Image from CNN 7-7-2017
Lately I’ve been incredibly puzzled by how little most Americans know or even care about Russia meddling in our elections. The news has been trickling in for some time and as an IT professional and former computer programmer professor with 20 years of experience in computer programming, I can tell you that it is probably worse than you know. If you want to stay updated on the Russian story, the BEST site I’ve found to date is https://investigaterussia.org/, aka, the Committee to Investigate Russia. Created by a bipartisan group consisting of experts and advocates (a couple of names you are probably already familiar with like James Clapper and Rob Reiner are on the advisory board), this site catalogs news articles from reputable sources, lists all of the key players (who are easy to get confused, especially with the long hard to pronounce Russian names), explains the various public investigations that are ongoing, and keeps track of timelines in the investigations. I found the site by listening to Jacki Schechner on the Bob Cesca Show. Jacki has a long history in the news business and her latest project has been to launch this news aggregation site launched. It’s finally online and I STRONGLY encourage you to check it out.
Here’s a BRIEF summary of what we know. The Russians attempted to hack 39 states and in at least one instance, tried to delete and alter voter data. We know during the Democratic primaries that many Bernie voters complained that their change in registration from Independent to Democratic parties did not occur properly and so they were unable to vote in the closed primary. In other instances many longtime Democratic voters were inexplicably given provisional ballots. This led Bernie Sanders to file complaints, which in turn led to Hillary supporters becoming defensive and voila the damage was done. The Left continues to argue among itself to this day and Putin is loving every moment of it.
We know that Putin engaged in a disinformation campaign and that it has been an unprecedented success on many levels.
- He has succeeded in undermining our confidence in our democratic institutions. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. The hackers didn’t need to hack our voting machines to mess with vote tallies, they only needed to mess with our voter registrations. There is mounting evidence that they did just that. Now many people, including myself, don’t trust our election process.
- He has succeeded in suborning the Executive Branch. Herr Orangenfuhrer* has shown a pattern of letting Russia get away with far too much** (see Sources 4-7 at bottom). The Executive Branch is being lead by a man who is, for all practical purposes, Putin’s “poleznyje idiot” or “useful idiot”.
- He has succeeded in subverting the Legislative Branch. Congress, under the control of the GOP, has been blocking progress into the investigation while mouthing crap about “being concerned”. I don’t want to hear about how my Senator, John McCain is concerned. I want to hear about how he and his colleagues are doing something to 1) stop the current collusion with Russia and 2) to stop it from happening again in the future. Neither of which is happening.
- He has succeeded in taking advantage of our ignorance and our openness. Part of the problem is that the information has been trickling in and from so many different sources. Another part of the problem is that it involves technology that most people don’t understand. And yet another problem is our short attention span. The final part of the problem is that far too many on both the Right and the Left are knowingly and unknowingly carrying Putin’s water. The Right is repeating Trump’s BS rhetoric about “Fake News”. It also doesn’t help that some on the left (like Jill Stein, Bernie Bros, and Russian plants pretending to be Bernie Bros) not only pushed anti-Hillary news but are now pushing the “Fake News” line of thinking as well. As a result, unfortunately, too many Americans in the middle are throwing up their hands and saying, “We don’t know who to trust!” All this confusion is EXACTLY what Putin wants.
Is it any wonder that the American people are too distracted and confused?! Unfortunately, we need to pay attention to this story. I honestly believe that this is the beginning of the end for our Democracy IF we don’t respond appropriately to this crisis.
Make no mistake about it–Russia attacked us. They have attacked and are continuing to attack our democracy and we all need to wake up and pay attention. We need to stay on top of this story and push Congress to do something about it. Check out the “Committee to Investigate Russia“.
Notes:
*I refuse now and forever to give Trump the title of President.
**Too many articles to cite in that one sentence but a few are listed below (see sources 4-7)…I could go on and on
***These sources are listed in no particular order. I have been trying to avoid any sources that might be of Russian origin but it is very hard to know who to trust. For instance, I know that RT.com is basically Russian propaganda but there are many bloggers who seem to have a Russian/Wikileaks slant to them who might be reporting real news but they also might be knowingly and unknowingly repeating crap stories from Russia. For that reason I’ve tried to avoid using links to other “unknown” bloggers and tried to stick to well known news sources.
Sources:***
- https://www.vox.com/world/2017/6/13/15791744/russia-election-39-states-hack-putin-trump-sessions
- http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-voting-problems-20160607-snap-htmlstory.html
- http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/19/politics/new-york-primary-voter-problem-polls-sanders-de-blasio/index.html
- http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/09/trump-has-picked-americas-enemies-in-russia-over-its-friends-in-europe/
- http://www.weeklystandard.com/trump-caves-to-putin/article/2008751
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-moves-to-return-russian-compounds-in-maryland-and-new-york/2017/05/31/3c4778d2-4616-11e7-98cd-af64b4fe2dfc_story.html?utm_term=.916898cc623e
- http://www.newsweek.com/trump-collusion-russia-what-we-know-so-far-630053
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Reiner
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper
- https://investigaterussia.org/
- http://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-show-presented-by-bubblegenius-com-9717/
- http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/05/politics/house-intelligence-committee-subpoena-fbi-justice/index.html
- http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/if-only-john-mccains-actions-matched-john-mccains-rhetoric
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/08/10/are-u-s-voters-confident-in-their-electoral-system-yes-and-no/?utm_term=.8acf19b0f164
- http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/343292-jill-stein-looped-into-widening-investigation-of-russia-and-trump-jr
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-fake-news-russia_us_58c34d97e4b0ed71826cdb36
Ms. D. Ranged In AZ 
I haven’t been puzzled by Americans’ lack of interest in Russia’s ratfcking—as Charlie Pierce styles it—of the 2016 election. After all, most of our fellow citizens—including, alas, most reporters—freeze up when they hear about computer stuff.
That in turn means they claim not to understand why it isn’t necessary to change vote totals directly in order to mess with the electoral process. (The explanation is actually simple, you managed it in a couple of paragraphs.)
Add to this the Right Wing Wurlitzer blaring away about the supposed perfidy of Hillary Clinton, and how electing Donald Trump is delicious revenge for eight years of The Black Guy and one in the eye for them damn’ socialistical commie Demonrats!, 24 hours a day.
Add to this the message being promoted by some of the most self-consciously Leftier Than Thou websites (“Neo-McCarthyism! Red Scare! Hillary Clinton needs to shut up and sit down!”).
Add to this the nihilistic strain of extreme politics exemplified on the Left by those “anarchist” boobs who really just want to smash stuff and on the Right by Steve Bannon and the clown car that is Dead Andy.
Add to this Americans’ preexisting lack of enthusiasm for voting.
Add to this a GOP interested solely in winning elections and utterly uninterested in governing (and, somewhat surprisingly, uninterested in protecting the US from Russian attack).
Add to this a Democratic Party given to circular firing squads.
Vladimir Putin’s tame hackers didn’t exactly have a difficult job, did they?
Yes, Russia attacked the US. Unfortunately, not one member of Congress in twenty understands this, not one reporter in a hundred understands this (J-schools have a lot to answer for, in my opinion), not one citizen in a thousand understands this well enough to give a monkey’s about it.
Sorry, I’m usually better with pep talks and finding solutions to intractable problems than this (or it pleases me so to believe).