Doesn't happen everyday that a longstanding apparatschik of a major party throws her predecessor (DWS), her party's former Presidential Nominee (HRC), and a former President (Obama) under the bus like this. I like it. Smells like rats leaving a sinking ship.

Money laundering is the cherry on top, really.

All of this is awful, and it's nice to have confirmation finally, but didn't we know almost all of this during the primary? I certainly recall the money funneling being well documented and publicized.
Clinton's political career is over, I hope all Clintons...is this about putting a death nail in the DNC? I'm not sure how he expects to take over the party....or why one would want to, it sounds like they're deep in debt....financially and morally.

I'm not at all convinced of that (Clinton's political career being over).

It would be the sane response. And yet, clearly the DNC (and US politics in general) aren't reined in by trivialities like sanity. I think that unless the fickle public gets really riled up over this, the DNC would swing just as hard for Clinton or some other corporate-friendly type over anybody like Sanders or Warren in 2020.

Sanders being an Independent in the Senate was held against him hard by party bigwigs. Somewhat understandably. That being said, Sanders' brand of "Independent" was/is a fantastic guide to what the Democrat party should be working to become.

Politics is all bullshit, all the time. As a result, a huge percentage of voters are quite disenfranchised and don't really see any candidate as being on their side. Sanders turned that on its head. And old, rather-eccentric, Jewish dude got people excited (me too!). Massive gold-plated opportunity, with giant fucking neon signs pointing at it saying "pounce on this NOW", and the DNC took a big shit on it instead because they can't fathom a world without being 99.9% funded by massive corporations in return for congressmen, vetoes, and judges being bought and paid for.

I think that's what the guy is talking about with regards to "taking over the party". The "Justice Democrats" thing is about progressive candidates funded by actual goddamn people instead of laundered corporate money. I'm not real optimistic about their chances of really shaking up the status quo, but by god I sure hope they do.

There is still some debate on the authenticity of this.

I read an article last night by a lawyer (uninvolved with the DNC) who openly questioned whether Donna Brazile was looking at the 2015 or the 2016 JFA. The reason she was asking, was that the 2016 JFA, of course, contains nothing but mentions of HRC because she was at that time the nominee, which is to be expected.

I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but it was a fascinating article. I spent about 5 minutes trying to find it right now, but I read it last night at home on my iPad, so I don't have the history handy to find the article again easily.

They are certainly free to make that mistake, but she will not win another election bigger than the pta leader, imo. The non zealots are done with her, even some zealots are.

The problem is, the justice democrats aren't in positions of authority in the party and aren't the majority. I would love them to take over, but I don't see a pathway to that future. What that means is, thanks to the DNC and Clinton, we may be on a fairly permanent right wing path because the dems largely aren't blind followers of any figurehead.

Sounds like an "Evil hive of scum and villainy" to me.
The US is screwed if they don't rise up and take back their political system.

Elizabeth Warren confirmed it as well recently. She was asked if the campaign was rigged and she simply said Yes.

HRC was NOT going to let another upstart like Obama come out of nowhere and take her 'rightful' place as the next President. Instead of letting the people choose, she forced the hands of the voters and now we have the worst President in history.

Sad thing, she WILL NOT admit it. In her book she blames everyone with just a small amount of criticism of herself, mostly about how she didn't reach out to the voters, etc.

He is right, GTFO of the way HRC! *nsfw *promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Thursday, November 2nd, 2017 11:20pm PDT - promote requested by Mordhaus.

This video has been flagged as being Not Suitable For Work - declared nsfw by Mordhaus.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/memo-reveals-details-hillary-clinton-dnc-deal-n817411

This ,
Fusion GPS,
Clinton / DNC paying for the fake Dossier,
DNC / Clinton Russia connection--
Democratic IT staffer Imran Awan
Debbie Wasserman schultz issues

All this amounts to death by a thousand paper cuts.

You mean the connection that the DNC and Clinton were hacked by the Russians at the behest of the Trump campaign?

I agree that's a part of why they lost the election, just surprised you'd admit it so brazenly.

Not at all surprised by this.

This kind of corruption is going to keep happening as long as there is money in politics. The Moneyed Powers of Wall Street and Corporate America will continue to decide who sits in the White House.

Let Lawrence Lessig explain:

"Donna Brazile: "I found no evidence" election was rigged"

https://t.co/HC6yDS2mj9

I have no idea what is going on.

This video is strange to me. It's like the guy woke up and realized what everyone else already knew before the election was even over.

Video makes references to the DNC/Hillary campaign calling the emails a conspiracy - but I don't remember them ever denying the authenticity of the emails.
All it would have taken was one phrase : "these emails are made up".
But they didn't - and the only reason to not deny, is if you know it will be confirmed and you will be caught lying.

The irony of the situation is:
- DNC&Hillary rigs primary election against Bernie, undermining democratic elections.
- *Russia steals and leaks documents showing that the DNC was undermining democratic elections.
- *Russia is the bad guy, because 'letting people know that elections are being rigged' is making people upset at the cheaters, and is improperly influencing elections against the cheaters.

So, apparently it's fine if you cheat, but it's cheating if you let people know who's cheating.

It's like the bizarro episode from SeaLab2021, only applied to political sensibilities.

-scheherazade

Invocations (russia) cannot be called by scheherazade because scheherazade is not privileged - sorry.

If that was the only Russian interference, you could have a point, but hacking and releasing her (and the DNCs) emails (assumed to contain top secret information) at Trump's public request was only one (two) of thousands of illicit things they did.

To be fair :

There is no evidence that any hack was by request (* The "Russia, find the 30'000 missing emails, and share them with the FBI" statement was in reference to the emails deleted from the private server - not DNC related). There is plenty self interest to motivate such a hack without anyone asking for it. Especially if the hacker's election favorite is Trump.

The election interference rhetoric started when the email hack was the only item blamed on the Russians.

-scheherazade

So, there's no evidence any hack was by request, except that one, highly illegal hack where he repeatedly publicly requested a foreign country hack into and release to show his opponent used then for top secret info...meaning he also requested they hack and release that top secret info. Lucky for us all there wasn't any secret info in them....after thanking them for hacking the DNC on his behalf, and the Russians followed his direction to the letter. To me, that's pure unquestionable collusion in public intended to skew the election for the benefit of a hostile foreign power...or treason. Edit: his claim now that it was just a joke is as ridiculous as the spurned lover who hires a hitman, pays them, and revels in the murder claiming the instructions to murder were a joke. It just doesn't fly.

The email hack was not the first publicly known instance of Russian interference this election, sorry. It might be the first well known to the majority of the public, but there were many known "items" before that. Trump suggested they hack her servers and anywhere the missing emails might be because it was already well known they were hacking American systems on his behalf, clearly and repeatedly....also it was clear the FBI was investigating Trump in the final weeks of the election, but Comey didn't feel the need to tell the public about that, only about the baseless reopening of the Clinton investigation over not new evidence...WTF?

[editing down to not make wall of text / rant]

Russia is not a hostile power. We are not at war with them, and we are not in any standoff. While that sort of rhetoric generates plenty of sensation for the news, it isn't factually true. We certainly do plenty to antagonize them (placing missiles launchers on Russia's border, stoking the 2014 Ukrainian coup that led to a civil war on Russia's border), and in light of that I consider it understandable that they would attempt to aide a candidate that is likely to be less confrontational.

(Keep in mind that both sides have been hacking each other on the daily for decades. Nothing special there.)

The DNC hack was a good thing for democracy. People should not be in the dark about any candidate's election cheating.

The news argues about things that are not salient.
Collusion is not a crime. That term only comes up for argument's sake, and has no bearing on the legality/illegality of anything in question.

The crime that the campaign is accused of is 'accepting foreign money for elections', which is a campaign funding violation. The argument is that : while Russia appears to not have provided money, the *information Russians provided directly to campaign staff had a monetary value, which makes it equivalent to receiving money.
(*content of said information as of yet not revealed)

Since then, campaign staff has gotten into individual trouble when their individual financial actions have been dug into (namely, laundering), which has led to individual financial conspiracy charges (IIRC).

-scheherazade

Way to ignore point one...the illegal hacking of what he hoped contained top secret information by a hostile power at Trump's public direction.

The fact that you would even try to contend that the relationship between the U.S. and Russia is not adversarial makes anything else you say moot, because you have already proven to either be a liar or insanely naive. It is, and since ww2 has been adversarial. Your contention that responding to an illegal-by-treaty Russian military build up and invasion on it's borders with a long term international defence program stoked the Russian invasions of Crimea and the Ukraine shows you bought the Putin propaganda, and your follow up that it's an excuse for them installing their candidate in a hostile nation, as if that's proper, shows you aren't being rational at all. What we were required by treaty to do was protect the Ukraine...all of it...with our full military force, securing their borders....we balked and Russia just walked in.

Really, you think collusion with a foreign power to perform illegal acts against private citizens and the government and the interests of the U.S. isn't a crime? Sorry, but it absolutely is here in the U.S., where he did it.

So far, "he" isn't charged with a crime (only because it's likely he's so incompetent that he actually didn't know his entire staff were covert foreign agents....some have admitted as much when confronted with proof)...what his cabinet is charged with varies but all of them perjured themselves to congress about the crimes, who they work for, who paid them, and who they owe millions... so that's felonious.
Just a few crimes (of many) that the campaign is accused of is working with Russian diplomats for the benefit of Russia and against the interests of the U.S., hiring foreign agents, and hiding tens if not hundreds of millions secretly paid to the managers by Russia.
The campaign managers did directly receive money, all of them it seems, tens of millions...and lied about it over and over. What's more, they have admitted (only after recordings were produced) having subverted government policy by making arrangements with Putin before taking office that were diametrically opposed to the current (at the time) policy...again, that's treason.

The USSR is gone. No one is trying to guard western industry against communist overthrow anymore. That time is long gone.




Imagine person A pushing person B, and person B pushes back, and the news runs around screaming that B pushed A. That's basically our simplistic news coverage about Ukraine.

Feel free to read about the 2014 coup : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution
I take no issue with Ukrainians giving their old government a swift kick out the door (and for understandable reason - such as corruption). However, with that comes the usual scapegoating of the undesirables. Would it have been better that Russia let groups like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Sector ravage ethnic Russians just across their border?

Crimea has been Russia from 1779 till ~1990, when it happened to end up under Ukrainian control after the USSR broke up. People living there are also Russian citizens, born either while it was still Russia, or to Russian parents.
Take a look:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea
Then ask yourself, considering the right wing neo nazi anti-ethnic-Russian shitstorm in Ukraine, where would the Crimeans rather be?

Russia isn't a saint. It's acting in self interest. It's also not a villain. Things happen for reasons.

The treaty you refer to is : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances
The link explains how it can be read to fault either the U.S. (for coup involvement) or Russia (for subsequent conflict involvement).

Just to put things in perspective :
Imagine Russia getting involved in a coup in Mexico or Canada. Or imagine Russia placing missile launchers in Cuba. Do you think that we would be as cordial to Russia as Russia has been to us?
So Russia tries to help a candidate who prefers friendly relations, that's hardly the sign of a committed adversary.

I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I shouldn't think and analyze the situation from multiple perspectives with consideration for circumstance and motivation, and instead I should just accept what the news has on 24/7 repeat. /s





Collusion is not a crime because /literally/ it is not a crime. You will not find the word "collusion" mentioned as an offense in any criminal code. It's only on TV because people started using that phrase to assert that the campaign and Russia were acting independently (which is irrelevant, they don't need to coordinate to break the law).


-scheherazde

Expansionist Russia is back, and their neighbors need help guarding against Russian overthrow. That time is back.
Ukraine is not Russian, and it had a nuclear weapons program to safeguard against Russian incursions...which we convinced them to give up under our, and Russia's guarantee of their sovereignty and borders, and our guarantee to defend them militarily against Russia should it ever try to take any back, Crimea had the same guarantees. We should be at war with Russia today over it's murderous expansions. Russia entering either area at all was an act of war against us by treaty, one we barely responded to with defensive missiles in countries that wanted them desperately before they became Russian themselves.
The anti Russian sentiment is because of the land grabs, not an excuse for them. Holy shit!

Collusion against your own government and country to subvert the law with a foreign country is a crime. The collusion compounds the subversion.

People use the word collude to assert that Russia and the campaign illegally coordinated, you wrote it backwards.

Ah, I see you didn't read the links.

Else you would know :

* The post 1990 borders of Ukraine include historically Russian lands populated by Russian people.

* Ukraine's nukes could not be to guard against Russia because Russia had the crypto keys and guidance control over Ukrainian nukes.

* U.S. support for the 2014 coup against Ukraine's government was arguably also a treaty violation. (I don't actually care about this one)

* Government corruption, rising nationalism, and anti-Russian sentiment, are what led to the coup, which kicked off the fighting, which led to Russian intervention, which led to the "land grabs".


(Anti-Russian sentiment was brewing for years before the 2014 coup. You can see it play out in the 2012 language law issue, which was one of the historical turning points leading up to conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine#Proposals_for_repeal_and_revision)


Sidenote, this statement is pure insanity : "We should be at war with Russia today over it's murderous expansions"
War with Russia would last less than an hour, and the only winner would be South America and Africa.
Nuclear powers can never go to war. I mean _never_ never.






Regarding collusion, here :
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/opinion/collusion-meaning-trump-.html

"
President Trump declared on Twitter: “There is NO COLLUSION!”
"
There ya go. A Trump declaration that the campaign was not illegally secretly coordinated (i.e. no collusion). Not backwards at all.

The link also explains the irrelevance of the term regarding legal issues.

-scheherazade

And the post 1990 borders of Texas include historically Mexican lands populated by Mexican people...so what. It was sovereign and Russia acknowledged that, agreed to it, and signed binding treaties ratifying it permanently.

Those keys and systems would have been quickly replaced had those treaties not been enacted...enough of them to be a deterrent. Had we not agreed to defend them and Russia agreed to never try to annex or otherwise take them over, they would have been a nuclear nation and safe from Russian expansion.

As I said, not defending them was a violation. I'm not defending the US's actions.
Opportunity kicked off Russian land grabs, make no mistake.

That statement reflects our undeniable obligation under clear international treaty, not any personally desire to be at war.
Nuclear powers often go to war...by proxy. We've been in one in Syria recently. Edit: according to Russia, they weren't there anyway, so they would be hard pressed to complain about US military in the Ukraine fighting what Russia said were all Ukrainians, no?

Regarding collusion-This isn't a legal forum, you can debate legal terminology and specific charges on one, here, we all understand what collusion means and none of us are swearing out specific legal charges.
Definition of collusion:secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose; acting in collusion with the enemy

Edit: As for the coup, many called it the revolution. It was a coup by the populace, who largely thought the elections were rigged for pro Russians. That said, it was probably a violation for us to eventually support it (I think we waited until after Russian incursions, though). It still, in no way, excuses the Crimean or Ukrainian invasions and annexations.