Russian Trollery

[LDAHL]

I see the FBI has indicted some Russian individuals and organizations for spreading disinformation via social media during the 2016 election. given the likelihood of ever getting their hands on the perpetrators, it seems to be pretty much a pro forma exercise aimed at showing some results for the Mueller team.

I can't say I'm particularly shocked. They've been doing that sort of thing since New York Times readers lapped up John Reed's piffle about Lenin's socialist paradise. There has been a proud tradition of trying to influence US affairs since the Citizen Genet affair. And who could forget the endearing clueslessness of the Guardian enlisting Britons to try pushing Ohio voters into the Gore column?

I'm not exactly sure what the Russians were trying to accomplish. Revenge on Mrs. Clinton for her remarks about their election. General purpose mischief? Fellow-feeling for Mr. Trump? Personally, I think they wasted their money. We are more than capable of generating sufficient codswallop domestically.

[Alan]

Maybe they thought what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It's only been a couple of years since our last administration funded (with taxpayer money) an Israeli group's efforts to defeat Prime Minister Netanyahu in that country's last election.

[Williamsmith]

So it WAS the Russians the whole time. I knew it! All those Make America Great Again signs popping up overnight in my neighbors yards were placed there by Russian operatives. And the guy with the big Trump sign on the side of his barn...he’s now driving a brand new Belarus tractor on his farm. I’ll bet he is a damn communist!

[frugal-one]

So it WAS the Russians the whole time. I knew it! All those Make America Great Again signs popping up overnight in my neighbors yards were placed there by Russian operatives. And the guy with the big Trump sign on the side of his barn...he’s now driving a brand new Belarus tractor on his farm. I’ll bet he is a damn communist!

Wouldn't be surprised.

[LDAHL]

So it WAS the Russians the whole time. I knew it! All those Make America Great Again signs popping up overnight in my neighbors yards were placed there by Russian operatives. And the guy with the big Trump sign on the side of his barn...he’s now driving a brand new Belarus tractor on his farm. I’ll bet he is a damn communist!

I doubt there are many communists left outside of North Korea and Berkeley.

[bae]

I thought this was a polite take on the situation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/opinion/trump-russia-putin.html

[Williamsmith]

I thought this was a polite take on the situation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/opinion/trump-russia-putin.html

Is that the failing New York Times.....or a transcript of this Weekends Saturday Night Live leaked to the press?

[Rogar]

I'm not exactly sure what the Russians were trying to accomplish. Revenge on Mrs. Clinton for her remarks about their election. General purpose mischief? Fellow-feeling for Mr. Trump? Personally, I think they wasted their money. We are more than capable of generating sufficient codswallop domestically.

I think the fact that Hillary compared Putin to Hitler, and Putin and Trump have a bromance my be some indication of their alternate foreign policies. Significant interference in our democratic election process is very wrong and the rest of the Russian interference discussion is pretty much haggling over details.

However, with regards to Bae's good article, Russian interference a side show for the real issues. Something smells mighty fishy in Trump's swamp.

[Williamsmith]

I find it rather entertaining to see the left attacking Trump from the right and completely disregarding the the way Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman Schultz actually rigged the primary in Hillary’s favor .....a much larger threat to our democracy than the pathetic attempts of russian twitter and Facebook operatives. Do you forget, Bernie could have easily beaten Trump? That’s the real crime here.

[JaneV2.0]

I doubt there are many communists left outside of North Korea and Berkeley.

That's why fear-mongering about the Red Menace always makes me laugh. You could hold commie cell meetings in a phone booth if there were any of those remaining. Even the few communists abroad in the world are mostly practicing capitalists. Greed is a strong motivator.

[Rogar]

I find it rather entertaining to see the left attacking Trump from the right and completely disregarding the the way Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman Schultz actually rigged the primary in Hillary’s favor .....a much larger threat to our democracy than the pathetic attempts of russian twitter and Facebook operatives. Do you forget, Bernie could have easily beaten Trump? That’s the real crime here.

It might be the first time I've heard a conservative saying it's a crime Bernie didn't become president. Do we really know it was Hillary and not just some kid living in his parent"s basement.

[Williamsmith]

It might be the first time I've heard a conservative saying it's a crime Bernie didn't become president. Do we really know it was Hillary and not just some kid living in his parent"s basement.

Sir, I deny being a conservative! I am an independent thinker. I don’t know if I could have been convinced to vote for Bernie.....but I felt some pity for him since he put so much effort into it and was cheated out of the opportunity. I would have liked to have seen the great experiment as long as the republic survived.

[bae]

I’m quite conservative, and I was going to vote for Bernie just to see the fun. I even reregistered as a Democrat to help.

“Bother”, said Pooh.

[jp1]

Sir, I deny being a conservative! I am an independent thinker. I don’t know if I could have been convinced to vote for Bernie.....but I felt some pity for him since he put so much effort into it and was cheated out of the opportunity. I would have liked to have seen the great experiment as long as the republic survived.

Life is complicated. I have a friend who thinks ronald reagan was the greatest president ever. (not that he is old enough to actually remember reagan when he was in office) And he owns a bunch of guns including an AR15 that he built from a kit. (needless to say, he lives in the San Francisco suburbs, not in the city itself...) His favorite vacation activity is to drive down to AZ to visit his brother (who spent a decade in the marines and has a bigger gun collection than my friend) and go out on federal land and shoot guns together. He's at the older end of the millennial generation and basically thinks all politicians are lying assholes. He voted for Bernie in the primary simply because that was the one candidate from either party that he thought was being upright and truthful about his intentions and goals, approximately 2/3 of which my friend agreed with. He didn't vote in the general because he just didn't trust either candidate at all.

[Rogar]

Sir, I deny being a conservative! I am an independent thinker. I don’t know if I could have been convinced to vote for Bernie.....but I felt some pity for him since he put so much effort into it and was cheated out of the opportunity. I would have liked to have seen the great experiment as long as the republic survived.

My humble apologies. I don't much like labels either unless it's something with a little wiggle room, like liberal redneck. I consider 45 a similar grand experiment similar to your Bernie thought...as long as the republic survives.

I don't know much about the Hillary primary rigging, but if you are saying Hillary rigged the primary and it was a great threat to our democracy, you would think the DOJ could be requested to investigate this on order of the president? Assuming there is enough evidence of a legal violation to justify the investigation.

[dado potato]

Hamilton 68 is an on-line resource that monitors about 600 Twitter accounts identified as either linked to the government of Russia or involved in repeating/disseminating Russian propaganda. It is named after Federalist Paper #68, in which Alexander Hamilton warned against foreign involvement in the politics of the new American Republic. In the future Hamilton 68 plans to add coverage of Facebook, Reddit and YouTube.

As I understand it, Russia aims to weaken the United States by promoting fractiousness and division. False accounts of white women being assaulted by black women waiting in line to buy movie tickets for "Black Panther" in Los Angeles are a recent example from Hamilton 68.

We may have hot buttons, and the internet can easily rile us up, especially if we believe the words and pictures that are intended for that effect.

Rather than get into a "dialog of the deaf" with a message-board adversary on some hot-button topic, it may be good to reflect, as one American to another, on the words of Voltaire: ... I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.

I will try to provide a link to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, and Hamilton 68.
http://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org

[LDAHL]

I find it rather entertaining to see the left attacking Trump from the right and completely disregarding the the way Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman Schultz actually rigged the primary in Hillary’s favor .....a much larger threat to our democracy than the pathetic attempts of russian twitter and Facebook operatives. Do you forget, Bernie could have easily beaten Trump? That’s the real crime here.

I don't know if Bernie could have easily beaten Trump, although it would have been a fun campaign. I do agree that Mrs. Clinton seems to have gotten more bang for her buck in the slime oozing department. The Steele dossier cost less than a thirty-minute talk with Goldman Sachs.

But I do think all the portentous blather about "the threat to our democracy" is overblown. If we are indeed so credulous that our elections can be swayed by Russian trolls, Fox News or whoever your favorite demon happens to be, the real problem is our own stupidity rather than some external player.

[LDAHL]

That's why fear-mongering about the Red Menace always makes me laugh. You could hold commie cell meetings in a phone booth if there were any of those remaining. Even the few communists abroad in the world are mostly practicing capitalists. Greed is a strong motivator.

I haven't heard much Red Menace talk for the last thirty years or so. The good guys won.

Although if anyone's interested, the Castro family maintains a sort of Stalinist Colonial Williamsburg park south of Florida.

[Lainey]

Excellent summary here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_ele ctions

Or, we can just go with Trump's gut:
"On November 11, 2017, after meeting Vladimir Putin at a summit in Vietnam, Trump said, "I just asked him again. He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. ... Every time he sees me he says: 'I didn't do that,' and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it."

Nothing to see here ...

[Williamsmith]

We do the same thing to other countries.....but I hope we are better at it than the Russians. Judging from the discord and turmoil we’ve caused in the past.....yeah we are pottery good at it.