If we lived in a democracy, we would be voting directly on everything at the federal level but we don't,
b) the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life,
We know what happened in those 3 states, but you can't accept it.
Voter ID has been an issue for over 10 years. If someone doesn't have an ID by now, then they aren't trying.
MI isn't doing a recount so there is money she no longer needs, what is she going to do with it?
What's her motive? She wants to see if the votes were counted correctly in three states where the vote was close and the correct person gets credited with the win-even if it was not her. The only person who can't understand that reasoning is someone who is so self-centered they don't think the truth matters, all that matters is that their guy won. Your posts are morally bankrupt.
So count the votes and stop bellyaching.
You only know what number was arrived at on the first count, and it was quite close. And those close states used voting machines, which have been shown to be immensely hackable. So no, you don't really know for sure what happened, despite your dishonest bluff and worthless assurances.
, despite your dishonest bluff and worthless assurances.
Regardless, your position on photo ID's does NOT allow you to maintain, "No national photo ID requirement? Then no recounts allowed". Because that it your position. And it is an idiotic one, but since you don't care about honesty in the ballot counting, only that your favored candidate wins, you use that position anyway.
Last I looked, Michigan was not going to recount some, not all, of the precincts, (voting places). Because in those they won't count, one person is recorded as voting but the talley adds up to one less. For the whole precinct. So the whole precinct's votes cannot be counted. And guess what? Most of those precincts are in the minority areas which used voting machines and where Hillary was strongest. Oh my, what a coincidence.
Her position is that the system is so corrupt that the will of the people is cheated, and she is already showing how it is done. It matters not to Jill that she isn't going to win those states. She is showing the corruption and the blockage of the will of the people-whoever they choose-and I say good for her.
Gary Johnson won the election?
Oh, they are counting and guess what, it isn't proving anything other than you see evil behind every GOP win.
WOW! All voting machines [are hacked]? The Prof who did the "hacking" video weighed in on the machines in those states and said they couldn't be hacked because they were not connected to the internet or a network in general.
I wanted secure elections, well one of the ways to ensure a secure vote is with Voter ID.
You claim to have voted for Johnson, but there is no doubt you are taking Trump's side in stopping the legal recount that Jill Stein paid for. What could possibly be your objection to making sure the ballots are recounted, other than you want to make sure that Trump remains ahead whether there was cheating or not? There isn't any other objection.
Nothing will be proven until the votes are actually recounted, now will it? Having a court decision that presently says no recount will occur hasn't proven a damn thing in establishing whether those machines gave a true vote or not. Jill Stein has already proven her point, that the voting system, which theoretically is transparent and allows recounts, is flawed and not transparent at all. I didn't vote for her, but good job, Jill.
Nobody said all the machines have to be hacked-all three states had a vote count margin of less than 2%, so it only takes a few. Oddly, the computer systems expert who did THIS video made clear that the machine did not have to be connected to the internet or a network to be hacked. So once again you post falsehoods:
Incidentally, it should be pointed that this revelation was uncovered by just a couple of guys at Princeton working together. Now, since Russia with all it's access to electronic expertise-buildings and buildings of electronic PhDs in their intelligence service-has much more expertise to bring into play on this, why are we relying on the word of this one small work team? It is obvious and clear that Russia has been working for Trump all along, how can you, in good conscience, say that these machines are not hackable?
Hell, if a 14 year old kid made a video about how to hack a voting machine, and so somebody comes up with a new machine, would you swear that the new machine is not hackable because the 14 year old said he couldn't hack it? That's the position you are maintaining-because some expert says he didn't find the machine hackable, it must not be hackable by any collection of experts, even the Russian intelligence service and their vast array of resources.
You're entitled to want a photo voter ID requirement, but you are not entitled to say that since no national photo voter ID requirement exists-some places still accept other forms of ID, like they have since George Washington was elected-that any call for recounts is a con.
One has nothing to do with the other, even though you insist on trying to tie the two together. Whether or not conservatives are successful in disenfranchising the 11% of the adult public who don't have photo ID, (but who have other forms of ID), is no reason to disallow recounts. One has nothing to do with the other.
You keep coming up with these ridiculous "issues" like what is Jill Stein going to do with the money for recount, while the recount process is still going on and courts are giving their decisions which may or may not be overruled by other courts. Why the hell should anyone want to know what Stein is going to do with the "extra" money when it is impossible to know if she even has enough money to get a fair recount established yet?
The only person who would do that is someone like yourself, who is trying to cloud the issue. Stein, (or in most states, any eligible voter), is entitled to a recount of a close election if they are willing to pay for it, and yet that is not happening despite Stein coming up with the money. And you don't care. Shame on you.
When donating to a charity, does it cloud the issue to hold the charity accountable for their spending? You are right, I don't care. The only person involved in any shaming, is you. You seem to think that I care what your opinion is.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama ordered intelligence agencies to review cyber attacks and foreign intervention into the 2016 election and deliver a report before he leaves office on Jan. 20, homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco said on Friday.
Monaco told reporters the results of the report would be shared with lawmakers and others.
"The president has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process ... and to capture lessons learned from that and to report to a range of stakeholders, to include the Congress," Monaco said during an event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
Monaco said cyber attacks were not new but might have crossed a "new threshold" this year.
When she was working as a senior FBI official in 2008, she said, the agency alerted the presidential campaigns of then-Senator Obama and Republican Senator John McCain that China had infiltrated their respective systems.
"We've seen in 2008 and in this last election system malicious cyber activity," Monaco said.
In October, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election.
Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about consequences for the attacks.
Asked if Republican President-elect Donald Trump's transition team was not concerned enough about Russia's influence on the election or about other threats to the United States such as infectious disease outbreaks, Monaco said it was too soon to say.
As a presidential candidate, Trump praised Putin and called on Russia to dig up missing emails from his opponent, Hillary Clinton, from her time as secretary of state under fellow Democrat Obama
Leading Senate Republicans are preparing to launch a coordinated and wide-ranging probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the U.S. elections and its potential cyberthreats to the military, digging deep into what they view as corrosive interference in the nation’s institutions.
Such an aggressive approach puts them on a direct collision course with President-elect Donald Trump, who downplays the possibility Russia had any role in the November elections — arguing that a hack of the Democratic National Committee emails may have been perpetrated by “some guy in his home in New Jersey.” The fracture could become more prominent after Trump is inaugurated and begins setting foreign policy. He has already indicated that the country should “get along” with Russia since the two nations have many common strategic goals.
But some of Trump’s would-be Republican allies on Capitol Hill disagree. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (Ariz.) is readying a probe of possible Russian cyber-incursions into U.S. weapons systems, and he said he has been discussing the issue with Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (N.C.), with whom he will be “working closely” to investigate Russia’s suspected interference in the U.S. elections and cyberthreats to the military and other institutions. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been apprised of the discussions. Burr did not respond to requests for comment.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) also said he intends to hold hearings next year into alleged Russian hacking. Corker is on Trump’s shortlist for secretary of state, according to the Trump transition team.
"The president has directed the intelligence community to conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process.
When she was working as a senior FBI official in 2008, she said, the agency alerted the presidential campaigns of then-Senator Obama and Republican Senator John McCain that China had infiltrated their respective systems.
In October, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election.
Quote:Leading Senate Republicans are preparing to launch a coordinated and wide-ranging probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the U.S. elections and its potential cyberthreats to the military, digging deep into what they view as corrosive interference in the nation’s institutions.
But some of Trump’s would-be Republican allies on Capitol Hill disagree. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (Ariz.) is readying a probe of possible Russian cyber-incursions into U.S. weapons systems, and he said he has been discussing the issue with Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (N.C.), with whom he will be “working closely” to investigate Russia’s suspected interference in the U.S. elections and cyberthreats to the military and other institutions. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been apprised of the discussions. Burr did not respond to requests for comment.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) also said he intends to hold hearings next year into alleged Russian hacking. Corker is on Trump’s shortlist for secretary of state, according to the Trump transition team.
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
The Obama administration has been debating for months how to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions, with White House officials concerned about escalating tensions with Moscow and being accused of trying to boost Clinton’s campaign.
In September, during a secret briefing for congressional leaders, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voiced doubts about the veracity of the intelligence, according to officials present.
The Trump transition team dismissed the findings in a short statement issued Friday evening. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again,’ ” the statement read.
Trump has consistently dismissed the intelligence community’s findings about Russian hacking.
“I don’t believe they interfered” in the election, he told Time magazine this week. The hacking, he said, “could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”
The CIA shared its latest assessment with key senators in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill last week, in which agency officials cited a growing body of intelligence from multiple sources. Agency briefers told the senators it was now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
The CIA presentation to senators about Russia’s intentions fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies. A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.
For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said. Those actors, according to the official, were “one step” removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. Moscow has in the past used middlemen to participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has said in a television interview that the “Russian government is not the source.”
The White House and CIA officials declined to comment.
On Friday, the White House said President Obama had ordered a “full review” of Russian hacking during the election campaign, as pressure from Congress has grown for greater public understanding of exactly what Moscow did to influence the electoral process.
“We may have crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned,” Obama’s counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
Obama wants the report before he leaves office Jan. 20, Monaco said. The review will be led by James Clapper, the outgoing director of national intelligence, officials said.
During her remarks, Monaco didn’t address the latest CIA assessment, which hasn’t been previously disclosed.
Seven Democratic senators last week asked Obama to declassify details about the intrusions and why officials believe that the Kremlin was behind the operation. Officials said Friday that the senators specifically were asking the White House to release portions of the CIA’s presentation.
This week, top Democratic lawmakers in the House also sent a letter to Obama, asking for briefings on Russian interference in the election.
U.S. intelligence agencies have been cautious for months in characterizing Russia’s motivations, reflecting the United States’ long-standing struggle to collect reliable intelligence on President Vladimir Putin and those closest to him.
In previous assessments, the CIA and other intelligence agencies told the White House and congressional leaders that they believed Moscow’s aim was to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system. The assessments stopped short of saying the goal was to help elect Trump.
On Oct. 7, the intelligence community officially accused Moscow of seeking to interfere in the election through the hacking of “political organizations.” Though the statement never specified which party, it was clear that officials were referring to cyber-intrusions into the computers of the DNC and other Democratic groups and individuals.
Some key Republican lawmakers have continued to question the quality of evidence supporting Russian involvement.
“I’ll be the first one to come out and point at Russia if there’s clear evidence, but there is no clear evidence — even now,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team. “There’s a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that’s it.”
Though Russia has long conducted cyberspying on U.S. agencies, companies and organizations, this presidential campaign marks the first time Moscow has attempted through cyber-means to interfere in, if not actively influence, the outcome of an election, the officials said.
The reluctance of the Obama White House to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions before Election Day upset Democrats on the Hill as well as members of the Clinton campaign.
Within the administration, top officials from different agencies sparred over whether and how to respond. White House officials were concerned that covert retaliatory measures might risk an escalation in which Russia, with sophisticated cyber-capabilities, might have less to lose than the United States, with its vast and vulnerable digital infrastructure.
The White House’s reluctance to take that risk left Washington weighing more-limited measures, including the “naming and shaming” approach of publicly blaming Moscow.
By mid-September, White House officials had decided it was time to take that step, but they worried that doing so unilaterally and without bipartisan congressional backing just weeks before the election would make Obama vulnerable to charges that he was using intelligence for political purposes.
Instead, officials devised a plan to seek bipartisan support from top lawmakers and set up a secret meeting with the Gang of 12 — a group that includes House and Senate leaders, as well as the chairmen and ranking members of both chambers’ committees on intelligence and homeland security.
Obama dispatched Monaco, FBI Director James B. Comey and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to make the pitch for a “show of solidarity and bipartisan unity” against Russian interference in the election, according to a senior administration official.
Specifically, the White House wanted congressional leaders to sign off on a bipartisan statement urging state and local officials to take federal help in protecting their voting-registration and balloting machines from Russian cyber-intrusions.
Though U.S. intelligence agencies were skeptical that hackers would be able to manipulate the election results in a systematic way, the White House feared that Russia would attempt to do so, sowing doubt about the fundamental mechanisms of democracy and potentially forcing a more dangerous confrontation between Washington and Moscow.
In a secure room in the Capitol used for briefings involving classified information, administration officials broadly laid out the evidence U.S. spy agencies had collected, showing Russia’s role in cyber-intrusions in at least two states and in hacking the emails of the Democratic organizations and individuals.
And they made a case for a united, bipartisan front in response to what one official described as “the threat posed by unprecedented meddling by a foreign power in our election process.”
The Democratic leaders in the room unanimously agreed on the need to take the threat seriously. Republicans, however, were divided, with at least two GOP lawmakers reluctant to accede to the White House requests.
According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.
Some of the Republicans in the briefing also seemed opposed to the idea of going public with such explosive allegations in the final stages of an election, a move that they argued would only rattle public confidence and play into Moscow’s hands.
McConnell’s office did not respond to a request for comment. After the election, Trump chose McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, as his nominee for transportation secretary.
Some Clinton supporters saw the White House’s reluctance to act without bipartisan support as further evidence of an excessive caution in facing adversaries.
“The lack of an administration response on the Russian hacking cannot be attributed to Congress,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who was at the September meeting. “The administration has all the tools it needs to respond. They have the ability to impose sanctions. They have the ability to take clandestine means. The administration has decided not to utilize them in a way that would deter the Russians, and I think that’s a problem.”
