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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.
So these are the guys who spent less than 7 figures on propaganda and supposedly bought the most powerful government in the world?
they didn't get all of them obviously lol.
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
communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.
Translation: sharing a meme on Facebook.
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.
> 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?
dude, you should read the pdf. It's signed by Mueller.
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.
I haven't been paying much attention to this whole story since it seems like general boondoggle and that nothing substantial will come out of this, but doesn't the above quote make it harder for the people who want to accuse Trump of collusion? The " unwitting individuals" part makes it seem like Trump is just stupid (well we already knew this) instead of guilty of collusion.
I'm glad you got your digs in on Trump and all that, but do you really think Trump was involved directly with the trolls?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
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.
We must control the memes of production!
In almost every headline for the story across the Internet..."Mueller Indicts 13 Russians"
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
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.
Campaign finance laws...
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.
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
You deserve to know who is doing it and why. What do the Russians get out of it? Reduced sanctions obviously.
And if they coordinated with Trump, what does Trump get out of it?
"Follow the money!" -- Tried and true wisdom
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
News is still breaking today. This came out like ten minutes ago:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
This is an American who just plead guilty to helping the Russians with the identity fraud part of the conspiracy. He is now cooperating with the Mueller investigation.
When you say "no American involved", you should have said, "yet". Now we learn of the Americans involved.
Don't try to flatter me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is going to get laughed out of court.
Well, the Russians don't give a rat's ass about any charges filed by US Justice Department in a US court. Russia will formally invite them to kiss their hairy asses.
I'm seeing the scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where King Arthur is in front of the castle being taunted and insulted by the laughing French while they throw shit on him.
Replace King Arthur with the Americans and the French with the Russians.
I guess the US government wants to pretend that they are doing something about the Russian hackers.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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
I suppose reading even the introductory paragraph of the indictment is too much for you? It is, in fact, illegal for non-Americans to directly participate in US Politics, such as:
- Paying for political advertisements
- Paying others to troll social media for you
- Making campaign contributions
And this is all on top of general fraud and identity theft charges.
This is a proper and textbook example of a conspiracy, with a group of people in coordinated effort to conduct an illegal activity... not just some assholes "posting memes."
=Smidge=
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.
In this indictment, yes. The events detailed here did not include willing participation by Trump's campaign. Unfortunately for Trump, there are some crimes that don't require knowledge to be committed... For example, being negligent in one's duty to investigate a financial source can be a crime.
As has been the case for a while, the bigger concern is Trump's behavior after the investigation started. If he's shown to have been actively working to obstruct the investigation, that could be what gets him.
Cynic that I am, that's really what I expect is the case... Trump tried to run an honest campaign, but he's so easily manipulated and so quick to overreact that he ends up causing his own downfall, without any direct foreign involvement.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
And if they coordinated with Trump, what does Trump get out of it?
There's good reason to believe someone - likely multiple people - have a lot of leverage on Trump. There's a decent chance he's being straight-up blackmailed.
There's also a decent chance he's caught up in various illegal activities with the Russian mafia. Specifically there have been allegations that his properties were/are used to launder money.
=Smidge=
Just like we ticket every driver who's going over the speed limit.
Yes, it's illegal. No, it's usually not worth the effort to pursue, unless you do something really bad, like cause a collision or act knowingly on behalf of a foreign government intelligence agency.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
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
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
Fuck off ivan
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.
Kill yourself ivan
And, Hillary paid the foreign spy for his work to influence our election. Strange how the media has barely covered that issue.
You deserve to know who is doing it and why. What do the Russians get out of it? Reduced sanctions obviously.
And if they coordinated with Trump, what does Trump get out of it?
"Follow the money!" -- Tried and true wisdom
It seems incredibly unlikely at this point that they did given the lack of evidence. Suing internet trolls and disproving "the dossier" seem to have been all that has come out of the investigations so far. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for something being done about trolls - regardless of whether they're trolling political candidates or regular folks. Heck, I think we should go after trolls even if they aren't Russian and there isn't good PR in it for certain political parties.
Mod this poster up...
It's much more than just memes. Americans went on rallies organised by Russians. The Russian operatives encouraged minorities not to vote, and focused on damaging the Clinton campaign.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
...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...
Could you cite the actual statutes, please? The summary I read cites nothing of the kind — the individuals are indicted for fraud and identity theft. These are very real and nasty crimes, whether or not they are related to elections and regardless of whether perpetrators are Americans or foreigners.
Unless the donation is to a "charity", owned and run by a candidate, right?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Yes that is bad. But note how those two counts make up for 6 pages of the 37 page indictment.
It's good that we are getting criminals but to dedicate an entire Special Investigation for a common occurrence like that... Is a poor use of federal resources. The FBI should have been able to address those crimes without the need of a Special Counsel. The bulk of the indictment is about social media trolling mentioning 5 pages about fraud and sprinkled with 2 paragraphs for identify theft.
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.
The copy I found is signed by Mueller...
You want to keep on? Stay a cowardly AC, it suits you.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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.
Could you cite the actual statutes, please?
The actual indictment is linked in the Slashdot summary. They explain exactly what they believe happened and why it's illegal, including citing applicable statues.
Unless the donation is to a "charity", owned and run by a candidate, right?
You better be careful trying to play that card, considering Trump continues to operate his "charities" despite having been forbidden to operate in New York due to investigations.
Oh right, soon after Trump was elected he fired the Attorney General who was investigating him, so I guess that makes it okay since he's not under investigation anymore!
=Smidge=
Attempting to influence stupid people is not a crime
This. Or every exec on Madison Avenue would be in prison.
Critical thinking skills. Get some.
Have gnu, will travel.
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!
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
It is, in fact, illegal for non-Americans to directly participate in US Politics, such as:
- Paying for political advertisements
- Paying others to troll social media for you
The courts have this theory that persons under US jurisdiction have the same civil rights as citizens. Couple that with the actual language of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law...” to abridge free speech, and there's a very reasonable argument that these are protected speech.
Well honestly that should be instant death penalty with no trial.
seriously, fuck your stupid memes they are never funny.
- Paying foreign nations to cook up a dossier of opposition research.
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.
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.
There's good reason to believe someone - likely multiple people - have a lot of leverage on Trump. There's a decent chance he's being straight-up blackmailed.
There's also a decent chance he's caught up in various illegal activities with the Russian mafia. Specifically there have been allegations that his properties were/are used to launder money. =Smidge=
Oh, we're making shit up now?
There's good reason to believe someone - likely Xenu - sent Trump to Earth to destabilize it. There's a decent chance he's being straight-up mind-controlled.
There's also a decent chance he's caught up in various interstellar prostitution rings with the Omicron Persei 8 mafia. Specifically there have been allegations that he likes to grab alien pussy.
It's much more than just memes. Americans went on rallies organised by Russians.
That's true, including a "'Trump is NOT my President' rally in New York the week after the election and one in Charlotte, North Carolina, the following week."
If America goes down that road, your neighbours to the North and South are going to be building walls to keep you out.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
It is, in fact, illegal for non-Americans to directly participate in US Politics, such as:
- Paying for political advertisements
- Paying others to troll social media for you
- Making campaign contributions
The third item you listed is undisputed (for foreign nationals or organizations, I don't think it applies to foreign-born US residents), and has clearly been an issue discussed in the media I recall at least back to the Clinton administration.
However, the first item goes directly against a comment that I heard on mainstream non-right wing media recently. Because of this, I would also appreciate links or citations that can be easily found to read about this. The second item probably follows from the first.
No evidence of tampering at all.. they just hacked into the voter registrations to take a peak.
That's literally what the article you linked says. They probed 21 States databases, managed to access 1, viewed the information (which for the most part is all publicly available) and made no alterations or additions.
The link to the Russian government is generally because these intrusions were related back to Russian hacking groups which have been know to work for the government in the past. In some cases the ties are just that they had a Russian IP address, because we all know the ip address connecting to the target system is ALWAYS the actual originators IP.
Two of the many possible explanations for this are, the Russians had some nefarious plot to take over the country by reading the public voter roles without paying the state fee for access, or some hackers (Russian, Chinese, Swiss, bored 16 year old, whoever) wanted to see what they could tap into on a lark.
Sure they may have been Russians trying to see what systems were vulnerable but no one has shown they ever went past the public data and the few reports of attempts at actual voter systems were later shown to be the feds actually doing security tests without telling the locals.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
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).”
I actually tend to lean more to the right than otherwise, but it seems lately I've had too many functioning brain cells for the rest of the party to appeal to me.
The credibility of the collusion allegations hasn't really changed. There have been ongoing developments as more Russian operations have been uncovered, but there has never been much direct evidence of Trump's involvement. However, once Comey was fired and Trump started applying pressure to end the investigation prematurely, the question of obstruction became relevant, and it's been reinforced by his continual comments slandering the investigators. The concern hasn't so much "pivoted" as it's been overwhelmed by a much more serious allegation. If the obstruction allegation bears fruit, it's shown that Trump isn't just the hapless benefactor of a crime, but rather he's actively and intentionally breaking the law.
So - here's the deal:
Yes, Trump is the president. He will remain the president until he leaves office, regardless of how that happens, and he'll be succeeded by either Pence or a newly-elected candidate. Until then, he has sworn to execute the Office of President, which means he is expected to follow the nation's laws. So long as he does that, I have no objection to him being the president. I disagree with most of his opinions, but I don't object to him holding the office.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
We must control the memes of production!
So, like, "Memes of the World Unite!"?
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Comrade Soros pays me $6700/month, plus full benefits, health care and a 401k. Three weeks' paid vacation and a company car. Free executive membership at Costco. I started at a lower rate, but I got a nice bump when I was promoted to Senior Shill. I also now have a key to the administrative staff bathroom, which of course is unisex.
And, I get a bonus check whenever I can trigger an Anonymous Coward on Slashdot. You alone have made my boat payment for this month.
You are welcome on my lawn.
From your link:
Yes, it's RICO
You are welcome on my lawn.
"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
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.
Meh. Mod this down.
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.
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
Me? I have my suspicions, but that's all they are. I'm waiting for Mueller to finish up. Predicting what he's going to find can be fun speculation, but it's no more than that.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
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.
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.
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.
Any truth one US political party does not want trending in the media about their uninspiring candidate.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
It's like a hall of mirrors up in here!
You are welcome on my lawn.
All publicity is good publicity.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
Don't try to flatter me.
Pope, you have received the honor of being called the worst liar ever by a Russian troll! I bow to you sir.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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.
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.
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...
Yes, but it is not a text â" the linked-to PDF is a giant bitmap, which makes it unsearchable. Yet, you speak with the authority of someone, who has studied it in detail. Would you, kindly, refer me to the relevant paragraphs?..
Scroll to page 30 you lazy bum. God forbid you learn how to read!
So, you admit, that Hillary Clinton has received numerous and multi-million dollar "donations" to her "charity"
Nope, but it's irrelevant; she didn't win the election. "B-b-but Clinton" is only a very sad distraction at this point.
None of Trump's operations pretend to be charities
Technically correct, but if you're going to refer to the Clinton Foundation as a charity then Trump's foundation is also a charity, because they are the same kind of legal entity.
=Smidge=
Yes, yes. Wire fraud and bank fraud — these are easy to understand, but require neither the powers of the Special Prosecutor nor the top-notch legal team.
But our entire thread here is about alleged "tampering", is not it? So, where is this "tampering" and what did it consist of other than trolls posting memes under false identities? Which we knew Russians have been doing for years... It was perfectly well known, but no one even thought to prosecute it. Because Freedom of Speech.
So, page 30 is "COUNT TWO" — the entire "COUNT ONE" is something nebulous: "Conspiracy to Defraud the United States". WTF? Pretending to be someone else online is now tantamount to felony fraud? If you and ACLU had a shred of integrity left, they would've been outraged by this suggestion...
She ran in it, and came very near to winning. She was also a US Senator and a Secretary of State, while her "charity" kept receiving millions of dollars from foreigners — and all of this happened long before Trump ran for an office. So, discussing her is relevant. And, if she does not deserve punishment for doing it in your opinion, then Trump should not be punished for anything similar either — in your opinion. There we come to that quirky integrity thing again.
Except it was not "B-b-but Clinton" — it was "B-b-but Trump" from you (and a whole bunch of moderators).
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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.
Is Obama going to be indicted in UK for tampering with Brexit vote?
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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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'.
How does one make unauthorized disclosures without being an unreliable asset in the process?
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.
Then I ask you this one important question...
Why did Muller do this? Not one of these charges will EVER see court or even a plea deal. WHY would Muller even bother with this if it didn't implicate an American or two he could actually take to trial?
I don't know what the answer is, but is sure is curious that Muller decided to do this because it gets him nothing.. No perp walk, no trial, no plea deal, nothing but a Friday afternoon presser. Plus the charges specifically say that none of this activity materially affected the outcome of the election.... What is he doing messing with this kind of garbage?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101