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Russian Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (theguardian.com)
bestweasel writes: The Guardian reports on another story about Russian meddling, but interestingly, this one comes from a respected Russian news source, the RBC. From the report: "Russian trolls posing as Americans made payments to genuine activists in the U.S. to help fund protest movements on socially divisive issues. On Tuesday, the newspaper RBC published a major investigation into the work of a so-called Russian 'troll factory' since 2015, including during the period of the U.S. election campaign, disclosures that are likely to put further spotlight on alleged Russian meddling in the election. RBC said it had identified 118 accounts or groups in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that were linked to the troll factory, all of which had been blocked in August and September this year as part of the U.S. investigation into Russian electoral meddling. Perhaps the most alarming element of the article was the claim that employees of the troll factory had contacted about 100 real U.S.-based activists to help with the organization of protests and events. RBC claimed the activists were contacted by Facebook group administrators hiding their Russian origin and were offered financial help to pay for transport or printing costs. About $80,000 was spent during a two-year period, according to the report."
That's less than a 30 second TV advertisement for HOURS of news coverage.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
These are the 2 big stories regarding Russia today, and explains a lot of what went down, and the concentrated effort (and we do know it was a Clinton campaign effort thanks to wikileaks) to link Trump to Russia during the campaign in order to take the heat off herself.
http://thehill.com/policy/nati...
http://www.newsweek.com/james-...
It's Comey and the Obama DOJ that needs to be investigated for obstruction of justice.
folks really hate phony protestors. What made all this work so well is that Russia didn't get caught during the election. If they had Hilary would probably be president, especially if we got it as an October surprise instead of Comey reopening the investigation just long enough to help throw the election Trump's way.
Not that Hilary is a spring chicken herself but it took a fundamental breakdown over just about everything to make a guy who used to be a Simpson's joke our actual president.
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Why are we even talking about a couple of Facebook ads when today's breaking news is the Obama administration was investigating Russian infiltration of the US nuclear material transport trucking company in 2009, by none other than Mueller of the FBI. It eventually led to corruption, money laundering, kickbacks and extortion charges. Yet somehow at the same time, a $500k speaking fee to Bill Clinton and $145mil being donated to the Clinton Foundation, with Hillary Clinton as sec of state let the same Russian group by Uranium One and 20% of the US uranium supply. Obama himself said that there was nothing to be concerned about, but we know now the investigation was blocked by none other than Comey, and Dept of Justice Holder And the Russian involved had a plea deal and covered it up in 2014.
As in you cannot actually buy much for 80k. Kind of shows this whole thing is pretty much smoke with no fire. if it were 80mil then it might be worth making the news. Politicians spill more than that if they sneeze.
No paid activists are genuine.
I've never heard of a right-wing protest before.
Sorry that's true.
Not that Hilary is a spring chicken herself but it took a fundamental breakdown over just about everything to make a guy who used to be a Simpson's joke our actual president.
Here's a joke for you:
Q: How many reasons does Hillary have for not winning the election?
A: 43
That's just the amount of cash handed over to (presumed) genuine American activists.
It doesn't include the wages and expenses for all the trolls who took part in this exercise, much less the researchers and strategists who planned it, or any of the other operating expenses. The total value of the campaign may well have run to hundreds of millions.
It is absurd that RBC, which is now run by Putin loyalist and tabloid owner Grigory Berezkin, is being described as "a respected Russian news source". RBC USED to be a respected news source, until early 2016 when their reporting on government corruption got their leadership forcibly ousted and replaced with people that would play nice with the administration. There's probably some true information mixed into this story along with the falsehoods because that's how Russian intelligence generally operates, but to present what is straight-up Russian government-backed propaganda as journalism is, at very best, negligent to the point of maliciousness.
I quit reading when I got to the "respected Russian news source"
Because after a year of the nothing burger investigation of Trump we now finally know mueller has been looking in the wrong place and almost certainly knew it.
But a some protestors have always been paid. This is nothing new.
Is that anyone gives a crap about this.
Why are we even talking about a couple of Facebook ads when today's breaking news is the Obama administration was investigating Russian infiltration of the US nuclear material transport trucking company in 2009, by none other than Mueller of the FBI. It eventually led to corruption, money laundering, kickbacks and extortion charges. Yet somehow at the same time, a $500k speaking fee to Bill Clinton and $145mil being donated to the Clinton Foundation, with Hillary Clinton as sec of state let the same Russian group by Uranium One and 20% of the US uranium supply. Obama himself said that there was nothing to be concerned about, but we know now the investigation was blocked by none other than Comey, and Dept of Justice Holder And the Russian involved had a plea deal and covered it up in 2014.
Dearie, don't you understand? Laws are for little people.
James Comey can admit to leaking, and gets to write a book about it.
Reality Winner can admit to leaking, and gets to sit in prison, denied bail.
Facts do not matter to the crowd that supports Donald J Drumpf and never did.
Facts do not matter to the crowd that supports Hillary R Clinton and never did.
FTFY
Some of them *did* learn. Ever heard of President Trump?
Do you have ESP?
Before the Election
Dec. 10, 2015
Lt. Gen Michael Flynn is part of a panel discussion in Moscow for the 10th anniversary of government-backed Russia Today, for which he receives payment (The Washington Post, Aug. 15, 2016). Officials notice an increase in communication between Flynn and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, following the Russia Today event (CNN, May 19, 2017).
Late 2015
British intelligence agencies detect suspicious interactions between Russia and Trump aides that they pass on to American intelligence agencies (The Guardian, April 13, 2017).
March 19, 2016
Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta is sent an email that encourages him to change his email password, likely precipitating the hack of his account (CBS News, Oct. 28, 2016).
March 21
During an interview with The Post, Trump lists Carter Page as part of his foreign policy team. Page had been recommended by a son-in-law of President Richard Nixon, New York Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox (WP, March 21, 2016).
March 28
Political veteran Paul Manafort is hired to help the Trump campaign manage the delegate process for the Republican National Convention. He is recommended by Trump confidante Roger Stone (New York Times, March 28, 2016). Before joining the campaign, Manafort lobbied on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. That deal followed a memo from Manafort in which he offered a plan that could "greatly benefit the Putin Government." His relationship with Deripaska ended in 2009 (Associated Press, March 22, 2017). Manafort also worked on behalf of the Russia-friendly Party of Regions in Ukraine, helping guide the party's leader, Viktor Yanukovych, to the country's presidency. Yanukovych would later be ousted. (WP, Aug. 19, 2016)
April 27
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) may have met with Kislyak at a reception at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington before a foreign-policy speech given by Trump (CNN, May 31, 2017).
June
At a closed-door meeting of foreign policy experts and the prime minister of India, Page praises Putin effusively (WP, Aug. 5, 2016).
June 9
Donald Trump, Jr., Manafort and son-in-law Jared Kushner meet at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected attorney named Natalia Veselnitskaya. Veselnitskaya's efforts to reverse a law passed in 2012 sanctioning Russians suspected of human rights violations at some point drew the attention of the FBI. The meeting was not initially reported to the government by Kushner as required when he took a position with the administration (Times, July 8, 2017). After the meeting was originally reported, Trump, Jr. admitted that the pretext for the conversation was that he believed Veselnitskaya to have information incriminating Hillary Clinton (Times, July 9, 2017).
June 15
A hacker calling himself "Guccifer 2.0" releases the Democratic National Committee's research file on Donald Trump (Gawker, June 15, 2016). News reports already link the stolen data to Russian hackers (WP, June 14, 2016).
July
At some point this month, the FBI begins investigating possible links between the Russian government and Trump's campaign (Wired, March 20, 2017).
July 7
Page travels to Moscow to give a lecture (NYT, April 19, 2017). The Trump campaign approved the trip (USA Today, March 7, 2017). This trip was likely the catalyst for the FBI's request for a secret surveillance warrant to track PageÃs communications (WP, May 25, 2017).
July 11 or 12
Trump campaign staffers intervene with the committee developing the Republican Party's national security platform to remove language call arming Ukraine against Russian aggression. (July 18, 2016).
July 18
At an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation as part of the Republican National Convention, Sessions and Kislyak have a brief conversation (WP, March 2, 2017).
Flynn delivers a speech at the Republican convention, joining in the crowd's "Lock her up!" chant. "If I, a guy who knows this business, if I
These Russians supported groups that Hillary supported - you're out of touch, faggot.
Why are we even talking about a couple of Facebook ads when today's breaking news is the Obama administration was investigating Russian infiltration of the US nuclear material transport trucking company in 2009, by none other than Mueller of the FBI.
Fascinating to watch the Slashdot moderation system in action.
As I post this, there are three topically relevant and accurate stories modded down to 0 or -1. The one above this one reads "0 interesting", the "interesting" tag gets added for an upvote.
This one (and the others) are perfectly legitimate: Both news stories are in the current news cycle, and are largely what the writers say they are. (Clinton Uranium deal investigated by the FBI, and Comey wrote the Hillary conclusion months before interviewing Hillary.)
I have faith that the number of people with integrity far outweigh the trolls on this board.
We're the smart people in the room, the ones that others *should* look up to.
If we can't abide the truth, then we're no different from the media talking heads.
So that's why Hillary called me a irredeemable deplorable. She was paid by Russians. There was never any real divisiveness in the US... just some paid trolls.
Glad we got that cleared up.
Hillary wasn't involved in approving that deal, and it was approved by the normal channels according to all applicable laws and regulations.
That's why you only have innuendo about Hillary while Donald Trump commits treason in public, on television, and in a lengthy paper trail.
And how convenient that your little story throws Comey under the bus, but doesn't actually allege any misconduct... Wonder if that's because Donald Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice on top of treason..
Wait. What? Let me get this straight.
Some foreign trolling firm spends hundreds of millions of dollars researching exactly which activists can be bought to protest, pays them $80k, and gets free protesting?
Does that even make any sense?
At least Soros pays his protesters direct, jeez. These Russians are amateurs in comparison.
Ask yourself, is what I'm hearing designed to unite or divide? You then have your answer to who the real enemy is.
Russia paying money to leftist and progressive groups in the US in order to create dissent and foment violence has been going on for more than half a century, as has their placement of operatives in Washington. That makes Democratic complaints about supposed Trump-Russia ties so ludicrous.
In other news, turns out there is more to the Russia-Clinton-Uranium story.
I've always wondered what the point of protests are. Unless something dramatic happens (e.g., someone getting killed), no one remembers the protest a week later. Its as if it never happened. If the point of protests is to get people on their side, that often backfires. Where I live there were a lot of protests after Trump was elected. They would block roads and highways at rush hour which made everyone's commutes longer. That didn't exactly engender sympathy towards their cause. If that point is to get the powers that be to change their mind - that is incredibly naive. Only money/lobbyists and possibly a threat to their reelection can do that.
But, now I have my answer! Like so many things in life, the answer is to follow the money. The Russians were funding the protests. It all makes sense now.
This is nothing new. Russia has had a habit of starting politically-motivated dissent and riots in other countries since the 1920s. They're not interested in who wins. They just want to cause chaos and to control whoever is left standing.
Ask yourself, should I ignore Russia's ongoing attack on my country or should I pay attention to what's happening?
Only a fool stops to demand to somehow "unite" with the truth. Reality is reality. It doesn't matter if it unites us to recognize reality.
The reality is that we are under attack by Russian cyber operations right now. They are even targeting Slashdot and local news papers with misinformation from sock puppets.
Only a fool blindfolds himself for the adversary who is attacking him.
Divisive issues hurt sniveling progressives. Any time / place / method you azzfuck a progressive you do the American yeomans work. So with the Russian political cadres; if they will divide for free ... trashing progressive SJW left & right then I'd add them to the list of allies. Lots better results than Neolith, bling-fest sports nibbers and rapist Hollywood juubeez.
The Russians were funding the protests. It all makes sense now.
I don't think people have quite realized the impact this new revelation has.
True or false, big [effect] or little, this revelation will taint all future protests.
The protests have just lost a fuckton of credibility, because now this will be raised as the reason people are protesting.
For all future protests.
And some previous protestors will come to examine their beliefs, saying "did I really believe that, or was I egged on"?
Future protests will be painted "fruit of the poison tree" with this new revelation.
Ah yes, those Fox News "reports".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You support a hostile foreign adversary's attack on your country because you are a fucking traitor like Moscow Donald.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which then-SecState Hillary Clinton served upon, does NOT actually "approve" such deals. It was setup by politicians in DC who all imagine someday serving on such boards and committees and thus alwasy structure them for maximum avoidance of accountability. As a result, the way the panel actually works is that a deal will go through UNLESS THE COMMITTEE BLOCKS IT. This means that with a shady deal like Uranium One, it was Hillary's duty to vote to block the deal and to do the corrupt thing all she had to do was NOT VOTE to stop it.... which is EXACTLY what she did AFTER she and her husband collected millions of dollars from Russia.
Now Hillary and her drone-like supporters run around saying she did nothing wrong because she took no action related to the deal... but taking no action was the actual corrupt enabling step needed to allow the deal her husband Bill's Russian paymasters wanted.
Bill Clinton actually gave speeches in Russia for money around the time of the deal, and at highly-inflated rates.
Bill and Hillary also watched money flow into their foundations (the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation) from Russia at the time WHILE SHE WAS SECSTATE AND WAS OVERSEEING RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA. Her pal John Podesta (whose e-mails got hacked) was also in partnership with his brother in "The Podesta Group" which was a registered foreign agent for Putin's Banker buddies (READ THE PANAMA PAPERS).
The Clintons and their circle of friends have enourmous and well-documented financial ties to Russia but they have everybody distracted by the continual drumbeat of accusations of some nebulous "collusion" between Russia and Trump for with there is ZERO documented evidence after over a year of looking by every Trump enemy in Washington DC in BOTH parties and numerous federal agencies. Hell even Larry Flynt has offered $10 Million for evidence that would bring Trump down and that prize remains unclaimed. At this point, it's becoming increasingly clear that Trump, as tacky and annoying as he may well be, might just be the most squeaky-clean politician to operate in DC in decades.
What, they outbid Israel?
Table-ized A.I.
Hillary wasn't involved in the approval process at all, either approving or denying.
Your claims are absurd on their face, and are an obvious attempt at directing attention away from Donald Trump's treasonous collusion with Russia's ongoing attack on our country.
the Russian "Uranium One" deal with the Clintons.
Now that some of the documents are out and we can see that Mueller was an agent in the transfer of a sample of Uranium for purity testing as part of the deal, and that the deal provided a bunch of cash for the Clintons, making Mueller a partner with Hillary in a Russia deal that was contrary to the national security interests of the USA, it's starting to make mnore sense that Mueller has hired a bunch of Hillary-supporter-and-funder Democrat attourneys for his team that is out to get Trump. The guy has a massive conflict of interest and might be a subject of prosecution of the current administration if he cannot take them down first. It might well be that Mueller's investigation is the actual obstruction of justice and that it's being boldly done right before our eyes as we are being told to look away.
Where is your ACTUAL EVIDENCE for the line "traitors like Moscow Donald"????
The Democrats have flailed about wildly and all thier mouthpieces on the networks have ranted about something they call "collusion" (without ever actually detailing precisely WHAT they mean). Even if some sort of "collusion" had occurred, it would not (as long-time liberal hero lawyer Alan Derschowitz has pointed out) be illegal. There has not yet after an entire year of screaming been a single solitary FACT brought forth by the out-of-their-minds-with-venom Trump haters. None of the swamp creatures in government who have been willing to leak anything and everything from within government has managed to leak ANYTHING showing collusion. None of the Democrats in the congress has managed to produce ANYTHING. The NY Times and WaPo have had entire teams of journalists working the issue (and completely ignoring Obama illeagally flying pallets of unmarked cash to Iran, Hillary's involvement with Russia on uranium, etc) and yet they too have come up with NOTHING of substance on Trump and Putin.
Where's the FACTS that support your fantasticisms and fevered imaginings?
Have you stopped molesting kids yet?
See how baseless attacks like yours operate?
We USED to agree that baseless attacks on patriotism (AKA McCarthyism) were a BAD THING, but now they seemto be the only arrow in the leftist quiver.
it's the name of a movement. Like "Anonymous". She supported the movement and what it stood for (e.g. calling out that violence against blacks as more acceptable than against other groups). I have no idea what "Blacktivist" is. It sounds like something silly somebody made up while talking aboug BLM.
Are you one of them thar Russians trying to rile us all up? If not you should consider applying. That's some mighty fine concern trolling you've got going on there.
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This whole hoopla about Russia meddling in the USA election is really a reflection upon how callow most Americans are.
The USA has interfered with election all around the world for decades or longer, and even took credit for interfering with elections to facilitate Boris Yeltsin's rise to power.
When Yeltsin won, the cover of Time magazine was “Yanks to the rescue: The secret story of how American advisers helped Yeltsin win”.
So to be outraged by Russia's actions belies their ignorant, self righteous hypocrisy.
Maybe if you posted a picture of your conspiracy bulletin board it would shed some light.
Great idea, here is a video explaining Donald Trump's collusion with Russia's ongoing attack on our country in the form of a detailed bulletin board.
Let me know if this helps
I have zero sympathy for Americans considering they've been doing this kind of thing for decades in Russia, and elsewhere. About time they got a taste of their own medicine, if this has ANY truth to it at all considering all the fake news the US media has been pumping out lately.
Here's the reasons (most to least):
1. Arrogance. She didn't think she had to campaign in the swing states. She actually believed in that "blue firewall" nonsense.
2. Trump's billions of dollars in free media coverage. Nobody in the press would denounce him because they were getting too many hits.
3. Russia. Russia. Russia. (insert Brady Bunch joke here). We had an ex-KGB pro with the full backing of his nation throw his hat in the ring for Trump.
4. Her health. She really was too old for this shit.
5. 30 years of bad press. Not just the emails. Everything. The Republicans knew she was going to run for president at some point. They have a multi-billion dollar media machine dedicated to their cause (Fox, Beitbart, all of Koch media, etc, etc). They've been hammering away at her since her husband left office.
6. TPP. Crap deal for everyone except the ruling class. In an election about jobs that hurt a lot.
7. Warmongering. In an effort to show everyone that a woman could be "strong" she went around the world pissing off our allies. A lot of folks figured she'd get us in a war. Meanwhile Trump was saying he wouldn't do that. Jokes on them, he's already got us on the brink of two new wars (to add to the 7 we're already fighting, look it up).
That's about it. Folks mostly agreed with her on everything except the TPP because most Americans are genuinely conservative. e.g. they don't want much change except maybe some more help from the government (for them only of course, not those lazy Blacks^X Welfare slobs). She's a right of center moderate. Exactly what most voters wanted.
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RBC here, can simply be admitting to something before the real press get their teeth into the story, diffusing it ahead of time. Perhaps seeding it with a few misleading items, that can be debunked easily in order to try to get the whole story debunked.
They really want to divide the USA to weaken it. El Trumpo too, endlessly choosing divisive choices designed to set American against American. If you watch the theme videos, they're American (group 1) attacks American (group 2). The basis of selection changes, but the divide idea stays there.
If you recall, the Putin plan changed to "discredit the election" when they thought Trump would lose, and Trump and Fox talking heads started calling the election rigged. The way you can turn on RT, and switch to Fox News and the narrative is sooooo similar. I thought it would change with Trump in the WH, and that it was only that both Putin and Fox were attacking Obama and feeding off each others talking points, but even now Fox, Trump. and Russia all doing the "deep state" claims.
The overlap between media at the conservative fringes and Putin's propaganda men, is so wide now. They don't really know if its *their* group's own fake video or Putins groups fake video.
My dumbass coworker suggested we look for Russian influence in advertising. She's getting shit canned. LOL
..
...none of them had an agenda to support Trump.
One might almost believe that narrative was...fake news?
The Guardian article mentions that basically their efforts were to show division, not particularly meddle in the election. Their funding supported mainly Texas independence (ludicrous), gun rights, and racial issues, particularly black lives matter protests. This is pretty much what Russian Intel has done for years; the history of kgb funding for anti American, labor, and leftist movements in Europe and the USA has been well documented historically.
The notion that they put $80k into this just suggests how little they expected of it.
-Styopa
as he's the puppet master in most modern world chaos.
What sort of idiot wastes their time with this, given that *none* of it is in any way incriminating nor does it show *any* evidence of actual collusion?
There are some dupes for little money that need to be made fun of publicly.
The agents in Clinton's "Correct the Record"(sic) PAC are probably gloating that they are better-paid dupes now.
$80k in known payload, buddy. That's not staffing costs on the russian side, and we don't know how many ineffective places they poured money into either.
To his credit, MLK rejected the Soviet funds and refused to work with them, but others in the black activist (ok, terrorist...we're talking the Black Panthers here) were all too willing to take the funds and materiel.
The Soviets had the view that the Achilles heel of the US was black vs white enmity, and have funded it carefully for many years now.
Mitrokhin, "Secret History of the KGB". Great story how he got out of Russia and how he compiled the archive while working at the KGB.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Russiagate is becoming ever more desperate and obvious. The previous Russiagate lie had a slightly higher figure spent on Facebook ($100k) and even that amount is laughable; the corporate parties spend orders of magnitude more on media buys to get the public's attention and steer American voters toward voting for their electors. $80k spent doesn't deserve anything but a laugh at someone's attempt to excuse Hillary Clinton from her horrible politics, twice-demonstrated incompetence at heading a political campaign (losing to a then-unknown upstart Senator, then the candidate the mainstream corporate media wouldn't stop making fun of), and continued self-embarrassment in her comments about Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual abuses.
I thought /. focused on repeating corporate media's IT-oriented lies (endless supportive coverage of proprietary software despite countless stories revealing the same truth: software freedom would have prevented that issue, or software freedom would have let people fix their own instance of $IoTobject). Now /. is getting uncritically into Russiagate? A story that has shown time and again the mainstream American corporate media has no time for facts? /. you're increasingly worthless.
Digital Citizen
I always thought it was a Cuban operation, but close enough.
As the drum-beating becomes more frenetic, Russia "stories" can be more and more outlandish. It seems we are not very far off from the Dr. Strangelove situation of accusations of water flouridization to, what was it, demoralize the populace.
And just in case you were wondering about the "Russian news source", visiting Wikipedia we find:
RBC TV (Russian: ) is ... [a] ... 24-hour business news television channel in Russia... The channel was launched ... in partnership with the CNBC and CNN television channels.
Key things to note in the headline:
**Russian** Troll Factory Paid US Activists To Fund Protests During Election (***theguardian.com***) ----
That's all you need to know.
Before you say it, I'm not right wing, I'm not even American.
The slant from theguardian and several others media outlets has gone full tilt left, not just slightly left, which for the most part I agree with but just left to the point of ridiculousness.
I love how one of the arguments of the election was "hacking! the Russians hacked, the whole election is a fraud!!" //EVEN IF// that was true, even if! The Russians supposedly didn't hack the election, what they /supposedly/ did was release incriminating evidence about Hilary, for goodness sakes. *IF* it was them at all, but because it was "hacks" the election was "stolen" - not that people were swayed by more realistic information about Hilary, no no no.
The Guardian articles are verging on utter clickbait at this point
ARE YOU WHITE?
DO YOU HAVE A PENIS?
YOU'RE THE PROBLEM, Kill yourself now, to save the world problems......
Yeah, no.
No it doesn't make sense. $80k is just the amount spent in this one small sliver of the entire campaign which has been brought to light and obviously it being a covert effort, the Kremlin will have tried many varied techniques to corrupt the election via every secret route possible.
What should politicians learn? That they should lie more in order to reel in the idiots?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Wow you've found the smoking gun. Mueller is now obviously completely discredited and anything he says can be disregarded as the ravings of a Clinton hireling. Thank you for saving America.
Even if anyone buys the premise that Russia was funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Trump (in secret) after spending millions of dollars to support Clintons (in the open), so what? Clinton is a known criminal. Why would we care if its Russia helping us to expose a criminal instead of (for example) France? If the FBI and the DOJ were so corrupt that they would not charge a candidate of the same party as the sitting president, shouldn't we be thankful if some foreign power were to reveal the depth of their corruption? Why is their doing us a favor such a problem for us? I mean, there is no question that Clinton committed multiple crimes and that she completely destroyed the good faith and credit of The United States by blatantly reneging on international agreements which US entered in good faith. Why is someone spending an amount so small (that it wouldn't buy even 1 Super Bowl ad) considered election influence if the end result was to shine the light on misdeeds of a criminal running for office?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Of how this works and how some people think it's alright to change my vote or opinion if a material incentive is given. They think "hey, someone pays me to just do this, what bad can happen, i'm just one person". Sure, now imagine there are tens of thousands of cases like that. Or more. Useful idiots.
Does anyone remember when Van Jones was caught on camera saying the Russia story is âoea big nothingburger?â 2017 has proven that McCarthyism is doing better than ever in America.
Realy, who actually believes this ridiculousness? For 15 years Republicans gave us the fake boogeyman story that terrorists were behind every rock. Now Democrats are giving us the fake boogeyman story of Russians, Russians everywhere!
The moral of the story is politicians are liars.
May I point out that the protests to which the Guardian is referring in the article, were Black Lives Matter protests? How does the Russians paying for Black Lives Matter protests help Hillary Clinton win the election?
MORONS all around! Holy shit you dumb ass fucks that are buying into this RUSSIAN BULLSHIT! This whole Russian "LIE" is a cover up, a distraction from the real collusion and crimes committed by fuckers under the Obama administration( Hillary, Podesta, etc.. ). I'm really loosing respect for "some" of my fellow Americans as their gullibility has no bounds! Oh, and now Pokemon Go is a Russian conspiracy! WOW! FUCKING DUMB!
You trust the washington post after the CIA paid Bezos far more than the paper is even worth, jist to propagandize on its behalf? The washington post, which disallows their writers from criticizing any of their advertisers? If you're not joking, you're either incredibly ignorant, or here on an alphabet soup agency's behalf.
Maybe next time you could have some self-awareness and not spam up threads on an article that happens to be about your own profession? Just makes it more than a little obvious why you're here.
Back in the nineties, I was in troubled yougoslavia for a while. Particularly in Serbia, during Milosevic's rule, a homegrown activist group was making headway and has drawn the attention of the US government. After several meetings the group was generously funded until the regime was toppled.
US has perfected these techniques in Greece, Spain and especially latin America throughout the cold war.
The only thing that's new is the internet. It just makes it so much easier to spread propaganda, especially as Google and Facebook have left it all to artificial "intelligence" to sort through. Lo and behold, the AI lacks the context, cultural and otherwise, to make decisions. This is the worst falscy of the modern times - that AI can make decisions for us. It's just a matter of time when this goes horribly wrong again.
Why are we complaining? We spent $5 billion doing the same thing in Ukraine. No one had a problem then.
Let both of these asses be set to grinding corn.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Fake news again... :-)
Read http://thesaker.is/a-brief-history-of-the-kremlin-trolls/ for details.
Seems the FSB agents working on the project are now enjoying free food and lodging at Russian taxpayer expense
A couple of Kaspersky staff members (Stoyanov and Dokuchaev), including the head of computer crime investigations (Stoyanov), were arrested by Russian FSB on treason charges in January this year. An FSB officer (Sergei Mikhailov) was also arrested. The treason charges suggest they were acting on behalf of a foreign power. Sputnik
Maybe the US actions against Kaspersky Labs anti-virus software are an attempt to preempt the consequences of the trial of the Kaspersky and FSB operatives?
Some US citizens will probably be named and shamed shortly. Their plausable deniability is getting more difficult by the day but you have to admire their creativity. They may have an opportunity to better get to know each other shortly.
I'd go with wikileaks every time.
We hear this phrase over and over from the Jewish media: "Russia interfered in the U.S. election", when all that actually happened was that SOMEBODY in Russia exposed Hilary Clinton's crimes to the American people... We can't have that, can we.
...is in bed with the commies again? What a shock... not...
That is what you get with first past the post. They just provided the last drop to overflow the bucket.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
There are three kinds of Americans: the kind who think Donald Trump is the Antichrist; the kind that think Hillary Clinton is the Antichrist; the kind that don't give a shit about politics. Can you really imagine someone saying, "gosh, I was going to vote one way, but then this one click-baity ad flashed up on my ipad while I was trying to self-diagnose the rash on my foot and it totally changed my mind".
Gee, I wonder why they haven't anywhere in the abstract above mentioned which political causes were funded.
It repeats over and over that political causes and activists were funded,
Could it be because these were all left-wing causes and activists?
How do you stop them. Right now because both parties are almost even it doesnâ(TM)t take a lot to push things one way.
Yea, you want to know what real foreign influence looks like? 18 BILLION USD: http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/17/soros-transfers-18-billion-to-his-open-society-foundations/
Read the original RBC article through the end --- troll factory states they could not believe they meddled with the election given how small number their numbers are. They are surprised with such enormous attention from US media.
Foreign-backed disinformation and unrest campaigns are as old as time. One famously successful example of this is the German funding of the 1917 Russian Revolution that took down the tsardom, pulling Russia out of WW1, and creating the Soviet Union. It freed up all the resources from the Eastern Front, allowing them to be redeployed on the Western Front ahead of significant American action in the war (didn't change the outcome on the Western Front, but it could have). Other examples are the scores of KGB or CIA (or pick any other big time national intelligence agency from any country) backing of revolutions (see the Shah of Iran), funding of puppet candidates, etc.
All power players are guilty of this, whether they are the actual countries, or just members of the wealthy elite. It sucks, and I really wish we could nip it in the bud, but the power players will always find a way to do this crap.
Any ideas on how to stop it?
We need to grant Julian Assange a pardon, and then get the information he has on who gave him the DNC emails.
So when Ruskis pay for it then the fight for justice is wrong?
... apparently not when its methods are applied to them.
Just in the recent past the US massively fostered "regime-change" in the Ukraine, Libya and Syria. Civil wars were started and maintained by arming, training and otherwise supporting terrorist groups like al-Nusra, the Syrian arm of al-Quaida. And the US has a long history of this, e.g. supporting Mujahideen in Afghanistan when they were fighting against Soviet forces. Well documented is the US participation in the 1953 overthrow of a democratically elected government in Iran named "Operation Ajax".
So it was and still is part of US foreign policy to destabilize other countries and even incite civil wars. The US pours millions if not billions of dollars in such activities.
In light of this I find it a bit hypocritical that there is now so much outrage about such small scale stuff.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
From TFA
The main topics covered by the groups run from Russia were race relations, Texan independence and gun rights. RBC counted 16 groups relating to the Black Lives Matter campaign and other race issues that had a total of 1.2 million subscribers. The biggest group was entitled Blacktivist and reportedly had more than 350,000 likes at its peak.
From Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements â" extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics."[5]
There's a certain amount of irony that Democrats are complaining about this, given the idea was to sow general discord in the US rather than to make one party win over another. Especially as, during the Cold War, the KGB did want doveish candidates to win over hawkish ones - e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Russian GRU defector Stanislav Lunev said in his autobiography that "the GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad," and that during the Vietnam War the USSR gave $1 billion to American anti-war movements, more than it gave to the VietCong,[19] although he does not identify any organisation by name. Lunev described this as a "hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost".[19] The former KGB officer Sergei Tretyakov said that the Soviet Peace Committee funded and organized demonstrations in Europe against US bases.[20] According to Time magazine, a US State Department official estimated that the KGB may have spent $600 million on the peace offensive up to 1983, channeling funds through national Communist parties or the World Peace Council "to a host of new antiwar organizations that would, in many cases, reject the financial help if they knew the source."[13] Richard Felix Staar in his book Foreign Policies of the Soviet Union says that non-communist peace movements without overt ties to the USSR were "virtually controlled" by it. Lord Chalfont claimed that the Soviet Union was giving the European peace movement £100 million a year. The Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) alleged Soviet funding of CND.
U.S. plans in the late 1970s and early 1980s to deploy Pershing II missiles in Western Europe in response to the Soviet SS-20 missiles were contentious, prompting Paul Nitze, the American negotiator, to suggest a compromise plan for nuclear missiles in Europe in the celebrated "walk in the woods" with Soviet negotiator Yuli Kvitsinsky, but the Soviets never responded.[21] Kvitsinsky would later write that, despite his efforts, the Soviet side was not interested in compromise, calculating instead that peace movements in the West would force the Americans to capitulate.[22]
In November 1981, Norway expelled a suspected KGB agent who had offered bribes to Norwegians to get them to write letters to newspapers denouncing the deployment of new NATO missiles.[13]
In 1985 Time magazine noted "the suspicions of some Western scientists that the nuclear winter hypothesis was promoted by Moscow to give antinuclear groups in the U.S. and Europe some fresh ammunition against America's arms buildup."[23] Sergei Tretyakov claimed that the data behind the nuclear winter scenario was faked by the KGB and spread in the west as part of a ca
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
They operated like a SuperPac with far less money. Got it.
it also pays for a LOT of signs and bus trips for "protesters"
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Yeesh. You think the face she puts on every morning is "natural"? Without makeup she looks like Palpatine.
Money is traceable. The Russians did not use much, probably just incidentals like memberships and web site hosting. The Russians piggy backed on the propaganda networks in place to send their message. Trump did the same. Both hooked into the huge bought media circus that tells media consumers to do what the people paying for the news want them to do: buy guns, lower taxes on rich people, cut services, pay for your own medicare like rich people do and congressmen don't, subsidize big rich companies, money is speech... By comparison Trump and Russian hackers don't seem so bad...
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Russia is against the USA. Divide the country between left and right so the standing of Russia will go up and the USA will go down. The USA did this effectively with the First Nations. Keep the Crows hating the Lakota and vice versa so that both are easier to conquer.
The freedom living right needs to join with the black lives matter types and vice versa. That way the United States can once again stand strong and kick the foreign invaders coming from Mexico out.
Of coarse none of you will believe me because these facts are not reported on the news. Only facts the news reports are real facts. Do not believe your eyes.
I
But nice Straw Man you got there, be a shame if logic and reason knocked out down. Just because Russia has been using our poor race relations against is for a while doesn't mean the didn't work with team Trump to get him elected. The two events are only tangentially related. If anything Donny's the culmination of 20 years work to destabilize our country and congrats, we fell for it Hook line and sinker.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
People seem to be missing the point. Russia didn't care who was elected, as long as the US was weakened internally.
The contents of this message have been doubly encrypted by ROT13
The russians paid a guy to become president.
Surely any interference by outside money is bad ??
Why are we not talking about the Soros, Koch (or anyone else) money?
Here's how it works. You pay someone to participate in a protest and then have them do something that's really ugly and angers people.
Same thing happened at Tea Party rallies. Some random guy shows up with a racist sign, news media films him then asks rally organizers why they didn't toss the guy out.
forget the AIPAC spy indictment, Jews are allowed to do it, it's Russians we hate. ae911truth dot org
It appears they have succeeded in that respect.
Maybe the RBC was funded to make up a story about Russian interference.
They're actually a very small group of people. But if you had to go by the internet it would seem there are millions of them.
So helping the hard left helps republicans. But they don't only help the hard left they also help the hard right. The country can't survive if they're engaging in politics that's only important to some fringe elements. Especially since the fringe right and left are often full of corrupt authoritarian bullies, the more of them that get squeezed into relevant politics the less stable the country will become.
Paranoia needs professional help
The 0.002% of lobbyists.
Okay, so $80,000 versus $3.15 billion dollars in lobbying money. Oh, that is just the official amount expended lobbying Congress. We're not even addressing the billions expended lobbying the American public on a multitude of issues.
Contemplate that...
Oh, and $80,000 expended on divisive issues. Is it possible that maybe Russians who do business in the U.S. have feelings on issues? Maybe a Russian is pro-2nd Amendment. Who knows.
But this is such a miniscule drop in the bucket it is laughable.
Is that it is NOT the gun manufacturers driving the NRA. The number one gripe heard from gun owners regarding the NRA leadership, is that they compromise too much. Dead serious.
come the fuck on slashdot, send these vatnik retards back to the moscow dogshit dimension
going on around here. I was thinking this has been happening all the time. US has assisted various parties for various elections in other countries whether it be supporting banana republics or publishing supportive articles and broadcasts for Soviet bloc opposition like Lech Walesa.
Kind of sucks when other countries do the same to us.
mfwright@batnet.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Welcome to Slashdot.
Now get out!
For hire.
all the butthurt russians who usually slide these article sand +5 themselves are out to party in a pretty innocuous story. also they're REALLY pushing that actual "fake news" about uranium dealings. guaranteed this was intended to get out ahead of the press and give Slimeball Sessions the III an escapegoat for his hearing today.
we're gonna be hearing muh hillary right through 2020, guaranteed it. these idiots can't do anything but react.
racism resulting higher poverty rates in makes people prone to crime and violence. Blacks are 2-3x more likely to be poor in most states. Anyway I'll just leave this here.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
than Media Matters and George Soros' Open Society Foundations?
seriously. It really is that simple. Trump has a bad tan. The fact that a man with his considerable wealth wears a bad tan is just another example of him being dumb. It's a reflection of his character. If he was born with that tan or had some sort of medical condition we'd shut up about it. I know he wasn't born with it and I haven't heard him say he's covering up a skin condition. He's just really not very bright.
If you want sanity in politics we need to get the Russians out of it. Then we need to get the billionaires and ruling class out of it. The best way to do that is fund education. e.g. pay for everyone to go to college. It's worth it even if they come out with a crap liberal arts degree since at least they had to spend 4 years thinking about something besides beer and the 'Merican flag.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How's that collusion with Hillary and the uranium?
Libtard echo chamber. News for morons.
I thought he was nuts, still do but that's another topic, because who pays people to go out and protest when there are usually enough people polarized against X or Y. Maybe the film industry does it but they are considered actors. But here we had Trump talking about this during and after his campaign and it seemed weird.
And now we've already heard how much Russian involvement there was in the Trump campaign then this news that Russians were funding groups to hire protesters.
dot ------ dot -----dot ---- Donald knew all along?
At least Soros pays his protesters direct, jeez. These Russians are amateurs in comparison.
Not always. Do a google search for #cutthecheck, the hashtag started by BLM useful tools that didn't get their payment.
Also, there's this little gem of antifa protesting not getting paid.
This might or might not be true, however it changes nothing as to the fact blacks ARE committing more crimes. And thus, get more arrested or thrown in jail. Hence, why blacks being more arrested or in jail than whites *does not* indicate racism on itself.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
keep posting about internet research agency and their influence ops, it draws them out on slashdot in droves
this thread is the gift that keeps on giving. have you ever seen so many "muh hillary" outside of reddit? daaaamn
The washington post, which disallows their writers from criticizing any of their advertisers?
Almost any media company works this way. If you want a right-wing example check out the Fox bovine growth hormone affair. The advertisers are their true customers. The readers/viewers are their consumers. The two biggest purchasers of advertising in the US are the pharmaceutical industry and the food industry. Most businesses make an effort not to piss off their customers, especially when they have relatively few big customers (as opposed to a whole lot of small ones where they could maybe afford to alienate some).
Is this the arrow with the "election hacking" target drawn around it?
Putin hacked my brain and forced me to vote for Trump!
The question of the "election hacking" is totally irrelevant.
Why does it make sense to blame misinformation when misinformation is inert without weak minds to pick it up and make it play? If one was interested in solving the problem one would address education and culture in a positive way.
What interest of yours would the alternative candidate serve that this one does not?
Do you really believe your interests are represented in the government at all?
Have you honestly taken stock of the problems in your life and objectively determined the possible causes?
Which of these trace back to the matter of who the president is?
The problem of you losing your identity in a hedonistic consumer culture? You don't feel like the present figurehead is the most accurate avatar for your personality?
The president who would make you feel the warmest won't fill your soul back in.
Stop looking to external sources for solutions. Stop looking to external targets for blame. Deal with yourself and yours. Stop trying to feel important by discussing what everyone else is discussing. That is the source of your loss of identity which you seek. Not the "wrong president".
reading comprehension skills.
I clearly pointed out that Hillary had no role in the approval PRECISELY because that's not how it works. Her role on the committee was to DISSAPROVE if she took any action, else the deal would go through. The corrupt act the Russians needed her to take was to do nothing and let the deal go through rather than intervening to stop it - AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT SHE DID!!!!!
You are apparantly such a studid schmuck that you fell for the scam exactly as the politicians who created the committe intended you to. The committee was created to give the appearance of accountability while actually guaranteeing non-accountability. YOU WERE DUPED and are so uneducated and ill-informed that you still do not get it.
you had no actual argument at all.
Next time try READING the government documents that have been gradually dribbling out.
As of Oct 18th the US Senate is now opening an investigation.
Then who cares if the $$$ came from Russia, or any other country...do human rights and dignity only extend to a country's border? I bet that if you dig deep enough there is money funnelled into the elections from all over for both candidates...heck everyone tries to influence elections. What about Mexico...do you think they had an opinion about who they would rather see in office? What about people voting who aren't even legal citizens? Seems like we are focusing on a scapegoat when the real issue is much broader and more complicated.
That there are *cheaper ways to get the job done*.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I think you've got the wrong lesson. Trump's campaign cost $94 million. The Russian campaign spent $80,000
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Russian meddling? Who can believe that's a thing after Clinton's reset and Obama's increased flexibility? Well, except for anyone who was alive during the Cold War? (Which isn't most of the people on this site.) Hey, Obama? Your mama called and wants you to tell the 80s to give Romney an apology.
You're a furry that's where you stand you'll forever be the undermench and underclass you can alt right all you want but you're just propping up a bunch of folks who will be shoving your ass in the ovens just as soon as they handle some more pressing business.