62,984,828 US voters voted for Trump. That’s why he is president.
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Three million more didn’t- that’s why he’s President.
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I wonder how many times the 2016 election will be re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-litigated on internet message boards.
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Re elect gore in 2024
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It’s always a good time to remind people that Trump isn’t legitimate.
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She literally made them on her tell-all book tour…
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People do tend to veer into that when discussing just how Assange appears to be a good and/or bad guy, but the 2016 election – and the effects on it of information that he released and perhaps didn’t release – are indeed relevant to that discussion.
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And the timing of the releases. i.e. was he releasing them as he got them, or was he cooperating with anyone in timing the releases?
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Yes, inquiring minds want to know!
I wonder if we among the great unwashed ever really will know.
Extradite, not render. Extradition is a legal process, but rendition is a fancy word for kidnapping. Eroding the distinction between the two will only benefit apologists for state-sponsored kidnapping.
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Um, that’s not right.
Extradition is a form of rendition, and “rendition” isn’t a synonym for “kidnapping” (although kidnapping could, and has been, an ugly method of performing a rendition)
Rendition as a single word and legal term just means “transfer”. Legal two-country extradition is a kind of rendition, and “extraordinary rendition” was a euphemism for “way-outside-of-the-usual-laws transfer” (which was most often kidnapping, ie “forced involuntary transfer”).
The word isn’t what made it evil, it’s what they did, without the euphemistically-used neutral word.
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Whatever euphemism we pick, the extraterritorial reach of the U.S. has been normalized to the point that we no longer even see what is, after all, effectively kidnapping. Or maybe body-snatching.
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And you thought we had nothing in common…
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Nice Strawman/whataboutism and certainly off-topic. Doesn’t distract from the fact that Trump got elected by the US voter.
Yes, of course Trump got elected by the American voters. That’s unquestionable.
But it is also pretty much unquestionable that Russians meddled in the election, trying to sway Americans into voting for Trump and not voting for Clinton. And given how narrow Trump’s victory was, it shows IMO certain stubbornness to just focus on the American voters and not on the attempts to influence those voters.
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I agree that both are a factor in the issue. Though it seems to me the power of the Russian meddling seems to be the pot stirring and riling up the base. We should absolutely crack down on outside influences on elections.
But I also think that where the meddling “worked” was getting people on the right to go out and vote. Granted this is just speculation, but I have doubts that their shit posting influenced a lot of moderates who were going to vote for Hillary to instead vote for Trump. It seems to me more choir preaching which would energize some to make it to the polls. The democrats did themselves no favors as Clinton is not a likable character for various reasons, especially to moderates and independents, which is what helped Obama win twice.
So I would agree with @FFabian that the bulk of the “blame” lies with the American voter and the electoral collage system that can lead to a minority of popular votes creating a winner. But the Russian meddling certainly assisted things and we need to be hyper vigilant in the next 2 years.
Remember, the whole reason for a foreign power to back one candidate over another is they want the weakest leader in power.
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Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s statement on Julian Assange’s arrest:
I met Assange two years ago at the Embassy of Ecuador in London, and remembering what he told me during our encounter, I think one can understand why he was arrested today. Assange mentioned to me that he was investigating how Google was planning to make use of the immense quantity of information at its disposal. It had to do with, according to Assange, selling to insurance companies and secret services data about the interests, desires, consumption habits, state of health, reading practices…in a nutshell data about the life of millions of individuals in all its aspects.
According to Assange—and I believe we can share his view—this would mean an unprecedented increase in the possible ways of controlling human beings through the powers of the market and the police. What is at the core of Assange’s arrest is, therefore, not only the desire to punish past WikiLeaks investigations, but to impede investigations currently underway that evidently all those implicated seem to be threatened by. It is also for this reason that it is necessary to express unreserved solidarity with Assange.
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It is really something to see how effective it is to link punishing sexual misconduct to the need to pursue a higher goal.
It’s people defending Louis CK and Cosby with the idea that the future of what is possible to joke about is at stake.
It’s people defending Polanski, Woody Allen and even Weinstein with the idea that the future of quality cinema is at stake.
It’s people defending priests and ministers with the idea that the future of the good name of a church is at stake.
And now it’s Agamben pushing the idea that we have to whistle past Assange’s behavior because otherwise Google somehow wins, based on an “according to Assange”.
There’s always a big idea ready to protect such stupid personal cruelties.
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Two years of investigation, huh?
What’s come out of this?
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