It appears that the world's biggest strawman is ablaze, and those who continue to cling to the rapidly dissolving "evil Russians" narrative to explain away everything from Hillary Clinton's loss to conservative support for political issues are looking increasingly foolish in light of recent developments.
Even former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thinks the Russia investigation needs to be wrapped up:
Condoleezza Rice To Adam Schiff On Russia Investigation: "Wrap It Up...The Country Needs To Get Back To Business." pic.twitter.com/mzmU14kdMO
— Ryan Saavedra 🇺🇸 (@RealSaavedra) March 1, 2018
Keep in mind, there are two stories at play here; the first of course is the "Russian hacking" narrative - which posits that Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to lose the election, so they hacked the email accounts of key Democrats and the DNC and then gave them to WikiLeaks - possibly in coordination with the Trump campaign (an assertion which has more or less been lopped off the theory lately due to a lack of evidence). The second push has been the "Russian troll" narrative - which revolves around the theory that Americans were influenced by Russians purchasing ads and using "bots" on social media platforms - fake accounts which use automated systems to deliver a message or push a hashtag so that it goes viral.
And while Special Counsel Robert Mueller is rumored to be preparing fresh indictments for the Russian hacking group fingered by the largely discredited cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike - the Special Counsel's case isn't going to hold water unless he can explain how files can be transferred from the East Coast to Russia at 22.6 MB/s - a speed virtually impossible to achieve from halfway around the world - yet very common for a thumb drive.
With claims of Russian meddling already on shaky ground - the absurd notion that the Kremlin was able to swing the election jumped the shark last month following Robert Mueller's indictment of 13 Russian nationals at a "troll farm." The official takeaway; those dastardly Russians, with no connection to the Trump campaign, were running a tiny propaganda shop (which had been in operation for years) that had no effect on the outcome of the U.S. election.
The icing on the cake had to be CNN literally dumpster diving in St. Petersburg, Russia outside the "troll farm" in search of hard evidence Mueller's team must have overlooked.
Mueller's indictment was immediately shredded by two media professionals close to the Russian meddling claims; Facebook's VP of advertising, Rob Goldman, and journalist Adrian Chen of The New Yorker - neither of whom we're guessing voted for Trump.
Goldman, in reaction to Mueller's indictment, fired off a series of tweets which effectively dismantled claims of Russian election influence. In addition to noting that "The majority of Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election," the Facebook exec wrote "The main goal of the Russian propaganda and misinformation effort is to divide America by using our institutions, like free speech and social media, against us."
Goldman's comments were immediately picked up and retweeted by President Trump, who pronounced "The Fake News Media never fails."
The Fake News Media never fails. Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman! https://t.co/XGC7ynZwYJ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
Goldman was admonished by Facebook for his "freelance" thoughts, and issued an apology which amounted to "I couldn't possibly know everything that Mueller's team knows, disregard what I said."
Meanwhile Adrian Chen, who first profiled the indicted Russian troll farm in 2015, sat down with MSNBC's Chris Hayes, where he proceeded to put things in perspective.
Tried to tamp down the troll farm panic on @chrislhayes show last night. It's 90 people with a shaky grasp of English and a rudimentary understanding of U.S. politics shitposting on Facebook. https://t.co/Y93er6ZMJg
— Adrian Chen (@AdrianChen) February 20, 2018
"Either I could stay silent and allow the conversation to be dominated by those pumping up the Russian threat, or I could risk giving fodder to Trump and his allies," Chen wrote in the New Yorker. In describing the MSNBC interview, Chen added "I didn’t think that what amounted to a social-media marketing campaign—one whose supposed architects had a rudimentary grasp of the English language—could sow so much discord on its own."
In addition to Goldman and Chen, Mollie Hemmingway of The Federalist notes: "Masha Gessen is a vehement and long-standing Putin critic. She has written a book warning about Putin and many articles comparing Putin and Trump. Even she, in a new article for The New Yorker, mocks the hysteria over the troll farms and says of the Russian bot operation that it was “not at all sophisticated, and about as bold as, say, keying a neighbor’s car under the cover of night.”
Even uber-liberal news outlet BuzzFeed published an article last Wednesday, titled "Stop Blaming Russian Bots For Everything,"
Russian bots were blamed for driving attention to the Nunes memo, a Republican-authored document on the Trump-Russia probe. They were blamed for pushing for Roy Moore to win in Alabama’s special election. And here they are wading into the gun debate following the Parkland shooting. “[T]he messages from these automated accounts, or bots, were designed to widen the divide and make compromise even more difficult,” wrote the New York Times in a story following the shooting, citing little more than “Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia.”
This is, not to mince words, total bullshit.
And perhaps the most startling admission that it's time to stick a fork in the Russian bot story is a February 20 article in the Washington Post - of all places, entitled "The U.S. political conversation is not and probably never was driven by Russian social-media bots."
But reading the ads included in the indictment and looking at other ads released publicly by Facebook, it’s hard to come away with the sense that these were decision-makers for many voters. It’s often hard to measure the effectiveness of political advertising, but these ads seem particularly mediocre.
Hamilton 68
Feeding the ongoing Russiaphobia is a propaganda website run by The Alliance for Securing Democracy called Hamilton 68 - which claims to track Russian bots. It's impossible to verify their claims, as the group does not disclose their methodology - yet anti-Trump politicians and pundits alike repeat its claims uncritically. On their advisory council are NeverTrumpers Bill Kristol and David Kramer - the guy John McCain sent to London to meet with Christopher Steele and bring back the discredited Trump-Russia dossier.
Less than a year ago, Bill Kristol joined with ex-CIA officials, Marco Rubio's top aide & a few Dem hawks, and created a new group purporting to track Russian Twitter activity based on secret designations. It now dominates every headline, every pronouncement uncritically accepted https://t.co/Lo3Nrt5y1b
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 19, 2018
US media outlets love to accuse other countries of being easily propagandized. They should look at who created "Hamilton68," the full secrecy behind it, and how mindlessly US media treats its decrees as truth. It's an amazing propaganda success https://t.co/iKjKyJc0Xy
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 19, 2018
With virtually every recent controversial topic which has made headlines pitting conservatives against leftists, Hamilton 68 will claim - absent any evidence, that "Russia" is pushing the conservative side of the argument.
For example, Hamilton 68 was behind claims by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) that Russian bots were behind a campaign to release a memo created by the House Intel Committee GOP majority:
On January 23, public interest in the memo from the majority of the intelligence committee had been high, as evidenced by the demand to #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag on Twitter and Facebook. When the hashtag went viral, Schiff had a theory that it wasn’t the American public that was interested in abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Nope, it was Russians! Secret Russian bots were trying to make it look like Americans were interested in FISA abuse against a Trump campaign affiliate.
...
When Schiff advanced his theory that it was Russian bots — not Americans — who cared about FISA abuse, he received typical friendly media coverage. But when Twitter and Facebook refuted the claim, media outlets either downplayed it or pretended it didn’t matter.
...
Hamilton 68’s claim — later refuted by Twitter and Facebook — formed the entire basis of Schiff’s theory that it was Russian bots, not real Americans, who wanted to learn about FISA abuse by the FBI. Asked to respond to Hamilton 68’s claim, Twitter responded, “Because the Hamilton Dashboard’s account list is not available to the public, we are unable to offer any specific context on the accounts it includes.” They added, “We have offered to review the list of accounts contained in the Dashboard and this offer remains open.” -The Federalist
BuzzFeed notes: "The thing is, nearly every time you see a story blaming Russian bots for something, you can be pretty sure that the story can be traced back to a single source: the Hamilton 68 dashboard
But even some of the people who popularized that metric now acknowledge it’s become totally overblown.
“I’m not convinced on this bot thing,” said Watts, the cofounder of a project that is widely cited as the main, if not only, source of information on Russian bots. He also called the narrative “overdone.”
Meanwhile, talking heads such as MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin have been more than happy to promulgate reports based on Hamilton 68's nebulous Russian bot tracker:
After the success of the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign, Russian-influenced Twitter accounts are test-running other hashtags designed to stoke anger—particularly among Trump supporters—against so-called 'deep state' forces, according to analysts at Hamilton 68. https://t.co/xeNPPTlTof
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 11, 2018
So, as the Russian bot narrative implodes - the lens of history will mock the legacies of those who fell on their sword defending it to its last breath. Based on the murky evidence surrounding the Russian hacking claims, we expect it to suffer a similar fate. More importantly, the message from cooler heads on both sides of the aisle is clear: time to move on.
Comments
Damn you Goyim ! how are (((we))) supposed to overthrow Drumpf now ! Look over there, it's Russians....
Oh, and according to a select group of posters here, didn't you know that Putin is also one of ((them)) not only that but ((they)) are not ((themselves)) anymore but have become ((talmudists)) who are not ((jews))..... APPARENTLY!!! Oh yeah, and I am a talmudist troll, presumably also a ((Kremlin)) ((troll)).
These Jews think the goy are pretty stupid - "Just say 6 million, the idiots will never work it out"
In reply to Damn you Goyim ! how are ((… by JoeTurner
Somebody better tell CNN and MSNBC, because Russia, Russia, Russia is still 24/7......
In reply to Oh, and according to a… by Scar Bro
Shit, I need 'Russian bots for Dummies'.
Anyone got the ISBN?
In reply to Somebody better tell CNN and… by Stan522
Tell them Santa isn't real while you're at it. About time they get caught up.
And yes, Ms. Pelosi, that goes for the Keebler Elves also.
In reply to Shit, I need 'Russian bots… by JohninMK
Jeff Sessions is a real Keebler Elf. Good luck getting him out of his tree to prove he's real though......
In reply to Tell them Santa isn't real… by E.F. Mutton
I will wait until I hear from Oprah before deciding whom to believe.
In reply to Wrong ! Jeff Sessions is a… by I am Groot
Incredible isn’t it?
How a War Criminal at Large Rice can be given a public forum.
Revolting.
Absolute, complete, open in your Faces Tyrannical Lawlessness
In reply to I will wait until I hear… by Liberal
Wash Post saying no mas? Must be the russian hacker narrative is starting to shine its light on the 'home team.'
In reply to Incredible isn’t it?… by Chupacabra-322
Hell, it's the Chinese who are actually good at this shit anyway.....
In reply to must be the russian… by bigdumbnugly
If Amerikans were smarter they would disown those pressing this narrative. The media should be shunned for this level of propaganda.
Ain't it great when you become exactly what you say you are fighting?
Does Hamilton 68 run bots to help prove their case?
Schiff is a dually that should be stripped of position due to conflicting interests.
pods
In reply to Hell, it's the Chinese who… by Jim in MN
THEY have done a good job pitting Americans vs each other.
In reply to If Amerikans were smarter… by pods
^ SPAM ^
In reply to THEY have done a good job… by stizazz
The real danger here is that Putin’s new weapons have upended geopolitics.
Moscow, surrounded by S400 and S500 pads, is practically unbombable even with an onslaught of 500 ICBM’s.
In turn, Russia now has a nuclear ramjet which means they can launch a missile and it can fly at Mach 7 for 100 years. It’s range, velocity and turning circle make it impossible to intercept.
Then there are supercavitating torpedoes, that can travel at 200mph at depths of 3,000 ft. Again these are unstoppable.
For 70 years the world has had peace because of M.A.D. a perpetual stalemate. Even though many technologies that could break the stalemate were known about (bioweapons for example), these weapons remained undeveloped.
Until now.
The era of Mutually Assured Destruction has passed.
In reply to SPAM alert by Seeing Red
Why is no one talking about this? The DNC contracted with the Russian CTO who runs Crowdstrike to hack their servers and then plant the evidence.
http://themillenniumreport.com/2017/06/dnc-hackers-finally-identified/
CONFIRMED: DNC paid the ‘Russian’ founder of CrowdStrike to hack its server so it could be blamed on Russia!
In reply to The real danger here is that… by Occident Mortal
Schiff is allegedly up to his ears in Ukrainian MIC-related conflicts of foreign policy interest.
Almost any kind of war he could provoke, whether 2- or 3- way would serve those interests. He will fight Russia to the very last ordinary Ukrainian (and European). As long as he doesn't have to sign up himself or learn about any non-Anglo cultures.
He's probably BFFs with the Banderist brownshirt harpies in the DNC.
Anyone who cares about Poles should be more than a little nervous - those guys tried to genocide them before, and will try again.
In reply to If Amerikans were smarter… by pods
He IS Geroge Soro's brother-in-law. FOR REAL.
In reply to Schiff is allegedly up to… by land_of_the_few
Bezos is the new Soros.
In reply to He IS Geroge Soro's… by blindfaith
Hamilton was a fkn traitor too
In reply to If Amerikans were smarter… by pods
So you’re saying it was the Chinese who was behind hacking our election all along? I can totally believe that!
As a staunch liberal and defender of racial equality, I suggest we invade China and blast those yellow reds to hell!
Oprah/MichelleO 2020!
In reply to Hell, it's the Chinese who… by Jim in MN
This article is such a disjointed piece of junk that it is unreadable. Which Tyler did this one? OMG
In reply to Hell, it's the Chinese who… by Jim in MN
Why do they aways say in the liberal press "former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele". Once a spy always a spy. It's like saying "former felon" or "former liar". The fact is this. British Intelligence conspired to influence the US 2016 Presidential Election.
So, everytime you see "Russian hackers" just substitute "British hackers". Then you will have the facts correct.
In reply to must be the russian… by bigdumbnugly
British spies, not Russian spies, tried to influence the US Election. Christopher Steele is just one of them. And he not a former intelligence officer. There is no "retired spy". There are only living spies, and dead spies. If the MI6 tells a spy to write a false document, the spy does it for Queen and country, just like the spy is ordered.
In reply to must be the russian… by bigdumbnugly
Exactly! The investigation must be getting much closer to home.
Just disgusting
In reply to must be the russian… by bigdumbnugly
No...The DNC told Besos that there is no cash coming in the front door, so knock it off before we have to solicit the Russian for a refund on that fucking dossier.
Wanta Bet?
Anyway the Post is a rag now not fit to wrap fish in.
In reply to must be the russian… by bigdumbnugly
Anti-Whites are flailing. We neutralize every new Anti-White slur word as fast as they can come up with them. As we get closer, everything accelerates...
In reply to Incredible isn’t it?… by Chupacabra-322
It passed under the radar this weekend that RUSSIA changed its national flag... Here's the new prototype (which they'll fly at their new US Embassy HQ)
https://image.slidesharecdn.com/using-your-head-heart-and-soul-twenty-o…
In reply to I will wait until I hear… by Liberal
my favorite overlooked troll farm take comes from corbett report stating the obvious: they were tweeting links to mainstream news stories not getting mass attention- the coughing fits, empty rallies, dr. bodyguards with valium epipens. truth propagandski!
In reply to Shit, I need 'Russian bots… by JohninMK
I can't take it anymore. OK, Ok, I confess, I am the Russian Bots. I did it. I got Trump elected. I instigated rallies for Trump. I instigated rallies for Bernie. I even trolled for that colluding cunt Hillary. Puttin is my Uncle. I'm just a damn dirty skivvy wearing scumbag. Fuck you Muller. Come get me. I did it. I did it. I am the Bots. You will never take me alive. I've got a nail gun. You will never take me alive.
Oops, it must be time for my medication.
In reply to Shit, I need 'Russian bots… by JohninMK
This video will help you spot Russian bots:
and I'm a Russian bot....
https://youtu.be/-OwjX6Y-gBM
In reply to Shit, I need 'Russian bots… by JohninMK
Don't worry. The people are waking up and there will be war soon. (((Their))) system is so vulnerable that it can be taken down overnight. And it will be.
In reply to Oh, and according to a… by Scar Bro
I guess you don't know who Sheldon Adelson is and are not aware of this http://thezog.info/who-controls-donald-trump/
Did you see him at the wall with the little hat on? His son-in-law, cabinet, etc.
I don't understand...
In reply to Damn you Goyim ! how are ((… by JoeTurner
All horses in the race are owned by zog. Voting is pointless.
In reply to Damn you Goyim ! how are ((… by Give_me_liberty_or
Voting gives the choice of the flavor of zog. This election's choice was between a Global Satanic Cartel or a Trump. You can fill in your own description of the later. The domestic policies differ, the foreign policies seem to have stayed the same.
In reply to All horses in the race are… by GoyimUprising
from behind wayne madsens' paywall thanks to phibetaiota - https://phibetaiota.net/2018/03/129981/#more-129981
this is the real trump russia connection. which makes it curious why hillery/podesta/scultz wouldn't use it and went with all
37 bullshit connections in the first place.
In reply to Damn you Goyim ! how are ((… by Give_me_liberty_or
oooh. didn't like that one? try this- http://www.madcowprod.com/2018/03/01/know-your-russian-mobsters/
In reply to from behind wayne madsens'… by putaipan
Ooh, look! Siberian squirrel!
In reply to Damn you Goyim ! how are ((… by JoeTurner
The vote from congress to sanction Russia was nearly unanimous.
Just let that sink in.
The sanctions on Russia are FRAUDULENT, let that sink in.
In reply to The vote from congress to… by chunga
Re: Russian sanctions are fraudulent
And they passed 535-5 ... Let that sink in.
In reply to The sanctions on Russia are… by CatInTheHat
Members of congress interact in much the same way as children on a playground. Emotion, innuendo and fear of being made a target oneself drives their discourse rather than rational analysis and what's best for the nation.
In reply to The vote from congress to… by chunga
What bothers me the most is not knowing what I could personally do about it that would help.
In reply to Members of congress interact… by Billy the Poet
Ron Paul taught me to speak truth to power and then work on improving my own life and those of my family and friends.
Based on the little I know about you I think you're doing fine.
In reply to What bothers me the most is… by chunga
Design the better killer microdrone... oh wait...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM
In reply to What bothers me the most is… by chunga
Meditate. Sit, do breathing exercises, and quiet your mind. Do that for a few days and it will hit you. To hear you must first listen.
In reply to What bothers me the most is… by chunga
WE are doing plenty. Just focus on global peace and prosperity, and demand it, along with rooting out corruption.
It's all about phase shifts. One state of things simply ends and a completely different one begins. Turns out this is quite common in nature. Electrons, ice, flocks and herds.
So that's why it feels like you're just beating your head against a brick wall--because you are!
But one day that wall falls.
Just like that.
But not if you stop beating on it :*)
In reply to What bothers me the most is… by chunga
It's cracking and starting to fall now. Love your post, right on.
In reply to WE are doing plenty. Just… by Jim in MN
It really is tough walking around with zombies all around.
Look after you and yours and leave the rest up to God.
pods
In reply to What bothers me the most is… by chunga
The best antidote to a lie is always the truth. The best antidote to lies about Russia is to learn something about the place, and use that knowledge to counter the lies.
Fortunately, we have an incredible advantage today compared to the cold war era in which I grew up. Information about Russia is widely available online, all you have to do is tune in.
Once armed with facts, you'll have the confidence to engage people and to counter the propaganda they've unwittingly absorbed. It won't work in every instance, but it works often enough to make it worth the effort - at least that's been my experience.
In reply to What bothers me the most is… by chunga
If the tables had been turned and Russia did to us what we have done to Russia, we would have given up. There in is the difference, we have made then hard as steel, while we are a soft as cake.
In reply to The best antidote to a lie… by ebear
Pagination