Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Up is Down

As we all know -- at least those of us who can differentiate between our anuses and a hole in the ground -- agents of the Russian government, and specifically Russian military intelligence, conducted a massive operation to influence the 2016 election in favor of their preferred candidate, Donald J. Trump. Time Magazine summarizes:

Over the course of the election, a wide-ranging group of Russians probed state voter databases for insecurities; hacked the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee; tried to hack the campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio and the Republican National Committee; released politically damaging information on the internet; spread propaganda on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram; staged rallies in Florida and Pennsylvania; set up meetings with members of the Trump campaign and its associates; and floated a business proposition for a skyscraper in Moscow to the Trump Organization.
The goal, as determined by the U.S. intelligence community and backed up by evidence gathered by Special Counsel Robert Mueller: To damage the Clinton campaign, boost Trump’s chances and sow distrust in American democracy overall.

YouTube, in case you didn't know it, a service the Russians used to spread propaganda, is a subsidiary of Google. In addition to YouTube, the Russians subverted Google in other ways, including advertisements. Many people are concerned about this -- they don't want Russia to be deciding our elections -- although the beneficiary of this is not. He has said that he will welcome foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election and when asked just yesterday if he would speak to Vladimir Putin about election interference at the G20 summit said that it's none of our business what he says to Putin. That's right, it's none of your business -- you, a citizen, taxpayer and voter -- what your president says to a foreign dictator.

Since even some Republicans in congress have at least pretended to be concerned about Russian interference in the past, and Democrats are concerned today, Google executives are at least pretending that they don't want a repeat of the events of 2016. However, they aren't saying exactly what they intend to do about it, although a Google executive was recently found to have said that she didn't think Elizabeth Warren's proposal to break up the big tech companies was the right solution.

You can decide for yourself what, if anything, is nefarious in the above paragraph, but it has created a Breitbart/Fox News freakout. They want their sheepish followers to believe that the assertion that Google does not want to see the subversion of the 2016 election repeated proves that they have a partisan bias. I kid you not. That's how stupid they think you are. Maybe you are.


6 comments:

Dr Porkenheimer said...


An interesting discussion and an interesting theory. Here's Nate Silver's take on all of this.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-did-russian-interference-affect-the-2016-election/

Cervantes said...

Yes, Silver says that whether the Russian interference changed the election outcome is imponderable, because it happened continuously over along time. There's no way to extract a signal. But the Comey letter was followed by a sudden change in the polls, and was probably dispositive. How the Republicans and the corporate media managed to make the most important issue in the election a minor pseudo-scandal about e-mail management that nobody has cared about before or since is very mysterious.

Don Quixote said...

Yes, Hillary Clinton did nothing remarkable--the rapist-/carnival-barker-in-chief averred superlatives (You won't believe how big this story is!). In the meantime, a the rapist/tax fraud man/traitor/obstructor of justice remains at large.

As you wrote, Up is Down. 1984, we are here. With the mainstream media's willing participation.

A rapist/pathological liar and his probably-ex-hooker "wife" have been installed in the White House. Manchurian candidate. We have no "president."

I've been thinking about a great idea: make the executive a board, perhaps eight to twelve people. No more lunatics running things. We don't need no stinkin' "president."

And get rid of the electoral college.

Dr Porkenheimer said...


The consensus seems to be that Russians tried (as they always have), but had little to no influence on the outcome of the 2016 election. There are a few wack-0s that think Russia 'installed' a Manchurian candidate. It just isn't so.

Nate Silver seems to think it was overwhelmingly Hillary being a terrible candidate with lots of baggage that did it, despite the billion + spent.

I was heartened to see the candidates last night try to lay out their policy proposals instead of whining about Trump. That's how you win elections.

Cervantes said...

I don't know where you get the idea that's the consensus. Many people think it's obvious that Russian influence tipped the election, it only took a few thousand votes in the key states. The campaign was intense, deceived a lot of people, warped the discourse in the corporate media, and suppressed minority vote. People just don't want to face the reality.

Also, Putin obviously has Trump by his itty-bitty balls, regardless.

Don Quixote said...

Truth obliterates bullshit like bleach on bacteria. 1984 is here--now. Krugman makes this very clear in his column today (irrefutable logic), "The S Word, the F Word and the Election."

Will one--even one--Democratic candidate stand up and say, "Republicans are fascists" and show exactly why, as simply as Krugman does in his column? "Trump is a rapist."

When someone is obviously guilty as sin, no trial is needed. (Plus, when that person is indisputably a pathological liar and a psychopath.) I think a great campaign bumper sticker would be, "Trump/Cosby in 2016."

Tell the truth! Nothing kills lies like the truth.