Posted on 02/20/2018 7:19:07 AM PST by Kaslin
According to the indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Russian trolls, operating out of St. Petersburg, took American identities on social media and became players in our 2016 election.
On divisive racial and religious issues, the trolls took both sides. In the presidential election, the trolls favored Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein and Donald Trump, and almost never Hillary Clinton.
One imaginative Russian troll urged Trumpsters to dress up a female volunteer in an orange prison jump suit, put her in a cage on a flatbed truck, then append the slogan, "Lock Her Up!"
How grave a matter is this?
This Russian troll farm is "the equivalent (of) Pearl Harbor," says Cong. Jerrold Nadler, who would head up the House Judiciary Committee, handling any impeachment, if Democrats retake the House.
When MSNBC's Chris Hayes pressed, Nadler doubled down: The Russians "are destroying our democratic process." While the Russian trolling may not equal Pearl Harbor in its violence, said Nadler, in its "seriousness, it is very much on a par" with Japan's surprise attack.
Trump's reaction to the hysteria that broke out after the Russian indictments: "They are laughing their (expletives) off in Moscow."
According to Sunday's Washington Post, the troll story is old news in Russia, where reporters uncovered it last year and it was no big deal.
While Mueller's indictments confirm that Russians meddled in the U.S. election, what explains the shock and the fear for "our democracy"?
Is the Great Republic about to fall because a bunch of trolls tweeted in our election? Is this generation ignorant of its own history?
Before and after World War II, we had Stalinists and Soviet spies at the highest levels of American culture and government.
The Hollywood Ten, who went to prison for contempt of Congress, were secret members of a Communist Party that, directed from Moscow, controlled the Progressive Party in Philadelphia in 1948 that nominated former Vice President Henry Wallace to run against Harry Truman.
Soviet spies infiltrated the U.S. atom bomb project and shortened the time Stalin needed to explode a Soviet bomb in 1949.
As for Russian trolling in our election, do we really have clean hands when it comes to meddling in elections and the internal politics of regimes we dislike?
Sen. John McCain and Victoria Nuland of State egged on the Maidan Square crowds in Kiev that overthrew the elected government of Ukraine. When the democratically elected regime of Mohammed Morsi was overthrown, the U.S. readily accepted the coup as a victory for our side and continued aid to Egypt as tens of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members were imprisoned.
Are the CIA and National Endowment for Democracy under orders not to try to influence the outcome of elections in nations in whose ruling regimes we believe we have a stake?
"Have we ever tried to meddle in other countries' elections?" Laura Ingraham asked former CIA Director James Woolsey this weekend.
With a grin, Woolsey replied, "Oh, probably."
"We don't do that anymore though?" Ingraham interrupted. "We don't mess around in other people's elections, Jim?"
"Well," Woolsey said with a smile. "Only for a very good cause."
Indeed, what is the National Endowment for Democracy all about, if not aiding the pro-American side in foreign nations and their elections?
Did America have no active role in the "color-coded revolutions" that have changed regimes from Serbia to Ukraine to Georgia?
When Republicans discuss Iran on Capitol Hill, the phrase "regime change" is frequently heard. When the "Green Revolution" took to the streets of Tehran to protest massively the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, Republicans denounced President Obama for not intervening more energetically to alter the outcome.
When China, Russia and Egypt expel NGOs, are their suspicions that some have been seeded with U.S. agents merely marks of paranoia?
The U.S. role in the overthrow of Premier Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, and of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, and of President Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon in 1963 are established facts.
When the democratically elected Marxist Salvador Allende was overthrown in Chile in 1973, and committed suicide with an AK-47 given to him by Fidel Castro, the Nixon White House may have had no direct role. But the White House welcomed the ascendancy of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
What do these indictments of Russians tell us? After 18 months, the James Comey-Robert Mueller FBI investigation into the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta emails has yet to produce evidence of collusion.
Yet we do have evidence that a senior British spy and Trump hater, Christopher Steele, paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC to dig up dirt on Trump, colluded with Kremlin agents to produce a dossier of scurrilous and unsubstantiated charges, to destroy the candidacy of Donald Trump. And the FBI used this disinformation to get FISA Court warrants to surveil and wiretap the Trump campaign.
Why is this conspiracy and collusion with Russians less worthy of Mueller's attention than a troll farm in St. Petersburg?
how can we encourage Netanyahu to Indict Obama for meddling in their elections so Trump can green light his extradition??
I had a wild thought yesterday.........
What if Putin fought back against this and released documents showing how we interfered in their election and others? Pretty sure they have that information.
Information is a commodity - when it comes to intelligence, the Russians are not novices in the game.
FWIW, I’m less worried about our enemies than I am our so-called allies.
No, but the invasion by Mexicans IS!
We left the Constitution and the rule of law behind on Usurpation Day, January 20, 2009.
Obama is NOT a natural born citizen and they ALL knew it.
Buchanan is going overboard.
Certainly those are acts of war!
Russia, the Soviet Union, or Communist Party have been involved in American politics openly or clandestinely for over a hundred years. 13 indictments from Mueller, pffffft.
Inquiring minds would LOVE to know how Hillary screwed the Ruskies and got them on the revenge train. It would probably make a great book and movie. They no doubt had their noses out of joint that that seamless liar double-crossed them some how.
Meh, I don’t know. I think it’s a pretty interesting strategic and philosophical question for the cyber era. I mean if they physically destroyed infrastructure, say a prominent shipping port, with a bomb that would be obvious right? What if they achieved the exact same end by dicking up the computer automation? What about screwing up the electric grid or water treatment? Still great financial hazard, physical destruction, and health risk to citizens. What would be our allowable response to such an “attack”?
Not agreeing with PB, but it is a thoughtful question.
Read the article. Buchanan and the headline are both saying the opposite.
We stuck them with Yeltsin.
I believe that to be true. Hillary wanted a war against Russia. One that swiftly destroyed them, a nuclear war. So yes, in 2020 if the Democrats win, there will be a war with Russia, and we will be suffering a nuclear winter because of it
“While Mueller’s indictments confirm that Russians meddled in the U.S. election”
Is the media just plain retarded or have a they forgotten entirely how to do their jobs? What confirmations? Based of what tangible evidence and what proof!? Based on the words of a corrupt former FBI head? This line keeps getting used over and over again and I have yet to see one physical piece of evidence showing how Russia “meddled”(another retarded word) in anything!
“can we go to war against Mexico?”
Actually we should go to war with Mexico, take over their cesspool nation and clean it up. No voting for conquered people’s and all spoils go to the victors! Get rid of the families that have controlled that nation and add it to our list of assets.
It’s like the hanging Chad’s episode all over again.
I think that an invasion that controls the first hundred yards across the border would do the job.
By having US Army deployed on the Mexican side, there is no legal problem with the posse comitatus act.
Yes! It is also sedition by the Democrats.
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