Maybe Repubs are quiet because they've used the Russians to cheat for years

[Freelancer]

This combination of domestic micro targeting of districts coupled with deployment of Russian/Eastern European internet "bots" may have been going on for a while. Perhaps that's why the Republicans are so quiet about Trump and the Russians -- they just want it to go away before the party is outed for the same thing.

Thoughts?

[dalton99a]

1. They've been worshipping Putin for years

I wouldn't doubt it

[Girard442]

2. Is it me or has there been a bunch of "upsets" by slender margins?

Could that be a tell for a certain kind of vote fraud?

[Freelancer]

6. Exactly! -nt

[Voltaire2]

3. nah this is new levels of R-depravity. We are in uncharted territory.

They are quiet because they don't have a clue what to do. On the one hand it is now clear that the election was a fraud, that their president colluded with a foreign government to screw with the election system and received material aid, some of it ill gotten goods from this same foreign power. On the other hand they have been having wet dreams over capturing all three branches of the federal government, and now they are there. If they do the right thing and remove Trump from office, they will likely suffer a political disaster in 2018, but if they don't do the right thing that political disaster may occur anyway and we have a president who is effectively a puppet of an adversarial foreign power.

[Freelancer]

7. I think that's a big part of it, but...

I once heard a funny observation about the Right's criticism on TV of Barack years ago. I think it was Olberman that said "first they they say he is feckless, then they turn around and make him out to be an evil genius. You can't be both" [paraphrased].

Well, in the Repub case, I think you do have both. You have feckless, clueless candidates in front, and a single-minded privately funded right wing election machine in back that is crunching numbers and strategizing -- searching relentlessly for ways to stretch the Republican electoral minority and shrink the Democratic majority just enough to win. They are desperate, since the demographic changes are killing them. Even ugly tools are being wielded now. For the win-at-any-cost back room Republicans, the only issue that would matter when it came to cheating and colluding with foreign hackers is whether or not it would work.

[roamer65]

4. I think they have been taking Russian mob money for years.

Why else would would Mueller have so many anti-money laundering folks on his staff?

[Sancho]

5. Some of the GOP has been getting $s for years, and they used Russia down ticket.

If they go after the Russians, it would be suicide.

Most will distance themselves from tRump as much as possible.

[Wounded Bear]

8. Immediately after Citizens United...

there was a push in Congress to pass a bill that required all PACs to reveal their sources. The Repubs killed it.

Secret money...who's to say it isn't Russian money if we can't trace it? Truth has truly become stranger than fiction. Tom Clancy couldn't dream up this shit.