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[Tripon]

Clinton Watts, a senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at The George Washington University, told the investigation that Russia worked to undermine the campaigns of both Republican and Democratic candidates who held less favorable views toward Russia, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

”Russia's overt media outlets and covert trolls sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum with adversarial views toward the Kremlin," Watts said. ”They were in full swing during both the Republican and Democratic primary seasons and may have helped sink the hopes of candidates more hostile to Russian interests, long before the field narrowed.

”Senator Rubio, in my opinion, you anecdotally suffered from these measures."

Upon hearing that he may also have been the target of attacks from Russia, Rubio looked taken aback.

http://www.newsweek.com/russia-investigation-trump-election-primary-marco-rubio-576850

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFTgKHKKW5o

Edit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpX0XogZG_I

Marco Rubio himself says that there was at least 2 unsuccessful attempts by Russian hackers on his presidential campaign on March 30th, 2017.

 

[aGuyInaBearSuit]

Man, this runs deep.

Screw it. Fire everyone into the sun, immediate election redo.

 

[Master Yoshi]

In my best Nikko Bellic accent, "LITTLE MARCO!"


Wait, Clinton Watts? How can we trust the word of a Clinton?

 

[chaosblade]

It would be hilarious if Republicans determined this was true and Russia/Trump totally fucked them, not just the Democrats. They might change their tune then.

 

[Foffy]

I guess Rubio cares now because his party was likely attacked.

That fuckin' tribalism.

 

[Felix Lighter]

I hope Christie was a target as well. Would really cap off that relationship.

 

[BigJonsson]

Wouldn't surprise me.........

 

[30yearsofhurt]

Shocked but not shocked.

 

[metalslimer]

Republicans in both chambers should be doing everything they can to help because as soon as Trump is gone Russia won't hesitate to go after them as well.

 

[Slayven]

I guess Rubio cares now because his party was likely attacked.

That fuckin' tribalism.

To be fair to Marco, he was one of the only Gop that denounce the hacks, because the RNC could be next

 

[FStubbs]

At what point do we declare a national emergency and decide if the election results are even valid anymore? IS there any room in the Constitution for it?

And what of our relationship with Russia? I'd think at this point no one wants (nuclear) war but everything short of it would have to be on the table, including the full North Korea/pre-Obama Iran treatment.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

Adding to the list of infrastructure that is woefully behind

 

[theWB27]

Our politicians have no idea how to fight this

 

[BitStyle]

Rubio particularly worried because he testified in sharing that the Russians to this day are still trying to hack his accounts.

 

[LegendofJoe]

To be fair to Marco, he was one of the only Gop that denounce the hacks, because the RNC could be next

True that, Rubio was one the very few within the GOP to immediately understand where this sort of thing would eventually lead. He deserves credit for that.

 

[kswiston]

To be fair to Marco, he was one of the only Gop that denounce the hacks, because the RNC could be next

Ya, I was going to say that he spoke against them at the time.

 

[rokkerkory]

Our politicians have no idea how to fight this

They are politicians lol

Need IC to come through

 

[Tranqueris]

At what point do we declare a national emergency and decide if the election results are even valid anymore? IS there any room in the Constitution for it?

And what of our relationship with Russia? I'd think at this point no one wants (nuclear) war but everything short of it would have to be on the table, including the full North Korea/pre-Obama Iran treatment.

A common talking point you'll find among the GOP is that Russia interfered in the election but they "didn't affect the outcome."

We'll see how well they can stick to it as time goes by.

 

[obijkenobi]

Fake news, move on etc etc etc right?

 

[ThisGuy]

Dr. Thomas rid

R..I...d...

Russian in disguise.

 

[guek]

It would be hilarious if Republicans determined this was true and Russia/Trump totally fucked them, not just the Democrats. They might change their tune then.

At this point, I'm convinced there are only two ways the Republicans turn on Trump. Either Trump goes full scorched earth and labels the GOP congress as the enemy, basically imploding the party, or it becomes incontrovertible that Trump colluded with Russia to his own benefit in the election. There's practically no other way in my mind, barring some kind of psychotic break by Trump, that the party turns on him.

At what point do we declare a national emergency and decide if the election results are even valid anymore? IS there any room in the Constitution for it?

That's not how this works. At most, you'll get President Paul Ryan until 2020.

 

[Slime]

The hearing was weird because it was the first time I've ever seen Rubio as anything other than an empty neocon robot suit. He seemed, like, genuinely concerned and actually sort of informed. Surreal.

 

[royalan]

To anybody paying attention during the primaries, this shit was obvious.

Huffington Post had an article flowing along these lines a few weeks ago.

Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Faced A Fake News Tsunami. Where Did It Come From?

WASHINGTON ― Last June, John Mattes started noticing something coursing like a virus through the Facebook page he helped administer for Bernie Sanders fans in San Diego. People with no apparent ties to California were friending the page and sharing links from unfamiliar sites full of anti-Hillary Clinton propaganda.

The stories they posted weren’t the normal complaints he was used to seeing as the Vermont senator and the former secretary of state fought out the Democratic presidential primary. These stories alleged that Clinton had murdered her political opponents and used body doubles.

Mattes, 66, had been a television reporter and Senate investigator in previous lives. He put his expertise in unmasking fraudsters to work. At first, he suspected that the sites were created by the old Clinton haters from the ‘90s ― what Hillary Clinton had dubbed “the vast right-wing conspiracy.”

But when Mattes started tracking down the sites’ domain registrations, the trail led to Macedonia and Albania. In mid-September, he emailed a few of his private investigator friends with a list of the sites. “Very creepy and i do not think Koch brothers,” he wrote.

Mattes and his friends didn’t know what to make of his findings. He couldn’t get his mind around the possibility that trolls overseas might be trying to sway a bunch of Southern Californians who supported Sanders’ run for president. “I may be a dark cynic and I may have been an investigative reporter for a long time, but this was too dark ― and too unbelievable and most upsetting,” he said. “What was I to do with this?”

By late October, Mattes said he’d traced 40 percent of the domain registrations for the fake news sites he saw popping up on pro-Sanders pages back to Eastern Europe. Others appeared to be based in Panama and the U.S., or were untraceable. He wondered, “Am I the only person that sees all this crap floating through these Bernie pages?”

And it wasn't just fake news. Twitter became unbearable. Got to a point that you couldn't tweet anything pro-Hillary without being spammed by bots posting the same handful of memes. There's a reason why the largest pro-Hillary Facebook group had to go private.

 

[jack_package_200]

Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Faced A Fake News Tsunami. Where Did It Come From?
.

HA Goodman and Seth Abramson

 

[Foffy]

True that, Rubio was one the very few within the GOP to immediately understand where this sort of thing would eventually lead. He deserves credit for that.

What a world.

If you told me Rubio would admit the depths of hacks and where Ted Cruz knows more about automation than the President of the United States just a year ago, I would have called you crazy.

When did we dip into an alt-universe?

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

Republicans, third party supporters, Bernie hardcores, everyone... you all got played like a full orchestra with encore performance.

 

[Poor GRIMES]

Where is that reset button that yass queen Hillary pushed?

 

[Foffy]

To anybody paying attention during the primaries, this shit was obvious.

Huffington Post had an article flowing along these lines a few weeks ago.

Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Faced A Fake News Tsunami. Where Did It Come From?



And it wasn't just fake news. Twitter became unbearable. Got to a point that you couldn't tweet anything pro-Hillary without being spammed by bots posting the same handful of memes. There's a reason why the largest pro-Hillary Facebook group had to go private.

Not one to go down the rabbit of conspiracies, but could have the Russian plan been multifaceted?

- Get the dunce -- Donald Trump -- as the Republican nominee as a main ticket for their party
- Have Clinton lose to Trump, both as a personal "fuck you" for Clinton supporting Putin dissenter candidates and to compromise America's views as the leader of the free world, acting within collaboration to other nations

Forcing a pro-Sanders campaign may have been one way to try and kill off Clinton's nomination, but they had an orange backup plan.

I feel like an r/The Donald poster writing all of this.

 

[kirblar]

Not one to go down the rabbit of conspiracies, but could have the Russian plan been multifaceted?

- Get the dunce -- Donald Trump -- as the Republican nominee as a main ticket for their party
- Have Clinton lose to Trump, both as a personal "fuck you" for Clinton supporting Putin dissenter candidates and to compromise America's views as the leader of the free world, acting within collaboration to other nations

Forcing a pro-Sanders campaign may have been one way to try and kill off Clinton's nomination, but they had an orange backup plan.

I feel like an r/The Donald poster writing all of this.

They were clearly playing both sides of the coin and trying to convert Bernie voters to Trump voters via delegitimizing the Dem process.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

At what point do we declare a national emergency and decide if the election results are even valid anymore? IS there any room in the Constitution for it?

And what of our relationship with Russia? I'd think at this point no one wants (nuclear) war but everything short of it would have to be on the table, including the full North Korea/pre-Obama Iran treatment.

Open, free elections still took place.

 

[Azuran]

It's pretty amazing in a way how Putin and Russia are the only ones that are going to come out winning from of this mess.

 

[gaugebozo]

At this point, I'm convinced there are only two ways the Republicans turn on Trump. Either Trump goes full scorched earth and labels the GOP congress as the enemy, basically imploding the party, or it becomes incontrovertible that Trump colluded with Russia to his own benefit in the election. There's practically no other way in my mind, barring some kind of psychotic break by Trump, that the party turns on him.



That's not how this works. At most, you'll get President Paul Ryan until 2020.

Whynotboth.gif

 

[Tranqueris]

Not one to go down the rabbit of conspiracies, but could have the Russian plan been multifaceted?

- Get the dunce -- Donald Trump -- as the Republican nominee as a main ticket for their party
- Have Clinton lose to Trump, both as a personal "fuck you" for Clinton supporting Putin dissenter candidates and to compromise America's views as the leader of the free world, acting within collaboration to other nations

Forcing a pro-Sanders campaign may have been one way to try and kill off Clinton's nomination, but they had an orange backup plan.

I feel like an r/The Donald poster writing all of this.

I think a lot of this was a series of moves that broke in favor of the Russians with multiple plans and people like Trump, his campaign, and Stein in place to just fuck with the election, not win it. At least not at first.

Trump loses but Rubio wins? Well Trump could have just spread more false stories to weaken Rubio before and after November 8th, or they still fuck with a President Clinton and get conservatives fired up with fake tweets and news to make sure that the government doesn't get anything done.

 

[A Serious Man]

When Marco Rubio is the one with the most foresight and backbone, your party is probably fucked.

 

[Monocle]

It's pretty amazing in a way how Putin and Russia are the only ones that are going to come out winning from of this mess.

Think how he must jizz his sheets every night at the overwhelming success of his machinations. He clowned our entire electoral process and turned our vast reserves of fear and ignorance against us.

 

[theWB27]

They are politicians lol

Need IC to come through

That doesn't get them a pass. Politicians have had to deal with many an attack in our history.

 

[Zolo]

It's pretty amazing in a way how Putin and Russia are the only ones that are going to come out winning from of this mess.

If it means the west coming out much harsher against Russia rather than leaders softening their stances due to them having been propped up by Russia., I wouldn't say Russia wins.

 

[minor effort]

At what point do we declare a national emergency and decide if the election results are even valid anymore? IS there any room in the Constitution for it?

And what of our relationship with Russia? I'd think at this point no one wants (nuclear) war but everything short of it would have to be on the table, including the full North Korea/pre-Obama Iran treatment.

Constitutionally, there's no real mechanism for a do-over election. Even if hypothetically there were a presidential election in which it were revealed that there was irrefutable evidence of widespread ballot hacking in every state, conclusively spoiling the results of the election, there's no clear path towards actually rectifying the situation.

 

[Zophar]

It's going to come out that Trump cheated from the very beginning, isn't it?

 

[Monocle]

It's going to come out that Trump cheated from the very beginning, isn't it?

NO U

 

[platakul]

There's also money to be made in clickbait

https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilve...rump-misinfo?utm_term=.ksbz0oa35B#.vvQnNjzoQ1

I mean this absolutely happened, but the motivation seems just as likely to be eastern european teens making money as much as Putin orchestrating a vast conspiracy to delegitimize US elections

 

[chaosblade]

Constitutionally, there's no real mechanism for a do-over election. Even if hypothetically there were a presidential election in which it were revealed that there was irrefutable evidence of widespread ballot hacking in every state, conclusively spoiling the results of the election, there's no clear path towards actually rectifying the situation.

In a case where the evidence is truly irrefutable I'd imagine we would see a constitutional amendment to deal with the situation relatively quickly.

 

[Dr.Acula]

I don't really have a problem with Russia just fucking around in the US election, insofar that foreign actors often meddle in global affairs, but any candidates that embrace, encourage, and enable the practice against their opponents are enemies of the state as far as I'm concerned.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

To anybody paying attention during the primaries, this shit was obvious.

Huffington Post had an article flowing along these lines a few weeks ago.

Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Faced A Fake News Tsunami. Where Did It Come From?



And it wasn't just fake news. Twitter became unbearable. Got to a point that you couldn't tweet anything pro-Hillary without being spammed by bots posting the same handful of memes. There's a reason why the largest pro-Hillary Facebook group had to go private.

Played like fucking fiddles.

 

[royalan]

There's also money to be made in clickbait

https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilve...rump-misinfo?utm_term=.ksbz0oa35B#.vvQnNjzoQ1

I mean this absolutely happened, but the motivation seems just as likely to be eastern european teens making money as much as Putin orchestrating a vast conspiracy to delegitimize US elections

I just don't buy an explanation this simple.

Sure, behind the day-to-day machinations were European teens looking to make some money. But that alone doesn't explain how targeted the attacks were.

They were getting instructions from somewhere.

 

[JordanN]

Constitutionally, there's no real mechanism for a do-over election. Even if hypothetically there were a presidential election in which it were revealed that there was irrefutable evidence of widespread ballot hacking in every state, conclusively spoiling the results of the election, there's no clear path towards actually rectifying the situation.

Just roll back the presidency to the previous president. Obama would still be serving two terms by declaring the 2016 one counterfeit.

New elections can officially begin in 2020.

 

[SL128]

”Russia's overt media outlets and covert trolls sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum with adversarial views toward the Kremlin," Watts said. ”They were in full swing during both the Republican and Democratic primary seasons and may have helped sink the hopes of candidates more hostile to Russian interests, long before the field narrowed.

Chafee would have won
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfgB5LeWem8

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I don't really have a problem with Russia just fucking around in the US election, insofar that foreign actors often meddle in global affairs, but any candidates that embrace, encourage, and enable the practice against their opponents are enemies of the state as far as I'm concerned.

By extension, doesn't that make Russia... enemies of the state?

 

[platakul]

I just don't buy an explanation this simple.

Sure, behind the day-to-day machinations were European teens looking to make some money. But that alone doesn't explain how targeted the attacks were.

They were getting instructions from somewhere.

I could see Putin (lets just use Putin as a stand in for whoever) seeing the teens making money doing this already and then nudging them in that direction, or employing it themselves.

2 things I really hate about this conversation in the media is: 1.this isn't new to 2016, these kinds of shitty fake news sites have been around for a few years now, and 2. "real" media sites are riddled with fake news links just below their real links yet they never seem to mention this.

 

[metalslimer]

Despite the fact that the Trump team may be found guilty at some point of collusion, people still willfully believed in the propaganda machine the Russians were running despite the fact that there were multiple intelligence agencies saying that Russia was coordinating attack. We just didn't care.