By mid-September, White House officials had decided it was time to take that step, but they worried that doing so unilaterally and without bipartisan congressional backing just weeks before the election would make Obama vulnerable to charges that he was using intelligence for political purposes.

Instead, officials devised a plan to seek bipartisan support from top lawmakers and set up a secret meeting with the Gang of 12 — a group that includes House and Senate leaders, as well as the chairmen and ranking members of both chambers’ committees on intelligence and homeland security.

Obama dispatched Monaco, FBI Director James B. Comey and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to make the pitch for a “show of solidarity and bipartisan unity” against Russian interference in the election, according to a senior administration official.

Specifically, the White House wanted congressional leaders to sign off on a bipartisan statement urging state and local officials to take federal help in protecting their voting-registration and balloting machines from Russian cyber-intrusions.

Though U.S. intelligence agencies were skeptical that hackers would be able to manipulate the election results in a systematic way, the White House feared that Russia would attempt to do so, sowing doubt about the fundamental mechanisms of democracy and potentially forcing a more dangerous confrontation between Washington and Moscow.

In a secure room in the Capitol used for briefings involving classified information, administration officials broadly laid out the evidence U.S. spy agencies had collected, showing Russia’s role in cyber-intrusions in at least two states and in hacking the emails of the Democratic organizations and individuals.

And they made a case for a united, bipartisan front in response to what one official described as “the threat posed by unprecedented meddling by a foreign power in our election process.”


The Democratic leaders in the room unanimously agreed on the need to take the threat seriously. Republicans, however, were divided, with at least two GOP lawmakers reluctant to accede to the White House requests.

According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.

Some of the Republicans in the briefing also seemed opposed to the idea of going public with such explosive allegations in the final stages of an election, a move that they argued would only rattle public confidence and play into Moscow’s hands.

McConnell’s office did not respond to a request for comment. After the election, Trump chose McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, as his nominee for transportation secretary.

The Penn State research, the first comprehensive analysis of the link between regional deaths and November voting patterns, used county-level mortality rates from 2006 to 2014 from the CDC.

Prof. Monnat found that nationwide, Mr. Trump performed better than Mr. Romney in counties with the highest drug, alcohol and suicide mortality. Rates of mortality from these three causes has increased in every state since 1999. But in the six states that flipped from Mr. Obama in 2012 to Mr. Trump this year, the increases were larger than those in states where Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton performed the best, Prof. Monnat found.

PSUsarge wrote:SIAP but thought this was interesting:

The Penn State research, the first comprehensive analysis of the link between regional deaths and November voting patterns, used county-level mortality rates from 2006 to 2014 from the CDC.

Prof. Monnat found that nationwide, Mr. Trump performed better than Mr. Romney in counties with the highest drug, alcohol and suicide mortality. Rates of mortality from these three causes has increased in every state since 1999. But in the six states that flipped from Mr. Obama in 2012 to Mr. Trump this year, the increases were larger than those in states where Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton performed the best, Prof. Monnat found.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/opioid-epidemic-is-an-immediate-test-for-donald-trumps-administration-1481309696

JFLNYC wrote:NSFW (Language)

The American Dream

Bucky wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:NSFW (Language)

The American Dream

I find it strange how I see this linked by people from both sides.

even stranger is the electoral college one the both sides are talking about. The liberals are saying that the electoral college was designed to save us from someone like trump. The trumpies are saying the EC worked as intended and saved us from Hillary.

pacino wrote:That's not just trump voters, I see plenty of leftists almost gleefully talking about Michigan and Wisconsin GOTV efforts, as though that fucking matters at this point when we're talking about an attack on our system. Also, you can't trust the deep state ever so this might all be fake.

Warszawa wrote:not that i recommend it, but if you want to know how trump voters think just read the comments on any philly.com politics article. On the latest russian story the comments are mostly pro-trump and anti-WaPo, with lots of references to hillary's emails

@ajjaffe
Whoa—chant of "lock her up!" from the crowd, Trump replies: "That plays great before the election – now we don’t care"