Former President Donald J. Trump

[Goat Boy]

I think he's taken it upon himself to call balls and strikes on the media to ensure they follow the standards they all learned about in journalism school.

Well congrats.

That could well be the single, dumbest thing I've ever read on BCB.

[kath]

i do tend to sympathize with soldiers, and of course i sympathize with anyone who has lost a child.

that being said, may i just add at this juncture that john kelly is a fucquestick?

[Sneelock]

yes you may.

may I add at this juncture that he is a fucquestick among fucquesticks. seriously, when has there ever been an administration as reliably unpleasant to every-fuckin'-body else? Nixon Admin had ONE spiro. W had ONE Cheney. everybody in that damned TRUMP administration is ready willing and able to jump down ANY bodies throat that has the nerve to do their fucking jobs.

Kelly lies about that woman and Huckabee-Sanders acts like any reporter that ASKS about this is a traitor to the goddam country. the worst part of all this is all the fucequesticks who will STILL believe that lady said something she didn't say and did something she didn't do as long as they know who she is. This is the nastiest group of people I've EVER seen in public life.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

And Davey, I buy Parry's side of the argument because he puts it into perspective. Yes, he does, as I acknowledged, admit there was some there there but then he diminishes it because it's small potatoes.

No. He doesn’t put it into perspective. He puts it into false perspective.

Let’s consider again the tactic of comparing the number of Russian social media propaganda accounts to the total number of accounts on the same platform.

Again...that one specific Twitter account we know about had more than 130,000 followers. We also know there were more than 200 similar accounts on that one platform alone. If they were all roughly the same size, that would represent a reach of 26 million followers - which doesn’t even account for the exponential reach of retweets by followers.

That’s just the potential that those 200 Twitter accounts could potentially represent (though admittedly, we don’t know the size of all of the accounts...but then again, some could even be larger).

I’m not even sure how to measure the potential reach of 470 professionally run Facebook pages - but it’s reasonable to assume that it might be a lot larger.

The point of this isn’t for me to claim to know exactly how much influence these profiles wielded, but rather to show how facile Parry’s dismissal of these accounts is.

And let’s be clear. I’m not a journalist and Parry supposedly is. He has a responsibility to be honest about what those accounts might be capable of. But he’s choosing to be manipulative - and you’re choosing to accept those manipulations.

[Jimbo]

Wondering how it is that they're taking down Twitter and FB sites supposedly linked to Russia but RT is still streaming on Google-owned, red, what and blue YouTube?

Take down RT NOW!

Pass it on.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

RT is labeled as RT.

But it speaks volumes that you attempted to change the subject.

[Jimbo]

Davey, I wonder how they know these anti-Hillary Twitter sites are made in Russia and more specifically sanctioned by the Russian government. If you could tell me how I'd appreciate it because upon rereading Parry he doesn't reference the 1000s of Twitter accounts - but I have seen it referenced somewhere.

So I just Googled "Russian Twitter accounts" and there were your NYT and WP stories which I - considering my sources - passed up until I came to an Oct. 6 Think Progress article titled "These are the Facebook posts Russia used to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign." The Think Progress article only said they were "Russian" but didn't say how they knew. Whatever, maybe in previous articles they got into the internet minutia….

Wait a minute. You are asking me specifically about Twitter. I keep coming up with Facebook bullshit. Muslims for Hillary! Send me to where you got those frightening, mind/vote changing Twitter tweets.

W-w-w-ait .. This shocking bit is from Wapo about Facebook

The Washington Post reported this week that some of the 3,000 Facebook ads bought by Russian operatives promoted African American rights groups, including Black Lives Matter. Those ads were targeted at users in specific locations such as Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, two cities that have faced violent protests over police shootings of black men. Ads aimed at voters in other regions, meanwhile, suggested that the same groups posed a rising political threat.

How dare Russia support African American rights. They're our African Americans, not Putins!

Further, while Parry may not pass your smell test when it comes to forthrightness about how pervasive and persuasive the Russian internet Blitzkrieg was/is there are a number of included factoids that don't seem to bother you. One of which was:

After all, your “non-governmental organization” or your scholarly “think tank” is not likely to get a piece of the $160 million that the U.S. government authorized last December to counter primarily Russian “propaganda and disinformation”

I'm a follow the money kind of skeptic and I'll sell my mother down the river for 160 mil. I'd sell out Russia for $500.

Oh, I searched CN site and in a separate article Parry does more specifically address the Russian Twitter matter. I like this bit.

On Thursday, The Washington Post ran its own banner-headlined story drawn from the same loose accusations made by that neocon-led Alliance for Securing Democracy, but instead the Post sourced the claims to Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma. The headline read: “Russian trolls are stoking NFL controversy, senator says.”

The “evidence” cited by Lankford’s office was one “Twitter account calling itself Boston Antifa that gives its geolocation as Vladivostok, Russia,” the Post reported.

By Thursday, Twitter had suspended the Boston Antifa account, so I couldn’t send it a question, but earlier this month, Dan Glaun, a reporter for Masslive.com, reported that the people behind Boston Antifa were “a pair of anti-leftist pranksters from Oregon who started Boston Antifa as a parody of actual anti-fascist groups.”

In an email to me on Thursday, Glaun cited an interview that the Boston Antifa pranksters had done with right-wing radio talk show host Gavin McInnes last April.

And, by the way, there are apps that let you manipulate your geolocation data on Twitter. Or, you can choose to believe that the highly professional Russian intelligence agencies didn’t notice that they were telegraphing their location as Vladivostok.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/28/t ... ssia-gate/

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Jimbo,

I will happily point out the obvious manipulations in any given Robert Parry article (thus far every single one you’ve posted has been rife with them). But you need to slow down and deal with the last steaming pile of shit before serving up a new one.

[Diamond Dog]

I think he's taken it upon himself to call balls and strikes on the media to ensure they follow the standards they all learned about in journalism school.

Well congrats.

That could well be the single, dumbest thing I've ever read on BCB.

Rarely am I lost for words (you may have noticed) but I read that particular Jimbo comment and was dumbstruck.

[Tactful Cactus]

Trumps saying he won't veto the release of the final JFK classified files. That is interesting.

[toomanyhatz]

Jimbo,

I will happily point out the obvious manipulations in any given Robert Parry article (thus far every single one you’ve posted has been rife with them). But you need to slow down and deal with the last steaming pile of shit before serving up a new one.

[Jimbo]

Russian Internet trolls are trying to stir up even more controversy over National Football League players crouching on one knee (“taking a “knee”) during the national anthem, said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), warning that the United States should expect such divisive efforts to escalate in the next election.

“We watched even this weekend,” Lankford said, “the Russians and their troll farms, and their Internet folks, start hash-tagging out ‘take a knee’ and also hash-tagging out ‘Boycott NFL’.” The Russians’ goal, he said, was “to try to raise the noise level in America to try to make a big issue, an even bigger issue as they’re trying to just push divisiveness in the country. We’ve continued to be able to see that. We will see that again in our election time.”

CNN on Oct. 12 claimed that Russia uses YouTube, Tumblr and the Pokemon Go mobile game “to exploit racial tensions and sow discord among Americans,”

Washington Post (Oct. 12) reported that “content generated by Russian operatives was not aimed only at influencing the election. Many of the posts and ads intended to divide Americans over hot-button issues such as immigration or race.”

The Post (Oct. 9) reported that the Russian trolling operation resides “in a large gray building north of the St. Petersburg city center … There, young people work 12-hour shifts and make between $800 and $1,000 a month, “an attractive wage for former students and young people. It is impossible to get inside the building, and there are multiple entrances, making it hard to tell who is a troll and who is not.”

“How much the trolls affected the outcome of the U.S. election is unclear,” the Post had to admit. “But their omnipresence is evident on Twitter and in the comments section of publications like the Washington Post, where trolls can be found criticizing news stories, lambasting other posters and accusing one another of being trolls.”

Post reported that Facebook “identified more than 3000 advertisements purchased in a Russian-orchestrated campaign to influence the American public’s views and exploit divisions around contentious issues.”

The Post told us that Facebook had pointed out that “most of the ads made no explicit reference in favor of Trump or Clinton,

The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency issued a report in June entitled “Russia: Military Power: Building a military to support great power aspirations.” Here’s an excerpt:

“Moscow seeks to promote a multi-polar world predicated on the principles of respect for state sovereignty and non-interference in other states’ internal affairs, the primacy of the United Nations, and a careful balance of power preventing one state or group of states from dominating the international order. To support these great power ambitions, Moscow has sought to build a robust military able to project power, add credibility to Russian diplomacy, and ensure that Russian interests can no longer be summarily dismissed without consequence. … Russia also has a deep and abiding distrust of U.S. efforts to promote democracy around the world and what it perceives as a U.S. campaign to impose a single set of global values.”

Are you starting to chuckle?

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/22/t ... an-trolls/

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Such stellar journalism.

[Jimbo]

:roll: Such stellar journalism.

That the writer's goal is to put a mania into perspective and to prevent world war 3, yes it is.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Yeah...they really keep drumming that WWIII talking point in. I’ll bet they’d be happy and amazed to know that at least one sucker buys it.

[Jimbo]

Yeah...they really keep drumming that WWIII talking point in. I’ll bet they’d be happy and amazed to know that at least one sucker buys it.

Not with neo-cons like you pissing in the punchbowl.

What do you think Parry and co's aim is?

[sloopjohnc]

I think he's taken it upon himself to call balls and strikes on the media to ensure they follow the standards they all learned about in journalism school.

Well congrats.

That could well be the single, dumbest thing I've ever read on BCB.

Rarely am I lost for words (you may have noticed) but I read that particular Jimbo comment and was dumbstruck.

I kinda agree on Jimbo in a small degree, but you'd have to watch American news media every day to see it. Rarely do they call President Trump, President Trump, like they called Obama, President Obama when referring to him. Both CNN and MSNBC just call him Trump, and I think it's disrespectful to the office, not the guy holding it.

I consider myself pretty progressive but am kinda sick of MSNBC and other obvious partisan left news media looking for anything to hang on the guy.

It's not like he helps himself, but neither does the media when not taking the high road. As his Republican contenders found out, its hard not getting in the dirt with him, but the media does tend to play into his hands too.

And I watch lots of cable news.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Yeah...they really keep drumming that WWIII talking point in. I’ll bet they’d be happy and amazed to know that at least one sucker buys it.

Not with neo-cons like you pissing in the punchbowl.

What do you think Parry and co's aim is?

I think they are stooges for Putin and RT.

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Well congrats.

That could well be the single, dumbest thing I've ever read on BCB.

Rarely am I lost for words (you may have noticed) but I read that particular Jimbo comment and was dumbstruck.

I kinda agree on Jimbo in a small degree, but you'd have to watch American news media every day to see it. Rarely do they call President Trump, President Trump, like they called Obama, President Obama when referring to him. Both CNN and MSNBC just call him Trump, and I think it's disrespectful to the office, not the guy holding it.

I consider myself pretty progressive but am kinda sick of MSNBC and other obvious partisan left news media looking for anything to hang on the guy.

It's not like he helps himself, but neither does the media when not taking the high road. As his Republican contenders found out, its hard not getting in the dirt with him, but the media does tend to play into his hands too.

And I watch lots of cable news.

I think they’ve taken far too much “high road.” Especially during the campaign, where they pretended that Clinton’s email questions counterbalanced dozens of Trump scandals they barely even covered.

Tell me Sloop - if Clinton had to settle out of court for bilking people via a fake college - would we have heard about it as little as we did throughout 2016?

Nobody in current American life has disrespected the office of the Presidency the way Trump has. He gets far more respect than he earns.

[kath]

i watch a lot of cable news, too. and i think i am fairly well-equipped to see the faults therein and admit them, especially during the campaign.

but i hafta admit. the one who is crapping on the dignity of the office is trump and his minions. i have zero problem not referring to trump as "president trump". i prefer to refer to him as "slime-suckin, soul-fucquin, piece-o-shit-lobed, evil ass-for-brains pigdog."

he is a failure in every single sense of the word, and that's not considering what *else* he can pull off to destroy this country. i dearly hope the press calls him out on it with a bullhorn every single day.