Hacker News Reader

Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

There is precisely zero evidence the DNC primaries were rigged in the Wikileaks DNC content.

Except for a few people who had to quit their jobs and clear favoritism from the DNC chief which is supposed to be neutral:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Commi...

Which is, again, not evidence that anything got rigged.

The RNC had a similar anti-Trump preference. There's similarly no evidence they rigged anything against him.

It is disappointing to see simple statements of facts down voted.

I wouldn't get too hung up on it. I've found, on HN, downvote abuse usually gets reversed over time.

Agreed. Looks like it already has.

There is proof that the RNC did not rig the elections against Trump, he won. That's impossible if it was rigged.

While there may not be proof that the DNC rigged it against Sanders, that doesn't prove it wasn't rigged. It only proves that no evidence has come to light that it was rigged.

> That's impossible if it was rigged.

That's simply false. The accusations against the DNC of "rigging" primarily revolve around bias (revealed in the email dumps), not actual electoral fraud. The RNC was almost certainly biased in a similar (likely more intense) manner against Trump.

It's also entirely possible to rig an election unsuccessfully.

>There is proof that the RNC did not rig the elections against Trump, he won. That's impossible if it was rigged.

And yet Trump has accused the RNC process of being rigged many times. Strange how the current narrative seems to be that only the DNC is exceptionally corrupt, to the point of rigging an election, and possibly having Seth Rich killed as if the Democratic party was literally a crime syndicate.

There really isn't proof of anything, either way, other than "rigged elections" being the current political accusation du jour.

>It only proves that no evidence has come to light that it was rigged.

That is all that anyone is really arguing here, contrary to this assertion:

>..just when Wikileaks released info that the DNC primaries were rigged

Did the DNC favor one candidate over another in any way?

They had a clear preference, just like the RNC preferred a non-Trump candidate. Imagine what you'd read about Trump in their emails.

That's not evidence of election rigging.

It was not just preference, they interfered with the media to change their peaces on Clinton. It's not just opinions here, they acted on them.

The context of the "interference" is that people affiliated with the Sanders campaign were accusing them of rigging the Nevada primary, which very obviously did not happen.

It's very reasonable for the DNC to work with the media to defend itself against nonsense allegations.

This is false, and your "correcting the record" is only spreading mistruths.

This e-mail in particular is clear discussion of acting on promoting a narrative (i.e. shopping it to news organizations) to discredit Bernie's campaign: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/11056

I'm sure you'll find a way to explain that away though.

This email is dated May 21, just 2 weeks before AP called the primary for Clinton. It was pretty clear by that point to everyone that Clinton would win the primary.

I'm not surprised to see DNC discussing narratives for the point when the primary is over.

This is no evidence that the primary was rigged.

Bernie had not conceded and the DNC still was obligated to be neutral. And yet, they were not.

So strange that they forgot to mention to shop this story around after the primary. How did you pick up on this intent of theirs without them saying it?

I feel like I'm just a curious bystander here - I haven't read much about the emails, nor looked at any of them individually until clicking on your link, so I really haven't formed an opinion on how noxious they are - but I don't see the smoking gun you seem to see in that email... Could you provide some more perspective on the issue, for those of us who are new to this debate?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/24/he...

The religion, "Bernie's campaign is disorganized" talking points, and Hillary Victory Fund e-mails are the most odious in my opinion.

This is a weak talking point. The DNC has in its charter that it must be neutral. What the RNC may have thought of Trump is irrelevant. Anyway, you really want to be playing moral limbo with the RNC right now? That is where the moral high ground is?

As others mentioned, there was coordination on talking points as well to discredit his campaign.

The DNC also has in its charter that they must work to get Democratic candidates elected and work towards getting the ideals of the Democratic Party implemented.

Sanders didn't lose because the DNC said mean things in their internal email system. He likely lost because he never made much of a dent in the heavily black Democratic voting population in the South.

Did I say anything about why he lost? In fact most of these e-mails released so far occurred after he had little chance of winning. Nope, pure distraction in an attempt to deflect from my points.

Also see: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/11056

I'm sure you'll be back to "correct the record"!

> In fact most of these e-mails released so far occurred after he had little chance of winning.

That would seem to deflate your point a bit. Surely the DNC isn't violating its neutrality promise if the candidate has effectively been already chosen?

> I'm sure you'll be back to "correct the record"!

I've seen this thrown around several times in this thread. Is it an accusation I'm being paid by the Hillary campaign? If so, LOL.

Not at all. They are to remain neutral as long as they claimed they were. Sanders was still an active candidate through the DC primary, and he actively contested the California primary.

The candidate had not been chosen, but the DNC lackeys (edit: sorry, top officials) were coordinating media coverage against him.

Accidentally downvoted you on mobile, apologies.

For the record, there's a new "undown" button for when that happens.

Take a look at the evidence. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-23/leaked-dnc-emails-c...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge

> The site was described by CNNMoney as offering a "deeply conspiratorial, anti-establishment and pessimistic view of the world." Financial journalists Felix Salmon and Justin Fox have characterized the site as conspiratorial. Fox described Ivandjiiski as "a wonderfully persistent investigative reporter" and credited him for successfully turning high-frequency trading "into a big political issue," but also termed most of the writing on the website as "half-baked hooey," albeit with some "truth to be gleaned from it." Tim Worstall described the site as a source of hysteria and occasionally misleading information.

> Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman describes Zero Hedge as a scaremongering outlet that promotes fears of hyperinflation and an "obviously ridiculous" form of "monetary permahawkery." Krugman notes that Bill McBride of Calculated Risk, an economics blog, has treated Zero Hedge with "appropriate contempt."

> Lokey, a former paid Zero Hedge writer who left the website in 2016 over disagreements in editorial direction, characterizes the site's political content as "disingenuous," summarizing its political stances as "Russia=good. Obama=idiot. Bashar al-Assad=benevolent leader. John Kerry=dunce. Vladimir Putin=greatest leader in the history of statecraft."

You'll excuse me wanting a slightly better source.

Zero Hedge clearly has a pro-Russia bias just like CNN has a pro-US bias. Doesn't mean you should ignore everything CNN or zerohedge say. Every once in a while, cnn and zerohedge publish interesting stuff, just keep in mind their bias while reading them.

> like CNN has a pro-US bias

Only if you believe it is pro-US to abolish the right to bear arms, the right to free speech (hate speech laws) and to impose Socialism on US citizens.

This is precisely highlighting the point from the parent comment. Is ZeroHedge an untrustworthy source? Heck yes it is! The problem is so is CNN, MSNBC, NYT, and Fox. Nearly every traditional American news source is now viewed as untrustworthy by a very large amount of people.

You can argue with me on it, but what matters is that MANY people now believe this, for example nearly all Trump supporters (and there's a lot of them).

In my opinion, this is the single biggest issue in our new political climate. There is a large, and growing base of people who no longer trust either politicians or the media reporting on them. Conspiracy theories flourish in environments like this, and when enough people believe conspiracy theories are true... sometimes they take actions.

I guess the 'problem' is the internet. Without the internet people would be blissfully ignorant of how the media works.

These things have been happening for a long time. Businesses, governments and other entities all have the ability to manipulate the media. I view it as a power struggle that sometimes bubbles up in public.

Oh, and social media is a part of it. Just it's slightly more difficult to control without people noticing.

Zerohedge is just the inverse of the New York Times.

>Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

You'll excuse me wanting a slightly better source.

Good thing there are five others in the section I quoted alone.

Did not want to repeat myself. :-)

Every source is biased. It is up to the reader to understand the biases, read from differently-biased sources and then make up his/her minds.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com