Senate Report Shows Russia Used Social Media To Support Trump In 2016 (bbc.co.uk)

AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Russia used every major social media platform to influence the 2016 US election, the report claims. New research says YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram and PayPal -- as well as Facebook and Twitter -- were leveraged to spread propaganda. Its authors criticize the "belated and uncoordinated response" by tech firms. It is the first analysis of millions of social media posts provided by Twitter, Google and Facebook to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Russia adapted techniques from digital marketing to target audiences across multiple channels, with a particular focus on targeting conservatives with posts on immigration, race, and gun rights. There were also efforts to undermine the voting power of left-leaning African-American citizens, by spreading misinformation about the electoral process.

"What is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the Republican Party -- and specifically Donald Trump," the report says. "Trump is mentioned most in campaigns targeting conservatives and right-wing voters, where the messaging encouraged these groups to support his campaign. The main groups that could challenge Trump were then provided messaging that sought to confuse, distract and ultimately discourage members from voting."

Comments

Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Kunedog]

I swear, I've never seen such a longrunning and ineffective damage control campaign for a losing candidate. Is this a sign they really are going to run her again in 2020?

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[arbiter1]

Russia attacked both sides, they had meme's that attack Both Clinton and Trump. They want people to think it was only Clinton they attacked and it was reason they lost. Last i checked Clinton didn't show up here in Michigan til Mon nov 7th's, 1 day before voting happened. It wasn't Russia that turned Michigan Red. It was Clinton's lack of doing anything to get out there to get people to vote for her on top of all the very questionable legal issues surrounding her and all the money they some how many since leaving the white house.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[guruevi]

Either that or Chelsea Clinton.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Narcocide]

Probably largely true, but do keep in mind that you're in the target region and target demographic for the most fake news about the Clintons.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[jwhyche]

This is what happens when you raise someone to the status of your own personal deity. It kind of sucks, hard, when you find out she isn't. I doubt they will run her again. Already the democrats are tossing her, and the rest of her family, under the bus. Their brand is to heavily damaged.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Anonymous Coward]

It's clearly a false equivalence to suggest the Russians equally attacked both sides.

They did not.

They sowed dissension, but they knew the core republicans would vote for whoever the republican candidate was, regardless.

They also knew that they could discourage and disenfranchise voters in the center and on the left by creating division among their ranks.

And that's exactly what they did.

A lot of people didn't vote because they were disgusted by the infighting and the mud-slinging and felt there wasn't a clearly superior candidate.

The fact that people still think Hillary was a bad candidate is a testimonial to that. Her public service record is better than anybody, even Obama's.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Zontar The Mindless]

WT is not even wrong. Feel free to try again, though.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Rick Schumann]

Yes, friend, she did. But understand this: The ENTIRE COUNTRY got ass-raped in 2016, not just Democrats. Russia? Know what they say? They say " " (mission accomplished) and break out the good vodka. They helped turn this country upside down. It'll be DECADES before we fix all the damage that orange haired sonofabitch has done -- and THEY HELPED regardless of being asked to or not.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[shilly]

*That's* your sole measure of success for a Presidency? Taxes? Here are some other things other people care about: the rule of law; racism; climate change policy; education; clean water, air and land; health and healthcare; pensions; income levels; equity of opportunity; equity of outcome; gun ownership; abortion policy. None of that matters to you?

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia attacked both sides, they had meme's that attack Both Clinton and Trump.

Yes they did. It has been reported on and was detailed in the Cambridge Analytica investigation.
They targeted not just "both" side but many sides and found out that they got the most bang for the buck by riling up the right-wingers against Clinton.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Joce640k]

Yep, she's running again. Without a doubt. The astroturfing is already starting.

Seriously? Jeez.

I'm as anti-trump as anybody but I actually want him to win again:

a) To give his economic polices time to implode, and:
b) Because I think the world needs a completely different sort of leader than "politician"

Re: Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Joce640k]

Nobody sane wants another four years of Trump. If Hillary runs, it will happen though.

I they put up Hillary again then I hope Trump wins. The world needs change, not the same old lobbyist-and-rich-people-running-the-show schtick as before.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[thunderclees]

It is kind of fishy since the only people who hated Trump more than Democrats were Republicans. He was not their candidate and so only backed him since no one else was interested in the usual suspects. The Democrats gave the election to Trump by allowing Hillary to be nominated. Not that the rank and file had a choice since Hillary's nomination was given to her as the result of a deal anyway. There were so many better candidates than Hillary that wee over looked. Bernie ran anyway but had to quit when he was told "here is a half million dollar vacation home and here is a bullett to the back of the head, which do you want?"

Re: Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Anonymous Coward]

The world needs change...by having the same President get a second term?

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Shotgun]

For your next assignment, think about which popular regime was able to hold together after they lost all semblance of a common philosophy. Through the Obama years we learned that "innocent until proven guilty" was not even a thing if the accuser happened to be of a particular victim group. Recently the press has decided that open debate and freedom of speech can be violently squelched if a group dressed in black decides that they don't like what you're are saying. How long can a society hold together once the core principals that held them together are squashed?

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Shotgun]

Why can't the left give up the ghost and learn from voters instead of blaming world+dog+extra-terrestrials for her failure to win an election?

Because then they'd have to recognize that a large portion finds their intersectional politics repugnant?

Re: Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Joce640k]

What I actually said (typos aside) was: I hope Trump wins if they put up Hillary again.

The democrats are the only ones who can really change the face of politics. The Republicans sure as hell aren't going to do it.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Shotgun]

Rule of law? You mean like Obama making up programs to allow illegals to stay in the country without any approval from Congress?

Racism? Like Obama promoting BLM?

OK. I skipped to "equity of outcome", and the stupid was to overwhelming. I give.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[e3m4n]

Biden is not nearly as bad as you think. His age is a major issue and that alone will cause him to lose. He does say some stupid shit, but what he does in action is not always the same thing as the first words out of his mouth. He listens to his advisers and he doesnt always assume that the other person is always wrong. In fact many people in the republican party still have a lot of respect for him from when he was a Senator. There are few Democrats in congress since 2001 that struck me as non-partisan (ie party line politics at any cost). Joe Biden was one, Joe Lieberman was the other. John Kerry, in the 90s was also among that group.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[kilfarsnar]

They could not sow division that is not already there. The left have gone all in on the premise that we are stronger the more dissimilar we become. Trump is going to be an ineffective speed bump in the road but eventually their philosophy will destroy them and inevitably balkanize this country. Welcome to the fall of Rome 2.0 lads, buckle up!

No two people are exactly alike. This is true even of the people you consider to be like you. Even white Christians have come into conflict with one another. The differences between people are the ones we choose to notice. These differences can be interesting or threatening, depending on one's point of view.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[shilly]

FFS. I wasn't making a pro D or pro R point. I was saying that for *everyone*, wherever they are on the political spectrum, matters beyond taxes are surely important to them?

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Shaitan]

There is a thing called balance. He didn't propose a homogenous population, he opposed pushing for intentional segregation and diversity. There is a very large spectrum of middle ground between those crazy extremes you know.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[guacamole]

It'll be DECADES before we fix all the damage that orange haired sonofabitch has done

It's truly shocking how many people think like you despite GWB's Iraq War 2.0 fiasco. No, Trump is not the worst president the US ever had. In fact, Bush jr remains the worst US president in a long long time, and certainly the worst in the 21st century.

I guess you belong to the generation that were still toddlers or kindergartners at the time when the Bush White House lied its way into Iraq War 2.0. The result was a violent regime change, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, several thousand of dead American soldiers, 1.5 trillion of our tax dollars spent (at least), seriously deteriorated reputation of the USA (before the war, Putin and GWB were best friends and Putin made everything to help USA fight terrorists after 9.11). The sectarian conflict is still simmering in Iraq, and the rise of ISIS in Syria was certainly helped by the civil war that went on in the neighboring Iraq.

Bush's decimation of Saddam Hussein also had one nasty surprise, the influence of Iran in the Gulf got stronger than ever (Iran's worst enemy regime got replaced with one that's friendly).

And yet, after all of this, the liberals still think that Trump is the worst president and they're even willing to rehabilitate GWB.

No folks, GWB was the real shame of this country. Despite his best efforts, Trump hasn't gotten there so far.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[e3m4n]

Not so much, over half of his voters just play along because of the massive amount of trump derangement syndrome. Nobody got this bent out of shape when Obama campaigned on repealing the patriot act as a civil rights violation and then not only did nothing, but auto-penned its renewal multiple times. He didnt even have the courage to sign it himself. Heads did not implode when he ordered an assassination of a US Citizen without a trial in violation of several constitutional rights. Heads did not go crazy threatening impeachment when he imprisoned reporters for refusing to reveal their sources that outage corruption and abuse of power within the government. Nor was there any extreme outrage when he put provisions in the NDAA that allowed him to black-bag and hold any citizen indefinitely without a trial in violation of Habeas Corpus, as well as the 6th amendment. Trump could literally send out a tweet about the Seattle Seahawks and half the country would go into seizures followed by a million tweets, name calling, etc. The irony is the constitution was written that the President position was second in importance to congress, yet everyone pretends like its an elected king.

btw your rock-solid evidence sits entirely on the testimony of a lawyer who plead guilty to 14 counts of lying in order to cut a deal to save his hide. Your idea of rock solid is based on the court of public opinion, which has no relevance in courtroom proceedings that require beyond-reasonable-doubt level evidence. No jury convicts when the only evidence is a testimony of a convicted criminal who has already been caught lying multiple times, that's a recipe for a mistrial.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[e3m4n]

NONE of those are the job of the president. Why the fuck does everyone think the president is a fucking king? He works for fucking congress. Read the constitution. Congress gives the president the laws and direction, the president then EXECUTES those orders and puts people in charge of ensuring they get followed. Hence the term Executive Branch. Tell congress to get off their fucking ass and stop pushing that responsibility on the president simply because its inconvenient to their re-election strategy to have a record of vote on specific hot topic items where promises were made to various groups in contradiction to promises made to other various groups. Its not the president's job to rewrite immigration law, his job is to enforce it as written. Its not the president's job to create climate change policy, its his job to enforce laws that congress makes in that regard. VETO is the only power a president really has in regards to laws being passed by congress.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[ljw1004]

I swear, I've never seen such a longrunning and ineffective damage control campaign for a losing candidate. Is this a sign they really are going to run her again in 2020?

Your attitude (of thinking it's all just partisan bickering) is a seriously dangerous attitude.

History lesson. The US won the cold war because it turned into an economic war. It was an asymmetric economic war because capitalist US could vastly outspend socialist USSR on military. The Soviet Union just couldn't compete.

What we're seeing now are just the tiny opening salvos of a new war, a war of disinformation and manipulation. It is an asymmetric war because totalitarian Russia and China can and do easily control what information is spread in their societies, but open democratic US and other nations are mostly powerless to stop it. These are the opening salvos, proofs of concept, and they're going to get much bigger. In 20 years we'll find that a 1% vote sway is cheaper and more effective than an air-craft carrier fleet or 2000 ICBMs.

If we don't figure out how to defend ourselves in the coming disinformation warfare, then the US will lose. We urgently need to look at what's happening and figure out strategies that don't involve sacrificing our open democracies. The question of Hilary vs Trump is trivial and insignificant next to that. Please look at the big picture.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Areyoukiddingme]

So instead of a "politician", you place a "criminal" at the top.

We've had criminals at the top before. We're accustomed to a certain panache in our criminals. And a certain competence. We like criminals smart enough not to get caught at most of what they do.

This guy.... he involved himself with the highest law of the land while knowing nothing of law, while knowing so little about law that he was unable to hire a lawyer who could stand up to him and tell him what he can and can not do on the way to accomplishing his goals. There's often a weasel path to get what you want, whatever it might be. Trump never takes the weasel path. He bulls straight through. It's going to cost him. A lot. Fox News is so very fond of reciting the catch phrase "We're a nation of laws." They're going to profoundly regret it.

Re: Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[FuzzyDaddy2]

No doubt she lost because she didnâ(TM)t run a good campaign. Whether the Russia campaign actually affected the outcome is up for debate; what should concern us is how big an effort it was and how a big part of the US population is actively denying it existed.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[shilly]

I didn't say those things were the job of the President, and you're being really much too narrow in your thinking. The first item on my list was the rule of law. Your very own post talks about the problem of executive creep, which is an affront to the rule of law. So yes, the Presidency affects the rule of law. You've demonstrated that it matters to you that the President uphold the rule of law -- I agree.

On all those other matters -- whether the President exercises only their lawful power of veto, influences legislation (or indeed the population at large) with their charisma and authority (which is perfectly legal too), or oversteps with executive action, the President clearly affects all these matters.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[Rick Schumann]

Your opinion. Be sure to put that disclaimer on all such comments.

Re:Clinton Lost Because of Clinton

[whitroth]

Not insightful. Either a right-wing troll... or else being paid in rubles.

She *won* almost three million more votes, but gerrymandering and the Electoral College gave it to the loser.

Oh, and why don't you tell us more, about how you feel about supporting a sexual predator, ignorant, illiterate, psychotic, contract-breaking, thieving money-launderer, who'll sell out his own country for money?

Too bad...

[Rick Zeman]

...we can't just drop the Soviet Union, err Russia from routing tables.

Re:Too bad...

[h33t l4x0r]

Because there's no such thing as proxies?

Re:What, the astroturfers have nothing to say?

[LarryRiedel]

Are busy preparing memes for fool you again 2020

Re:What, the astroturfers have nothing to say?

[Narcocide]

Greetings, Komrade!

It's more complicated than that

[rsilvergun]

yes, Clinton could have won if she'd just taken Trump seriously. Also if she took notice of how badly beaten up the working class was. Her solution to everything was more education. For a woman who'd spent her entire life living large off the fruits of her education that makes sense. She's a classic left wing, elitest do gooder: she can't understand why folks don't just reach out their hands for all the money out there when it's all so easy. She's literally unable to comprehend that it's not so easy for most of us.

But all that said:

1. She still won the popular vote.

2. She lost by a razor thin margin. So thin that all she needed was to focus a bit more on the rust belt but...

3. By the same token that razor thin margin means that stuff that ordinarily shouldn't have mattered, mattered.

TL;DR; I think Clinton could have won if she tried harder, but I don't think she'd have lost without Russian interference and that last minute Oct surprise from Comey pushing Trump over the edge.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[Dutch Gun]

I don't think she'd have lost without Russian interference and that last minute Oct surprise from Comey pushing Trump over the edge.

Isn't that a bit like saying "I don't think he would have died without that hangnail and the bullet piercing his heart." One seems slightly more likely to have affected the outcome in question than the other.

People keep talking about "Russian interference", but if it was that easy to sway votes with a few anonymously-placed ads or astroturfing bots, it seems the campaigns are awfully incompetent with the $2.4 BILLION spent on the presidential race. I mean, surely the next presidential candidate who hires a Russian strategist is a shoo-in, since they apparently have some untapped genius for getting candidates elected without anyone even noticing.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[Zontar The Mindless]

Obvious turnabout troll is obvious.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, Clinton could have won if she'd just taken Trump seriously.

Whether she won or lost is largely irrelevant. An attack on our country's sovereignty occurred and our current leader supports those actions, going so far to do everything he can get by with to weaken and destroy key pillars of our democracy to save his own ass. He fosters tribalism because it benefits him, the same way Putin foster'd it in America because it benefits him. They both are perfectly fine with watching America burn if it helps them.

"Also if she took notice of how badly beaten up the working class was. Her solution to everything was more education. For a woman who'd spent her entire life living large off the fruits of her education that makes sense. She's a classic left wing, elitest do gooder: she can't understand why folks don't just reach out their hands for all the money out there when it's all so easy. She's literally unable to comprehend that it's not so easy for most of us."

She provided real plans. He provided lies. I suppose you illustrated the key point. The angry people wanted the easy button. They wanted, "I alone can fix it." At best he's burning America's future through pollution and debt for a short term sugar high. As long as the average voter can be manipulated by a snake oil salesman like this, we are pretty much screwed long term. Sure we might dodge Trump part 2, and we might not, but the endless waltz will be repeated. Look for pain and resentment to exploit. Blame it on some other people. Claim to be the saviour and the one to protect us from the bad people. Hell its practically the Hermann Goering quote all over again.

I think Clinton could have won if she tried harder, but I don't think she'd have lost without Russian interference and that last minute Oct surprise from Comey pushing Trump over the edge.

Clinton was a poor candidate, but from what I can tell would have been a competent administrator. She had the skills and the experience. Sure the email was a minus, but it was a tempest in a teacup compared to what we saw of Trump. Clinton was pretty much as honest as the average republican in the field if you removed Trump, which while still sad, those were the choices you had, until the work is finally done for some ranked choice voting.

I suppose the biggest thing about Clinton was, the country needed her to be at her A game. Her failure to be that, to be strong enough to win despite the propaganda and lies, was a great disappointment. Sure a politician shouldn't have to fight foreign propaganda, or propaganda at all, but that is not the world we are living in.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[Powercntrl]

Her solution to everything was more education.

Which is fine if you're 18 and living at your parents place. If you're pushing 40 and feel like an old dog who doesn't want to learn any new tricks, it comes across as condescending.

Granted, Trump's "MAGA" was a bullshit snake oil pitch, but some people would just rather hear the fairy tale where you go back to work in the coal mine, rather than the one where you get to star in your own remake of Billy Madison.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[phantomfive]

TL;DR; I think Clinton could have won if she tried harder,

I don't know if "try harder" is the way to put it. She basically put all her resources into it. You might say she should have allocated resources differently, visited different states, but I don't know if she could have tried any harder.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[AmiMoJo]

The left is focused on basics like education and healthcare because those are the things that tend to keep people poor. Education opens up more opportunities, and that includes learning trades as well as purely academic study.

Clinton's real problem was that she had too much baggage. Nothing was wrong with her policies really. She was an easy target for a populist promising to "drain the swamp" and offer a bunch of simplistic solutions to complex problems that in reality take many years of sustain effort to fix.

Re: It's more complicated than that

[e3m4n]

How the hell can you say its not an issue. If you had done it you would most certsinly have gone to jail. Its a classic case of those in power held to a lesser standard. People go to jail for mishandling classified information ALL THE TIME. Sending classified messages over the internet in PLAIN TEXT over SMTP port 25 is the very fucking definition of mishandling classified documents. You might as well print it on the back of postcards and drop them in the mail.

She admitted to doing it. She said âoebut the recipient had clearanceâ. What about the 27 hops that message traversed during transit? What sbout her daughter? She didnt have clearance.

Hold officials to a HIGHER standard. Not lower. Pick a different candidate.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Clinton might also have won if she hadn't put that fake, wide grin on her face every time a camera was pointed at her. Really, not a single one of her PR advisers was able to tell her how creepy that felt, and that she could earn sympathy points -easily- by just looking serious for a second?

Re: It's more complicated than that

[Shotgun]

How is he such a good liar when everything he says is chewed over and exposed? Half the so-called lies he tells are opinions, but the media calls them lies anyway. Meanwhile, Hillary gets away with boxes of FBI files magically appearing in the White House, or getting lucky turning $1000 into $100,000 on her first attempt with futures trading.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[Shotgun]

You don't even realize that the Clinton foundation is still under investigation by the DoJ, do you?

Re:It's more complicated than that

[e3m4n]

I used to joke that this whole russian meddling thing is way overblown. Why? Because only a few hundred thousand dollars was spent in facebook ads. Noone stopped Hillary from spending on facebook ads. Hillary spent 1.4 BILLION, not including special interest PACs on her campaign. If a few hundred thousand dollars is all it took to get elected she simply is not qualified to be president based exclusively on the fact that she spend 1.4 BILLION DOLLARS of someone elses money on a task that only required a few hundred thousand dollars. I would much rather elect the brains behind the facebook ad firm, whoever that may have been, that did this to the role of president, in order to run the county more efficiently, than someone who wastes 1.4 BILLION dollars, looses, and promptly cries foul over a $400,000 investment. IF that one single fact does not make her less qualified that someone more frugal with their investments, nothing will.

Re:It's more complicated than that

[e3m4n]

she got caught cheating and it caught up with her. Russians hacked the DNC to find out how she cheated democracy in the DNC primary debates then made that public. Then it was discovered she as given advanced copies of all the debate questions. Oh and then the hearing aid, the hearing aid that was ONLY worn during the debate... NO NOBODY IS FEEDING HER THE ANSWERS... yea right. So some of her support slipped away. People arent stupid. The stupid shit she did suppressed some of her voters. The stupid shit Trump did suppressed some of his. IT came down to the Never Hillary's vs the Never Trumps. A terrible platform to become the primary force of an election. The Never Hillary's won. Do you know how many people registered as Democrat in 2008 in order to vote AGAINST her during the primary elections? She knew that and tried again, and will try a third time it seems. Forget whats best for the country. How dare she be denied her ascension to the throne! Her fucking smug, power hungry, all about me elitism did not sit well with a lot of people. Trump was no better, but we already saw how they (the media) deliberately stacked the deck to 1) get Hillary to be the DNC candidate and 2) get trump elected as the RNC candidate, because early polls showed he was the one candidate she had a real shot at beating out of the others polled. Like I said, people aren't stupid. To think we didnt see this shit was rediculous. People that became disgusted with this either didnt vote, voted for Johnson, or voted against hillary to stick it to the media. 4 years of Trump hopefully will teach the media to stop fucking trying to influence people and just do their goddamn jobs. I can promise one thing, history WILL eventualy repeat itself. The media once again will assume people are fuckign sheep to be told what to do.

Who cares about Clinton?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The only people I hear bring her up are Republicans who keep going "Lock Her Up". Whether Trump worked Russia seems important because, you know, if he keeps working with Russia, that's really bad.

Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[rsilvergun]

no matter what he does or says or what comes out. Hell, he's mad that he took Pence as his VP because it turns out the Evangelicals will support him no matter what. These same Evangelicals just elected a dead pimp

To me the Russian interference is like a vial of blood in a shark pool. It didn't take much, but without the vial there wouldn't have been a frenzy. And we shouldn't be surprised. Vlad Putin's specialty was information warfare for Christ's sake. It's not like we weren't warned. He saw a weakness (Hilary) and exploited it to weaken us further.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[Luckyo]

The obvious problem being that this support was bipartisan, as several pieces of evidence now clearly showed. The "social media ads"?

They supported both Clinton and Trump. The aim was clearly polarisation of the extremes of the supporting bases of each candidate, not supporting either of the candidates. You can see this in pretty much everything publicly released so far, from the facebook ads to the various reports.

Trump's popularity on the other hand doesn't drop for a very simple reason. Political smear jobs based on misunderstandings, misrepresentations and lies have to take out their target quickly. If they don't, the audience of the target sees one lie, than another lie, and then they simply assume that everything else coming out of those sources is probably a lie. Which isn't helped by the fact that to maintain the narrative for the audience of those doing the smearing, the narrative has to become even more extreme. And we have seen so many lies about Trump and his purported actions that were just patently false on the face of it, it's genuinely hard at this point to take any critique of Trump without reacting "ok, show me the full context of this claim you have".

And context usually ends up like that infamous statement about "migrants", which actually referred to one of the most violent gangs on the planet when viewed in context. And so, the actors actually generating the smear jobs have very little chance of being taken seriously any more beyond their own audience. Too many failures. All they can do at this point is preach to the slowly shrinking choir.

Which is why you should be genuinely afraid of Trump if you're against his agenda. Not because of the contents of his agenda, or because of any of the smears. You should be afraid of him because there's one thing on which Bannon was completely correct in that Munk debate. Trump is the paradigm shift, where disenfranchised people actually found franchise, and where there are now too many people who have been disenfranchised by the globalist trend. To the point where it's not limited to the continent - Yellow Jackets was a part of the exact same paradigm shift in a country that is about as different as a country could be to US while still remaining a part of "Western" umbrella. Utterly different court system, literal codification of anti-theism into all government functions, very socialist policies. And yet, France had protests that literally showed that Trump's paradigm shift clearly happened in France too, and it reached a point where it cannot be simply dismissed as "those deplorable people that are beneath us that we will call names and dismiss as if they're irrelevant".

Hell, the entire point that leadership adhering to the will of the populace, "populism" is now considered a bad word in upper echelons of society shows just how badly fractured the political elite and ordinary people are becoming. All it takes is a capable person who genuinely cares for their plight, and you get Salvini.

These people are not irrelevant any more. They're starting to organise. And as a traditional leftie who voted social democrats in a Nordic country his whole life, it scares the shit out of me. Mostly because I find that when they make points of failures of globalist aspects of policy, I find myself forced to agree with them because of my social democratic principles. I believe that those most disenfranchised in the nation, the workers, the farmers, should have a clear and loud voice in how country is run. And then I look at the party I voted for my entire life, and many among them are parroting the anti-populist narrative and singing praises of policy that is pointedly ignoring and even aggressively dismissing the disenfranchised. And when you're a social democratic party, you do not get to do that and get away with it. That is against the very core principles your party stands for. You are supposed to stand for the disenfranchised. That's why I voted for you my entire life.

And so, like so many people on the centre left, I find myself without a political home. Without even being an American. All because of Trump showing the world the ugliness that was allowed to fester for so long in the Western political systems as globalism co-opted the democratic republics.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[quantaman]

The obvious problem being that this support was bipartisan, as several pieces of evidence now clearly showed. The "social media ads"?

They supported both Clinton and Trump. The aim was clearly polarisation of the extremes of the supporting bases of each candidate, not supporting either of the candidates.

Polarization was an objective, but so was Trump. To say the Russian interference "supported both Clinton and Trump" is to ignore overwhelming evidence to contrary.

Trump's popularity on the other hand doesn't drop for a very simple reason. Political smear jobs based on misunderstandings, misrepresentations and lies have to take out their target quickly. If they don't, the audience of the target sees one lie, than another lie, and then they simply assume that everything else coming out of those sources is probably a lie.

Virtually none of the attacks against Trump are "smear jobs", "misunderstandings", "misrepresentations", or "lies". The reason they don't hurt Trump's popularity is that virtually everyone except his base has abandoned him. And his base doesn't care about the attacks because they don't care if he's a corrupt businessman who colluded with Russia. They probably wouldn't even care if he was a literal Russian asset, at this point they're in it for the culture war, and no one goes after liberals with as much vitriol as Trump.

Yellow Jackets was a part of the exact same paradigm shift in a country that is about as different as a country could be to US while still remaining a part of "Western" umbrella. Utterly different court system, literal codification of anti-theism into all government functions, very socialist policies. And yet, France had protests that literally showed that Trump's paradigm shift clearly happened in France too, and it reached a point where it cannot be simply dismissed as "those deplorable people that are beneath us that we will call names and dismiss as if they're irrelevant".

The Yellow Vests in France have more to do with Marcon's centre-right economics than immigration and anti-globalism. It's just the US framing that makes it look Trumpy.

Hell, the entire point that leadership adhering to the will of the populace, "populism" is now considered a bad word in upper echelons of society shows just how badly fractured the political elite and ordinary people are becoming.

It's a dirty word because it's almost always used to justify policies that sound good as a slogan but have terrible consequences. The rise of populism is usually a sign that media institutions that help regulate the public debate and stop dump slogans from becoming policy are broken.

Mostly because I find that when they make points of failures of globalist aspects of policy, I find myself forced to agree with them because of my social democratic principles. I believe that those most disenfranchised in the nation, the workers, the farmers, should have a clear and loud voice in how country is run.

This has nothing to do with globalism. Globalism is just robust international trade and institutions. There's no reason why you can't have a boatload of those while still empowering the people to control their government. In fact if you look at the most "globalized" countries and the most democratic countries you have a really strong relationship.

And so, like so many people on the centre left, I find myself without a political home. Without even being an American. All because of Trump showing the world the ugliness that was allowed to fester for so long in the Western political systems as globalism co-opted the democratic republics.

The thing you actually hate is corporatism and oligarchy, corruption and rule by the rich. And that's exactly what Trump brings. Russia is probably the best example of the Trump model, and that's pretty much the definition of corruption and mass disenfranchisement.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[fatwilbur]

Hear hear. This story is a couple of days old and amazingly for once, didn't get heavy coverage outside of the usual foaming-mouth anti-Trump sources. I have hope to believe it's because many news outlets rightfully laughed at the conclusions of the report.

I don't live in nor vote in the United States, and I have to say I find much more objective coverage of Trump in my country. We still definitely have some of those same foaming-mouth outlets, but they are generally easier to spot for their heavy left-leaning bias. I think every politician and their policies should be heavily scrutinized, but I can't understand how people still live this "Russia hacked the election and colluded with Trump" given the actual evidence that has come out. If there was any "Trump support" from these online trolls, it was because they clearly hated Hillary vs. liking Trump. But the Senate wants you to believe some online trolls posting memes stole an entire election. Ridiculous.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[Jack9]

> Globalism is just robust international trade and institutions.

The simplicity of this statement is misleading. It's relevant to recognize the distasteful relevant practical relationship between these terms. "Robust" encompasses the economically supported exploitation of labor by totalitarian states (eg Chinese Manufacturing, African Diamond Mines, Venezuela oil) empowering these organizations. "Globalism" is a soft term that encompasses the humanitarian/political forces across the "globe" that result in the measurable results that are not purely economic. To be fair, these relationships existed before "globalism" was a commonplace term.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is Trump doesn't just lie, he gets his audience to invest in the lie too. People chant along with him.
Once they're part of "his camp", cognitive dissonance does the rest.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[Anonymous Coward]

> They supported both Clinton and Trump.

The summary states the exact opposite. I'm not sure where you got this from. At best there were a handful of example supporting Hilary to create division compared to hundreds of thousands in support of Trump.

> Trump's popularity on the other hand doesn't drop for a very simple reason. Political smear jobs based on misunderstandings, misrepresentations and lies have to take out their target quickly.

This doesn't make sense as most of the attacks on Trump (such as his rapey comments) were factual, whilst the attacks on Hillary and the Dems (PizzaGate) were lies, so it doesn't explain how Trump survives, but Hillary didn't. If what you said was true then Hillary would be in the whitehouse because the smears against her were often lies, whereas those against Trump were factual (and continuously prove to be so).

> it's genuinely hard at this point to take any critique of Trump without reacting "ok, show me the full context of this claim you have".

Right, but that's not because of the reason you give, that's simply because you're a well known Trump supporter on Slashdot and are incredibly partisan. You won't believe negative news about Trump because you'll support him regardless. You're one of those supporters that would support him if, in his own words "I could shoot somebody and I wouldnâ(TM)t lose any voters".

> Which is why you should be genuinely afraid of Trump if you're against his agenda. Not because of the contents of his agenda, or because of any of the smears. You should be afraid of him because there's one thing on which Bannon was completely correct in that Munk debate. Trump is the paradigm shift, where disenfranchised people actually found franchise, and where there are now too many people who have been disenfranchised by the globalist trend. To the point where it's not limited to the continent - Yellow Jackets was a part of the exact same paradigm shift in a country that is about as different as a country could be to US while still remaining a part of "Western" umbrella. Utterly different court system, literal codification of anti-theism into all government functions, very socialist policies. And yet, France had protests that literally showed that Trump's paradigm shift clearly happened in France too, and it reached a point where it cannot be simply dismissed as "those deplorable people that are beneath us that we will call names and dismiss as if they're irrelevant".

An alternative world view is that we should be scared of Putin, because we thought we'd won the cold war in the early 90s and turned our backs and started to focus on sideshows like the Taliban and ISIS. Meanwhile, Putin spent 20+ years building up his intelligence apparatus to infiltrate Western society left and right, hence why people like Arron Banks in the UK have a wife who was exposed as a Russian spy, and who is also the person who illegally funded Brexit way beyond campaign spending laws with money that can't be traced back to his actual business because it comes from Russia. We saw the St Petersberg convention, where Russia hosted all of Europe's far right, and they all came away with millions of pounds in funding, some of it overt (France's NF) and some of it covert but now exposed (UKIP). In the UK we're seeing the same pattern repeat now with Tommy Robinson having Russian propaganda support on social media, and we've seen it across Europe with Hungary's Jobbik, Italy's Five Star, Greece's Golden Dawn, Germany's AfD, and so on. That's not to say it's restricted to the far right, though that's Russia's preference as it's the orthodoxy it now follows at home, but if no convenient far right actor exists, or is unlikely to succeed Russia will support the far left too (Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece for example).

It's not some weird coincidence that Russia hosted all these parties and/or their key figures, and that clear links to Russia keep getting exposed to their financing and online propaganda support. It's not some conspi

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[AmiMoJo]

They supported both Clinton and Trump.

They did not. The report clearly says that the "support" for Clinton was only to the extent that it pushed her supporters to be more extreme and make her and the Democrats look bad, e.g. by attacking Sanders.

In fact they did a lot of sabotage Clinton. Releasing those emails just before the vote, spreading misinformation to discourage or prevent her supporters from voting.

"populism" is now considered a bad word

It always was. It refers to politics that offers seemingly simple solutions to often largely invented problems for the sake of gaining power, rather than making things actually better.

It's ironic that many Trump supporters use the "will of the people" argument, except when it is pointed out that he lost the popular vote at which point they claim the electoral college system is protection from the tyranny of the majority.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[cascadingstylesheet]

Virtually none of the attacks against Trump are "smear jobs", "misunderstandings", "misrepresentations", or "lies".

The ones that matter are.

The idea that he's some sort of "white supremacist" is precisely a smear job, a lie. And it's really all you have.

It's also ludicrous, as he's been in the public eye all his life. No, we really didn't just discover in 2016 that he's secretly a Nazi, lol. And people not blinded by partisanship know that.

The reason they don't hurt Trump's popularity is that virtually everyone except his base has abandoned him.

You kept saying that during his campaign too.

Who knows, you might be right at some point, if you keep saying it. It's not a really great prediction record so far though.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[AmiMoJo]

the usual foaming-mouth anti-Trump sources/quote

Like the BBC?

The coverage was a little muted because this is just the warm up. The Senate will now act on this report somehow, which is when the fun really starts.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[Vitriol Angst]

They supported both Clinton and Trump. The aim was clearly polarisation of the extremes of the supporting bases of each candidate, not supporting either of the candidates.

"They" what? Ads in general or what the Russians were targeting? The entire report is covering them using sophisticated data and supporting Trump directly by targeting people who were susceptible to their messages -- usually based with fear and xenophobia.

And we have seen so many lies about Trump and his purported actions that were just patently false on the face of it, it's genuinely hard at this point to take any critique of Trump without reacting "ok, show me the full context of this claim you have".

The most damning critiques about Trump are based on his own quotes. I find "they" (the media) are cruelly representing him and his bullshit quite accurately. They still give most of the BS a pass that politicians spread seemingly still oblivious of the fertile soil from which Trump sprouted.

Mostly because I find that when they make points of failures of globalist aspects of policy, I find myself forced to agree with them because of my social democratic principles. I believe that those most disenfranchised in the nation, the workers, the farmers, should have a clear and loud voice in how country is run.

Yes, we have the corporate Republicans on one side who the Russians clearly prefer because they want to balkanize all the Western nations in xenophobia and distrust and we have the neo-liberal Democrats who sell out to corporations and don't seem to believe in anything more than not being Republicans -- who themselves don't believe in anything other than not being Liberals. Simple solution: piss them all off and vote for Progressives. It's about power to the people.

Corporatists and Russian Oligarchs hate the progressives. When you don't know which way to turn, go the direction all the a-holes are telling you will spell your doom. "What's that?" Tucker Carlson hates Bernie Sanders -- sounds like a good choice.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[Vitriol Angst]

And yet, France had protests that literally showed that Trump's paradigm shift clearly happened in France too,

Yeah, no, that's just stupid. Trump is putting industry titans in charge of everything and getting rid of safety and environmental standards might make coal slightly cheaper but at the cost of the health of the people involved in it. He's too damn corrupt to represent anyone but the elite. And though China needs to be brought into line -- his hamfisted approach and alienation of allies who might have been engaged in forcing China to respect IP are going to work against him.

Trump is just a dumpster fire and the glow of the economy will soon fade. Burning down the house only keeps you warm for a short time.

Re:Trump's poll numbers don't drop

[e3m4n]

Not just Vlad, read Radio Warfare. We've been doing it to our own citizens for about 60 years now. I think this whole thing is a good thing, because Russia wont go down without a fight and in the process will continue to air the dirty laundry our government has been doing to us for a while too. In the end everyone will demand an end to all of it, not just Russia's part.

Like the US has never meddled in elections ?

[Anonymous Coward]

All this "news" makes me think the Democrats are a bunch of losers who cannot accept that they LOST BECAUSE THEIR CANDIDATE DID NOT APPEAL TO THE MAINSTREAM AMERICAN.

Honestly, seconds after that Crazy Clinton Cunt used the word "deplorables", I knew who was going to LOSE the election.
You see, people don't like being called "deplorable" by some nasty dried-up post-menopausal CUNT who cares less about the average American than an exterminator cares about a cockroach.

Fuck Hillary Clinton - I hope she gets cancer and that she suffers horribly. And fuck her used-car salesman husband too. They are scum.

Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[Chas]

Did the Russians interfere?

Yes? DUH?

Now. Did they connive WITH Trump to do it?

Evidence (or lack thereof) says "no".
But, in the most charitable gimme to the Never-Trumpers, the answer is "we don't know (AND NEITHER DO YOU!)".

As such. It's nothing more than a teaching moment.
So, to all of those who've welded their asses to the "Impeach Impeach Impeach" train that's going "Trump woke up this morning! IMPEACH HIM NOW!" "Trump tweeted something I don't like! IMPEACH HIM NOW!" "Trump exists! IMPEACH HIM NOW!"?

Take a fucking chill pill. Because your crazy fucking behavior is destroying the Democratic Party and is going to keep the man in office until 2024.

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[Ichijo]

Calm down!

Now, what "crazy behavior" are you referring to?

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[Chas]

Ah.
You assume I voted for Trump.
You assume I'm somehow dependent on Trump for my sense of self-worth.
You assume I have the same religious zealotry for my politics that you do.

That's lots of assumptions. And all totally incorrect.

Why exactly do you allow the man to live rent-free in your head this way?

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[Chas]

Have you not seen the idiotic behavior from the Left in the last 2 years?
Screaming at the sky.
Talking about blowing up the White House.
The Scalise Shooting
Antifa
Google yourself college campus craziness
Attacking government officials in public.
Trying to claw down the doors of of the Supreme Court.

Come on.

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[swillden]

Did the Russians interfere?

Yes? DUH?

Now. Did they connive WITH Trump to do it?

Evidence (or lack thereof) says "no".

No, the evidence says "maybe". There's definitely lots of evidence of Trump campaign officials and Russians feeling each other out. What's unclear is whether they actually made some sort of agreement -- which could have been implicit, note. It's possible to reach a mutual understanding without anyone actually saying the words. That would make it harder to prove, though.

So, to all of those who've welded their asses to the "Impeach Impeach Impeach" train that's going "Trump woke up this morning! IMPEACH HIM NOW!" "Trump tweeted something I don't like! IMPEACH HIM NOW!" "Trump exists! IMPEACH HIM NOW!"?

Take a fucking chill pill. Because your crazy fucking behavior is destroying the Democratic Party and is going to keep the man in office until 2024.

While the Democratic party is perpetually self-destructing, I don't think there's much chance that Trump will win in 2020. He only barely eked out a win in 2016 because he (a) ran against one of the most disliked presidential candidates in history, (b) got help from the Russians, (c) got help from the FBI (Comey's October surprise), and (d) was the beneficiary of some pretty stupid campaign missteps by his opponent. You maybe could take away any one of (b), (c) or (d) and he'd still manage a win, but take away any two, or take (a) away, and he'd have been toast.

All the Democrats have to do to beat Trump in 2020 is to run a candidate who's less hated than Hillary Clinton. That's pretty much anybody. Well, they also have to hope Trump can't manufacture a plausible war next year. Americans love standing behind their president in wartime. Of course he'd probably screw that up by tweeting nasty and stupid comments about the generals, so maybe that's not such a big risk.

Unless Mueller comes up with something really compelling, though, I think Trump is safe from impeachment. The peculiar dynamics of Trump's base mean that an impeachment in the House without a corresponding conviction in the Senate would probably harden their resolve, which would hurt the Democrats in 2020. And I think we all know that if Trump ran naked down the 5th street murdering people at random while making the Nazi salute and shouting "Heil Putin!", the Republicans in the Senate would say, in the words of Orrin Hatch, "Okay, but I don't care".

I think Trump is at great legal risk after he leaves office, though, so he's going to be really desperate to stay in office in 2020.

Hold on, guys, this ride is going to get crazy. We ain't seen nothin' yet. It's possible that one of the best things the Democratic candidates for president could do for the country is to all take a pledge that they'll issue blanket pardons for Trump if elected. He'll still have to worry about state prosecution and civil suits, but removing the fear of federal prosecution could be hugely beneficial.

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[h33t l4x0r]

But, in the most charitable gimme to the Never-Trumpers, the answer is "we don't know (AND NEITHER DO YOU!)"

Mostly because he refuses to testify or show his taxes. Say what you want about HRC, but she testified every time she was asked to. 16 times for Benghazi alone.

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[danbert8]

And every time she testified it made her less likable. Her testimonies were full of misdirection, evasion, and outright lies.

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[Chas]

Hahahah!

Sure they're manufactured. By the nutjobs on the far left

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[Chas]

Yep. The alt right. A group so small they haven't actually mattered in over 40 years...

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[swillden]

If you want to see the US pushed towards a civil war, just start prosecuting the oppositions politicians when they leave office.

In general, no one should be above the law but in the current situation, pragmatism may have to win.

Especially on questionable charges like "campaign finance" violations that are near universal and normally handled through a fine.

This is bullshit. Campaign finance charges aren't "questionable", violations aren't "near universal" (not rare, but not common) and aren't normally handled "through a fine".

Re:Nobody sane gives a shit at this point.

[aquacrayfish]

So she's lied to Congress on multiple occasions. Republicans control Congress. I assume you have an entertaining reason why charges haven't been filed?

Social Media Police?

[Toxiz]

Good thing we have the senate to be the global social media police.

Russian Disinformation vs. American Disinformation

[Anonymous Coward]

The disinformation produced by Russians does not exceed the disinformation produced by Americans.

Consider the topic of preferential treatment for Hispanics.

Preferential treatment includes affirmative action (AA). It is gross discrimination against Americans of European or Asian ancestry.

The elites in the mainstream media claim that AA does not discriminate against Europeans and Asians. Yet, the statistical data clearly shows that, due to AA, an Asian (or European) must score roughly 300 points higher than a Hispanic, on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, in order for the admissions committee (of Princeton University) to give the Asian (or European) equal consideration with the Hispanic.

Most Americans of Asian ancestry are aware of this disinformation produced by the elites in the media. Most Americans of Asian ancestry condemn this disinformation.

"'[Affirmative action] offends me,' [Yukong] Zhao continued, telling me he believes Chinese-Americans have faced far more discrimination than Latinos. 'Why [do] Hispanics ... get higher preference than Chinese-Americans, or Japanese-Americans?'" (Zhao was interviewed for a report published by BuzzFeed News.)

Re:JEB2020!!!

[novakyu]

Wouldn't he need some Red Bull first to get his energy up?

#RedBullGivesYouWings

Source

[Vanyle]

Where is the source for this? The Data? There were millions of post analyzed but no mention of how many, how they were identified as Russian, How they determined Republican support. This is just flame bait, by the British. Maybe they are interfering?

Re:Source

[Vanyle]

Found the report: https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/w...

Targetting voters

[manu0601]

When Obama started using data mining to target voters with tailored messages, it was smart.

When Trump did the same, it was unfair.

When Russia played that game, it was unacceptable.

And when Israel our Saudi Arabia pour money to influence elections, it is not worth a paper.

Self inflicted?

[petes_PoV]

So let's see what we have here.

The americans created a software environment that allows people to influence the views and votes of others. Then they complain when someone else uses it for that purpose.

What have I missed? Was it just that it was being used by the wrong sort of people?

oh that again...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am inclining more and more to believe this whole thing is a giant HOAX that needs constant injection of fresh 'news' to keep it boiling...

Re:Oh Trump, silly Trump

[LynnwoodRooster]

The father of the child who died has no complaints about the treatment she received. Revived multiple times, air-lifted to a hospital. I guess that is murder to you? You're sick.

Another factor is that both were unlikable

[owlaf]

A 538 poll showed both Clinton and Trump were considered unlikeable with highest ratings since 1980. We had a situation of two unelectable candidates as the only choices

Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[raymorris]

> Russia funded every divisive movement they could. Black Lives Matter, Muslims for Hillary, etc. Their purpose is psy ops to sow derision in the populace - the same purpose they've had when they've done the exact same thing for the past 75 years. We do the same.

Exactly. Russia is trying to beat the US, not Clinton. They want us fighting with each other instead of beating them at whatever. We just got new confirmation that Russia was running Black Lives Matter ads. Whatever gets Americans fighting Americans, whatever divides us.

> It had zero impact in the election's outcome though. This is all about providing an excuse for Clinton's loss to make her 2020 run more palatable.

Clinton was a really bad candidate, with terrible poll numbers. Of the six "finalists" for the Republican nomination, five of the six beat Clinton in the polls. Only one, Donald Trump, could lose to Clinton, according to polling during the primaries. Trump was also a pretty crappy candidate - the only one who didn't poll better than Clinton during the primaries.

I think the Russian ads probably did what they were designed to do and not much else - they made the election period more partisan, encouraged us to be even less unified, and probably didn't materially affect the election, but there's no way to be 100% sure of what would have happened if things had been different. Wen might have even had a more moderate, less polarizing candidate win. Doubtful though.

Re: Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[Anonymous Coward]

The NRA owns the Republicans and apparently the Russians own the NRA thanks to the efforts of people like the Red Sparrow Butina.

It is disingenuous to say that they did not favor Trump. Yes the primary goal was to sow discord however they favored Trump because they wanted sanctions eased.

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[AlanObject]

Clinton was a really bad candidate, with terrible poll numbers. .. derp derp derp.

Where does this horseshit keep coming from? You guys keep repeating it to each other so much that you think it is true. It has absolutely no basis in fact.

At the time the famous Comey letter was released Clintion was 6-8 points ahead in the polls. (source: 538) That isn't even close. That's a blowout election similar to the one we just went through in the midterms.

After the Comey letter and the media had a week or two to scream from every orifice about Weiner's laptop she took a hit of 4-5 points. That made it close enough for the Electoral College to work its magic. I have no idea what part the Russian media efforts had in that but whatever effect it has wasn't positive for Clinton. They were totally in it for Trump.

And she STILL got 3M more votes. The most terrible candidate in history.

I know this was totally useless but still..

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[AmiMoJo]

The people who you think are "Black Lives Matter" were probably Russian trolls. They weren't supporting Clinton, they were making you think that "sjws", "leftists" and other people you don't like supported her.

The report cites the example of "Black Matters", an fake organization created by the Internet Research Agency and popular across multiple social media platforms.

Re: Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[internerdj]

"The NRA owns the Republicans" The NRA's 5 million members support the political party that they see as least hostile to the 2nd amendment. "apparently the Russians own the NRA thanks to the efforts of people like the Red Sparrow Butina" It seems a rather strange assumption that the NRA would have done less against Clinton given her record on the 2nd amendment without any Russian connection. From where I sit, it seems like just another division sowing tactic. Democrats have more of a reason to hate one of the biggest arms of the Republican party.

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[Vitriol Angst]

Exactly. Russia is trying to beat the US, not Clinton. They want us fighting with each other instead of beating them at whatever. We just got new confirmation that Russia was running Black Lives Matter ads. Whatever gets Americans fighting Americans, whatever divides us.

Well this really is the issue. Whether there are Clinton people using it as an excuse for the election or not doesn't really matter and it's beside the point if it was SIGNIFICANT enough to change the election (really, it was just 70,000 votes in 3 midwest states that tipped the electoral college). The issue is that Trump is accused of colluding with Russian agents for their help (whether it was good or not) to effect the election and they were offering help with the Magninsky act and perhaps other things. We also have money traveling from Russia to the NRA to the Republican party. While Putin is trying to divide the nation -- he is getting aided by the Republicans and that's where the problem lies.

And that's not getting to all the other crimes of the administration. Whether his machinations to pay off porn stars or get help from Chinese or Russian agents or if he made a profit on renting his hotels to people buying influence -- do we really need to allow this? It was poor judgement and a lack of ethics regardless on whether it was beneficial or not. We shouldn't have to go to trial to get tax returns or to get a President to divest themselves of conflicts of interests. This guy didn't have to be President. Why do we have to prove crimes beyond a reasonable doubt when we can't find any LEGAL way he covered billions of dollars in debts without any US banks loaning him the money and we can't PROVE that he's a Russian agent but we have little reason to suspect otherwise.

We can't even prove that Trump knows how to read. Why do we have to put up with this as a people? The divisiveness in this nation is because a sizeable percentage want to troll the rest of us.

Re: Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[Vitriol Angst]

Wow, the Russians even traveled through time and got us to enact a second amendment. They are powerful!

At this moment, on Slashdot, a comment that completely misses the entire point of the prior comment is at labelled "(Score:4, Insightful)". The problem with America is that there are people who are just content to be wrong. And proud of it. And they cheer each other on. They support Trump not because they believe a damn thing he says -- but because he pisses off half the country. They have given up on fixing anything and are waiting for supply side Jesus to take them to Heaven during the Rapture and meanwhile they just want someone who can piss off Liberals. The important thing is pissing of Liberals.

There was absolutely nothing in the prior comment about guns, gun rights, or anything about your rights. It was about a foreign country influencing a private group to influence our politics. But again, some people are OK with that because the Russians are better than the Liberals. These are people who have given up on solving problems after all and just want to stick it to those know-it-alls.

Slashdot has been infected by cancer because your comment was labelled as insightful when they damn well know it wasn't. You didn't come for a discussion or friendship.

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[Shaitan]

"Where does this horseshit keep coming from? You guys keep repeating it to each other so much that you think it is true. It has absolutely no basis in fact."

Yes it does. Her numbers were terrible relative to Sanders who she colluded with the party to sandbag. You haven't forgotten this entire probe is because the Democrats are pissed the Russians revealed the party leadership were playing the actual voters in the party for fools and rigging the nomination, have you? Supposedly unbiased major media outlets were openly colluding, telling Sanders campaign manager on air they'd be announcing for Hillary Clinton as the victor ahead of the actual election to help press Sanders supporters to give up.

There are so many governments influencing our elections the russians are just noise. All they have to do is incorporate a US based company, kick off a PAC, and then they can legally influence all day long. The entire Russia thing is and always has been about distracting you from that. After playing with a rigged deck, getting caught, and taking the pot anyway instead of stepping down in favor of Sanders Hillary's numbers should have been far far worse. It is actually a sad statement about the integrity and expectation of integrity from their candidates held by Hillary supporters.

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[Areyoukiddingme]

We can't even prove that Trump knows how to read.

Trump can read just fine.

He's 72 years old. He's presbyopic. And he's too vain to wear his glasses in public. That's the whole of his problem.

He can't read the teleprompter because the font is too small to read without glasses[1] and he can't read from papers in front of him because he absolutely needs reading glasses and he will never be seen wearing them as long as he lives. He comes from an era when only nerds wore glasses, and he was part of the crowd that persecuted the ever-living-fuck out of nerds. He will never wear glasses, even if his physical inability to focus on the words on the page makes him sound like a moron on national TV, over and over again.

You'll notice especially in briefings that all of his mistakes are easily explained by him reading blurry words he can't quite make out, then making a stab at what the word might be, and his stab in the dark is frequently wrong because he has stated publicly (on Twitter, naturally) that he doesn't prepare for meetings. So he's winging it every time he sits down with people, and he's quite literally doing it blind.

[1] Except when they push up the font size on the prompter for his major speeches, and then he just reads really really slowly because it takes so long to scroll the sentences up the prompter when the font size is that large.

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[iMadeGhostzilla]

Do you really think we would not have been fighting like we have had it not been for Russian involvement? Broken friendships, family fights, divorces due to one side supporting Trump and the other hating him -- do you think Russia made that happen?

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[iMadeGhostzilla]

"just 70,000 votes in 3 midwest states" is a ridiculous statistic. How do you change 70,000 minds and hearts? Russians? With laser precision, exactly those 70,000 you need and no others? It's hard to imagine that 2 years of media propaganda managed actually to change ONE living soul's vision of their and the country's future, let alone 70 thousands of those living souls, chosen with laser precision.

Re:Yep, new confirmation Russia ran BLM ads

[mrclevesque]

Do you see any evidence that all this isn't simply about americans buying ad campaigns from a Russian internet marketing company and not declaring the expense.

They also supported Hillary

[SuperKendall]

But apparently everyone forgets the Russian trolls were trolling both sides.

Re:Pay more attention.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Perfect example of disinfo from someone who doubtless posted lots of "SHE'LL START A WAR WITH RUSIIA" trolls in October/November 2016.

Uhhh, what?

[Obfuscant]

1. She still won the popular vote.

There is no "popular vote" for the US President. Please refer to the Constitution if you are confused about the process the US uses to elect the President. I'm sure there is a Wikipedia page about it if the old words are hard.

2. She lost by a razor thin margin.

"She won ... she lost ...". What? Trump won the electoral college 304-227. That's not "razor thin".

I think Clinton could have won if she tried harder, but I don't think she'd have lost without Russian interference

Do you have evidence that any Russians voted illegally in the 2016 Presidential election? That would be a good argument for voter ID, you know.

You do realize that lots of non-US people tried to exert influence in US elections, don't you? And we've tried to influence other country's elections. It's a tempest in a teapot trying to justify what obviously couldn't happen but did.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[rsilvergun]

1. Yes, there is. It's the total number of votes. It has no legal bearing, but it does exist.

2. Yes, it is. Again, the electoral college is designed to dampen the effects of Democracy in order to protect the power of a landed owning ruling class. Trump won a lot of electoral votes, but in the districts that gave him his win he won by a slim margin. Had those districts flipped a few thousand votes out of millions we'd all be saying "Madam President".

You more than likely know all this and are just trolling.

If you're a Russian yourself then fine, carry on. I know a lot of them hit up /.. It's a popular site with a valuable demographic (males, 40+, some education, lean conservative).

If you're actually an American... well, I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but it's going to bite you hard in the ass. You are not a member of the elite. You're not John Galt. You're not a superman. You're just like me: some angry, bitter schmuk who posts on a dumb tech forum. You're getting screwed over by the exact same things I am. The difference is I've seen the ruling class for what they are. I see voter suppression for what it is.

Eventually the folks you're lying down with will eat you and yours alive, regardless of if you're American or Russian. You can stop it. You and people like you. The only question is will you? Or will you go on believing your somehow one of "Them"? Again, we'll find out in 2 years...

Re:Uhhh, what?

[Obfuscant]

1. Yes, there is. It's the total number of votes. It has no legal bearing, but it does exist.

Not only does it not have any legal meaning, it has no practical meaning. Nobody campaigns based on mythical "popular vote" results. If they did, then the "popular vote" results would be different.

No, the only time "popular vote" comes up is when someone LOSES and tries to justify how good they did because a meaningless sum total of the individual votes of all the states proved they should have WON! It's like a college student who flunks a 100 question test because he got only 50 questions right claiming that if the test had only 50 questions he would have gotten an A+. Yeah, if the election was different, the result would be different. So what?

Again, the electoral college is designed to dampen the effects of Democracy in order to protect the power of a landed owning ruling class.

Saying it again doesn't make it true. The electoral college was designed because the founders knew that both the people AND THE STATES had a vested interest in selecting the executive officer of the UNITED STATES. You forget -- we are not one big group of a few hundred million people, we are a confederation of fifty states and a few protectorates. That's why you are confused into thinking you can just add up all the individual votes and think it means something.

2. Yes, it is.

No, I'm sorry, but 304 to 232 is winning with 57% of the vote. That's a 14% difference. Not "razor thin" at all. Any state-level election with that kind of result would be a "landslide" or "a mandate".

Trump won a lot of electoral votes,

Yes, a lot more than Hillary did. He won. Get over it.

If you're a Russian yourself

Yes, if you cannot win an argument using facts, then claim you're being trolled by the Russians and look, come see the repression inherent in the system.

And the rest of your post demonstrates exactly that kind of nonsense. It was funny when Monty Python did it, it's just sad when real people do it.

You can stop it.

Sorry, you don't get a free pass to post nonsense just because you tell me to stop correcting you or try to claim "Russian oppression."

Re:Uhhh, what?

[Rick Schumann]

There is no "popular vote" for the US President.
Go obfuscate yourself with extreme prejudice, jackass.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[Powercntrl]

You are not a member of the elite.

Most of the people who vote (R) aren't doing so because they believe themselves to be part of the privileged few. They believe the Democrats are going to take more of what little they do earn, and give it to people who (in their view) don't deserve it.

Even though I support the lesser of the evils in our two party system, I'm not blind to the idiocy which frequently comes from the left almost as often as it does from the right. A few examples:

Cash for clunkers - Didn't benefit me at all, because the vehicle I wanted to trade in was 1 MPG too efficient to qualify, even though the vehicle I wanted to purchase (a compact economy car) would've resulted in a larger net benefit to the environment, versus the hypothetical situation of someone trading in a vehicle which did qualify, towards the purchase of another gas guzzling SUV. The program didn't take into account fuel efficiency gains of what you intended to purchase, only the inefficiency of your trade-in.

Solar tax rebates - A nice handout to the rich who could afford to have photovoltaics installed on their home.

EV tax rebates - Another handout to the rich. The average hard working American can't afford this shit, with or without the rebate.

The ACA (Obamacare) - Crony capitalism meets healthcare. It is absolutely abhorrent to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize the cost of private insurance, and penalizing people on their taxes if they refused to purchase what is essentially a commercial product truly is unconstitutional. This would be like the RIAA getting a law passed requiring a penalty be paid if you're not subscribed to Spotify/Apple Music/Pandora/etc., because their business model can only work if everyone pays!

Now here's the part where I say despite all this, I still hold my nose and vote (D), because the Republican party's disregard for the environment, moronic trade policies, and pandering to the "religious right" bothers me much more than misuse of my tax dollars (which the Republican party is presently doing in true "hold my beer!" style, anyway).

Re:Uhhh, what?

[shilly]

Yeah, if the election was different, the result would be different. So what?

So what, you ask? If the popular vote result and the electoral college vote result are wildly different, then people may choose to infer that the electoral college vote is no longer fair. That is what is happening. Obviously. Disagree away with their inference, but it's stupid not to acknowledge the importance of questions about whether the voting system is fair and can be improved.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[shilly]

You pompous ignorant twerp. The phrase "free and fair elections" is *the* term used to describe legitimate elections, and has been ever since the first post-apartheid elections in South Africa in 1994. "Fairness" has always been a legitimate goal of an electoral system. It's why democracies have laws regulating election spending; vote counting; who can and cannot vote; etc etc.

Here's some help for you:
http://www.civicsacademy.co.za...
https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-...
http://archive.ipu.org/cnl-e/1...

I'm well aware of the *rationale* for the electoral college, although I'm not convinced you are -- you describe how the electoral college works (a bit) and assert it's better than a popular view, but you don't articulate why. In any event, whether you can articulate the rationale for an electoral college in any detail beyond "States!" or not, I am taking a different view from you on the soundness of the rationale.

Here is a dispassionate look at the arguments for and against an electoral college. I find the arguments against much more convincing.
https://uselectionatlas.org/IN...

Re:Uhhh, what?

[shilly]

I understand the rationale for the electoral college. I disputed the OP's implication that it was illegitimate to discuss whether the current voting system was still fit for purpose. By asserting that it still is fit for purpose, you're joining in with a discussion that the OP has implied should not happen.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[shilly]

Maybe. You're more generous-minded than me.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[Kielistic]

Saying the electoral college is working as intended in no way implies we are joining any discussion. You say it should be abolished because the results didn't line up with the popular vote. Most people think it is obvious that the two will differ at times because otherwise there would be no reason to have the electoral college. Democrats saying it should be eliminated because they lost it is the most fascist thing I have ever seen.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[e3m4n]

you do realize that /. is a conglomerate of more than just US citizens and therefore any and all political discussion on here is, technically speaking, coming from foreigners trying to influence political opinion. Its a very thin line where one draws a distinction between illegal and legal when first amendment rights are in question. Even fewer have the ability to see such a distinct line. If you react too broadly, you risk opening the door to suppression of free speech, if you do nothing you risk foreign-state sanctioned election tampering. Also, stop drinking the cool-aid, Jim Jones is already dead. There is no 'sides'. Both Democrats and Republicans are playing the same games, taking money from the same corporate elite. They both engage in insider trading without fear or prosecution. Neither party actually does a damn thing about the shit they campaign on (Repealing obamacare, amnesty, Repealing the Patriot Act, curtailing immigration, etc) once they get into power. If they solve those problems you have no reason to continue to elect them. Better to blame someone else and keep promising to fix it 'this time'. They are two sides of the same coin. Its a game and apparently someone has convinced you that you're fighting alongside Joan of Arc. There's no fucking Joan of Arc's on either side, just a bunch of generals doing the bidding of some behind-the-scenes Nebuchadnezzar. This is never going to stop repeating itself until people realize that this is a back-and-forth game being played to achieve a long-term strategy. Look at what things stay in existence despite the constant back-and-forth (FISA, Patriot Act, PIPA, NDAA) all things one party criticizes when the other has majority control, and yet these things pass with votes like 98-0. If people keep electing insiders and falling for the cool-aid, things will only continue and never reverse themselves.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/...
https://mic.com/articles/20835...
https://thehill.com/homenews/s...

Re:Uhhh, what?

[e3m4n]

It is the states that elect the president, not the people. They, however, did try to make the electoral college somewhat representative of every member of congress. The electoral votes each state gets is based on the number of congressman and senators in that state. Therefore states with more population get more electoral votes. If it was merely each state getting a vote it would be even more offset from popular vote. Here is something you should be complaining to your state about, not to the federal government. It is the STATE that runs the elections and it is the STATE that determines how the electoral votes are appointed. IF YOUR STATE truly wanted the popular vote to have more weight, they would DIVIDE their electoral votes and have them vote by district. Each state already has districts divided by congressman so they could take each district and appoint the electoral vote according to how that district voted. And for the two that represent the senators, appoint those based on the popular vote within the state as a whole. Even states that has the most to gain by a purely popular vote (california, texas, new york) seem opposed to this system.

What people forget is that when the constitution was drafted, each state was practically an independent country. Thats why the term Sovereign State of _____ is used regularly. The federal government is supposed to be an umbrella of commonly accepted standards between them. Electing a president was supposed to have little impact on the day to day lives of the average state citizen. Too much power has been absorbed into the presidency that was not decreed or granted from the constitution. The president is supposed to answer to congress and execute their decrees, hence the term Executive Branch. Since 1865 there has been more and more power acquired at the Executive level and taken from the voters (ie via elected congressman)

Re:Uhhh, what?

[e3m4n]

maybe we should stop holding our noses and vote libertarian and i dont mean the stolen tea-party use of the word. When the D's in california decided to wage war against the average law-abiding gun owner and treat them as if they were criminals they drove many centrist out of the party and left only the fringe special interest groups. Treating the average law-abiding gun owner as a criminal in waiting is no different than wearing a shirt that says "Arrest black babies before they grow up to be criminals". The party is now beholden to every special-interest group there could be, all of them diametrically opposed to each-other. All of them have been promised something another group finds revolting. Hell they just elected that Cortez idiot (yes idiot because she claims the 3 branches of government are the executive branch, the senate, and house or representatives). Cortez is already claiming she needs to take time off for self-healing and she hasnt even started to work yet. She talks about the commoner while wearing a $3500 dress and now complains that having to run a campaign has resulted and not being able to do yoga 5 times a week. Translation - "OMG this work stuff sucks! I need a break, that silver spoon I was born with didnt get me ready for any of this!" A true libertarian has an understanding that every solution must not infringe of fundamental freedoms. "By any means necessary" has become a mainstay in politics and are the building blocks of oppression in every example of history. More atrocities have been committed by justifying the 'ends' than any single other reason in the 4.54 Billion years this planet has existed.

 

Re:Uhhh, what?

[cyberchondriac]

the electoral college is designed to dampen the effects of Democracy in order to protect the power of a landed owning ruling class.

Just what?? That's the stupidest thing I've heard yet today.
How about you stop with the "everyone I disagree with is a Russian Troll" tripe. If anyone sounds like a Russian troll, it's you, because you don't even understand the fundamental principles the founders set up to constitutionally handle our elections.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[shilly]

Where did I say that it should be abolished because the results didn't line up with the popular vote? Quote me, I dare you. You won't be able to.

What I did do was to provide a link to arguments for and against the electoral college and say I preferred the arguments against.

This insistence on reducing everything to stupid, stark, rhetoric rather than meaningful discussion the whole time -- I just don't get it. You're better than that, surely?

Re:Uhhh, what?

[Kielistic]

If the popular vote result and the electoral college vote result are wildly different, then people may choose to infer that the electoral college vote is no longer fair.

What else should I take from that?

Re: Uhhh, what?

[mapkinase]

Any rational man would just reject both parties, but you are not

Re:Uhhh, what?

[Obfuscant]

So what, you ask? If the popular vote result and the electoral college vote result are wildly different, then people may choose to infer that the electoral college vote is no longer fair.

Yes, ignorant people can decide that anything they don't understand is unfair. That doesn't make it actually unfair, it just demonstrates they are ignorant. It also demonstrates the deliberate deception being used by those who keep whining about the mythical "popular vote" as if it really existed.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[AmiMoJo]

On the one hand you complain about people calling you a Nazi, on the other you accuse people making a fairly reasonable and not without merit political argument of fascism.

Re:Uhhh, what?

[shilly]

That I hadn't specifically excluded reform nor advocated abolition. In fact, I specifically talked about improving the voting system. While abolition of the electoral college *might* be one way that could be done, it's obviously not the only way. The very article I linked to discusses reforms of the electoral college such as moving way from winner-takes-all counting.
That "wildly different" and "didn't line up with" are not synonymous.

Hope this helps!

Re:Uhhh, what?

[shilly]

Did you really, genuinely, find any of that convincing in your head? "People who don't like the electoral college are by definition stupid dupes!"

People who support or oppose the electoral college are not ignorant simply because they've taken a view. In reaching their views, they may or may not have been ignorant of the arguments for and against an electoral college. But the view itself is not an indication of ignorance. It is really sad that you argue in a way that makes it necessary to spell this out.

If you're so sure you're not ignorant, how about you show that by summarising the main arguments for *and against* an electoral college? And how about you do it in a fair-minded way that shows you can articulate a view with which you disagree? That's the sort of stuff 11-year old kids are taught to do in debating clubs. I'm sure you think you're smarter than the typical 11-year old debater, don't you?

Re:Yeah I just do not care

[GrumpySteen]

At this rate, the only way you're going to be able to vote for Trump in 2020 is if you're on his parole board.

Re:If you believe Russia wants to sabatoge us

[aybiss]

Thanks, ButHerEmails Man.

Re:What about European meddling

[Zontar The Mindless]

Russian support was explicitly pretending to be homegrown American support. So naturally, you wouldn't expect to see much from Russia, nor recognize it as such.

Indeed, examples abound in this very discussion.

No,

[rsilvergun]

it's more like saying:

"I wouldn't have died from the hangnail if my immune system wasn't weakened by lead poisoning and constant illness from the bullet wound I got 30 years ago"

Like I said, Hillary had a _lot_ of baggage, much of it manufactured by a multi-million dollar right wing apparatus that saw she was getting ready to run for president and so came at her like a ton of bricks. Now, as a presidential candidate it was her responsibility to defuse those attacks (as opposed to throwing fire on them like she did with that Benghazi silliness). But again, we're being hopelessly naive if we don't acknowledge the effect Russia had.

Trump represents a breakdown of every single sane process our civilization has. I don't mean that as hyperbole. _Everything_ had to go wrong to make something as disastrous as Trump happen. The real question is will we put the breaks on it in 2 years? Trump's by himself limited in the damage he can do (though his two SCOTUS nominees are going to wreck some havoc on our few remaining protections against mega-corps). The real problem is that he's encouraged the working class to turn away from solid policy and into Demagoguery like "Build the Wall!" as a solution to their problems. If that keeps up it'll end like it always does with oppressed minorities. We'll start by kicking the Hispanics out at the barrel of gun, follow it up by enslaving the blacks again and probably finish where the Nazis left off (hello there, Godwin).

If all of this sounds too far fetched, keep in mind that Climate change is going to start making water, and by extension food, scarce in about 20-30 years. The American working class are riled up by some moderately poor working conditions. When they don't have enough to eat all hell will break lose.

Re:No,

[L_R_Shaw]

Grow the fuck up you fucking infant.

This is the delusional garbage people end up spewing when they sit around in a informational echo chamber on social media instead of having a good cry in their pillow on election night because their candidate didn't win waking up and acting like a fucking adult.

Re:No,

[gtall]

Politically, I think it is worse than this. That idiot is run what used to be the intelligent part of the Republican party out of the party. Now all that is left are Republicans who do not believe in founding American values and would be just as happy with a dictator.

Re:No,

[Shotgun]

Which American value would that be? It couldn't be the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" or the right to face your accuser in a court of law, because you seem to be ok with Obama tearing those apart.

Motivation

[Livius]

It's embarrassing to Trump that the Russians very clearly considered him to be worse for the US national interest than Clinton (which is really saying a lot), but that's a long way from a crime.

Though actual crimes wouldn't surprise me in any way.

this

[meglon]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com...

How to win US election

[AHuxley]

Find a candidate that is healthy and fit.
Make sure they can give a speech that is filled with election winning ideas.
Have experts map out the actual "states" needed to win an election.
Got in person each state needed and give a great speech that is well liked by people in that state.
Talk about jobs, local issues, some past connection with that state. Be happy and smile.
Dont bring the same negative speech to each state and then go full negative about the state you are in.
The locals who have to "vote" later kind of notice what is been said about them in person. They like happy words and political leaders who can give a "great" speech.
A healthy, charming person with a winning message with new ideas and something "good" to say. In every state they have to win.
Stamina, charm and the ability to have real time local knowledge.
Have the "winning" political team ready to support the events in each and every state.
People in that state who can get people out to vote in that state.
Lots of people on each side of the USA do not will US election count. Many other states are needed to add up to "win".

No "Russians" needed.
A much better quality of political advice and the ability to stay "healthy" and "talk" to normal people will be noticed by all voters all over the USA.

Ray Morris, lying piece of shit folks.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/16/putin-trump-win-election-2016-722486

07/16/2018 12:07 PM EDT Updated 07/16/2018 03:08 PM EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday he wanted President Donald Trump to win the 2016 election because he believed Trump's policies would be more friendly to the Kremlin.

"Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal,” Putin said, standing alongside Trump at a joint news conference.

Putin was asked whether he directed any of his officials to help Trump’s presidential campaign, but Putin appeared to sidestep that part of the question.

Carry this out to its logical conclusion

[Solandri]

Why was it wrong for Russia to try to influence the election in 2016? The reason I arrive at is because Russians aren't allowed to vote in our election, so it's wrong for them to try to influence it.

But by that same reasoning, isn't it also wrong for the two political parties to influence elections for Senators and Congresscritters by shifting money to candidate's campaign that has been raised outside the state or district the candidate is running in? After all, that's money donated by someone who can't vote in that election being used to try to influence it.

So if you carry this outrage over Russian interference to its logical conclusion, you end up with a ban on political parties' unrestricted use of donations. No using money raised in New York to try to influence a Congressional race in Arizona. Money raised in New York has to be used in New York. Only money raised in that Arizona congressional district can be used to influence the race there.

Somehow I suspect the political parties aren't going to see it that way. And their stance is going to be that it's wrong for other people to try to influence races they can't vote in, but it's OK for them to do it.

Re:Carry this out to its logical conclusion

[cascadingstylesheet]

Why was it wrong for Russia to try to influence the election in 2016? The reason I arrive at is because Russians aren't allowed to vote in our election, so it's wrong for them to try to influence it.

Good to know!

So it's wrong for illegal aliens who aren't allowed to vote to try to influence our elections too, right? They (supposedly) can't vote in them.

It's wrong for the president of Mexico to try to influence our elections too, right? He can't vote in them.

It's wrong for the "opinions of the world" (adjust monocles, sip brandy, look askance over eyebrows) to try to influence our elections too, right? They can't vote in them.

Re:Carry this out to its logical conclusion

[Vitriol Angst]

The slippery slope argument: because there is some corruption, we can't hold anyone accountable to the rules.

By this logic, we can't throw someone in jail for murder because we allow our troops to commit murder. Objectively, we could argue that murder is murder. But practically, it means we can have no standards because what we have isn't perfect.

The situation with lobbyists is screwed up and corruption is legal and people outside the voting district or corporations influencing votes is wrong -- but that's the situation. It's legal. We can let it get worse or we can at least feebly uphold SOME standards.

If we don't impeach Trump, we will NEVER accept any impeachment of a Democrat -- ever, for any reason. That's the situation you folks are creating; "Fuck you, nothing matters." Well, if that's the standard now. No more moral outrage cards are going to be accepted.

Re:Carry this out to its logical conclusion

[Vitriol Angst]

I don't think he said he was "OK with it". It's just that what happened was illegal. We can debate the other ways elections are influenced and I'm already going to agree with you that it's wrong for parties outside to influence the vote.

He is merely pointing out that once again the goal posts have moved. "How dare you spread these lies about Trump!" Now it's; "How dare you hold Trump accountable for things that are similar to other things I don't like!" Just so that we all agree we aren't debating collusion anymore.

And this is what we predicted would happen -- and we have two more stages of bullshit to go as the goal posts are moved again. I can't wait for the money laundering to come out: "It's just a solid investment -- is he supposed to do a background check to make sure people aren't mobsters? This is just friends helping friends and holding hands across the oceans. Really, by accepting Russian mob money, he's bringing nations closer together -- and should't he be congratulated for that? And he made a profit -- how smart!"

Re:Carry this out to its logical conclusion

[Vitriol Angst]

So your straw man wears a monocle and sips brandy?

So it's wrong for illegal aliens who aren't allowed to vote to try to influence our elections too, right?

Slashdot is going to Hell. We also can't prove Moon Men don't vote in the election because we can't be sure they don't have really good stealth technology and ID cards. I mean -- we can't SEE anyone on the moon, which is proof that they are really good at hiding.

Re:Carry this out to its logical conclusion

[cascadingstylesheet]

Oh goody; I have my own stalker now.

Reading comprehension much? 7.4% lead

[raymorris]

Maybe you can read it the third and fourth time I say it:

>> Only one, Donald Trump, could lose to Clinton, according to polling during the primaries. Trump was also a pretty crappy candidate - the only one who didn't poll better than Clinton during the primaries.

"Oh that's bullshit, Clinton polled better than Trump", you say. Which is exactly what I said - twice. Derp derp indeed.

As I said, during the primary season (February and March), Ted Cruz beat into by 3-5% in the RCP average.
Marco Rubio had her beat 47% to 43%
https://www.realclearpolitics....

Kasich beat Clinton 48% to 41% - a whopping 7.4% lead
https://www.realclearpolitics....

Again, (for the fifth time) Republicans chose the only candidate who had a shot at losing to Clinton.

Re:If you believe Russia wants to sabatoge us

[quantaman]

than logically, undermining a sitting president that has done nothing that is proven beyond attacking Russian interests and allies once they assumed office is playing right in Russia's hands.

Well he's hardly been secret about wanting to lift sanctions, or about not enacting the sanctions that congress passed. And the number of "weird links" and "oops we forgot to mention that" between Trump and Russia are unnerving.

The US President isn't a dictator, his ability to ease up on Russia is limited, and it's still not clear just how close the relationship was so we don't really know how hard he's trying.

Even if you dislike the President, having so little that you have to resort to linking him banging an American hooker to your Russian collusion investigation is pretty thin as far as evidence goes and precisely the type of chaos a foreign agent would love.

It's not our fault he broke campaign finance laws. Besides, that's not really part of the Russian collusion investigation, it's another matter entirely.

A wider problem

[peppepz]

Don't reduce this to a "Hillary vs Trump" fight. The Russians influenced more than the last American elections: for instance, they facilitated Brexit in Britain, and supported Salvini in Italy. I don't think you should reduce the problem to a "Hillary vs Trump" fight. The problem is people being convinced by incendiary propaganda on social networks, and the control of this mechanism by malicious actors. And in this case it was the Russians, but in the future it could very well be others to take advantage of it.

Re:A wider problem

[AmiMoJo]

The scale of what Russia has been up to is incredible. They even trolled against movies like The Last Jedi, knowing that it would create division and feed the "sjws are taking over" meme. And somehow it's taken us this long to even understand it.

Re:A wider problem

[Kielistic]

Can Russians not like a bad movie now without it being a diabolical plot to overthrow the Democrats?

Re:A wider problem

[AmiMoJo]

Even if it was a bad movie, that's not the point. It might have been a non-event like Solo or at least just quickly forgotten. But they used it as a wedge to drive division. They will use anything.

Re:A wider problem

[Kielistic]

How can it be quickly forgotten when even a year later we still have people saying that its bad reviews were caused by Russian interference, misogyny and basically anything other than it being a bad movie?

It's a bad movie and we should all forget about it but you just can't, can you Mojo?

Who can blame them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone not retarded was scared shitless of Hillary ending up in the White house!

Re:Who can blame them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone not retarded was scared shitless of Hillary ending up in the White house!

Except that nobody can give me a sane explanation why one should be scared of Hillary. Scared shitless, even. Exactly what was so bad about Hillary? With evidence of course, I have seen seen more than enough unsubstantiated insinuation and smear jobs. Evidence. Evidence!

Hacking voters, not machines

[DrXym]

It was very clear at the time and since that the strategy was to split the Democratic vote by boosting Stein & Sanders in order to disenfranchise voters away from Clinton, while simultaneously inflaming the right on divisive topics like guns, immigration etc. to boost Trump.

The strategy only has to be sufficient to tilt the scales by a few % to significant impact on the outcome. And clearly it worked.

Funnily enough I suspect it worked TOO well as far as Trump was concerned. He was using the campaign for the free publicity, hoping to return to private business afterwards. By winning he invited investigations on himself, his family and his corrupt cronies. Almost certainly he is an unindicted co-conspirator on the Stormy Daniels stuff, and we still have the Russian investigation, emoluements, and 2 years of congressional subpoenas into his taxes and other dealings to look forward to. What fun.

Re:Oh Trump, silly Trump

[gtall]

Locking up a 7 year child isn't wrong for you? The head of Homeland Security saying that's what these people get for coming here? Let me guess, you are an Evangelical Christian.

Let's see here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary Clinton spent nearly 2 billion dollars to Trump's approx $600 Million, and some of the money she spent was laundered through the Democrat-hack lawfirm Perkins Coie as "legal fees" to a British spy named Steele who bought anti-Trump propaganda from Russia in the form of the so-called "Steele dossier" which was funneled into the FBI and used without validation to get warrants to spy on Trump's campaign, effectively bringing the CIA and FBI into the election on Hillary's side...... but we're supposed to imagine that a few thousand dollars worth of clumbsy Facebook ads swung the election to trump.

yup.

that makes sense all right.

It gets worse when you pay attention to two facts:
[1] The Russians also spent money against Trump (they wanted chaos in US politics, which all our mainstream media and the Democrats are now complicit in providing for two whole years)
[2] The US Senate contains a number of "Never Trump" establishment Republicans. Guys like Flake and Sasse despise Trump as much as Hillary does.

The American people need to wake up and realize that, like him or hate him, Trump has totally freaked-out the uni-party in Washington DC and if they manage to nullify him in one way or another they will have effectively blocked any future outsider from ever being elected. These freakish career double-speaking globalist elitists will close all the loopholes Trump got in through, and will intimidate funders from contributing to, and compaign workers from working for, any future outsider candidate. This nation has endured far worse than Trump and will survive him - he's certainly NOT Hitler as some Democrats and even a few Democrats insisted he would be. The big question is: Do we let the uni-party destroy the idea of equal justice in America as they feverishly work to knock him out and lock things down so they never lose control again?

Clinton did NOT win "the popular vote"

[GodWasAnAlien]

> 1. She still won the popular vote.

Clinton did not win "the popular vote", because there was no popular vote.

There was only an electoral vote. And people may or may not vote differently based on the type of vote.

Some people lived in a very "red" or "blue" state, so perhaps they stayed home, because it did not make a difference. Or perhaps they voted for Johnson because they knew it did not make a difference in said red or blue state.
Or perhaps they lived in a "swing state" and were unsure, so they voted one way to "help the cause", where in a popular vote they may have voted differently.

The only way to know who would have one a popular vote is to have a popular vote, which we did not have.

Re:Clinton did NOT win "the popular vote"

[geoscodin]

Red State: I live in South Carolina where people were complaining about how everyone who voted for Gary Johnson (I) instead of Hillary won the day for Trump here, but Trump got over 50% of the popular vote so even if *everyone* who voted for *anyone else*, all of our electoral votes still went to Trump. I'll be curious to see how many Dems vote in the Republican primaries (in states where such a thing is allowed) in 2020 to try to knock him out of the race early. Assuming, of course, that he has a real contender for the party nomination.

So the Russians and Hillary agreed?

[argStyopa]

The Clinton campaign admitted that early in the top primary process, they had identified Trump as the candidate they most wanted to run against, so where they were able they promoted him too.
Are we considering that as pernicious as "Russian interference".

Re:So the Russians and Hillary agreed?

[argStyopa]

Are you one of those people 'triggered' by reality?

Just call it 'fake news' and go back to reddit. I'm sure they'll all agree with you.

Hint: don't read https://www.politico.com/magaz... ....after all, I'm sure politico is a Russian front, right?

Trump still lost

[nagora]

All this crap about Russia distracts from the fact that the US President is elected by an antiquated system of electoral collage voting which is free to - and does - ignore the voting pattern of the actual people. THAT'S what got Trump in, not some ineffective echo-chamber adverts from some Russians aimed at half-wits.

No one who got less votes than their opponent is a legitimate president.

Re:Trump still lost

[nagora]

"Each state only get so may votes on all national issues including choosing the president."

That's fine, but they should allot them based on the percentages of the popular vote, not as a winner-takes-all block.

Re:Oh Trump, silly Trump

[Nidi62]

The father of the child who died has no complaints about the treatment she received. Revived multiple times, air-lifted to a hospital. I guess that is murder to you? You're sick.

Well, if Trump hadn't very publicly sent troops to the border, talked about allowing the US troops to use live ammunition against unarmed civilians (and no, a rock is notequivalent to a gun), and generally made conditions at the border so hostile that it is driving people to cross illegally at the most inhospitable and dangerous areas of the border she wouldn't have needed medical treatment in the first place. Yes, I know the troops had logistical roles only, but most people would not see it that way (I also take offense to deploying active duty military personnel domestically in what amounted to a political stunt).

A lot of people hate illegal immigration and illegal immigrants. I agree it's not the right way to come here, but I take it as a compliment. People are willing to travel thousands of miles, use up all their savings, cross what amounts to war zones, and risk not only their lives but the lives of their children to come here, because America is so much better, so much safer than where they come from. That's what this country was founded on, yet a significant portion of our country wants to stop them and the only way they can think of to do it make America just as bad as the places these immigrants are fleeing. We should celebrate the fact that America is still seen as a place of hope and opportunity. Because if and when people stop wanting and trying to come here we might not like what America has turned into.

And they did a piss-poor job of it.

[sabbede]

Seriously, have you seen what they produced? It's amateurish crap that looks like it belongs on some forum for angry people learning to use image editing tools. Like GifsByLonelyJerks.com.

Laughably bad.

uh huh

[cascadingstylesheet]

Maybe the Russians believed the American leftists (after all, they have such a long, long love relationship with each other) about how supposedly ineffective and awful Trump would be.

But who authored the study?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's this:

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/techwatch/corinne-weaver/2018/12/17/google-funded-liberal-study-saying-russia-aided-gop-online

Re:But who authored the study?

[Shaitan]

I'm not denying the bias or saying one way or another regarding the funding source. But you are aware that site and it's sister sites are somewhat on par with the weekly world news? They are propaganda sites.

Oh sure, that stuff can be fun to read and play along with, like fake moon landing and spending a day toying with the idea of bucking the man and maybe just maybe there is a face on Mars. Those are great things to bullshit over with a beer on a fishing or camping trip, especially any good alien stuff. But you do know it isn't actually real right? Just like most anything on history or discovery.

Nobody was ever supposed to actually take people like Rush, Colbert, Oliver, Stewart, Mahr, Hannity, etc seriously. They are entertainers. You can't actually get your news from comedy and fringe sites. I know it is getting really hard to tell the difference with CNN not having much more credibility than Weekly World News these days.

And Slashdot

[Smid]

Further to ask, is, is there a correlation between the periods of massive growth of the social media platforms, their huge jump in share price, and the registrations of millions of fake accounts laying dormant ready to roll?

In which case they've all been built on a lie and that is the real truth here the likes of facebook/twitter etc's share price made them complicit in the action.

What the real surprise is not that democracy can be so easily bought, it is that it can be so easily given away for free.

So tired of the Russia nonsense

[bradley13]

Russia tried to influence a US election. So what? This is standard stuff. Every country tries to protect its interests, and part of this is trying to influence other countries and their governments. News at 11:00.

The US not only meddles in elections; they go farther: the US goes in and overthrows governments they don't like (that's a list of 57 publicly known incidents).

If people want to get upset about something, how about prosecuting Bush and Obama for attacking sovereign countries without a declaration of war? While Trump hasn't ended any wars, at least he hasn't added any new entries to the list...

Re:So tired of the Russia nonsense

[ljw1004]

Russia tried to influence a US election. So what? This is standard stuff. Every country tries to protect its interests, and part of this is trying to influence other countries and their governments. News at 11:00.

It's not standard stuff, and attitudes like yours will be dangerous if they spread.

The US defeated the Soviet Union in the cold war by demonstrating it could vastly outspend on military, thanks to its capitalist system. It was economic warfare between capitalism and socialism -- asymmetric warfare because of capitalism's huge advantages in economics, so the US won.

Russia is now flexing its muscles in a new war, a war of disinformation and influence. It is information warfare between totalitarianism and democracy -- asymmetric warfare because democracies have a huge disadvantage in moderating the spread of disinformation. We're seeing tiny opening salvos in the war, but China and Russia will win unless we figure out how to counter.

Forget about Hillary vs Trump. That's trivial and irrelevant to the important questions. We (collectively as democratic nations) need to figure out how to wage this new information warfare without losing our open democratic societies.

Re:So tired of the Russia nonsense

[thelandp]

Hey, great examples of
1. the "tu quoque" fallacy. Latin for “you too,” is also called the “appeal to hypocrisy” because it distracts from the argument by pointing out hypocrisy in the opponent. This tactic doesn’t solve the problem, or prove one’s point, because even hypocrites can tell the truth.
2. A “red herring” is a distraction from the argument typically with some sentiment that seems to be relevant but isn’t really on-topic.

Is this a conspiracy theory?

[Shotgun]

They supported Trump, who was expected to lose. Even in the primaries? Why would they support a bad candidate in the primaries? With all the ties that have been uncovered between the Clintons and the Russians, could it be that the Hillary team was coordinating with them to promote Trump over the more traditional candidates?

Re:Pay more attention.

[Shotgun]

Can you explain why else a Russian bank would give Bill a cool half mil for a 20 minute speech?

Re:Oh Trump, silly Trump

[Shotgun]

Well, if Trump hadn't very publicly sent troops to the border, talked about allowing the US troops to use live ammunition against unarmed civilians (and no, a rock is notequivalent to a gun), and generally made conditions at the border so hostile that it is driving people to cross illegally at the most inhospitable and dangerous areas of the border she wouldn't have needed medical treatment in the first place.

Huh? What are you suggesting? We set up a welcome tent with refreshments and a brass band to let them in the country illegally?

If a burglar cuts their wrist on window they broke trying to break into my house, is it my fault for having locks on my windows?

Tell me, please, that you can't be this stupid.

Re:Oh Trump, silly Trump

[LynnwoodRooster]

generally made conditions at the border so hostile that it is driving people to cross illegally at the most inhospitable and dangerous areas of the border

So the issue is we make it hard for people to illegally enter the US?

Re:Oh Trump, silly Trump

[LynnwoodRooster]

So what do we do with the child, when her father commits a a crime by entering the US illegally and brings her with him? Should we separate the child from the father? Do we put them on buses (which is what happened) and drive them to a place where they can be processed, and then split them up?

Re:"fruits of her education"

[e3m4n]

dont forget plain text email hopping across at least 27 hops without any encryption of said confidential information.

The Emperor Has No Clothes!!!

[Vitriol Angst]

And the Democrats chose the only candidate that could lose to a Republican. The Bush years trashed the economy and we had 8 years of well managed recovery. Jobs still don't pay a living wage for most people -- but that's a bipartisan issue that neither candidate was going to address -- let's be honest.

Whether the election was close or not or the Russians were effective or not does not matter. Nixon broke into the Watergate Hotel because he was paranoid and thought rules didn't apply to him -- it didn't do him much good in the scheme of things. He was impeached because he broke the law and could not be trusted with power.

After the Helsinki summit, is there any doubt that Putin has influence over Trump and that he is compromised? I've seen less cringe with molested alter boys receiving a private confessional.

You know this and I know this. But one side won't admit that they know the truth. Doesn't that bother you in the back of your head -- that you KNOW you are lying to yourself and everyone else? Is it that you don't want to embarrass yourself in front of people you think will hold it over you? How could it be any worse than the current situation? The emperor has no clothes. You are just pretending. And everyone knows you are pretending.

Why is this on the front page?

[Shaitan]

AmiMoJo is a known troll and the summary doesn't even include a link.

Re:Oh Trump, silly Trump

[LynnwoodRooster]

Yep. And asylum is sought at legal entries only; this father chose to illegally enter by not using a legal point of entry.

None of those programs were meant to help the poor

[rsilvergun]

they were environmental initiatives meant to improve air quality. Some of them are better than others (Solar subsidies, alright. Cash for Clunkers? That was just stupid).

It'd be a bit like saying "Why isn't the Democrat's push for Diplomacy in Iran helping the working poor?". Those things have very little to do with each other. I mean, avoiding pointless wars that drain our coffers does, just like the poor breath dirty air. But it's not specifically intended for the poor or even working class except in as much as they are citizens...

For left wing programs that are for the poor, you've got Medicare for All, The Living Wage, Ending the Drug War, shutting down predatory lenders, Wall Street regulation... the list goes on and on. The left do great when it comes to helping the poor... when they're allowed to. Most of the time Goldman Sachs et al shuts them down.

Re:Oh Trump, silly Trump

[e3m4n]

if the reward for coming here was not being deported, but at the same time no free fucking shit then sure. Traveling thousands of miles for a free $2000/mo paycheck plus healthcare that is superior to the best policy a working stiff can afford (another $1200/mo for a family of 4) on top of all the other free shit?? Who the fuck wouldn't do that?

Let them in, dont give them a fucking dime for free. They can earn it, after all there are 'millions of jobs nobody else wants to do' right? They are fleeing places like Venezuela who a decade ago was talking all kinds of shit about how socialism is so fucking awesome. Now people are fleeing to come here trying to make us socialists too, because it worked so fucking well from the shitholes they came from right?

Putin's goons

[reanjr]

If you still use Facebook, you are willingly working for Putin. The very fact that your presence increases the network value means that you are providing material support to all the misinformation campaigns, whether you see them or believe them or not.

Russia took advantage of a weakness

[raymorris]

Of course we wouldn't all be singing kumbaya, unless Russia caused us to fight amongst ourselves. Russia took advantage of the existing discord by attempting to amplify it. Hitting us where we're weak, so to speak.

I don't suppose we can ever measure exactly how effective their campaign was - and it probably doesn't matter. We do know from history that such tactics are part of a strategy package that has taken down governments in other countries. It seems to me, it's more important to figure out how to work together, to resolve differences instead of scream about them, than to figure out exactly how much of our current problem is due to Russian propaganda.

We *should* acknowledge that they attempt such propaganda to so domestic discord within their rivals, but more importantly let's try to reduce the infighting and make our nation the best it can be.

Re:Pay more attention.

[Zontar The Mindless]

So you don't know the difference between a counterattack and starting a war. Anything else you'd like to share?