BTW, for clear evidence that some people don't think the Russian propaganda and the release of emails had any effect on the election whatsoever, look no further than Seriati's post below. "What percentage is attributable to illegal influence? I'm guessing zero by the way."
Is "Russian propaganda" illegal?
Pete caught the significant piece on his first go through. What law do you think prevents the Russians (or anyone else) from producing propaganda? Or just straight up stating their opinions about who we should elect? Do you think there is a law against a country threatening to go to war or to murder our citizens if we elect a certain person? There was no illegal Russian propaganda.
We had a crime in the breach of the DNC's and Podesta's security. It's been widely acknowledged that Podesta fell for, pardon me borrowing President Obama's term a "junior varsity" level phishing scam. There's every evidence that the DNC was penetrated more than once, by more than one actor and also was the subject of deliberate leakers. Against that background, the fact that their own words - and be honest its the true emails, especially Podesta's, not any "fake" propaganda - damaged them is hardly surprising or even troubling. Wow, we should all be upset that the "Russians" "manipulated" the election by showing how the DNC and the Clinton campaign were manipulating the election. There is no evidence that would convince a non-partisan that the Russians were the only people to have the emails. There is no evidence AT ALL that establishes a Russian Wikileaks distribution (other than vague implication). Wikileaks released the data, and they've implied they got it from a leak.
I got no beef with prosecuting the hackers. Go at it.
I have a right to protest treating this an event worthy of
war level rhetoric by members of the Democratic Party against the worlds second greatest military power, without something real in the proof department being released. I have every right to protest undermining the elected government of the US with a political investigation mascarading as a legitimate investigation, how quickly the left has forgotten the perils of McCarthyism.
As for the release of the emails, Seriati seems to be assuming that this was wikileaks, not Russia.
Two things. First, I have no assumption as to who gave Wikileaks the information. They've implied it was a leaker, but it could have been Russian or other hackers directly or indirectly.
Second, I honestly don't care. I'm not a fan of secrecy in government, or even really inside political parties. We need to be able to keep secrets related to national security secure, but the urge to over-classify should be resisted. In this case, quite frankly, even if the Clinton campaign insiders really had that high a level of contempt for their own voters, let alone the other sides', there is no excuse for them to put it in writing. It's practically the first rule of communication, assume what ever you write will be broadcast globally. The fact that knowing what the Clinton campaign really thought about its voters could be so decisive is directly related to a certain delusional attitude that voters have, where they are the "good guys" therefore they don't have to justify everything they believe in cause everyone knows their side is "good" and the other is "evil," revealing the evil at the core opened some eyes. Well at least until the media did damage control and forced the issue back out of sight.
I had a specific conversation with several of my friends pre-leaks about why they were voting for Clinton and what issues she was campaigning on, and without exception not a one of them could name five issues related to her campaign. It was all some iteration of they believed she was a good person, who would "do the right thing" and was highly qualified.
