US Politics, February 2018: Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots

So glad that the senseless slaughter of children was able to give the White House some relief amid all of the drama they've created for themselves.

Kush and Muel's Excellent Adventure

Can’t help but wonder if kushners omnipresence in the Russia and subsidiary investigations has to do with his lack of full security clearance and the unhinged fury of his father in law? P sure when you’re a target of an investigation they have to let you know...

.@MittRomney has announced he is running for the Senate from the wonderful State of Utah. He will make a great Senator and worthy successor to @OrrinHatch, and has my full support and endorsement!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2018

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/161129212927-trump-romney-exlarge-169.jpg

well played, senator, well played

This is hilarious:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/alleged-trump-assange-backchannel-there-was-no-backchannel?via=twitter_page

when you’re a target of an investigation they have to let you know...

Hello. May I speak to the Mafia Don of the house? Yes. Thank you, I can hold.

Sir, this Agent Michael Murphy of the New York office of the FBI. Yes. I said Murphy, sir. Spelled M-U-R-P-H-Y. We're just calling to let you know we are opening an investigation of you for racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder. Yes. You're welcome. Have a nice rest of your day, sir. Goodbye.

Nah it's not like that it's when you ask them straight out they can't lie

What if they have their fingers crossed behind their back?

when you’re a target of an investigation they have to let you know...

When you're a special counsel, they let you do it. You can grab 'em by the subpoena.

Hmm, interesting new twists here:

BREAKING New plea scheduled in Mueller probe. Alex Van der Zwaan set to plead guilty this afternoon in false statements. pic.twitter.com/NYMNz2dtRt

— Spencer Hsu (@hsu_spencer) February 20, 2018

Wow. Van der Zwaan is a former Skadden attorney who worked with Greg Craig on that sketchy report for Yanukovych. Big black eye for the firm. https://t.co/tPREC0gmZv

— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) February 20, 2018

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Mueller-Charges-Son-in-Law-of-Russian-Oligarch-Alex-van-der-Zwaan-474579893.html

Alex van der Zwaan, an attorney and the son-in-law of Russian billionaire German Khan, faces charges of making false statements. The charges were dated Feb. 16 but unsealed Tuesday. He is expected to plead guilty in court Tuesday afternoon.

Van der Zwaan allegedly lied to Mueller's office last November about when and how he communicated with Rick Gates, the former Trump campaign aide who was indicted last fall.

Mueller's office alleges that Van der Zwaan failed to disclose conversations he had with Gates and another person, and deleted emails that were sought by the office.

A little more detail

Van der Zwaan was speaking w/ investigators about his work with Skadden Arps in 2012 when the firm did work for the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice to prepare a report on the trial of Yulia Timoshenko. Van der Zwaan’s plea hearing will be at 2:30 today at US District Court in DC.

— David Wright (@DavidWright_CNN) February 20, 2018

German Khan is one of the lawyers in the Steele Dossier suing for libel https://t.co/YxFDs7ZWU9

— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) February 20, 2018

a rare bit of credit due to MSNBC for this

Tried to tamp down the troll farm panic on @chrislhayes show last night. It's 90 people with a shaky grasp of English and a rudimentary understanding of U.S. politics shitposting on Facebook. https://t.co/Y93er6ZMJg

— Adrian Chen (@AdrianChen) February 20, 2018

credit for downplaying the seriousness of this?

simon has already said this whole thing = benghazi, don't bother

Kush and Muel's Excellent Adventure

― WilliamC, Monday, February 19, 2018 10:56 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*air guitar*

internet savvy, educated, non-senior citizens aren't the people being targeted with these facebook posts

credit for at least entertaining a less hysterical narrative, yes. xps

It's 90 people with a shaky grasp of English and a rudimentary understanding of U.S. politics shitposting on Facebook

Again, an astute point whose baffling implicit conclusion is 'so who even cares' rather than 'who captured the hearts and minds of millions of shitpost-forwarding Americans with a shaky grasp of English and a rudimentary understanding of U.S. politics'.

shitposting is praxis, comrades

I _get_ the progressive-left's resistance to grappling with the Russia story--if you follow the breadcrumbs you wind up in a place that practically demands sabre-rattling war talk, and America has been meddling in elections since forever, and seeking outside forces to blame for Clinton's loss belies the idea that her candidacy was doomed to lose on its own, which was an article of faith for a lot of Green types in the months leading up to November: "she won't win the rust belt. Trump will."

And there's even a certain amount of pride involved, I think--when I see my friends at People For Bernie writing bizarrely defensive stuff like this as if an indictment of a Russian troll farm is really about them, it almost feels like "nuh uh Clinton didn't lose because Russia she lost because WE made sure everyone knew she was BAD, here are some graphs about our Facebook reach as if they're a counterpoint."

But cmon. Asymmetry. 90 people with a shaky grasp of the English language didn't _swing the election_--but that's hardly the argument or the point. They contributed to an atmosphere of destabilization. If our ethics on this are to have consistency, then its as fucked when Russia does it in France or the US or anywhere else as when the US does it in Russia or the global south or wherever. There's no moral high ground in contrarianism here.

hoos otm

Yes. Also, why is the lefty go-to 'come on, it's not like Clinton lost the election because of the Russians!' Like, the actual, immediate effects of the meddling are almost beside the point. It's fucked that they meddled (yes, just as fucked as when the US has meddled similarly), and the long-term effects seem potentially more damaging than whether or not they had a significant impact on the election.

I can certainly appreciate the "culture of destabilization" take. It's principally the tenor of all this I object to, precisely due to where these sorts of campaigns wind up going from a US context, as hoos alluded to.

the margin was 70,000 votes in three states, how is anyone here able to conclude that it didn't swing the election?

I'd say those bots persuaded enough people such that the release of the Comey letter made November inevitable.

this election was historically close - I'm not sure exactly what the reach of these dudes efforts really were, but it would not surprise me to see 538 argue that it could have plausibly made the difference.

of course whatever they did pales in comparison to leaking thousands of DNC emails into the wild and sparking a month long 'controversy' that amounted to essentially nothing, peddled by networks who were too afraid to come off as biased because they were so hard on a man who was obviously the dumbest and most corrupt candidate of all time. It really was kind of a perfect storm there.

I agree with HOOS. Hadrian, i think the point is that *other* things *also* could've swung that many votes.

I can't keep up with this multiplying cast of characters as the indictments continue. With a few exceptions, seem like colorless drones compared to the Watergate circus.

First the drones, then the workers...

totally agree there are probably dozens of factors which taken independently would have pushed the result

the margin was 70,000 votes in three states, how is anyone here able to conclude that it didn't swing the election?

― Rhine Jive Click Bait (Hadrian VIII), Tuesday, February 20, 2018 3:40 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Exactly, and especially given that the specific facts recounted in the indictment do not cover the universe of the sort of activity described, which may be much larger.

I find it facile to conclude that the bots "persuaded" anyone, rather than bringing to the surface their prejudices.

This article (with Oprah!) shows the kind of folks at play here.

Daniel: I feel like he cares more about me than the last president did. He cares about issues affecting my day-to-day life more. Like, the tax cuts. That'll increase my bottom line.

Laura: I feel safer now than I ever did the last eight years of Obama. Oh my God.

Oprah Winfrey: How do you feel safer? Tell me how you feel safer?

Laura: Well, I feel like I can say Merry Christmas to anyone I want wherever I want.

When there is this much carelessness among the voting population, you are already vulnerable to a president like this one. If the bots did anything, it was to give these voters the illusion of community, that they weren't alone in thinking what they think. But the rot has long been there.

I don't know that anyone is arguing otherwise. This campaign has always seemed more about normalization than persuasion.

xp that's persuasion tho, man: directs people to action by exploiting their pre-existing beliefs, values, etc.

yeah I think it's fair to speculate that this propaganda may have inflamed the base and turned out the vote as much or more than it did flip any votes

If everyone was in everyone else’s head i suspect we’d all be horrified as fuck, but part of society is to encourage you not to listen to the asshole voice in your head if you have one, and troll farms dont help that.

See, for example, the many previously-covert racists who no longer feel like they have to hold their tongues. It's not like the events of the past couple of years have slowly convinced them that, hmmm, yeah, maybe other races are inferior to me. It's just created an environment where they feel increasingly comfortable speaking and acting on their pre-existing prejudices.

xposts

If the bots did anything, it was to give these voters the illusion of community, that they weren't alone in thinking what they think. But the rot has long been there.

― droit au butt (Euler), Tuesday, February 20, 2018 3:55 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As Old Lunch and j. said, you are of the opinion that that sort of illusion does not have an impact on opponents or fence-sitters, particularly in close-knit communities where social conformity is a value?

A big element of wanting to deny the story for some is they kind of got played in a big way by taking the email leaks seriously and not seeing that for what it was because it confirmed a narrative they like. I don’t think we can really “punish Russia” but there probably should be serious conversations about cyber security and media literacy.

With a few exceptions, seem like colorless drones compared to the Watergate circus.

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, February 20, 2018 3:44 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I loved Butterfield! the Musical

who is our Martha Mitchell?

Reince Preibus.

Morbs when the book is closed on this we're going to be looking at a Sgt. Peppers/Mothers cover featuring the likes of Rob Goldstone, Julian Assange, assorted Russian hookers, Macedonian teenagers, and, uh, the Trump family

I don't know if I can stand any more color

not to mention a Roger Stone return engagement

from the P4B thing i linked:

As the largest on-line group to come out of the 2016 primary, and the group who helped form the grassroots for Bernie 2016, we hear the voices who are angered by this news, but understand, it wasn’t 13 Russians who did the work, it was people like you. Keep organizing.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/993/875/084.png

As Old Lunch and j. said, you are of the opinion that that sort of illusion does not have an impact on opponents or fence-sitters, particularly in close-knit communities where social conformity is a value?

― Moo Vaughn, Tuesday, February 20, 2018 5:02 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think these Americans have close-knit communities anymore! But social media can provide a facsimile of it.

If these people were fence-sitters, it was only in the sense that they might have stayed home. Their beliefs (or whatever passes for belief here) were already established, ready to be brought to action (even if only a drive to the voting booth). And sure, if that's persuasion, sure. My point is that the bots are important only for helping get out the vote, not for convincing people to become Republicans. And yes, that's important enough, since he won. I guess I don't see what the bots did as out of the rules of a democracy, though, understood in the rawest sense in which people get to vote rather than in some richer sense requiring deliberation etc. Enough Americans gave up on deliberation a long time ago to undermine hope of a democracy in any richer sense.

https://www.getbadnews.com/#intro Interesting exercise in understanding fake news effects/twitter role.

Hold up, did I miss another indictment?

Van Der Zwaan?