Trump campaign collusion with Russians

[Warren D Smith]

With Manafort emails now leaked by Atlantic magazine,
it now looks clear that the head of the Trump campaign (Manafort) tried
really really really hard, begging and pleading through multiple
channels to do it, to
give Russian Putin-buddy & metals-oligarch Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska
personal briefings about the Trump campaign's
status -- apparently motivated by the fact Manafort owed
Deripaska $millions after blowing the money on failed investment schemes --
and OVD clearly was going to bankrupt or at least severely damage Manafort
financially unless Manafort came up with a miracle. (Note: Manafort
had volunteered to
head Trump's campaign FOR FREE, which was a rather remarkable move
for a political pro like him...)

This move by Manafort is absolutely irresponsible unprofessional, and
inexplicable by any honest explanation whatever. There simply is no
way the head of a major US presidential campaign should be giving
briefings about it to... Russian oligarchs.
Heck, I'm just a regular Joe unassociated with Russians or anybody,
and if he were to give ME such a briefing that would be an instant
firing offense in any other
major US presidential campaign ever.

So, in order to believe there was no collusion with the (known to have happened,
and admitted by Trump to have happened) Russian conspiracy --
we would have to believe that OVD then decided not to accept this opportunity.

Now that this has leaked, if OVD really did decide not to accept it and to keep
this all a secret from Putin (presumably since OVD was a big respector
of US anti-foreigner campaign laws?), then OVD's life and freedom and
fortune are now in severe danger from Putin, who has a long history of
having people he doesn't like, killed, jailed, etc.

Put this together with other Trump campaign higher-ups meeting with
Russian agents known to be close to Putin, ambassadors, etc, and then
covering that up... and apparent Russian knowledge of Trump campaign
strategies not known at the
time by the US media... and I'm sorry to say I'm now developing
pretty high confidence that not only was there a Russian conspiracy,
there also was collusion between it and at least one top member of the
Trump campaign.

--
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)

[Phil Uhrich]

God. Okay doctor strangelove have it your way.
https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-is-more-fiction-than-fact/

[Warren D Smith]

On 10/7/17, Phil Uhrich <philu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> God. Okay doctor strangelove have it your way.
> https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-is-more-fiction-than-fact/

--well? What the devil was Manafort doing in those emails that can
possibly have any innocent explanation?

Other quotes from your cited thenation.com piece by Aaron Mate:
"A $100,000 Facebook ad buy seems unlikely to have had much impact in
a $6.8 billion election."

--Well, even 1 cent worth of political ads bought from a US media
company by a foreign country to influence a US election is 100%
illegal under the US constitution. There was a crime here. This was
an organized criminal conspiracy. That is my claim, and I think it is
now obvious.

Further, the money ratio that quote discusses, (100000 / 6.8billion), would if
all money equally generated votes, amount to 2000 votes. If Russia
actually spent
50X that amount of money (i.e. $5 million) because their full effort
was not 100%
represented merely by the FaceBook ads we happen to have found out about,
and if its money had 5X more effect than
a typical dollar because it was associated with widely read fake news, hacking,
and cyberwar efforts that regular honest ad dollars could not
duplicate (for example,
if the Russian effort really was in whole or part responsible for the
Clinton hacked-email leaks - and there in fact was a Russian-set-up
web site about them before wikileaks redid it in a far more
user-friendly manner which also had far more credibility -- those got
free media coverage which simply could not have been duplicated by
commercial ad buys, even if you had a billion dollars),
that would be 2000*50*5 = 500000 votes, while Trump's margin over Clinton
in Wisconsin was 22748 and in Michigan was 10704, and it is known the Russian
ad buys on FaceBook bought geographic targeting focused on those two states.
Other small margin states include AZ 91234, NC 173315, and PA 44292.
So, Mate's own numbers actually show the opposite of what he tried to show...

"The Washington Post adds multiple qualifiers in noting that the ads
'appear to have come from accounts associated with the Internet
Research Agency,' itself a Kremlin-linked firm (emphasis added)."

--Long before the election, the New York Times already had run an
article about the
so-called "Internet Research Agency," a troll farm set up by Russian
Military Intelligence for cyberwar purposes at a known address in
St.Petersburg, and employing about 600 trolls and hackers (those 600
by the way were probably paid about $5 million in salaries for their
work on the 2016 US election). The Int.Res.Ag. also has other physical
locations. And FaceBook has stated that is who paid them for the ads.
Are you claiming FaceBook is lying about who paid them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency

I don't think these things are subject to debate. They are
established. In any case, even if
the Int.Res.Ag. were merely a "firm" in Russia, why the hell are they
buying fake news political ads on FaceBook about a US election? And
why does it even "appear" that they were? And why would they spend
far less (only $100K) on their election-influencing
efforts than they spent on salaries for their workers for said effort
(order $5 million) -- wouldn't you expect the reverse to be the case
-- or at least comparable dollars, assuming
they are not total idiots?

[William Waugh]

Quoting selectively and interspersing questions:

On Saturday, October 7, 2017 at 12:43:13 AM UTC-4, Warren D. Smith (CRV cofounder, http://RangeVoting.org) wrote:

So, in order to believe there was no collusion with the (known to have happened,
and admitted by Trump to have happened) Russian conspiracy --
we would have to believe that OVD then decided not to accept this opportunity.

What "known to have happened" Russian conspiracy would that be? Known by what evidence? Conspiracy to do what? And don't say "interfere in our elections"; that is not a specific charge. What specifically did they conspire to do? Publish some advertisements? Interview candidates?
 

Now that this has leaked, if OVD really did decide not to accept it and to keep
this all a secret from Putin (presumably since OVD was a big respector
of US anti-foreigner campaign laws?), then OVD's life and freedom and
fortune are now in severe danger from Putin, who has a long history of
having people he doesn't like, killed, jailed, etc.

Please cite those "US anti-foreigner campaign laws".
 

--
Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org  <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)

William Waugh 

[Warren D Smith]

On 10/7/17, William Waugh <2knuw...@snkmail.com> wrote:
> Quoting selectively and interspersing questions:
>
> On Saturday, October 7, 2017 at 12:43:13 AM UTC-4, Warren D. Smith (CRV
> cofounder, http://RangeVoting.org) wrote:
>>
>>
>> So, in order to believe there was no collusion with the (known to have
>> happened,
>> and admitted by Trump to have happened) Russian conspiracy --
>> we would have to believe that OVD then decided not to accept this
>> opportunity.
>>
>
> What "known to have happened" Russian conspiracy would that be? Known by
> what evidence? Conspiracy to do what? And don't say "interfere in our
> elections"; that is not a specific charge.

--it is known the Russians were commanded by Putin to embark on a
campaign, utilizing illegal methods, to try to elect Trump and hurt
Clinton's reputation,

> What specifically did they
> conspire to do? Publish some advertisements?

--yes.

> Interview candidates?

--well, Russian agents did meet face to face with Trump campaign high
officials, i.e.
an "interview," yes. This interview was billed as being about
Russians providing dirt
on Clinton to Trump.

--they also created a large amount of "fake news" and injected it into
US social media
via trolls and paid adverts, then said fake news got a large number of
views and comments and reposts.

--they also organized fake political groups in the USA and caused
meetings to happen of US citizens with those groups.

--they also attempted to hack 21 US state's electoral machinery and
data, in some
cases apparently successfully.

--they also invaded Clinton computers to steal data.

>> Now that this has leaked, if OVD really did decide not to accept it and to
>> keep
>> this all a secret from Putin (presumably since OVD was a big respector
>> of US anti-foreigner campaign laws?), then OVD's life and freedom and
>> fortune are now in severe danger from Putin, who has a long history of
>> having people he doesn't like, killed, jailed, etc.
>>
>
> Please cite those "US anti-foreigner campaign laws".

--the US constitution -- note constitution, not mere laws, since this
was regarded as so important it actually had to be in the constitution
-- says that any, I repeat any, emoluments by a foreign govt of a US
politician is a crime. I.e. any paid political advert is an
emolument and therefore a crime. It has always been a crime for the
entire history of the USA starting on day 1. Even 1 cent worth of
emolument is a crime.

[Clay Shentrup]

Google uncovers Russian-bought ads on YouTube, Gmail and other platforms

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/10/09/google-uncovers-russian-bought-ads-on-youtube-gmail-and-other-platforms/

Google for the first time has uncovered evidence that Russian operatives exploited the company’s platforms in an attempt to interfere in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the company's investigation.

The Silicon Valley giant has found that tens of thousands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents who aimed to spread disinformation across Google’s many products, which include YouTube, as well as advertising associated with Google search, Gmail, and the company’s DoubleClick ad network, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters that have not been made public. Google runs the world’s largest online advertising business, and YouTube is the world’s largest online video site.

The discovery by Google is also significant because the ads do not appear to be from the same Kremlin-affiliated troll farm that bought ads on Facebook -- a sign that the Russian effort to spread disinformation online may be a much broader problem than Silicon Valley companies have unearthed so far.

...

[Warren D Smith]

yah. Also, the Russians had automated software tools enabling them to
troll more rapidly and efficiently than all the normal trolls. In particular,
anybody the Russians did not like would be blocked by thousands of "complaints"
to FaceBook by "people" claiming the thing they did not like, was "porn."

What I find perhaps even more depressing is the suspicion that all US
politicians will soon adopt all these techniques, and reverse engineer
all such tools, for their own use
in future forevermore, thus pretty much ruining everything permanently.

[Warren D Smith]

Richard Burr (R-NC) announced last week that the Senate investigatory
committee he heads had come to a consensus in supporting the
conclusions of a US intelligence community assessment in January 2017
that Russia had conducted a multi-pronged campaign to interfere in the
2016 election, in Trump’s favor.

I tediously note that just to make it completely clear there is no
debate that Russia did embark on such a conspiracy. Instead there is
bipartisan consensus.

So the debate, if any, can only concern
(1) whether this conspiracy actually did throw the election
(I do not know, and it may be impossible to know for sure,
but considering how close the election was and how
big some of the effects were, such as hundreds of millions
of known reposts at least, of Russian posts, I consider it at least plausible)

and

(2) to what extent the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian conspiracy.
Here I think convincing evidence has come that high campaign leaders including
the Trump campaign head himself, sure did TRY to make overtures to
the Russians, and it also is clear that in the other direction the
Russians sure did try to
make overtures to the Trump campaign high leaders, both quite early.
It seems hard for me to believe that with both sides clearly making
overtures, that nobody bit... but I have not seen direct evidence that they
did. If somebody did, they would probably have been able to do it in
a secret manner,
so we may never know for sure...