What he said:
This election result is illegitimate. Full stop. I don't know what we do once we've admitted that to ourselves. But it's real. ILLEGITIMATE. https://t.co/l6RilXpwR6
— Elliott Lusztig (@ezlusztig) December 10, 2016
I don’t know what we do either, but I suspect this all goes down the memory hole. We’d need a better political and media establishment than we have to fully recognize a crisis like this, let alone address it. And frankly, it would require a more informed and engaged citizenry than we have too. Therefore, I don’t expect anything to interfere with Trump’s being sworn in on January 20th.
Honestly, the only scenario I can think of right now in which Trump is blocked from taking office is if the CIA starts leaking damaging information on him. That’s not so far fetched — Trump is responding to this controversy in a way that makes this scenario more likely, IMO:
The Trump transition team dismissed the findings in a short statement issued Friday evening. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again,’ ” the statement read.
Note the reflexive lie about the size of the Electoral College win. That’s a tell that indicates how insecure Trump is about his own legitimacy.
The Electoral College could block Trump — preventing foreign interference is one of the reasons it allegedly exists. But it’s a partisan institution, so I’m assuming it will fail, just as all our political and media establishments have failed.
So basically, our only hope of escaping an illegitimate presidency that was engineered by a foreign power and abetted by traitorous partisan political interests at home is if some spooks take offense at Trump’s insults and decide to engage in a pissing match. Rather a slender reed to hang our hopes on, huh?
WereBear
It would be a case of an institution working right, so yeah; not so bad a thing.
It’s breaking new ground: if the future President is unable to take office, that SHOULD invalidate the entire ticket.
tomwhoathere
Obama could always stage a coup. Of course he won’t. But he could. (Not even going to lie, I’d be fine with that end to the American democratic experiment over whatever Trump has in store.)
mai naem mobile
I would like President ObaMA to appoint Merrick Garland to the USSC. And whatever happened to the threat of turning off the Russian electric grid. There needs to be some penalty paid by Russia. Also, Coney and McConnell.
Corner Stone
You suspect what all goes down the memory hole?
Corner Stone
@mai naem mobile: I think for all Obama’s decency and being a good man, respecting the office and the nation, we are way past the point where this is no longer turning the other cheek.
aimai
Christ. Now its been said. And it can’t be unsaid. I went to sleep last night just praying and dreaming that the EC somehow came to its senses and overturned the election. I actually think the country –not Trump’s moron voters but the country–would breath an immense sigh of relief. He’s had just enough time to reveal himself fully to the world–but I’m sure you are right. Our institutions are too compromised and weak to do anything about this totally illegitimate election result.
JPL
The news person on ABC read Trump’s statement and asked whether or not he had a good point.. wtf,wtf,wtf,
the Conster, la Citoyenne
We’re in the Upside Down – the terrible world that exists just on the other side of where we came from. So many forces- historical and technological – allied to open that portal and drag us through, it’s hard to imagine what can bring us back.
OzarkHillbilly
My nomination for blog statement of the year: I will note that my browser history now includes Google Images searches for “syphilis pustules,” which I suspect is quite nearly the most 2016 thing I can imagine. -davenoon at LGM
kindness
Not surprisingly sites from the rightwing’s point of view are poo pawing this and sites from the progressive side are going nuts. The Media is trying to figure out how to frame this as a Both Sides Do It. And curiously this has turned America’s political landscape on it’s head. The party that used to loath the Soviet Union & Russia is now actively defending Russian manipulation of US elections. Had that happened under Reagan/Bush/BushII benefiting Democrats there would have been nuclear war.
So what’s that say? Democrats are going to be asked to behave like adults and go sit down and be quiet. And the MSM will agree with that assessment. We are so screwed.
The Dangerman
Now what? With a 4-4 USSC, no remedy there as if there ever was one.
He’ll be impeached and convicted, almost surely for doing something to benefit him financially; I wouldn’t be surprised if he or one of the spawn shorted Boeing before going off on them a couple days ago.
SP
The only way things change is if there is evidence of direct Trump involvement- Something like Manafort showing him hacked emails and letting him pick which get leaked, or direct payments from Russia to Trump. In that case Republicans will agree to impeach him and elevate Pence. Which doesn’t really solve anything since his election was illegitimate too, but we’ll get plenty of commentary about how The System Works.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
Rather than any likelihood of any institution directly blocking Trump from taking office, the more likely upshot is that some key agencies may undermine him from within, in analogous fashion to the way Comey’s FBI acted nine days prior to the election to throw a huge tackle on Clinton. Trump may have his own appointees heading the agencies, but there are numerous ways those at the career levels can subvert Trump and any efforts by the agency heads to suppress these efforts, in much the same way as Comey wasn’t able to truly control the manipulations of the Clinton-haters in the New York FBI office (if indeed Comey wasn’t in on it himself with plausible deniability). And even if Comey was in on it, he may come around soon to recognizing the huge mistake of allowing the rogue elephant Trump to run loose upon the security interests of the country, and play the game from the other side. But my guess it will be the intelligence and military agencies who will have the most at stake in containing and undermining Trump.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
.
Wait until Putin decides that even better than a President Trump is a weakened President Trump in a chaotic US
@tomwhoathere: Obama could always stage a coup. Of course he won’t.
I’ll probably regret this, nym I’ve never seen before, but can you in twenty-five words or less give us an idea what that might look like?
Elizabelle
Thank you for saying this. That statement by Trump folks is prima facie why they don’t take office. Fantasy world.
We need to overturn this.
JPL
@cmorenc: Will this be before the repeal of the ACA? Will this be before the privatizing of Medicare?
cmorenc
@The Dangerman:
If so, then Hail to the Chief President Pence. Geeze, frying pan meet fire. About the only upside to Pence is that while he is much slicker than Trump (as shown in the VP debate with Kaine) – he has the personal charisma of week-old fish, and wore out his welcome as governor even in GOP-friendly Indiana.
SciNY
Not just CIA, but likely intel agencies around the world, have pretty thick files on Trump and the people around him. Not hard to imagine how for instance Germany has a big interest in exposing Trump’s kompromat and tracing it back to Russia, in order to prevent interference in their upcoming elections. Perhaps even the Chinese, who aren’t fans of America necessarily, but nonetheless would prefer it not to be led by a Russian puppet.
aimai
@The Dangerman: He will never be impeached. The Republicans will be too afraid to do so because it will hurt their brand–they know if they replace him with Pence that Trump’s various invulnerabilities will not translate and the Pence/GOP alignment will overreach and be booted out in two to four years. They will never impeach Trump. But refusing to do so will simply leave the press with no reason to cover Trump’s illegalities and frauds, since there will never be “respectable” “moderate” “honorable” republican voices to speak up against him and democratic voices are simply discounted as “partisan.” That is the real danger that Broderism and Brooks’ism have brought to us all these decades–that nothing the democrats say is taken seriously and republican lies and criminality are left unexplored.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Well ABC news wonders whether or not Trump has a point..
I’m back in the we are truly f..cked corner. A friend mentioned that f.k might become the word of choice, while Trump is in office.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: The fact that Putin helped install an unstable demagogue in the White House, with the collusion of Congressional Republicans.
aimai
@cmorenc: I don’t know why people aren’t grasping the obvious fact that Comey himself may have been compromised by the russians.
JPL
@aimai: yup. What we know is that McConnell put party before country.
greennotGreen
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Eleven?
aimai
Holy crap, the headline advertisement on my page right now is MICHELLE MALKIN’s new show “uncover the truth!” in which she will no doubt investigate HRC and the democrats for being Russian tools.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: Oh, that? Old news.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@greennotGreen:
Where is a 12 year old girl with superpowers when you need one???!!!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@aimai: Is it irresponsible to speculate…?
I think Trump i more likely to walk away than be impeached
cmorenc
@JPL:
Unfortunately, a necessary part of the national therapy for recovering from the thrall the GOP and Trump have cast over enough of the electorate to control all three branches is a high-stakes high-visibility clash over stuff everyone outside the irredemable 27% firmly believed wasn’t going to really at risk. Such as not just medicare, but women with common birth-control methods. And when people realize that the ripple of sloppily thought-out repeal of ACA will actually have huge tidal effects on their own private health insurance costs, even those obtained through employers.
Alesis
It’s time the the left for once starts making the cynicism and alienation of the American public work for them. Delegitimize Trump the way he and the GOP spent eight solid years delegitimizig Obama. Use it the build the party on the local level. Turn the outrage on the enemy for once instead of railing against the Clintons and the neo liberals.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Corner Stone
So this is another reason why Trump isn’t taking his intelligence briefings. So when this came out he could just tell his supporters that these guys never knew what they were doing (ala the statement by the Transition team), he knows better than them, etc.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I hate to say this, but I would rather it go to House and we end up with a president Ryan than the utter disaster Trump is looking like.
OzarkHillbilly
@aimai: It is a “fact”? What evidence do you have backing this up?
tomwhoathere
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, goodness no. Someone on Twitter was outlining the scenario yesterday, but I forget who. It was not very convincing.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Alesis: Apparently Trump is doing an excellent job himself going by the polling,
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman:
He’s not getting impeached. He just became a full time puppet of the ZEGS and congressional republicans.
Can not wait for Putin to start leaking damaging news against Trump.
Это курам на смех
Dream on. Everything will happen as per usual, EC vote and inauguration. Rump’s administration will be corrupt, incompetent, dangerous, and riven with internal strife. But fully in power. There will be no impeachment and no mutiny by our spooks. Outwardly, the GOP will back him up, and the media will normalize him.
We will still be here kvetching up a storm.
SW
Well, it worked with Nixon.
gogol's wife
@Это курам на смех:
Unfortunately, I’m afraid you’re right. Очень жалко. И страшно.
cmorenc
@aimai:
That’s indeed a possibility, but I still think the more likely possibility is that Comey realized that he couldn’t control leakage by New York FBI office about more outstanding emails and he had the choice of either taking drastic action to appear in control of the agency or else open himself to accusations he was suppressing damaging information to aid Clinton – notice that they did conclude the examination of new material prior to the election. EVEN SO, Comey acted to protect his own ass and not out of any true interest in electoral fairness. It’s more likely that the Russians had compromised agents within the New York office than Comey himself.
gogol's wife
@Это курам на смех:
Unfortunately, I’m afraid you’re right. Ochen’ zhalko. I strashno.
(Reposted because when I use Cyrillic in a comment the comment disappears.)
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Got to admit, Mark Burnett has now got one hell of a reality TV show to market. It’s a cross between “Keeping up with the Kardashians” and “The Americans”.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Corner Stone: Consider this- Russia is Mexico with fur hats. They aren’t all powerful, they have their own internal problems a hole galaxy of client states to manage and more elections they want to try and fix. Their attention is going to waver and things will come out by themselves.
Aleta
lol. If ever there was a time for pissing into the wind, though.
Inmourning
I am so old, I remember seeing the announcement that Spiro Agnew was resigning. Agnew had been widely viewed as Nixon’s impeachment defense, and with him gone and replaced by Gerald Ford, I knew it was only a matter of time. That was in the days of republicans like Howard Baker, Jr. I thought at the time, is there someone or a group of someone’s who are really running this country? Who has the real power, and wields it for good? I know, delusional thinking. Sigh.
greennotGreen
@Corner Stone:
“Damaging news against Trump” was readily available for months during the campaign. What difference did it make?
SW
And he wasn’t a Russian agent.
Corner Stone
@cmorenc: That theory is playing out a pretty long string. Even if Comey was highly concerned about leaks from the NY office he did not have to release that vague piece of shit stinkbomb letter that he did.
Comey knew what he was doing, and that includes “wrapping up” the BS investigation two days before the election.
rm
Press and Democrats need to start CONSTANTLY ASKING EVERY REPUBLICAN WHETHER THE RUSSIANS HAVE COMPROMISED THEM. In a debate on the naming of a post office, ask whether the Russians planted child porn on their computers. In a press conference on any random topic, ask Trump whether the Russians are holding damaging information over his head. When he throws that reporter out, the next reporter asks the same question.
This won’t happen, but should.
Alesis
In particular Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and even Florida need to be statehouse priorities.
cmorenc
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
In which case we’ll find out what it would be like to have Ayn Rand as President, minus any of her social libertarian side (about the only semi-bright aspects of this otherwise completely malevolently wretched woman).
Corner Stone
@greennotGreen: I mean actual actionable stuff with legs.
Corner Stone
Harry Reid dropping knowledge on AMJoy.
Kay
I’m taking some grim pleasure in the WaPo absolutely fucking trouncing the NYTimes because I am vindictive and shallow :)
Print a front page retraction of that FBI propaganda they printed the week before the election exonerating Trump. THEY interfered in this election and there’s a goddamned extensive record of them doing it in their own paper.
Princess
The intel consensus was not WMD — that was Cheney’s cherry picking.
I also find it interesting to see Glenn Greenwald spouting the same talking points on Twitter as Trump’s people use here.
Corner Stone
When HRC’s campaign staff attended that event at Harvard post election and said they firmly believed Comey cost them the election, they knew what Comey had actually done.
Botsplainer
@Princess:
Greenwald always fluffs Nazis. It has marked his entire career.
Do the math. He’s a different aspect of Milo.
burnspbesq
The unfortunate reality is that absent a military coup, Putin wins. And if we do have a military coup, Putin wins.
dmsilev
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I wouldn’t. Trump is Incompetent Evil, but Ryan is Competent Evil. Trump, because of his limited attention span and focus on self-aggrandization, will purely by accident leave some things undestroyed. Ryan, on the other hand, will be very systematic about his destruction activities.
alce_e_ardilla
@cmorenc: I think that has already started. The CIA assessment was supposed to be “secret”, ya know.
JPL
@Corner Stone: Tell me more..
Aleta
New reality show: A crackerjack team of buff deprogrammers goes around the country answering calls from relatives of Trump voters. Season 1 finale, Marla consults them regarding Tiffany, weighs the risks to her lifestyle.
OzarkHillbilly
@Princess:
From Wikipedia:
ETA: meant to add that Tenet had been under great pressure from Cheney and company for intel to that effect, ie he had been compromised, but he did say what he said.
burnspbesq
We’re in Tom Clancy-land. Unfortunately, John Clark and Domingo Chavez are not sneaking into Trump Tower to solve this problem.
cmorenc
@Inmourning:
Speaking of President Gerald Ford, in hindsight one of the most profoundly pyrric victories in American history is when Carter narrowly defeated Ford in 1976 – because the accumulated perverse forces working through the economy (stagflation, Arab oil embargo / rise of OPEC, Iran hostage crisis etc) would have fatally weighed down whomever was in office, and primed the public for sharp change. And so instead of Reagan being the change enough of the public was hungering for in 1980, it would have been Ted Kennedy – and history would have unfolded in profoundly different fashion. We would have had some kind of universal health care by the mid-1980s, for one thing.
Yarrow
Schumer calls for full investigation by Congress of Russian interference in U.S. elections
Next year? How about NOW!
Kay
@dmsilev:
It’s also not fair, and “fair” is important because that’s where legitimacy comes from.
Ryan and the GOP shouldn’t be the beneficiaries of their own Party’s bad acts. They can’t come out of this with an unearned windfall.
That’s a worse result. It’s too high a price to pay for order. I really value order but the time has passed for patching things up and going on. Play it all the way out. There needs to be a resolution at the end of this, not a slightly more legitimate government as a quick fix.
cmorenc
@dmsilev:
It would be like having Ayn Rand equipped with insider political skills as President, but without any elements of her social libertarian side (about the only tepidly positive thing there was about Ayn Rand amid the rest of her glibertarian bullshit).
Glidwrith
Hi Folks,
This post is somewhat of a derailment of the current thread, but early Saturday morning is the only time I’ve got. To wit:
LOTS of folks are asking what can we do? Curated from various threads is a general consensus that we should be getting folks IDs so they can register to vote. Various Juicers expressing support for this and some of their skills are:
Elizabelle
gogol’s wife
WarMunchkin
Geg6-involved with the local party, procure ID as first step
Another Scott-mentioned VoteRiders
From Both Sides of the Pond
bemused senior – computer support
Applejinx
Debbie- portable registration bus (think bookmobile or mammogram screening)
SiubhanDuinne- writer
Major Major Major Major-web support
LookingForACanadian-lawyer
Omnes Omnibus-lawyer
Tissue Thin Pseudonym-accounting
jacy- any graphic design needs. I also write, research, and edit.
Boussinesque- interested, friends in Silicon Valley area.
database-related, or writing. interested friends lawyerly types
Another Holocene Human- donate time and money and can drive ppl to the DMV
Ruemara
Felanius Kootea
SenyorDave
PsiFighter37
Aunt Kathy
Kathleen
Emma-researched voter registration organizations
MomSense-League of Women Voters; has done voter registration
CaseyL-research for data
Miss Bianca
SatanicPanic
Patricia Kayden
Mary G
Kay
Downthread, Kay pretty much summarized the idea:
Even more importantly, StringOnAStick did this:
Emma found that VoteRiders is dedicated specifically to registering voters. They have the info on what it takes to become a registered voter in every state. Steeplejack found VitalChek as the major source for requesting birth certificates if you are out of state.
So:
1. Is there anyone that can get face-to-face with their Rep, especially in the target states and push this idea?
2. Can we set up a donor fund for getting people registered to vote?
3. Alternatively, we friggin’ won the election, our voters just couldn’t participate. So target people that registered, tried to vote and were denied.
And a shout out to Kay – please front page again?
The Dangerman
For those saying Trump will never be impeached, that is correct if it were something political like nominating a Nazi to the USSC, but blatantly illegal like insider trading like my Boeing example, could bring him down.
Corner Stone
@JPL: Too much to type but Reid was ripping Comey to shreds and saying Comey had all the info about Trump ties to Putin for months and sat on it for partisan reasons. That Comey is a disgrace who should resign.
Manyakitty
@Kay: Yes, because FUCK the NYT. Right in the eye.
Alesis
Keeping Trump out of the Oval isn’t the point. Even if it works that’s just gravy.
Make sure that he never has a restful night’s sleep in it. This guy actually gets into Twitter fights on a weekly basis. Make him look his wretchedness in the mirror every minute of everyday.
Elmo
I’m going to be contrarian for a bit.
What I’m seeing is that Russia hacked the emails and released them through Wikileaks, and may have even altered some of them. May also have been responsible for some of the fake news like Comet Pizza. Okay.
I am *not* seeing any suggestion that the electoral vote tallies themselves were hacked and altered.
So it seems to me that an effective spying and propaganda campaign by a foreign state resulted in Americans casting their votes for Donald Trump and/or failing to cast votes for Hillary Clinton, in sufficient numbers in the right places for Trump to win. We aren’t claiming that those votes didn’t happen – only that they were based on lies and theft.
Right?
If that’s the case, there’s nothing illegitimate about Trump’s victory. He won according to the rules in place. There is no provision to invalidate a citizen’s vote because the citizen was lied to. There is no provision to invalidate a vote because it was based on stolen information.
Think about the alternative world in which there were such a provision. No election would ever be final. There would be endless litigation about the basis for the vote.
Now, if an EC elector decides that he won’t vote for his state’s choice because of the lies and theft? That would also be perfectly legitimate. But it isn’t going to happen. So when the EC elects Trump on Dec 19, that will be the legitimate result of the election.
And my country will be no more.
germy
@Manyakitty: Fuck the NYT but also save some for the major news tv networks, who get quoted in all the local media (where most of my neighbors get their info)
Each of my local news stations (“News! Traffic! Weather!”) have arrangements with the major networks for their national politics coverage, and it all skews towards “controversial but refreshingly plain-spoken businessman wins election! And now, let’s check in with Doug, for high school football!”
germy
@dmsilev:
I agree. I’m still hoping some ugly feud erupts between the cheeto benito and the aynRand Eddie Munster. With just Eddie in charge, it’d be too smooth. Who will object when he starts burning the safety net? Fucking AARP?
Cheeto specifically promised his mouth breathers he wouldn’t touch their benefits. I don’t know if he remembers this or not, but I’d like to see him fight Eddie over this, rather than roll over. Although, based on his past history, he’ll probably be fooled and flattered by Eddie that the changes are “improvements” and Medicare/Social Security will be destroyed, and Cheeto will proudly sign on.
jayboat
Nothing will happen until they release the t-rump sex tape.
oldgold
After reading the WAPO article last night, the person I was mad at was Obama. He was too damn passive given the seriousness of what was occurring and what it might and, in fact, did result in.
When Obama’s bipartisan gambit was predictably rebuffed by McConnell, he should have unilaterally come forward.
I like Obama. I have supported him at almost every turn. But, there are times the damn “high road” is the wrong road. This was one of them.
Another Scott
@Это курам на смех: I think this is the most likely near-term future.
There isn’t going to be some simple, short battle and then Trump will be gone. It will be trench warfare (to use another military analogy). It’s going to be years of fighting Donnie and his minions’s policy proposals and propaganda and we might as well prepare for it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Alesis
No more intra party sniping. No more “I blame Obama” nor more “but but the neo liberals”.
Find every ounce of rage we had for the Iraq war or against Wall Street and turn it on the man who wants more of both.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
okay. Obama “comes forward”. Then, in your counter-factual, what happens?
Corner Stone
@Kay:
Is their clear interference a manifestation of just how much the NYT hates the Clinton’s? Or is it something else. It seems like if it were just for clicks then the “better” choice would be to also dish dirt on Donnie. But they played a really lopsided game.
I wonder how all those encouraging people to subscribe to the NYT because we “need” a free press feel about now? Looking at you Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Dan Pfeiffer.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Whatever heat is kicked up from it, are we any worse off? I would not expect Obama to come out and point his finger at the camera and boldly denounce Putin and Trump. But having a frank disclosure about possible risks the intelligence community were aware of seems like a reasonable stance for someone charged with protecting the nation against enemies.
Emma
@Glidwrith: I think Kay should guide our efforts. She has been fighting the good fight for a long time and has worked the parameters out.
Mk3873
The media does not treat it like a real political crisis bcuz they are suffering from 8 years of GOP faux outage and crisis exhaustion
oldgold
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hillary is the 45th POTUS and we avoid the damn catastrophe we are about to experience.
The offense was too great and the stakes too high to go for Obama to go all good government on this. He should have marshaled the intelligence and aggressively shared it with the American people.
Botsplainer
путин имеет половые сношения с его мамой should be my next nym.
Botsplainer
путин имеет половые сношения с его мамой
My next nym?
Botsplainer
I tried to put up a Cyrillic set of characters saying something rude about Putin. FYWP didn’t even take it.
Corner Stone
@Botsplainer: It Has Begun
D58826
It doesn’t matter about Hillary’s e-mails
It doesn’t matter what states she did/didn’t campaign in
It doesn’t matter how flawed a candidate she may have been.
It would not matter if Trump had lost every state
What matters is:
1. The Russians hacked into our election
2. the GOP leadership knew about it in early Sept. but would not support a bipartisan response
3. Comey knew about it in early Sept.
4. Comey felt it was his sacred duty to tell the country about the Weiner e-mails
5. Comey, while knowing about the Russian hack, chose to tell the public that there was nothing to investigate when it came to the Trump campaign.
6. Trump and his transition continue to cover for Putin and attack any American institution that wants to investigate the hack.
USA – born July 4th 1776
died Nov. 8th 2016
RIP
Glidwrith
@Emma: Definitely. Or even better, post on her methods to teach the rest of us. Adam mentioned we should be sending folks to Dr. Rev Barber (sp?) in North Carolina to learn from him for on-the-ground organizing. We should use a similar approach for anyone that has been directly involved in voter organization/registration.
Aleta
No other paper will write that story, but it needs to be written. Because the NYT’s distorted ‘balancing’ will do huge damage. Besides support for Tr administration policies, they will knock the wind out of opposition, as they did in 2003.
Kay
Remember this?
October 31st was when the NYTimes printed the weird, fact-free propaganda piece the FBI fed them totally exonerating Trump.
If only we had a billion dollar industry completely devoted to collecting facts, organizing them and making them available to the public. A simple timeline would be helpful.
D58826
@oldgold:
While philosophically I agree, I see two problems:
1. if Obama had released the information in Sept. w/o bipartisan cover, he would have been accused of using the CIA to put a thumb on the scale like Comey did the FBI in Oct.
2. Since no one, including Trump (saw an article that the only post election plans he had involved a vacation with his family), though he could win why start a political fire storm and hand the GOP and issue.
3. You really don’t want to turn the CIA into any bigger a political tool/football than it already is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: Obama “comes forward”, John McCain and Lindsey Graham “come forward” and accuse Obama of (mis)using intelligence to help Clinton, Andrea Mitchell affects wide-eyed and probably sincere confusion about whether to believe her own lyin’ eyes or her surrogate Daddy War Hero McCain, the local newsbots Germy spoke of start shaking their heads ruefully about these wild partisan fights, Trump starts bellowing about the crooked establishment and how we need to drain the swamp, Berniebot start keening about there they go again, just like they did to Bernie!… and the whole thing gets tossed into the “oh, that’s just politics” memory hole, next to the Iraq War.
Again, the only news here, to me, is that the CIA changed its assessment to “Russia was trying to sow confusion” to “Russia was trying to help Trump” –a distinction with little difference in my mind, and we knew that soon after the DNC hack,– and that Fuckface Comey was in the fucking meeting in September. I don’t see a lot of that motivating either members of the Obama coalition skeptical of Clinton, or exurban males who think Trump is gonna reopen the coal mines and shut down BLM
Hillary Clinton called Trump a puppet for Putin on October 18. All the evidence was, AFAIC, already there.
tjmn
It makes one wonder when the turtle knew about the Russian interference. Maybe about the time of President Obama’s USSC nominee blockade? Would not surprise me. How far back does this go?
Aleta
@D58826: And Europe is at stake now that T and Pu can work together against democracies there.
Chris
@cmorenc:
I disagree with both of you. I think the likeliest explanation is that Comey, like many, is simply a Clinton Derangement Syndrome nut, who thought she deserved to go down for what he knew she’d done even if he couldn’t prove it. And more generally that the FBI as a whole has never stopped being what J. Edgar Hoover founded it as.
tobie
@Kay: I am–in a sick way–amused that Liz Spayd leaves the Post as managing editor and the paper’s quality skyrockets overnight. She arrives at the Times as public editor and the paper sinks and becomes an exoneration machine for Trump and an attack machine against Clinton. Granted, Dean Basquiat as Exec Ed bears more of the responsibility for this decline. But still…
SatanicPanic
@Kay: How DO we move on? I see a severely divided nation, with the majority of people with the majority of its wealth outright hating the federal government. I don’t see how this is put back together. Trump might be fine in a lot of states, but California is mad. I honestly thought our pols here would be less eager to fight than the public is, but they’re not. Our politicians are ready to fight him. I don’t know what it’s like in other blue states, but when he starts messing with things we consider important, it’s going to get ugly. Even stuff like going after legal marijuana is going to really get people upset. How is the USA governable after this?
D58826
@germy: And you can replace the name Ryan with Pence/Kaisch/Cruz/Scott/walker/and the rest of the GOP and the comment is still 100% true
SatanicPanic
Random thought I had the other day- isn’t it weird that certain leftists will readily accept that there is structural racism, structural sexism, etc., but you try to explain about structural issues that make leftism difficult in the USA and they’re like “NO SHUT UP”? What’s up with that?
Barbara
@Alesis: He should henceforth be referred to as Putin’s Puppet. Or: President Pinocchio to capture the point that he is a lying puppet.
Ned F.
My first thought is What if Hillary had won and the Ruski’s fed info favorably to the Dems. Since Democratic Presidents are by default, illegitimate, can you imagine the Repubs sitting quietly? Nothing to see here, move along now.
D58826
@Aleta: And when he continues to poke China in the eye, the countries on the Pacific Rim/Southeast/west Asia will look at the map and decide their future peace and prosperity lies with China and not the US.
D58826
@Ned F.: Well they would stop harping on Benghazi and Monica
jharp
My pitchfork is ready.
So where do I go?
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: All of that happened without the precipitating act of Obama saying anything. And look where we are now.
Obama didn’t have to address the nation and read a litany of threats. This could have been done a number of ways without ever mentioning Trump’s name.
tobie
@Barbara:
My preference would be for Putin’s Pussy. Yes, it’s sexist, but it’s turning Trump’s sexism against him. And what better retort to a man who whines about being named Time’s “Person of the Year” instead of “Man of the Year” than to emasculate him with his own word.
Adrift (formerly NJ Maine Coon Slave)
@cmorenc: I’ve never understood the fascination the right has with Ayn Rand. Aside from whoring she wrote shallow, mindless works of fiction in an attempt to put food on her plate. And these morons use it as an economic bible. It would be like someone basing their economic system on something completely ridiculous like, say, The Art of the Deal. Uh oh.
JMG
1. No consideration other than their own jobs will influence any Republicans or any media members.
2. All actions must be governed by those two principles. Here’s one thing anyone can do right now to influence the latter. Cut your cable cord. You’ll soon get over missing all those vital Mountain West conference basketball games.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
actually, I think leaks from the CIA, and there were some, would’ve been more effective than anything Obama or any other elected official could have said
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My thinking is that the Russians and Trump/Republicans already staged a coup and it’s only because of the delay between the voting, the electors voting, and the inauguration that we have a slim chance at stopping the coup from taking effect.
Jeff
Donald will get a clue how disliked he is Inauguration Day.
trollhattan
Let me get this straight–Trump’s response is the real enemy is the CIA and implicitly, he will ignore them the next four years? Vlad does happy dance.
SW
The Russians were our allies in the second WW. Maybe being a province of Russia will make America kind of Great Again.
trollhattan
@Jeff:
He paid for the “adoring” crowd when he announced so I expect more of same come January.
cmorenc
@Adrift (formerly NJ Maine Coon Slave):
It’s because Rand provides them with a plausible rationale for turning being an IGMFY asshole into a positive moral / social virtue. And though Rand was herself an atheist, for Randoids who also purport themselves to be Christians, it provides a “toughlove” sort of rationale for squaring the New Testament elements of their religion with being selfish assholes, because they’re purportedly actually doing more good for the poors and good of society that way in the big scheme of things. Of course, this is a bullshit rationalization, but it works for them to suppress any nagging doubts in their conscience.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I agree. And I suspect there are a lot of people in the CIA regretting that they believed the same polling the rest of us did.
burnspbesq
@SatanicPanic:
I know how I move on. When folks show up outside my supermarket with petitions to get a secession referendum on the ballot in 2018, I am grabbing a pen.
trollhattan
@Barbara:
I’ll go with poodle. If memory serves, Tiny Blair got painted as Bush’s poodle and never shook that off. Putin’s poodle, orange edition. Collect the entire set!
Bob Westal
@cmorenc: He is also not at al insane and his theocratic tendencies will only be popular with the shrinking rightwing evangelical base. At this point, I’d definitely take that deal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cmorenc: my sister taught high school English for 25 years, and she said the kids, mostly boys, who flirted with Rand were pretty smart, and usually a bit socially awkward. Most of them grow out of it. One became Speaker of the House.
germy
@SW: Somehow I doubt it.
D58826
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And don’t forget Comey has been after the Clintons since his days working on the Starr Inquisition.
SW
Controlling all three branches of government wouldn’t seem like much of an indication of approaching doom, but history is full of instances where one loses by winning. There was a lot of sober opinion expressed before the election that the only thing worse for the Republican Party than nominating Donald Trump would be if he were to win. The license that this event seems to provide allows all the nut cases in the party to drag out all their wet dreams. Shrink SS, destroy Medicare get the fluoride out of the drinking water. Conserver your bodily fluids. Then the crazy uncontrollable guy at the wheel. The incompetent cronies he brings with him to try to run things. And now the KGB in the mix. Somehow I don’t think this ends well for the Republican (minority) party.
Brachiator
Bullshit. This is not the first time that there has been a controversial or even potentially dubious presidential election result.
Every political establishment since the founding looks for a resolution that favors continuity and constitutional transition without a do over or disruption.
But either party could file a lawsuit, although I’m not sure what the grounds might be. And the electors, I suppose could vote for anyone they wanted.
But otherwise the choices right now, are limited. Don’t talk any stupid coup shit. Can you make a constitutional argument for a caretaker government of some limited duration and a new election?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
As I think about it, what Obama could and maybe should have done, rather than the Sorkin-esque clarion call of undying blogosphere imagination (people always seem to forget that Sorkin also wrote the responses to those ringing romantic speeches) was hint to Susan Rice that it was time to hint to her senior staff that it was time to leak with some plausible deniability.
Corner Stone
@Adrift (formerly NJ Maine Coon Slave): I don’t know why but when I read your nym all that registers are the last two words. And for a second I’m like….uhh….huh..hmmm.
D58826
@Corner Stone:
He wanted to gurantee that it would still be the one and only story right up till election day. Mission Accomplished
PaulWartenberg2016
Here are the facts:
1) Ongoing evidence that Trump remains hugely unpopular with the general population (side note: the polls didn’t lie in 2016… they just had no effect on a broken Electoral College system).
2) Emerging evidence from our own intelligence agencies that Russia intentionally sabotaged our 2016 election cycle, giving more reason for the opposition voters and party to refuse any calls for bipartisanship.
3) Actual proof that our major media outlets either manipulated themselves or bought into the wrong Narratives, making themselves culpable in the oncoming disaster our nation is going to face. And yet it’s pretty much a given that the media will absolve themselves of their sins and never be held accountable.
4) The Republican Party itself will never accept the facts of 1) and 2) because it delegitimizes themselves and ruins their “mandate”, a mandate that the majority of Americans never supported, and a mandate they’re openly touting with their calls to slash Medicare and Social Security benefits.
The system is broken. Everybody knows it, including the Republicans who PROFIT FROM IT. and because they’re now in power, NOTHING WILL GET DONE UNTIL IT IS TOO LATE.
This is not fearmongering. This is reality.
We ARE screwed.
Adrift (formerly NJ Maine Coon Slave)
@cmorenc: I get it. For the right fiction=plausible rationale. It’s abundantly clear they have no connection to reality, and now we’ve been plunged into the depths of their twisted fantasy world. Thank God it’s almost noon because I need a drink.
Brachiator
@SatanicPanic:
This is an interesting idea. Are you saying that there should be an expansion of human rights to make sure that lefties win elections to relieve their oppression?
liberal
@D58826: Remind me, again: who was the genius who appointed him?
Brachiator
@PaulWartenberg2016:
No. It IS fearmongering.
But thanks for playing.
liberal
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, though that one ain’t one of the smart ones.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@liberal: yeah, you totes predicted all this.
Shut the fuck up, Che.
p.a.
No matter what Vlad has on tRump and the Rethugs, he may just sit on the info; the tRump admin will crash the republic without any prompting by carrot or stick.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hillary Clinton told millions of people in live tv in the third debate that 17 intelligence agencies,military and civilian, had warned that the Russians were using cyber attacks to influence our election. The information was out there.
Corner Stone
@p.a.: Putin appears to be in place to get the relationships he wants and the policies he prefers without having to do another thing to influence. Like Keyzer Soze he may just walk off stage for a while until he owns everything.
schrodinger's cat
This morning in Vichy Times
liberal
@SW: Depends.
If they really go after the New Deal social insurance programs, they’re probably in big trouble. If Trump attacks Iran, it’ll give him a temporary boost (it always does), but then perhaps the Iranians will successfully mine the Persian Gulf and oil prices will go through the damn roof.
We’re also overdue for a recession.
But the economy could continue to expand on autopilot for quite a while. If the Republicans really cut government spending, they could easily derail that, but as everyone correctly points out, apart from a few fanatics, most of them don’t give a shit about the deficit.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
Where do you suggest that we go for our news?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MomSense: that’s why the “If Obama would just say…” and “If The People only heard Dennis Bernie!…” (Kucinich gets no exclamation mark) bleaters drive me crazy. From this story to the WWC, the water is there, the damn horses don’t want to drink.
liberal
@aimai: They’d never impeach him because it would piss off a substantial fraction of the Republican Party.
Another Scott
@Chris: Agreed. Comey didn’t need anything from Putin to do what he did – Comey had his own agenda.
I do wish we didn’t throw around terms like “Putin hacked the election”. Stealing e-mails and planting false stories is not the same as changing votes on machines. There is no evidence that votes were changed after the fact.
Putin and Comey and the NYTimes and Wikileaks and McConnell and all their enablers put their fingers on the scales in the coverage and in what the voters knew (or thought they knew) about the issues and the “facts”, but the voters made their choice. The scandal is that too many were prevented from voting by various voter-suppression efforts that have been going on for years, and that the press spent far too little time talking about what was at stake rather than the horse race.
I get really uncomfortable talking about some vast conspiracy or some super-powerful opponent that is obviously going to destroy everything we’ve worked for. It’s not going to happen that way. Defeatism weakens us – we have to fight them every day. Make them own it, and don’t give up.
Cheers,
Scott.
liberal
@PaulWartenberg2016: Naw…the only things that matter are the irreversible ones.
AFAICT, the only irreversible thing is them giving Federal land to the states. Everything else is reversible. Supreme Court stacked with right-wing racists? Just pass a law packing the court. (Of course, that assumes the Democrats get some balls, but it’s perfectly legal.) Social Security and Medicare monies pissed away in tax cuts to the rich? Tax the living shit out of the rich. Climate change mitigation stymied? Sucks, but the changes we need to make to really make a dent in CO2 release are so large that a few years isn’t going to make a difference. (If we already had a crash plan to do something, that wouldn’t be true, but we haven’t actually solved the key technical challenge (storing energy harnessed by renewable sources) or the key political challenge (collective action problem between counties.)
It’s really just a matter of sweat and will.
Brachiator
@Jeff:
Trump’s people are doing everything they can to keep protesters away from the inauguration. Trump’s childish ego will do the rest. He is convinced that either America loves him, or it will after he makes us great again.
Adrift
@Corner Stone: Thanks for pointing that out, it never occurred to me it could be read like that. Fixed it.
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: Washington Post, BBC.
Have you been happy with their coverage of the election?
Kryptik
@SW:
This might potentially be a problem for the Republican Party in the long run, but it’s going to be assuredly be a decades long problem for everyone else both short-term and long-term. The Republican party might lose some faith in 4 years, but how much pain will they dish out and enshrine for generations to come because there are simply no more checks and balances powerful enough to stop them anymore?
This is a disaster on all levels, and the GOP are going to be the ones that suffer least from it.
Ruckus
The electoral college.
That’s it.
Unless President Obama declares marshal law and has the election re-run. Anyone see that happening? With this man and his training, education, and understanding of the process? Maybe a 1/10% chance as it would create probably the worst constitutional crisis ever, especially given the congress we have.
Our government is mostly set up to protect us from it (doesn’t always work that way of course) rather than protect us from ourselves. The founders didn’t like others telling them what and how to live their lives (and heavily tax them for the privilege, although the worst part wasn’t the tax, it was taking the money offshore to enrich and run another country without any concern for the people paying) and doing it with the military.
We really don’t have any method to stop us from electing a shit-gibbon for president other than the electoral college. And many states have laws which require the electors to vote for the person who won the popular vote in their state, at least on the first ballot. So we may have fixed the electoral college such that we will elect who won the electoral college on Nov 8. We should have of course just gotten rid of it. But we didn’t. So we may have screwed ourselves trying to “fix” the system instead of changing it.
MomSense
@jharp:
Word. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. You don’t just go along with a coup and hope for the best.
Betty Cracker
@Elmo: Interesting take! (And as an aside, kudos to you for having the knack of taking the contrarian position without being a dick about it — so rare!) But how about this wrinkle: there’s some evidence that the candidate who benefited from the foreign power’s interference and/or folks in his organization were complicit. That’s at least worth an investigation. And there’s also the fact that the FBI director chose to keep silent about this but publicize Son of Email Nothingburger. I’m not sure where we go from here, but damn.
@Brachiator: You’re right. Nothing to see here, citizens. Totally normal. Move along, now.
HRA
Comey did not do anything without either being told to do it by his superior or asked for approval before doing it. Otherwise he would have been long gone by now.
The Russian hacking is not news. It was outed months ago.
Question of 1 liberal site I saw today. “How come our fact checking president didn’t fact check the Iraq War…” It’s not the exact quote. It does contain the message/thought.
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
I’m going to need a lot of proof that they even have a conscience to have doubts in.
Especially nagging doubts. All of the complete bigoted and/or religious assholes that I’ve met in my life, who desire to run the world by fucking over everyone not exactly like them, never have any doubts, nagging or otherwise that they are 100% right to do that fucking.
AndoChronic
@Betty Cracker: Agreed, that was an interesting take by Elmo. Thanks for adding to it Betty Cracker. I think this is where the push back is going to concentrate.
MomSense
@HRA:
Loretta Lynch told Comey not to release the letter about the Abedin emails as did the President. He went against Justice Dept. policy and his superiors.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’ve been less unhappy with the NY Times than most people here, because I know where it’s biases and strengths are. Same with the Post and the BBC. I listen to BBC radio and follow some podcasts, but I can’t say that they have been particularly insightful in any way. I’ve found more informative coverage in the Guardian, even though I have to ignore their editorial opinion.
The LA Times had good but erratic coverage, but they have gutted their editors and are rapidly dying as a viable journalistic enterprise.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Thing is Elmo is correct. There is nothing in the law, as far as I can see, that precludes people from voting for a candidate based on lies. Remember that most people think that all politicians lie all the time. I’ve seen comments that during the debates Clinton lied 26% of the time while Trump lied 78% of the time. See all of them do it. (Of course the person then decided to vote for the one who lied the most, I think because of the candidate’s genitalia, but whatever)
The real thing is, this time, we voted for the worst candidate, for jr high school class president, because…….. Hell I have no idea what made people think he was in any way qualified to be human, let alone president of a country, other than he has one and she doesn’t.
Это курам на смех
The election was undemocratic, but entirely legitimate. Our fellow citizens voted and they chose the con. Voter suppression is immoral but legal in the states that used it. Powerful people colluded to skew the vote but what they did was not a crime. There will be no EC rebellion, no martial law, no military coup, no incriminating revelations to stop this change. But we have laws and institutions and core principles to defend. So let’s get to it.
Betty Cracker
@HRA:
Not true — the DOJ told Comey he shouldn’t send the letter to congress, and he did it anyway.
I believe some of this info is new, such as the report that the Russians successfully hacked the GOP as well and chose to sit on the info. It’s also new that the CIA is saying that the interference was specifically undertaken to throw the election to Trump. Many of us inferred that from the evidence months ago, but I believe this is the first time the intelligence community has confirmed it.
That doesn’t even make any sense.
Ruckus
@Это курам на смех:
This.
Mnemosyne
@Princess:
Glenn Greenwald supported and heavily promoted Russian operative Ed Snowden. The only question in my mind at this point is whether Greenwald is a dupe or also a knowing agent of the Russians.
Corner Stone
At this point I’m just waiting for Cobra Commander to walk down the steps and open the nuclear football.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
What about this from September?Carter Page meets in Russia with Intelligence officials
Mnemosyne
@Glidwrith:
I’m on board but, as a Californian with a full-time job, I only have money and Internet time to donate.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
Their big story is a People-style interview with Conway. They’re in the tank but not even in an exciting, conspiracy type way.
They’re in the tank because they’re getting exclusive access to the Trumpsters, so in the ordinary, petty self-interested way.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
Gosh!
That’s a novel way of looking for Trump pictures!!
brendancalling
I find myself flabbergasted, again. Not the least because I find myself rooting for the CIA, an organization for which I have very little affection.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
That is not what I said.
The Republicans want Trump. What do you think can be done to prevent his winning the Electoral College vote?
The issue of Russian influence has been reported. Do you want some 24/7 universal all media exhortation, “The election was illegitimate, America!! Do something!”
OK, what?
Falling back on the standard “blame the political and media establishment” is easy, but accomplish anything.
Or go ahead, blame the political establishment, because they are ultimately signing off on the election. But you now have 8 days to convince Americans that they need to do something to stop Trump.
What do you propose?
Brachiator
@Elmo:
Yep.
HRA
@MomSense: @Betty Cracker:
I truly did forget about that piece of information. I was thinking of his 2 statements only.
@Это курам на смех:
I agree.
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ok, that one was genuinely hysterical…sad but true…
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
It is quite possible that it is a twofer. OK, I see what you did, I read it as dope.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone:
also hysterical…you and JFL made my afternoon…but now it’s time for a nap.
Hey folks, if we want to try and take one last shot before the EC votes, call your Senators, write your local paper, email prominent columnists of both parties and try to get them to rile folks up, and send the WaPo article far and wide on social media. There’s not much else to be done.
(Hint, I will be doing all four every day this week.)
Waldo
@Betty Cracker:
That would be the smoking gun. So far, though, all we’re seeing is the smoke.
Major Major Major Major
We weren’t really using Estonia anyway.
J R in WV
@gogol’s wife:
You keep saying that, but your comments are always there. I read them with interest but no understanding, as I don’t speak or read Russian
StringOnAStick
@Glidwrith: Thanks for the shout out. I was in a room full of committed and driven Democrats last night who aren’t rolling over and aren’t giving up; they’ve passed out of the mourning phase and into the determined phase.
I think we can all agree that Kay’s ideas to get locals on the ground organizing and registering people beats the hell out of sending donations to the DNC, DSCC, DHCC, etc to be wasted once again on $500k/year consultants who recommend we buy even more TV time. Seems to me we should each be writing letters that go to these groups, explaining what Kay has said here and saying THAT is what we will be willing to donate for, not more DC insider cushy jobs that got Putin’s Poodle elected.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
There is nothing that can be done as long as the media and political establishment are willing to look the other way and legitimize Trump. The New York Times is now Der Sturmer, a paid-for outlet of the Republican Party and that party’s interests.
It’s pretty amazing to me that, within a single generation, Republicans have gone from, The Russians are going to take over! to I’d rather have the Russians in charge than a goddamned Democrat.
Republicans are happy about this result. They have no problem whatsoever with the US becoming a client state of Russia as long as they retain their nominal power. And a majority of the press feels the same way.
There is no such thing as journalistic ethics. Only power. And the New York Times is happy to spout as much Russian propaganda as is necessary to retain their power.
Betty Cracker
@Waldo: There’s a ton of circumstantial evidence. Enough to warrant an investigation, IMO. I’d particularly like to see Manafort, Page, Trump Jr. and Giuliani questioned under oath, for starters. I’d be very surprised to see it happen, though. All the momentum is on the “Trump won, move on” side, so that’s what’ll happen in the absence of a wild card…like the CIA deciding to dump its dirt on Trump.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Huh?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: Flynn and Flynn Jr, Comey and that retired FBI agent who runs the Fraternal Order of Agents, or whatever it’s called, and was reputed to be Giunaiani’s conduit to those disgruntled NY office agents.
Adrift
@Major Major Major Major:
Can we throw in Alabama too? Not very useful and only costs us money.
Major Major Major Major
Am I allowed to be mad at obama for not pursuing this publicly after McConnell made it clear he wouldn’t play ball in September?
HRA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think they wanted President Obama to investigate GW and Cheney about going to war in Iraq..
Millard Filmore
@Barbara:
I prefer to go with Comrade Trump when speaking in the outside world. Some of the other more aggressive suggestions, while totally appropriate, are too much like the Marxist Moslem Kenyan Usurper.
Major Major Major Major
@Millard Filmore: I call him Il Douche in public but I also live in San Francisco.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, definitely.
@Major Major Major Major: My guess is in hindsight, PBO wishes to hell he had. But back then, he was assuming like most people Clinton would win, and he did not know Comey would sandbag her at the last minute, and by then it was too late.
Belafon
@cmorenc: Along those lines, if Trump and Co tank the economy, there are a lot of people in this country who didn’t vote or who voted Republican who won’t actually like that. A lot of my coworkers fit into that boat.
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: it feels to me like a fatal case of his “republicans will do the right thing when the chips are down”-itis.
Kryptik
@Major Major Major Major:
Much as I feel like Obama not coming forward was an act of moral cowardice, I think not going forward without any bipartisan recognition of this was about the most pragmatic thing he could have done. Hillary laid it out on the table during the debates, and it was ignored, spun to favor Trump, or just given the ‘partisan politics’ treatment. Do you really think Obama coming forward, even with actual direct reports from his intel folks, would have gotten any better treatment? He probably would have been savaged and pilloried for trying to influence the election and make people want to vote for Trump that much more, knowing how fucked up the trends were.
It’s a legitimate catch-22, . Especially when Comey clearly came with the shiv unsheathed for Hillary after that meeting.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: I disagree with the “publicly”
James E Powell
@Kay:
But the GOP has been the beneficiaries of their own bad acts since forever. Voter purges in 1999-2000 got George W Bush the White House, which gave us Roberts & Alito, which gave us Shelby County, which gave us Trump. They win. In the end, they always fucking win.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
You can but, sadly, I think the people saying that the MSM would have covered it as Obama uses state power to influence election! and that congressional Republicans would have been all over the news denouncing him are 100 percent right. And, frankly, that may have been part of his calculation in not doing it.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: No. What are you, hysterical?
wenchacha
It wasn’t great, but I just watched “The Night Manager” on Netflix. Same kind of highest-level chicanery of “good guys” at the tops of US and UK intel being in cahoots with arms sales. It takes rogue agents to outwit them.
Where do we get some rogue agents?
Yutsano
@Corner Stone: Side note: the voice actor for Cobra Commander from the original series is a British-Canadian and an amazing guy to boot.
Tehanu
@Alesis:
Exactly!!!!! And I also like your take on getting him to Twitter-splutter! He’s obviously thisclose to a rage-induced stroke anyway.
J R in WV
@Botsplainer:
You guys with your Cyrillic alphabet stuff, bitch and bitch, and then it always turns up just where it should turn up after it gets out of quarantine.
And I’m sure there’s dirtier slang you could have used, instead of medical terminology.
J R in WV
@D58826:
Anyone who worked on the Starr Inquisition, even just to sharpen pencils and empty the trash, is inelegible for any position of trust or authority. Look at Ken Starr, recently fired for being unable to control the sexual assaults of his school’s football team, what a moral leader he turned out to be!
Quel surprise! Not. and that rot started at the head, and passes all the way down the organization.
They were set up to investigate a specific issue, found nothing, and should have quietly closed up shop. Instead, they went on hunting, digging, and helping to create the Derangement Syndrome we now suffer from to the point of losing our nation’s soul.
It’s pretty hard to fight a contagious madness being spread by the most efficient meme spreaders in history.
Kathleen
@oldgold: At the risk of sounding like a cult like apologist, I still have to support Obama here. I think he has to take into account the repercussions of any action that involve stuff we don’t know about. If I trusted anyone in this situation it would be Obama.
J R in WV
@Another Scott:
Scott,
When you say “I do wish we didn’t throw around terms like “Putin hacked the election”. Stealing e-mails and planting false stories is not the same as changing votes on machines. There is no evidence that votes were changed after the fact.” you show that you aren’t very familiar with hacking in the real world.
The most successful form of hacking is called social engineering, aka, presenting someone with a situation he is bound to accept in a way that provides the successful hacker with what he needs. It is widely believed that Stuxnet was spread into Iranian systems that were airgapped (not connected to any network, esp. the Internet) by dropping thumb drives, pretty, shiney colorful data devices in a parking lot where Iranian coders parked their cars.
Some of them were bound to pick them up, check them out for things the NSA/CIA/other black agencies were adept at hiding, and them plug them into their computers, which controlled the Iranian atomic develpment, allowing the Stuxnet work to shatter a billion dollars worth of hardware by over-revving the centrifuges.
Or by asking someone to verify his mother’s maiden name, his first dog’s name, we need you to change something, make your password thus-and-so for today. Then change it back tomorrow, please. Thanx!!! So helpful!!! I’m neither good at nor experienced, but I do know how it’s done.
And if you use false stories with just enough truth your listeners want to hear, and a falsehood they really want to believe, that’s the very definition of social engineering. And a successful hack by every definition of the terms of art.
J R in WV
@Mnemosyne:
He is a dupe AND a dolt… but this doesn’t answer your question… is he willing?
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
This is wrong and you know it is wrong. You yourself admit that the Republicans want a Trump victory. They are not looking the other way. They are all in.
So now what? The idea that the media is simply looking the other way, or could change anything is ridiculous. But I know that I cannot shake the XFiles level fantasy of posters here that “if only the press were brave and pure, the country would be saved.”
Prove it. Prove that the Times, its publsher and editors receive payments from the GOP.
Also, the NY Times has no real power that it is trying to cling to. Hell, it is trying to survive, period. The LA Times is no longer a viable, meaningful journalistic enterprise, and may cease to exist within the next 5 years. The NY Times is subject to the same pressures.
A more interesting question is what happens with conservative media in the age of Trump, especially if you believe that the GOP has willingly sold out American interests to the Russians.
And again, unless the Electoral College revolts, nobody here has offered any constitutional remedy for what you see as an illegitimate election.
I agree with the poster who suggests that just because some people were suckered into voting for Trump, this does not make the election illegitimate.
SW
Because our forensic experts were unable to detect evidence of actual hacking of the VOTES, it doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. It may mean that their hackers are simply better than our investigators.
Raven Onthill
Charles Pierce has an answer:
henqiguai
@Corner Stone(#131):
Way late and long dead thread, but I just gotta register a “Thanks, Corner Stone, you never fail to amuse!”
ETA: Should’a hit that <Refresh> before responding.
PIGL
@burnspbesq: but maybe not as bigly.
PIGL
@Kay: 100% agreed.
Jaker
Comey’s on Trump’s payroll, simple as that. I say, Trump should be impeached now before he is ever inaugurated (deadline is drawing near when he’ll be over the line) so stop him now, because you’ll have to do it when he becomes President, maybe even within the first 100 days. To me, he’s like two Mad-hatters for the price of one. Oh, and he’s a criminal…a rich one at that.