I have been holding off for a calm news day to examine exactly what the fifth volume of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s bipartisan report on Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 election said, and why it is important.
The real mind-boggling, surreal fact here is that those Republican Senators on the Intelligence Committee knew all this back on February 5, and they still voted to acquit Trump.
It would be interesting to count how many of the Republican Senators have ties to Russian oligarchs. McConnell is number one and has sold Kentucky to the Russians. I thought many it was DT who had the goods on the Senators but this is making me think it is the Russians that are pulling their strings.
If you look at who is funding directly and indirectly you the GOP caucus at federal and often state level you will find that the "Koch political network" of American Billionaires is controlling election and re-election campaigns partly by giving money to campaigns but mostly by money laundered through NGO filters. They are no doubt in cahoots with their Russian and other similar forces in Russia and elsewhere. The GOP is just one of the tools at their disposal to deprive the people of any say in their affairs. The GOP no longer exists as an independant party. Try reading Nancy Maclean's book "Democracy in Chains"!
In my view, at this time it is America's own Koch political network which is the most dangerous. They are not more intelligent , just more determined and richer.
Indeed! When you've finished that you can get into the "hows and wherefores" wih Jane Mayer's "Dark Money" . That will scare your pants off...if you're still wearing any!
The tie between the fifth and second volumes of the report, is the way in which the internal Republican polling (potential voter) data given by Paul Manafort to Russian military intelligence office Konstantin Kilimnik would be used by the Russians to micro-target their pro-Trump social media campaign. My brother, who has been running social media as a business for a very long time, wrote a post elsewhere explaining how it works, which I reproduce here with permission:
IT'S COLLUSION
The Senate Intelligence Report states that the Trump Campaign shared polling data with Russian Intelligence Officers. Via Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort who is also described as a grave counter intelligence threat. Some Republicans read this and say there was no collusion. Democrats are saying this is collusion. Some say, it depends on what they did with the information, was it of value.? As a veteran social media expert, allow me to explain why this information was of extraordinary value and magnified by many times the power and impact of Russian disinformation interference in the election with the objective to elect Trump. So valuable that it easily could have made and likely did make the difference in getting Trump elected.
1) Micro-targeted dark ad posts is the killer app of politics
A key success factor in the Russian interference was using Facebook to micro-target voters with dark ad posts, spreading and amplifying the disinformation. The only people that see dark ad posts are those they are targeted to, thus enabling a campaign to say different things (lies) to different people without being caught in the public eye. For example advertising to specific Black people in rust belt states that Clinton was anti-Black people as evidenced by her decades prior predators comment. Then advertising to specific white people in those same states that Clinton was easy on crime, as evidenced by her liberal crime policies that would let dangerous Black criminals off easy. As people repeatedly get targeted with variations of such posts they start to believe them. They get directed to Facebook pages and web sites full of false information to make them think it more. These people in turn start spreading the word to other people. At the core it's not that different from disinformation robo calls, and other deceitful political tactics - Except 1,000s of times more powerful due to social media's unparalleled ability to target, do so in the dark, and have viral-tribal effects.
2) Success is a function of narrow targeting
Such dark post advertising is only this effective if it's micro-targeted to very specific sets of people, to ensure the disinformation is chosen to hit the nerves of those very narrow profiles. Facebook has advertising tools that enable campaigns and brands to do just that. Micro-target on a very narrow basis that can be tuned continuously, measuring the results in terms of engagement, shares, comments, click throughs to destinations, and even what happens at those destinations.
3) You have to know who you want to target
For all this to work, you have to know who you want to target. Once you have that information it's easy. Simplest approach is to just type in the various criteria, including, age, gender, race, political views, interests, and a host of other criteria. Then run your dark ad posts, see the results and tune. More sophisticated is to load your database into Facebook and say who you want to target. Facebook's algorithms take that list, match it to their user database and target your ads to the exact people in your list. For privacy reasons they do this without letting you know exactly which people's Facebook IDs match your list . But the net is your dark ad posts are going directly to the people in your list. Due to the election swing impact of the Russian disinformation campaign in 2016, and a lot of public pressure, Facebook has since constrained some aspects of the this micro-targeting. But in 2016 the full power was available, and it only makes sense that Russian Intelligence agents made full use of it for their and Trump's benefit.
4) The Trump Campaign gave Russian Intelligence the polling data that enabled them to know who to target. This empowered Russian Intelligence to use that information in conjunction Facebook features to deploy their disinformation, and swing the election.
And that, in the social media age is how we spell COLLUSION!
(Our founders called this consorting with a foreign power to secure office, which they considered a big time Constitutional no-no)
Thanks to your brother for enlightening us on the process for spreading disinformation using social media. It boils down to what so many of us "older" people have been saying for years: just because it is on FB doesn't make it true. If you can't check a fact, it probably isn't one (use the extensive research done by Professor Richardson as an example of checking facts). However, saying that doesn't mean targeted people are suddenly going to start checking everything they read or hear. It is a mindset, and if you are a fact-checker, it is extremely frustrating to be unable to get people who aren't to listen to those facts. Thank him for me, please, and tell him I appreciate his work. And thank you for posting it!
My brother has given permission to say not only his name, but a bit about him.
Peter Friedman is founder, Chairman and CEO of LiveWorld, a social-media digital agency and software company that manages social media for some of the larger brands in the world. Peter has over 30 years of experience in the space and is considered a pioneer in social media. He is the author of “The CMO’s Social Media Handbook, A Step By Step Guide To Marketing In The Social Media Age” and “Is Privacy Dead In The Digital Age! And What To Do About It?”
He also wants to point out that social media does a great deal more good in the world than bad. Connecting people and helping them understand each other. Uniting and keeping families closer. Education, awareness, enabling positive movements. Empowering people to provide disaster relief and emotional support. Giving cancer patients and many other a channel for emotional support and medical care. Literally saving lives and so much more. The bad is only a fraction of the good. Nevertheless the bad must be addressed.
Watch "The Great Hack" about precision targeting undecided voters is swing precincts. This is how it was done in the 2016 election, along with voting machine tampering. Absentee balloting will alleviate the tampering, but the targeting will continue unabated.
Thanks Joan. I always appreciate information over opinions, and your sharing of this has helped to make clear how this works for those who don’t understand how social media can be deployed effectively on a minuscule budget. Before social media, it required the deployment of State run intelligence agencies (a sometimes risky act), at great expense and dubious results.
Sometimes it takes a historian to do what journalists often fail to do — draw from the past to illuminate the present, and draw from a lot of different sources to pull together a more complete picture. Journalists are driven to move on to the next story and to dig out a new, previously unreported piece of that picture. I am thankful we have journalists and historians who are good at both.
So Trump campaign colluded with Russian government, according to our own senate’s investigation. Those Senators who know this and don’t act are Russian assets in my opinion
What I meant here is that even if you aren’t a Russian spy per se (I hope that our politicians aren’t actually working for the Russians directly), by turning a blind eye you become an asset (Putin can count of McConnell to try and stomp over any rule change to protect elections, for example). In practice, it’s just as bad
The words that have been used euphamistically to describe this historically are "fellow travellor" : a mole, actual or potential....or future blackmail "victim" or just a bunch of naive, stupid people who think that they are somehow controlling their financiers rather than the other way round.
I have a feeling that dirt on this administration's mob-like dealings will be pouring out for years after they've gotten the boot. My sincere hope is that the players in these dealings face the full consequences of their actions.
Lifetime residences in 8 x 10 windowless cells on the third sub-basement level at the Florence SuperMax, where Trump lives out his days in obscurity, forgotten by everyone, and ever-older LOSER. Is there a more fitting punishment for someone like hm? A small death penalty,paid every day.
Heather Cox Richardson - I begin to fear that your linking all this together and putting proper names where blame belongs may not bode well. Please watch yourself and be careful. Your work is greatly appreciated, and most importantly, IT IS NEEDED. Thank you.
So many of your letters are keepers for how they connect the threads into an illustrative tapestry, but this one goes into my top five. Trumps daily disinformation and outrage machine tries to thwart the truth from standing up. Thank you for what you do to make sure it gets out there.
I appreciate this work for the history books-- I remember Rachel Maddow night after night with this Russian/Ukranian names painting the picture. However this report matters not a whit with regard to today. The "base" - meaning the tRump supporters whose signs I saw all over rural Maine this weekend, could care less, and most all the Senators who have supported him will never pay the price. I am wishing and hoping we Dems can take the 5 seats back we need to begin to undo the damage that's been done to our democracy in 4 yrs time...sigh
Wow! Just all that comes to mind. I really had no idea! My daughter’s boyfriend in NYC, his family is just cops, firemen, more cops. He said everyone in NYC knows how crooked dumpty is. But this was so much more than I imagined! Thank you for this run down! Just, WOW!
I think you’ve misunderstood. They are not surprised at all and have been informing me for I think about four years now. But that information pales by comparison to this information. I actually find your statement on the insulting side. Why do you think I’m here reading this daily if I’m not being more informed? You don’t know diddly about me, my activism, my preparedness. Or my enlightenment. Being rude doesn’t help your cause.
Denise, I groked your initial comment. Most in NYC know the Trump Family headed by Fred were all bent. The cops and firemen know from their perspective, all too well. I spent 30 years in the NYC Banks,. Trump couldn't get financing from any of us.
I agree Denise. I have often gotten annoyed at ppl who think they know you from a simple online post THAT THEY MISINTERPRETED. I have been attacked as racist (I have an interracial family) by ppl because of posts on FB. I once quoted my Mississippi grandmother when I learned, as a teen in the 1950s of a racial murder in the family hometown, and she said “We don’t talk much about that here.” Someone chastised me for being so ill-informed and accepting of the murder.
Hi folks--Heather, I've been watching and reading the news stories about Manafort off and on but finally feel that all the dots are connected by today's Letter. Thank you.
And I have a recommendation for everyone rightfully concerned about the sanctity of their votes. Insist on a paper ballot by every. means possible and take a picture of it after you vote to prove what you did. (I really wish someone would put together a website to collect this data.)
Kamala Harris, when asked what tipped the scales into protest over the murder of George Floyd said: "Smart phones."
Lenin and his "friends" for instance....aided, abetted and funded by Kaiser Wilhelm at the time to reduce Russia to Chaos and facilitate the destructive work of his German army attacking his country. Sounds like Putin's Russia today and Trump.
I'm lucky. I get HCR's missive between 9 and 10 in the morning after a good night's sleep. I didn't answer much yesterday as i was on the road from Provence to Paris..only 7 hours which isn't much in North American terms....and our elections are not before 2022...when currently we'll have a choice between a bunch of mediocrities that nobody really wants.
Good to know, Joan. As we all know, this type of change can seem so slow. But I live in Vermont where we were the first to pass civil unions in 2000. The push-back at the time was fierce. Just four years later, Massachusetts legalized gay marriage. Now 37 states allow gay marriage. In terms of cultural change, that's fast. I am hopeful that the BLM protests are the true tipping point in a widespread change in cultural racism.
So letting the pandemic get so bad allows for tRump to flourish since it doesn't allow for a number of people, such as myself, to get out to the non-violent protest.
Joan in her comment up above cites statistics about the number of people who have participated in the BLM protests--so far. And it is well over the 3.5 percent of the population.
In the BBC article, every active protester represents many more folks who support their position. Remember, you can write letters. You can read and education yourself and others. You can actively participate in modeling non-racist behavior. I haven't attended any of the protests for the same reason you have not. But I am actively supporting them in other ways.
We all have something to contribute Paula. I know that you do. You're here, right?
I've been iPhone-photographing my completed mail-in ballots for years. I don't know how that would be used if an election were contested, but I do and I shall continue.
Wouldn't we all love to see the unredacted section related to the hacking of election systems? Doubt we ever will. Volume 5 graphically illustrates what's happened to America. In any pre-Trump era, the nation would be outraged at the betrayal (dare I say treason?). Now, during a pandemic and economic calamity and Trump distractions, it's just noise.
Spectacular example of what we’ve come to expect (with fear and trembling) from HCR. I am most fearful, however, of what was only implied in her noting what was entirely redacted: voting machine manipulation. Social media may possibly change a vote; hacking the counter on a machine most reliably will. A dozen You-Tube demonstrations reveal this as child’s play. No wonder they have redacted it. 🤬
So then how much safer is my absentee ballot? I do love that I can track my vote, here in California at least. I'm hoping that this method is safer because there is a paper trail in the event of a recount, a la Florida back in the day.
We live in Oregon and have voted by mail for years. For the first time, we will be carrying our ballots in. As an aside, we are in a wind and fire disaster as many communities east of us in Salem are evacuating and another couple on level two alert. Smoke fills the valley. It's a mess.
The enemy already knows, this is a report on what they did. The redactions might be to protect sources, or they might be to prevent the American people from knowing what is going on.
For some unknown reason, I slept through the night last night, a rare occurrence since the Russians interferes successfully in the 2016 election. Today’s Letter - always my first read - has my heart pounding. How can any Republican member of the Senate, or the staff who read the one million pieces of evidence in the fifth volume not speak out? Or still live with themselves? It baffles me.
Maybe it was their plan all along! But my question is why was it in the report? Why didn’t they try to suppress it? This is baffling! It’s like going to your own hanging and playing the drums as you walk towards the gallows. Eerie.
It's a willful choice they make to remain ignorant... this is what concerns me. A vibrant democracy depends on an educated electorate. We've slid along for a few centuries and the men in power have most often found their way to acceptable norms. We have now seen the underbelly of a society where ignorance is not bliss.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” -Isaac Asimov
Not much different here in France. Becoming educated about life as opposed to being able to succeed in the job market makes you a responsible human being; being responsible means that you have to grow up. Staying adolescent is much more comfortable; it means you can grumble and moan but not be afraid that your parents will really abandon you. You can get on with your life without thinking of the other, without consideration for the other and without a thought about questions other than the bread and butter on the table for your breakfast ....and not necessarily on evryobody's. Just look at the growing absenteeism in elections and in the public service for a clear illustration of the irresponsibility at work.
The French never got over the death of Louis XIV and have been looking for a replacement ever since; they liked the system he put in place it would seem. But they are constantly surprised that the more intelligent members of society and it's potential future "De Gaules" don't want to get into politics to sort things out.......they move to London or New York to make money! They don't want to take the risk of being pulled apart by the constant waring tribes whose incessant babble in DEBATE replaces any need to act. And if that doesn't get them the judiciarized political system policing the horrendously complex and Kafkaesque legal and regulatory jungle that has been created in lieu of a true national vision most assuredly will! That way nobody has to grow up.
I know some of this might sound almost like a "Trumpian" arguement but beware of extremes on both sides. Europe has gone too far and well beyond where AOC etc are trying to take the Democratic party. There has to be a middle ground in which fully responsible citizens strive for excellence in themselves and in their community, where the weaker elements are helped and not left behind, but are encouraged also to help themselves, where opportunity is equal for all and success is justly rewarded.
Wow Stuart, that is one long train of thot. Two dichotomies you mention seemed to apply to my life.
“Becoming educated about life as opposed to being able to succeed in the job market makes you a responsible human being;” I’m a high school graduate that has made it thru life working for a living at a disparate number of jobs that educated me about life.
“Being responsible means that you have to grow up. Staying adolescent is much more comfortable;” I have been fairly responsible, always made my own way and supported others as well, but there is a tattoo on my butt (I’ll spare you the pic) that has a big 1944 with a scripted circle around it that says “Growing Old is Mandatory – Growing Up is Optional.”
Oh, I have also been known to post a pic of a Guillotine with the caption “The French Solution to Unbridled Greed.”
LOL.. what they think or don't think is the problem-- where is their research to confirm their "belief". I might believe that grass is red but that doesn't make it so... It's what I call willful ignorance. Using a book that created 2000+ years ago with no fact checking behind the statements in the book is just the beginning.
This is a masterful report and should be the lead story on every news outlet in America today. Our democracy has become one nation under lies, with liberty and justice for the bullied and bribed. We knew the president was a snake but treason trumps loyalty vows and NDAs.
The real mind-boggling, surreal fact here is that those Republican Senators on the Intelligence Committee knew all this back on February 5, and they still voted to acquit Trump.
Amazing. Trump said he could shoot someone on 5th avenue.... even repub congress does not care
My thoughts exactly. Who else had/has their hands in this cookie jar???
You could say that blood is thicker than water... or Party is thicker than Patriotism...
It would be interesting to count how many of the Republican Senators have ties to Russian oligarchs. McConnell is number one and has sold Kentucky to the Russians. I thought many it was DT who had the goods on the Senators but this is making me think it is the Russians that are pulling their strings.
If you look at who is funding directly and indirectly you the GOP caucus at federal and often state level you will find that the "Koch political network" of American Billionaires is controlling election and re-election campaigns partly by giving money to campaigns but mostly by money laundered through NGO filters. They are no doubt in cahoots with their Russian and other similar forces in Russia and elsewhere. The GOP is just one of the tools at their disposal to deprive the people of any say in their affairs. The GOP no longer exists as an independant party. Try reading Nancy Maclean's book "Democracy in Chains"!
I wonder who is more dangerous- the Koch network or the Russians
In my view, at this time it is America's own Koch political network which is the most dangerous. They are not more intelligent , just more determined and richer.
I recently started reading Nancy McLean’s take on James McGill Buchanan and John Calhoun. That’s some crazy stuff
Indeed! When you've finished that you can get into the "hows and wherefores" wih Jane Mayer's "Dark Money" . That will scare your pants off...if you're still wearing any!
Yeah. They are pretty dangerous. I hope they aren’t working with the Russians
Exactly
The tie between the fifth and second volumes of the report, is the way in which the internal Republican polling (potential voter) data given by Paul Manafort to Russian military intelligence office Konstantin Kilimnik would be used by the Russians to micro-target their pro-Trump social media campaign. My brother, who has been running social media as a business for a very long time, wrote a post elsewhere explaining how it works, which I reproduce here with permission:
IT'S COLLUSION
The Senate Intelligence Report states that the Trump Campaign shared polling data with Russian Intelligence Officers. Via Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort who is also described as a grave counter intelligence threat. Some Republicans read this and say there was no collusion. Democrats are saying this is collusion. Some say, it depends on what they did with the information, was it of value.? As a veteran social media expert, allow me to explain why this information was of extraordinary value and magnified by many times the power and impact of Russian disinformation interference in the election with the objective to elect Trump. So valuable that it easily could have made and likely did make the difference in getting Trump elected.
1) Micro-targeted dark ad posts is the killer app of politics
A key success factor in the Russian interference was using Facebook to micro-target voters with dark ad posts, spreading and amplifying the disinformation. The only people that see dark ad posts are those they are targeted to, thus enabling a campaign to say different things (lies) to different people without being caught in the public eye. For example advertising to specific Black people in rust belt states that Clinton was anti-Black people as evidenced by her decades prior predators comment. Then advertising to specific white people in those same states that Clinton was easy on crime, as evidenced by her liberal crime policies that would let dangerous Black criminals off easy. As people repeatedly get targeted with variations of such posts they start to believe them. They get directed to Facebook pages and web sites full of false information to make them think it more. These people in turn start spreading the word to other people. At the core it's not that different from disinformation robo calls, and other deceitful political tactics - Except 1,000s of times more powerful due to social media's unparalleled ability to target, do so in the dark, and have viral-tribal effects.
2) Success is a function of narrow targeting
Such dark post advertising is only this effective if it's micro-targeted to very specific sets of people, to ensure the disinformation is chosen to hit the nerves of those very narrow profiles. Facebook has advertising tools that enable campaigns and brands to do just that. Micro-target on a very narrow basis that can be tuned continuously, measuring the results in terms of engagement, shares, comments, click throughs to destinations, and even what happens at those destinations.
3) You have to know who you want to target
For all this to work, you have to know who you want to target. Once you have that information it's easy. Simplest approach is to just type in the various criteria, including, age, gender, race, political views, interests, and a host of other criteria. Then run your dark ad posts, see the results and tune. More sophisticated is to load your database into Facebook and say who you want to target. Facebook's algorithms take that list, match it to their user database and target your ads to the exact people in your list. For privacy reasons they do this without letting you know exactly which people's Facebook IDs match your list . But the net is your dark ad posts are going directly to the people in your list. Due to the election swing impact of the Russian disinformation campaign in 2016, and a lot of public pressure, Facebook has since constrained some aspects of the this micro-targeting. But in 2016 the full power was available, and it only makes sense that Russian Intelligence agents made full use of it for their and Trump's benefit.
4) The Trump Campaign gave Russian Intelligence the polling data that enabled them to know who to target. This empowered Russian Intelligence to use that information in conjunction Facebook features to deploy their disinformation, and swing the election.
And that, in the social media age is how we spell COLLUSION!
(Our founders called this consorting with a foreign power to secure office, which they considered a big time Constitutional no-no)
Thanks to your brother for enlightening us on the process for spreading disinformation using social media. It boils down to what so many of us "older" people have been saying for years: just because it is on FB doesn't make it true. If you can't check a fact, it probably isn't one (use the extensive research done by Professor Richardson as an example of checking facts). However, saying that doesn't mean targeted people are suddenly going to start checking everything they read or hear. It is a mindset, and if you are a fact-checker, it is extremely frustrating to be unable to get people who aren't to listen to those facts. Thank him for me, please, and tell him I appreciate his work. And thank you for posting it!
My brother has given permission to say not only his name, but a bit about him.
Peter Friedman is founder, Chairman and CEO of LiveWorld, a social-media digital agency and software company that manages social media for some of the larger brands in the world. Peter has over 30 years of experience in the space and is considered a pioneer in social media. He is the author of “The CMO’s Social Media Handbook, A Step By Step Guide To Marketing In The Social Media Age” and “Is Privacy Dead In The Digital Age! And What To Do About It?”
He also wants to point out that social media does a great deal more good in the world than bad. Connecting people and helping them understand each other. Uniting and keeping families closer. Education, awareness, enabling positive movements. Empowering people to provide disaster relief and emotional support. Giving cancer patients and many other a channel for emotional support and medical care. Literally saving lives and so much more. The bad is only a fraction of the good. Nevertheless the bad must be addressed.
Your brother Peter sounds like such a good guy! He doesn't want to subscribe and join this discourse?
Peter says: Thank you. I find it very interesting but I’m full up.
Deep appreciation for posting this and for your brothers sharing also
Watch "The Great Hack" about precision targeting undecided voters is swing precincts. This is how it was done in the 2016 election, along with voting machine tampering. Absentee balloting will alleviate the tampering, but the targeting will continue unabated.
Can I provide this post to my network without identifying anyone? Or is it posted somewhere public?
yes
thanks!
Yes, you can. It's on FB but that is not a stable URL.
Thanks Joan. I always appreciate information over opinions, and your sharing of this has helped to make clear how this works for those who don’t understand how social media can be deployed effectively on a minuscule budget. Before social media, it required the deployment of State run intelligence agencies (a sometimes risky act), at great expense and dubious results.
In the case of Donald Trump's campaign in 2016, the Senate report confirms that a state run intelligence agency (Russian) was deployed.
Sometimes it takes a historian to do what journalists often fail to do — draw from the past to illuminate the present, and draw from a lot of different sources to pull together a more complete picture. Journalists are driven to move on to the next story and to dig out a new, previously unreported piece of that picture. I am thankful we have journalists and historians who are good at both.
So Trump campaign colluded with Russian government, according to our own senate’s investigation. Those Senators who know this and don’t act are Russian assets in my opinion
If not actual...very easy future targets
What I meant here is that even if you aren’t a Russian spy per se (I hope that our politicians aren’t actually working for the Russians directly), by turning a blind eye you become an asset (Putin can count of McConnell to try and stomp over any rule change to protect elections, for example). In practice, it’s just as bad
Deripaska opened up factories in Kentucky to help McConnell. That's more egregious than a blind eye.
The words that have been used euphamistically to describe this historically are "fellow travellor" : a mole, actual or potential....or future blackmail "victim" or just a bunch of naive, stupid people who think that they are somehow controlling their financiers rather than the other way round.
I have a feeling that dirt on this administration's mob-like dealings will be pouring out for years after they've gotten the boot. My sincere hope is that the players in these dealings face the full consequences of their actions.
Lifetime residences in 8 x 10 windowless cells on the third sub-basement level at the Florence SuperMax, where Trump lives out his days in obscurity, forgotten by everyone, and ever-older LOSER. Is there a more fitting punishment for someone like hm? A small death penalty,paid every day.
For a loser who cares more about ratings than anything, it would be perfect! Unknown obscurity!
Perfection, Thomas M. Cleaver. Perfection.
Not "mob-like", mob.
Putin & Trump works for the same guy.
That is, ‘if’ they get the boot. There are no guarantees that Biden will win or that trump will relinquish power if he does.
They won’t. Trump will go off on some beautiful island somewhere
He'd never get through the air traffic control and NORAD systems...but it's a short drive frm WH to the Russian Embassy!
Heather Cox Richardson - I begin to fear that your linking all this together and putting proper names where blame belongs may not bode well. Please watch yourself and be careful. Your work is greatly appreciated, and most importantly, IT IS NEEDED. Thank you.
Yes! No free tea please!!!!
So many of your letters are keepers for how they connect the threads into an illustrative tapestry, but this one goes into my top five. Trumps daily disinformation and outrage machine tries to thwart the truth from standing up. Thank you for what you do to make sure it gets out there.
"Trump's daily disinformation and outrage machine..." It is demonic!
I appreciate this work for the history books-- I remember Rachel Maddow night after night with this Russian/Ukranian names painting the picture. However this report matters not a whit with regard to today. The "base" - meaning the tRump supporters whose signs I saw all over rural Maine this weekend, could care less, and most all the Senators who have supported him will never pay the price. I am wishing and hoping we Dems can take the 5 seats back we need to begin to undo the damage that's been done to our democracy in 4 yrs time...sigh
Wow! Just all that comes to mind. I really had no idea! My daughter’s boyfriend in NYC, his family is just cops, firemen, more cops. He said everyone in NYC knows how crooked dumpty is. But this was so much more than I imagined! Thank you for this run down! Just, WOW!
It’s bizarre that you and the NY family are surprised that Putin is the Puppetier in Trumps regime. It that any of this is a surprise.
How I wish good people like you were more enlightened and prepared for what’s to come.
I think you’ve misunderstood. They are not surprised at all and have been informing me for I think about four years now. But that information pales by comparison to this information. I actually find your statement on the insulting side. Why do you think I’m here reading this daily if I’m not being more informed? You don’t know diddly about me, my activism, my preparedness. Or my enlightenment. Being rude doesn’t help your cause.
Denise, I groked your initial comment. Most in NYC know the Trump Family headed by Fred were all bent. The cops and firemen know from their perspective, all too well. I spent 30 years in the NYC Banks,. Trump couldn't get financing from any of us.
I agree Denise. I have often gotten annoyed at ppl who think they know you from a simple online post THAT THEY MISINTERPRETED. I have been attacked as racist (I have an interracial family) by ppl because of posts on FB. I once quoted my Mississippi grandmother when I learned, as a teen in the 1950s of a racial murder in the family hometown, and she said “We don’t talk much about that here.” Someone chastised me for being so ill-informed and accepting of the murder.
Hi folks--Heather, I've been watching and reading the news stories about Manafort off and on but finally feel that all the dots are connected by today's Letter. Thank you.
And I have a recommendation for everyone rightfully concerned about the sanctity of their votes. Insist on a paper ballot by every. means possible and take a picture of it after you vote to prove what you did. (I really wish someone would put together a website to collect this data.)
Kamala Harris, when asked what tipped the scales into protest over the murder of George Floyd said: "Smart phones."
We could no longer deny what we saw.
And I would like to recommend a research article I found on the BBC website about the efficacy of non-violent protest. It was a hope-filled eye-opener to me: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world#:~:text=Overall%2C%20nonviolent%20campaigns%20were%20twice,26%25%20for%20the%20violent%20protests
Margaret Mead — 'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.'
Lenin and his "friends" for instance....aided, abetted and funded by Kaiser Wilhelm at the time to reduce Russia to Chaos and facilitate the destructive work of his German army attacking his country. Sounds like Putin's Russia today and Trump.
Well that fits my dismal can’t-sleep-at-4-a.m mood!
I'm lucky. I get HCR's missive between 9 and 10 in the morning after a good night's sleep. I didn't answer much yesterday as i was on the road from Provence to Paris..only 7 hours which isn't much in North American terms....and our elections are not before 2022...when currently we'll have a choice between a bunch of mediocrities that nobody really wants.
That would be 11-12 million people in the US. Citing 3 sources, Wikipedia estimates between 15 and 26 million people participated in the protests after the murder of George Floyd in the months of June, July and August. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests#:~:text=Protests%20continued%20throughout%20June%2C%20July,largest%20in%20United%20States%20history.
Good to know, Joan. As we all know, this type of change can seem so slow. But I live in Vermont where we were the first to pass civil unions in 2000. The push-back at the time was fierce. Just four years later, Massachusetts legalized gay marriage. Now 37 states allow gay marriage. In terms of cultural change, that's fast. I am hopeful that the BLM protests are the true tipping point in a widespread change in cultural racism.
Thank you for suggesting smart phone foto of paper ballot. Also love Kamala quote.
So letting the pandemic get so bad allows for tRump to flourish since it doesn't allow for a number of people, such as myself, to get out to the non-violent protest.
Joan in her comment up above cites statistics about the number of people who have participated in the BLM protests--so far. And it is well over the 3.5 percent of the population.
In the BBC article, every active protester represents many more folks who support their position. Remember, you can write letters. You can read and education yourself and others. You can actively participate in modeling non-racist behavior. I haven't attended any of the protests for the same reason you have not. But I am actively supporting them in other ways.
We all have something to contribute Paula. I know that you do. You're here, right?
I've been iPhone-photographing my completed mail-in ballots for years. I don't know how that would be used if an election were contested, but I do and I shall continue.
Wouldn't we all love to see the unredacted section related to the hacking of election systems? Doubt we ever will. Volume 5 graphically illustrates what's happened to America. In any pre-Trump era, the nation would be outraged at the betrayal (dare I say treason?). Now, during a pandemic and economic calamity and Trump distractions, it's just noise.
Spectacular example of what we’ve come to expect (with fear and trembling) from HCR. I am most fearful, however, of what was only implied in her noting what was entirely redacted: voting machine manipulation. Social media may possibly change a vote; hacking the counter on a machine most reliably will. A dozen You-Tube demonstrations reveal this as child’s play. No wonder they have redacted it. 🤬
So then how much safer is my absentee ballot? I do love that I can track my vote, here in California at least. I'm hoping that this method is safer because there is a paper trail in the event of a recount, a la Florida back in the day.
We live in Oregon and have voted by mail for years. For the first time, we will be carrying our ballots in. As an aside, we are in a wind and fire disaster as many communities east of us in Salem are evacuating and another couple on level two alert. Smoke fills the valley. It's a mess.
Doesn’t Ivanka own a voting machine company?
Maybe the voting machine section was redacted as not provide any info on how they work for fear of hacks.
The enemy already knows, this is a report on what they did. The redactions might be to protect sources, or they might be to prevent the American people from knowing what is going on.
No political organizations for you? Doesn't that leave you powerless?
Is this a response to my other comment about SDS? Or does it relate somehow to this voting machine discussion?
Shelly Bird, can you elaborate on the issue in MI. (I live in MI). Thanks.
More on MI voting rolls -
https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2020/09/01/michigan-voter-data-published-on-russian-dark-web
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/09/01/russian-hackers-leak-personal-data-of-nearly-every-voter-in-michigan-plus-a-million-more-voters-in-four-other-states
"Alex Stamos, a cybersecurity expert and adjunct professor at Stanford’s Freeman-Spogli Institute, cautioned against freaking out over the news.
"Dark web forums, especially ones in Russian, are chock full of free and paid data dumps like this with no immediate use," he wrote on Twitter."
WHAT?!?!?!
For some unknown reason, I slept through the night last night, a rare occurrence since the Russians interferes successfully in the 2016 election. Today’s Letter - always my first read - has my heart pounding. How can any Republican member of the Senate, or the staff who read the one million pieces of evidence in the fifth volume not speak out? Or still live with themselves? It baffles me.
Maybe it was their plan all along! But my question is why was it in the report? Why didn’t they try to suppress it? This is baffling! It’s like going to your own hanging and playing the drums as you walk towards the gallows. Eerie.
It's a willful choice they make to remain ignorant... this is what concerns me. A vibrant democracy depends on an educated electorate. We've slid along for a few centuries and the men in power have most often found their way to acceptable norms. We have now seen the underbelly of a society where ignorance is not bliss.
"remain ignorant" or complicit? C'mon
6 one, half-dozen another. I think the pols are complicit, I think the masses are willfully ignorant.
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” -Isaac Asimov
Not much different here in France. Becoming educated about life as opposed to being able to succeed in the job market makes you a responsible human being; being responsible means that you have to grow up. Staying adolescent is much more comfortable; it means you can grumble and moan but not be afraid that your parents will really abandon you. You can get on with your life without thinking of the other, without consideration for the other and without a thought about questions other than the bread and butter on the table for your breakfast ....and not necessarily on evryobody's. Just look at the growing absenteeism in elections and in the public service for a clear illustration of the irresponsibility at work.
The French never got over the death of Louis XIV and have been looking for a replacement ever since; they liked the system he put in place it would seem. But they are constantly surprised that the more intelligent members of society and it's potential future "De Gaules" don't want to get into politics to sort things out.......they move to London or New York to make money! They don't want to take the risk of being pulled apart by the constant waring tribes whose incessant babble in DEBATE replaces any need to act. And if that doesn't get them the judiciarized political system policing the horrendously complex and Kafkaesque legal and regulatory jungle that has been created in lieu of a true national vision most assuredly will! That way nobody has to grow up.
I know some of this might sound almost like a "Trumpian" arguement but beware of extremes on both sides. Europe has gone too far and well beyond where AOC etc are trying to take the Democratic party. There has to be a middle ground in which fully responsible citizens strive for excellence in themselves and in their community, where the weaker elements are helped and not left behind, but are encouraged also to help themselves, where opportunity is equal for all and success is justly rewarded.
Wow Stuart, that is one long train of thot. Two dichotomies you mention seemed to apply to my life.
“Becoming educated about life as opposed to being able to succeed in the job market makes you a responsible human being;” I’m a high school graduate that has made it thru life working for a living at a disparate number of jobs that educated me about life.
“Being responsible means that you have to grow up. Staying adolescent is much more comfortable;” I have been fairly responsible, always made my own way and supported others as well, but there is a tattoo on my butt (I’ll spare you the pic) that has a big 1944 with a scripted circle around it that says “Growing Old is Mandatory – Growing Up is Optional.”
Oh, I have also been known to post a pic of a Guillotine with the caption “The French Solution to Unbridled Greed.”
They don't think they're ignorant! They believe in the "one true god" system for politics.
LOL.. what they think or don't think is the problem-- where is their research to confirm their "belief". I might believe that grass is red but that doesn't make it so... It's what I call willful ignorance. Using a book that created 2000+ years ago with no fact checking behind the statements in the book is just the beginning.
I think someone should make these reports into a graphic novel.
Great idea.
This is a masterful report and should be the lead story on every news outlet in America today. Our democracy has become one nation under lies, with liberty and justice for the bullied and bribed. We knew the president was a snake but treason trumps loyalty vows and NDAs.