Dark cloud of illegitimacy hangs over Donald Trump’s pending presidency

I am not sure what you are insinuating this link props up, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt in reading that they conclude it was a Russian "company" but not concluding it was the Russian "government"

I'll hold out judgment until I see proof either way, but so far, nothing

 

3 Dumb Arguments About Donald Trump’s Win Democrats Need To Stop Making Immediately
Why are Democrats doing everything in their power to make sure Donald Trump runs roughshod over them and wins so much he gets sick of winning?
Mark Hemingway
DECEMBER 14, 2016


Since the election, Democrats have really been down in the Trumps. Despite the tantrums and protests, it strikes me that Democrats must be okay with this state of affairs. Sure, they claim he’s Hitler with a spray tan, and on some level they might even believe this. But short of establishing that half the country are total masochists—the safety word is “MAGA”—why are they doing everything in their power to make sure he runs roughshod over them and wins so much he gets sick of winning? Because that’s what Democrats are doing.

If I wanted to discredit an entire political party, I’d do exactly what Democrats, grassroots and party bosses alike, are doing: whining and making excuses at every opportunity, right up to insisting there must be some fantastical way to overturn a decisive electoral drubbing.

The first step here should be to shut up and do some meaningful self-reflection about why Democrats lost. Yet precious few smart and influential Democrats are actually doing this. To paraphrase Mark Twain, it’s better to remain silent and be thought a loser than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Even worse, the bellyaching about Trump’s victory has become tired and predictable even as it amounts to little more than wishcasting. Now is the time to be honest, so I implore Democrats, if you catch yourself making any of the following arguments about why Trump shouldn’t be president, check your party before you wreck your party.

1. Clinton Won the Popular Vote, Or the Electoral College Is Unfair

Yes, we know she got more than two million more votes than Trump. But the popular vote is never how presidential elections in this country have been decided. It’s called the “United States” for a reason. Nearly the entire premise of the U.S. Constitution—including the Electoral College—is setting up a system of government such that in a large country with as many striking regional and political differences as ours, one state can’t dominate the rest.

Clinton’s margin of victory in California was 4.3 million votes. The rest of the country has good reason not to want national elections to be determined by California alone. Maybe next time have your candidate set foot in Wisconsin? Maybe next time nominate a candidate who’s not so terrible that she runs only a point or two ahead of Donald Freaking Trump in national elections?

Further, many of the arguments against the Electoral College don’t really address the constitutional rationale for its existence. Simply venting in the Washington Post that the Electoral College is a “medieval relic” seems ill-advised. Besides, what does this progressive argument make of the popular vote? Is it somehow preferable to be saddled with a relic from the sixth century B.C.?

This brings us to another problem with shrieking, “Hillary won the popular vote!” Look around the country. Just how popular are Democrats these days? Not very. Thirty-three states now have Republican governors. Republicans have control of the Senate. A third of the Democratic congressional delegation comes from just three states—California, Massachussetts, and New York. Here’s what the House of Representatives map looks like, and does this look like a national party to you?

You can moan about the Electoral College all you want, but to get rid of it, you need to do one of two things. One, pass a constitutional amendment. Or two, have the states come together and decide on a new system for allocating electors. Either way, Democrats need to win a helluva lot more elections to make either of these things possible.

Regarding the reallocation of electors, that’s extremely unlikely because, oh yeah, Republicans control the legislatures in 32 states, and Democrats control the legislatures in just 13. This means that if Republicans come to control 38 legislatures, which is difficult but not unthinkable the way things have been trending, they could call an Article V convention and start passing their own constitutional amendments without any support for Democrats.

At the end of the day, even with Clinton’s popular vote margin, the fact is more Americans are voting for Republicans at the local, state, and federal level. If you’re a Democrat, this total electoral dominance by Republicans should scare the stuffing out of you. But when you’re losing the game, you need to play harder—you can’t just make up new rules as you go along.

2. James Comey and the FBI Wanted Trump Elected

It’s conceivable, per Nate Silver, that the Comey letter in late October gave Trump momentum and possibly swung the election. But my response, like most Americans, is “So what?” If you’re worried about an FBI investigation influencing a presidential election DON’T NOMINATE A CANDIDATE UNDER FBI INVESTIGATION. And you really, really, don’t want to nominate a candidate under investigation whose top aide’s husband is also being investigated by the FBI for child pornography who is also allegedly in possession of emails relevant to the candidate’s FBI investigation that he’s keeping on the same computer as his grody sex pics.


Seriously, stop and read those two previous sentences again, and think about why any normal person would be in any way sympathetic to this predicament. As to whether the Clinton email investigation was warranted in the first place, if you take this argument seriously I beg of you to ask one of the millions of Americans who’ve dealt with the rigmarole of getting a security clearance whether they think there’s an obvious double standard.

As to the possibility of Comey playing politics, if he was out to get her why didn’t he recommend charges initially? The political influence with the Clinton email investigation ran only in one direction, and that benefited Clinton. The attorney general in the position of bringing charges, Loretta Lynch, was appointed a U.S. attorney by Bill Clinton and later worked for a law firm connected to the Clintons for years. President Obama formally endorsed Hillary Clinton when the FBI investigation was still ongoing. That should have been grounds for a special prosecutor. The issue isn’t that Hillary Clinton was betrayed by Comey; the issue should be that she skated. Lest we forget, they were chanting “lock her up” at the Democratic convention as well.

Finally, there’s my favorite argument that many a well-known Democrat has made regarding her email server: “There’s no proof Hillary Clinton’s server endangered national security.” Now proof that it did is not a requirement for violating the law. But let’s get this straight.

On one hand, Democrats have spent the last several months arguing that Clinton did nothing to endanger national security, presumably because we can be certain that Russians couldn’t hack into the server that everyone’s favorite abuela was keeping in the closet right the behind the Rubbermaid containers full of Christmas ornaments.

On the other hand, Democrats are now demanding we need a thorough congressional investigation right now because of concerns Russian hackers may have penetrated our entire electoral system across several states to steal the election. In fact, UFO enthusiast and Democratic capo John Podesta—I’m beginning to think these two avocations are not unrelated—is demanding some pronouncement about how terrible the Russian hacking was before the Electoral College votes ratify the results so they can presumably respond by something something something President Hillary!

Pick one of these arguments and stick with it, please. Anyway, this brings me to the third argument.

3. The Russians Are Coming!

I don’t want to be too flippant here, because Russia is a serious threat and I have no doubt that they want to meddle in our elections. The fact that top Trump aides might be, say, laundering money for Russian mobsters makes a lot of people understandably queasy. Republicans in Congress agree with Democrats that Russia’s attempt at influencing things unduly needs investigating.

However, the evidence that Russians had any real impact on the actual election results is embarrassingly scant and wildly disproportionate to the amount of supposedly legitimate media outlets and public figures taking the idea of Russian hacking seriously. If the roles were reversed, I have no illusions that the media and their Democratic allies would be pretty dismissive of this given the lack of hard evidence.

As it happens, on October 18 no less than Barack Obama mused, “There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America’s elections, in part because they are so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this time.”

Also, isn’t the fact that Russia is so hostile to us now and allegedly undermining our elections a pretty damning judgment on the competence of the woman in charge of overseeing Obama’s “Russian reset” if the point of that was more friendly relations? The charitable interpretation here is that Russia is, for whatever reason, so afraid of Clinton that they tried to undermine the election. But there was also a time, not that long ago, when intimidating Russians by calling them our “number one geopolitical foe” was a bad thing in the eyes of the media. Oddly, I’m not seeing too much contrition over what they did to Romney (this is about it), even as they are now in an unjustified panic.

Then again, we’re talking about a party that has an 80-year history of claiming Republicans were exaggerating the threat of Russia. In fact, “60 Minutes” ran a report about the effort to get Obama to pardon the Rosenbergs on October 16, three weeks before the election and 63 years after they were executed. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we have all manner of evidence conclusively proving the Rosenbergs were spies. It’s not even a remotely controversial matter, unless, apparently, you’re a member of the media.

It seems as if the media only cares about Russian threats insofar as they harm Democrats’ electoral chances.
Now, there is one tangible precedent for the Russkies intervening in our elections. That’s because Ted Kennedy actually asked them to interfere in the 1984 election. For some strange reason this revelation wasn’t the first thing that inexplicably failed to, uh, sink Ted Kennedy’s career. Rather, it’s a story most Americans never even heard about.

It seems as if the media only cares about Russian threats insofar as they harm Democrats’ electoral chances. To hear Democrats screaming about the threat of Russia now, after ignoring the problem for decades, isn’t something that ordinary Americans are going to pay much attention to—at least not without more evidence and some real contrition regarding their about-face on the Russian threat.

I don’t see that happening soon, because too many Democrats with a megaphone are convinced that something sinister is going on. As filmmaker Joss Whedon noted, “The crafty move was forcing the Dems to debunk voter fraud, so when the Trump/Putin cabal ACTUALLY COMMITTED it, we’d sound hypocritical.” Whedon’s right about one thing—Democrats do sound hypocritical. The obvious explanation isn’t Putinist conspiracy, but that Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate with more corrupt baggage than the Kardashians on safari. (But if it makes Whedon feel any better, Hail Hydra!)

Anyway, you may not want to believe I have good intentions here, but if you can’t accept this tough love, consider it tough snark. I really do believe America needs a functional opposition party. That, however, will require accepting some criticism as valid and, yes, probably some compromise in response to that criticism. Recall that just eight years ago, Democrats had total control of Washington—assuming Republicans will be in power forever is folly.

However, a month after the election they’re still publishing op-eds in the Los Angeles Times headlined “Why the Democrats don’t need an overhaul.” The longer Democrats are in denial, the longer their road to political recovery is going to be. They don’t have to like what happened, but for their own good, Democrats need to stop seriously entertaining arguments that Trump’s victory was invalid.










Democrats had better do some soul searching and growing up. They did a bad job because they were arrogant and know-it-alls and now they are paying the price of their stupidity. No illegitimacy here on Trump's part. He won fair and square and brought with him Congressional seats, governorships and state legislatures.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...termediary-disgusted-Democratic-insiders.html

It's hella hard to believe... I know... I know... but is it possible... just maybe... A drone had enough integrity to blow the whistle on the DNC? It's almost easier to believe the Russians used super hackers with all the gizmos, to expose the DNC and do America a favor.... for some reason...

 

Yes, it seems the dark cloud of whining grows darker and darker over some Democrats who believe anything the corporate propaganda outlets (ie MSM) tells them.

No, Hilary Clinton lost so you can't have your Cold War back.

 

https://gma.yahoo.com/officials-mas...y-linked-134805301--abc-news-topstories.html#

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security are not "Leftist media" outlets.

This comes on top of the fact that the Russians admitted to contacts with the Trump organization that conflicts with the Trump organizations claims there were no contacts at all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/world/europe/trump-campaign-russia.html?_r=0

So Russians say that they were in contract with the Trump organization while the Trump organization denies that any contact, for any reason, ever to place. While I'm not all that trusting of the Russians the fact that Donald Trump is one of the least trustworthy people in America (based upon fact-checking of Trump statements) and the other information from our national intelligence community I'm going to lean towards believing that Trump's organization is lying to cover-up their involvement with the Russians to conspire to corrupt the 2016 Presidential Election.

 

The denial of truth grows darker over some Republicans that refuse to acknowledge that the information is coming from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security and not from a corporate propaganda outlet.

It's almost funny (or sad).

Republicans can create conspiracy theories out of the thin air with absolutely no evidence to support their beliefs but then live in denial when there's actual evidence coming from US intelligence agencies of a real conspiracy between the Trump organization and the Russians to corrupt the 2016 Presidential election.

 

Americans will have far more serious things to worry about by Trump's 3rd year if he does either of two things that US corporate executives are most worried about, tariffs on Chinese goods or abandoning the "One China" police that's existed since the Carter administration. If either of these occur prices will skyrocket for American consumers, consumption will drop significantly with the higher prices, tens of millions of American jobs will be lost as many corporations will be forced to downsize or go out of business, and the US economy will be plunged into a far worse recession than the 2008 Recession under former President Bush.

 

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The US has been lying about Putin and Russia for years. So what's new ?

.

 

....as opposed to the lowest workplace participation rate since the 70's? We know these trade deals have been a disaster so let's try it in a different way. Higher prices will not hurt a thing.

 

Bwahahahaha, the loser narrative continues to surface. Trump will be president.

- - - Updated - - -

You mean like this?

Exclusive: Top U.S. spy agency has not embraced CIA assessment on Russia hacking - sources

 

Not only did you quote yourself, but I believe you called yourself a nit.

Bartender! One of whatever she's havin'!

 

Who knows? Maybe the hacks did come from Russian sources.

But without real evidence, we are being expected to believe people at the top of these intelligence agencies who are political appointees.

The average government intelligence analyst is just a federal employee who does his/her job as best they can. They are not bad people. Generally, they are professionals. But history is rife with examples of the political appointees at the top of these agencies cherry picking intelligence or ignoring intelligence that goes against their boss's wishes. It's nothing new. It would be an impossible stretch of credulity to suggest that the whole CIA is corrupt, but it is not a stretch at all to be concerned about the integrity of those at the top who are political people.

 

would you, could you please stop whining non-stop.
first of all in reference to your post I have 10 bucks that says you didn't even know there was a "one China" police in reference to Taiwan before the recent News cycle in regard.
And secondly and more glaring you are suddenly a trade expert when it comes to the US economy, challenging "possible" mind you policy to come. And feel free to enlighten us on any shred of legitimacy that you are a better business man than Donald J Trump. Current business man self made billionaire. "tens of millions of American jobs will be lost as many corporations will be forced to downsize"? Did you make that one up by yourself? Questioning Trumps business savvy will eliminate you from most arguments before you even get started.

 

Can you people ever accept that YOU LOST! I'm guessing sane Democrats are quite embarrassed by all this lunacy! You're making your Party look bad.

 

Robert Reich's blog? Please be serious and not post sourced from a complete "progressive" political propagandist.
Particularly when its over such an obvious scam.

 

Fake news.
Not one person can even name the fake claim of "17 Intelligence agencies" claim Russia hacked the emails.
"The nation’s top intelligence office is not on the same page as the CIA regarding its assessment that Russia interfered in the U.S. elections in a bid to help Donald Trump, a U.S. government source confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the U.S. intelligence community, has not fully embraced the CIA finding."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-as-cia-regarding-russia-hack-assessment.html

The FBI also does not agree.

The Washington Post literally has apologized for starting this all - admitting it was all from one person claiming this was based upon an anonymous source - meaning hearsay upon hearsay.

No matter how much the propaganda media and such as you rant the assertion, that does not make it even one iota true.

But you just keep on making Joseph McCarthy Red Scare messages as the excuse for Republicans not only winning the presidency, but also having both houses of Congress, the majority of governorships and legislatures - and keep on believing that by ranting about the SOURCE of TRUTH about the Clintons and DNC is going to work as a diversion for THE TRUTH."

The MSM literally has declared war on truth, furious that people would not vote based upon their corporate propaganda lying.

It is the MSM that should be investigated by Congress and such corporations as the Washington Post, NYT, CNN and MSNBC should be formally declared to NOT fall in the definitions of "the press" and instead should be declared to be corporate propaganda advertising agencies of their parent corporations and their globalist super rich owners.

 

Can you imagine the damage that would be caused if the electors did not vote as the election dictates? The lawful and peaceful transfer of power as determined by state votes is the foundation of our republic. If the electors did vote against their states wishes you could very well see the fall of our country. I hate Trump but I love my country enough to put up with him.

 

There is no evidence that Trump and the Russians conspired.

The majority of the leaks is from wikileaks, and that was because John Podesta was caught in a phishing scam. That also means that the NSA, and Podesta's service provider, and probably even google, all know the IP trace to the phishing source and that would give a big clue to the source (maybe even ID the source).

But not a word from them - why? If they traced it to the Russians you can bet your last cent that they would put it all over the news. But nothing, so its probably not the Russians.


There is some evidence that the Russians engaged in cyber activities related to "hacking" various computers - as if that's news to anyone. Every first world nation is engaged in trying to hack other nations computers. Even large corporations are engaged in intelligence gathering.

This is just a great big scam, its complete propaganda by the loser "progressives". And you are falling for it.

 

This is disgraceful. There is no CLOUD looming over Trumps impending presidency. That is just more liberal nonsense, hollow.

Regardless of what people are saying, THERE WAS NO ELECTION HACK.

Hacking the RNC and the DNC, and releasing some or even all of their emails, is still not ELECTION HACKING.

What the Russians may or may not have done, is a completely different matter. If they leaked any information that might have persuaded American voters, that is still NOT election hacking.

It's hardly even election interference.

 

Not to we, the winners. The actual illegitimacy belongs to the irrelevant left.

 

Buts do you notice how all these "facts" come from people such as "sources within the intelligence community" or statements with a loosely based relationship to some "report" the public has never seen but yet Leftists news seems to have full access to?

And what I was responding to was the conspiracy theory that the OP was propagating which is that "Russia is why Trump won".

These fake news generating Leftist groups are taking tiny little unconfirmed uncorroborated tidbits and using them to construct this vast narrative.

This is literally what a conspiracy theory is and people like the OP are falling for it face first.

Plus what are they even hoping for here?

That their fake news can overturn a Democratically elected official?

Even if I were to grant the premise that Russia had deep involvement here, which I'm not yet because there is no hard evidence, it still changes nothing.

People voted for who they wanted to vote for - Trump won lawfully and he WILL BE the next President no matter how much fake news is spewed about Russia or recount efforts or any other conspiracy theory.

And if we want to get into the discussion of the tactics of persuasion then these supposed acts on the part of Russian couldn't even begin to compare to the massive and epic scale in which the Left bullies, indoctrinates, and coerces people into vote Democrat.

Because, hell man, when you look at what got this all started its pretty damned ironic don't you think?

The DNC is pissed off that Russia supposedly manipulated this election ...by hacking the DNC and exposing their MASSIVE manipulation of this election.

This will forever be the most perfect example of that classic idiom "the pot calling the kettle black".

 

^ "Liked" by the usual gaggle. The only "dark cloud" hanging over Trump's presidency is steam escaping from the ears of embarrassed and hopping mad Democrats.

There's also a dark cloud hanging over California and Michigan right now, where it's increasingly common knowledge that Democrats have been rigging elections.

 

Will the cheating left ever accept defeat? It sure doesn't seem like it.

 

The one thing that was proven for certain is CIA reports that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was 100% accurate and that N. Vietnam boats attacked the USA navy as basis for the Vietnam war. Anyone who says otherwise is obviously a Soviet agent and communist.

 

Exactly! This insinuation by the left is insulting to the American people. They still decided the President. And if TRUE information happened to come out through some Russian channel, then that could be looked at, but it only better informed the American public. A private entity was hacked. NOT the government. This is a coup attempt. There is no doubt about it.

If the left are successful with this coup, watch. It's gonna get ugly.