing the election results.
- toss1941 10y ago
  Classic distraction strategy. It's sad watching people on facebook/twitter even believe one word from the White House and the MSM about Russian hacking. Putin isn't a nice person, but even so the facts simply don't support the government's claims. If you ask me, they went with the Russian angle because of how ruthless Putin seems to be, and they thought it would be easy to sell. It was with a lot of people, it seems, that or they were all too eager to believe a lie.
  - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
    And now we look petty and they look magnanimous for not opting for an in-kind response. I don't know how long it will take us to rebuild our humint network but I'm assuming it won't be easy to identify all of the new spies coming in with new and improved methods.
- lern_too_spel 10y ago
  How were Sanders's claims of Clinton rigging the elections proved by the emails released on WikiLeaks?
  - Natsu 10y ago
    I didn't follow the Sanders campaign closely enough to be able to identify the more relevant items, but looking at the Wikileaks data gave me the impression that he was a token candidate who they controlled with various bits of leverage (e.g. when they cut him out of the DNC voter systems). There was also that time when they staged violence at the Trump rallies and blamed it on Bernie supporters. Refer to the controversy regarding Zulema Rodriguez & co.; she was also later tied to the 'Trump Ducks' thing via a photo credit, which was said to come straight from Hillary. Here's a list of some of the findings from the leaks, though not all are relevant to this - http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/ http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/

by 3131s 10y ago

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

As a non-American, the long history of the US meddling in elections may make the claims hypocritical, but it makes me very open to suggestions that Russia would do it too.

knz 10y ago
Are you European by chance? If so, don't worry, your country also likely has a long history of meddling on local affairs either through colonialism or parts of the cold war, especially if you are British! Yes, the US has meddled in international affairs but let's not pretend that US is unique in doing so or that Russia is some benign country that has no history of actively working against the interests of Europe/US/NATO or that Russia doesn't have its own agenda. For all of the faults of the US/Europe I'm glad I grew up in the "west" rather than behind the Iron curtain. I also don't see millions of people who fled western nations to Russian states - the single direction of political and economic migrants over the last 70 years speaks for itself.
- dijit 10y ago
  "But they did it, it's ok" please, are you going to use that argument to bring back slavery? trite and baseless.
  - knz 10y ago
    Who said anything about slavery? We are talking about meddling in the political affairs of other countries and espionage. That's been going on ever since lines were drawn on a map.
    - dijit 10y ago
      Correct, your defence of the US Govt's meddling was "but Europeans did it" Which is an absolutely incorrigible position.
      - knz 10y ago
        I didn't say anything about it being justified. I said "let's not pretend that US is unique in doing so" to someone who implied the US deserves it...
- vectorwhat 10y ago
  First there are many countries in Western Europe with no significant colonial history. Greece for example. Italy's colonial history is insignificant. As to being glad that we grew up in Western Europe during the cold war, I have an Albanian friend who is now a professor of economics in the USA. He said that, although living in communism as an adult (Albania had the worst communist, btw) would have sucked, he wouldn't trade his childhood for anything. I've never met tougher mofos than my Albanian friends or my wife. They know how to have fun, how to behave in groups and nothing scares them. By comparison how many of my peers (or myself) suffer from anxiety, are anti-social (being on your phone in public is very anti-social) or just weird?
  - knz 10y ago
    Most do have a colonial history though, a history often partly responsible for much of the strife we see today - was Italy not involved in Ethiopia/Eritrea/Somalia? And Greece certainly had political strife during the Cold war and world wars.

sverige 10y ago

The most ironic part of the Clinton camp using the term "rigged" is that the original use of the term was by Bernie Sanders against Clinton during the primaries. His claims were proved by the emails that were released by Wikileaks. But somehow this has become a discussion of whether the Russians were behind it, rather than the uncontested content of the emails showing the Clinton campaign's malfeasance. It has also morphed into a large percentage of the population believing that Russia hacked voting machines and vote tallies, for which there is absolutely no evidence. This furthers the agenda of deligitimizing the election results.

toss1941 10y ago
Classic distraction strategy. It's sad watching people on facebook/twitter even believe one word from the White House and the MSM about Russian hacking. Putin isn't a nice person, but even so the facts simply don't support the government's claims. If you ask me, they went with the Russian angle because of how ruthless Putin seems to be, and they thought it would be easy to sell. It was with a lot of people, it seems, that or they were all too eager to believe a lie.
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  And now we look petty and they look magnanimous for not opting for an in-kind response. I don't know how long it will take us to rebuild our humint network but I'm assuming it won't be easy to identify all of the new spies coming in with new and improved methods.
lern_too_spel 10y ago
How were Sanders's claims of Clinton rigging the elections proved by the emails released on WikiLeaks?
- Natsu 10y ago
  I didn't follow the Sanders campaign closely enough to be able to identify the more relevant items, but looking at the Wikileaks data gave me the impression that he was a token candidate who they controlled with various bits of leverage (e.g. when they cut him out of the DNC voter systems). There was also that time when they staged violence at the Trump rallies and blamed it on Bernie supporters. Refer to the controversy regarding Zulema Rodriguez & co.; she was also later tied to the 'Trump Ducks' thing via a photo credit, which was said to come straight from Hillary. Here's a list of some of the findings from the leaks, though not all are relevant to this - http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/ http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/