Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

[Hermit]

Being pro Trump is bizarre...and mostly selfish. The man is clearly an asshole, so you only support him for personal gain.

To be fair, being pro any politician is mostly selfish.

[Tero]

How is that if my politician wants to raise taxes and I vote for him? Bill Gates votes for Democrats that tax him more.

I’m voting selfishly because I expect to get my money back later as benefits?

[Tero]

Collusion or not...Russians have helped Trump and will do so in November. Trump did nothing to stop them. Even Russia sanctions are left unused.

President Trump's 'Russia hoax' turns out to be real
"Russia talk is FAKE NEWS put out by the Dems, and played up by the media, in order to mask the big election defeat and the illegal leaks!" Trump tweeted last Feb. 26.

But Trump's own Justice Department has concluded otherwise. A 37-page federal indictment released Friday afternoon spells out in exhaustive detail a three-year Russian plot to disrupt America's democracy and boost Trump's campaign, dealing a fatal blow to one of the president's favorite talking points.

Even Trump seemed to partly concede the point on Friday, acknowledging Russia's election interference while still minimizing its impact.

"The results of the election were not impacted," he tweeted. "The Trump campaign did nothing wrong - no collusion!"
But the intelligence community's warnings have gone largely unheeded in the White House.

During the first 13 months of his presidency, Trump has rejected the evidence that Russia waged an assault on a pillar of American democracy - something many in his administration regard as objective reality - and has sought to discredit the case that Russia poses a threat to the United States. White House officials have said this is partly because the president wants to forge a productive partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin to tackle problems in North Korea, Iran and other hot spots.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Pre ... 620369.php

[Tero]

Guardian:
The indictment says Russian impostors on social media used election-related hashtags including “#TrumpTrain” “#Trump2016” “MAGA” and “Hillary4Prison.”

The indictment alleges violations of computer fraud laws in which the perpetrators purchased space on computer servers located in the United States in order to hide their Russian affiliation.

[Hermit]

How is that if my politician wants to raise taxes and I vote for him? Bill Gates votes for Democrats that tax him more.

Do you really think Bill Gates expects himself to be worse off under a government run by Wall Street shills compared to a narcissistic, fascist bully?

[Scot Dutchy]

The White House put out a statement that points to the allegation that the activities of the Russians aimed at interfering in the US presidential election began 'in 2014 before the President declared his candidacy,' according to the indictment. As previously noted, it appears that at least some in Russia (possibly including Putin) were aware of Trump's serious presidential ambitions as early as January, 2014.

The Russians have probably been at it for years. They would have to know that they had a product to sell.

[Tero]

How is that if my politician wants to raise taxes and I vote for him? Bill Gates votes for Democrats that tax him more.

Do you really think Bill Gates expects himself to be worse off under a government run by Wall Street shills compared to a narcissistic, fascist bully?

Er, Hillary is not president. Move along. Find a new victim.

[Hermit]

How is that if my politician wants to raise taxes and I vote for him? Bill Gates votes for Democrats that tax him more.

Do you really think Bill Gates expects himself to be worse off under a government run by Wall Street shills compared to a narcissistic, fascist bully?

Er, Hillary is not president. Move along. Find a new victim.

Evasion instead of answering the question noted.

[Tero]

Democrats, as a rule, are not swinming in money when they run. As all politicians, they take money from lobbyists. Some of those lobbies I support, some I don’t. All the lobbyists supporting Republicans, such as the NRA, are groups I do mot support. The NRA is a dictatorship supported my members to whom gun rights are sacred. But who have no say in its activities.

[Tero]

Mueller shows Russia influenced election. Russians indicted.

Trump says...wait for it!!!....fake news!
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/ ... man-416849

[L'Emmerdeur]

Trump and Pence are only too happy to promote the lie that this and previous statements from the US intelligence community have affirmed that the Russian efforts had no effect on the outcome of the election, despite the fact that the intelligence agencies have never said that.

[Tero]

CNN:
The indictment notes, for instance, at paragraphs 63 and 64, that in June of 2016, the defendants and their co-conspirators sought to stir up anti-Muslim sentiment and voters by placing ads on Facebook promoting a "Support Hillary. Save American Muslims" rally. They carefully used some of their millions in July of that year to produce a poster embossed with a quote they falsely attributed to Hillary Clinton, "I think Sharia Law will be a powerful new direction of freedom." The phony quote was in wide circulation during the presidential campaign.

What was Trump saying in July of 2016? He was sending a shocking plea to the Russians by publicly saying about Hillary Clinton's emails:
Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," he said. "I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

Paragraph 34 of the indictment notes:
"Defendants and their co-conspirators also created thematic group pages on social media sites, particularly on the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram. ORGANIZATION-controlled pages addressed a range of issues, including: immigration (with group names including 'Secured Borders'); the Black Lives Matter movement (with group names including 'Blacktivist'); religion (with group names including 'United Muslims of America' and 'Army of Jesus') ..... By 2016, the size of many ORGANIZATION-controlled groups had grown to hundreds of thousands of online followers."

[Tero]

Wired:
The operatives behind the Facebook group “Secured Borders” were even criticized for not having enough posts dedicated to disparaging Clinton.

Most troubling, the Russians encouraged minority groups like African Americans to stay away from the polls. In October 2016, an Instagram account called “Woke Blacks” published a messaging saying that voting for Hillary was “the lesser of the two devils...we’d surely be better of without voting AT ALL,” according to the indictment.
https://www.wired.com/story/what-trump- ... -facebook/

[L'Emmerdeur]

It was known late last year that several members of the Trump campaign served as unwitting amplifiers for Russian troll farm propaganda. The @TEN_GOP account was active until August of last year. Rubles well spent.

Some of the Trump campaign’s most prominent names and supporters, including Trump’s campaign manager, digital director, and son, pushed tweets from professional trolls paid by the Russian government in the heat of the 2016 election campaign.

The Twitter account @Ten_GOP, which called itself the “Unofficial Twitter account of Tennessee Republicans,” was operated from the Kremlin-backed “Russian troll farm,” or Internet Research Agency, a source familiar with the account confirmed with The Daily Beast.

[Tero]

Troll interviewed:
In a new interview with the Washington Post, former troll Marat Mindiyarov described the factory as Orwellian, complete with an “assembly line” of lies.

“Your first feeling, when you ended up there, was that you were in some kind of factory that turned lying, telling untruths, into an industrial assembly line,” Mindiyarov said. “The volumes were colossal — there were huge numbers of people, 300 to 400, and they were all writing absolute untruths.”

https://www.recode.net/2018/2/18/170252 ... ry-clinton

While much of Mueller’s focus is on Russian intervention in the U.S. election using platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Mindiyarov’s primary role was to comment on the news in Russia on forums such as LiveJournal and Russian news sites.