Trump and Russia

[reddogblitz]

People just need to be smarter. The only problem is social media and heavy smart use makes you stupid.

 

I saw a great quote from Zuck in the paper today: "Protecting our community is more important than maximizing profits." He said this in his earnings call which he made but skipped the congressional hearings. LMFAO

[TakeYouToTasker]

People just need to be smarter. The only problem is social media and heavy smart use makes you stupid.

 

I saw a great quote from Zuck in the paper today: "Protecting our community is more important than maximizing profits." He said this in his earnings call which he made but skipped the congressional hearings. LMFAO

You think CEOs of publicly traded companies should skip earnings reports to shareholders (in this case almost everyone who owns any sort of non-sector mutual fund) to participate in uninformative dog and pony shows at the behest of political royalty? Edited November 2, 2017 by TakeYouToTasker

[Deranged Rhino]

You think CEOs of publicly traded companies should skip earnings reports to shareholders (in this case almost everyone who owns any sort of non-sector mutual fund) to participate in uninformative dog and pony shows at the behest of political royalty?

 

Your point is valid, no argument.

 

Though I do think part of the reason he shirked the Congressional hearings is because of his own political aspirations in 2020. He doesn't want that "meme" out there of him testifying before Congress.

[reddogblitz]

Your point is valid, no argument.

 

Though I do think part of the reason he shirked the Congressional hearings is because of his own political aspirations in 2020. He doesn't want that "meme" out there of him testifying before Congress.

 

If community safety is so dang important to him like he said, why wouldn't he want help Congress help?

 

I was just laughing at his ridiculous comments. The new young "sharing" economy CEOs are just as full of BS as previous CEOs if not more so.

[Deranged Rhino]

If community safety is so dang important to him like he said, why wouldn't he want help Congress help?

I was just laughing at his ridiculous comments. The new young "sharing" economy CEOs are just as full of BS as previous CEOs if not more so.

I don't disagree

[Tiberius]

I don’t get it, and I never have. Why has President Trump kowtowed to Russian President Vladimir Putin since the beginning of his presidential campaign? I’ve asked this question on the air, and off, to those close to the president and to the president himself. No one has a good answer. The man has insulted everyone from war heroes to the pope, and yet his admiration of the Russian dictator remains intact.

During my Dec. 18, 2015, “Morning Joe” interview with Trump, I tried throwing some cold water on the then-candidate’s adoration of the Russian leader.

“He kills journalists, political opponents and . . . ”

“Invades countries,” co-anchor Willie Geist helpfully added.

“ . . . and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?” I asked.

Any other candidate would have hit this softball out of the park. But not Trump.

“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country.”

I tried slowing down for emphasis.

“But, again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.”

“Well,” Trump weakly argued, “I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.”

To this day, Trump has been steadfast in his defense of an autocrat who views the Soviet Union’s collapse as a tragedy and the United States as an enemy. Why? Soon I may not have to speculate. This week’s news out of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office suggests that what has long been opaque will soon become clear.

Here’s some of what we know so far. It seems to be enough to make any self-aware president panic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-is-trump-so-obsessed-with-russia-were-finally-going-to-find-out/2017/11/02/8ba33bba-bff5-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.9bbbef0ee0e2

 

[K-9]

No, I don't miss the point entirely.

 

What those Facebook adds are, are opinions, real or not, about American politics. They are not coercive, and do not involve force.

 

America is a free country, and for all the problems inherent to the situation, creating a structure under which a "Ministry of Information" official or otherwise, which dictates what information Americans are allowed to read is a much greater problem.

I'm not referring to ads, I'm referring to fake groups set up by Russian trolls. If you missed that, you missed my point entirely.

How is different than McCarthy hearings?

I honestly don't see any resemblance to Russian trolls setting up fake groups on social media and McCarthy hearings.

[GG]

 

I honestly don't see any resemblance to Russian trolls setting up fake groups on social media and McCarthy hearings.

 

Think of what happened before the hearings. Would there be hearings if USSR didn't try to infiltrate Hollywood & US media? How is this different?

[B-Man]

 

Think of what happened before the hearings. Would there be hearings if USSR didn't try to infiltrate Hollywood & US media? How is this different?

 

Corrected

[B-Man]

[Deranged Rhino]

I'm not referring to ads, I'm referring to fake groups set up by Russian trolls. If you missed that, you missed my point entirely.

 

The one demonstration/rally/event these "groups" held had less than 100 people on both sides show up. Less than 100.

 

The number of followers these "groups" have aren't real. They're a mirage as the hearings made clear (and the media swept under the rug). The numbers overwhelming came from bot farms. Sure, some Americans followed, but not enough for this to be a real "threat" against the country or its democratic systems. The poor suckers who get caught up in their disinfo have only themselves to blame.

 

The solution isn't to decry this as an act of war (it wasn't), or to push for state sponsored censorship. That's exactly the kind of overreaction the Russians would love to see us commit. Again.

 

imo

[K-9]

 

Think of what happened before the hearings. Would there be hearings if USSR didn't try to infiltrate Hollywood & US media? How is this different?

Yes, in that macro sense, I can see a similarity.

[Deranged Rhino]

As said for months: HRC built Trump up because she thought she could beat him... and the "dossier" she knew nothing about a week ago, and now admits she funded, was part of the strategy as early as April 2015:

 

Our hope is that the goal of a potential HRC campaign and the DNC would be one-in-the-same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to a majority of the electorate. We have outlined three strategies to obtain our goal:

1) Force all Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election;

2) Undermine any credibility/trust Republican presidential candidates have to make inroads to our coalition or independents;

3) Muddy the waters on any potential attack lodged against HRC.

 

Operationalizing the Strategy

Pied Piper Candidates

 

There are two ways to approach the strategies mentioned above. The first is to use the field as a whole to inflict damage on itself similar to what happened to Mitt Romney in 2012. The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more “Pied Piper” candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party. Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to: • Ted Cruz • Donald Trump • Ben Carson We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them seriously.

 

(snip)

 

Muddying the Waters

 

As we all know, the right wing attack machine has been building its opposition research on Hillary Clinton for decades. The RNC et al has been telegraphing they are ready to attack and do so with reckless abandon. One way we can respond to these attacks is to show how they boomerang onto the Republican presidential field. The goal, then, is to have a dossier on the GOP candidates on the likely attacks HRC will face. Based on attacks that have already occurred, the areas they are highlighting:

• Transparency & disclosure

• Donors & associations

• Management & business dealings

 

In this regard, any information on scandals or ethical lapses on the GOP candidates would serve well. We won’t be picky.

 

Again, we think our goals mirror those of the DNC. We look forward to continuing the conversation.

 

Source: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/1120

(click on the attachment)

[K-9]

 

The one demonstration/rally/event these "groups" held had less than 100 people on both sides show up. Less than 100.

 

The number of followers these "groups" have aren't real. They're a mirage as the hearings made clear (and the media swept under the rug). The numbers overwhelming came from bot farms. Sure, some Americans followed, but not enough for this to be a real "threat" against the country or its democratic systems. The poor suckers who get caught up in their disinfo have only themselves to blame.

 

The solution isn't to decry this as an act of war (it wasn't), or to push for state sponsored censorship. That's exactly the kind of overreaction the Russians would love to see us commit. Again.

 

imo

I understand all that. But the number of people that showed up at the respective demonstrations is beside the point as is the number of fake followers created by the Russian trolls; the intent is what's important here. It was interesting to hear the Russian troll describe his typical day of masquerading as various Americans, particularly his experience impersonating a member of BLM and the deliberate attempts to create anger and sow discord in the hopes of creating clashes.

 

It's not an act of war, it's an act of a hostile nation at odds with our democratic principles. I'm not OK with that.

 

And nobody is calling for censorship. Just more responsible corporate citizenship. Or are you of the opinion that corporations don't have a civic and patriotic duty to their country?

[DC Tom]

It's not an act of war, it's an act of a hostile nation at odds with our democratic principles. I'm not OK with that.

 

And every time I read something like this, I can only think "The 80s called, they want their foreign policy back."

 

The rampant mendacity and hypocrisy on Russian foreign policy, for no other reason than to score short-term political "gotcha" soundbytes, exemplifies a complete lack of any sort of leadership in the country, and is a far, far greater problem than Russian Facebook trolls.

[K-9]

 

And every time I read something like this, I can only think "The 80s called, they want their foreign policy back."

 

The rampant mendacity and hypocrisy on Russian foreign policy, for no other reason than to score short-term political "gotcha" soundbytes, exemplifies a complete lack of any sort of leadership in the country, and is a far, far greater problem than Russian Facebook trolls.

Are you completely oblivious to Putin's actions since his rise to leadership 17 years ago? If anyone called up the 1980s, it's him and his oligarch cronies. And while I agree US leadership has used Russia to score those political points you mention, none of that changes the fact that Putin has been a bad actor on the world stage for nearly two decades now and he is adverse to our democratic principles. That may sound like 80s rhetoric, but it's the plain truth given his actions over the years.

[TakeYouToTasker]

I'm not referring to ads, I'm referring to fake groups set up by Russian trolls. If you missed that, you missed my point entirely.

No, you're missing the point if you think there's any meaningful difference between setting up a facebook group to market an idea to individuals or taking out an ad.

 

Both are advertising mediums, and neither are coercive or use force.

[DC Tom]

Are you completely oblivious to Putin's actions since his rise to leadership 17 years ago?

 

No, I'm not. I'm mystified that everyone else seems to have been oblivious, including a whole shitpot of our so-called "leadership." Which is why I always recall that juvenile dismissal of Romney from 2012 every time I hear someone B word about Putin, and get so damned pissed off about it.

 

That's not support of Putin. That's a criticism of our leadership in the past 17 years that has been too concerned with playground politics and not enough with actual leadership.

[Deranged Rhino]

I understand all that. But the number of people that showed up at the respective demonstrations is beside the point as is the number of fake followers created by the Russian trolls; the intent is what's important here. It was interesting to hear the Russian troll describe his typical day of masquerading as various Americans, particularly his experience impersonating a member of BLM and the deliberate attempts to create anger and sow discord in the hopes of creating clashes.

 

It's not an act of war, it's an act of a hostile nation at odds with our democratic principles. I'm not OK with that.

 

And nobody is calling for censorship. Just more responsible corporate citizenship. Or are you of the opinion that corporations don't have a civic and patriotic duty to their country?

 

Respectfully I disagree with the bolded. Senator Mark Warner has been calling for censorship and described Russian fake news bots as a grave threat to America. It started with his first press conference and he's referenced it repeatedly throughout this year. He does it directly and indirectly, calling for mechanisms to suss out fake news before it gets distributed to the public. Schiff has said the same, many times over the past year - twice to me personally in interviews.

 

Twitter censored almost 50% of tweets which referenced the DNC leaks. Almost 50%! Mind you, the DNC leaks aren't fake news, they're real documents (even if illegally acquired they are real) and to date WikiLeaks has a 100% authenticity record of its releases. Censoring real information from the people is not being patriotic - it's playing politics and picking sides. Now, Twitter is a private company, free to do what they please within the law, but let's not pretend that censorship is patriotic.

 

Denying information to the public is about as anit-American and anti-Liberal (as in true liberalism not the political movement) as it gets. Falling back on censorship as a solution, in any way, is not protecting American values. It's undercutting them. Just like we did in 2001 with the Patriot Act, 702, et al.

 

Censorship has always been the end game of some on this issue. They do not hide it. Just have to listen to what they're actually saying.

 

And to recap how this narrative actually started:

 

2012: NDAA makes it legal for the State Department and Intelligence Agencies to disseminate propaganda domestically.

2012: (After Romney loses) There's a dramatic uptick in neo-McCarthyism on the left that's tied directly to the western backed coup in the Ukraine and in Syria.

2013: Russia takes Crimea - doesn't move any farther into the Ukraine.

2013-2015: 44 massively ups the amount of arms flowing into Syria and into AQ/ISIS fighters' hands to fight Assad and Russians, trying to avoid the same outcome they had in Ukraine. A massive propaganda campaign is unleashed in western media about the necessity to act in Syria (White Helmets being the most obvious example of this - they won a friggin' Oscar)

2015: The neocon establishment begins to flock to HRC's campaign and shaped her foreign policy platform, making it dramatically anti-Putin - this from the same woman who offered him a "reset" only a few years prior. I'm talking Frum, Kyrstol, and others.

2016: Brexit / Trump's anti establishment platform takes off and shows it has real legs - which is a direct threat to the groundwork the USIC had been laying in the public mind since 2012, sweeping him into office.

2017: Two weeks before Trump is sworn in, the DNI releases the ICA which has more holes in it than Tibs' head in an attempt to thwart the new administration from being able to dictate their own foreign policy agenda with regards to Russia.

 

Notice Trump doesn't show up in this timeline until the end. It's never been about Trump. Trump is a tool used to manipulate those who hate/fear him into blindly accepting the new status quo with regards to Russia: they're no longer a foe, they're - to use your words - a hostile nation.

 

That's a HUGE swing in terminology in just 4 years from the left. The left ridiculed Romney when he called Russia a threat. What changed? Could it be the neocon establishment behind Romney jumped ship to HRC's campaign in 2015? Russia is an adversary, unquestionably. But are they a hostile one? A hostile adversary doesn't stop at Crimea, they take all of the Ukraine. A hostile nation doesn't rely on propaganda alone, but follows it up with actual cyber operations on electoral systems (like the US did in France and Israel in 2012 for example).

 

There's no question Russia used propaganda in an attempt to cause unrest and division in the country. That's what they do. There's also no question the USIC has used propaganda on its own citizens in an attempt to garner public support for a second cold war.

 

Of the two of those, one is much more of a threat than the other, and it ain't coming from Moscow.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Deranged Rhino

[Deranged Rhino]

****************************

Yes, it's RT - but most US outlets won't let Binney talk about such things on the air. Binney is a true American hero, a patriot and one of the most sage truth tellers of the past 17 years when it comes to the USIC and its overreach:

 

 

 

This is a reaction to Salon's article today which attempts to conflate the DNC leaks from Guciffer 2.0 (which the VIPs report makes a strong case for showing how Guciffer is a creation of the DNC or USIC) and the DNC leaks from Wikileaks using an anacdote rather than real evidence: https://www.salon.com/2017/11/03/the-dncs-emails-werent-only-hacked-they-were-edited-report/

 

Watch out, this Salon article will be parroted by many. It's a flimsy article that is intentionally trying to confuse the issue.

(Another clear sign that there's something really wrong with the DNC "hacking" story)