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Fake News, Russians, and Election Reversal
Townhall.com ^ | December 11, 2016 | Robert Charles

Posted on 12/11/2016 11:49:39 AM PST by Kaslin

While we are talking about “fake news,” which is actually an attack on the First Amendment’s assurance of free (even erroneous) speech (and an abdication of reader responsibility), let’s jump the rails. Let’s talk about false, foolish and fruitless media and political “narratives,” obviously aimed at an election reversal.

I can hear it now … “Oh but please, nothing could be further from the truth!” Hmmm. Ok. Election night occurred, and a 120-year tradition was broken. No “night-of concession speech” from Hillary Clinton. Why? The act of giving a prompt concession is reassuring to the nation, a civic responsibility. Notably, it started with John Adams, defeated by Jefferson in 1801. It would wait until 1896 for William Jennings Bryan’s “night-of concession” to President-elect William McKinley to become a permanent fixture.

In time, Al Smith would make his night-of concession a radio broadcast in 1928 (Herbert Hoover won), and Adlai Stevenson would go televised in 1952 (when Dwight Eisenhower won). With the singular exception of 2000, when “hanging chads” created a bona fides question of electoral votes, the tradition has been – and for good reason – unbroken.

Enter 2016, and failed candidate Hillary Clinton does not concede. All night, into the next day. Eventually she does. The concession is tinny, followed by talk of unidentified misdeeds, voter fraud, recounts, fake news, riots and electoral abdications.

Next comes the peculiar advent of an unprecedented national “recount” request from Green Party nominee Jill Stein, focused in several states, for which there was no 2000-like basis for seeking a recount. Stranger still, the initiator is a no-chance independent candidate. She is swiftly, as if by orchestration, joined by the Clinton campaign. Of course, the recount – both on numbers and in court – amounts to nothing, but doubts are sewn.

As if on cue, comes a public appeal for nationally pledged Republican electors to abandon the Electoral College, jump to the failed candidate. In harmony, media outlets and politicians, recently swooning at the Clinton Electoral College map, call for review of the institution. Never mind that the whole rationale of the 538-vote Electoral College is to prevent this gaming.

Next, watering seeded pre-election doubt, comes an allegation that voter machines were tampered with – if not by racists, then Russians. When this is technically disproven, the Russian argument pivots, saying Russia tried to elect Candidate Trump. Curiously, the Russian hacking allegation is announced by Obama before the election, then picked up after. When it appears alleged Russian hacking is broader than Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails, media downplay the fact.

Of no consequence, apparently, are facts: No DNC or Clinton campaign operative denied the truth of released emails, wherever they came from. Turns out DNC operatives deep-sixed candidate Bernie Sanders in an awful breach of fidelity to process. Turns out the current interim DNC chair Donna Brazile shared CNN questions with the Clinton campaign, and media leaders were entangled with that campaign. Media silence again.

The underlying – unstated – principle, in case you missed it, is the “exclusionary rule” of criminal procedure. If a piece of truth is found, but the means by which it comes to light appears to violate the Fourth Amendment (unlawful search and seizure), the truthful evidence can – in some cases – be excluded. Apply that notion to politics, and apparently the election becomes a do-over. Really? Never mind that truth can be persuasive, chains of hacking untraceable, and neither has anything to do with the Trump campaign. Might be a double-reverse, who knows?

Then, or rather now, falling back to fourth down and 90 – the Clinton team, aided by a desperate, unraveling Obama White House, has hatched another idea. Just as the Obama Department of Justice was politicized, laws selectively enforced or left unenforced, authority for “executive actions” blithely assumed (before thrown out by the courts), there have been politicized CIA National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs).

Curiously, now comes the ultimate election reversal attempt – by slap-happy innuendo. The president of the United States, obviously prodded by what is left of the Clinton campaign and copycat media, offers a nugget. Word of some classified intelligence assessment which concludes – who concludes? – that high level Russians always wanted Trump to win, so hacked the universe and threw the election for him.

Never mind how or why the Russians would want a strong American leader to emerge, particularly one sworn to undo the Iran nuclear agreement that they and Obama (and Hillary) want to remain in place. Never mind why the Russians would want a candidate sworn to unleashing American oil on the world market, cratering Russia’s oil-based economy. Never mind any of that - focus instead on the innuendo.

Take the truth of Russian interest in disrupting American and European political processes generally – and stretch that sock over the basketball, entitling the president to undermine the Trump election mandate, maybe ask an election reversal. Innuendo on innuendo, the president calls for a “deep dive” into Trump’s win, under the rubric of Russian hacking. Really?

My friends, and those of you who wish never to be, this is not how democracy works. We do have American detractors, as well as a world full of insidious hackers (commercial and political), and some enemies. But for whatever they do, the American people are ready and smart. The American people are no more puppets of Russia than of the media, Obama White House manipulations, or Clinton obfuscations and post-election dramas.

How about this: We all spin down. Ours is a well-established process, for all its imperfections. The process rendered one candidate a winner, another a loser. Okay, loser is a difficult word for some emotionally; it may hurt feelings. Let us call Hillary’s staggering end, second place. Give her a red ribbon. Okay, for her sake, make it purple or blue – it is just a ribbon. Like it or not – and many in the Obama and media worlds do not – the election is over. Have no worries. In a short four years, another will be upon us. I cannot wait – actually, I can.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: hillaryrottenclinton; jillstein
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1 posted on 12/11/2016 11:49:39 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

I don’t watch the news anymore. The Dems still own them. Can you tell?


2 posted on 12/11/2016 11:51:14 AM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: Sacajaweau

Headline of the Day Poll

Who is the real “Fake News”?

Breitbart, Drudgereport,FreeRepublic and other right-wing sources

CNN, MSNBC,NPR, NYTimes and other left-wing sources

All of the above

None of the above

Read more: http://www.headlineoftheday.com/2016/12/11/who-is-the-real-fake-news/#ixzz4SXqgL0jd


3 posted on 12/11/2016 11:53:06 AM PST by Jeff Chandler (Everywhere is freaks and hairies Dykes and fairies Tell me where is sanity?)
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To: Kaslin

I’m pleased to see someone who lays it all out chronologically in one article.


4 posted on 12/11/2016 11:54:37 AM PST by Publius ("Who is John Galt?" by Billthedrill and Publius now available at Amazon.)
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To: Kaslin

Russians? There’s far more proof that George Soros is trying to undermine our political system than the Russians. Why is this not an issue to the left?


5 posted on 12/11/2016 11:55:12 AM PST by boycott (S)
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To: Kaslin

Who in this realm of our Enemedia is NOT university indoctrinated?


6 posted on 12/11/2016 11:56:21 AM PST by polymuser (There's a big basket of deportables.)
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To: Kaslin
Luciferian preloading to cover their false flag "Russian" nuke on NY.

God is Love
Satan is hatin

Who's in your heart?

7 posted on 12/11/2016 11:56:51 AM PST by rawcatslyentist (And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed,)
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To: Kaslin
The Clintons have practiced the promotion of "fake" "news" about themselves for decades.

Why the sudden "fake" concern about a practice they have perfected?

As for the judgment of the American citizenry that Clinton dishonesty, greed, and power seeking efforts should not be rewarded with another sordid term in the "People's House," perhaps both of them should learn to trust "the People" instead of their own sycophants and hangers-on.

On the other hand, that genius who, at Age 33, authored the document of our national freedom, The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, made a wise observation on a related subject:

"State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, & often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules." - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr
Perhaps Hillary Clinton's sophomoric college-era fascination and reliance on the "fake" wisdom of Saul Alinsky and his "Rules for Radicals" set her on a path away from recognition of what Abraham Lincoln called the "abstract truth" embodied in that Declaration of Independence and the ideas essential to liberty which Jefferson so clearly laid out.
All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression." - Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Messrs Henry L. Pierce & Others

8 posted on 12/11/2016 11:57:31 AM PST by loveliberty2
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To: Kaslin
Election night occurred, and a 120-year tradition was broken. No “night-of concession speech” from Hillary Clinton.

The tradition was broken the last three Republican wins in a row. Gore didn't speak, nor Kerry, nor Clinton. They were in all 3 cases "still counting."

The networks are pleased to go along with the practice. This is a new Democrat tradition, imo.

9 posted on 12/11/2016 11:59:00 AM PST by Buttons12
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To: Buttons12

You are correct. None of them gave a concession speech.


10 posted on 12/11/2016 12:00:51 PM PST by Kaslin (Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible)
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To: Kaslin

If there’s EVER an election do-over, you can be pretty sure that it’s going to be soon followed by a civil war do-over. there are no do-overs.


11 posted on 12/11/2016 12:02:28 PM PST by RC one (The 2nd Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances)
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To: Kaslin
They might not be trying to overturn the election, they may be trying to destroy his mandate by making him appear illegitimate.
12 posted on 12/11/2016 12:09:40 PM PST by Vision (Best Radio Station Ever: www.MartiniInTheMorning.com)
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To: Kaslin

Looks like there is an attempt to force election reversal into the American consciousness. Since they could not force the less revolutionary idea of electing Hillary into the American consciousness, I don’t think they will get very far with this more extreme one.


13 posted on 12/11/2016 12:11:27 PM PST by odawg
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To: Kaslin

The mainstream media is absolutely furious for being exposed by WikiLeaks and for Trump’s use of Twitter to go around them. They are going to use every opportunity to delegitimize Trump. And obviously because they have no scruples, they are not going to be picky about how they do it -— lies, fake news, they don’t care as long as they get there vitriol disseminated. They are beneath contempt.


14 posted on 12/11/2016 12:11:36 PM PST by Flaming Conservative
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To: Kaslin

15 posted on 12/11/2016 12:17:45 PM PST by eaglestar
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To: Kaslin
In a discussion about trusting in God when times are bad in Bible class today, we learned that Christians are to have a specific trust in God when leaders and/or society are evil. God promises to, in His time, to remove evil and make things right. Throughout history, he has.

Then the thought came out in class which reflects what is happening right now in society. Evil people reject God's Word and the principles found there. So, when events, leadership and decisions don't go their way, evil people panic, have intense anxiety and react in violent, destructive ways. Instead of waiting patiently on people to see the need for God and for Him to act, they have emotional breakdowns requiring "safe places", telephone hotlines and counseling to try and cope.

Some don't adjust and are escalating events to the point of conflict because with no higher power in whom to trust, their world has fallen apart. They are ready to resort to violence. They also accuse the God-fearing people falsely of wanting to do to them what they want to do to us. God help us all.

16 posted on 12/11/2016 12:22:15 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: Kaslin

well written article- pretty muich sums it up-


17 posted on 12/11/2016 12:23:20 PM PST by Bob434
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To: Kaslin

[[Give her a red ribbon. Okay, for her sake, make it purple or blue – it is just a ribbon.]]

How about a rainbow colored ribbon?


18 posted on 12/11/2016 12:24:07 PM PST by Bob434
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To: Kaslin

“Never mind how or why the Russians would want a strong American leader to emerge, particularly one sworn to undo the Iran nuclear agreement that they and Obama (and Hillary) want to remain in place. Never mind why the Russians would want a candidate sworn to unleashing American oil on the world market, cratering Russia’s oil-based economy. Never mind any of that - focus instead on the innuendo.”

Julian Assange said it wasn’t the Russians and that the DNC servers were remarkably easy to hack. Apparently not Cruxnet sophistication required.

It is illogical for a Russian President to advocate for a strong US President who opposes his interests in key parts of the world.

Loretta Lynch (siding with BLM) and James Comey (no reasonable prosecutor) have proved without any doubt the Justice Department and FBI are corrupt politicized agencies. Why should anyone believe anything coming from any other Obama agency.

Somebody hacked the DNC, but no proof exists who was behind it.

There is no evidence the hack helped Trump, furthermore why did the Democrats get shellacked all the way down ballot to dog catcher.

The voting machine tally’s are matching, to a remarkable degree, hand counted ballots. There goes the hacked machine theory “computer scientists” and election lawyers said were sure to be there based on abnormal “patterns”.

This is all so much BS and the left is playing with a fire that will get put out for them if this “peaceful transition” of power continues...


19 posted on 12/11/2016 12:29:48 PM PST by Eddie01
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To: Publius
I’m pleased to see someone who lays it all out chronologically in one article.

Me too.

20 posted on 12/11/2016 12:30:09 PM PST by Inyo-Mono
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