I'm still scratching my head over all the time, effort and money being spent to determine whether the Russians 'meddled' or interfered with the 2016 presidential election that sent Donald Trump to the White House.
Sure they did. But we do the same thing. We stick our noses in elections and politics all across the planet Earth. We've tried to influence elections and in some circumstances we've dropped bombs when we think the politics of another country are detrimental to us. Why should anybody be surprised that Russia had a stake in our presidential election?
Here's the problem I have. I've seen no evidence, not even a hint, that the Russians hacked into our computer system to change votes. I've seen no evidence that if Joe Thomas went to the polls and voted for Hillary Clinton that it was recorded as a vote for Donald Trump.
I read a story a week ago that stated “Starting in March, 2016, Russian military intelligence hackers covertly targeted over 300 people affiliated with Hillary Clinton's campaign and two other Democratic political organizations as part of a wide-ranging conspiracy to steal documents and emails and then release the materials through cutouts (not sure what cutouts means) in order to disrupt the American presidential election, according to a major new indictment brought by special counsel Robert Muller that was released Friday.”
Trump is catching a little heat for not calling the Russians out in his recent talks with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and drill him on the Russians trying to influence a United States election.
I've read a lot of stories about hacked emails from Clinton and the Democratic National Committee and 'cyberattacks' into other organizations and congressional races.
I read where a federal grand jury returned indictments against 12 Russians for meddling in the presidential campaign.
Let's start here. If you don't want sensitive information to leak out, stay off the cell phone and the Internet. I don't care how secure you think what you are sending is, it's not. With today's technology if you say it over a cell phone, if you type it in an email or post it on any social media site, there's somebody out there who can get that information.
Back when cell phones first became popular, I remember hearing a conversation from a man and his wife over the intercom at Piggly Wiggly in Century. Luckily, the wife was simply trying to modify the shopping list.
I remember I was told then that if you weren't willing to see it printed on the front page of a newspaper, you better not say anything over the cell phone that you weren't willing to let everybody else hear. It was during that time when I'd have a law enforcement officer call me on my cell phone and tell me to either call him on a pay phone or get to a landline because he wasn't going to say what he wanted to tell me over a cell phone.
I've also yet to hear that anything those so-call hacks against Clinton released false information. All I hear is that somebody, probably the Russians, intercepted those messages and put them out for public view. Why is anybody surprised?
We seem to be so concerned about other countries getting into our election process, but at the same time the people of the United States could apparently care less about our elections because most of the people stay home and don't vote. Why are we worried about the Russians when we had a Republican runoff on the ballot in Alabama Tuesday and 12.62 percent of the voters across the state voted and only 7.24 percent turned out in Escambia County? If we don't care, why should we care if Russia does? At least somebody cares about our elections because we sure don't.
From what I can gather people are upset because someone posted true statements and emails about a candidate running for President of the United States. Let's say for a second they were posting false statements about candidates; would that change the debate?
Where do you get your news or information about political candidates? If you are relying on social media, which has basically no safeguards, and you swallow it hook-line-and-sinker, you are to blame as well. If I write it and you think it's false or misleading you know how to get in touch with me to voice your disapproval.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard the statement 'I saw it on Facebook'. Big deal. I could post on Facebook that I saw Big Foot eating breakfast at Hardee's in Flomaton and somebody would believe it.
If Russia meddled in our election, they did so by posting things on social media. We are held to a higher standard and I'll be glad when the day comes that website hosts are held to the same standard. You read a political ad in the Tri-City Ledger or any other newspaper and it will tell you who paid for the ad. That's not the case with all these anonymous posts I see popping up on social media sites and blogs. That's why I don't allow anonymous letters to the editor; if you have something to say have the guts to put your name behind it.
Seems like the Russians care more about American politics than Americans do.
