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So the GOP is directly admitting to collusion with Russian agents in order to disrupt US elections. Are we OK with this as a country?

by luma 9y ago

ItendToDisagree 9y ago
I'd wager that in the abstract the answer is "NO!" But then again IOKIYAR probably takes precedence here... And the Republicans are in charge of all the checks/balances at the moment.
dfaga 9y ago
How is this collusion with Russians? This is Fake News. Stop and think for a while if a news perfectly fits the cognitive biases of your echo chamber.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gragas 9y ago
So it's better to hide the truth from voters if that means voters knowing the truth is in Russia's interest? How is being more informed a bad thing?
- ComputerGuru 9y ago
  I think it's very clear the parent is questioning the original actions that took place and not the confession/coming-clean itself.
  - gragas 9y ago
    "I'm not okay with knowing the truth if we have to talk to [INSERT BAD GUYS HERE] to know it!"
- ItendToDisagree 9y ago
  This stance MIGHT make sense if the hacked RNC documents were also leaked. Surprisingly (or not) those files were not leaked out.[1] Sure looks like "truth" was not the element that was in Russia's interests. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/obama-russia-election-hack.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/obama-russia-election-...
  - gragas 9y ago
    >Sure looks like "truth" was not the element that was in Russia's interests. I never claimed the truth was in Russia's interests. As I clearly said, it's in Russia's interests for the GOP to win. That would mean NOT leaking RNC documents. I was very glad to know just how corrupt the DNC and the Democratic party were before I voted in November.
    - ItendToDisagree 9y ago
      Your post quoted: "So it's better to hide the truth from voters if that means voters knowing the truth is in Russia's interest? How is being more informed a bad thing?" Where did you 'clearly say' it was in Russia's interests for the GOP to win? It sure sounds like you already had your mind made up and no leak of RNC corruption could ever be big enough to sway you anyway.
      - gragas 9y ago
        My bad, I was referring to another comment thread. >It sure sounds like you already had your mind made up I'm just interested in making the most informed decision I can.
      - maxlybbert 9y ago
        I think the argument is "knowing information that is truthful, even if it's incomplete."
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      In a court of law, rules of evidentiary procudure apply such that one side is not unfairly disadvantaged, or advantaged, by unequal law or process. No, not always perfectly, but that's the ideal. An outside, increasingly hostile, power, apparently having the inner-sanctum secrets on two major political parties, but choosing, selectively, to leak the goods on only one, is not evenly informing "the public" (or anyone else) on the true scope of issues at play. One element of which is in fact that foreign adversary's exceptionally un-equal thumb on the scale. Though there's considerably more than that. Your responses strike me as ill considered, at best, deliberately so at worst. A good test is to see how you'd apply the rules or criteria were the situation reversed: the DNC colluding with, say, Russia or China, to hack the GOP, and to disclose damaging information in the immediate run-up to the election.
- allemagne 9y ago
  RTA >DCCC documents sent to Mr. Nevins analyzed specific Florida districts, showing how many people were dependable Democratic voters, how many were likely Democratic voters but needed a nudge, how many were frequent voters but not committed and how many were core Republican voters—the kind of data strategists use in planning ad buys and other tactics. This was not about informing voters, it was about specifically giving Republicans an advantage.
uncle_d 9y ago
Has anyone publicly presented any concrete evidence whatsoever that the Russians were involved in any way in influencing the U.S. election as yet? Just asking, for a friend :)
- moduspol 9y ago
  The intelligence agencies looked at the evidence and claim it was the Russians, and somehow tied it back to the Russian government. The NSA leak weeks later that confirmed sophisticated and documented techniques for making hacks appear to come from somewhere else (e.g. by using existing known-Russian C&C servers) is unrelated, and it's apparently unfathomable to think anyone else would be able to use the same techniques. Also, none of us have ever read history books, which are full of wars and witch hunts started over unverifiable claims by people in power that turned out to be mistaken (at best) or lies (at worst) to push their agenda. So I'm not sure why you're asking for concrete evidence. They said it was the Russians trying to get Trump elected. Is that not good enough for you?
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    "They said <some stuff>. Is that not good enough for you?" Generic answer for all questions of that general format. NO!
  - at-fates-hands 9y ago
    > They said it was the Russians trying to get Trump elected. Is that not good enough for you? Only if it made sense. At nearly every angle you look at, it doesn't. If the Russians wanted someone they could push around, then Clinton was their candidate. She's the one who signed off on the Uranium deal, and had several large donations she received as SCOTUS from the Russians. John Podesta (her campaign chair) had financial interests in a Kremlin funded company, and was also on several of the corporate the boards of said company. Compared to Trump (some smoke, no hard evidence, lots of "anonymous sources"), the ties between Clinton and the Russians are way stronger and have far more substance to them. If this is the case, then why would the Russians want someone they know to be a wild card and prone to being impulsive compared to someone they already made deals with, and had far deeper, established relationships with? If they were going to influence the election and wanted a puppet, it makes 110% more sense to discredit Trump and put Hilary in office.
moduspol 9y ago
The hack was public knowledge in June of 2016, and it's only fairly recently that it's been known (asserted?) that Guccifer 2.0 was acting on behalf of the Russian government. It also says, "GOP campaign consultant." That's a third party contractor--not quite indicative of a high level conspiracy. I think that's a far, far cry from what you're claiming.
- maxlybbert 9y ago
  Especially since the "collusion" occurred after the breach. --- I should probably mention that if getting this data doesn't qualify as "receiving stolen property," it should. The consultant could learn a lot from Pepsi ( https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/jul/07/marketingandpr.drink https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/jul/07/marketingandpr... ), but there is a difference between coordinating with somebody to steal data and getting data that has already been stolen.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- tiles 9y ago
  Not to trot out the "what if this involved the DNC, the GOP would call for blood" meme, but it's certainly justified to feel outrage over a consultant for a party colluding with a foreign entity to influence an election. It's equally possible that the party knew about the actions of their contractor, since they were on their payroll.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    Well, the leaks themselves revealed some pretty troubling (although not terribly surprising) friendliness between the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign, so it's not like we have nothing to compare it to. The article alleges a GOP consultant worked with a hacker of unknown origin claiming to have opposition info. The leaks (and Podesta's) revealed, though, a frankly disgusting level of cooperation between the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign. [1] This whole idea that a contractor using hacked opposition info to his advantage in a way that may have unintentionally benefited Russian interests is in any way more scandalous than nearly all the mainstream media verifiably going to bat for Clinton campaign is selective outrage. [1] http://www.anonews.co/wikileaks-emails-hillary/ http://www.anonews.co/wikileaks-emails-hillary/
criddell 9y ago
> So the GOP is directly admitting I don't know that I would assign the actions of a GOP consultant to the entire GOP.
- _jal 9y ago
  Insofar as a political party is benefiting from the bad actions of members, I'm not going to feel bad about it at this point. If you look at individual actions only, it is easy to write things off. But I am not a prosecutor, and when we cross some critical mass of "isolated incidents", I start thinking the "bad apples" have spoiled the whole barrel, to actually use that cliche correctly for a change. I'm sure there's a member or three of the Penn State frathouse recently in the news who weren't culpable in that kid's death, too.
  - criddell 9y ago
    I'm not a fan of the bad apples argument. The same reasoning is used by some to defend attacks on Muslims.
    - acdha 9y ago
      There's a fairly key difference in the levels of opposition: you can easily find Muslims criticizing every extremist attack, rejecting the theology used to justify them, setting up education programs to reduce future recruitment, and working with law enforcement. I think the strongest form of the bad apple argument comes not from the presence of a problem but rather the strength of counter-efforts.
    - _jal 9y ago
      I probably wasn't clear. I'm not either. What I was alluding to was how common we hear a corruption of the phrase as a defense. "Just a few bad apples." Somehow the cautionary part of the cliche is disappeared.

So the GOP is directly admitting to collusion with Russian agents in order to disrupt US elections. Are we OK with this as a country?

by luma 9y ago

So the GOP is directly admitting to collusion with Russian agents in order to disrupt US elections. Are we OK with this as a country?

ItendToDisagree 9y ago

I'd wager that in the abstract the answer is "NO!" But then again IOKIYAR probably takes precedence here... And the Republicans are in charge of all the checks/balances at the moment.

dfaga 9y ago

How is this collusion with Russians? This is Fake News. Stop and think for a while if a news perfectly fits the cognitive biases of your echo chamber.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

gragas 9y ago

So it's better to hide the truth from voters if that means voters knowing the truth is in Russia's interest? How is being more informed a bad thing?

ComputerGuru 9y ago
I think it's very clear the parent is questioning the original actions that took place and not the confession/coming-clean itself.
- gragas 9y ago
  "I'm not okay with knowing the truth if we have to talk to [INSERT BAD GUYS HERE] to know it!"
ItendToDisagree 9y ago
This stance MIGHT make sense if the hacked RNC documents were also leaked. Surprisingly (or not) those files were not leaked out.[1] Sure looks like "truth" was not the element that was in Russia's interests. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/obama-russia-election-hack.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/obama-russia-election-...
- gragas 9y ago
  >Sure looks like "truth" was not the element that was in Russia's interests. I never claimed the truth was in Russia's interests. As I clearly said, it's in Russia's interests for the GOP to win. That would mean NOT leaking RNC documents. I was very glad to know just how corrupt the DNC and the Democratic party were before I voted in November.
  - ItendToDisagree 9y ago
    Your post quoted: "So it's better to hide the truth from voters if that means voters knowing the truth is in Russia's interest? How is being more informed a bad thing?" Where did you 'clearly say' it was in Russia's interests for the GOP to win? It sure sounds like you already had your mind made up and no leak of RNC corruption could ever be big enough to sway you anyway.
    - gragas 9y ago
      My bad, I was referring to another comment thread. >It sure sounds like you already had your mind made up I'm just interested in making the most informed decision I can.
    - maxlybbert 9y ago
      I think the argument is "knowing information that is truthful, even if it's incomplete."
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    In a court of law, rules of evidentiary procudure apply such that one side is not unfairly disadvantaged, or advantaged, by unequal law or process. No, not always perfectly, but that's the ideal. An outside, increasingly hostile, power, apparently having the inner-sanctum secrets on two major political parties, but choosing, selectively, to leak the goods on only one, is not evenly informing "the public" (or anyone else) on the true scope of issues at play. One element of which is in fact that foreign adversary's exceptionally un-equal thumb on the scale. Though there's considerably more than that. Your responses strike me as ill considered, at best, deliberately so at worst. A good test is to see how you'd apply the rules or criteria were the situation reversed: the DNC colluding with, say, Russia or China, to hack the GOP, and to disclose damaging information in the immediate run-up to the election.
allemagne 9y ago
RTA >DCCC documents sent to Mr. Nevins analyzed specific Florida districts, showing how many people were dependable Democratic voters, how many were likely Democratic voters but needed a nudge, how many were frequent voters but not committed and how many were core Republican voters—the kind of data strategists use in planning ad buys and other tactics. This was not about informing voters, it was about specifically giving Republicans an advantage.

uncle_d 9y ago

Has anyone publicly presented any concrete evidence whatsoever that the Russians were involved in any way in influencing the U.S. election as yet? Just asking, for a friend :)

moduspol 9y ago
The intelligence agencies looked at the evidence and claim it was the Russians, and somehow tied it back to the Russian government. The NSA leak weeks later that confirmed sophisticated and documented techniques for making hacks appear to come from somewhere else (e.g. by using existing known-Russian C&C servers) is unrelated, and it's apparently unfathomable to think anyone else would be able to use the same techniques. Also, none of us have ever read history books, which are full of wars and witch hunts started over unverifiable claims by people in power that turned out to be mistaken (at best) or lies (at worst) to push their agenda. So I'm not sure why you're asking for concrete evidence. They said it was the Russians trying to get Trump elected. Is that not good enough for you?
- mythrwy 9y ago
  "They said <some stuff>. Is that not good enough for you?" Generic answer for all questions of that general format. NO!
- at-fates-hands 9y ago
  > They said it was the Russians trying to get Trump elected. Is that not good enough for you? Only if it made sense. At nearly every angle you look at, it doesn't. If the Russians wanted someone they could push around, then Clinton was their candidate. She's the one who signed off on the Uranium deal, and had several large donations she received as SCOTUS from the Russians. John Podesta (her campaign chair) had financial interests in a Kremlin funded company, and was also on several of the corporate the boards of said company. Compared to Trump (some smoke, no hard evidence, lots of "anonymous sources"), the ties between Clinton and the Russians are way stronger and have far more substance to them. If this is the case, then why would the Russians want someone they know to be a wild card and prone to being impulsive compared to someone they already made deals with, and had far deeper, established relationships with? If they were going to influence the election and wanted a puppet, it makes 110% more sense to discredit Trump and put Hilary in office.

moduspol 9y ago

The hack was public knowledge in June of 2016, and it's only fairly recently that it's been known (asserted?) that Guccifer 2.0 was acting on behalf of the Russian government. It also says, "GOP campaign consultant." That's a third party contractor--not quite indicative of a high level conspiracy. I think that's a far, far cry from what you're claiming.

maxlybbert 9y ago
Especially since the "collusion" occurred after the breach. --- I should probably mention that if getting this data doesn't qualify as "receiving stolen property," it should. The consultant could learn a lot from Pepsi ( https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/jul/07/marketingandpr.drink https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/jul/07/marketingandpr... ), but there is a difference between coordinating with somebody to steal data and getting data that has already been stolen.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
tiles 9y ago
Not to trot out the "what if this involved the DNC, the GOP would call for blood" meme, but it's certainly justified to feel outrage over a consultant for a party colluding with a foreign entity to influence an election. It's equally possible that the party knew about the actions of their contractor, since they were on their payroll.
- moduspol 9y ago
  Well, the leaks themselves revealed some pretty troubling (although not terribly surprising) friendliness between the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign, so it's not like we have nothing to compare it to. The article alleges a GOP consultant worked with a hacker of unknown origin claiming to have opposition info. The leaks (and Podesta's) revealed, though, a frankly disgusting level of cooperation between the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign. [1] This whole idea that a contractor using hacked opposition info to his advantage in a way that may have unintentionally benefited Russian interests is in any way more scandalous than nearly all the mainstream media verifiably going to bat for Clinton campaign is selective outrage. [1] http://www.anonews.co/wikileaks-emails-hillary/ http://www.anonews.co/wikileaks-emails-hillary/

criddell 9y ago

> So the GOP is directly admitting I don't know that I would assign the actions of a GOP consultant to the entire GOP.

_jal 9y ago
Insofar as a political party is benefiting from the bad actions of members, I'm not going to feel bad about it at this point. If you look at individual actions only, it is easy to write things off. But I am not a prosecutor, and when we cross some critical mass of "isolated incidents", I start thinking the "bad apples" have spoiled the whole barrel, to actually use that cliche correctly for a change. I'm sure there's a member or three of the Penn State frathouse recently in the news who weren't culpable in that kid's death, too.
- criddell 9y ago
  I'm not a fan of the bad apples argument. The same reasoning is used by some to defend attacks on Muslims.
  - acdha 9y ago
    There's a fairly key difference in the levels of opposition: you can easily find Muslims criticizing every extremist attack, rejecting the theology used to justify them, setting up education programs to reduce future recruitment, and working with law enforcement. I think the strongest form of the bad apple argument comes not from the presence of a problem but rather the strength of counter-efforts.
  - _jal 9y ago
    I probably wasn't clear. I'm not either. What I was alluding to was how common we hear a corruption of the phrase as a defense. "Just a few bad apples." Somehow the cautionary part of the cliche is disappeared.