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US Charges Russian Social Media Trolls Over Election Tampering (cnet.com)
The US Justice Department has filed charges against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups for interfering with the 2016 presidential election. From a report: In an indictment [PDF] released on Friday, the Justice Department called out the Internet Research Agency, a notorious group behind the Russian propaganda effort across social media. Employees for the agency created troll accounts and used bots to prop up arguments and sow political chaos during the 2016 presidential campaign. Facebook, Twitter and Google have struggled to deal with fake news, trolling campaigns and bots on their platforms, facing the scorn of Capitol Hill over their mishandlings. The indictment lists 13 Russian nationals tied to the effort.
This is just the opening volley.
There's no still evidence of any tampering. This is about memes posted to Facebook. Literally about memes.
This is the best he's got? This is absurd. This is going to get laughed out of court.
It's part time to stop the pointless Mueller witch hunt and time to stop pretending he has anything.
So these are the guys who spent less than 7 figures on propaganda and supposedly bought the most powerful government in the world?
Were so convincing and capable that they swung the entire election.
Right. Pull the other one. It's got bells on.
Nothing on Trump. No collusion. The closest they come is that some members of the Trump campaign "unwittingly" had communication with the bots/trolls. What - did a campaign staffer retweet something?
This insanity has gone far enough. The US was not conquered by Russia. Putin does not control the President.
In fact, the only Russian collusion was between the previous administration and Russia (e.g., the catastrophic "Russian Reset" that led to the problems in the Ukraine), and the sale of 20% of the US's uranium assets to Russia for a massive infusion of cash to the Clinton Foundation.
they didn't get all of them obviously lol.
Your check from ShareBlue is signed and in the mail.
I heard the presser for this.. "No Americans involved who knew what was going on or that Russians where involved" is the key thing I took away from it.
Just pointing this important fact out.
Also, they are alleging that these Russians organized rallies for both sides. In one case, they organized two opposing rallies (one pro Trump, one pro Clinton) on the SAME day in the SAME city... Foreign nationals are not supposed to do that kind of thing, at least within our borders where our laws apply.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I don't see Anonymous Coward (a/k/a AC) anywhere on that list. That dude is totally a Russian troll.
Except not a single American is indicted — much less anyone from the Executive Branch.
Please, hold your breath until it gets interesting. Please, please, please. With sugar on top...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Oh, the indictment is juicy, folks. Among other things, it specifically charges that these Russians sought to help the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, and that they also sought to suppress minority votes, and to create social media accounts pretending to be US media outlets and American individuals.
We got us a RICO case against the White House. This is 'bout to get real interesting.
https://www.justice.gov/file/1...
Try again.. I just heard the presser for these charges. They where actively supporting BOTH sides. One day they actually set up two rallies in the same city, one for Clinton and one for Trump...
I'd be careful with your conclusions here..
Why would they do this? They where spreading FUD about the election SYSTEM in this country. They didn't care one wit about which candidate won, they just wanted to make people not trust the system. They where sowing unrest, not trying to get Trump elected....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Except not a single American is indicted — much less anyone from the Executive Branch -- YET.
Fixed that for you. xD xD xD
To let the world know what they COULD do, without actually having a clear agenda this time. But if you are nasty to us when you are in office, your reelection is going to be... difficult. A wonderful example of plausible deniability!
Please, join PopeRatzo in holding your breath.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This is going to be a very hard case to make and going to set a very dangerous precedent.
Any law twisted enough to make what they do illegal will outlaw astroturfing and potentially even advertising.
And if misrepresenting oneself online is a crime, I shudder at the amount of FBI agents going to jail for pretending to be 14-year-old girls.
Or are they just planning to outlaw foreign nationals from twitter and facebook? Or are they just planning on preventing them from posting? This kind of government intervention should scare the crap out of anyone.
2 of the 3 charges are plain silly. The 3rd is identity theft which is more serious. They are alleged to have 5 stolen SSN.
How does it feel knowing that you got played by Russians and by the lifelong conman known as Donald Trump? Pretty embarrassing. Must cause a lot of self-doubt wondering how you missed it all.
By February 2016, the suspects had decided whom they were supporting in the 2016 race. According to the indictment, Internet Research Agency specialists were instructed to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them).”
> They didn't care one wit about which candidate won
Sure they didn't. That's why they were talking with the Trump campaign and trying to get him to drop the Maginitsky act after being elected, and why Trump isn't enforcing the sanctions. I'm suuuure that Clinton would have acted exactly the same.
Both sides are equally bad, amirite?
Being Russian citizens these people are not likely to ever see the inside of a US court.
What is more, these actions are not any different than many other actions that states have taken against each other. The US for example in interfering with Israeli and Iranian elections. Hell we've evens taged coups, and very recently in places like ... Libya.
This is not something a special prosecutor working for the DoJ should handle. This is a job for the CIA and the NSA which are more experienced in such things, and can handle it without starting WWIII.
All it is is cover for the special prosecutor, who has had very little to justify his work. Hell rumor has it Flynn is now fighting back and they may lose his guilty plea.
Who benefits from this ( aside from Rosenstein and Meuller )? The indictment said that the Russians propped up Bernie and Trump. At whose cost? Hillary's. So this announcement props up Hillary who "would have won if not for Russian involvement. Who did most of the members of Meullers team work for before? Hillary. Big surprise.
No, go read the actual indictment. It's very clear that the charges indicate help for Donald Trump only.
Read this section of the indictment:
It goes on to say that during the primaries, the indicted Russians sought to give support to Trump and disparage his GOP opponents (Cruz, et al). Here is a direct link to the indictment:
https://www.justice.gov/file/1...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Are you really going to argue that the Clinton campaign knew that the Russians were doing this, and cooperating with them?
I'll vote for whoever they tell me to vote for if they pay me $50. No need to go through all this trouble.
I'd say they were sowing unrest while trying to get Trump elected. Of the two candidates to choose from he is much more friendlier towards the Russian government and the oligarchs that run it.
Spot on.
The guy claiming "We got us a RICO case against the White House." is dancing to the tune the Russians played for him. His reaction is exactly what they were trying to engineer. The Russians want us divided as a country. They want the losing party to act as if the elected US president is not legitimate.
I want this to be investigated as much as anyone, but the feigned shock and surprise from some Americans feels naive. Considering all the meddling (or outright coup d'etats and invasions) our country has been involved in over the last 100 years, this almost feels a little like a sliver of long overdue karmic payback.
More importantly, I don't think those who want this investigation to go on and on (for whatever reason) understand just how pious and insulting it sounds to those who chose Trump. I mean, dark money and political parties put out metric tons of political "ads" every election cycle, and people see through 99% of it. But they couldn't see through Russian propaganda?
Even if Putin himself was posting fake news content to Facebook, this continued coverage wreaks of Russian xenophopia and pious arrogance emanating from the national media and "holier than thou", ivory tower types: "The independents who voted for Trump had to have been influenced by SOMETHING to make such a horrible choice. We're the enlightened ones, so we have a responsibility to make sure everyone foolish enough to not see just how AWFUL Trump would've been as president NEVER make that miscalculation again."
Let's wipe up this spilled milk instead of crying about it.
The most fascinating part of the indictment is the education of the Russians. They started off not even knowing what a purple state was and ended by being able to micro-target. This leads me to suspect that this indictment is a mere appetizer to the main course.
No, you're not right, "bro"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-kremlin-steele-dossier-russia-1101-20171031-story.html
Yes, yes, push the unite behind Trump agenda.
That way he can sell us out to the Russians.
The Washington Post has a better article on this.
One bit of info missing from CNET is that these indictments are the direct result of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
At this point, I just figure that anyone who posts idiocy about the Russians not hacking the US is either a Russian shill or one of their dupes. Either that, or they're so soaked in conspiracy theories that their brains are addled. It's really no use listening to them. Once you decide that false information is as good as real facts, your mind might as well be gone.
And for the idiots referenced above who say that all this Russsia stuff is "fake", I'll take the CIA, FBI, and NSA's word about spying before any of you conspiracy-spouting morons in the peanut gallery - I do value professionalism, if nothing else.
That is all.
You really should just read the indictment, you will get a very different picture. They were really only supporting Trump. They “supported” Hillary with false-flag operations designed to lend legitimacy to Trump supporters, e.g. posing as supporters while holding up signs with fake quotes about Hillary supporting Sharia law, etc. They obviously did care which side won.
You said it was a RICO involving the White House.
YOU LIED... AGAIN
So now, no Americans involved = White House RICO
No evidence of Carter Page being Russia agent = Proof he is Russian agent
Disagree with PopeRatzo = Terrorist
You are the worst liar that has ever existed. I don't even have to look anything up to know you lie. You are a complete piece of garbage and you haven't said something that wasn't slander for the last month.
PopeRatzo = Pure Shit
Let's just record this as the most desperate measure of pulling something out of one's ass, to use it against somebody, ever seen.
No matter what, doubling down the insanity in ALL the instances, beating even North Korea.
In other words: They pulled a Trump.
Sorry, now not only the entire world os laughing at you, but US citizens aswell. .. Although not quite /stupid/.)
So don't say "US", as this is actually truly anti-American.
(And yes, the Russian leaders are just as much pieces of shit.
as
Nope.. Clearly the Justice department is saying "no Americans" knew what these Russians where up to.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
unfortunately /. was lost a while back..at this point one may as well leave the right-wingers and their overseas supporters with ulterior motives to the echo chamber. i was pleasantly surprised upon leaving the US that the rest of the world has not yet gone down the drain of fascist power fantasies completely.
the American electorate couldn't possibly have voted for Trump of their own volition, without any form of manipulation from malicious foreign agents bent on destroying the USA, could they? What is it that they're trying to say about Trump with all this, exactly?
Slashdot gets slashdotted by Russian Media Trolls.
Film at 11.
Don't feed the Russian troll
A story about Russia meddling, and immediately the Ivan's come out to comment first. Right on cue.
Hogwash.
If there was any there there, we'd have seen real indictments
about real crimes a year ago. What's the law against communicating
opinions, or incorrect facts to another country? Nobody in the USA
got inducted for the brutal murders, actual election interference, or
overthrowing governments our CIA and State Dept. have engaged
in copiously.
Russia & China & Israel & no doubt many others have always tried
to swing our elections in their favor; last election was no different. And
previous to the election there can be no doubt that Trump was
engaged with many Russians in financial dealings. However,
none of that violates the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, per se,
nor any other law that I'm aware of. Trump may be sleazy, and
contemptibly narcissistic, but he's the sleazebucket we elected,
and we should take a long sober look at whether we should
support elements within federal law enforcement and
intelligence services taking an active roll in trying to subvert
a national election after the fact, particularly given that
they were not shy about publicly endorsing the other candidate;
an event I am still puzzling over.
The difference here is that Podesta invented this witchhunt one
day after The Hildabeast lost, as per the wikileaked memo, and the deep
state leaped on board with enthusiasm, getting some brit. to generate
a BS memo, enlisting the rubber-stamp, secret kangaroo court called
FISA to vet it, and then got a Clinton crony named Mueller to vet
this excrement in the public's face with "accidental" leaks.
A disgustingly unashamed display of the deep corruption that always
overwhelms a dying empire.
Pull a quote out of context to prove your point? Why nothing is beneath you is it...
Take a look at paragraph 6, 28, 57 and more buddy... They where spreading FUD...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Exactly this...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You can be butthurt all you want that your so-called 'law and order' and 'conservative family values' candidate never really existed, but at least have enough honesty with yourself that he never was those things, and that you got fooled into voting for him -- because that's the fact of the matter, investigation or no investigation. He keeps trying desperately to distract FBI attention away from himself, just like a guilty person would, and he's now confirmed for cheating on his wife at least twice, one of those times with a skeezy porn actress, and just after his wife gave birth to his son. He's an awful human being who is not in the least qualified for the job, was elected under false pretenses, and should be removed. IDGAF if you're going to continue to publicly defend the son of a bitch or not, at least be honest with yourself: You fucked up, you got conned, and you backed the wrong horse, all the way down to the finish. TRY to do better next time, or at least don't bother voting. Once we get his ass out of the whitehouse we need someone in there who can fix all the damage he's done, not another clueless narcissistic 5-year-old.
Yeah it was better when it was just all basement dwelling virgins complaining about any and all new things in technology.
Their GOAL was FUD and unrest. To that end they supported the candidate they thought would lose.
That's why they where supporting Sanders in the primary and why they where supporting Trump over Cruz. Their goal was to spread unrest and FUD so they picked the apparent losers because it allow better bang for the buck....
Seriously, who thought Trump would win the Monday before the election? Nobody...
But the charges are clear. No Americans involved knew what they where doing or that these people where Russians INCLUDING Trump's campaign (and yes, it literally says that).
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Any regulation of speech is a violation of the 1st Amendment, which explicitly states "no fucking law!! Attempting to influence stupid people is not a crime, unless you can prove actual diminished capacity. Voting republican or democrat doesn't cut it.
There can be no debate. We all have a duty to circumvent censorship instead of arguing about it wherever it is encountered.
It does not mean what they think it means.
"If there was any there there, we'd have seen real indictments
about real crimes a year ago."
The Mueller investigation is 11 months old. How dumb are you?
" What's the law against communicating
opinions, or incorrect facts to another country?"
Beats me, but no one in the indictement is being charged with that.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/trump-administration-breaking-law-failing-issue-new-russia-sanctions
"It seems likely that some observers have mistakenly assumed that the statute requires the administration to issue sanctions against those who are listed in the report. But the statute doesn’t require this; it merely requires the report. There really isn’t any ground to criticize the administration for non-compliance under section 241."
The Trump administration is following the law.
No doubt they were trying to sow unrest. However, if you're saying they didn't care which candidate won, that is bullshit.
The indictment says the Russians' efforts included "supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaging Hillary Clinton,".
It fits too, as it is well known Putin hated Clinton.
Listen, whether you like Trump or not, isn't it important to face facts and protect the COUNTRY from this kind of thing?
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
Putin can't have witnesses. I'm betting we're about to see some dead Russians.
If you were one of the 13 indicted Russians, would you be more afraid of the US Department of Justice or Vladimir Putin?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Everyone outside the US knows this.
It is so blatantly obvious.
The mind-blowing thing is, that the system manages to keep up this bubble that so great, it *still* keeps you from seeing and accepting what is right in front of your faces.
Frankl, please don't be offended, because I don't hate you or anything, but from the outside this is like watching North Koreans and their relationship to the "Great Leader". Or an episode of Stargate SG-1.
Perhaps its the evil bastard in me, but I find it somewhat humorous that the same country that supposedly prides itself on things like "free speech" then turns around and pitches a royal effin fit whenever someone uses said speech in a manner one side doesn't like. OMG TRUMP...OMG RUSSIANS...OMG HILLARY...
Mueller?... Mueller?... Mueller?...
and the USA.
From the article: "The trolls took up both sides of the same issue, with the primary goal to misinform and create political divide." - Lol isn't this what MSM does on a daily basis?
RICO? You think it's RICO?
https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/
Of course Putin wanted Trump.
Look at all the bromance weve seen between the two, all the soft pitches weve seen from the Trump "administration" to Russia.
Trump is Putins bitch and everyone knows it.
The people in here trying to blather on about "it was both sides" are either idiots or Russian Trolls.
You are spreading lies.
Fusion GPS were originally commissioned by Washington Free Beacon, and they have admitted that.
Mod this poster up...
That is the real foreign interference in ALL US elections. Such hypocrisy
...for accepting campaign contributions from foreign donors?
Me neither.
And they did it again in 2012.
No prosecutions for that, either.
But no, let's talk about some Facebook trolls...
Ok, so if you are not a US citizen and attempt to influence an election, its illegal? Sure.
Soros is not an American and spends millions (billion maybe) on DNC races. Does that mean every DNC candidate he supported is guilty of collusion with a foreigner to influence a US election?
Why is Soros not indicted as well?
People who think PopeRatzo is a liar want to know!
Like all the paid shills accusing anyone who questions this crazy narrative of being a paid shill.
It's sad that he has enough sockpuppet accounts that I have to spend modpoints on every post PopeRatzo makes until he runs out of mod points for a few days.
A clockwork exercise for both of us.
The site owners should do with him what they did with creimer. Let him post, but he starts at -1.
And disparaging Hillary is apparently a crime.
IMO its not out of guilt. I think he knows he has nothing to do with this. I think its narcissism that does it. The same that created a pissing match on day 2 over the size of the inauguration attendance. And before you point out that it makes him unstable, bear in mind that SHE also is a huge narcissist and had already been caught conspiring with the media to rig the primary election away from Sanders. I specifically voted against HER just because of that alone. My conscious is still clean, I voted Gary Johnson and there was no way in hell I would vote Killary. I _Would_ have voted DJT if Gary had not been on the ballot.
You can be butthurt all you want that your so-called 'law and order' and 'conservative family values' candidate never really existed, but at least have enough honesty with yourself that he never was those things, and that you got fooled into voting for him -- because that's the fact of the matter, investigation or no investigation. He keeps trying desperately to distract FBI attention away from himself, just like a guilty person would, and he's now confirmed for cheating on his wife at least twice, one of those times with a skeezy porn actress, and just after his wife gave birth to his son. He's an awful human being who is not in the least qualified for the job, was elected under false pretenses, and should be removed. IDGAF if you're going to continue to publicly defend the son of a bitch or not, at least be honest with yourself: You fucked up, you got conned, and you backed the wrong horse, all the way down to the finish. TRY to do better next time, or at least don't bother voting. Once we get his ass out of the whitehouse we need someone in there who can fix all the damage he's done, not another clueless narcissistic 5-year-old.
You're still not geting it. Everything you say and think about DJT could be true...and he would STILL be preferable to Clinton.
How does it feel knowing that you got played by Russians and by the lifelong conman known as Donald Trump? Pretty embarrassing. Must cause a lot of self-doubt wondering how you missed it all.
Except I wasn't listening to Russians. I was listening to Clinton.
well they did pay her 'charity' in canada 500 million before the state department approved the sale of Unranium One. Surely that isnt a conflict of interest. Just curious.... do you believe the Executive branch has the legal obligation to follow and enforce ALL laws passed by congress and therefore cannot PICK and CHOOSE which laws they wish to obey? I am curious what your answer is, because you probably wont like my response either way. I for one believe its Congress' job to MAKE laws, its the Executive Branch's job to ENFORCE them, and the Judicial Branch's job to research the constitutionality of them. You are pigeon holed in on this one. If Trump is a bastard for not following the laws, then everyone else is going to take a fall too. This whole DREAMER crap is 100% about Congress NOT fixing the law and instead insist that the president CONTINUE to break the law by selectively telling his agents to ignore bills signed into law decades ago. So if Trump is breaking the law over sanctions, then arrest Obummer too for the DREAMER dereliction of duty. The only reason Congress wants to throw this back at POTUS is because they KNOW this is a political minefield where nobody is going to be happy and they are afraid of losing their job. The truth is if their solution leaves EVERYONE unhappy, they actually probably did their jobs right for once.
Is it that unfathomable to you that there are many who agree with him and enjoy his posts?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
they staged opposite rallies in the same city. That sounds more like trying to start a fight. IF they cared that much why did the same Internet Research Group immediately start running anti-trump ads and protests the day AFTER he got elected instead of just closing up shop. I'll grant you they wanted HIllary to lose, but they were probably more about hurting hillary than helping trump. Afterall she did manage to sucker $500million dollars in extortion for the sale of Uranium One. Someone probably had to cover that expense wand wanted some payback.
Go read them again yourself, without your Trump-colored glasses on. Or perhaps that would break your contract?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
and that you got fooled into voting for him . You fucked up, you got conned
How would anyone demonstrate to you that they weren't fooled or conned into voting for him? Honestly, I thought Hillary was a terrible candidate and every day is a good day with her not in office. The US is a better place without her in charge. Trump doesn't even have to do anything and the country is a better place. Even if he is impeached and Pence takes over the US is a better place than if Hillary won.
As far as the infidelity, at least his spouse isn't legally threatening those women to shut up. Unlike some presidential candidates. Seriously you are talking about decent humans and never mention the comparison of Hillary.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think lacking a Libertarian candidate as a "Plague on both your parties" vote, or if Budnarik were the LP candidate again, I'd have written in Cthulhu as the lesser evil.
But then, I'm in Calipornia, where Hillary would have gotten 60% of the vote if she were sacrificing babies to Molech at each campaign stop, so my vote couldn't possibly make any difference.
I'm not sure what I'd have done if I'd lived in a state where where my vote had any actual relevance. (Cue youtube video from "Third Rock" where Dick is pounding his head against the voting machine...)
They where spreading FUD about the election SYSTEM in this country. They didn't care one wit about which candidate won, they just wanted to make people not trust the system. They where sowing unrest, not trying to get Trump elected....
Bingo!
being Anti-Hillary is not the same as Pro-Trump. Lets face it, this election was between the Never-Hillary group and the Never-Trump group. The Pro-Trump group and the Pro-Hillary groups probably amounted to 15% of the total electorate in this election. Too bad she colluded with the media to steal the primary election. We might be talking about President Sanders had that not happened.
... that everyone is going to prison. The President, his Cabinet, 100 Senators, 435 Representatives, you, me, really just everyone.
Are Federal prisons privately run yet, and are they publicly traded? Because I have some great investment ideas that involve 100% incarceration rates.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Nobody ever said the American people were unfit to vote. What we _did_ say is that they, like everybody, are capable of being lied to about the sources of information. Kinda like when a Cigarette company backs a study on the health benefits of tobacco. Or when Coke did the same thing. You'd want to know who backed that study. Lying by omission is a thing. A democracy lives and breaths by the quality of information available.
And no, there's still plenty of talk about the Russians hacking the election. They got caught funneling money through the NRA to Trump's campagin, and the only question is are we doing to do anything about it. Then there were all those meetings between high level Trump campaign officials and shady Russians that are still being investigated. Oh, and there's tons of evidence that the Russians have hacked into (literally) our electronic voting systems and that they continue to do so. There's good solid evidence they shared priceless voting record data with the Trump campaign. Again, hard to say if anything will come of this since the Republicans control so much of the government even before Trump won.
Remember, Trump was and is always a patsy. Nobody cares if he knew any of this because his only job was to show up to rallies and say bad things about Hillary and Mexicans. The question is how much did the folks who _really_ run the show know and do. What's clear is that what tattered remains of American democracy are left are being eroded.
But whatever, just keep ignoring the mounting evidence because the word 'hacked' sometimes gets used slightly inappropriately.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Meanwhile, lawyers for the party in opposition of Trump suggest that even a pretense at a primary is more than what is necessary in selecting a candidate for national office.
Even a slightly informed person can look at your application of a double standard and realize that personal attacks and demonization will be all that can be expected from you, regardless of a leader's actual merit and character. Trump is exactly the leader you deserve.
Especially this:
Steele - again, the former head of MI6's Russia desk - had been an FBI source for years prior, where he had proved useful in a number of investigations unrelated investigations.
Which must be why the FBI dropped his ass as a source for being unreliable - then didn't tell the FISA court that they'd dropped him as a source:
"Steele should have been terminated for his previous undisclosed contacts with Yahoo and other outlets in September –before the Page application was submitted to the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] FISC in October –but Steele improperly concealed from and lied to the FBI about those contacts"
So Steele lied to the FBI about what he was doing, and then the FBI continued to use his dossier as the sole source for FISA warrants.
And if Steele wasn't just a cutout for Hillary! via Blumenthal and/or Shearer via Fusion GPS, why was he pushing his dossier to media outlets when, as a "professional intelligence officer" HE DAMN WELL SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER, AND HE DAMN WELL SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER THAN TO LIE ABOUT IT TO THE FBI.
What Rosenstein says: "There is no allegation in this indictment that any American had any knowledge."
What Rosenstein thinks: "Please don't fire me, please don't fire me, please don't fire me ..."
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
or if nothing else to raise our voices and try to drown the shills out. Slashdot is a site full of older engineers and tech people (it's a site from the 90s after all). It's bound to be a prime target since older, well-to-do STEM professionals are going to prone to the right wing (since the right wing's co-opted conservatism and, well, like my history teacher used to say when you've got something to lose you get real conservative real fast). Our little community needs more voices of sanity to keep us away from the excesses of conservatism.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Getting Hillary to do anything you want is just one donation to the Clinton Foundation away.
By February 2016, the suspects had decided whom they were supporting in the 2016 race. According to the indictment, Internet Research Agency specialists were instructed to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them).”
...we could simply say "OK thanks Russia. You want to play 'media domination game"?"
The US is already the most staggeringly dominant culture ever seen on earth, without really deliberately trying (not unlikely that's partly why).
If we were a country with any sense of itself, any sense of unity of purpose, and not a fractious bunch of self-hating bitches, with Hollywood's expertise we could without batting an eye SWAMP Russian media, internet, and airwaves with a chaos of propaganda, infowar, fake news, with production values so sophisticated there would be NO WAY any Russian national could tell if that video was real or not, or that email was real or not, or that video of Vladimir Putin having a quiet, gay moment with a young Russian male model followed by an overwhelming wave of irrefutable evidence of that young male model being found murdered brutally and only the faintest traces of official security service involvement.
They spent what, a few $hundred thousand influencing social media? We could drop a few $hundred MILLION and drive their society into outright civil war.
There is no media culture as dominant or efficacious as the American culture in 2018. None.
But we are our own worst enemy, and Russia can do this sort of thing knowing that Americans will cheerfully attack EACH OTHER over it long before they have the cojones to set aside their partisan bitching in favor of their own country's well being.
-Styopa
Bite me. xD
Nobody deserves Trump. Not even the GOP, and in private places I'm certain ALL OF THEM would say that. The only reason the GOP majority Congress puts up with him is they think they can 'control' him enough to maybe get their agenda forward. If he was not the GOP candidate they'd have ousted him for any number of reasons by now -- and if YOU were the least bit informed, YOU would see that.
You can be butthurt all you want that your so-called 'law and order' and 'conservative family values' candidate never really existed, but at least have enough honesty with yourself that he never was those things, and that you got fooled into voting for him -- because that's the fact of the matter, investigation or no investigation.....
Yeah, I knew. You're a world class rube if you pretend any politician means what they say about helping people.
The truth is Hillary Clinton and her conspirators frightened me more.
Smidge is not a russian troll and they post on here all the time. You are simply attempting obfuscation and that is the job of our resident asshole libertardian Obfuscant.
I would agree with you but you have to remember Hilary's emails... After that there was no way anyone could vote for her unless you were brainwashed by the MSM
Because the American people are to damn stupid to read the news and figure out what is true and false.
Perhaps we should work on teaching our students how to read articles and determine the difference between opinion pieces and fact reporting.
I've seen way too many factual reporting articles with loads of prejudicial adjectives and assumed-as-fact descriptors. And there are so many of them that folks keep hearing it over and over...and assume it is fact.
And don't get me started on the click-bait headlines. I've read so many "factual" reports from the major news organizations that, after reading the whole piece, I was unable to find the information supposed to be there from the click-bait headline.
Like the current 18 school shootings so fare this year....and no one takes the time to examine the 18 and find that they include incidents on school buses, criminal justice training classes, etc.
Sad.
LOL, I've been modding this thread, so I have to post AC, but your response is kind of the textbook definition of butthurt, you stupid faggot. Sorry ya got conned =)
Ah, so you're one of those morons who while getting fucked up the ass by DJT smile because it's STILL preferable to Clinton. That's all you can see: who is going to fuck me up the ass and will I smile about it because he/she is/isn't on my team. If all you see is a race with two horses when there are several other possible candidates who ran, then you truly have been conned. The DJT vs HRC race should have taught you this more bitterly than any other race. Instead, all you can do is keep smiling.
No, go read the actual indictment. It's very clear that the charges indicate help for Donald Trump only.
You might try actually reading it yourself. Paragraph 43, part of Count One of the indictment, very clearly says they also supported Bernie:
They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.
* * *
Specialists were instructed to post content that focused on “politics in the USA” and to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them).”
From your link:
Yes, it's RICO
You are welcome on my lawn.
Ah, so you're one of those morons who while getting fucked up the ass by DJT smile because it's STILL preferable to Clinton. That's all you can see: who is going to fuck me up the ass and will I smile about it because he/she is/isn't on my team. If all you see is a race with two horses when there are several other possible candidates who ran, then you truly have been conned. The DJT vs HRC race should have taught you this more bitterly than any other race. Instead, all you can do is keep smiling.
Watching you bleed all over the floor is like revisitng election night. Thank you for that. :) -- smile
Hillary was never a viable candidate. Anyone who thought so has no business calling other people morons. She is never going to be president and will die bitter and unhappy because of it. Sanders was a sideshow, nothing else.
Now go back to watching your ass, it does seem very vulnerable.
"If there was any there there, we'd have seen real indictments
about real crimes a year ago."
The Mueller investigation is 11 months old. How dumb are you?
" What's the law against communicating
opinions, or incorrect facts to another country?"
Beats me, but no one in the indictement is being charged with that.
Ivan's English is good but math skills? Not so much.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Like all the paid shills accusing anyone who questions this crazy narrative of being a paid shill.
When you look over the edge of the world, you find that it's shills, all the way down.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
I was listening to a bit on the radio yesterday about a woman who contracted a eye worm that normally only infects horses. She ended up pulling a live worm out of her eye, but it didn't really harm her physical health much at all. She was a good sport about it, and emerged with her mental health, too.
So the CBC brings on the guy from the CDC and he's practically jizzing himself with enthusiasm over this rare cross-species infection (due to face flies, which feed on eye secretions, which allows the parasite larvae to jump ship and enter the eyeball).
They also bring on this other guy associated with Monsters Inside Me.
And what he says, basically, is that for almost every mammal (and presumably bird) you will find at least three different parasite species almost exclusive to that animal, so the parasites are always present in greater diversity in any healthy ecosystem.
Just a few parasites, and we're all supposed to quit? What's with that?
Field Guide: Diseases and Parasites of Marine Mammals of the Eastern Arctic — 2003
So the point is, how do whales actually run away from all the parasites? Where is this beautiful, clean oasis that isn't Slashdot the Fallen? Politics used to be like the grizzly bear, one could hibernate for six months and not miss much. But modern politics is way more like the ocean, with bleached coral reefs, red tides, and entire floating islands of petrochemical detritus.
Why Whale Stress Significantly Dropped After 9/11 — February 2015
HowSound #150 - When a Good Idea for a Podcast is a Bad Idea for a Podcast — May 2017
This episode is about the short-lived podcast "How's Your Day?" It's about invisible, unreported stories that got buried on an iconic news day, with a surprising parallel. They found three needles, then caved, even before launch.
Surprisingly, most of this post-mortem episode is about the amazing day of the whales on 9/11.
The whale portion starts at 9m00; the whales on 9/11 portion begins at 16m00. Great place to bury your head in the sand for twenty minutes and not deal with the Great Parasite Load.
They are acoustic animals, and the (normally) unbroken shipping thrum causes them constant stress, because the ocean is now overrun with ships, and maybe it's time for them to all crawl back up onto dry land, lose a few pounds, and live again like God intended for all mammals.
That quite well explains why you bring her up while I dismiss her.
Sanders was a sideshow. Trump is a circus freak. Gary Johnson was about as prepared as Trump, but he didn't smile while he fucked your ass. He also supported federally legalizing marijuana, something which a lot of states are already moving towards.
You're Trump's bitch, and you get joy because you've got your own sub bitches? I guess you feel your ass is safe because being the President's bitch means he'll protect your ass from anyone else violating it, right? No, Trump is a disloyal fuck who will throw you under the bus for no real reason. It won't even be for some clear logical benefit of covering his own ass. So, yea, keep feeling that ass.
I think it's more accurate to say they had plans for if either candidate won. If Clinton had won, they would have gotten to do all the "Voter Fraud" stuff and discredited the government. Since Trump won, well we've seen the results of that
This is the setup to show that these Russians did influence the election illegally. Likewise, Mueller has a number of witnesses that will be forced to tell the truth, or have charges against them increased. Trump and pence will go down for the traitors they are.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hmm, isn't that 'Killary' moniker something that came from the Russian trolls in the first place? And I never understood why that worked. To call the conspiracy theory behind it 'ridiculous' is to dignify this underpants-on-head level of idiocy. Surely everyone who is mentally stable enough to vote recognises this as an attempt at brain-washing by sledge-hammer? But no, here we see somebody who evidently has enough braincells to know which side of a keyboard is the top, who can even remember that he has an account at /. and can produce fairly coherent sentences, and we see that 'Killary' is trotted out as the reason that DJT was a better candidate than Hillary Clinton, even with 20/20 hindsight. And this seems to be fairly common.
I think the USA needs a nation-wide checkup of its water supplies. There must be a LOT of lead in the water in many, many places.
How all the Hilda bot shills are out in force to claim that Hillary's gigantic budget and massive lefty propaganda wing is insignificant compared to a few Russian Miscreants that were dreamt up to support their non-starter of a case for impeachment!!
Are you really going to argue that the Trump campaign did not know that the Russians were doing this, and was not cooperating with them?
> I believe the original claim was: "The Russians hacked the election", indicating that Trumps victory was illegitimate.
What do you mean "was"? Here's item #6 on the Reddit homepage right now:
No the Hillary already sold the Russians the Uranium. I sure that she would not only have not enforced sanctions she would have sided with Russia in Syria, Sent foreign aid to Russia. And probably started selling weapons grade plutonium to them at discount prices (with kickbacks of course.) and actually there are sanctions being enforced on Russia.
You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
Just look up everything cold fjord ever posted if you want examples. Russian trolls had 0 impact on the election.
In the timeline presented it was after Trump had the nomination. So what Republican were they going to start rallies for?
At this point, I just figure that leftys are so brainwashed that they actually believe a few Russian social media "influencers" were to blame for corrupt and rotten Hillary not getting into power. Yes, please remember that Saudi Arabia and the benefactors of the TPP all poured money into Hillary.
The report claims someone used hashtags to support Trump and Hillary on Twitter and this is evidence of Russian "hacking"? HHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
I hate to break it to you, but at least 4 Americans have been indicted as part of the special counsel investigation: George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and Mike Flynn. 2 of those have pled guilty for lesser crimes of lying to the feds, Papadopoulous and Flynn, and it looks like Gates is about to make a plea deal too. Flynn definitely was part of the Executive Branch as the National Security Advisor, however short that tenure was, and Gates maintained his connection with the Trump administration well past the firing of Manafort during the campaign, and Gates worked for the inaugural committee.
This batch of indictments looks like it is mostly aimed at Russian nationals who were running a ground level propaganda conspiracy, but it looks like at least one American was caught too in assisting some of the petty crimes involved in running that, in particular ID theft from one Richard Pinedo.
Today's batch of indictments is already pretty interesting, and this was a much more ground level operation running within American borders than I was expecting. It was far more extensive than some random Eastern Europeans posting memes just to stir the pot. And this doesn't say that there wasn't any more Americans in the know about this stuff, just that they were not rounded up the storm of indictments around this particular criminal conspiracy. Do note that these indictments do not include anything about hacking into the DNC and Podesta's emails, so I'd expect there's plenty more to come.
So these Russians are being charged with crimes concerning the use of stolen identities.... Isn't that partly what most of the DREAMers are guilty of?
Judging from the posts they succeeded in dividing the country with the #notmypresident #blacklivesmatter and other hash tags.
And judjing from Slashdot, they succeeded in even more.
I'd be careful with your conclusions here..
Second time the not so thinly veiled threat has been levied at those who dare to disagree with the Russian's position there Ivan.
It could be a cultural thing, but in America, that statement means exactly a threat. Perhaps not so much in Moscow.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Getting Hillary to do anything you want is just one donation to the Clinton Foundation away.
Well now, President Hellery Clinton should be held responsible for that tovarish.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Which leaves the question, what was in it for the Russians? Why did they so clearly support Trump through the primaries and into the election, only to start playing both sides after he was elected?
> They didn't care one wit about which candidate won
Sure they didn't. That's why they were talking with the Trump campaign and trying to get him to drop the Maginitsky act after being elected, and why Trump isn't enforcing the sanctions. I'm suuuure that Clinton would have acted exactly the same.
Both sides are equally bad, amirite?
But her emails! Pay no attention to the uncleared people handling classified data ( and for the Russian trolls here, a interim clearance is not an actual clearance)
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Nah, reading through the laws it doesn't look like it is RICO, this is just a more bog standard criminal conspiracy. RICO is about targeting rackets aimed at making money, and it looks like it was designed to specifically target mafia style organized crime making money through stuff like loan sharking, illegal gambling, drug running, and such.
The Russians in this case don't look like they were running a criminal conspiracy to make money, but instead to run psyops and disinformation to mess with our operation of governance by directly trying to manipulate the electorate towards their desired end, and failing that just sowing discord. They may have done some of the sort of stuff that criminal organizations subject to RICO would use, like the ID theft and fraud, but the picture painted by this indictment is not one of racketeering.
IMO, this is worse than racketeering. There are countries that hate the US to this day because we did similar sorts of things to them decades ago.
No, go read the actual indictment. It's very clear that the charges indicate help for Donald Trump only.
You might try actually reading it yourself. Paragraph 43, part of Count One of the indictment, very clearly says they also supported Bernie:
Plausible deniability there Evgeny. And how was any information gleaned from those rallies? As usual, you and your comrades cherry pick one tiny part, and mount a propaganda campaign . But just like a moving a rudder on a now motionless ship, you can scream your words and not much will happen.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
All of the Bernie and Stein supporters being manipulated too.
Sorry to mention it, but you fell for the weasel words. The weasel words you forgot to include were "relating to _this_ indictment. Wicked fucking weasels these days. Narratives as far as the eye can see. Yawn.
I don't pretend to know this law in that much detail (but I'll be parsing the weasel words in the news over the coming weeks). But I wonder if this is the case, if it is actually a good law? Wouldn't it be better to not have the law, and instead have a populace more skeptical of all political rallies? Aren't there enough non-foreign trolls that people should always be asking themselves about the deeper motives of the mob-leaders? Just sayin, more free speech sounds like a better default legal foundation to me. Let the tourists have as much free speech rights as the natives I say. Now when they lie and misrepresent themselves, then it's time to call the Fraud Police with the handcuffs. :)
Who's to say they couldn't do both? If you're buying stolen social security numbers and personal information in order to set up fake accounts in the US, why not make use of that credit history and banking info too?
This indictment just lays the groundwork for conspiracy charges. I doubt the DOJ thinks that jit's going to take any of these Russians into custody, but now a criminal conspiracy has been established.
You are welcome on my lawn.
https://twitter.com/realDonald...
The US really hit an all-time low with Trump as POTUS.
No I didn't want to vote for women who was under a sham FBI investigation in which any other person that did what she did with her email SERVER would have been locked away for years. Obama's DOJ/FBI makes Nixon's DOJ/FBI look like saints. Entire Russia narrative is bullshit cover-up for the FBI using a bullshit document to justify political spying.
"Just Let It Go." ;)
"They where spreading FUD about the election SYSTEM in this country."
Sometimes FUD is negative. Other times there is legitimately an irrational lack of fear, irrational certainty, and irrational lack of doubt. I'm not convinced this isn't one of those situations.
Cheney must be kicking himself these days. All that trouble of having Colin Powell lie his ass off to the U.N. and present fake evidence, when he could have skipped that whole "evidence" nonsense and made a series of assertions that Saddam planned 911 and hand WMD's. Because people would eat that shit up with a spoon.
But let's go ahead and say it's all true after all. You going to stop spending billions to subvert other countries governments around the word while whining about a few thousand dollars on Facebook ads?
Who's to say they couldn't do both? If you're buying stolen social security numbers and personal information in order to set up fake accounts in the US, why not make use of that credit history and banking info too?
This indictment just lays the groundwork for conspiracy charges. I doubt the DOJ thinks that jit's going to take any of these Russians into custody, but now a criminal conspiracy has been established.
Doing that to make money could bring down more heat on them than they might have wanted, it looks pretty clear they were intent on covering their tracks as much as they could, and said as much in one of the captured communications that they found out that the FBI was on their tail. This really seems like more the sort of thing they were spending money for psychological warfare, not expecting immediate monetary return on their investment.
This very much is a criminal conspiracy, a lot of these Russians are charged with such in this indictment, and looks like a smaller portion of a larger conspiracy at the very least on the Russian side. It's just that RICO is for very particular types of racketeering oriented criminal conspiracies, as opposed to a hostile foreign government running a criminal conspiracy aimed at psychological warfare to alter the US political system more to their liking.
Making that distinction makes it even more serious than more mundane forms of organized crime, as black psyops and propaganda is a very hostile act for a nation to be engaged in. From what I've gleaned when the US engages in such activity itself it is more typically in concert with active kinetic warfare, the kind with guns and bombs. Contrast say with more above the board or "white" propaganda, which you see out of outlets like RT, which does not try to conceal that it is government sponsored.
I'm just spitballing here, but those new charges of money-laundering against Manafort that Mueller announced today might complete the puzzle.
Someone profited here. And by profited, I mean had their pockets lined. It's a lot to take in. What a mess.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Sure they didn't. That's why they were talking with the Trump campaign and trying to get him to drop the Maginitsky act after being elected, and why Trump isn't enforcing the sanctions. I'm suuuure that Clinton would have acted exactly the same.
That sure explains why the Obama administration gave explicit permission for that lawyer to enter the US without going through the usual channels huh?
Om, nomnomnom...
eagerly and willfully became complicit and remain so.
Hillary bought the Russian crap via a Brit spy (both sources foreign) then Obama's people in the deep state used it to get FISA warrants to spy on Trump and they leaked everything they could to their friends in the mainstream press who eagerly pumped it into the nation's political circulatory system, and holdovers of the Obama team who remain to this day in the government continue to sow chaos to undermine the current edministration - these people are all doing the exact bidding of Putin, while loudly screaming that Trump is the Putin puppet.
Irony of ironies.
All the chaos Putin wanted and paid for is being provided for free by Hillay, Obama, ABC,CBS,NBC,MSNBC,CNN,WaPo,NYT... who keep ranting about Trump-Putin.
had "dreamers" (illegal aliens, i.e. FOREIGN CITIZENS) working on their campaigns.
hmmmm......
Democrats demand that foreign interference in our campaigns is a severe threat to our country and must be punished harshly. Time for A.G. Sessions to get off his butt and start launching indictments over all these foreigners who interfered and the Americans who knowingly colluded with them.
Clinton/Obama people have spent a year-and-a-half leaking every bad thing they could on Trump, including classified stuff from intel agencies and even stuff that later was exposed as false. The leaks have been on a scale never before seen in American history, and were first a desperate attempt to keep Trump from winning, then became a desperate attempt to immobilize his administration and bring him down as fast as possible.
We have clearly seen the worst. If there was anything worse than what has already leaked, the Democrats would have leaked it in time to stop Trump's election, or at the very least in time to stop his inauguration.
Hell, even this current indictment covers NO Americans, explicitly says it had no effect on the election, admits Putin's people helped Bernie too and even worked against Trump, and finally admits that some Trump supporter was tricked into gving some pro-Trump lawn signs to a Russian agent (ooooooh) while not knowing he was a Russian agent.
um
The very definition of "collusion" requires that all parties to said collusion are aware of and willing participants in the scheme. If not all involved are aware, then it's NOT "collusion" by definition.
What we've got here is lawn signs, hash tags, pro- AND anti-Trump internet action on a chump-change scale dwarfed by Hillary's over-a-billion-dollars campaign (which, incidentally, outspent Trump's actual campaign by about 7-to-1 thus putting a nail in the coffin of the leftwing arguments about Citizens United and the influence of cash) all of which did not even have any measurable or documentable impact.
This was the "blockbuster" that had the lefties all squealing with delight. Yikes, these people are in la la land and need to get out of their insular mind-numbing hyper-partisan political bubbles.
They want the losing party to act as if the elected US president is not legitimate.
Well, you have to hand it to them, they were pretty effective in achieving that. It's true that they did that by arranging that the US president was not elected in a legitimate way, but hey, a result is a result.
From in or around 2014 to the present, defendants knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other (and with persons known and unknown to the grand jury) to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.
The charges are not saying there were no Americans involved in the conspiracy. The carefully worded announcement from Rosenstein (who also has to appease his master) states that this indictment does not involve any evidence of US citizens being involved.
That was the Fusion GPS meeting. They were trying to get the Magnitsky Act repealed along with working for the Hillary campaign. The lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya met with Simpson (head of Fusion GPS) before and after the meeting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/us/politics/fusion-gps-glenn-simpson.html
Irrelevant to TFA and the thread.
TL;DR.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Until we grow in numbers, Libertarians should align with the Republican party. Because "it is the economy, stupid". If, Heaven forfend, some ultra-conservative Republican manages to outlaw abortions, for example, I'll still be able to pay for my daughter's trip to Canada, should she ever want the procedure.
But, if the likes of Obama keep running the country, we'd all be so poor, that having a free 24/7 abortion clinic next door will be no consolation.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
and Democratic Socialist. I had several family members screwed over by the US Healthcare system, which opened my eyes. Finding out that Wallet Biopsies were a thing (I experienced one before hearing the Sopranos name it) was a frightening ordeal. College History courses helped too. Finding out that slavery was basically a caste system used to keep poor white southerners in their place (slaves were a poor deal, cheap immigrant labor was much, much more profitable) and getting the internet and finding out that through out history bigotry, racism and caste systems have been used over and over again by the 1% to divide and conqueror the working class cinched it.
The Trump/Russia/NRA isn't made up. It's been pretty well researched. I suppose the point could be made that Trump didn't know about it, but that's part of the whole scam. Trump isn't really a leader, he's a demagogue. So he never has to actually know anything about the corruption that supports him. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't be taken down by it. Trump isn't just a man anymore, he's an administration. He's the executor of the US Government. As a leader he's responsible for what his people do. Especially when it's so obvious he's turning a blind eye.
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Your insane interpretations of what this means make me really afraid for the future of humanity.
Nothing in the 'Steele Dossier', also known as the 'Trump dossier', has been verified, corroborated, or confirmed.
In addition, the Steele dossier was contracted by Hillary Clinton. Her campaign ordered it. It did not exist. It was not intelligence. It was not produced by the American or international intelligence communities. It was the idea of the Clinton campaign based on some early efforts by Fusion GPS during the Republican primaries to hire Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, to put together an opposition research document and make it look like it was intelligence product, make it look like it was the result of intelligence agents, spies, doing deep investigations of Donald Trump and his family and associates.
It was made to look like a standard intelligence document that was produced by counterintelligence American patriots, when, in fact, it was nothing more than a painting commissioned by a rich guy. This was a commissioned piece of work that served as opposition research. Everything we’ve known about it remains true to this day.
We now know that the memo asserts that this dossier formed an essential part of the first and subsequently all three renewal FISA applications against Carter Page. Now, this we’ve known and talked about. Carter Page was a temporary Trump campaign official who had made some trips to Russia. And it was those trips in Russia that formed the basis of manufacturing out of whole cloth, creating a series of lies that the guy was being used as an agent by the Trump administration, the Trump campaign to seek relationships with the Russians.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
One group talks about how this condemns Trump, because it shows Russian interference on his behalf (note it's interference, not collusion anymore). The other side says it exonerates Trump because the report specifically says that no American willingly participated. What people seem to be failing to notice is that the Russians were doing Pro and Anti-Trump, as well as Pro and Anti-Hillary...and then immediately after the election, kept stirring the pot with anti-Trump. You are being played to create dissent, to create chaos, and you're gleefully letting it happen. You have a media establishment that hates Trump, you have Democratic politicians who are willing to let the country go up in flames because they aren't getting what they want, and instead of saying 'Gee, maybe we'd better notice that Russia is screwing us all up' they're saying 'No sacrifice is too great to bring down Trump'.
AC, I hereby accuse you of being a goat-fucker. I don't know that this information is false, as you could actually be one of those rare, rare people who engage in goat fucking. Now is this a fair framing of how assertions are supposed to work - or is it total BS? You're also ignoring the fact that it's impossible to prove a negative - it's impossible to prove that Trump hasn't been peed on, much less that Steele lied about it. Which is why it's the job of the person making the assertion to back it up.
Nah, just a torturing, murdering, kidnapping piece of imperialist shit:
The kinda guy who should be in prison for war crimes.
People keep saying this as if its supposed to mean something. Past surveillance - that resulted in nothing as he was charged with nothing - does jack to justify future investigations without probable cause.
Neat way of sidestepping the fact that one general election candidate digging up opposition dirt on her opponent was used as the basis for spying on said opposition candidate.
There's a study which shows Russia overwhelmingly puts or right wing bullshit, the FBI said Russia spent millions supporting Trump and sowing discord (with minor support for Sanders, et al), they've been shown to have talked with Trump's kids, numerous Trump officials have been essentially arrested for Russian collusion
And what you got out of all that is that Russia and the liberals are working together?
Fucking how?
Being a hypocrite does not automatically invalidate an argument.
You fucked up, you got conned, and you backed the wrong horse, all the way down to the finish.
Understand there are a lot of Americans who (i) voted for Trump because he is genuinely the better candidate for them, and (ii) find people like you annoying as fuck.
For these Americans, Hillary sucked, and continues to suck. For these Americans, you were annoying, and continue to be annoying.
"Blah, blah, blah. But Clinton!
Blah, blah, blah. But Clinton!
Blah, blah, blah. But Clinton!"
Get off the Clinton thing. Really, you just look obsessed and stupid by riding that hobby horse.
The issue is Big Giant Orange Head now, his words, his behavior, his fitness for office. Also whether he colluded with the Russians, whether he will start a war with North Korea, whether he will permanently damage civil society with his continual divisive crap.
It would be funny, the accusation that "You're still not geting it", if the matters weren't so serious. Clinton isn't in office, BGOH is. I'd say you were the one "not getting it." Your inability to focus on the matters at hand suggest you need to divert attention away from the matters at hand. Or that you have the attention span of BGOH.