boberic wrote:
The fact that Russia tried to influence the election is not in dispute. Why is this a surprise? We live in a free country (I thought). There is free speech(I thought). Because of these freedoms, that apply to every one. Russia. or any country, or any of it's citizens, they can promote any candidate they prefer. As long as these things are legal. They can't hack, but neither can any one else. And foreigners can even vote, if they are citizens. And of course any government can not comit espionage. This foreign influence is very easy to stop. Paper ballots- end of problem. BTW the US has tried to influence many countries elections. All this noise about Russian influence is purely political, and merely democrats making excuses for hillary's loss.
The fact that Russia tried to influence the electi... (
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“Because of these freedoms, that apply to every one.”. What the hell does this mean?
Of course, all governments commit espionage—if they break laws and are caught, there are ramifications.
The US has certainly corrupted many elections in foreign countries, and recently has paid a high price for doing so, but it continues
Russia or any country can
favor any candidate; candidates cannot
accept money or assistance from any foreign nation.
And if foreigners are citizens, then they aren’t foreigners, right?
“All this noise about Russian influence is purely political, and merely democrats making excuses for hillary's loss.” Not so, not nearly so, emphatically not so! Russia gave money and information in our election, and it is illegal for candidates to accept such money and assistance. In return for said money and assistance, Russia was negotiating issues on its own behalf, mostly reducing sanctions—before the persons were elected. In other words, several people in the Trump campaign were ‘pre-compromised,” and paid for it sometimes. They acted in russia’s behalf in altering the Republican platform. And several of them were working assiduously to serve Russia before they were empowered to do so. There is no question about this.
There certainly was collusion between the trump campaign, that much is obvious and certain. Did it rise to the level of ‘criminal conspiracy?’ Probably, but not certainly yet. Was trump persoally involved? We don’t know yet.
We know this much: paper ballots would be a big improvement, but trump likes things the way they are. Does he prefer this in order to see the votes manipulated? No proof yet, but probably yes.
Why else would he not work to get a better voting system? Why does he not instruct the FBI, the CIA and other intelligence agencies to work to improve things? Obviously, he’s happy with things as they are now, isn’t he?
That is very frightening.