Trump and Russia; Spasiba, Harasho!

[JimC]

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

[pErvinalia]

Where's DaveDodo in all this? He must have cummed himself into nirvana with all the idiotic things Trump has done.

Aww, missing something to chew on?

I kind of am, regarding Trump's increasing fuck ups. I really want to hear what fanbois like him and 42 come out with trying to explain away the stupidity. The level of creativity would have to be pretty high at the moment..

[L'Emmerdeur]

Why Trump's repeated yammering about how the FBI didn't get the 'DNC server' (and the faithful parroting of same here) is ignorant bullshit:

"Trump’s ‘Missing DNC Server’ Is Neither Missing Nor a Server"

Donald Trump turns to right-wing conspiracy theories when he’s cornered, and he was cornered on Monday. Standing feet away from Vladimir Putin at a press conference following their Helsinki tete-a-tete, a reporter challenged Trump to condemn Putin for Russia’s election interference, “in front of the world.”Instead, the world watched as the President of the United States took Putin’s side against his own Justice Department and his own intelligence agencies, and launched into a rambling discourse about Hillary Clinton’s emails and a supposedly missing DNC server that hides the truth about Putin’s innocence.

“You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server. Why didn’t they take the server? Where is the server, I want to know, and what is the server saying?”

The server is saying shut up.

The “server” Trump is obsessed with is actually 140 servers, most of them cloud-based, which the DNC was forced to decommission in June of 2016 while trying to rid its network of the Russian GRU officers working to help Trump win the election, according to the figures in the DNC’s civil lawsuit against Russia and the Trump campaign. Another 180 desktop and laptop computers were also swapped out as the DNC raced to get the organization back on its feet and free of Putin’s surveillance.

But despite Trump’s repeated feverish claims to the contrary, no machines are actually missing.

...

Trump and his allies are capitalizing on a basic misapprehension of how computer intrusion investigations work. Investigating a virtual crime isn’t a like investigating a murder. The Russians didn’t leave DNA evidence on the server racks and fingerprints on the keyboards. All the evidence of their comings and goings was on the computer hard drives, and in memory, and in the ephemeral network transmissions to and from the GRU’s command-and-control servers.

When cyber investigators respond to an incident, they capture that evidence in a process called “imaging.” They make an exact byte-for-byte copy of the hard drives. They do the same for the machine’s memory, capturing evidence that would otherwise be lost at the next reboot, and they monitor and store the traffic passing through the victim’s network. This has been standard procedure in computer intrusion investigations for decades. The images, not the computer’s hardware, provide the evidence.

Both the DNC and the security firm Crowdstrike, hired to respond to the breach, have said repeatedly over the years that they gave the FBI a copy of all the DNC images back in 2016. The DNC reiterated that Monday in a statement to the Daily Beast.

“The FBI was given images of servers, forensic copies, as well as a host of other forensic information we collected from our systems,” said Adrienne Watson, the DNC’s deputy communications director. “We were in close contact and worked cooperatively with the FBI and were always responsive to their requests. Any suggestion that they were denied access to what they wanted for their investigation is completely incorrect.”

The FBI declined comment for this story, but in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last year, then-director James Comey said that Crowdstrike “ultimately shared with us their forensics.”

[Brian Peacock]

Where's DaveDodo in all this? He must have cummed himself into nirvana with all the idiotic things Trump has done.

Aww, missing something to chew on?

I kind of am, regarding Trump's increasing fuck ups. I really want to hear what fanbois like him and 42 come out with trying to explain away the stupidity. The level of creativity would have to be pretty high at the moment..

Well, perhaps you shouldn't have chased them all away. You used to do the same with the girls in the playground.

[Animavore]

Bill Bowder.

I wasn’t watching the Donald Trump–Vladimir Putin press conference from Helsinki. But when my phone started burning up with messages, I knew something was going on. I quickly discovered that Putin had mentioned me by name. No journalist had asked about me. He just brought me up out of the blue.

Putin offered to allow American investigators to interview the 12 Russian intelligence agents just indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in exchange for allowing Russians to have access to me and those close to me. This is no idle threat. For the last ten years, I’ve been trying to avoid getting killed by Putin’s regime, and there already exists a trail of dead bodies connected to its desire to see me dead. Amazingly, Trump stood next to him, appearing to nod approvingly. He even later said that he considered it “an incredible offer.”

I’m lodged so firmly under Putin’s skin because I’m the person responsible for getting the Magnitsky Act passed in the United States in 2012. This is a law that allows the U.S. government to freeze assets and ban visas of human-rights violators around the world. Some of these human-rights violators had killed Sergei Magnitsky, my Russian lawyer who was murdered in a Moscow jail for uncovering a massive $230 million government-corruption scheme that we’ve since traced to known Putin cronies. In essence, Putin received some of the proceeds of this crime, and he is terrified that the Magnitsky Act could be applied to his offshore fortune, which is probably one of the largest amassed in modern times.

Cont. http://time.com/5340545/bill-browder-vl ... mp-fbshare

[Seabass]

A little light treason never hurt anyone. We all know Killary would have committed far worse treason. Like using a private email server which hilariously turned out to be the one that DIDN'T get hacked.

Speaking of treason, it looks like our resident Trump cheerleader has gone AWOL, eh? Did he suddenly grow a conscience? Has he finally come to his senses and realized how truly awful Trump is? Did he abscond because some of us typed mean words at him for supporting a thoroughly corrupt and morally bankrupt individual?

I was looking forward to seeing how he'd defend Trump's most recent madness. I've had him on ignore for a while, but this would have been worth taking him off out of morbid curiosity.

[Tero]

Russian investors most likely own a good chunk of Trump
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... ax-returns

[Seabass]

Yebbut the moose-lambs owned Obammy!

[L'Emmerdeur]

You see, what happened is, I meant to say the exact opposite of what I said. Yeah, that's the ticket. Now that we've cleared that up, let me tell you about this great opportunity: Through my government contacts I've learned about an unbelievable bargain on this bridge and I want you to have the first crack at it, but you'll have to jump on it now before somebody else buys it out from under you. I don't want that to happen, and I'm sure you don't, either.

'Trump tries to calm political storm over Putin summit, says he misspoke'

Trump stunned the world on Monday by shying away from criticizing the Russian leader for Moscow’s actions to undermine the election and cast doubt on U.S. intelligence agencies, prompting calls by some U.S. lawmakers for tougher sanctions and other actions to punish Russia.

“I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t,’” Trump told reporters at the White House, more than 24 hours after his appearance with Putin. “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’”

Trump, who was given numerous opportunities to publicly rebuke Putin during the news conference in Helsinki, instead praised the Russian leader for his “strong and powerful” denial of the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that the Russian state meddled in the election.

Standing alongside Putin in Helsinki, Trump told reporters he was not convinced it was Moscow. “I don’t see any reason why it would be,” Trump said.

Although he faced pressure from critics, allied countries and even his own staff to take a tough line, Trump said not a single disparaging word in public about Moscow on any of the issues that have brought relations between the two nuclear powers to the lowest ebb since the Cold War.

Republicans and Democrats accused him of siding with an adversary rather than his own country.

Mainly reading from a prepared statement, Trump said on Tuesday he had complete faith in U.S. intelligence agencies and accepted their conclusions. But he appeared to veer from his script to also hedge on who was responsible for the election interference.

“It could be other people also - there’s a lot of people out there,” he said.

Somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, for instance. Could be.

[pErvinalia]

I was looking forward to seeing how he'd defend Trump's most recent madness.

Same here. And it's such a shame we didn't have him here defending Trump saying he can't see why Russia "would" hack the US election, and then having him try and defend Trump today after he bullshitted by saying he meant "wouldn't". Seriously, it would have been one of the saddest load of apologetics one could ever see. I'm depressed that we missed this opportunity..

[Tero]

In the absence of 42, GOP dudes make feeble criticisms:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) stopped short of calling out Trump by name, choosing instead to chastise the administration’s approach to Russia.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called Trump’s response to Putin a “sign of weakness” — and was one of the few lawmakers on Capitol Hill to recommend hearings on US cooperation with Russia in Syria.

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), who said he would continue to support sanctions against Russia, warned the administration against repeating the “mistake of past Administrations in normalizing relations with Russia at zero cost to Putin.” He also failed to call out Trump by name.

Republicans in the House also rejected Trump’s statements, but few offered any tangible solutions to address Trump’s capitulation toward Putin on the national stage.

“There is no question that Russia interfered in our election and continues attempts to undermine democracy here and around the world,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement.

The statement continued: “That is not just the finding of the American intelligence community but also the House Committee on Intelligence. The president must appreciate that Russia is not our ally. There is no moral equivalent between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals. The United States must be focused on holding Russia accountable and putting an end to its vile attacks on democracy.”

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the chair of the House Oversight Committee, seemed to suggest that that officials just haven’t tried hard enough to persuade the president that Russia meddled in the election.

“Russia attempted to undermine the fundamentals of our democracy, impugn the reliability of the 2016 election, and sow the seeds of discord among Americans,” Gowdy said in a statement.

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/16/17577244/ ... kers-react

[L'Emmerdeur]

A direct American connection in the Macedonian fake news cottage industry that flourished during the 2016 US presidential election. Possible Russian involvement as well.

'The Macedonian Connection: American Conservatives Played A Secret Role In The Macedonian Fake News Boom Ahead Of 2016'

A joint investigation by BuzzFeed News and partners has uncovered new information that rewrites the story of the fake news boom in the Macedonian town of Veles.

A week before Election Day in 2016, BuzzFeed News revealed that young men and teens in Veles were running over a hundred websites that pumped out often false viral stories that supported Donald Trump.

Media outlets from around the world descended upon Veles to tell the story of how the so-called fake news teens — many of whom had a shaky understanding of English — made large sums of money from digital ads shown next to their misleading stories about US politics.

But after reviewing social media posts, government records, domain registry information, and archived versions of fake news sites, as well as interviewing key players, BuzzFeed News, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and the Investigative Reporting Lab Macedonia can now reveal that Veles’ political news industry was not started spontaneously by apolitical teens.

Rather, it was launched by a well-known Macedonian media attorney, Trajche Arsov — who worked closely with two high-profile American partners for at least six months during a period that overlapped with Election Day.

...

One person of interest to investigators is Anna Bogacheva.

Bogacheva was one of 13 Russian nationals indicted by Mueller in February over alleged interference in the US election. The indictment focused on the role of the St Petersburg–based Internet Research Agency — often referred to as a “troll factory” — which produced online propaganda and spread messages via social media aimed at helping Trump and defeating his rival, Hillary Clinton.

According to the indictment, Bogacheva at one point oversaw the “data analysis group” for the agency’s US operation. Along with another agency employee, Bogacheva allegedly traveled around the United States for about three weeks in June 2014, gathering information for an intelligence report that was shared with her superior at the agency.

Exactly a year later, she arrived in Macedonia.

Immigration records obtained by reporters show that Bogacheva was in Macedonia in mid-2015, leaving the country by land to Greece on June 26 that year. No record could be found of her entering the country. Bogacheva’s posts on Russian social media site VKontakte show that her trip also took her to Austria and possibly Italy.

When contacted by reporters via VKontakte to ask why she was in Macedonia in 2015, Bogacheva said, “sorry, I'm not discussing my work." She did not respond to subsequent messages.

Reporters found no connection between Bogacheva and the Macedonian sites.

[Seabass]

One of those Americans, Paris Wade, is now running for office in Nevada. Arsov also employed other American and British writers, including at least one who currently works for US right-wing conspiracy site the Gateway Pundit.

Gateway Pundit!! Where have I seen that one before?!

Though Arsov considers himself a right-leaning libertarian, he says he first attempted to also crack the market in liberal content. But on Facebook, republishing conservative articles was just better business, he said.

“We found that the names of the groups where we could stay longer, where our profiles were not removed, were related to conservatives, to Republicans, to Trump,” he said.

“If you found 100 groups for conservatives, you could only find 10 for liberals.”

Yeah, conservatives aren't dumber than liberals...

[Tero]

Columnist fails to note that Russia probably owns Trump. Businesses. He was broke once.
NYT
I can smell Donald Trump’s fear from here. His panic. His anxiety.

And yet, I don’t have a full picture of what is causing it.

The only people who know what has been discovered in the Russian election meddling probe are Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team, and they aren’t talking.

But President Trump no doubt knows far more about it than the rest of us, and what he knows — or what he fears — appears to be a consuming preoccupation. He tweets about the investigation constantly.

Part of this is an overt play to bend public opinion, to besmirch whatever conclusions the investigation might reach and to ward off any attempt at a possible impeachment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/opin ... hment.html

[Brian Peacock]

Peepee and loans.