‘Go Donald!’: Inside the Russian Shadow Campaign to Elect Trump
‘Go Donald!’: Inside the Russian Shadow Campaign to Elect Trump
The third Saturday of August 2016 seemed like a big day for Donald Trump in Florida.
A group called “Being Patriotic” had organized more than a dozen “Florida Goes Trump” rallies throughout the state — from Clearwater to Jacksonville to Miami. They bought Facebook advertisements for the occasion and hyped a “patriotic flash mob” for him. They even paid someone to build a large cage on a flatbed truck that could hold a costumed Hillary Clinton impersonator in prison garb.
“Go Donald!” concluded a Facebook post, outlining the day’s festivities.
But the effort was not part of the official Trump campaign.
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Instead, the pro-Trump rallies were just a small piece of an expansive shadow campaign engineered thousands of miles away by Russians who gained what prosecutors said Friday was a keen understanding of the fault lines of U.S. politics. From staging events on the ground in political battlegrounds to spreading misinformation across social media, the operation functioned in effect as a third party injecting itself into the hotly contested 2016 presidential race — exploiting the vulnerabilities of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and stoking ethnic tensions to help him become President Trump.
The Russian effort to meddle in the 2016 presidential election spanned at least two countries and multiple states, and included fake rallies, false identities and divisive slogans intended to magnify Trump’s message and undermine Clinton’s candidacy, according to a 37-page indictment of a notorious Russian troll farm announced by the Justice Department’s special counsel.
“I’m amazed — and I suppose I shouldn’t be — what a widespread campaign it was,” said Republican consultant Doug Heye. “It looks like the size of this was probably bigger than Jeb Bush’s primary campaign.”
The efforts in Florida that August day did not turn out to be particularly impressive. No people showed up to at least one of the proposed rallies, and online photos of some of the other events reveal ragtag groups with Trump signs staking out patches of grass or traffic medians.
But the fledgling events belied a broader Russian scheme. While Clinton and Trump battled one another, Russian saboteurs and propagandists working for the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency were waging a secret political crusade to benefit Trump.
The group, which included 80 people, fashioned itself similarly to an actual political campaign, complete with departments for things such as search-engine optimization, data analysis, technology support and budgeting, according to prosecutors.
“I hate to say it, but it seems like the creative instincts and the sophistication exceeds a lot of the U.S. political operatives who do this for a living,” said Brian Fallon, a spokesman on Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. “There were memes and advertisements that were really in sync with the Trump campaign’s rhetoric. The messages were in sync, and they certainly exploited some of our vulnerabilities.”
“To read about it in this level of detail is pretty gripping,” added Fallon — who, like other former Clinton aides, said he was unaware of the Russian meddling as it was playing out in real time.
In announcing charges against three companies and 13 individuals Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein said that “there is no allegation in the indictment of any effect on the outcome of the election.”
But the lengthy document provides the most in-depth look so far at how the Russians studied the Trump campaign and tried to amplify its messages and strategy, if not always in a linear or successful fashion.
The group of Russian trolls, for instance, quickly turned its focus to battleground “purple states” after being advised to do so in June 2016 by someone affiliated with a Texas-based, grass-roots organization.
“Florida is still a purple state and we need to paint it red,” the group wrote two months later, using a false U.S. Facebook account to try to gin up real support for its Florida rallies. “If we lose Florida, we lose America.”
Indeed, the effort appears to have been at its most savvy on social media, where there were echoes of many of the attacks Trump repeatedly leveled at Clinton.
The Russian-funded ads on social media emphasized the notion that Clinton was corrupt, prosecutors say. One trumpeted, “Ohio Wants Hillary 4 Prison,” and another carried the hashtag #HillaryForPrison2016 — mirroring the chants of “Lock her up” that had become commonplace at actual Trump rallies.
The ads portrayed Trump as far tougher on terrorism and more supportive of gun rights than his Democratic rival. Clinton, the ads suggested, was pro-immigration and pro-Muslim.
The ads also sought to stoke real tensions Clinton had with the Black Lives Matter movement, with one claiming: “Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote.”
During the campaign, Trump periodically accused Clinton and the Democratic National Committee of rigging the primaries against her Democratic challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). That included a late June 2016 tweet in which Trump said Clinton “colluded with the Democratic Party in order to beat Crazy Bernie Sanders.”
And after Clinton narrowly prevailed over Sanders in the Iowa caucuses, the Sanders campaign, too, complained of voting irregularities and never got the full recount it sought.
The Russians seized on this theme, using it in political advertisements they placed on social media, including one that said, “Hillary Clinton has already committed voter fraud during the Democrat Iowa Caucus.”
Fallon said it was stunning to realize that the Russians understood how Trump was trying to woo disaffected Sanders supporters and use that knowledge to exploit divisions within the Democratic Party.
“That takes a very sophisticated understanding of U.S. politics to know that would be a damaging line of attack,” he said.
In late September 2016, the Russian trolls allegedly created and bought Facebook ads for a series of “Miners for Trump” rallies aimed at bolstering a critical constituency for Trump: coal miners in Pennsylvania.
Blue-collar voters in the nation’s Rust Belt were a key target for the Trump campaign as it sought to pick off some traditionally Democratic states and create a path to victory in the electoral college. With coal miners in particular, Trump repeatedly cast himself as a champion and Clinton as a villain.
In one September speech in New York, Trump claimed that Clinton “wants to shut down the miners just like she wants to shut down the steel mills and shut down the steelworkers and we’re not going to let it happen. . . . We’re going to put our great miners and our steelworkers back to work.”
In Florida, meanwhile, the Russians had pushed ahead with their planned day of “purple state” rallies.
Jim Fritsch, a retired real-estate-development consultant in St. Petersburg, Fla., said he received a phone call that August from a young man who was associated with the “Florida Goes Trump” group. The man, whose name Fritsch said he does not recall, asked if he would be willing to wave signs in support of Trump.
At the time, Fritsch was running for local property appraiser and doing sign-waving of his own. He agreed to help with the Trump rally, but said that the man on the phone ultimately produced no volunteers and no signs.
Instead, the participants at the Aug. 20 event were all supporters of his own — ultimately unsuccessful — campaign.
Fritsch dismissed concerns over the Russian effort as a waste of time, saying the Russians did nothing differently in 2016 than the Communists did for years in Soviet days.
“When you’re a candidate for public office and somebody says, ‘We want to help this candidate that you support too,’ it’s not a big leap to say, ‘I’ll help,’ ” he said. “If the Russians wanted to help someone or hurt someone, they’re free to do it.”
“If someone from Russia said, ‘Hey, we think you ought to support Trump,’ who cares?” Fritsch concluded.
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This can never be allowed to happen again. Always Remember November 2016...
Russians in the White House! Who let them in? Any red faces out there yet?
The information coming out is, well, stunning. We must get to the bottom of this...
Russia to Trump, "We will help you get elected if you deep six US sanctions". Trump, "Okay".
That is an illegal quid pro quo which is conspiring with a foreign enemy to harm the US of A...
Rosenstein cleared Trump and his team of any wrongdoing. No collusion at all. Please seek help. Any point you're trying to make is lost in the incoherent ranting.
Mueller is the lead investigator, not Rosenstien.
No one, and in none of these indictments, is there anything that "clears trump".
If anyone wants to know who the Americans are that have thus far been charged in connection with the Mueller investigation, which is farrrr from over, they can take a look here and see who they are. How many Democrats do you see?
While Trump and his supporter may be dancing in the streets as they feel Trump is totally innocent, they should save their energy until the Fat Lady sings on the investigation. And she has only warmed up and the Finale is a long way off yet.
False. For the purposes of this particular indictment and the Russians it charges, the best that can be said is that it describes at least 3 of Trump's campaign officials as gullible, incompetent and unwitting dupes. The Russians would say they were "useful idiots."
When did he do that? He said that these indictments do not involve any witting actors among Trump or his campaign, however that does not in any way clear team Trump. He never said that everyone on the Trump campaign has been "cleared of any wrongdoing".
I didn't know the Russians had that much power in our elections? If so, why not just let "Miss RESET" to win?
"I didn't know"
Well, now you do and I would suggest a bit of self reflection in this regard if that is possible...
It must be sickening to consider how one might have become an "Unwitting Fool" of Putin's.
Oh, you mean the Russians decided the election? I guess that's why they began this operation in 2014, long before Donald Trump decided to run
There really is no doubt outside your far right bubble that the Russians illegally influence our election...
Make light of it as much as you want. It does not change the fact you spread the Russian's propaganda.
At long last does this not bother you or are you still in denial? Either way does not change the facts of it.
If I follow the slimy snail trail from the Russian's to American social media the tracks are unmistakable...
Are you saying that people only vote for someone to run this country, based on some "ADVERTISEMENT" on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network crap they get involved with ?
No and please do not put words in my mouth especially really dumb ones...
So the Russian "Advertisements" DIDN'T have an effect on the election.
Of course they did. There were many people especially in the swing States that were hesitant about voting for an orange reality show host clown who had admitted to sexually assaulting women and had more than a dozen women come forward to verify his own words. The Russian Facebook bots and operatives in the US were just what was needed to deflect and distract from Donald's downsides. That's why they hired actors to play Hillary in a cage, and pushed nonsense stories from ridiculous assassination theories to pizza parlor sex rings. Without those bogus stories to focus on the swing States would have had far more time contemplating whether they really wanted an incompetent gross narcissist in the oval office.
Half of the Republican party see Russia as a friend and ally, which means they aren't really Americans, they are traitors to the Union and have sided with our enemy that wants nothing more than to destabilize and destroy western democracy. They are giving great comfort to a murderous dictator who played them to his advantage all because they would rather support white Christian nationalism than to defend law abiding tax paying American citizens who happen to be gay or of a racial minority. They would rather side with an enemy foreign government than with other American citizens because they don't want a truly free America where LGTBQ and minorities are protected from discrimination, they only want their faith and their ethnicity to be protected. They don't care if Putin has murdered political opponents and journalists as long as they believe those journalists and political opponents were "liberals".
Ii hear that Bernie is in "But, But, But, But....." mode after this report !
"Russian internet trolls not only used social media accounts to promote President Donald Trump’s election bid, they also operated accounts supporting the candidacies of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein. "
This Mueller investigation is showing EVERYONE was targeted by Russians. Luv it when a Liberal plan starts falling apart.
Hold Up! That is not true. Putin's army of online trolls targeted everyone except Trump. The whole point of Trump and Putin's game plan was their scheme to game our electoral system in Trump's favor and only in Trump's favor no matter what stage of the scheme one might be referring to. It was all part of an illegal quid pro quo conspiracy between Trump and Putin in which the Russians helped Trump get elected in exchange for Trump and Co either not enforcing or even lifting all of those sanctions against Russia for illegally interfering in our elections. Can you even wrap your head around that or do we need to draw you a picture in crayons?
Don't forget those Obama sanctions costing Russia Billions in lost oil revenues.
Thus how I believe Tillerson became SOS.
The whole thing stinks to High Heaven. How can the damn gop remain in denial regarding this bullshit?
If you say so !
Now....about an actual "Collusion" thing......
Oh wait.....you spelled out your conspiracy theory in that comment too.
My Bad.
Trump will NOT make it through his first term
Would u like to make a wager ?
I'll take part of that.
What do we play for?
Self Suspension
For how long?
The ground rules are that Trump does not finish his term because of reasons other than health. If he dies in office there is no bet
Oh....Okay......der......how bout's bazillions of dollars. If you win, we'll meet........Der !
2010 till 2017 comes to mind on that thought process of yours. EVERYTHING Liberal was a shoe-in those years.
I like it the way he laid it out. Self suspension. We can have Perrie oversight!
Well, as they say, "He who laughs last laughs best?". I will be laughing at trump's Liftoff Party...
"HILLARY IS A SHOE-IN".......
Do I get to burst out Laughing now ?
I have been holding back......
Have we got a bet or not?
Big talker
Ok, your'e backing out....Ya, understood!
Stop telling me what I'm not doing.
I was making sure I HAD COLD BEER!
I'll self exile for whatever you agree to self exile for, lesson you're scared ?
Let's make it 3 months.
And if Trump dies in office there is no bet.
Acceptable?
DONE
Very Good!
Romney in a landslide!!!!
Romney was right....Dumbo was wrong.
Now the Left is using exactly what Romney said was a major problem.
Yup, the only time in history liberals were concerned about Russia and now they are more concerned about Russia than North Korea, Iran or terrorism. I know one thing they will soon hate even more - Robert Mueller!
It is interesting that the GOP is no longer concerned about Putin or Russian meddling in US elections. That would have freaked out Reagan.
Heck, even Trump's old mob lawyer Roy Cohn would have been freaked out by that.
Hey Brainy Smurf, the Russians were trying to foment dissent in the DNC in order to draw votes away from Hillary and instead get progressive to vote for Jill Stein and Bernie.
Sorry....Bernie's a Democrat....so says he.....and all the other democrats in congress......."Intolerant Smurf" !
Bernie is a socialist.
Drawing those democratic votes to Jill Stein and Bernie, who wasn't on the November ballot, hurt Hillary, which helps elect Benito Cheeto. Jill Stein was a 3rd party candidate who had an ice cubes chance in Hell of being elected. She was obviously a protest candidate.
The only thing that I am intolerant of is ignorance.
No he's not !
He didn't run on that platform....did he ?
Bernie ran as a Democrat because he wanted to be the DNC POTUS candidate. Conservatives attacked him because he said that he said that he was a socialist. Americans don't understand poli-sci so he might have well as called himself an anarchist in the eyes of many conservatives.
So Bernie was a Fucking Liar, lying to his constituents by running as a "Democrat".
GREAT GUY !
That right there is just the kind of bullshit the Russians were feeding to their trolls on social media to divide Democrats...
You just proved that you don't understand political science because Bernie himself admitted that he wasn't as far left as Dwight Eisenhower(R.) In most countries, Hillary would have been a conservative candidate.
Hey...
I tolerate You.
This had to be like shooting fish in a barrel when considering the fact that Hillary was second only to Trump as being the least liked and least trusted presidential candidate in recent US history.
I am surprised that youtube isn't in trouble for all of the videos of decades of actual Clinton footage that is unflattering and true.
Progressives didn't like Hillary because it was obvious that she was a center-right Republican, despite being a Democrat.Her recent change didn't fool anyone. There were already indications that the DNC party was in the bag for Hillary despite the votes and widespread support for Bernie. She was never a liberal or a progressive. I only voted for her because she was preferable to Trump.
There was an outrage when the HRC put their support behind Hillary and not Bernie, despite Bernie's longtime support for the LGBT community.
Actually Trump was found to be more likable and more trustworthy than clinton.
According to Time
While Bloomberg finds:
I agree.
Clinton supporters on NV even acknowledged that Clinton would have to be "nudged" left on several issues after she was elected.
Progressives on Daily Kos were censored for making anti-Clinton remarks during the primary. After the primary, some longtime members were banned, and several left the site voluntarily, because they refused to support Clinton.
Clinton supporters can cry, whine and threaten all they want, but Clinton was not electable as a Democrat for the office of POTUS.
Clinton should have run as the Republican candidate. She might have had better luck.
I agree. She is in many ways no more qualified for the position of President than Trump is. Both of them were inane choices. The only reason the GOP backed Trump is they wanted desperately to win the WH, and out of all the other better qualified candidates they chose Trump as he appeared to be the one who would likely get them a better shot at the WH. And it is evident that many of them are now lamenting that they are stuck with him. He is a disgrace to the party as well as America, and he will drag both of them down with him in the end.
It's like the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."
Trump lies 81% of the time, and he is more trustworthy? THAT'S HILARIOUS!
Hillary and John Kasich were typical neo-conservative Republicans on foreign policy and economics. Their only difference is that Hillary is slightly to the left on social issues. She is not a personable candidate and viewed the office of POTUS as hers. I never did like her, even as the First lady.
There were about 3 people on Newsvine who tried to silence any liberal who dared to attack Hillary. I wonder how much they were being paid for their efforts?
Because Arkpdx agrees with Trump's lies. This is a classic example of a confirmation bias.
Three? Sometimes seemed more like 300 on the old NV. The hatred for Bernie and his supporters for even challenging her was vicious.
I noticed more than 3.
I don't know what Hillary paid her astroturfers to silence and harass her opposition and to spread propaganda.
It is ironic that Clinton had the majority of mainstream media backing her and still Russia managed to spread just enough propaganda to just enough people (who did not watch or have access to 3 decades of info on Clinton) to decided the election.
I didn't tak those polls nor did i even respond to those polls .Of course you and frosty didnt even open them did you?
It didn't let up even after Bernie gave his endorsement and campaigned for her so she had nothing to do with it. They continued to attack Bernie supporters to the point of completely ignoring the horrible POS her opponent was. You've created a monster in your head. Don't get me wrong. She's no girl scout and never pretended to be and I voted for her in the full knowledge of her faults. But, as in the play she was "more sinn'd against than sinner." The rightwing in this country spent 25 years and tens of millions of dollars trying to smear her and it worked on people (like you, obviously). And the bottom line is that because a lot of people believed a lot of lies about her and ignored the massive daily lies and outrages of her opponent we now have someone orders of magnitude worse than her disgracing this country and defiling the WH every minute he's there. To believe otherwise is to have lead blinkers on.
On top of all that we had the FBI director, after announcing that there would be no charges from the email investigation, going on to deliver a scathing personal attack on her anyway. Much later, on the eve of the election, this same person re-opened the entire fake case against her giving her ever-lyin' opponent an open field to use that bogus move against her. The very FBI that the Shitbag® claims is working against him in effect gave him a big boost at the end to the presidency.
I get it. As I said before you've developed a visceral hatred for the woman for reasons known only to you. But, as much as it seems we may have some political common ground, I can't let you say Trump's not worse than she would have been go unchallenged.
I know it is very difficult, even impossible, for some Clinton flunkies to believe, but Sanders supporters were not obligated to obey Sanders. Sanders was "independent", remember? His supporters were not "true Democrats", remember? Clinton, and her supporters, had absolutely no reason to expect Sanders supporters to vote for her and her platform.
I disagree with her platform. I don't appreciate the over the top rhetoric, but it is what I am accustomed to dealing with from Clinton supporters.
I ignored all of the Benghazi hearings.
I did not ignore that Clinton refused to turn over all of her emails or the fact that Clinton made light of "wiping a server". I expect more savvy from a decades long political insider who already knows that she is the least politician in the race.
Clearly, you don't.
Most people understrand that as stumping for the party. You don't understand politics.
I do believe that I told you before not to comment to me. I will tell you once again, DO NOT COMMENT TO ME.
If that is not plain enough I can ask Perrie to make it clear to you. I am in hopes that you are smart enough not to have me go that far.
Sorry but, I must inform that this is my take as well, and I know I'm not always the best one to be associated with.
I just explained , in a far less articulate way, somewhere on this seed, how the "Clinton whore" was a far better choice, than the "Trump whore".
Look A I F U R really in need of someone to comment to, "I'll be your Huckleberry"
cause I believe it is rather evident, Raven doesn't wish to correspond.
I believe I may be able to fill that void for you so fire away
Many people stayed home because they didn't like Hillary. I thought that Trump was too stupid to be elected by the American people and wanted to stay home but in the end I didn't.
The GOP were very successful in attacking Hillary for the past 8 years and it worked, with a little help of the Russians.
It doesnt matter if you were not polled. The fact is that Donald Trump lies 80% of the time that he makes a public statement. That fact is not up for debate. The idea that you might agree with what he said doesn't mean that he isn't lying. Facts are objective and not subjective.
Did you open the links?
It doesn't matter if I opened the links. You just don't get it, do you? Saying that 3+2 is anything more/less than 5 is wrong, no matter what you believe or who graded the quiz. This is the problem with religion because it encourages people to believe that what is true or false is subjective according to what you believe.
I'll give him the mostly true but when he is only half true then its a lie. Under that system, he lies more than 70% of the time. If you want to be more strict he is only completely true 4% of the time.
If it's half true
isn't it
half false ?
So you didn't. Not surprised.
My fault I tried to give you some facts and you just choose to ignore them so you can claim your faulty belief.
Finding out you are wrong is hard on your ego and your participation trophy would get tarnished .
Starting back in the 90s, after her husband was elected POTUS and Hillary was put in charge of devising and implementing a national health care program.
As first lady, Hillary championed the passage of NAFTA and other assorted things that are unusual for first ladies to be involved with.
Hillary has been center stage on national politics for well over 2 decades and has a record "on the issues" that speaks for itself.
Elizabeth Warren is on the record as being disappointed with some of Hillary's views/actions. So you might want to add Warren to list of Clinton attackers.
Hillary was an unpopular candidate with both liberals and conservatives. Liberals opposed her because she was too conservative. Conservatives believed the spin by Fox News/GOP and Russia.
Liz Warren, like Bernie Sanders is one of the progressives in the Senate. I've always liked Liz Warren but I'm not sure that she has the political experience to be POTUS. She might be more useful in the Senate at this point.
The reason most Trump supporters don’t pay any attention to this is because they know they wouldn't have voted for Hillary Clinton under any circumstances. Hillary is a lying conniving scoundrel with a 40 year history of scandals, culminating in an FBI investigation during her campaign. She even tried to rig the primary. Her party platform consisted of gender bending, open borders, and insulting Trump supporters as nitwits and racists. Her whole campaign could be reduced to “vote for me because I have boobs and I’m not Trump.”
Perhaps democrats would find it easier to understand if the shoe were on the other foot. If somebody uncovered a Russian plot to elect Hillary, democrats would all laugh saying that they would never have voted for an imbecile like Trump anyway so the Russians wasted a lot of effort.
Oh and I didn’t vote for Hillary or Trump.
Hillary Clinton is a pretty standard old line politician. She is neither better or worse, ethically than many many others. What she is is the victim of a 25 year long campaign of villifying her by right wing media. Many of the accusations against Clinton are grossly exaggerated or outright false, but the repetition of the general theme over 25 years undoubtedly took a toll when she became the nominee and Clinton was probably not the wisest choice of a Democratic candidate for that reason.
Sanders supporters believe he would have won, but the harsh truth is that Sanders was not exposed to an ounce of negative campaigning during his time in the 2016 race. Clinton did not want to piss off Sanders supporters by attacking Bernie much, when she was confident she would need their votes in November.
The right would have played Sanders "socialist" background to the hilt and Trump would have lied about him as much or more than he lied about Clinton.
Trump is an immeasurably worse, immoral, stupid, and dishonest president than Hillary Clinton would have been.
Hillary is much worse than many other candidates. I could go through her extremely checkered past, dating back to watergate, but I’ll skip that. The fact that nobody ever proved anything about her can be chalked up to the fact that she’s a clever attorney rather than she’s just an innocent victim.
That she wasn’t the best choice is an understatement. An unknown black man ran out of nowhere and beat her. An equally unknown old socialist gave her a run for her money on his walker and she had to rig the primary to beat him. The last nail in her coffin was being beaten by the most buffoonish candidate in all of history. She stinks to high heaven and she’ll still stink no matter what Russia did.
I've seen your list of Hillary's crimes. It's almost all exaggeration or fabrication from the right wing media factory. Conservative media has destroyed the critical thinking faculties of more Americans than we could count.
I have never made a list of her “crimes”. What I listed are scandals and/or lies and it’s based on my own assessment of her not the right wing media factory. And when it comes to destroying the critical thinking of Americans, conservative media can’t hold a candle to what left wing media is doing. I now have to parse through everything I read because there’s no longer an unbiased media.
Bingo!
There are plenty of compelling reasons that both the Clinton and Bush political dynasties are dead.....and it has nothing to do with Russia.
Oh, so the fact that she was part of the legal team investigating Nixon is something you think was an "immoral" act? Thanks for revealing just how extreme your politics is.
No, lying and conniving as part of the legal team was the immoral act. This has all been explained by Jerry Zeifman, democrat and former chief counsel to the senate judiciary committee. And don’t bother to tell me what snopes said because all they addressed was whether Zeifman fired her for misconduct and did a piss poor job of even examining that.
And yet, she still got more votes than any of the rest of them in 2016. Why do we have to keep reminding you lot of that arithmetically solid fact?
Why do you have to keep being reminded that that , accirding to elkection laws and the Constitution, is totally irrelavent .
This is one of those comments tailor-made for a Jesus quote:
You see hypocrisy where there is none yet are blind to what is before you. A quote for you: “They know nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand.” Isaiah 44:18
You're referring, obviously, to Trump and his knee-padders.
Both sides compete for knee pads, when it suits them.
Maybe so, but in the Shitbag®'s knee-padders' case it takes us into the realm of aiding and abetting, even encouraging,* a foreign enemy to bugger our elections.
*I refer, of course, to Shitbag®'s eager plea in one of his campaign harangues for Russia to release the DNC emails that were illegally hacked
I feel you. The only reason I can figure why the righties are having such a hard time figuring it out is shame.
Hell, they were open about it. I think maybe they are gonna say they did not know it was against our laws...
I don't care who you are left right or center nobody should be complacent about the subversion of freedom.
Trump lied about his staff meeting with the russians. Then the people that did meet with the russians, lied about the meetings. Jr. took it a step further and not only lied about meeting with the Russians, (that Donny said never happened), but he lied about the content of the meetings. Then trump said he wasn't under investigation, when he was and he KNEW he was, so he lied about that too. Then he said the investigation is all a hoax and that russia didn't meddle in our election process. Another lie. And yes it is a lie, there was proof a YEAR ago. He was told that russia did meddle in our elections before he even took office. Our REPUBLICAN congress passed sanctions on russia for meddling in our election process MONTHS ago, why has trump not enacted them? Weird. And now we are down to trump screaming over and over and over again that there was NO COLLUSION!!!! Given all the lies from trump and his pack of russian loving idiots, do I believe there was no collusion? Only a fool would still believe that Trumpy didn't accept help from russia to win the election.
.
Keep in mind, if you read the indictments, they do NOT clear trump in any way. The investigation is ongoing, and......
The truth is not a single person on this site changed their vote because of anything the Russians did and not a single person on this site knows anyone who changed their vote because of anything Russians did. Not a single person can actually give a single example other than what The Washington Post tells them. And the Washington Post had an illegal campaign event for Hillary Clinton during the campaign and tried to hide it.
So the Russians meddled in our election? Who would have guessed they would try and do anything like that? And under whose watch did they do that? They've been doing it for decades. Maybe they meddled in the 2012 election before and after the reset button, before and after Obama had more leverage, before and after they gained 20% ownership of our uranium and before Hillary meddled in Putin's election.
We meddle in other countries elections everywhere in the world and spy on everyone of any importance around the world. According to the actual truth of the matter, which came right out of Rosenstein's mouth, the Russians meddled in our election and no American played any part in it. Their primary objective was to disrupt our election system, but we have plenty of evidence of collusion, unfortunately for the Democrats, it isn't Trump who we have evidence of colluding with the Russians, but Hillary instead.
Obama's own campaign leaders went to Israel and face to face meddled in their election on our dime.
The MSM meddled in our election during 2016 because they are the Democrat Party and instead of being honest journalists, they campaigned for Hillary. CNN said they had done everything they could for Hillary. Those who don't realize this are in denial of the truth.
The Washington Post authors of this article are not worthy of being called journalists.
So you have talked to every single trump voter personally, and they have ALL told you that they were not persuaded in any way at all? Wow, you must have a LOT of free time on your hands. In any case, even if what you said is true, (and I promise you, it's not true), it doesn't change the fact that Russia DID ATTACK US. The fact that you apparently have no problems with this, or don't see it as a big deal tells me just how far to the right some of you have gone and you know what? It's not a good thing if you seriously are not outraged that Russia attacked us and even more outraged that the orange clown in the WH doesn't really seem to mind either, there is something REALLY wrong.
Obama didn't have any problems with it. He knew they have been meddling with our elections for decades. They aren't going to stop. Neither is China, North Korean or any other country who wants to disrupt our election process.
Your memes with all those names above this comment don't mean a thing. Who wants to spend the day arguing about memes from some outfit named IntrityIGP? Please tell me who they are. I bet they are Russians. Can you prove me wrong? Can you tell me who they are? LOL
And all those names didn't have anything to do with the election either. Can you show me anything where they did? I doubt it.
Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal
Of course they've spent all the time since then trying to make this article insignificant.
for me, not so much for you
So where did she get all this uranium to sell in the first place? Wal-Mart? Can anyone, on their own just sell uranium to other countries if they want to? Hey I could use a few extra bucks, when do I get the uranium?
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Hillary Clinton Gave 20 Percent of United States' Uranium to Russia in Exchange for Clinton Foundation Donations?
Allegations of a "quid pro quo" deal giving Russia ownership of one-fifth of U.S. uranium deposits in exchange for $145 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation are unsubstantiated.
CLAIM
Sec. of State Hillary Clinton's approval of a deal to transfer control of 20% of U.S. uranium deposits to a Russian company was a quid pro quo exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation. See Example( s )
RATING
ORIGIN
In the months leading up to the 2016 United States presidential election, stories abounded about the relationships between the Clinton Foundation and various foreign entities.
May 2015 saw the publication of a book called Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich , an exposé of alleged Clinton Foundation corruption written by Peter Schweizer, a former Hoover Institution fellow and editor-at-large at the right-wing media company Breitbart .
A chapter in the book suggests that the Clinton family and Russia each may have benefited from a “pay-for-play” scheme while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, involving the transfer of U.S. uranium reserves to the new Russian owners of an international mining operation in exchange for $145 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation .
The mining company, Uranium One, was originally based in South Africa, but merged in 2007 with Canada-based UrAsia Energy. Shareholders there retained a controlling interest until 2010, when Russia’s nuclear agency, Rosatom, completed purchase of a 51% stake. Hillary Clinton played a part in the transaction insofar as it involved the transfer of ownership of a material deemed important to national security — uranium, amounting to one-fifth of U.S. reserves (a fraction re-estimated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) at closer to one-tenth of the United States’ uranium production capacity in 2017) — thus requiring the approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), on which the U.S. Secretary of State sits.