As usual, these matters are difficult to tackle in sound bites. So here is some backdrop while giving this opinion.It is no secret that the Democratic Party has not only been saying that “the Russians hacked the elections” in order to help Donald Trump win. As a quick side note, please note that there is a difference in “hacking the elections” and hacking the Democratic National Convention’s website. They are two separate and different things. No voting machines were hacked, nor was there anything done to any election apparatus that compromised the outcome of the elections. In addition to hacking the DNC, John Podesta became the victim of a fishing scam and that is how more information on the Hillary Clinton Campaign got out. That also, is not the same as “the elections getting hacked.” The Democrats did not do a good job of protecting their data, and they suffered the consequences.
A lot of damning information was revealed about Mrs. Clinton, party leaders, media collusion with the party, sabotaging the Bernie Sanders campaign, and more negative information that would in any other circumstance be enough to not only sink the campaign, but send heads rolling. With any other group there would have been resignations, media calls for accountability and twenty four hour outrage about what was revealed, but as usual; Democrats can do no wrong in the eyes of the media. Instead of what was revealed becoming the issue, the story became “the Russians hacked the elections.” Of course there were also attempts to hack the Republican National Convention’s websites, but these attempts were unsuccessful because of the systems that the Republicans had put in place to combat such efforts.
After the election, the story was not only that the “Russians hacked the elections,” but there were incessant attempts to link the Trump campaign to the Russians with these attempts. There was soon a lot of talk, and speculation about “collusion with the Russians.” Well, Donald Trump being Donald Trump decided to turn the tables on the Democrats, and the media’s constant attempts to link him to the Russians. As one talk radio host put it, “he decided to pick up the grenade and throw it back at them.” He said you want to accuse me of colluding with the Russians without any proof or evidence whatsoever, well I’m accusing your guy of wiretapping me. Of course, for years the Democrats have grown accustomed to conservatives being their doormats without conservatives ever fighting back. They are accustomed to Republicans always playing defense, and trying to prove that they are not really racists, they do not hate women, they do not want to destroy the poor, kill old people, or eat little babies while simultaneously attempting to throw gays into gulags. So here comes this guy who plays just as dirty as they do, and is willing to fight back, and they do not know how to deal with that. Since Donald Trump made the accusation against Barrack Obama, all the talk of him colluding with the Russians has practically ceased. The focus then shifted to defending the reputation of his Lordship Barrack Obama.
Prior to Trumps accusations against Obama, it was the media who made the claim, or at the very least speculated that members of the intelligence community were looking into whether Donald Trump, elements of his campaign or people close to him colluded with or was colluding with the Russians. A lot of this reporting was used to push the narrative that Trump was in cahoots with the Russians to topple the campaign of Hillary Clinton. As long as it served their purpose, it was ok to cite these reports as evidence that something was amiss in the Trump camp. When Trump decided to use the same data that they relied on for months to make a case against him, he suddenly became the object of their ridicule for citing the same data that was used to make the case against him. All of a sudden the “fact checkers” say these reports that Trump cited as evidence are “sketchy at best,” or something to that effect. When it suited their purpose, these reports were credible enough to make a case showing that the President and his team might have colluded with the Russians. In a classic illustration of flipping the script, the President threw it back at them, and now the Trump Derangement Syndrome has metastasized.
That’s my take on the issue. Let the chips fall where they may in any investigation of the entire matter.
The links below are a combination of right and left wing news sites that reported on the stories that Trump pulled from. Form your own opinion based on the information available.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article127231799.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/us/politics/obama-trump-russia-election-hacking.html
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article127231799.html
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