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Even the language used in this article is misleading: “hacked the election”. The actual allegations are that Russia was behind the hacks of the DNC servers. T

Even the language used in this article is misleading: “hacked the election”. The actual allegations are that Russia was behind the hacks of the DNC servers. That is not election hacking! Hacking the election sounds like the Russians found some vulnerability with voting machines. There is no evidence of this. In either case, Trump won the election because he won more electoral votes than Hillary. And he did this by winning more popular votes in key states. It’s that simple. The Democrats had an unappealing candidate who ran a weak campaign in key states. And lost. What the DNC leaks do show, however, is that the Democrats ran a fraudulent primary election where they colluded with the Clinton campaign and suppressed any opposition from the left. This resulted in an unpopular candidate in the general election, and a public even more untrusting of the Clintons and the process. The Democrats needs to look in the mirror instead of playing to fears of Russian boogeyman.

gdudeman 9y ago
This is incorrect. In one case, Trump won the election by very narrowly winning more popular votes in key states. Those votes could have been influenced by the news. What the DNC leaks show is also the messiness underbelly of virtually any campaign. You can call it collusion, but I'd say it's the DNC doing their job to try to get an electable candidate on the ballot. The RNC did the same thing - they just failed this time. Had the Trump team's email leaked in the same way, I suspect the election would have gone the other way.
- nextstep 9y ago
  All votes are influenced by the news. That’s how our modern democracy works. You learn about the candidates through a (hopefully free) media and then you cast a vote.
  - blackrose 9y ago
    That's the point -- the CIA, FBI, and NSA determined with "high confidence" [0] that Russia worked to influence us through (among other outlets) the media -- especially social media. It worked, and because of it our votes weren't free. > Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.” [0] https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
    - Elhana 9y ago
      Because only "free" US media can influence US citizens... Mark Twain wrote about it long ago in his "Running for Governor"
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
  Parent said: > And he did this by winning more popular votes in key states And you said: > This is incorrect. In one case, Trump won the election by very narrowly winning more popular votes in key states. What exactly is "incorrect" again? So just because he won by a small margin, that win doesn't count? I don't even like Trump but this is really outrageous. Please take a second to think about what you're saying. I don't even know what you consider as "correct".
- PhantomGremlin 9y ago
  Had the Trump team's email leaked in the same way, I suspect the election would have gone the other way. It's hard to conceive of what could be in Trump team email that would be more damaging than some of the things that Trump said that were known before the election. Such as: "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters" and "Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything." And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It seems like Trump said something outrageous every other day. If Trump's email had him directing his underlings to cooperate with the Russians to hack the DNC, then maybe that would have hurt. But maybe that wouldn't have been sufficient. Maybe there would have needed to be a video attachment with Trump saying exactly that? Not just words? Seriously. Outside of evidence of Trump specifically directing people to cooperate with Russia to commit felonies, what email could have been sufficiently damaging to Trump?
  - macintux 9y ago
    Well, there was the serious allegation of forced rape of an underage (13 I think?) girl. I doubt there'd be any emails in that topic, but I have to think that would have cost him a few votes if verified. OTOH, the "but Hillary" argument seemed to trump everything else, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- nautilus12 9y ago
  "You can call it collusion, but I'd say its X doing their job." I find this statement totally lacks awareness considering all the accusations of collusion being hurled at the current administration.
comex 9y ago
You accuse others of using misleading language, then proceed to use misleading language yourself. Calling the primary "fraudulent" makes it sound like primary votes were miscounted, but of course there is no evidence of that either. (Unless you count the controversy over a voter roll 'purge' in NY, but that (a) didn't cover enough voters to make a significant difference, (b) probably benefitted Sanders anyway, and (c) was not the subject of any revelations from the leaks.)
- nextstep 9y ago
  The DNC colluded with the Clinton campaign in numerous ways. There's an ongoing lawsuit about this: http://www.newsweek.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-claims-bernie-sanders-would-have-won-rigged-election-hillary-611165 http://www.newsweek.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-claims-bernie-sand... http://www.theroot.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-is-the-biggest-story-in-politics-that-1796674709 http://www.theroot.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-is-the-biggest-stor...
  - comex 9y ago
    The lawsuit does not allege that votes were miscounted.
    - nextstep 9y ago
      You’re right, it alleges that the DNC defrauded donors by failing to run a fair primary.
  - unityByFreedom 9y ago
    ongoing lawsuit != guilt It wouldn't surprise me if there are a number of campaign-inspired lawsuits. That doesn't mean any of their claims are found to be true by a court. You're suggesting that the DNC colluded with Clinton against Sanders, yet Sanders is not a part of this lawsuit. Sounds more like spin from the right to me.
nautilus12 9y ago
Hacking the election is the language that the mainstream media has been promulgating. Shouldn't he use the same language they use to point blame?
nl 9y ago
The actual allegations are that Russia was behind the hacks of the DNC servers. Generally speaking "hacking the election" doesn't refer to this, and instead refers to information operations by Russian linked groups. Indeed, there were no credible public allegations of actual voting machine hacks or even attacks until the "Reality Winner" leaks. I'd note that on a website called "Hacker News" it should be pretty clear that "hack" can refer to many, many thing.
avenoir 9y ago
The DNC Charter [1] states numerous times that it is their responsibility to establish processes which ensure the office of President of the United States is selected by a fair and equitable process. However, being a private entity they are not obligated to do a damn thing. While they violated their own charter by favoring one candidate over the other I don't believe they actually broke any laws. And this is what makes this interesting. People can be very upset about what they've done, but nobody can really do much about it because they're not a government agency. Isn't it fascinating? We have an entity with incredible power over the election process and absolutely no oversight. [1] http://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.democrats.org/Downloads/DNC_Charter__Bylaws_9.17.15.pdf http://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.democrats.org/Downloads/DNC_...
- nextstep 9y ago
  Yeah, it is a very interesting situation. It is unfortunate that these private parties have so much power and support from the states but aren’t really held accountable to the voters. This sort of system maybe worked better early in the days of the US but with our two very entrenched parties, all of this serves to prevent any third party becoming a viable option.
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    Indeed. Part of how they have done this is by taking over the state legislatures (both parties), and passing laws and regulations at the Secretary of State level that make it extremely difficult for third-parties and independents to run for federal office. For example, in Texas, a person wanting to run as an independent candidate for president needs to get 80k signatures on a petition by people who voted in neither party primary. Except they will dispute as many signatures as possible, so it's more like 120k needed. Also, you have 69 days to do it! Both parties are corporations and are part of the problem. They circled the wagons when Ross Perot scared the shit out of them in 92, and the League of Women Voters withdrew from doing the debates because of how unfair they were becoming.
- prostoalex 9y ago
  In theory it has few implications as there are dozens of political parties to help fill in the void https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States#Minor_political_parties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in... In practice, however, it's next to impossible to run for a federal office on their ticket, so perhaps the focus should be on helping young political startups gain access to the federal stage.
petre 9y ago
It's the same language used by the MSM in clickbait titles. The article outlines the same counter intelligence techniques used in the Macron hack.
ece 9y ago
Trump won because in MI, PA, and WI, Jill Stein received more votes than the difference between Trump and Hillary. 3rd party candidates in FL in 2000 and MI, PA, and WI in 2016 were the spoilers for the whole nation. Don't be an idealistic, naive American voter, be a pragmatic voter! Yes I know the electoral college is racist, and we need to abolish it.
- ece 9y ago
  Seriously, downvoted for pointing out legitimate fact and reference to pragmatism?
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    Not legitimate fact.
    - ece 9y ago
      It mostly is if you lookup the definition of spoiler. Gary Johnson and Independent voters did also receive more votes than the difference between Trump and Hillary in MI, PA, and WI.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- xtreme 9y ago
  Why do you assume that all the third party voters would have voted for Hillary if there were no third party candidate? They could have abstained, or even voted for Trump. Many libertarian party supporters find the Republicans more tolerable than the Democrats. In any case, shaming people because they voted for a candidate who they felt best represented their views goes against the very idea of representative democracy.
  - ece 9y ago
    I'm not shaming the fact that they voted, I'm shaming who they voted for. You aren't a responsible voter if you're not up to accepting responsibility for your vote. If you voted for Trump, hope he's making you happy. If you voted for Jill Stein or Ralph Nader in 2016 or 2000 in WI, MI, PA, or FL, you are very much responsible for Bush and Trump respectively in the electoral and government system we have since your candidate was a spoiler. These 3rd party voters could have abstained or voted for another 3rd party or went Republican, but they didn't. They could have traded their vote to someone in a safe state (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/opinion/anti-trump-republicans-dont-waste-your-vote-trade-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/opinion/anti-trump-republ...), if Hillary was their 2nd preference. If not, go ahead, vote for 3rd party candidate who could be a spoiler and has no chance of winning.

gdudeman 9y ago

This is incorrect. In one case, Trump won the election by very narrowly winning more popular votes in key states. Those votes could have been influenced by the news. What the DNC leaks show is also the messiness underbelly of virtually any campaign. You can call it collusion, but I'd say it's the DNC doing their job to try to get an electable candidate on the ballot. The RNC did the same thing - they just failed this time. Had the Trump team's email leaked in the same way, I suspect the election would have gone the other way.

nextstep 9y ago
All votes are influenced by the news. That’s how our modern democracy works. You learn about the candidates through a (hopefully free) media and then you cast a vote.
- blackrose 9y ago
  That's the point -- the CIA, FBI, and NSA determined with "high confidence" [0] that Russia worked to influence us through (among other outlets) the media -- especially social media. It worked, and because of it our votes weren't free. > Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.” [0] https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
  - Elhana 9y ago
    Because only "free" US media can influence US citizens... Mark Twain wrote about it long ago in his "Running for Governor"
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cocktailpeanuts 9y ago
Parent said: > And he did this by winning more popular votes in key states And you said: > This is incorrect. In one case, Trump won the election by very narrowly winning more popular votes in key states. What exactly is "incorrect" again? So just because he won by a small margin, that win doesn't count? I don't even like Trump but this is really outrageous. Please take a second to think about what you're saying. I don't even know what you consider as "correct".
PhantomGremlin 9y ago
Had the Trump team's email leaked in the same way, I suspect the election would have gone the other way. It's hard to conceive of what could be in Trump team email that would be more damaging than some of the things that Trump said that were known before the election. Such as: "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters" and "Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything." And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It seems like Trump said something outrageous every other day. If Trump's email had him directing his underlings to cooperate with the Russians to hack the DNC, then maybe that would have hurt. But maybe that wouldn't have been sufficient. Maybe there would have needed to be a video attachment with Trump saying exactly that? Not just words? Seriously. Outside of evidence of Trump specifically directing people to cooperate with Russia to commit felonies, what email could have been sufficiently damaging to Trump?
- macintux 9y ago
  Well, there was the serious allegation of forced rape of an underage (13 I think?) girl. I doubt there'd be any emails in that topic, but I have to think that would have cost him a few votes if verified. OTOH, the "but Hillary" argument seemed to trump everything else, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
nautilus12 9y ago
"You can call it collusion, but I'd say its X doing their job." I find this statement totally lacks awareness considering all the accusations of collusion being hurled at the current administration.

comex 9y ago

You accuse others of using misleading language, then proceed to use misleading language yourself. Calling the primary "fraudulent" makes it sound like primary votes were miscounted, but of course there is no evidence of that either. (Unless you count the controversy over a voter roll 'purge' in NY, but that (a) didn't cover enough voters to make a significant difference, (b) probably benefitted Sanders anyway, and (c) was not the subject of any revelations from the leaks.)

nextstep 9y ago
The DNC colluded with the Clinton campaign in numerous ways. There's an ongoing lawsuit about this: http://www.newsweek.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-claims-bernie-sanders-would-have-won-rigged-election-hillary-611165 http://www.newsweek.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-claims-bernie-sand... http://www.theroot.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-is-the-biggest-story-in-politics-that-1796674709 http://www.theroot.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-is-the-biggest-stor...
- comex 9y ago
  The lawsuit does not allege that votes were miscounted.
  - nextstep 9y ago
    You’re right, it alleges that the DNC defrauded donors by failing to run a fair primary.
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
  ongoing lawsuit != guilt It wouldn't surprise me if there are a number of campaign-inspired lawsuits. That doesn't mean any of their claims are found to be true by a court. You're suggesting that the DNC colluded with Clinton against Sanders, yet Sanders is not a part of this lawsuit. Sounds more like spin from the right to me.

nautilus12 9y ago

Hacking the election is the language that the mainstream media has been promulgating. Shouldn't he use the same language they use to point blame?

nl 9y ago

The actual allegations are that Russia was behind the hacks of the DNC servers. Generally speaking "hacking the election" doesn't refer to this, and instead refers to information operations by Russian linked groups. Indeed, there were no credible public allegations of actual voting machine hacks or even attacks until the "Reality Winner" leaks. I'd note that on a website called "Hacker News" it should be pretty clear that "hack" can refer to many, many thing.

avenoir 9y ago

The DNC Charter [1] states numerous times that it is their responsibility to establish processes which ensure the office of President of the United States is selected by a fair and equitable process. However, being a private entity they are not obligated to do a damn thing. While they violated their own charter by favoring one candidate over the other I don't believe they actually broke any laws. And this is what makes this interesting. People can be very upset about what they've done, but nobody can really do much about it because they're not a government agency. Isn't it fascinating? We have an entity with incredible power over the election process and absolutely no oversight. [1] http://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.democrats.org/Downloads/DNC_Charter__Bylaws_9.17.15.pdf http://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.democrats.org/Downloads/DNC_...

nextstep 9y ago
Yeah, it is a very interesting situation. It is unfortunate that these private parties have so much power and support from the states but aren’t really held accountable to the voters. This sort of system maybe worked better early in the days of the US but with our two very entrenched parties, all of this serves to prevent any third party becoming a viable option.
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  Indeed. Part of how they have done this is by taking over the state legislatures (both parties), and passing laws and regulations at the Secretary of State level that make it extremely difficult for third-parties and independents to run for federal office. For example, in Texas, a person wanting to run as an independent candidate for president needs to get 80k signatures on a petition by people who voted in neither party primary. Except they will dispute as many signatures as possible, so it's more like 120k needed. Also, you have 69 days to do it! Both parties are corporations and are part of the problem. They circled the wagons when Ross Perot scared the shit out of them in 92, and the League of Women Voters withdrew from doing the debates because of how unfair they were becoming.
prostoalex 9y ago
In theory it has few implications as there are dozens of political parties to help fill in the void https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States#Minor_political_parties https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in... In practice, however, it's next to impossible to run for a federal office on their ticket, so perhaps the focus should be on helping young political startups gain access to the federal stage.

petre 9y ago

It's the same language used by the MSM in clickbait titles. The article outlines the same counter intelligence techniques used in the Macron hack.

ece 9y ago

Trump won because in MI, PA, and WI, Jill Stein received more votes than the difference between Trump and Hillary. 3rd party candidates in FL in 2000 and MI, PA, and WI in 2016 were the spoilers for the whole nation. Don't be an idealistic, naive American voter, be a pragmatic voter! Yes I know the electoral college is racist, and we need to abolish it.

ece 9y ago
Seriously, downvoted for pointing out legitimate fact and reference to pragmatism?
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  Not legitimate fact.
  - ece 9y ago
    It mostly is if you lookup the definition of spoiler. Gary Johnson and Independent voters did also receive more votes than the difference between Trump and Hillary in MI, PA, and WI.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
xtreme 9y ago
Why do you assume that all the third party voters would have voted for Hillary if there were no third party candidate? They could have abstained, or even voted for Trump. Many libertarian party supporters find the Republicans more tolerable than the Democrats. In any case, shaming people because they voted for a candidate who they felt best represented their views goes against the very idea of representative democracy.
- ece 9y ago
  I'm not shaming the fact that they voted, I'm shaming who they voted for. You aren't a responsible voter if you're not up to accepting responsibility for your vote. If you voted for Trump, hope he's making you happy. If you voted for Jill Stein or Ralph Nader in 2016 or 2000 in WI, MI, PA, or FL, you are very much responsible for Bush and Trump respectively in the electoral and government system we have since your candidate was a spoiler. These 3rd party voters could have abstained or voted for another 3rd party or went Republican, but they didn't. They could have traded their vote to someone in a safe state (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/opinion/anti-trump-republicans-dont-waste-your-vote-trade-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/opinion/anti-trump-republ...), if Hillary was their 2nd preference. If not, go ahead, vote for 3rd party candidate who could be a spoiler and has no chance of winning.