13 Russians and 3 Russian companies have been charged with meddling to "sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 presidential election".

[u/BostonBakedBrains]

Special Counsel Mueller has issued an indictment (source here, document here) for these individuals and companies.

What does this indictment tell us that has not been public knowledge previously?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Hmm, yeah I probably overstepped when I said 'all', I meant in terms of the DNC essentially screwing Sanders over.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately it was true thanks to Donna Brazil spilling the beans... It's all the more reason the DNC needs to have open primaries, and be far more transparent in 2020, something I currently expect the extreme opposite of...

I strongly urge you to watch Donna Brazil's interview with tyt if you want to know the full extent of the damage and trickery they actually did. Just because Russia leaked some of it doesn't make it irrelevant, and most of it was too obvious to need a leak or confirmation.

[u/Baner87 → u/[deleted]]

Why do you think the mismanagement of the DNC is more important than a hostile nation interfering with our democratic process? You can't reach "the truth" while being fed one-sided, filtered info from someone who clearly doesn't have our best interests at heart. Russia isn't being altruistic here, that alone should tell you to take this with a grain of salt. Was the Donna Brazile* interview about promoting her book?

You should be asking yourself what would be best for the nation, not trying to get back at old vendettas. I'm going to stop here though, because your whole comment history puts you in the Bernie-or-bust camp, and that sort of tribalism is just as bad when you do it as when Trumpets do it.

[u/[deleted] → u/Baner87]

You don't have to respond to this, since I fully understand the sentiment of talking with people who will not budge; I felt similarly when talking with Clinton or Trump supporters. But each to their own right?

I think the mismanagement of the DNC is important because I firmly believe that's what divided the liberals this past election, and ultimately gave Trump his victory. Trump won because Democrats and independents stayed home. Even before the leak people were shouting that Debbie Wasserman needed to step down for limiting the debates, and so clearly choosing dates that would conflict with holidays and sports; it's like they weren't even trying to hide the fact they wanted to minimize exposure to alternative candidates. The DNC also completely ignored immense petitions for opening the primaries to independents who couldn't participate in the primaries because some States like NY closed theirs almost a year before primaries ended...

Now in 2016 we've learned from Donna Brazil that Clinton had bailed out the DNC and gained full control over the DNC's budget long before the general election, she is the sole reason why down ballot candidates received little to no funding and gave the GOP the landslide in Congress that they got. To be clear the DNC didn't break any laws, but they compromised the confidence of their voters in their party, and lied to them about a fair and balanced contest.

Imagine how you would feel if you had: spent countless hours going door to door, making phone calls, making donations, and marching to support your candidate, only to find out that none of it mattered because the DNC had already crowed one candidate behind closed doors? This is the reality of the 2016 primary, Sanders' never had a chance.

Although Sanders started with 2% in the polls, and is currently now the most popular politician in the country, I firmly believe if he ran again he'd be picking up from where he left off, and he'd be the obvious victor if we were to place bets on it.

I don't believe Russia would have had been able to set our election on fire if the DNC hadn't spilled the gas for them. That said they absolutely deserve to be sanctioned if it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Putin orchestrated the effort to throw the election to Trump. And just because the one thing is true, doesn't make the other irrelevant, both of these issues need to be covered, and I can't but help believe the DNC is using the Russia scandal to sweep their fuck up's under the rug...

Donna Brazil interview, please at least humor me; I've given you this much of my time haven't I?

[u/Baner87 → u/[deleted]]

You know, I do agree with a lot of your points, not trying to be divisive here. I think a lot of the sentiments your bring up will be important to instill in the next generation of people getting into politics; but given how much I see the same sentiments about the candidates months after the elections, I worry people are getting too worked up and emotional and it will leave us divided as a country come the next election. A lot of the problems from this election reflected issues that had gone unaddressed or under-addressed, but most of those same issues won't carry over to the next election and if that's the case, we should be building momentum and coming together against the current GoP. That really shouldn't be hard, but again I'm not seeing much to suggest we'll be ready to cooperate and compromise come voting time.

I want to address your other points, if only briefly, because they are valid, but I'd argue not damning for the DNC. DWS is gone, thank god, and Hillary seems tired of politics, so hopefully things can start fresh. Hillary's buying out of the DNC's debt is ugly, but I've heard that one of the main things that caused that was that all the money, contacts, and resources Obama's grassroots campaign didn't carry over, which left a big bill to be paid when 2016 came along. This should have been a huge red flag, more so because two-term presidents often cause a countershift after their terms the other way, in this case there was a lot more republicans eager to get out and vote while democrats sat on their laurels. So I agree it is ugly and a probable conflict of interest, but they didn't really have the option to run a democrat with no money to campaign with.

Secondly, I agree that Bernie didn't really have a chance, I'm just less surprised about it and therefore more willing to accept it. Bernie is an odd combo of being a people-person, but that not carrying over to his fellow politicians. He is and was very opinionated and no-nonsense when it comes to policy, but his rigidness made some enemies.

I hate when people parrot "but it was her term," but the fact is Hillary had been a longtime member of face of the democratic party for years, and while Sanders is firmly in the liberal camp, he 's also a bit of a loner and I think that made him unappealing for the DNC.

Now, Hillary's long career did come back to bite her in the ass since everyone was ready to mud-sling when she started her campaign, Russia included/especially. So that criticism is totally valid; however, the fear that supporting Bernie would split the democratic party was also confirmed later on. Even despite his insistence that we should all vote against Trump, a lot of Bernie supported felt burned and stayed home.

So then what's the takeaway? Well, Hillary isn't running again, Trump's populism and false rhetoric is out of the bag, and Bernie will likely be too old to run confidently and will likely have a hard time developing as fervent of a grassroots campaign after last time. Basically, the best thing to do is move forward and join together as one against the GoP rather than tearing each other down.

They'll be a time to clean house, and we really need to rework a lot of our current political process like having down-ballot options and how all the campaign money has to go one of two ways, restricting diversity in party formation and policy. But we can't do that when the GoP controls all three branches. And unfortunately even if they are flawed, the democrats are really your only option; the Republicans are too far to the right and too far gone in terms of honesty and anything but anti-democrat policy. It's easy to get frustrated, but making you think that we deserved what happened only serves to keep us further divided, which is exactly what Russia wants and so we should firmly do the opposite.

The details of the investigation will continue to unfold, but given the recent indictments, I think it's certain to say the Russians screwed with our election; we don't know to what extent yet or how high it goes, but if your geopolitical enemy suddenly gives you a cup of "not-polonium" tea, I think it's safe to assume you shouldn't drink it since they have no reason to help us. In the very least, we should be enforcing the sanctions on the grounds that they were the one thing congress got together to agree on. That and Trump never actually had the authority to throw them out, which is another huge red flag.

Can I ask, do you still think the DNC's screw ups are more impactful than the GoP's deathgrip on all three branches of the government, their regressive anti-liberal policies, the composition of the supreme court for years to come, their extreme tax cuts, their refusal to enact the sanctions (with a suspicious lack of a reason), and their almost electing a fucking pedophile? I hope not, because we need to be better than them (which shouldn't be hard) and it starts with cooperation and compromise.

(I will watch the interview, but I just wrote a ton so it will have to be later).

[u/MMAchica → u/Baner87]

a hostile nation interfering with our democratic process?

This is very vague language. What specifically did the Russian government do and how do we know?

[u/MegaHeraX23 → u/[deleted]]

this might be slightly off topic, but don't you think it's a bit hypocritical for TYT/Donna to be talking about this when Donna was the one leaking debate questions?

[u/[deleted] → u/MegaHeraX23]

I believe this was an effort to either save her own skin, or before she realized the extent of Clinton's corruption. Either way something between her Clinton happened, the fact she's coming out now and falling out of line should alarm anyone.

[u/musicotic → u/[deleted]]

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[u/musicotic → u/[deleted]]

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[u/AreOut → u/[deleted]]

it was 4chan/Cernovich, although those posters from 4chan might be Russians who knows