CougarCorner

I will admit to being lazy and not searching to see if this has been addressed here in The Lounge in a dirrerent thread. Currently, there's all this saber-rattling about the Russians throwing the election to Trump and thereby invalidating it. I don't want to hear from Trump supporters, just his opposers. And my question is this:
Do you really buy into this theory or, as individuals with common sense, do you think this is the ultimate true word? I'd like to know.

No idea if they were able to succeed in doing this or not. But I believe it's not beneath the Russians to try to cheat our elections.

I'm #NeverTrump and I believe that Russia attempted to influence our elections. I think there is enough evidence of that that to deny it is foolish partisanship. But did it have enough of an effect on the outcome of the election that it changed it? I doubt it.

Socialists have attempted to influence American elections many times. True.

Russian hackers were behind multiple attempts, some successful, some unsuccessful to gain access to DNC and Hillary Clinton emails and released them to the public. True.

Hillary Clinton was already one of the most unlikable and unelectable candidates to ever be nominated and only won the election due to back-rooms politics and rigging the system. True.

Regardless of if the Russians affected the outcome of the election all Americans should be furious and determined to not let any foreign power try to illegally change the outcome of an election. And what was true 4 years ago is true today, Russia is our biggest and most dangerous political foe in the wold. Vladamir Putin is a very bad person and the Russian end goal is to reassert dominance over Eastern Europe, which would be disastrous for world.

I'm completely anti-Russian. Mitt R said they were the #1 threat and he is right.

I'm not a trump fan, didn't vote for him, and wonder all the time about the crazy notion that the Russians helped influence the election, by allowing actual true documents to see the light of day. I have a hard time with any sympathy for the hand wringing about influencing the election when the only thing that they put out there were actual documents, not forgeries or false material

I don't like Trump, but I think it's stupid. Russia seems to have meddled, even if the publicized proof is somewhat lacking. But they didn't hack voting boxes, they simply published some hidden secrets. Good.

I was #NeverTrump until 8 Nov. He won. The movement lost. I hope he succeeds and becomes a good president for the nation.

Russia didn't change the outcome in the sense that they succeeded in changing people's minds. The ONLY argument I can see that can be made (if they were indeed behind the Wikileaks hacking and release) is that they exposed the corruption of the DNC in conspiring to guarantee HRC's nomination and showed how many in the media were willing to collude with HRC and her campaign to paint her in the best light possible.

In the end, those who expose corruption are NOT at fault for the corruption. Those who ARE corrupt are at fault. So, while the Russians may have reminded voters how corrupt, dishonest and unpalatable Hillary Clinton was and that contributed to voters turning away from her, it is still Hillary's fault for actually being ALL of those things. She is still the reason why she lost.

For instance, look at this article from Politico (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/m ... ump-232547). The Russians and their hacking isn't the reason Hillary didn't campaign in Michigan. The Russians and Wikileaks aren't the reason people in Wisconsin didn't turn out. Putin wasn't robo-calling the people of Pennsylvania to stay home.

Trump won 2,279,543 votes in Michigan and won the state. George Bush won 2,313,746 votes in Michigan in 2004 (34,203 more votes than Trump) and lost the state. That's not due Russian influence. That's due to voters realizing just how awful a candidate and person Hillary was and is.

Right on.

So to start I'm a never Trump-er. There was no way I would vote for him. That doesn't mean I don't see a lot of good that can come from certain policies he says he believes in.

hawkwing wrote:Russian hackers were behind multiple attempts, some successful, some unsuccessful to gain access to DNC and Hillary Clinton emails and released them to the public. True.

I'm curious why you accept this as true? It is based on an anonymous source allegedly within the CIA. The people who released the documents assert it wasn't from Russia (or Russians). I thought were beyond just believing whatever the NYT and WP say is true.

hawkwing wrote: Regardless of if the Russians affected the outcome of the election all Americans should be furious and determined to not let any foreign power try to illegally change the outcome of an election. And what was true 4 years ago is true today, Russia is our biggest and most dangerous political foe in the wold. Vladamir Putin is a very bad person and the Russian end goal is to reassert dominance over Eastern Europe, which would be disastrous for world.

Do you think the US should also refrain from illegally changing the outcomes of elections, or orchestrating coups so a bunch of neo-nazis can take over places like the Ukraine on the Russian border? Even if you buy the propoganda that Russia hacked DNC servers and Hillary Clinton, it's a lot less than what the US does in terms of regime change in places like the Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

And why is Russia, a country with GDP roughly equal to Spain, Korea or Mexico, our biggest foe?

Sorry but I only see this as a bunch of posturing by the warmongers in congress, the military, and industry to shake us down for more money to build their machine.

You yourself argue that the United States should not interfere in other countries elections and when they do that it is rightfully the citizens job to fight back, even with terroristic acts. I'd expect you to be equally offended by foreign powers interfering in the US.