Did Russians successfully manipulate or change American votes?

It's Russia Today, Steve. Propaganda channel of a state ran by mob-linked former spies (and KGB-linked mobster corporations). I came across it in a friend's house, counted 3 falsehoods in 5 minutes, and asked to change the channel. It's not good for my health; too much rage-induced stress. Would you read the Volkicher Beobachter or whatever you spell that?

 

It turns out that the 3-5 million illegal immigrants voting was fake news created by some nobody who could never provide proof of this. It turns out that Russia meddling in our election was real news because it's been confirmed by our intelligence community. Parts of the dossier have been confirmed. Michael Flynn just resigned because he lied to the vice president about breaking the law. He discussed sanctions with Russia before Trump took office. I don't know if anything will happen to Kellyanne Conway with her ethics violation.

 

I'm all for prosecuting Flynn, as soon as Hillary Clinton is prosecuted for violating Federal law and endangering national security with her email scam.

 

You need to get indicted for that; and before, commit something indictable.
Besides, "prosecuted" in this climate? No, Flynn will not be even slapped on the wrist.

 

No one has ever been prosecuted under that law, so it's likely nothing will happen to him for committing a felony. The disturbing part is not even that he broke an obscure law. The disturbing part is that he lied when there were already suspicions of the Trump Administration's relationship with Russia. Also, Trump knew about this in January and didn't do anything about it until it leaked to the news. The Justice Dept. warned Trump that Flynn is susceptible to blackmail by Russia. I wouldn't be surprised if Flynn is taking the fall for something he was asked to do.

 

And now the 'Fake Ukrainians" are working to get Geert elected. What a world!

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/world/europe/russia-ukraine-fake-news-dutch-vote.html

 

Yeah. Good example ofRussian meddling in Western democracy, Tom. Some folks seem to be OK with that over here.

 

It's a felony to lie to federal agents, which Flynn is alleged to have done, and many people have been prosecuted for that.

The elephant in the living room, that the media wants to ignore, is how did the media get this leak? Who in the intelligence community is more concerned with politics than national security?

 

Exactly.

I'm not sure what to make of it.

But given that what may or may not have been transcripts of Trump's conversations with several foreign leaders and now Flynn's conversations with the Russian embassy have been leaked, it looks less and less like a single individual. It's starting to look more organized. This would seem to be information from different sources, collected by different programs, handled by different people.

Of course this kind of thing has been happening for many years. How many times have we seen stories in the New York Times or the Washington Post that contain the phrase "according to top secret documents"? Ok, so how did those newspapers come into possession of top secret documents? (The newspapers will never name their sources.)

And none of this is Trump's doing.

 

This concerns me as well, and there are some writers on the left taking note that these leaks are not healthy for the American Republic. Here's a thoughtful piece from The Atlantic, which quotes 'leftist journalist' Glenn Greenwald:

"But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/american-deep-state-trump/516780/

 

Whoever is the leaker, I'm pretty sure that the whole "National Guard mobilizing to remove thousands of illegal immigrants" bit was a tactic to smoke the source out. We may never know for sure, but I'd put money that the administration found something out amidst the fallout.

 

So simple, yet so logical.

 

The plot thickens. Meddling in non-Western Democracy, too!

Russia plotted to overthrow Montenegro's government by assassinating Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic last year, according to senior Whitehall sources

 

I would be hard-pressed to classify Montenegro as Western. Russia may only view it as such due to its Nato aspirations, however, Russia doesn't really see Serbia in that manner and Serbia is an EU candidate.

 

Move over Russia! Those blasted Americans are the REAL experts at espionage!

https://wikileaks.org/cia-france-elections-2012/

 

Just to remind what we're discussing here:


The gentleman next to Gen. Flynn is, of course, Vladimir Putin. And the lady closer to the camera is Dr. Jill Stein. Russkie have their fingers deep into US political process, and they are not limited to a single group of useful idiots (Lenin's term, not mine).

 

Why do you care what Vlad the Alpha Stork thinks? Montenegro is a Western ally, plain and simple. Bulgaria is an EU nation, and it is a Montenegro frenemy that is ethnically the closest (so is Serbia, of course). Russia wants a monopoly on Slavic and Orthodox world; they do NOT have it.

Yes, Kremlin is not limited to explicitly "Western" countries in their meddling within the "sphere of influence": eg., they pretty much own Armenia by carefully keeping Karabakh conflict frozen; and, of course, parts of Georgia (which wants to be a Western country) are still occupied.
I remember being given Noam Chomski book as a birthday gift. I couldn't finish reading it because he kept assuming US is the only imperialist nation, and any anti-Western perspective must have some kind of merit. Annoying, especially from an obviously brilliant guy like Dr. Chomski; I guess hard left are just as US-centric as their opponents, just in a negative way.

 

As Tiny Tim sang, these countries will Tito through the two lips with regards to Russia.