NP - Did Putin Swing the Election to Trump? Of Course He Did. (less bluster, more evidence)

Mon Jan 9 22:15:32 CST 2017

The "Russia hacked the election" hysteria is so outrageously overblown.
There are so many more pressing issues.

The fact is, no one in the Democratic party and none of the liberal pundits
were at all prepared for Trump's election. Their trusty charts and
technocratic methodologies and quantifiable data showed otherwise.
Shockingly (not), that failed at predicting human behavior.

The Democrats pulled a Dale Earnhardt. They crashed into the fucking wall
and burned because they couldn't turn Left. But instead of admitting their
own shortcomings and the pressing need for reforms, they're working
themselves into a frenzy over this Russia stuff.  I think there's a lot of
sense in this article
<https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/01/it-matters-yes-but-how-much>, which
I excerpted a relevant part of below:

Before anything else, let’s remember what Russia’s “hacking the election”
(a bizarre term) is actually supposed to have entailed to begin with. If we
assume all the facts as alleged, Vladimir Putin did *not *actually change
the result of the election by throwing away ballots or hacking voting
machines (even though many Democrats evidently believe this to be the case
<https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies-largely-depends-political-iden/>).
He did *not *send Russian agents to pose as voters, or exercise some form
of sophisticated mind-control. The allegation, instead, is that the Russian
government embarrassed the Democratic Party by releasing a series of
documents from the Democratic National Committee and the email account of
John Podesta.

Now, the documents in question are not alleged to be fabricated. The
Clinton team made some noises suggesting this was the case early on, but
there is now almost complete consensus that they were real. So the
allegation here is that the Russian government embarrassed the Democrats by
exposing things about the party
<https://medium.com/mtracey/russian-hackers-provided-vital-information-to-american-voters-d7fb0f9ec50b#.4pamkpx6p>
that
were perfectly true. These included the biases
<http://observer.com/2016/07/clinton-rewards-wasserman-schultzs-shady-behavior-with-new-job/>
of
Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the primaries, the leaking of debate questions
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/donna-brazile-wikileaks-cnn.html>
to
the Clinton campaign by CNN contributor Donna Brazile, and Hillary
Clinton’s speeches
<http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/15/politics/wikileaks-hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs-speeches/>
to
Goldman Sachs. (Another part of the strategy, according
<https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C1hijQiXAAAYY_G.jpg> to the
recently-released intelligence report, involved broadcasting a documentary
on Russian television favorably depicting the Occupy Wall Street movement.
One might observe that running a program on Russian state TV is an unusual
way to attempt to influence voters in Michigan and Wisconsin.)

On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 7:54 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Either you or Laura tell me what "specifics" you want refuted or STFU.
>
> Your digital signatures crap sounds a lot like Truther crap.  Are you a
> Truther?  You sound like one.  If so, you lost me @ go.  Talk about info
> bubbles!
>
> David Morris
>
>
> On Monday, January 9, 2017, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>> Actually the Intercept( the digital journal edited by Greenwald) has gone
>> into more detail about the quality of the allegations and their digital
>> signature than anyone I have read.( a list of articles can be provided)
>> Laura asked you to address specifics but I hear only louder repetition. As
>> for Obama , there are many reasons to distrust him and that mistrust has
>> been articulated by  respectable black intellectuals also.  Also it was not
>> just Republicans projecting the nonsense about WMD. The vote on the Iraq
>> war was bipartisan with Hillary as a decisive voice.
>>   The fact that Trump is obnoxious and dangerous simply does not mean
>> credible evidence has been provided that Russia was decisive in the
>> election. The claims are unspecific; they were  made by known liars,  and
>> they need to be examined by neutral internet experts.
>>
>> One of my concerns is that this 'Russia did it’ story becomes an excuse
>> to ignore the far more obvious and serious flaws in our electoral process
>> like the 75,000 votes in Detroit discounted because the voting machines
>> can’t read what can easily be read by humans, the long lines in black
>> districts etc.  Sadly, when Jill Stein challenged the process in Detroit
>> plenty of Trump lawyers showed up for the recount but few to no lawyers
>> from the DNC.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Jan 9, 2017, at 9:44 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > All Greenwald says in this interview is "Don't believe [anything] that
>> you hear from US intelligence."  No more than that.  We know Bush lied us
>> into Iraq, but do we believe Obama is lying us into believing that Russia
>> hacked the election for Trump?  The implied symmetry is crap.
>> >
>> > Why do you give him more credence than Obama?
>> >
>> > David Morris
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 4:13 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>> > As a courageous investigative journalist, do you think Greenwald's now
>> become a mouthpiece for Putin merely because Russia cagily gave his past
>> source Snowden asylum? Is that really all it takes to buy his collusion? Or
>> is there some other reason for his alleged bias that you're speaking of.
>> Which statements of his on the clip do you specifically disagree with?
>> >
>> > LK
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: David Morris
>> > Sent: Jan 9, 2017 5:07 PM
>> > To: "kelber at mindspring.com"
>> > Cc: P-list
>> > Subject: Re: NP - Did Putin Swing the Election to Trump? Of Course He
>> Did.
>> >
>> > Nice try to paint your stance as beleaguered minority one. But the
>> point is that Greenwald is not unbiased when it comes to Russia.
>> >
>> > David Morris
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 4:04 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>> > Is there any way to dissent from orthodoxy without being called a
>> lunatic, a dupe or an axe-grinder?
>> >
>> > Laura
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: David Morris
>> > Sent: Jan 9, 2017 5:00 PM
>> > To: "kelber at mindspring.com"
>> > Cc: P-list
>> > Subject: Re: NP - Did Putin Swing the Election to Trump? Of Course He
>> Did.
>> >
>> > Greenwald is NOT a reliable source in this case.  His axe grinding is
>> as obvious as hell.
>> >
>> > David Morris
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 3:55 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>> > As a Pynchon reader, I can simultaneously hold two ideas in my brain,
>> one of which is supported and one of which is not supported by the liberal
>> establishment: 1. Trump is a horror; and 2. Putin wasn't responsible for
>> his election.
>> >
>> > http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/08/us/greenwald-intel-report-reliable-cnntv/
>> >
>> > Laura
>> >
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: David Morris
>> > Sent: Jan 9, 2017 4:35 PM
>> > To: P-list
>> > Subject: NP - Did Putin Swing the Election to Trump? Of Course He Did.
>> >
>> > Thomas Eckhardt was oh so concerned about the Ukraine.  Not that it was
>> being annexed by Russia, but that some of those wanting freedom from Russia
>> were nazis.  Now the US is being annexed by nazis with the help of Russia.
>> Where is his concern now?
>> >
>> > David Morris
>> >
>> > http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/01/did-putin-swin
>> g-election-trump-course-he-did
>> >
>> > Given how close the election was, there's a pretty good chance that
>> Putin's campaign of cyber-chaos had enough oomph to swing things all by
>> itself.
>> >
>> > I'm a little surprised this hasn't produced more panic. In the United
>> States I understand why it hasn't: Democrats don't want to sound like sore
>> losers and Republicans don't care as long as their guy won. But what about
>> the rest of the world?
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
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