The 2016 US General Election

[Parihaka]

So wait a minute, I thought Fancy Bear and Guccifer 2.0 hacked into the DNC servers and they are speculating that might be true but the hack into John Podesta's email (the one that supposedly damaged Clinton during the election) was a gmail account??????

And it wasn't some diabolical virus or worm but by PHISHING?????

Phishing that every snot nosed kid do that gets countless thousands of gmails hacked every year?????

Holy shit, this is getting dumber by the minute.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/34899

This has been public knowledge since early October. My eleven year old knows this trick (note the shortened URL on the link).
Despite this, various Dem organisations and proxies have continued to claim it's Russia. Because Russia.

[snapper]

But you cannot imagine any reason why there may be reasons for that - disbarring the evidence left in the hack that is?

[citanon]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKBN14204E

While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA's analysis of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be named.

.....


The CIA conclusion was a "judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked," one of the three officials said on Monday.

"(It was) a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment," the official added.

[DOR]

It seems to me that Putin got exactly what he wanted: people wondering if the Russians can decide who wins an American election. Sowing confusion among the various US intelligence agencies – who Mr Trump apparently doesn’t want to listen to – is just icing on the cake.

What I really didn’t expect, however, was people criticizing Clinton for staying away from all of this. I guess haters gonna hate…

[snapper]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKBN14204E

Let me point out one reason why it might be concluded that the hacks were intended to favour Trump; they hacked the Republicans too but didn't release that product.

[JAD_333]

It seems to me that Putin got exactly what he wanted: people wondering if the Russians can decide who wins an American election. Sowing confusion among the various US intelligence agencies – who Mr Trump apparently doesn’t want to listen to – is just icing on the cake.

Pretty close to spot on.

[Double Edge]

It seems to me that Putin got exactly what he wanted: people wondering if the Russians can decide who wins an American election. Sowing confusion among the various US intelligence agencies – who Mr Trump apparently doesn’t want to listen to – is just icing on the cake.

Did Putin get what he wanted ? If he got hillary we could be sure nothing would change as far as US - Russia relations go.

But with Trump, Putin has a match, somebody else who is just as mercurial and unpredictable. I do not see this as a win for Putin just that he has somebody different to deal with and the results may or may not be satisfactory. Which is better than he could expect with Hillary. That's it.

A trump win is a victory for american democracy. Important when faith in the system, the establishment and media is waning. A hillary win accompanied with allegations from Trump that the election was rigged plays to Putin who can show his people, see american democracy is not such a great thing. They rig elections there too.

Now he can't say that. With all the media support for Hillary she still lost. Whatever russian media said about this election needs to be re-examined too : D

[Double Edge]

Let me point out one reason why it might be concluded that the hacks were intended to favour Trump; they hacked the Republicans too but didn't release that product.

True but think ahead. What is to be done ?

Will Trump clapping hands stop hacks coming across from opponents as well as friends the day after.

The US can make public statements that their process will not be interfered with, have a collective chest thump but my question still stands.

Hacking the repubs and dems on campaign trail was a soft target. What is interesting is how quickly the finger pointed to Russia. Russians are masters at espionage going back over half a century. They are better than the Chinese at hacking. if they want to get in and out they try to make sure they don't trip any alarms. They also think long term. As in trying to retain access to wherever in case something interesting comes up.

This hack with crumbs leading back to them means they wanted to be found. And for the american media to say look what russia did here is good for Putin. As you know he funds parties and entities all over the place. His aim is to destroy confidence in democracy.

I prefer this incident be dealt with behind closed doors with appropriate messages sent. having it out in the public good for transparency but does not do much for the larger problem which i doubt can be dealt with. More panama papers like leaks maybe. if the right people show up in the list then they have to defend themselves back home.

[astralis]

JAD,

I was thinking of the good of the country. That's too much to ask, I suppose. Clinton doesn't do much unless it's for Clinton.

she's done a damn sight more for the good of the country than Trump has ever done-- just on this issue alone.

like you said, Trump could have easily quashed all of this by agreeing to a full investigation by the IC in his administration, and by withdrawing (or simply not selecting!) his most Russo-philic selections for Cabinet. for that matter, he merely had to -stay silent- the way HRC has, and things wouldn't have exploded the way it did.

right now he's actively fanning the flames as a President-Elect, so the greater onus, by far, is on him.

[GVChamp]

Except allegations of hacking weren't just coming from Jill Stein, they were coming from top "experts."

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...n-results.html

Jill Stein is being turned into a wonderful scapegoat, though, I agree.

[Wooglin]

Let me point out one reason why it might be concluded that the hacks were intended to favour Trump; they hacked the Republicans too but didn't release that product.

If it was their intention to hack the dems to aid Trump then why hack the republicans too?

As I posted earlier...

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=44131322

U.S. intelligence officials have maintained since October that Russian hackers targeted both Republicans and Democrats. But the hackers were far more successful in their cyberattacks on the Democrats — stealing thousands of emails between party officials and other data — than they were with Republicans, whose official party systems had better defenses against cyberattacks.

To answer your question, is it because they didn't have much to release perhaps?

[GVChamp]

True but think ahead. What is to be done ?

Will Trump clapping hands stop hacks coming across from opponents as well as friends the day after.

The US can make public statements that their process will not be interfered with, have a collective chest thump but my question still stands.

Hacking the repubs and dems on campaign trail was a soft target. What is interesting is how quickly the finger pointed to Russia. Russians are masters at espionage going back over half a century. They are better than the Chinese at hacking. if they want to get in and out they try to make sure they don't trip any alarms. They also think long term. As in trying to retain access to wherever in case something interesting comes up.

This hack with crumbs leading back to them means they wanted to be found. And for the american media to say look what russia did here is good for Putin. As you know he funds parties and entities all over the place. His aim is to destroy confidence in democracy.

I prefer this incident be dealt with behind closed doors with appropriate messages sent. having it out in the public good for transparency but does not do much for the larger problem which i doubt can be dealt with. More panama papers like leaks maybe. if the right people show up in the list then they have to defend themselves back home.

Definitely agree that the long-term goal is to undermine Western democracy, but don't see evidence Russia's doing a killer job here. Just seems like they are bumbling along, and if we found crumbs, it's because they aren't doing such a hot job.

The National Front sure isn't winning any elections in France and Trump pulled this one from the jaws of defeat.

[astralis]

for a quick change in topic from hacking.

joe, regarding your Messiah comment...

====

http://www.vox.com/science-and-healt...bamacare-trump


Why Obamacare enrollees voted for Trump

In Whitley County, Kentucky, the uninsured rate declined 60 percent under Obamacare. So why did 82 percent of voters there support Donald Trump?

Updated by Sarah [email protected] Dec 13, 2016, 8:10am EST


CORBIN, Ky. — Kathy Oller is so committed to her job signing up fellow Kentuckians for Obamacare that last Halloween, she dressed up as a cat, set up a booth at a trick-or-treat event, and urged people to get on the rolls. She’s enrolled so many people in the past three years that she long ago lost count.

“Must be somewhere in the thousands,” she said to me one morning at a local buffet restaurant where she’d just finished an enrollment event with the staff.

The health care law has helped lots of people in Whitley County, where Oller works. The uninsured rate has fallen from 25 percent in 2013 to 10 percent today, according to data from the nonprofit Enroll America. Overall, Kentucky is now tied with West Virginia for the biggest increase in health coverage.

But Obamacare’s success in Whitley County and across Kentucky hasn’t translated into political support for the law. In fact, 82 percent of Whitley voters supported Donald Trump in the presidential election, even though he promised to repeal it.

Oller voted for Trump too.

“I found with Trump, he says a lot of stuff,” she said. “I just think all politicians promise you everything and then we’ll see. It’s like when you get married — ‘Oh, honey, I won’t do this, oh, honey, I won’t do that.’”

I spent last week in southeastern Kentucky talking to Obamacare enrollees, all of whom supported Trump in the election, trying to understand how the health care law factored into their decisions.

Many expressed frustration that Obamacare plans cost way too much, that premiums and deductibles had spiraled out of control. And part of their anger was wrapped up in the idea that other people were getting even better, even cheaper benefits — and those other people did not deserve the help.

There was a persistent belief that Trump would fix these problems and make Obamacare work better. I kept hearing informed voters, who had watched the election closely, say they did hear the promise of repeal but simply felt Trump couldn’t repeal a law that had done so much good for them. In fact, some of the people I talked to hope that one of the more divisive pieces of the law — Medicaid expansion — might become even more robust, offering more of the working poor a chance at the same coverage the very poor receive.
Corbin, Ky. Byrd Pinkerton/Vox

The political reality in Washington, however, looks much different: Republicans are dead set on repealing the Affordable Care Act. The plans they have proposed so far would leave millions of people without insurance and make it harder for sicker, older Americans to access coverage. No version of a Republican plan would keep the Medicaid expansion as Obamacare envisions it.

The question is not whether Republicans will end coverage for millions. It is when they will do it. Oller’s three years of work could very much be undone over the next three years.

In southeastern Kentucky, that idea didn’t seem to penetrate at all — not to Oller, and not to the people she signed up for coverage.

“We all need it,” Oller told me when I asked about the fact that Trump and congressional Republicans had promised Obamacare repeal. “You can’t get rid of it.”
“I’m really having a problem with the people that don’t want to work”

Corbin is a small town in southeastern Kentucky, a place where cross-country truckers driving up and down I-75 will stop for the night. Its biggest tourist attraction is the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, which boasts an impressive collection of Harland Sanders memorabilia.
The first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant boasts an impressive collection of Harland Sanders memorabilia. The Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum is Corbin’s largest tourist attraction. Sarah Kliff/Vox
Corbin, Ky., main street. By early December, downtown Corbin was heavily decorated for Christmas. Sarah Kliff/Vox

Oller has traveled around Corbin enrolling residents in health care plans since the coverage expansion started in 2014. And lately, she says, she’s watched the plans get more and more expensive.

“I like being able to give people good news, but it’s not always good news with Healthcare.gov, with the amount that premiums went up and the larger deductibles,” she says.

Premiums for midrange plans increased 22 percent nationally this year. That is, however, before the premium subsidies, which 80 percent of marketplace enrollees use — and which significantly lower the cost of coverage.

Narrow networks have become a problem in the area too. When Oller hosted an enrollment event at a hospital, she had to warn the enrollees that they couldn’t use their insurance at that particular facility.

Oller renewed 59-year-old Ruby Atkins’s Obamacare coverage just after lunchtime on a Tuesday. Atkins and her husband received a $708 monthly tax credit, which would cover most of their premium. But they would still need to contribute $244 each month — and face a $6,000 deductible.

Atkins said she had insurance before the Affordable Care Act that was significantly more affordable, with $5 copays and no deductible at all. She said she paid only $200 or $300 each month without a subsidy.

The deductible left Atkins exasperated. “I am totally afraid to be sick,” she says. “I don’t have [that money] to pay upfront if I go to the hospital tomorrow.”

Atkins’s plan offers free preventive care, an Obamacare mandate. But she skips mammograms and colonoscopies because she doesn’t think she’d have the money to pay for any follow-up care if the doctors did detect something.

Atkins says she only buys insurance as financial protection — “to keep from losing my house if something major happened,” she says. “But I’m not using it to go to the doctor. I’ve not used anything.”
Kathy Oller and Ruby Atkins Oller assists Ruby Atkins with selecting a plan on Healthcare.gov. Atkins faces a $6,000 deductible and has become frustrated with the costs of coverage. Byrd Pinkerton/Vox

Atkins was mad because her costs felt overwhelmingly expensive. These are some of the most common frustrations with the Affordable Care Act. Surveys show that high deductibles are the top complaint; 47 percent of enrollees told the Kaiser Family Foundation they were dissatisfied with their deductible.

A study from the Commonwealth Fund earlier this year found that four in 10 adults on Affordable Care Act plans didn’t think they could afford to go to the doctor if they got sick. Fewer than half said it was easy to find an affordable plan.

But Atkins’s frustration isn’t just about the money she has to pay. She sees other people signing up for Medicaid, the health program for the poor that is arguably better coverage than she receives and almost free for enrollees. She is not eligible for Medicaid because her husband works, and the couple will earn about $42,000 next year.

Medicaid is reserved for people who earn less than 138 percent of the poverty line — about $22,000 for a couple like the Atkinses. Ruby understands the Medicaid expansion is also part of Obamacare, and she doesn’t think the system is fair.

“They can go to the emergency room for a headache,” she says. “They’re going to the doctor for pills, and that’s what they’re on.”

Atkins felt like this happened a lot to her: that she and her husband have worked most their lives but don’t seem to get nearly as much help as the poorer people she knows. She told a story about when she used to work as a school secretary: “They had a Christmas program. Some of the area programs would talk to teachers, and ask for a list of their poorest kids and get them clothes and toys and stuff. They’re not the ones who need help. They’re the ones getting the welfare and food stamps. I’m the one who is the working poor.”

Oller, the enrollment worker, expressed similar ideas the day we met.

“I really think Medicaid is good, but I’m really having a problem with the people that don’t want to work,” she said. “Us middle-class people are really, really upset about having to work constantly, and then these people are not responsible.”

Oller had told me earlier that she had enrolled on Medicaid for a few months, right before she started this job. She was taking some time off to care for her husband, who has cancer and was in chemotherapy treatment. I asked how she felt about enrolling in a program she sometimes criticizes.

“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I worked my whole life, so I know I paid into it. I just felt like it was a time that I needed it. That’s what the system is set up for.”
“I guess I thought that, you know, he would not do this”

Before I went to Kentucky, I did about half a dozen interviews with experts on why the state had voting so resoundingly for politicians who want to dismantle Obamacare.

I kept hearing the same theory over and over again: Kentuckians just did not understand that what they signed up for was part of Obamacare. If they had, certainly they would have voted to save the law.
Many Kentuckians don't know they are benefiting from Obamacare, which is called Enrollment counselor Michael Wynn wears a badge from Kynect, the state-based marketplace that Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican, dismantled this year. Byrd Pinkerton/Vox

Kentucky had been deliberate in trying to hide Obamacare’s role in its coverage expansion. The state built a marketplace called Kynect where consumers could shop for the law’s private plans, in part to obscure the fact that it had anything to do with the unpopular federal law.

“We wanted to get as far away from the word Obamacare as we could,” Steve Beshear, the former Kentucky governor who oversaw the effort, says. “Polls at the time in Kentucky showed that Obamacare was disapproved of by maybe 60 percent of the people.”

I heard from Obamacare enrollment counselors who had seen this confusion play out firsthand, too. “When we’re approaching people about getting signed up on health care, one of the first questions they have is, ‘Is this Obamacare?’” says Michael Wynn, one of Oller’s co-workers. “So we would tell them, ‘No, this is not Obamacare. This is a state-run plan.’”

This was a story I heard a lot, but it was not the one that fit the Obamacare enrollees I met. All but one knew full well that the coverage was part of Obamacare. They voted for Trump because they were concerned about other issues — and just couldn’t fathom the idea that this new coverage would be taken away from them.

“I guess I thought that, you know, he would not do this, he would not take health insurance away knowing it would affect so many peoples lives,” says Debbie Mills, an Obamacare enrollee who supported Trump. “I mean, what are you to do then if you cannot pay for insurance?”

Mills and her husband run a furniture store. They used to buy their own health insurance in the early 2000s, but the premiums became unaffordable, surpassing $1,200. They had gone without coverage for two years, paying cash for doctor visits, until the Affordable Care Act began.

“It’s made it affordable,” Mills says of Healthcare.gov. This year, she received generous tax credits and paid a $115 monthly premium for a plan that covered herself, her husband, and her 19-year-old son.

Earlier this year, Mills’s husband was diagnosed with non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. He is now on the waiting list for a liver transplant. Obamacare’s promise of health coverage, she says, has become absolutely vital in their lives.
Kathy Oller renewing Debbie Mills' Obamacare coverage. Oller enrolls Debbie Mills, 53, in coverage. Byrd Pinkerton/Vox

Her enrollment process wasn’t seamless; there were calls back and forth to different insurance companies and hospitals to make sure certain providers were in network. But she ultimately finished the process pretty happy, selecting a more robust plan for 2017 with a $280 monthly premium for herself, her husband, and her son.

As Mills waited to fill out the enrollment paperwork, we began to talk about her vote for Donald Trump one month earlier.

“We were wanting change,” she said. “We’re in an area with a lot of coal. When people aren’t in the coal mines, they’re not spending and buying in our area.” She said she thought Trump, a successful businessman, would have a better shot at fixing all that.

I asked her if she had followed the campaign and heard the candidates talk about repealing Obamacare. “I did, yeah,” she said. “That was the only thing I did not like about him.”

This was the conversation that followed, beginning with another question I asked:

Are you surprised how much Republicans are talking about repeal?

No.

Did you expect — do you think they'll do it, or do you think it'll be too hard?

I'm hoping that they don't, ’cause, I mean, what would they do then? Would this go away?

Yes, possibly.

The insurance?

It will go, if they repeal it. I mean, that's what they promised to do in so many elections.

Right ... so ... I don't know. ...

We spoke a good deal longer about the Affordable Care Act, and the possibility of repeal. Mills said she had gone into the voting booth confident that Republicans wouldn’t dismantle the law, despite their promises. How could they, when people like her had become so reliant on it?

Mills’s expectation that Trump would keep the Affordable Care Act, on the one hand, feel unrealistic: Of course Republicans would dismantle the law they spent six years campaigning against.

But it is also understandable: Legislators typically don’t dismantle large health coverage programs that serve millions. Since their creation in 1965, Medicare and Medicaid have certainly faced some opposition but never threats of outright repeal.

“I assumed it was impossible to repeal the ACA with 20 million people covered,” Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, recently tweeted. “I may have been wrong about that.”

Donald Trump, meanwhile, made promises during campaign interviews that sharply diverged from his actual campaign stances. He promised, "I am going to take care of everybody,” during an interview with 60 Minutes — even though his health plan would leave 21 million without coverage.

The day after talking to Mills, I started to think about a headline I wrote for Vox a few years ago.

It was right after the Supreme Court upheld the health law in the King v. Burwell decision. “Obamacare’s final test: it survived the Supreme Court, and is here to stay,” the headline read. I quoted experts who said that because Obamacare had so many enrollees, of course Republicans wouldn’t dare dismantle it. One leading Obamacare advocate promised that “the ACA is a permanent part of the American health care system."

We used the same logic that Mills did. We thought, of course you can’t take away a program that millions of Americans rely on.

I spent election night frantically reporting and calling sources, trying to understand what parts of Obamacare Republicans could and couldn’t dismantle. I didn’t know at the time, nor had I devoted the necessary time to learn, until election night.

Mills was wrong about what Republicans would do to Obamacare. But then again, I write about it for a living. And I was wrong too.
“It was Russian roulette, but I felt that we needed change”

The Kentucky voters I spoke with constantly mentioned “change” as a reason they supported Trump.

“That man has a head for business,” Atkins said. “He will absolutely do his best to change things.”

Still, Oller acknowledged she took a leap of faith with Trump.

“It was Russian roulette,” Oller said of her vote. “But I felt that we needed change.”
Many residents in this Kentucky county benefit from Obamacare and voted for Trump. Byrd Pinkerton/Vox

Trump will almost certainly bring change to Obamacare. Republicans are moving quickly on repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a new policy. The current proposals suggest that policy will be better for the young, rich, and healthy — but worse for the poor, sick, or old. The type of people I spoke with in Kentucky are those at risk of being disadvantaged by some of the replacement ideas.

Consider the case of Ruby Atkins, the 59-year-old who was frustrated with the cost of coverage under Obamacare.

The Republican plans might do some things that would be good for Atkins. They would likely stop requiring insurers to cover a specific set of benefits, like the preventive care that she doesn’t use. That would drive down her premiums, but wouldn’t get her any closer to better health care access.

And there are plenty of changes that make it more likely her premiums would go up.

Right now Atkins and her husband will receive $8,496 in subsidies toward their insurance premiums in 2017. Under the plan proposed by Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia Congress member whom Trump has selected to run the Health and Human Services Department, their subsidy would drop to $6,000.

Obamacare increases Atkins’s tax credit if her income goes down. But the Republican plans don’t do that. The Price plan, for example, gives everyone over the age of 50 — whether that is Ruby Atkins in Kentucky or Bill Gates out in Seattle — the exact same tax credit on the individual market.

Obamacare currently limits how much insurers can charge older patients like Ruby. It says that insurance companies can only charge its oldest patients three times as much as the youngest ones. But the Price plan would get rid of that requirement and let insurers charge older patients — who tend to need more health care — whatever they want.

Debbie Mills and I spoke for about an hour about Obamacare. By the end of the conversation, it had moved from me interviewing her to her asking a few questions about what might change and whether the coverage she would sign up for in a few minutes would still be valid.
Many residents of this Kentucky country benefit from Obamacare and voted for Trump. Byrd Pinkerton/Vox

I ended up reassuring Mills that nothing would change for her coverage in 2017, and likely not 2018 — but that wasn’t a guarantee. I didn’t know what would happen either.

Our interview began to make her a bit nervous.

“You’re scaring me now on the insurance part,” she said. “I’m afraid now that the insurance is going to go away and we’re going to be up a creek.”

[JRT]

...Oller acknowledged she took a leap of faith with Trump.

“It was Russian roulette,” Oller said of her vote. “But I felt that we needed change.”

.

Describing her vote for Trump as 'Russian Roulette' is an interesting turn of phrase.

[TopHatter]

for a quick change in topic from hacking.

joe, regarding your Messiah comment...

====

If by that you mean people are seeing Trump as some kind of Messiah, I've repeatedly stated that such people just as deluded as the idiots that swooned for Obama 8 years ago.

And speaking of the election results...this is from an op-ed that sums things up rather well

"A nation that is pleased with the status quo — a nation that feels prosperous, safe, and confident about the future — doesn’t choose to roll the dice with Donald Trump.

Millions of Americans who had voted for Democrats in the past felt forgotten, abandoned, mocked, and sneered at"