First off, while there was an irrefutable bias in the DNC during the primaries, and shitty moves made against Sanders as a result of that bias, that is not the same thing in any way to rigging the primaries. That's a much stronger allegation with no evidence I've yet seen provided. The DNC was deplorable and idiotic in its rejection of Sanders and active working against his campaign. But the primaries were not rigged.
Second, how exactly was a level playing field created by leaks that targeted a single party and candidate? Was there some demonstrable advantage HRC and the DNC possessed versus GOP candidates and the RNC, which was neutralized in a fair fashion by the leaks, thus creating an equitable and balanced standing among all the parties and candidates? That seems to require quite a lot of evidence and explaining.
Third, I don't think there has been any stated allegations from the Obama administration or intelligence services regarding hacking voting machines and tallies. I realize some people are suggesting it without any evidence being out there. But the administration doesn't appear to be making those claims from all I've read so far. That's a wholly different issue that would require an incredible amount of organization, effort, and evidence proving it occurred. "Hacking the election" seems to almost be used as a bit of a colloquialism, more akin to "life-hacking", and where administration officials are concerned, specifically focused on the data breaches and leaks in an effort to "life-hack" the election through creative social and political engineering, not manipulating voting tabulations. However, voting machines != electoral process. They are merely the mechanism by which the process culminates in a decision. The machines can be entirely sound, while the process can be hacked and manipulated.
Also, a couple of nitpicks:
- It's the Democratic Party, not Democrat Party. It's members are called Democrats, not the party itself.
- In this instance, you wanted to use "lesser" not "lessor".
I agree not rigged, but giving Hillary debate questions in advance comes pretty close.
In my opinion, the DNC emails and the Trump "grab 'em" tapes are similar -- you can argue that it's private material that should've stayed that way, but you can't argue that the material didn't reveal helpful truths about the candidates.
Finally, a recent poll found 50% of Democrats think that Russia tampered with the vote tallies in the election. This is insane, and the direct result of mainstream media irresponsibly using the phrase "hacked the election" to refer to the (alleged) hacking of DNC emails by Russia.
>"If Bernie Sanders had been the nominee of the party and the Russians hacked my emails instead of John [Podesta]’s, we'd be reading all these notes between Donna and I and they'd say Donna was cozying up to the Bernie campaign. This is taken out of context. I found her to be a fair arbiter, I think she did a good and honest job."
The email contains the exact text of the question submitted to a CNN producer in advance of the town-hall by a moderator; it is very similar to the final question that ended up being asked.
Agreed on the last part. I saw that poll, as well, and couldn't help but shake my head. There's a serious problem with not just the news, but the way people interpret the words used on the news in their own ways, and then spread that interpretation outward without there being any significant checks on the spin getting out of control.
>leaks that targeted a single party and candidate?
Is there any evidence to suggest that the DNC was singled out for attack? We should be careful not to fall victim to pernicious media spin. The claims laid out in the Grizzly Steppe report are very specific:
1. In summer 2015, an APT29 spearphishing campaign directed emails containing a malicious link ...
2. ...to over 1,000 recipients, including multiple U.S. Government victims.
3. In the course of that campaign, APT29 successfully compromised a U.S. political party.
We know in retrospect that the compromised party was the DNC, but the claims presented do not indicate that the DNC was the only target. Although this is how good boys and girls are supposed to interpret the evidence, since many news media sources are spinning this as "Russia hacked the electoral process for a Trump victory", we can't start from that conclusion and work backward. Claim #2 in particular seems to indicate that the attack was broad and indiscriminate, with government and non-government targets alike.
Consider also what isn't said in this report. If they could say that the hacker groups singled out the DNC for attack, they would say so. That no such claim is made indicates that the authors know otherwise.
Finally, we have this:
4. In spring 2016, APT28 compromised the same political party, again via targeted spearphishing.
This is a separate group from the one in the previous claims. What they do not speak to is the question of who else was attacked or compromised.
Intelligence and counterintelligence is an endless game of cat and mouse that has been played for millenia. Any indication you can glean on who the next leader of the world's #1 power will be is priceless information, so none of us should be the least bit surprised that any of this is going on or that political parties would be the target of hacking attempts in an election year, by Russia, or any other nation.
Russia putting a targeted hit only on the DNC to swing the election specifically in favor of one candidate is an extraordinary claim and this report doesn't clear the bar IMHO. A far more likely hypothesis is that all renowned political organizations are a target for hacking at all times, and the DNC just had shitty security and got compromised. Too bad. Maybe turn on 2FA next time, and stop storing Top Secret material on your home server. (Even my little unknown personal server gets thousands of login attempts from China every day.)
>stop storing Top Secret material on your home server.
None of the emails on Clinton's email servers were ever compromised, or at least we have no reason to believe they were because no one leaked them.
>Russia putting a targeted hit only on the DNC to swing the election specifically in favor of one candidate is an extraordinary claim and this report doesn't clear the bar IMHO.
This report wasn't meant to provide any evidence of anything.
>The DNC was deplorable and idiotic in its rejection of Sanders and active working against his campaign. But the primaries were not rigged.
But they didn't do any of that either. It's amazing how out of control this narrative has gotten. And this is precisely why we can't justify these sorts of intrusions so close to an election, the stories become such distorted pictures of reality which is antithetical to to rational decision making.
They most certainly did. DWS and company actively worked internally to disparage and scuttle the Sanders campaign and push HRC, ultimately resulting in DWS resigning in shame. The DNC leadership's bias was obvious, and the leaked emails that came out before the convention provided sufficient evidence that Sanders' supporters had been right about the DNC not playing fair with the candidates (though still not rigging the primaries). I don't think the narrative about the DNC's pro-Clinton/anti-Sanders bias and internal activity ever got out of control. Seems it stayed pretty level, and it's ultimately a separate matter from the current issue as far as I'm concerned anyway.
This is absurd. It's clear that people at the DNC preferred Clinton. But the real question is what actions were taken to make Sanders less likely to become nominee? Absolutely none.
Oh, come on. You appear to either be unaware of the DNC's leaked emails before the convention, or are refusing to accept the information that is available and understand what I'm saying. There is a host of internal communication leaked specifically covering the internal conversations of DNC leadership focused on plans to scuttle Sanders campaign and candidacy throughout the primaries. The leaks were then added to the lawsuit that was being brought against the DNC and DWS on the eve of the convention. You can easily look this information up. It's neither absurd nor an out-of-control narrative. The actions people care about on this issue (which are separate from the election leaks people are currently talking about) are the ones that occurred within the DNC.
I'm not sure how to make my statements any clearer. I've even added emphasis to attempt to do so. The actions known about and discussed by which people are upset were actions within the DNC. Given that an action is something a person does, the content of the pre-convention leaked emails, and the act of writing and discussing the contents of those emails, constitutes actions within the DNC. You're attempting to dismiss this as non-action because there perhaps were not actions observable or taken outside the DNC. That's not what people are arguing in this case.
Such as? Further, one person leaking emails is a far cry from "the DNC" being against him. You cannot blame the organization for actions of individuals.
>act of writing and discussing the contents of those emails
But it is absurd to be upset by internal discussions that resulted in no action against the Sander's campaign. When I ask for what action the DNC took as an organization, it is in this manner that I am asking the question. Internal emails does not constitute "actively working against the Sanders campaign". Such a characterization is blatant dishonesty.
Second, how exactly was a level playing field created by leaks that targeted a single party and candidate? Was there some demonstrable advantage HRC and the DNC possessed versus GOP candidates and the RNC, which was neutralized in a fair fashion by the leaks, thus creating an equitable and balanced standing among all the parties and candidates? That seems to require quite a lot of evidence and explaining.
Third, I don't think there has been any stated allegations from the Obama administration or intelligence services regarding hacking voting machines and tallies. I realize some people are suggesting it without any evidence being out there. But the administration doesn't appear to be making those claims from all I've read so far. That's a wholly different issue that would require an incredible amount of organization, effort, and evidence proving it occurred. "Hacking the election" seems to almost be used as a bit of a colloquialism, more akin to "life-hacking", and where administration officials are concerned, specifically focused on the data breaches and leaks in an effort to "life-hack" the election through creative social and political engineering, not manipulating voting tabulations. However, voting machines != electoral process. They are merely the mechanism by which the process culminates in a decision. The machines can be entirely sound, while the process can be hacked and manipulated.
Also, a couple of nitpicks:
- It's the Democratic Party, not Democrat Party. It's members are called Democrats, not the party itself.
- In this instance, you wanted to use "lesser" not "lessor".