HILARITY ALERT: Moon of Alabama Explains What the Indicted Russian Trolls Were Really Doing

While the MSM has been going bonkers in outrage over the dastardly attack on American democracy committed by 13 Russians — the tacit understanding being that they were operating on orders from Putin’s government — German analyst Moon of Alabama has calmly explained what these Russians were really up to:

Moon of Alabama — Mueller Indictment — The “Russian Influence” Is A Commercial Marketing Scheme

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/02/mueller-indictement-the-russian-inf...

In other words, the Russian trolls indicted by Mueller were not trying to sway an election or jangle the delicate psyches of Americans with “chaos” — they were selling advertising space.

As MoA notes, the kill shot is in the indictment itself:

Defendants and their co-conspirators also used the accounts to receive money from real U.S. persons in exchange for posting promotions and advertisements on the ORGANIZATION-controlled social media pages. Defendants and their co-conspirators typically charged certain U.S. merchants and U.S. social media sites between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content on their popular false U.S. persona accounts, including Being Patriotic, Defend the 2nd, and Blacktivist.

The trolls created dozens of web pages catering to specific points of view or interests, often associated with certain assumed personas; they drove viewers to these pages with provocative ads or social postings; and they made money by selling ad space on the pages. This perfectly explains why the content posted by the trolls was so chaotic in focus: they were trying to harvest eyes from as many market segments as possible, to meet the needs of every potential client. This diversity of focus has been interpreted as “sowing chaos” — as opposed to “stimulating interest in public affairs” — in line with the dictates of Deep State Russophobia.

This also explains why only a very small percentage of the ads directly endorsed or bashed a candidate: the trolls’ aim was not to achieve the election of a particular candidate, but to sell ad space on their click-bait webpages.

Here’s what the VP for advertising at Facebook has just tweeted:

Most of the coverage of Russian meddling involves their attempt to effect the outcome of the 2016 US election. I have seen all of the Russian ads and I can say very definitively that swaying the election was *NOT* the main goal.

The indictment pinpoints 13 ads bought by the trolls that either bash Hillary or exalt Trump (out of the 3,000 or so total they purchased). The intent evidently is to depict the trolls as engaged in a campaign to elect Trump, in confirmation of the Hilbot/Deep State narrative. How much do you want to bet that the indictment failed to mention ads placed by the Russians that support Hillary or bash Trump?

Note also that, since the Russian trolls spent only about $100K on all the ads they placed (56% of which were placed after the election, and 25% of which never ran at all), that they paid less than $3 for about half the ads, and less than $1000 for 99% of them, it’s more than likely that the total cost of the 13 ads which allegedly put our democracy in danger came to less than $5K. (If they spent the average amount they spent per ad on these, the total would be about $50!) And yet we are expected to believe that this was a serious effort to sway the election undertaken at the behest of the Russian government. If nothing else, you have to admire Mueller’s chutzpah!

Moon of Alabama also notes this: Mueller’s indictment implies that it is illegal for foreigners to comment on US politics during an election unless they have registered as foreign agents — an interpretation that is legally dubious, to say the least. Of course, even if Mueller’s claim here were valid, it wouldn’t apply to the indicted trolls, as they were not functioning as foreign agents attempting to sway American elections — they were selling ad space.

So Mueller has hilariously misconstrued a profit-seeking troll farm as a felonious foreign influence campaign. All evidently as part of a Deep State psy-ops to convince the American people to be VERY AFRAID of Russia, and to justify the Mueller investigation witch hunt.

All in all, Mueller’s efforts live up to the high standards set by the entire Russiagate affair to date.

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Pricknick's picture

It's the worms that seem to be invading common sense for so many.
The red scare has been very powerful for the weak of mind. Fear is a governments best and most lethal weapon.
I refuse to live in fear.
We'll never change our current government from within.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Pricknick

I've been against the hysterical Russia Did It!! bullshit since day 1. And I recognize my own emotional bias...soooooo please read Marcy Wheeler's assessment of Mueller's indictment strategy (emptywheel link below).

Loooong-time DKers and lefties should remember Marcy from her live-blogging! Scooter Libby trial back when dinosaurs roamed the intertubes. She's been all over NSA/FISA/Establishment lies about spying and snooping since forever; she's smart and rigorous to a fault.

She's been even-handed and methodical about Mueller all along, and she thinks his indictments are long-term smart and legally sound; he's setting up legit future indictments for corrupt/compromised Trumpsters who will have to roll on him to save their skins - ie the indictments are not useless or a joke or the equivalent of clickbait. Of course the HillBot hacks will inflate them to mean so much more, but Marcy sees the wisdom of his strategy.

Anyhoo, my .02

https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/02/17/what-did-mueller-achieve-with-the-...

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JVolvo2

k9disc's picture

She's been even-handed and methodical about Mueller all along, and she thinks his indictments are long-term smart and legally sound; he's setting up legit future indictments for corrupt/compromised Trumpsters who will have to roll on him to save their skins - ie the indictments are not useless or a joke or the equivalent of clickbait. Of course the HillBot hacks will inflate them to mean so much more, but Marcy sees the wisdom of his strategy.

What is the strategy trying to accomplish?

Seems to me that the strategy is to deep state witch hunt the President. Not a fan.
@JVolvo2

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Big Al's picture

It proves that our government is run by absolute imbeciles. It proves the same about the corporate media.
It makes me doubtful the human race is going to be able to survive much longer.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@Big Al

It makes me doubtful the human race is going to be able to survive much longer.

It only looks that way from inside the United States.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Big Al's picture

@Pluto's Republic

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Wink's picture

is that M$M Talking Heads know that R-gate is horse$h!t yet continue to pump the story, doubling down, in fact, to keep the story front and center.
@Big Al
What they don't know, apparently, or maybe just don't care, the paychecks still rolling in, is that this R-gate story eventually bites them in the ass, viewers no longer buying what they're selling.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

@Wink People seem to have gone totally nuts over this whole thing

This reminds me of the story about the pygmy who weighed 100 lbs while the average pygmy weighed 50 lbs

He had elephantiasis of the testicles and carried them around in a wheelbarrow

He was half nuts

***
A conspiracy theory has swept the land and the MSM has been nuts for so long that it is hard to tell if they have gone nuts, like they did when they promoted the invasion of Iraq

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Big Al's picture

@DonMidwest

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Wink's picture

know R-gate is horse$h!t, or you're in de Nile, or you're dumber than a ToP First Pager.
@DonMidwest
That's the three choices.
I believe most if not all M$M "journalists" know the story is horse$h!t.
When I first heard about R-gate, I believe via my morning show radio partner, but it may have been simply by surfing social media, my very first thought was, "you've got to be fucking kidding me." Followed shortly by, "this has to be Clinton wag the dog bull$h!t."
Becuz it simply made zero sense. None. Whatsoever. Russians stole Hillary's election victory? Are you f'ing serious?! And if little ol' me came to those conclusions as soon as I heard about R-gate, real journalists must've sensed the same thing.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

snoopydawg's picture

The whole thing boils down to a businessman making money by placing ads on FB. But even if people did read this, they wouldn't believe it because they are so wrapped up in the propaganda that Her made up just because she lost the election to Trump of all people.

The PTB have been pushing this for a number of reasons. Censorship of the internet and alternative news websites, push for war with Russia because of economic reasons and for DHS to take over the elections.

Mueller has made $7 million since he started the investigation into the "Russia colluded with Trump", but he still hasn't shown any proof that it happened. But people are going to patiently wait for him to do so....

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Big Al's picture

@snoopydawg I couldn't believe they were using this as their evidence that Putin and Russia tried to affect the U.S. elections, particularly in favor of Trump. I didn't read any further. Now this information just proves that we're dealing with people that are not very bright, just as many have posited relative to what kind of people move into these high level government positions. But I guess they only have to be a bit brighter than those they're trying to fool and unfortunately, that's not hard in this country.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Big Al

and saying that it's proof that Russia was responsible for the election interference. I'm sure not many of them will post this little gem.

Some U.S. media today made the false claim that $1.25 million per month were spend by the company for its U.S. campaign. But Point 11 of the indictment says that the company ran a number of such projects directed at a Russian audience while only the one described in 10d above is aimed at an U.S. audience. All these projects together had a monthly budget of $1.25 million.)

Smile

Nope, not very bright at all. But you know the saying. You can fool some people who are looking for what you are trying to prove.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Big Al's picture

@snoopydawg That some Russians, with Putin and/or government knowledge and/or direct involvement, tried to persuade American voters with propaganda to vote for Trump?

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snoopydawg's picture

@Big Al

You would have to go there to see how far they have gone with believing that Trump is in bed with Putin. And some are literally saying this. It's gotten so bad there that they believe that some of us were Putin's bots and that what we wrote about Her was because we were being paid by Russia to do so. I can't remember all of the things they've been telling each other to explain why Her lost to tRump, but none of it was her fault. Any time something new happens in this country it's Russia's fault. Anyone who pushes back on it is called a Putin apologist and other names. You either accept the conspiracy or you're out.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@snoopydawg

“Never underestimate the stupidity of the average American. Just when you think they’ve hit rock bottom they’ll get out the shovels and dig the hole deeper.” (Or something along those lines.)

I don’t know if it’s an original Wallyism or if he was quoting someone else.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

SnappleBC's picture

@snoopydawg

After all, I think quite a few of them are, in fact, paid for by the centrist establishment.

Of course there's a big difference there. I think the most positive thing I've ever said about Putin is that in this particular moment he definitely appears to be the adult in the room. Of course, that's only because in this case he happens to be in the right and he's smart enough to capitalize on that. But there's my high praise for Putin. I don't think it quite compares to how they Hillshills talk about Hillary -- or any topic really that the establishment wants them to have a "viewpoint" on.

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

snoopydawg's picture

@SnappleBC

between what the Russian bots did during the election and what the Correct the Record bots did. The CTR bots were acceptable because they were setting the record on Hillary straight, while the Russian ones were getting people to switch from Her to Trump.

This is why it was bad for Trump Jr. to try to get dirt on Her, but it was okay for her to get dirt on Trump by paying a foreign ex spy to talk to people in Russia and then use the information for the FBI to wiretap her opponent. See how it's different? Yeah, me neither. But it was.

Scratch one-s head Dash 1

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GreyWolf's picture

@snoopydawg and then you are analyzing it ... pointing out that it's all theater of the absurd, and the play has a different meaning to each spectator, yet they are all missing the point that it's entirely moot to the producers once the patrons have paid for their tickets.

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@snoopydawg

If you recall, the Steele Dossier Propaganda File alleged that Trump paid Moscow hookers to pee on the hotel bed that Obama had slept in: ie to disrespect Obama personally. Within 2 news cycles, that became "Trump loves getting peed on!!1" I remember seeing Colbert and Seth Meyers playing the "Golden Showers" theme in their opening bits.

#AnythingVsTrump #FauxResistance #Kabuki

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JVolvo2

@Big Al has anything to do with it.

They found nothing but they have to make something out of the nothing.

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dfarrah

@snoopydawg 7 million??? In salary?

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dfarrah

mimi's picture

a German "brother". Smile How nice.
Give rose

I want to meet him. I haven't read his site for years, but did read it a lot when I was new to TOP.

Where is that bar? I don't drink Whiskey, but guess I am ready to try one and get drunk and be ready to be a co-conspirator.

Under the theory on which the indictment is based I could also be indicted for a similar "Conspiracy to Defraud the United States"....those of you who kindly donate for this blog co-conspiractors?

Come to think of it: in all my last jobs I was indirectly (a non writing) registered foreign agent, I guess. I worked for the dpa, ARD German TV and a German conservative Think Tank inside the belly of the beast in Washington DC. Basically as a clean-up lady and filing assistant. Ha. Very dangerous person here. Beware of mimi littles, who can get access to files. Wink

I need a Whiskey now and you know why.
[video:https://youtu.be/x-5ata4jDyk]
Cheers, Mr. b
Drinks

PS if you think I am tired of life and risk too much, I have been killed already and my loved one too. So, no need to trample on me again to kill me twice. Don't waste your bullets on me.

[video:https://youtu.be/WENkquBHchM]

Oh makes me smile.

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arendt's picture

@mimi

IIRC, he was in the US military, and when he got out he settled in Germany.

Before MoA, he ran another site, Whiskey Bar. And, believe it or not, he used to post at GOS.

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arendt's picture

@arendt

This 2013 story. says that Billmon lives somewhere near Philadelphia; and that (as of 2013) he had closed MoA.

Apparently, today's b is in Germany, although this article does not mention that:

One man who I thought might know the story is "Bernhard," proprietor of Moon Of Alabama, a site that mirrors Billmon's Whiskey Bar, with the exception that it invites reader comments. Billmon got rid of comments after they got out of hand.
Bernhard wrote by email:

"I don't know why he stopped or if he will write again."

Turns out the two have never met, and their only e-mail exchanges have been about technical matters, Bernhard wrote. For now, Moon Of Alabama will continue - it's for the community of Whiskey Bar readers, and there's still much to talk about - though Bernhard said that the needs of his other job might require he shut it down or hand it over to someone else later this year.

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mimi's picture

@arendt
the site which was called "Moon of Alabama". I remember a name like billmon, but don't remember if it was then the blog host of "Moon of Alabama" or the other site you mention "Whiskey bar". I thought Moon of Alabama was the Whiskey bar. I even don't remember when I read there (a bit).

Though I joined dailykos in 2004, I think I started posting as of 2007. That I can't find out anymore.

I was thrown out of dailykos, directly after I wrote my good bye diary, and I was thrown out so quickly that I still was logged into dailykos, when they did it. I can't log out myself and am "damned" to stay logged in. I can see diaries and comments, but as I posted over 28000 comments and I don't know how to get to the first comments I made, I am lost. I can't see my own account's last six messages, so I wonder what they say, because I believe they have been written at my last breathing moments on the dailykos platform. So, I apologize to those 6 people over there who might have written me those messages, but 'ya know' before one throws out a person one could open the door and say politely please leave and then politely close the doors behind me, when I am outside. My release was more like shutting the doors while I am standing in the door frame and squeeaing me to stay there gasping to get in or out but they wanted me to stay squeezed. Oh well. So be it.

All I can reconstruct is that between 2004 and 2007 I was a rather silent reader, I believe. AS of 2007 I changed my job and from that time onwards dailykos was alwasy open in one window, while i worked. All I could do is scanning there in a very unfocussed and haphazard way. And if I posted comments they were of the same kind unfocussed and haphhazardly. My head was always full with tons of other stuff and whatever happened on dailykos entered my mind like background noise, a background noise I liked nevertheless.

I was too lazy to seriously look back at those times. I am not a researcher, also not of my own "mimi" comments. I am happy to forget all of it.

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CB's picture

@mimi
as will any other site that is somewhat favorable or even neutral to Russia/Putin.

[video:www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=anNEJJYLU8M]

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@CB

This fact alone tells you everything that you need to know. The entire matter is holographic.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
mimi's picture

@CB
Actually if I were strong enough I would be very happy to live in a "thrown out from the internet status". I don't want to be "on the internet".

I am already thrown out at TOP amd I really couldn't care less. The internet is not for real. People won't stop thinking, talking and writing. May be they will go back to printed media, as they will go back to paper ballot voting.

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jorogo's picture

though I'd like very much to see this almost universal falsehood, conflation, a.k.a. lie, which you have parphrased for us from MOA, exposed and opposed in all discussion:

comment on US politics during an election

This all occurred during a campaign, not during an election. There's a critical difference.

Elections are a government function, protected by law. A campaign is an enterprise by private organizations for the purpose of submitting their candidate of choice on a ballot, which is then handed over to government agencies holding the election. If you don't believe me, I refer you to the Democratic Party's defense in the fraud case now under appeal.

At the heart of the DNC’s defense, articulated by attorney Bruce Spiva, is the idea that, being a private organization, the Democratic Party is allowed to make whatever rules it wants. The impartiality clause, said Spiva, is “a discretionary rule that [the DNC] didn’t need to adopt to begin with.” Its rules and alleged rule-breaking are a private matter and for a court to interfere would not only draw it into “political squabbles,” but violate the DNC’s First Amendment rights.

Legally, the DNC is probably on sound footing. As Robert Wigton, professor of political science at Eckerd College has written, the courts “have never provided a coherent framework to distinguish when parties are to be treated as ‘public’ entities and when they are to be deemed ‘private’ ones.”

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"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh

Wink's picture

actions since, the DNC slit its own throat.
@jorogo

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

jorogo's picture

@Wink
Their defense succeeds - their admission that the DNC's word is good for shit.
Their defense fails - a legal judgement that the DNC's word is good for shit.

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"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh

@jorogo

- there's so much outright lunacy in Russiagate that it's hard to comprehend it all en masse. I suspect that they're counting on our brains to crumple beneath the weight of all that sheer nonsense so as to become vulnerable enough and reduced to merely recycling whatever talking points they pump out.

But that essential point at the base of it is, of course, why the hell are private parties allowed to pick the only candidates that they then effectively allow people in a democracy to vote for, so that they can capture government and media in order to spread such fatally destructive insanity as they do?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

jorogo's picture

from this ridiculous indictment, can someone please ask Mueller when to expect charges against Flynn and Kushner for conspiring to undermine the policy of the seated US government, Obama's, and attempting to influence official Russian policy, by acting as unregistered foreign agents on behalf of the Israeli government, in lobbying Kislyak to ask Putin to have Russia veto the UN resolution condemning illegal Israeli settlements?

That Mueller only indicted Flynn for lying to the FBI, and did not charge Kushner at all, for this possibly treasonous act is the most blatant and obvious slight-of-hand (I accept attribution for that very appropriate oxymoron) the MSM has swept under the carpet so far.

EDIT - More info
---------
Forget about Iran and North Korea - Russians are launching ADS!

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"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh

Hillary must have been salivating when she heard Trump say that. "He's going to pay big-time for that statement", she probably thought to herself. On the other hand she and her partner had received large sums of money from Russians to sell out US Uranium and for her partner to speak in Moscow. Not a problem for her, she had wiggled out of much worse problems.

Consider what a great sentiment is in that quote from Trump. One of the few issues that he was on the right side.

The really bad part of all of this Rusophobia is that we are pissing off a potentially really good ally, for crass political tactics. We make the world a much more dangerous place and miss the opportunity to cooperate on every important issue. Consider this from the perspective of the typical Russian. The USSR bled 27 million lives to defeat Hitler, otherwise the Allies would have lost. Then Russia demolished the USSR and bloodlessly frees all of the republics. Russia suffered enormously from the transition from communism to capitalism, with the West sitting by and rooting-on the corrupt oligarchy as Russia plunged into a severe depression. President Putin pulls Russia up by her bootstraps and the US is now officially pissed and doing everything that it can to put Russia back in the toilet. But this is today and Russia is rock solid and the US is not.

These ridiculous charges against "Russia" are purely political. So far there are no crimes and no evidence. What, folks outside of the US posting opinions on global social media? Opinions now described as acts of war? Large amount of non-evidence and opinion is now described as the overwhelming body of evidence for Russian malfeasance. Progressives are now bashed for not being on-board the train -- hellbent to war? Just when I thought that politics could not get more absurd ... it does so by an order of magnitude.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@The Wizard

Your recitation of settled history is a living indictment, served cold.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@The Wizard

Exactly! Except that it's not just pissing off any ally - the Russian people have been undergoing nuclear drills involving refurbished Cold War bomb shelters the past couple of years, because The Psychopaths That Be think in terms of killing as many innocent humans as horrifically as possible as 'war'.

Imagine how stressful it is for a population to have verifiable fears of being being nuked at any moment, over a period of years, by bloodthirsty lunatics slavering, threatening and planning how to do it...

Lunatic psychopaths who merely tell their fellow-citizens among the 99% of relative Poors to 'stay in their homes and kiss their asses good-by' once TPTB succeed in starting Mutual Assured Destruction, because Those Who Matter figure on planning when that starts, so that they can reach their luxury bunkers in time, believing that they will survive comfortably and apparently utterly unaware that they will have trapped themselves in those prison cells on a murdered Earth, with nowhere else to go and all wealth beyond remaining basic supplies in those cells worthless?

You've heard recent talk increasing about how exploding nuclear weapons above ground will throw less debris high enough to cause universally fatal-to-life-all-on-its-own global dimming? They're still trying to convince themselves that they can have a livable, functioning Earth all to themselves, to rule over whatever survives after playing with nukes all over the for-profit-and-power poisoned and irradiated planet already dying of what they've done and are doing so far...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

ggersh's picture

http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/thirteen-russians-ands-ham-sandwich/

The beauty in Robert Mueller’s indictment of thirteen Russian Facebook trolls is that they’ll never face trial, so Mr. Mueller will never have to prove his case. In the new misrule of law made popular by the #Me Too movement, accusations suffice to convict the target of an investigation. Kind of sounds like going medieval to me, but that’s how roll now in the Land of the Free.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

CB's picture

@ggersh
if one had run against Trump instead of Her Heinousness, we would now have President Ham Sandwich sitting in the White House.

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enhydra lutris's picture

the day.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Russians are being good capitalists, now.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

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dfarrah

VP of facebook is stepping up to challenge the government narrative. FB almost has no choice - otherwise, they will be next in line to be accused of treason.

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dfarrah

edg's picture

@dfarrah

The New York Times devoted an entire "fact checking" article toward proving how the VP of Facebook is full of crap. Of course, the only thing the "fact check" proved was that the NYT is full of crap, but Facebook will still probably be forced to dump the guy.

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@edg

I read Marcy Wheeler at emptywheel daily (*NOT her co-writers Rayne nor armando-wanna-be-Bmaz!; 95% of the comments are also partisan "Treason!/Collusion" horseshit).

Marcy's rigorous approach helps me check my own emotional bias re RussiaGate and Mueller investigation: she doesn't categorically dismiss it all as crap (damn!) but she calls out the flaming bullshit and partisan leaps of Dem illogic left and right. Good stuff.

Today she shredded the fuckwit NYTimes bullshit article that "fact-checked" the facebook VP.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/02/19/in-two-so-called-fact-checks-of-fa...

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JVolvo2

Well, at least that is what the neocons are saying.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-ignoring-the-worst-atta...

So an advertising troll farm in Russia to do date has shown no impact on our election is the same as Saudi terrorists killing 3000 Americans.

No wonder Russia and the world are laughing at us. And for once it isn't the idiot president we elected.

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he released just enough to keep the game going

Mueller has proven himself quite the politician.

I was hoping that the indictments would bring some sort of resolution to the investigation and force all the evidence to become public. But no, this investigation is not meant to be conclusive, it is — like Orwell’s description of war — meant to be continuous.

By issuing indictments to individuals that are unlikely to ever come to trial Mueller has dodged the responsibility of presenting any additional evidence — a perfect sleight of hand.

Mueller the Politician

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Wink's picture

gotten to the bottom of RussiaGate, the Very bottom as it turns out, and no further investigation is necessary.
@DonMidwest

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

There has been some controversy here about Glenn Greenwald and The Intercept.

I think that The Intercept is one of the best sources around but they are not perfect.

Today he shows that the very group that is complaining about Russians responsible for guns in the US is a neocon group that is giving these people new life. Be in favor of invading Iraq and now say Trump is bad and one can continue their career!! Such a deal.

The group is Hamilton68

Russian bots promote pro-gun messages after Florida school shooting
By Gianluca Mezzofiore, CNN

Updated 8:14 PM ET, Fri February 16, 2018
Russian bots fueled Florida shooting debate

Russian bots fueled Florida shooting debate 01:02
(CNN)Russia-linked bots are promoting pro-gun messages on Twitter in an attempt to sow discord in the aftermath of the Florida school shooting, monitoring groups say.

Hashtags, topics and URLs related to the shooting overwhelmingly feature in the tweets pushed by these automated Twitter accounts in the past 48 hours, according to Hamilton 68, a tool launched by the Alliance for Securing Democracy to track what it describes as "Russian propaganda and disinformation efforts online."
The alliance is a group housed at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) think tank to "defend against, deter, and raise the costs on Russian and other actors' efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions," according to its mission statement.

Russian bots promote pro-gun messages after Florida school shooting

Here is Glenn's article from July 2017

ONE OF THE most under-discussed yet consequential changes in the American political landscape is the reunion between the Democratic Party and the country’s most extreme and discredited neocons. While the rise of Donald Trump, whom neocons loathe, has accelerated this realignment, it began long before the ascension of Trump and is driven by far more common beliefs than contempt for the current president.

A newly formed and, by all appearances, well-funded national security advocacy group, devoted to more hawkish U.S. policies toward Russia and other adversaries, provides the most vivid evidence yet of this alliance. Calling itself the Alliance for Securing Democracy, the group describes itself as “a bipartisan, transatlantic initiative” that “will develop comprehensive strategies to defend against, deter, and raise the costs on Russian and other state actors’ efforts to undermine democracy and democratic institutions,” and also “will work to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin’s ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the United States and Europe.”

With New D.C. Policy Group, Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@DonMidwest

I really don't think this is complex at all.

As for the point about Russians pushing gun rights:

The entire world is pushing the idea that Americans should be armed to the teeth and continue to kill each other as fast as they can.

You don't have to be a Russian to see the advantage in that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Free Reality Winner, whistleblower betrayed by the intercept.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Mark from Queens's picture

@DonMidwest
best journalists we have - bar none.

And that group of dissident reporters can be counted one hand, maybe two.

I'd also probably consider Lee Fang in that group also. That's three at the Intercept alone.

Haven't read enough about this Assange controversy yet. But I'm not ready yet to throw in the towel on the Intercept. Not with those guys there.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

@DonMidwest

Strap in! I haven't sorted out this website yet (disobedientmedia) but they do a DEEEEEEP Dive into Hamilton 68 & German Marshall Fund: fucking NeoCons [Kristol, Chertoff, Schake) and Team Hillz NeoLib War Hawks (Morrell, Wong, Rosenberger, Watts) top to bottom -

"Can we trust the judgement of think-tanks who have labeled Twitter users as part of a ‘Russian influence campaign’ as sound when those same entities provide little evidence, and their high-level members include former Clinton supporters?

At the beginning of 2017, an initiative was launched by a non-partisan think-tank called the German Marshall Fund US (GMFUS) under the name “The Alliance For Securing Democracy” (ASD).

During the Summer, ASD started working on a project they called the “Hamilton 68 Dashboard“, an effort that was presented to the public as a means of monitoring Russian disinformation efforts on Twitter, apparently boosted by research covering a three year period."

That's one fucked up "non-partisan" think tank, folks!

https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/01/meet-the-cabal-that-are-framing-dom...

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JVolvo2

lotlizard's picture

@JVolvo2  
Anyone who dares to deviate from the “Atlantic” neolib-neocon consensus gets ostracized and called either a neo-Nazi or a Putin apologist, or even both at the same time.

I’ve been a supporter of the Green-Left-alternative German daily newspaper “die Tageszeitung (taz.de)” from its inception almost 40 years ago, but nowadays the position its writers take often disgusts me, especially re the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.

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k9disc's picture

It seemed shady to me. I got to their sponsor page at GMF and saw all I needed to see. A big fat list of Corporate Oligarchs.

I didn't track down much more than that. It was confirmed to me, and that was fine. I couldn't afford the hours of hunting details. Thanks for the Link.

@JVolvo2

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Above I made a satirical reply to a comment that the MSM reporters know that the Russian hack of the election is a ruse.

Well, not to be undone, Democratic politicians and others make the comparison to Pearl Harbor

Well, when you are a military empire, and one on the way down, keeping the MIC rolling in money takes a full court press to maintain the danger!!

A Consensus Emerges: Russia Committed an “Act of War” on Par With Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Should the U.S. Response be Similar?

Article by Glenn in today's The Intercept

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@DonMidwest

There are no leaders at the Intercept. They offer no movement. No solutions. They are a group of over-funded weak sisters looking out for themselves and their own amusements.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Free Reality Winner, whistleblower betrayed by the intercept.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic

that is available at The Intercept. They hit the right points 100 x more often than NYTimes or msnbc.

Learn discernment.

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JVolvo2

@JVolvo2

Have you been reading it much lately? The good reporting is being crowded out by propaganda-spewers and even the best, most factual article can be edited, once the journalist is done, so keep that salt-shaker handy even where the writers themselves have proven trustworthy.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

In case anyone else missed it, one link given in the comments at your link led to this:

https://thesaker.is/a-brief-history-of-the-kremlin-trolls/

A Brief History of the “Kremlin Trolls”
20056 Views October 15, 2017

Nice lay-out of some velly interestink details give an even more rotten flavour to the substance within the spin cycle, I thought.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.