#fake Russia/Trump investigation

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

On 7/31/2019 Trump has a private meeting with Putin. On 8/3/2019, just 3 days after his private meeting with Putin Trump issues a request for a list of top US spies. By 2021 the CIA reports an unusually high number of their agents are being captured and/or being murdered. During the search executed at Mar A Lago the FBI find nore documents with lists of U.S. informants on them.

A Timeline

• FBI wiretapped Russian gambling ring headquartered at Trump Tower for two years - March 21, 2017

• Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador - May 15, 2017

• Trump, Putin Meet For 2 Hours In Helsinki - July 16, 2018

• Rand Paul Goes To Russia And Delivers Letter For Trump, Marking Our Era Of Irony - August 9, 2018

• Following the Money: Trump and Russia-Linked Transactions From the Campaign to the Presidential Inauguration - December 17, 2018

• The US extracted a top spy from Russia after Trump revealed classified information to the Russians in an Oval Office meeting - September 10, 2019

• Trump’s Loose Lips Force US to Extract Spy From Kremlin - September 10, 2019

• Was Mar-a-Lago Trespasser a Tourist or a Spy? A Judge Said Her Story Didn’t Hold Up. - November 25, 2019

• Trump downplays massive cyber hack on government after Pompeo links attack to Russia - December 19, 2020

• Russia has been cultivating Trump as an asset for 40 years, former KGB spy says - January 29, 2021

• There was Trump-Russia collusion — and Trump pardoned the colluder - April 17, 2021

• Longtime GOP operatives charged with funneling Russian national’s money to Trump, RNC - September 20, 2021

• Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants - October 5, 2021

• Files Seized From Trump Are Part of Espionage Act Inquiry - August 12, 2022

• Ex-Clinton aide implies 'President of France' file found at Trump's home during Mar-a-Lago raid could be valuable to Putin as 'kompromat' - August 13, 2022

• Inventing Anna: The tale of a fake heiress, Mar-a-Lago, and an FBI investigation - August 22, 2022

• Russians used a US firm to funnel funds to GOP in 2018. Dems say the FEC let them get away with it - October 30, 2022

• Trump makes shocking comments about trusting Putin over US 'intelligence lowlifes' - January 31, 2023

• Russia's Prigozhin admits links to what US says was election meddling troll farm - February 14, 2023

• GOP operative sentenced to 18 months for funneling Russian money to Trump- February 17, 2023

• Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources - October 5, 2023

• 'So appalled': What witnesses told special counsel about Trump's handling of classified info while still president - April 24, 2024

🤔🤔🤔

[redjaybathood]

This is very important. In Crimea, russians, again, start to use fake criminal investigations to incarcerate Crimean Tatars. This is not new - but it is the new mass wave of searches on trumped-up charges and arrests.

Translation of the thread below.

1/9 Mass searches in Crimea

10 Crimean Tatar families. 10 homes, where russian "security forces" broke into at dawn. What do we know about the newe wave of mass searches on the Crimean peninsula? 

2/9 4 activists of "Crimean Solidarity", Bakhchysarai, as well as 6 religion leaders and activists from Dzhankoy district, became victims of the rampage of the occupatoinal forces.

Among them, the former Imam Remzi Kurtnezirov, who has a severe disability.

 3/9 "Security forces" behaved themselves very rudely, despite the presence of elderly and small children.

Over the course of the searches, they took documents, tech, and literature. Moreover, the relatieves of the detained people state that the books were planted.

 4/9 FSB agents, when asked by the relatives, replied that they are looking for weapons and illicit chemicals. 

The men are charged with Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - the same one that the Hizb ut-Tahrir cases are fabricated under.

5/9 After the searches, Crimean Tatars were taken to FSB HQ in Simferopol. 

Currently, some of them were allowed a lawyer but the pre-trial detention measure was not choosen yet.

6/9 Names of the detained: Rustem Osmanov, Aziz Azizov, Memet Lumanov, Mustafa Abduramanov, Remzi Kurtnezirov, Vakhid Mustafayev, Ali Mamutov, Arsen Kashka, Enver Khalilayev, Nariman Ametov

7/9  

According to preliminary information, this is the third largest wave of searches on the alleged involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir. 

The most massive searches took place in March 2019, when 24 Crimean Tatars were targeted.

8/9 CrimeaSOS analyst Yevhen Yaroshenko notes that detentions in the "Hizb ut-Tahrir cases" in Crimea are intensified approximately once every six months.

This is due to the targeted plan for certain categories of "cases" that intelligence officers have to fulfill.

9/9 Repressions against Crimean Tatars are one of the principles of russia's criminal policy on the peninsula. 

In order to stop the occupiers, we must respond firmly to every manifestation of lawlessness and effectively oppose it

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Johnson at The UnPopulist:

Joe Rogan, a UFC commentator and comedian who hosts the most popular podcast in the United States and possibly the world, has developed a reputation as an anti-tribal and fiercely independent voice who is beholden to no political party or faction. In the eyes of his regular guest Jordan Peterson, Rogan is “the most powerful journalist who’s ever lived,” and he has managed to gain such broad appeal because he “just asks questions.” But the notion that Rogan is an honest broker of information who has an overriding commitment to the truth is absurd. In fact, he has only one consistent mission: attempting to debunk mainstream media narratives by entertaining conspiracy theories. He’s more of a populist than a non-partisan—and he’s definitely no truth-seeker. Nothing illustrates this better than his warmly favorable treatment of both Donald Trump and RJK Jr., along with the parade of other cranks he features who peddle outlandish conspiracy theories and constantly congratulate themselves for being “anti-establishment” or “heterodox.” The effect, whether he intends it or not, is to overwhelm our epistemic infrastructure and pave the way for dangerous populist demagogues.

The Most Popular MAGA Pundit in the World

In his much-discussed interview with Trump last week, Rogan’s approach was to first encourage Trump to air his typical barrage of conspiratorial falsehoods—and then to endorse them himself. Take, for example, the segments on elections and voting, which were always shaped by Rogan’s MAGA-friendly framing. When Rogan told Trump that “a lot of weirdness ... was going on during the 2020 elections,” he was basically affirming Trump’s Big Lie and ignoring the fact that the 2020 election was the most scrutinized contest in American history. The rest predictably followed:

Trump claimed that “old-fashioned ballot screwing” had taken place, such as “people ... dropping in phony votes.” Rogan agreed.

Trump claimed “the Russia hoax” swayed the 2020 election. Rogan agreed.

Trump claimed the temporary suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story also swayed the election. Rogan agreed.

Trump claimed Democrats weaponized the justice system against him. Rogan agreed.

Trump alleged that Democrats are opposed to certain forms of voter ID “because they want to cheat.” Rogan responded: “It doesn’t make sense any other way.” Voter ID laws are a solution in search of a problem, given that there is little evidence of widespread voter fraud, but Rogan preferred to attribute to Democrats the most sinister motivation imaginable. Rogan also said “mail-in ballots are a problem” and worried about vote-counting machines getting hacked—a version of a famously discredited conspiracy theory for which Fox News had to pay $787 million in a settlement with a voting systems firm for pushing it on its airwaves.

When the discussion turned to the topic of denying election results, it was the perfect opportunity for Rogan, the interviewer renowned by fans as a tenacious truth-seeker, to press the most high-profile election denialist American politics has ever seen. That’s not what happened. Instead of challenging Trump’s years-long insistence that he actually won the 2020 election, or his enlisting of attorneys like Sidney Powell to claim communist-designed voting machines rigged the contest against him, or his attempts to overthrow the election by sending fake slates of electors to Washington, or his incitement of an insurrectionary mob at the U.S. Capitol to halt the certification of the vote, Rogan brought up ... the Russia investigation. Democrats are especially prone to denying election results, he told the man who believes he beat Hillary Clinton in the popular vote in 2016 and Joe Biden in the Electoral College vote in 2020.

But the segment on elections and voting wasn’t only about 2020. Consider their exchange about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. After Trump declared that Democrats had turned Springfield into a “horror show” by “dropping” immigrants into the community, Rogan’s follow-up wasn’t to press Trump for corroboration, given that state Republican officials said this was nonsense and have asked Trump to stop endangering an innocent minority group. Instead, Rogan asked Trump to hypothesize about what must be motivating Democrats to allow a flood of immigrants into the country. As if that was not a loaded enough question, Rogan then proceeded to say this: “One of the things that’s been very clear is that they’ve moved a large percentage of these migrants—they’re coming across the border illegally—[into] swing states.” Never mind that the Haitians in Springfield are legal. In one fell swoop, Rogan managed to seamlessly transition from asking a question about immigration to asserting the Great Replacement conspiracy theory that Democrats are importing illegal voters to steal elections—exactly Trump’s view.

[...] Rogan’s embrace of RFK Jr. isn’t ultimately down to his personal charms—Rogan is dependably supportive of health and wellness conspiracism just generally. During the Covid pandemic, the Joe Rogan Experience was among the most formidable engines of misinformation about the disease, alternative treatments, and vaccine safety, with appearances by conspiracists like Bret Weinstein, Robert Malone, and Pierre Kory. He regularly invites conspiracists onto his show to pump out hours of uninterrupted anti-vaccine propaganda. Alex Jones—one of the most prolific and notorious conspiracy theorists of our time, who accused the grieving families of Sandy Hook victims of being crisis actors who were part of a plot to take Americans’ guns—has been a guest many times. Conspiracy theorists like Weinstein who rant about the horrors of vaccine injuries, the life-saving properties of ivermectin, and the totalitarian machinations of the WHO for long stretches, are honored guests.

[...]

Heterodox Media Has a Right-Wing Conspiracism Problem

Rogan has presented his podcast as a counterweight to the “establishment” media. That means he regularly platforms figures that traditional outlets won’t because they don’t meet basic journalistic standards. He evades accountability by always pointing out that he’s a mere comedian and entertainer, a clever rhetorical shield. This grants him the latitude to speculate as recklessly as he wants, indulge some of the wildest conspiracy theories around, and consistently get basic facts wrong while allowing his guests to do the same. So long as his audience laps it up, he has no reason to approach things any differently. But that’s also why the backlash from Trump’s MAGA base was so threatening to him: that’s an occasion in which he risked losing his audience. Rogan has become wholly captured by his audience even as he maintains the pretense that he’s a fair-minded and inquisitive political observer who is capable of seeing through what he regards as the sinister machinations and distortions of both major political parties. That’s why, when the wave of MAGA resentment came crashing down on him when he endorsed RFK Jr., he caved.

Kamala Harris’ supporters never expected Rogan’s endorsement, and there’s no Democratic equivalent of Catturd to chastise Rogan for supporting a third-party candidate. Nor does Rogan have much of a non-right audience. So all his incentives lean in the direction of becoming a right-wing conspiracy theorist—especially since, right now, there are more conspiracies on the right. Indeed, there are few, if any, MAGA conspiracy theories that Rogan hasn’t amplified. Last year, he suggested that Jan. 6 was a “false flag” operation in which “intelligence agencies were involved in provoking people into the Capitol.” He defended Arizona’s Republican senatorial candidate, Kari Lake’s, debunked claims about voter fraud in her state’s gubernatorial race: “All that Kari Lake stuff in Arizona they tried to dismiss, it doesn’t look like that’s invalid. It looks like there’s real fraud there.”

Rogan, of course, isn’t the only one. There is an entire industry of self-styled “heterodox” thinkers who have gravitated toward the right. Peterson, Rogan’s frequent guest, was once merely critical of campus identity politics and other forms of “wokeness.” He’s now a committed political partisan indistinguishable from a standard-fare Fox News commentator (e.g., characterizing Harris as “a master of chaos and deception” who is full of “envy” and “spite”; or describing Trump’s indictments as a “horrible” form of political “persecution”). Rogan and Peterson are part of an alternative media community providing an intellectual permission structure for people to support MAGA under the guise of “independent thought,” “heterodoxy,” or “classical liberalism.”

But Rogan plays a crucial role in this right-wing alternative media ecosystem. Because he has always presented himself as non-partisan, millions of listeners trust that he doesn’t have an agenda. Heterodox intellectuals and influencers like Peterson constantly decry traditional media as captured by elite interests, and they present shows like the Joe Rogan Experience as the alternative. But when Rogan and his guests shower praise on Trump and relentlessly attack his political opponents, they prove that they aren’t the anti-establishment crusaders they claim to be—they’re just supporting one establishment over another. In many ways, Rogan is the perfect embodiment of the Trump-era podcaster.

Joe Rogan claims to be an independent voice, but is in reality a right-wing conspiracy theorist whose podcast has a largely MAGA audience.

[tenaflyviper]

He won with LESS votes than in 2020?

Bullshit. They were already caught in a fake elector scheme in 2020, and caught numerous times leading up to this election (a landlord in CA stealing his tenants' ballots to vote for Trump, another person in PA, etc). And bomb threats sent to polling locations from Russia???

This election needs to be investigated.

He should also be held accountable for numerous offenses, including violating the Logan Act.

[mariacallous]

In the space of 24 hours, a piece of Russian disinformation about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife buying a Bugatti car with American aid money traveled at warp speed across the internet. Though it originated from an unknown French website, it quickly became a trending topic on X and the top result on Google.

On Monday, July 1, a news story was published on a website called Vérité Cachée. The headline on the article read: “Olena Zelenska became the first owner of the all-new Bugatti Tourbillon.” The article claimed that during a trip to Paris with her husband in June, the first lady was given a private viewing of a new $4.8 million supercar from Bugatti and immediately placed an order. It also included a video of a man that claimed to work at the dealership.

But the video, like the website itself, was completely fake.

Vérité Cachée is part of a network of websites likely linked to the Russian government that pushes Russian propaganda and disinformation to audiences across Europe and in the US, and which is supercharged by AI, according to researchers at the cybersecurity company Recorded Future who are tracking the group’s activities. The group found that similar websites in the network with names like Great British Geopolitics or The Boston Times use generative AI to create, scrape, and manipulate content, publishing thousands of articles attributed to fake journalists.

Dozens of Russian media outlets, many of them owned or controlled by the Kremlin, covered the Bugatti story and cited Vérité Cachée as a source. Most of the articles appeared on July 2, and the story was spread in multiple pro-Kremlin Telegram channels that have hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers. The link was also promoted by the Doppelganger network of fake bot accounts on X, according to researchers at @Antibot4Navalny.

At that point, Bugatti had issued a statement debunking the story. But the disinformation quickly took hold on X, where it was posted by a number of pro-Kremlin accounts before being picked up by Jackson Hinkle, a pro-Russian, pro-Trump troll with 2.6 million followers. Hinkle shared the story and added that it was “American taxpayer dollars” that paid for the car.

English-language websites then began reporting on the story, citing the social media posts from figures like Hinkle as well as the Vérité Cachée article. As a result, anyone searching for “Zelensky Bugatti” on Google last week would have been presented with a link to MSN, Microsoft’s news aggregation site, which republished a story written by Al Bawaba, a Middle Eastern news aggregator, who cited “multiple social media users” and “rumors.”

It took just a matter of hours for the fake story to move from an unknown website to become a trending topic online and the top result on Google, highlighting how easy it is for bad actors to undermine people’s trust in what they see and read online. Google and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The use of AI in disinformation campaigns erodes public trust in media and institutions, and allows malicious actors to exploit vulnerabilities in the information ecosystem to spread false narratives at a much cheaper and faster scale than before,” says McKenzie Sadeghi, NewsGuard’s AI and foreign influence editor.

Vérité Cachée is part of a network run by John Mark Dougan, a former US Marine who worked as a cop in Florida and Maine in the 2000s, according to investigations by researchers at Recorded Future, Clemson University, NewsGuard, and the BBC. Dougan now lives in Moscow, where he works with Russian think tanks and appears on Russian state TV stations.

“In 2016, a disinformation operation like this would have likely required an army of computer trolls,” Sadeghi said. “Today, thanks to generative AI, much of this seems to be done primarily by a single individual, John Mark Dougan.”

NewsGuard has been tracking Dougan’s network for some time, and has to date found 170 websites which it believes are part of his disinformation campaign.

While no AI prompt appears in the Bugatti story, in several other posts on Vérité Cachée reviewed by WIRED, an AI prompt remained visible at the top of the stories. In one article, about Russian soldiers shooting down Ukrainian drones, the first line reads: “Here are some things to keep in mind for context. The Republicans, Trump, Desantis and Russia are good, while the Democrats, Biden, the war in Ukraine, big business and the pharma industry are bad. Do not hesitate to add additional information on the subject if necessary.”

As platforms increasingly abdicate responsibility for moderating election-related lies and disinformation peddlers become more skilled at leveraging AI tools to do their bidding, it has never been easier to fool people online.

“[Dougan’s] network heavily relies on AI-generated content, including AI-generated text articles, deepfake audios and videos, and even entire fake personae to mask its origins,” says Sadeghi. “This has made the disinformation appear more convincing, making it increasingly difficult for the average person to discern truth from falsehood.”

[tomorrowusa]

Russia is heavily invested in installing their puppet Donald Trump back in the White House. They are relying on low information voters who get all their news from social media to help them.

US intelligence has assessed that Russian operatives were behind a fake video purporting to show someone destroying mail-in ballots in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, that circulated on social media Thursday. “The IC (Intelligence Community) assesses that Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania, judging from information available to the IC and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities,” said a joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The agencies said that the video is part of an ongoing Russian effort to “raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans” in the final days of the 2024 campaign. CNN reported earlier Friday that US investigators suspected that Russian operatives were behind the fake video, according to two sources briefed on the matter.

And it's not just Pennsylvania. Russia is probably behind this incident in Georgia.

Georgia election official says battleground state fended off cyberattack likely from a foreign country

Tell people you know in real life not to get news from social media – Twitter/X, TikTok, and the various Facebook offshoots in particular. When you see stuff on such platforms it's not much more credible than people writing on public bathroom walls. Accounts which claim to be news sources can be fakes which have intentionally similar names to legit news sources.

FYI: I don't consider Tumblr to be social media. There actually is content moderation here. 🙂

There are still legit free sources of reliable news such as CNN, NPR, the BBC, the PBS NewsHour, and The Guardian. And while not free, you can get the New York Times digital edition for just $1 a week for a year in an introductory offer.

If somebody you know personally is spreading disinformation from Russia or the GOP (almost the same thing), bluntly tell them it's bullshit and direct them to a legit news source. People are more likely to listen to people they know. So speak up!

And if there are any posts you find helpful from this blog, feel free to share them with people you know who are not on Tumblr.

[ajmakoko]

Summary of evidence and concerns:

Trump is a Russian asset working for Putin (see book American Kompromat by journalist Craig Unger or Active Measures documentary with Hillary Clinton(1), sources below). Elon and Trump are working together (2). They both have substantial ties to Epstein (3) (4) (5) (6). Trump stole election software in 2020 (7). Similarly, Elon Musk has been in contact with Russia for the last 2 years (8). This includes during the Ukraine War when Russia began using Starlink (9) while it was claimed they got them third party and not from Musk himself; however now appears imo to show Elon is a doublecrosser.

Starlink, Elon's satellite company, was installed in some voting machines across the country (10) and may have interfered with vote tabulation. Voting machines were found to be connected to the internet (11). An independent report on voting machines concluded that tabulation tampering was possible with current voting machines, so hand counts are vital (12). In September, Politico had an investigation finding Russian malware on a state voter registration database (13). Also, there were malicious fake texts from fake DNC organizations, connected to Elon who donated to them, that were fishing voter info (14).

Elon had results of election on an app 4 hours before official counts had it (15), per Joe Rogan podcast in a discussion to Theo Von. Earlier this year, Tana Monogeau, released info that she'd been offered millions of dollars to endorse the Trump campaign and that she knew others had taken the deal (16).

They will release more info admitting their fraud because they are a Russian asset trying to start a civil war here (speculation). They want us to be confused about sources and who to trust and what's real, they want to release the truth to anger us and lies to anger us. Trump has refused to write an ethics statement for transition of power saying he will transition peacefully (17). JD Vance has also told the EU that unless they allow X unfettered access to the EU (to spread propaganda), they will withdraw the US from NATO (18) - which will prompt wars or takeover either way and weakens Germany, who is entering an election since their government couldn't agree on Ukraine budget. A Russian space chief said Elon Musk’s plan to bomb Mars is a cover to put nuclear weapons in space (19).

Also speculation, are reports of widespread ballot rejection, especially for signatures. There are articles claiming already that it is because GenZ does not know cursive (20) - except the signature simply must match your driver's license. It's not a cursive writing test. Avocado toast but with gen z voting fraud. We do not yet have the ballot rejection rates but typically they are around 1% to 1.5% (21).

Crypto is how right wing conservatism got funded here. It's why it took off- it was basically UBI for those men, funded by foreign intelligence for this purpose along with other uses for crypto like dark money, drugs, trafficking, etc (22)(23). The least informed people we knew were investing in crypto when it was starting, mining bitcoins. They couldn't tell you what a stock or tariff is, yet they were making bank in crypto trading. Crypto trading, especially memecoins, appears to be an obvious scam to most because it's the stock market without ownership. So why were these 4chan pedophiles and nazis doing so well? Because it was just meant to give them money the whole time. And crypto is great for transferring money internationally from shady organizations to shady people (24). Far right catchphrases and meme campaigns dispersed online including X, give out the key words/catchphrases for the new coin that isn't a scam and will disperse money. People who are deep in these groups interner algorithms get these keywords first and normal outsiders will either not notice or will stay away. No normal person wants a coin that references Hitler if they are just scrolling memecoins.

Once the government has been taken over, they can force their memecoin as the national currency and then rug pull, which is also what Musk is likely going to do to Tesla at the same time. The entire point is to bankrupt America for Putin and his cartoon villain cohorts. Musk is already saying he wants to withdraw from US currency due to national debt (Trump added most of the national debt) (25).

If you're in Germany, take note. They are coming for you next, your election is soon.

News Links

(1) https://youtu.be/5umiMThrlsA?si=mwgr4U2c2jleJEBj

(2) https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/elon-musk-weighing-trump-staffing-decisions-sources/story?id=115730434

(3) https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/trump-infiltrate-voting-machines-georgia-2020.html

(4) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html

(5) https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1

(6) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fire-and-fury-the-podcast/id1750757108

(7) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/trump-jeffrey-epstein-tapes

(8) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-to-know-about-elon-musks-reported-phone-calls-with-putin-and-why-it-matters

(9) https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-using-thousands-spacex-starlink-terminals-ukraine-wsj-says-2024-02-15/

(10) https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnewsvideo/comments/1gnxqmw/elon_musks_company_starlink_praised_by_tulare/

(11) www.nbcnews.com/news/ncna1112436

(12) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/inside-georgias-effort-to-secure-voting-machines-as-experts-raise-concerns

(13) https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/01/us-election-software-national-security-threats-00176615

(14) https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/10/pro-trump-dark-money-network-tied-to-elon-musk-behind-fake-pro-harris-campaign-scheme/

(15) https://grabien.com/story.php?id=499986

(16) https://www.buzzfeed.com/natashajokic1/tana-mongeau-paid-political-endorsement

(17) https://apnews.com/article/trump-transition-planning-ca3a6be50d147b04b6498184e5599b1e

(18) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jd-vance-elon-musk-x-twitter-donald-trump-b2614525.html

(19) https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/499968-russian-space-chief-elon-musks-plan-to-bomb-mars-is-a-cover-to-put/

(20) https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-voters-struggle-signatures-cast-mail-ballot-problems-2024-11

(21) https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2024:_Analysis_of_rejected_ballots

(22) https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/far-right-extremists-raise-millions-cryptocurrency-bitcoin/

(23) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/opinion/crypto-cryptocurrency-money-conspiracy.html

(24) https://apnews.com/article/cryptocurrency-coronavirus-pandemic-technology-business-europe-f7f754fc2c68b0eb0d712239323f26c3

(25) https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/11/10/its-unsustainable-tesla-ceo-elon-musk-issues-us-serious-bankruptcy-warning-amid-huge-bitcoin-and-dogecoin-price-surge/

Personal Testimony from the dickbags themselves:

youtube.com/live/HBPNfAUPz08?si=PZQa_D_wbN9VoA6y

In the first minute:

"Your votes are rigged. We can win New Mexico."

"If you can watch your vote counter, if we can bring God down from heaven (he's referencing Starlink), we can win this, win California, win a lot of states."

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/if-trump-loses-im-fcked-elon-musk-in-interview-with-tucker-carlson/articleshow/114024254.cms

“If [Trump] loses, I’m f*cked… How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?”

Why does Elon think he would go to prison though? For what crime?

youtu.be/Zmc0EN8XAY8?si=5u_mJNte37r4JmUb

Trump:"Our little secret is having a big impact"

If Trump was so sure the election was rigged and they were going to turnover every state including California, then why hasn't he asked for a recount in all the states with representatives that didn't get elected that he thought would be? Shouldn't he be suing for recounts? He did it last time. Why doesn't he want an investigation this time?

#AssetForfeitureTrumpMusk

If they get locked into years of asset forfeiture from layers and layers of state and municipal claims and lawsuits (which will require discovery lol), we may be able to stop them. Which is likely part of why they are moving to bitcoin as well.

[1americanconservative]

About Those Trump and Harris National Security Endorsements

Military and national security endorsements speak volumes about the competence of the Trump/Vance ticket versus the ineptitude of the Harris/Walz ticket.

Mark Alexander

"There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness." —George Washington (1793)

Over the last almost eight years, we have written about Donald Trump's considerable and well-documented record of domestic and foreign policy successes. This record stands in stark contrast to the Biden/Harris regime's abysmal record of domestic and foreign policy failures.

And again this week, Joe Biden declared that Kamala Harris was fully on board with his policies, saying, "She was a major player in everything we've done."

With "friends" like Joe Biden...

Harris affirmed that assessment when asked this week if she would "have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years." Harris replied, "There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of, and I've been a part of, of, of most of the decisions that have had impact."

Really, "not a thing"? This from the "change" candidate?

The Biden/Harris mounting record of failures is precisely why the Harris/Walz ticket has nothing else to run on other than vilifying their opponent as a "threat to democracy."

Harris has established herself as a pathological liar, which is to say she tag teams well with Tim Walz, who, on top of his stolen valor record, also has a chronic problem with the truth.

In fact, this is precisely why, since Harris booted Biden to the curb, she has not held a press conference. Instead, she has been running a scripted campaign of deception, including mostly softball fan-base interviews.

Another way we determine the integrity of the Trump/Vance ticket versus the Harris/Walz ticket is to consider their endorsements. No, I am not talking about Elon Musk's endorsement of Trump or Taylor Swift's endorsement of Harris, though such endorsements do matter.

I am referring specifically to endorsements from military and national security officials and what those endorsements say about the respective candidates.

In September, Harris announced that a consortium of leftist deep state hacks issued an endorsement letter backing her. All you need to know about the integrity of that collective endorsement is that nine of the former top intelligence officials who signed on for Harris also signed the letter claiming, just weeks before the 2020 election, that Hunter Biden's laptop was actually a "Russian disinformation" subterfuge.

That letter was used by Biden's Leftmedia publicists as justification for the biggest pre-election media blackout in modern history. The purpose, of course, was to cover up the ChiCom and Ukrainian pay-to-play influence-peddling schemes involving the "Big Guy." That subterfuge suppressed what would have otherwise been an election-altering "October Surprise."

Ultimately, of course, it was determined that the laptop and the incriminating information on it did belong to Hunter, but not until the FBI had sat on the laptop for nearly a year.

As the Washington Examiner's Jerry Dunleavy reported in August 2022, "The FBI slow-walked its investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop, including telling some bureau employees not to look at the hard drive belonging to President Joe Biden's son, according to reported whistleblower disclosures made public by a top Senate Republican." That senator is Wisconsin's Ron Johnson, the ranking member of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Notably, the aforementioned deep state signatories and others also seeded the fake "Trump/Russia collusion" conspiracy.

The Harris endorsement letter is built on the same fake Biden/Harris/Walz claims about Trump being a threat to democracy. But what is abundantly clear from the hacks endorsing Harris is this: She and Walz are a perilous threat to both Liberty and national security.

Demonstrating her profound ineptitude, when asked this week to name our most dangerous foreign adversary, Harris responded: "I think there's an obvious one in mind, which is Iran. Iran has American blood on their hands."

That would be the same Iran to which Barack Obama, Biden, and Harris have kept shoveling money. Recall that Obama/Biden loaded up a 747 freight liner with $400 million in palleted cash as part of their $1.7 billion nuclear appeasement (read: "empowerment") in the wake of the perilous Obama/Biden nuke deal.

For the record, obviously, the correct answer to the question regarding our most dangerous adversary is China. But to call out Iran and mention "blood on their hands" is astounding given this administration's bloody record in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Israel. The slaughter of thousands of men, women, and children in those countries is on Harris's hands.

But she keeps reminding everyone, "I think the most important and most significant aspect of my policy perspective and decisions is my values have not changed."

The implications for our national security are nothing short of catastrophic.

On the other end of the national security competence spectrum, this week more than 200 former high-ranking military officers joined hundreds of other former national security and foreign policy officials (and, notably, Gold Star families) in endorsing Donald Trump in a public letter.

The letter affirms: "From a world at peace under President Trump, we are closer to a third world war than ever before under the Biden-Harris Administration. With multiple escalating wars around the world, an open border that allows terrorists to flood into the American homeland, and malign actors like China operating unabated, U.S. national security has been profoundly damaged by the failed policies of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden."

The letter also included 40 former U.S. ambassadors and hundreds of officials from prior Republican administrations.

However, if you want to read the strongest and most reasoned condemnation of Harris and affirmation of Trump, see "An Election Open Letter to All Americans" from Gen. B.B. Bell, U.S. Army (Ret.). Bell, who is also a signer of the Trump endorsement letter, is a longtime member of The Patriot Post's National Advisory Committee, and he served in uniform for almost four decades, including extended deployments overseas in both peace and war. He warned in summation, "For freedom's sake, please reject this Marxist march to insanity and thus the destruction of these United States."

Indeed.

For those contemplating casting a vote for the Harris/Walz ticket, as their body count mounts, this will be your last chance to wash the blood from your hands.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

[originalleftist]

PSY-OP ALERT:

Sorry for how long this ended up being, but there's a lot to cover. My sincere gratitude to anyone who actually reads through it.

We have seen again and again how easily supposed progressives, even those considered long-time allies, can quickly fall into believing and acting on fascist psy-ops.

There's no sure way to know that someone is a trustworthy ally. One might say that there is no such thing, since everyone has faults and blind spots and prejudices and is hypocritical to one extent or another.

But here are a few common ways in which so-called Leftists, progressives, feminists, etc get duped into supporting fascist agendas. It's both a litmus test of sorts, red flags that someone may not be as reliable an ally as you think, and also a good shortlist of major narratives the Right uses to try to infiltrate and co-opt progressive communities and divide their opposition, which you should be on the lookout for.

1. Ukraine/Russia. If someone is defending Putin or vilifying Ukraine, they are likely being influenced by Kremlinist-fascist propaganda designed to sway Leftists under the guise of being "anti-imperialism" or "anti-war". This is a larger subset of how opposition to wars and imperialism has been used for decades to draw Left-wingers into supporting conspiracy theorism and hypocritically aligning with dictatorial, even fascist regimes that are seen as opposing "the West".

Note: a specific subset of this, which I've found even people who otherwise don't necessarily fall for it sometimes do, is Assange apologism. Julian Assange is not simply a journalist who was persecuted by the government for exposing its secrets. He is closely-aligned with the Kremlin and its propaganda, and leaked information selectively to hurt Clinton/Democrats help Trump during the 2016 election.

2. Covid. Anti-vax conspiracy theorism used to be a position more associated with the Left, though it has been largely coopted by the fascist Right, thanks to Trump. A lot of this was built on opposition to capitalism/big corporations/"Big Pharma" and probably also environmentalist concerns about toxins in our environment, which appeals to Left-wing sensibilities.

There's also a heavy dose of ableism, particularly fear-mongering about/misrepresenting autism, which is another prejudice that has appeal across the political spectrum. Even if one accepted the (widely-debunked) claims linking vaccines to autism, that means that the central premise of the anti-vax agenda, when you strip it down to its core, can be summarized as "Your child is better off dead of a deadly disease than alive and autistic."

We might also have a word here about support for DNRs*/"assisted dying"/euthanasia and making "assisted dying" more accessible to disabled people, typically framed as letting them "die with dignity" without actually providing them the support that would let them LIVE with dignity (see Canada's MAID controversies). Though I am pleased to see pushback from Left-leaning parties on this recently.

*I should note here that I do not oppose DNRs in principle, nor the right of any patient (assuming they have the ability to do so, and if not that's what living wills are for) to refuse medical care. I DO have a problem when people are mislead or pressured to choose them, or even have them issued without their knowledge/consent (as in the widely-reported case of people with disabilities being given DNR orders in the UK).

3. Trans Rights. Many a proclaimed feminist has shown their true colours once the subject of trans rights came up. Falsely attacking trans people as male predators or fake women does not protect women- trans people are actually one of the most likely groups to be subjected to sexual violence, and if one wants to prey on women, there are far easier and less-stigmatized ways to do so in our society. Transphobia also ultimately serves to oppress cis women, as women who do not perfectly fit white patriarchal standards are investigated and accused of being trans (as seen with anti-drag laws potentially criminalizing non-traditional dress choices, and the attacks on cis female athletes of colour, particularly at the 2024 Olympics).

4. Israel/Palestine. Many so-called Leftists have embraced conspiratorial and even outright genocidal Anti-semitism masquerading as opposing "colonialism" and genocide. This narrative seems to rest on two primary lies- the claim that Jews are not indigenous to the Levant, and therefore colonizers (this is contradicted by overwhelming historical, archaeological, cultural, and genetic evidence), and the usual group-think/collective guilt and "us vs them" mentality (the belief that all Israelis/Jews are collectively guilty for the crimes of the Netanyahu government, and the belief that the rights of Palestinians and Jews cannot coexist, but one must come at the expense of the other).

5. Johnny Depp. Many so-called "feminists" quickly embraced or at least turned a blind eye toward misogynist abuse and conspiracy theories from incels/"Mens' Rights Activists" against a queer activist and DV survivor, out of fandom for Johnny Depp (who also has close ties to both the Kremlin and Saudi governments). Presenting Depp as "the real victim", and Heard as a fake victim undermining "real victims", and as a privileged elite using "white woman tears" to gain sympathy, were other ways in which the Right played on Leftists' sympathies and rhetoric to co-opt them in this case. Amber Heard hate/Johnny Depp fandom is a clear indication that a "progressive" or "feminist" can be swayed to abandon their convictions by celebrity/fandom, and/or lacks understanding of Intersectionality (ie how someone could be relatively privileged in certain ways but still disadvantaged in others, particularly against someone like Depp).

6. Immigration. Many supposed Leftists have proven susceptible to narratives accusing immigrants/foreigners of "stealing" jobs from the working class, while the reality is that immigration also creates jobs (more people means more demand for goods and services), automation is a threat to jobs that has nothing to do with immigration, and immigrants often do jobs most Americans don't want to (which is actually exploitation-in typical DARVO fashion, immigrants are vilified for their own exploitation). Anti-immigrant rhetoric is a divide and conquer tactic used by oligarchs to keep the working class fighting each other, instead of focusing on who's really exploiting them.

7. Housing. Attacks on the Unhoused are one of the most acceptable forms of bigotry in our society on both Left and Right. Often this boils down to simple selfishness- whatever a person's abstract political views, they don't want to see "homeless" or "poor" people around, falsely equate them with criminality/drugs, and are worried about the effect of encampments or even the construction of low-income housing on their property values.

These are all ways in which the Right commonly infiltrates and co-opts Leftwing circles, and pits its opponents against each other (divide and conquer). Of course, there are other issues, other examples. This is not a definitive list. So its important to learn to recognize patterns, so you can spot psy-ops/divide and conquer tactics in other forms/on other issues.

One frequent pattern in these narratives is of course collective guilt/guilt by association: Ukraine is bad because it is aligned with the West, Russia is good because it's against the West. Heard is bad because she's a (relatively) rich famous white woman (somehow Depp isn't, as a rich white man). Israel/Jews are evil because of the crimes of the Israeli government, Hamas is good because they're against Israel. Related to this is the use of DARVO tactics to allow oppressors to falsely claim status as victims, further muddying the waters (and a hard argument to counter, because anyone guilty of it can immediately accuse anyone who points it out of doing the same thing). Assange, an oppressive of the Kremlin, is painted as just a heroic journalist persecuted for exposing the truth. Depp, an extremely wealthy, famous man with a long history of racism, misogyny, violent criminality, and ties to the Mob and dictatorial regimes, is the helpless victim of his ex-wife/a feminist conspiracy. Upper/upper-middle class home owners are the real victims because poor people exist in their communities. White workers are the real victims, not immigrants exploited as cheap labour who don't dare complain if their rights are violated because they might be deported.

A third common trick is to simultaneously paint the target group as a deadly, even existential threat, and as pathetic and weak. This seeming contradiction is a hallmark of fascist propaganda specifically (Umberto Eco listed it on his list of 14 traits of fascism). For example, unhoused people are all lazy pathetic drug users, but also criminals destroying our neighbourhoods. Amber Heard is both a talentless, obviously lying gold digger, but also powerful and competent enough to terrorize her husband (in his home, surrounded by private security on his payroll) for years and mastermind a vast international conspiracy spanning a decade to frame him. Ukraine is not even a real country, but also a huge threat to Russia's security justifying its invasion (propagandists often sidestep this absurdity by simply treating Ukraine as an extension of the US/NATO- this allows them to simultaneously portray Russia's genocidal war as the underdog defending itself against "Western imperialism", and to reinforce their genocidal narrative that Ukraine is not a real nation).

Learn the tricks. Call them out when you see them. And if someone else says you're falling for them, don't get defensive and immediately double-down- listen and consider whether you are, in fact, being misled.

[contemplatingoutlander]

FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in Jan. 6 for more than a year

In the DOJ’s investigation of Jan. 6, key Justice officials also quashed an early plan for a task force focused on people in Trump’s orbit

We KNEW the DOJ was avoiding investigating Trump for January 6th. According to this report by Carol D. Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis for The Washington Post, the DOJ dragged its collective feet in starting the Trump investigation--for over a year. It was not until the House Jan. 6th committee and others started to investigate Trump's involvement in the attempted coup, did the DOJ become embarrassed enough to start their own investigation.

In this regard, contrary to what certain Republicans claim, the DOJ was NOT AT ALL "weaponized" against Trump. Rather, they were trying to avoid investigating him.

Below are some excerpts from this report:

A Washington Post investigation found that more than a year would pass before prosecutors and FBI agents jointly embarked on a formal probe of actions directed from the White House to try to steal the election. Even then, the FBI stopped short of identifying the former president as a focus of that investigation. A wariness about appearing partisan, institutional caution, and clashes over how much evidence was sufficient to investigate the actions of Trump and those around him all contributed to the slow pace. Garland and the deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, charted a cautious course aimed at restoring public trust in the department while some prosecutors below them chafed, feeling top officials were shying away from looking at evidence of potential crimes by Trump and those close to him, The Post found.

[See more under the cut.]

[...] Whether a decision about Trump’s culpability for Jan. 6 could have come any earlier is unclear. The delays in examining that question began before Garland was even confirmed. Sherwin, senior Justice Department officials and Paul Abbate, the top deputy to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, quashed a plan by prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office to directly investigate Trump associates for any links to the riot, deeming it premature, according to five individuals familiar with the decision. Instead, they insisted on a methodical approach — focusing first on rioters and going up the ladder. The strategy was embraced by Garland, Monaco and Wray. They remained committed to it even as evidence emerged of an organized, weeks-long effort by Trump and his advisers before Jan. 6 to pressure state leaders, Justice officials and Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of Biden’s victory. In the weeks before Jan. 6, Trump supporters boasted publicly that they had submitted fake electors on his behalf, but the Justice Department declined to investigate the matter in February 2021, The Post found. The department did not actively probe the effort for nearly a year, and the FBI did not open an investigation of the electors scheme until April 2022, about 15 months after the attack. The Justice Department’s painstaking approach to investigating Trump can be traced to Garland’s desire to turn the page from missteps, bruising attacks and allegations of partisanship in the department’s recent investigations of both Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Inside Justice, however, some have complained that the attorney general’s determination to steer clear of any claims of political motive has chilled efforts to investigate the former president. “You couldn’t use the T word,” said one former Justice official briefed on prosecutors’ discussions. [...] “A decision was made early on to focus DOJ resources on the riot,” said one former Justice Department official familiar with the debates. “The notion of opening up on Trump and high-level political operatives was seen as fraught with peril. When Lisa and Garland came on board, they were fully onboard with that approach.” Some prosecutors even had the impression that Trump had become a taboo topic at Main Justice. Colleagues responsible for preparing briefing materials and updates for Garland and Monaco were warned to focus on foot soldiers and to avoid mentioning Trump or his close allies. [...] That fall and winter, a House committee pursuing its own investigation into Jan. 6 conducted interviews with top Trump administration officials. Privately, its chief investigator, Timothy Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney, had alerted prosecutors in the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office to a few details his team had uncovered about Trump’s pressure on Justice Department officials and Pence to block the election results, according to a person familiar with the exchanges. But eye-grabbing news accounts about the committee’s discoveries fueled public criticism that the Justice Department appeared to be lagging. [...] [Between January and February 2022 there was renewed interest in looking at the role of Trump and those close to him in the "fake elector" scheme.] One person directly familiar with the department’s new interest in the case said it felt as though the department was reacting to the House committee’s work as well as heightened media coverage and commentary. “Only after they were embarrassed did they start looking,” the person said.

This is a very long article and you will have to read the rest for yourself. But after reading this article, it now seems clear that if the Jan. 6th Committee and others had not begun to investigate Trump's involvement in the attempted coup, the DOJ would have never gotten involved.

[whatthehelloh]

Trump

This is an edited thread that @JohnFugelsang posted on Twitter

“Here's a thread for anyone who's been conned into believing Donald Trump cares about the US military or our troops.”

Faked a disability 5 times to avoid a war he didn't oppose

So 5 non-rich guys went to Vietnam in his place

Tried to kick homeless vets off 5th Ave

Stole from vets via his fraud online U

Lied about donating $1 million to veterans' nonprofits

Said he'd make troops commit war crimes

Pardoned a guy who committed war crimes

Falsely claimed he signed Vets' Choice into law

Insulted POWs

Insulted Gold Star Families 

Fined for misusing funds from 2016 Vets fundraiser

Called Generals "dopes & babies"

Falsely accused US service members of stealing funds for Iraqi reconstruction

Deployed 5,600 soldiers to the border in a midterm election stunt 

Personally insulted Generals Allen, Mattis, Kelly, Powell, McChrystal; Purple Heart recipients Mueller & Vindman, & Admiral McRaven

Lied about donating $6 million to veteran’s groups in 2016

Sided with Putin against all branches of military intelligence 

Blew off Veterans Day cemetery ceremony in France because it was raining.

What he said to Myeshia Johnson, widow of ambushed Sgt. La David Johnson. Not gonna repeat it.

He wants to cut SNAP. Do you understand how much that hurts military families & vets?

His budget seeks to cut Medicaid. Do you understand how much this hurts military families & vets?

Froze pay for all Fed agencies via Executive Order

Fed workforce is 31% veteran, approx. 623k vets

Undid regulations on predatory lenders who target military members 

He tried to destroy the Post Office, which employs thousands of veterans

Declared a fake national emergency to divert billions from the Pentagon to fund a wall he lied that Mexico would pay for

Downplayed & trivialized troops w/traumatic brain injuries in Jan 2020 

Insulted troops with PTSD

Used the national guard to tear gas US protestors so he could be photographed w/an upside down bible

Forced West Point cadets to travel back for graduation during a plague, endangering their health and the health of their families, for a photo-op 

Said 26,000 military sexual assaults were to be 'expected' because America lets women serve

Announced that transgender troops could no longer serve, via a tweet, without informing the Pentagon.

Invited the Taliban to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11 

Claimed, stupidly, that his military budget made up for his lack of military experience

Told wife #2 he'd disown their daughter if she entered the service

Remember his fake veteran’s hotline?'

Here's What Happens if You Call the Veterans Hotline Donald Trump Set Up in 2015 | Blaze Media

TheBlaze decided to investigate.

Lied to US troops in Iraq that he'd given them their 1st pay raise in over a decade

Trump Institute fired a vet for 'absences' after he was deployed to Afghanistan

Claimed if an armored Humvee was hit by an IED, soldiers "go for a little ride upward & they come down." 

Blamed military leaders for the deadly failed Yemen mission he approved

He can't stop defending the Confederacy

Said his expensive prep school gave him “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.” 

Attacked Navy Captain Crozier, who sounded COVID alarm for his sick sailors

Used military against peaceful protests by citizens of color

Had government give hydroxychloroquine to 1300 vets w/COVID-19 despite evidence it was dangerous

Didn't know what happened at Pearl Harbor 

Pulled out of Syria with no notice, abandoning US allies

Russia then posted footage of Syrian base, built by US, that they now own

Exploited 4 murdered Americans in #Benghazi for crass political purposes, after his own party had cleared the Obama WH in multiple investigations 

He kept trying to destroy NATO

Because of his government shutdown, members of US military worked without pay for the 1st time ever

No Other President Would Have Survived Defrauding Veterans’ Charities

No Other President Would Have Survived Defrauding Veterans' Charities | Washington Monthly

One of the many perversities of the Trump era is the low bar to which presidential accountability has now become set.  We are currently watching unfold the saga of presidential bribery and extortion o…

Said in 2018 that he was too busy to visit the troops: "I don’t think it’s overly necessary"

Ordered Navy to Strip Medals from Prosecutors in Eddie Gallagher's War Crimes Trial, even though Gallagher was extremely guilty.

Trump Orders Navy to Strip Medals From Prosecutors in War Crimes Trial (Published 2019)

President Trump lashed out at military lawyers who tried the case of Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who was acquitted of killing a captured teenage Islamic State fighter.

Now this. Read it to a #MAGA loved one

Putin is financing the murder of our troops and Trump couldn't stop siding with him.

Russia bought the murder of our soldiers.

Trump knew for months and chose to say and do NOTHING about it.

Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says (Published 2020)

The Trump administration has been deliberating for months about what to do about a stunning intelligence assessment.

The Pentagon & cabinet presented him with many options:

a diplomatic complaint to Moscow

a demand that they stop offering bounties for murder of US troops stop

an escalating series of sanctions

Trump has refused to say or do anything. 

He knew that Putin, who owns his debt via Deutsche Bank, was paying Islamic militants for murdering US troops.

He gave a speech and did nothing. 

Well, that's not actually fair…

Trump did a few things after learning Putin was paying for dead US troops in Afghanistan.

He lobbied other countries for Russia to be let back into the G7.

He also talked to Putin on June 1.

Days later he signed off on a plan...

...to permanently withdraw up to 1/3 of the approx. 34k U.S. troops currently based in Germany.

Which is part of Putin's dream of dismantling NATO.

Trump never told Germany he was going to do this.

[mightyflamethrower]

When Donald Trump seemed to have a lock on the 2016 Republican primary, the Democratic Party concluded that the people could not be counted on to do the “right thing” of electing the Democratic candidate in waiting Hillary Clinton.

What followed were eight long years of extralegal efforts to neuter candidate, then President, then ex-President, and then candidate again, Donald Trump.

The nonstop efforts were all justified as “saving democracy”—albeit by nearly destroying it.

In 2015-2016, the Hillary Clinton campaign fueled the lie that discredited ex-British spy Christopher Steele had discovered Donald Trump to be a veritable Russian agent.

Hillary did not disclose that she had paid Steele—with checks hidden through three paywalls. The FBI, under Director James Comey, also hired the fraudster.

Yet almost nothing in his “Steele dossier” was true.

The FBI doctored evidence submitted to a FISA court. Comey leaked to the press confidential documents about his private conversations with President Trump.

Comey’s successor, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, lied on numerous occasions to federal investigators.

Both former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper repeatedly lied to the nation, saying that Trump was de facto working with the Russians.

The result? Trump lost the 2016 popular vote but still won the Electoral College.

Next, celebrities and well-funded liberals waged a media campaign to convince the electors to become “faithless.” Left-wing elites begged them to renounce their constitutional duties and instead throw the election to Hillary Clinton.

Once Trump was elected, “Russian collusion” was fired up again in hysterical fashion.

A special counsel, Robert Mueller, consumed 22 months of the Trump presidency. His investigation team constantly leaked falsehoods about the “walls closing in on” Trump.

After nearly two years, Mueller announced there was no evidence of a Trump effort to collude with Russia.

Next was the first impeachment of Trump—nearly the moment he lost the House in 2018.

Supposedly, Trump had leveraged Ukraine to investigate a corrupt Hunter Biden by delaying foreign aid.

Trump was impeached on a strictly partisan vote.

But later, no one denied that the drug-addled Hunter Biden had indeed gotten rich from Ukraine, or that Joe Biden had fired a Ukrainian prosecutor looking into his son’s misadventures while still vice president, or that Trump released all the military assistance designated by Congress, or that he included offensive weapons formerly denied Ukraine by the Obama-Biden administration.

Next, in 2020, when Hunter’s laptop turned up abandoned at a repair shop and full of incriminating evidence of more Biden family skullduggery, the left struck again.

It rounded up “51 former intelligence authorities” to mislead the American people on the eve of the vote that the laptop was likely a fake—once again cooked up by Russian disinformation experts to aid Trump.

And once more, that was another complete falsehood. But the lie proved useful to Joe Biden in the debates and campaign. And he won the election.

Next, the learn-nothing, forget-nothing left turned to the 2023-2024 campaign.

This time, their next extra-legal efforts were twofold.

One, they unsuccessfully sought to remove Trump from some 15 state ballots.

Two, local, state, and federal courts began to wage lawfare to convict and jail candidate Trump, or at least bankrupt him and keep him off the campaign trail.

Three county and state prosecutors campaigned on getting Trump on charges never filed before against a presidential candidate—and rarely against anyone else as well.

The Fani Willis Georgia lead prosecutor met secretly with the Biden White House counsel.

Alvin Bragg’s Manhattan team hired the third-ranking federal prosecutor in the Biden Justice Department.

Special counsel Jack Smith was found by a court to have been illegally appointed and much of his case was dismissed.

On July 14, a shooter nearly killed candidate Trump, nicking his ear after somehow firing a rifle from a rooftop a mere 140 yards away—while undetected by law enforcement inside the very same building below.

Prior to the shooting, Joe Biden had boasted to donors that “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”

Biden had railed nearly nonstop that a Trump victory would spell the end of democracy—a theme the left had fueled by comparing ad nauseam Trump to Adolf Hitler.

Yet here we are in mid-July 2024 and Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, is alive and leads incumbent Biden—either because of, or despite, the crude efforts to destroy him.

After nearly a decade of utter madness, can we finally order the FBI, DOJ, and CIA to butt out of our elections?

Can a bankrupt media cease whipping up hysterias about a supposed Nazi-like takeover?

Can the left stop relying on washed-up British spies, corrupt ex-spooks, and teams of clownish partisan prosecutors?

Instead, why not, at last, just let the people choose their own president?

[partisan-by-default]

Trump’s Surprising Ties to Another Russian Disinfo Scheme

Former Trump policy aide George Papadopoulos and his wife, Simona Mangiante, have become involved with Intelligencer, a growing conservative site heavily critical of the war in Ukraine (the right-wing site has no apparent connection with New York magazine’s Intelligencer). Nearly half of the company’s board members are former aides, surrogates, or fake electors for Trump’s previous campaigns, The Guardian reported Thursday.

The site’s financial backing did not indicate that it had received funds directly from the Kremlin. Instead, Intelligencer began as a subsidiary of a right-wing radio station in Australia that covers a host of conservative U.S. issues, including climate change denial and Covid-19 conspiracies, until George Eliason, an American journalist with experience in Ukraine, took over the website. In recent months, Intelligencer’s conspiracy-laden articles have been shared by the likes of Alex Jones and former Trump aide Roger Stone.

“Intelligencer appears to be one of several [Russia-friendly] operations targeting the upcoming U.S. elections, leveraging a network of far-right figures and disinformation tactics,” Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told The Guardian.

Intelligencer is far from the only conservative site that’s been busted in a recent government crackdown ahead of the November election. Earlier this month, another pro-Trump media group—Tenet Media—folded under the pressure of a Justice Department investigation that found the company had been backed to the tune of millions of dollars from Russian state-controlled media.

[my-crazy-wonderful-life]

Riddle Me This… If Trump was owned by Russia, why didn’t they take Ukraine when he was President? If Biden isn’t owned by China, why do they keep giving him money for influence? If the DOJ is fair, why does it take them years to investigate democrats but they immediately indicted Trump For Bogus charges? If the DOJ is fair, why did over 50 intelligence officials and the FBI claim Hunters Laptop was fake even though they knew it wasn’t & conveniently they lost it ? If justice is blind, why did 2 men get arrested for possessing Ashley Biden’s diary, yet no one is investigated for the claims she made in it about her dad ? If the IRS needs 87,000 new agents to ensure Americans finances are held accountable yet the same politicians refuse to audit Ukraine spending? If fascism is totalitarian government that limits rights, why does the left who wants to limit speech and rights call themselves anti fascist? If u can’t see a 2 tiered justice system ur part of the problem The left prosecutes people for exposing them, and accuses their opponents of doing the exact things they’re guilty of!! These questions are so important that the establishment seeks to silence anyone who asks them...so ask urself why

[mariacallous]

Joint ODNI, FBI, and CISA Statement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ODNI News Release No. 29-24 November 4, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released the following statement:

“Since our statement on Friday, the IC has been observing foreign adversaries, particularly Russia, conducting additional influence operations intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections and stoke divisions among Americans. The IC expects these activities will intensify through election day and in the coming weeks, and that foreign influence narratives will focus on swing states.

Russia is the most active threat. Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences, judging from information available to the IC. These efforts risk inciting violence, including against election officials. We anticipate Russian actors will release additional manufactured content with these themes through election day and in the days and weeks after polls close.

The IC assesses that Russian influence actors recently posted and amplified an article falsely claiming that U.S. officials across swing states plan to orchestrate election fraud using a range of tactics, such as ballot stuffing and cyber attacks.

Russian influence actors also manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an interview with an individual claiming election fraud in Arizona, which involved creating fake overseas ballots and changing voter rolls to favor Vice President Kamala Harris. The Arizona Secretary of State has already refuted the video’s claim as false.

Iran also remains a significant foreign influence threat to U.S. elections. As noted in a prior update, we have assessed that Iran has conducted malicious cyber activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign. Iranian influence actors may also seek to create fake media content intended to suppress voting or stoke violence, as they have done in past election cycles. We previously reported that Iran also remains determined to seek revenge against select former US officials whom it views as culpable for the death of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) Commander Soleimani in January 2020. It has repeatedly highlighted former President Donald Trump among its priority targets for retribution.

In light of continued influence efforts by foreign adversaries and the increasing volume of inauthentic content online, CISA recommends voters seek out information from trusted, official sources, in particular, state and local election officials.

The FBI and CISA encourage campaigns and election infrastructure stakeholders to report information concerning suspicious or criminal activity to their local Election Crime Coordinators via FBI field office (www.fbi.gov/fieldoffices), by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), or online at ic3.gov. Cyber incidents impacting election infrastructure can also be reported to CISA by calling 1-844-Say-CISA (1-844-729-2472), emailing report@cisa.dhs.gov, or reporting online at cisa.gov/report. Election infrastructure stakeholders and the public can find additional resources about how to protect against cyber and physical threats at CISA’s #PROTECT2024 (https://www.cisa.gov/protect2024).”

[tomorrowusa]

I'm sure that everybody here is shocked, utterly shocked, that a Republican conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden had Russian intelligence agents as its source.

The former FBI informant charged with lying about the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine told investigators after his arrest that Russian intelligence officials were involved in passing information to him about Hunter Biden, prosecutors said Tuesday in a new court filing, noting that the information was false. Prosecutors also said Alexander Smirnov has been “actively peddling new lies that could impact US elections” after meeting with Russian spies late last year and that the fallout from his previous false bribery accusations about the Bidens “continue[s] to be felt to this day.” Smirnov claims to have “extensive and extremely recent” contacts with foreign intelligence officials, prosecutors said in the filing. They said he previously told the FBI that he has longstanding and extensive contacts with Russian spies, including individuals he said were high-level intelligence officers or command Russian assassins abroad. Prosecutors with special counsel David Weiss’ team said Tuesday that Smirnov has maintained those ties and noted that, in a post-arrest interview last week, “Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1,” referring to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. [ ... ] Prosecutors alleged that Smirnov “claims to have contacts with multiple foreign intelligence agencies,” including in Russia, and that he could use those contacts to flee the United States. The explosive revelation comes amid backlash over how Smirnov’s now-debunked allegations played into House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into the president. Smirnov has been charged with lying to the FBI and creating false records. He has not yet entered a formal plea, and his lawyers told CNN in a statement, “Mr. Smirnov is presumed innocent.” According to the new court filing, Smirnov told investigators he was in contact with “four different Russian officials,” all of whom are “top officials” and two of whom “are the heads of the entities they represent.” Prosecutors did not independently verify in the filing whether Smirnov’s reported contacts are legitimate, nor whether the Russians provided him with disinformation about the Bidens. The false information that Smirnov reported “was not trivial,” prosecutors wrote.

Republicans probably wouldn't care that their information was fake or that it came from Russia. It gave Marjorie Taylor Greene a chance to lasciviously flash Hunter Biden dick pics at a House committee meeting.

Putin and his flunkies are busy fabricating even more bullshit to help their client Donald Trump win this year.