I'm seeing a lot of outrage about the election hacks here, BUT..........

[socialist_n_TN]

I'm not seeing anybody realistically offering ideas on what to do about it. IF this is a slow-motion coup involving a stolen election and the dehumanization of the opponents of the plotters, don't you think we need to figure out what tactics we need to use to stop it before we're all dead or in jail?

Every year this century, I've seen this same type of outrage, but I haven't seen any sitting Democrats do much about it. Or really even mention it much. It seems to me that it's time for militant tactics, economically and politically. Or does everybody think the plotters are going to be struck by an attack of remorse and resign?

And yes, I'm frustrated.

[LanternWaste]

1. I often get frustrated by things I have no solution for at the moment.

"I'm not seeing anybody realistically offering ideas on what to do about it..."

I often get frustrated by things I have no solution for at the moment. Sometimes I even get frustrated by those things I doubt I personally will ever have the solution for.

Lack of an immediate solution does not deny frustration; though it can inadvertently illustrate our bias to call ours "concern" and theirs "outrage..." as the one sounds weighty while the other merely trivial.

[leftstreet]

2. Where the hell is the leadership OPPOSITION?

Jesus Jumping Christ I get so tired of this shit!

DURec

[Hoyt]

3. Should we bomb Russia, since they meddled in our election, like we have their elections?

Other than maybe Flynn, do we have solid evidence anyone COLLUDED with the Ruskies? If we get such evidence, then I'm sure some heads will roll.

Now, possible obstruction of justice is a legitimate matter. We'll see what Comey says tomorrow. If Comey says something to effect -- "It was clear to me that Trump was ordering me to stop the investigation of Russia's involvement . . . . . . " and one cannot make a case that Trump was just trying to save his "friend", Flynn, who had already been fired for something that does not apparently have a direct impact on the election -- then we have something besides a lot of smoke and stink.

Not saying that the smoke and stink, family that puts profits above country and may have used the office for gain such as selling visas, close ties to Ruskies, and probably worse, won't eventually cause Trump and some aides to resign. But Democrats don't really have a whole lot to go stand up and yell Treason, Impeach, etc., until then.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. We meddled in Russia's elections like they meddled in ours?

When have we ever "meddled" in Russia's elections to the degree that they've interfered with ours in 2016?

[Hoyt]

8. It's easy to look up if you haven't been following.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/13/the-long-history-of-the-u-s-interfering-with-elections-elsewhere/?utm_term=.6368277448a1


http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-us-intervention-foreign-elections-20161213-story.html


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-us-has-been-meddling-in-other-countries-elections-for-a-century-it-doesnt-feel-good_us_57983b85e4b02d5d5ed382bd

[Tommy_Carcetti]

9. Anything specific to Russia? nt

[emulatorloo]

31. More "Whataboutisms." We get it, you don't give a damn about the integrity of the 2016 US

presidential election.

Carry on.

[Hoyt]

33. I give a damn, but I don't like a bunch of conspiracy BS because our candidate lost.

There is absolutely no evidence that votes were changed, etc. None. The best people have is "well it COULD happen." Well yeah, as could lost ballot boxes and fraudulent ballot counting which happened decades ago.

I would love for someone to find evidence, but so far we might as well be talking about JFK assassination.

[emulatorloo]

35. Sorry for what I said. Can you clarify "No evidence"

First I need apologize for saying you didn't care. Thanks for your clarification and I am sorry for saying what I said.

Can you clarify your thoughts on the rest of your post?

First I agree w you. No evidence votes were flipped.

But curious about your thoughts on the whole ball of wax

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I understand there is a theoryon the right and some on the left that:

Russian interference and/or Trump campaign collusion is fake news. It is a manufacturerd 'psy-op' by the US's 17 intelligence agencies ('Deep State'), and perhaps Obama to lie about Putin and Trump. Another layer of the theory is that the DNC and other Democrats are lying about Russian collusion in order to protect Hillary Clinton.

Is that what you believe or do you have a different view?

I'm sincere in this question and I'm not going to play gotcha games with you. I'm not going to argue you with you.

I'd genuinely like to hear what you think.

Thanks,

[Hoyt]

36. I believe Ruskies likely hacked (or attempted to do so) the DNC, some state election offices, etc.

They were probably hacking entities here at the same time we were hacking entities in Russia and a lot of other countries. But, I see no evidence it affected the voting.

If Russia hacked places here -- and Trump was directly involved in colluding, ordering them to, or paying them directly or indirectly -- then Trump will, and should, go down if investigators find that evidence. If Russia did it basically on their own, then what are we going to do?

If Trump wasn't directly involved -- or no one finds such evidence -- he'll survive on that basis as far as Ruskies meddling in our election.

But they might get him if he is deemed to have interfered with an investigation. But that is a different situation, not directly tied to the election.

What really ticks me off, is Trump's family using the Presidency to profit, especially essentially offering to sell visas for big contributions to some fake charity. Every darn one of them should be jailed and banned from serving in a federal government capacity or doing business with the government.

Except for the specter of Pence, Ryan, etc., I would love for Trump to be forced out of office. But there is little chance of that happening without some evidence he colluded with Ruskies to affect the election, or he obstructed an investigation. I can not stand him or his ignorant white wing racist supporters.

[emulatorloo]

37. I'm angry about his family as well, they are corrupt as hell.

I don't know whether Trump himself was directly involved with Russian interference in our 2016 elections. I do believe some of his staff were. Manafort for example.

Even if they don't find evidence that Trump himself was involved, I think it is likely that the investigation will find shady financial dealings between Trump and Russian oligarchy.

[YCHDT]

11. lol ... "other then Flynn" ... lol ... we have tons of DIRECT evidence of collusion including D2S...

... asking the Russians to hack [something] and them doing it soon afterwards.

There's more direct evidence against D2S than there was against OJ Simpson ... lol ... "other than Flynn" ... shit, that's all that's needed !!!

It doesn't take an army to hack into the state and local electoral boards and voter roles !!!

[Hoyt]

14. You have evidence of Trump or his aides contacting Russia and asking they hack votes, etc.

Would like to see that. Bet FBI would too.

I get Russia may have tried -- not convinced they succeeded yet -- but to get Trump or his Admin, you gotta tie them together.

If it were just Russia, what do you propose doing to them, especially considering we have a long history of messing with elections?

[YCHDT]

15. Hoyt, he did it on TV ... asked the Russians to hack and they hacked .. there's nothing else needed.

Doesn't even matter if he felt like it was coincidental, the timing alone would put anyone in court.

Past that there's TECHNICALLY more circumstantial evidence of collusion here than OJ murdered his wife and the Russians don't have to hack the voting machines ... that DC MSM meme was shot down months ago ... there's evidence they hacked the voter roles and state and local electoral boards ... they don't have to hack the machines ... Russia fucked with this election and with D2S approval or recommendation hacked the DNC.

[Hoyt]

16. What I remember is he asked Ruskies to find 30K supposedly missing Clinton emails. I want him gone

too, but that ain't evidence. But, until there is some direct evidence, we have little proof (well, we do have the possible obstruction of justice, but if there is not evidence of collusion with Russia, that is diminished to some degree).

My point stands -- Democratic Congresspeople don't want to go too far out on the limb until there is some hard evidence. Otherwise, they run the risk of looking like a bunch of whining sore losers, conspiracy theorists, "snowflakes" or the latest GOPer bull, and worse.

[bettyellen]

21. Did you post links to "our long history of messing" with Russian elections?

Can't find it on this either links you pasted. I know some people have screamed Hillary but I'm sure that's not what you're trying to imply here- without any credible reports.

[Hoyt]

22. Yes I did, look up thread. When you help Yelstin get elected, you are meddling in foreign elections

And that is just one of many incidents.

I don't like Putin for a number of reasons; however, I'm not for going to war -- bombs or harsh sanctions -- that hurt millions of innocent people short- and long-term.

[bettyellen]

23. Ah, supporting a loan for Yeltsin is "messing" and equal to covert psy ops and collaborating

With the GOP? Hmmm. I think there are laws against one and not the other. And one was openly done, the other in a series of secret meetings. LOL at pretending this is at all the same.

And supporting one loan means long history now? Seriously, just stop it.

[Hoyt]

24. Meddling is meddling. We've bombed, invaded and occupied countries in Middle East to affect election

I can assure you, we done a lot more meddling in Russia too.

So far, no one has evidence the GOP, and especially Trump, or anyone else colluded with Russia. If we did, we'd be done with this and Trump would be up for Treason. Then, we'd be raising heck about Pence, Ryan, or whoever is in line.

[bettyellen]

26. We're not discussing the Middle East and nope- a loan in support is not the same as active measures.

One was legal, open and above board and involved a group of nations. The other is different in all those important aspects. And once is not "a long history" in Russia. You're desperately trying to equate the two things, but the covert collusion is new and unprecedented behavior and the GOP must be held accountable, despite your attempts to normalize this.

[Hoyt]

27. You can try to define the debate however you like, but it's hard for me to condemn Russia for

meddling when we've done the same. Do you truly believe the USA hasn't hacked Russian information.

Besides, unless we can show Trump directly colluded with the Ruskies, it really doesn't matter.

[bettyellen]

28. You want to pretend that covert collusion during an election isn't different?

It sthe same as a loan made openly by an international group? Bullshit. Just stop it.

[Hoyt]

29. First off, our propping up Yelstin was more than a loan. You have to read more than Wiki account.

Here's a couple of other accounts --

The Guardian title gets to the crux of the matter, "Americans can spot election meddling because they’ve been doing it for years"


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/05/americans-spot-election-meddling-doing-years-vladimir-putin-donald-trump

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-meddling-in-1996-russian-elections-in-support-of-boris-yeltsin/5568288


Look, I understand wanting to pin as much as we can on Trump and hope somehow it leads to him resigning or being removed. But, we aren't there yet other than the fact we hate him. Unfortunately, in under rules in place for decades, he won. A significant number of people voted for him, knowing full well what he is like.

[bettyellen]

30. Redundant links about one election that an international coalition donated to...

But I get it- Putin is Clinton's fault, Trump is Clinton's fault. Awesome sources that both put the D on CDS.

[Hoyt]

32. I've not come close to saying or implying that. Enjoy your Fitzmas.

[judesedit]

4. Agree totally although I have nothing but get rid of them and put the rightful winners in there.

We'd have to deal with the rw lunatic violence but we're dealing with it now. Let the crooked GOP know their tactics aren't going to work anymore. Fix the gerrymandering issue. It's time to create a path to correcting this bullshit. It's not the first time for God's sake. What the hell are we waiting for?

[Lil Missy]

5. The members of DU is not the place to look for or expect to solve every problem.

Thank gawd! We'd be totally fucked if DU consensus ran the country!

[judesedit]

7. No more Supreme Court gets to choose. ALL votes are counted

Period

[mhw]

10. .."but I haven't seen any sitting Democrats do much about it."

#OwnYourRole

Pity some didn't care enough to elect the one person that spoke often & strongly about protecting voter rights & offered how policy should be changed.

Not much she nor the Dems can do about it now.
Oh well.
Stop blaming the Dems..many others also own a role in this total f up.

https://hillaryspeeches.com/2015/06/04/clinton-addresses-voting-rights-in-texas/

JUNE 4 2015
Clinton outlined her plan for voting rights in America saying, “I believe every citizen has the right to vote, and I believe we should make it easier for every citizen to vote.” She outlined her plan in four central points (seen in the Tweet above):

1. Automatic voter registration upon turning 18

2. Restoring the provisions of the Voting Rights Act

3. Expanding early and absentee voting

4. Setting a nationwide standard of in-person voting for 20+ days

Restoring voting rights is certainly going to be one of the cornerstones of her campaign’s platform moving forward.
---------------------


If any didn't bother to know her policy platform back then, you can still read what was missed , in the kerfuffel about some wallstreet speech & that drumbeat of oligarchy.
RW smear worked.

Voting rights is being tabled & we can only hope our Intel can stop the foreign interference in US elections, via the $$$$$ and millions of bots sent out to divide , discredit & seat the most dangerous president we've ever had.

#OwnYourRole

[athena]

13. If Democrats had voted in greater numbers, we wouldn't be in this situation.

It's very hard to steal an election when it's a landslide. I agree with you completely. This is the fault of those liberals who were falling over themselves trying to get on the "we hate Hillary" bandwagon last year. It's unfortunately too late for anyone to do anything about the stolen election now. The only solution is to come out in large numbers in 2018 to take back the House and the Senate.

[mhw]

19. Yes. 2018 if they don't abuse our voting system any further than they already have

We would have already been making those changes instead of grabbing for any scrap we manage to get.

Pisses me off how people allowed themselves to be lead off a cliff.

Media gave the Dem candidate just 32 minutes of policy coverage.
They too need to own their role & apologize to the people of America & the world.

You are right about 2018. It must to be an "all for one-one for all" united effort if we are ever to restore honor & dignity to America.

Stop blaming the Dem Party, #OwnYourRole & focus on 2018.

Thanks

[Orrex]

12. We should assume that every secret ballot election from now on will be stolen

Any claims about creating a "paper trail" with a printed receipt or the like are a fantasy and will do nothing to improve the process.

We must make voting mandatory for all people of voting age. And if we want to maintain any illusion of electoral integrity, we must abandon the delusion that "secret ballots" protect anyone other than the people who steal elections.

[socialist_n_TN]

17. I guess why I'm frustrated about this ......

is because this is supposedly the "left" in American politics and all anybody seems to want to do is spew outrage on-line. IF this is a coup and had happened in MOST other countries, there would be massive numbers of people occupying the streets and widespread labor strikes to the point where the military would need to be involved to quell the protests. And even the military could possibly be affected in a refusal to take orders to quash the protests. But the "left" as represented by DU still seems to think that we can wait until 2018 and VOTE these fuckers out. If you truly believe they stole the 2016 election, why would you think that the 2018 election will be any different?

I'm a Classic Red, a fundamentalist Bolshevik and I have NO illusions that elections do anything to truly change the paradigm of bourgeois rule over the rest of us. BUT I'm going to DEFEND democratic rights when they have been obviously violated like it appears to have happened here. But is anybody talking about a truly massive strike action like recently happened in Brazil? Is anybody talking about occupations of streets and workplaces until something gets DONE about this? A "rent strike" involving the non-payment of debts to government AND private banks?

Electoral integrity SHOULD be the one thing that everybody would get angry enough about to DO some of these things, but everybody seems to think we can just "vote" and it'll all go away. WHY would you think that if they've stolen elections on three separate occasions in this century?

[mythology]

18. Because what Russia actually did is really hard to stop

Hacking email accounts is relatively trivial, especially when somebody gives you the password. Likewise stopping inaccurate statements online is also hard to stop. There isn't some perfect guide to what is true.

It's also hard to quantify the impact of these attacks, in terms of changing votes.

And then there's the fantasies about actual votes being changed that have no supporting evidence. There's a reason that no Democratic officials are making those sort of claims.

Also hyperbolic claims that anybody opposed to Trump will be jailed or dead are silly. People said the same about Obama and Bush. It didn't happen then either. Our institutions are stronger than you give them credit for.

[mhw]

20. Well, Obama & Bush weren't pshychopaths colluding with a foreign enemy for profit & power.

Just saying.

[Hoyt]

25. Agree completely. I hope they find proof Trump, Pence, etc., were colluding with Ruskies, but

haven't seen it yet.

[trueblue2007]

34. USA needs to have VOTE BY MAIL like Oregon

[ehrnst]

38. It doesn't support the narrative that the Democrats lost the White House because

they nominated the wrong person.

And that is why many won't give Russian involvement the attention and importance that it has earned.

[politicat]

39. The problem is there is no national solution because we don't do national elections.

Every election is run at the state and county level. We have federal laws and guidelines, but it's basically county by county.

So... what we do is pay attention at our local levels. Most counties have an election committee and those meetings are open to the public. Go to the meetings. Bring friends, especially paranoid ones who can proof-read code. If your county doesn't use open-source tabulation software, agitate for it. If your county doesn't use paper ballots (optical scan is fine), agitate for paper ballots, since the touch screens are coming to the end of lifecycle and the cost to replace with optical scanners is much cheaper.

The county clerk and recorder is the most important election official in your universe. That's the person who records the official numbers and manages the elections. Watch that person closely.