By David Futrelle
As you may have heard, special prosecutor Bob Mueller dropped a little bomb today — charging 13 Russians and several Russian organizations with a conspiracy to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and support the candidacy of one Donald Trump.
It was, the indictment claims, a massive operation, involving upwards of 80 people working out of a Russian troll farm called The Internet Research Agency, not only creating fake internet identities to spread misinformation and anti-Hillary propaganda but also organizing real world rallies here in the US.
The indictment is kind of a big deal. It sets out the scope, and provides some key details, of the Russian attempt to sway the election here. If Mueller can prove anyone in the Trump campaign wittingly colluded with this Russian campaign, they are in deep trouble. Tick tock, as they say.
In the alternative world of the alt-right MAGAsphere, though, Mueller’s indictments today are actually good news for Trump.
https://twitter.com/JohnCooper0610/status/964570270509002752
🔴Deputy AG Rosenstein Confirms Russians Did Not Effect The Outcome of The Election: "No allegation in the indictment of any effect on the outcome of the election."pic.twitter.com/tbFHu2TLSF
— Saving America (@SavingAmerica4U) February 16, 2018
https://twitter.com/RealJack/status/964591593847246848
Even Julian Assange jumped aboard the “no collusion” train.
Mueller "troll farm" indictment today
– explicitly states no collusion
– does not mention WikiLeaks
– states trolls intent to support Trump & Sanders, oppose Clinton, Cruz
– states trolls intent on anti-Trump AND pro-Trump rallies post electionhttps://t.co/uMxBAwOeOY— Defend Assange Campaign (@DefendAssange) February 16, 2018
The notion that today’s indictment somehow “clears” Trump and his pals is of course absurd. Insofar as it is based on anything at all, it is based on a gross misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of a couple of remarks from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s announcement of the indictments today.
Rosenstein, clearly choosing his words carefully, noted in his remarks that “there is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity.”
Nothing in this statement suggests that there was “no collusion.” Rosenstein is simply noting that no Americans are being charged with collusion “in this indictment.”
Mueller isn’t closing up shop just yet, and we can expect more indictments to come. Some of which will, I suspect, involve charges against more than a few Americans for knowingly conspiring with the Russian election-meddlers.
Rosenstein also noted that “there is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.”
Again, that’s not PROOF that there was no effect, or anything like that. The DOJ has made clear in the past that it is not their job to prove or disprove that the Russian meddling led to Trump’s victory, merely that Russians did in fact meddle. The DOJ is professionally agnostic on the issue of effect.
Don’t expect any of this to penetrate the MAGA mind. Indeed, alt-lite conspiracy-monger and alleged wannabe adulterer Jack Posobiec is even charging “The Left” with ignoring reality. (A bit rich coming from a former Pizzagate promoter.)
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/964604360935329793
Others in the MAGAsphere fantasize that Mueller’s indictments today will mean bad news for one particular woman they are not terribly fond of.
13 RUSSIAN#MuellerTime just laid the foundation for prosecuting…
👉HILLARY 👈
Notice how charges included DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE?
Umm…who destroyed her phones, servers and emails?? 😉😆
😎🚔#HillaryIsGoingToPrison🚔👌#MAGA #QAnon #TheFive #Hannity #ObamaGate #Mueller pic.twitter.com/f9RN5B8u0K
— Boca Vista (@bocavista2016) February 16, 2018
This MAGAhead, meanwhile, took a certain comfort in the President’s tiny, upwardly pointed, thumbs.
https://twitter.com/BasedMonitored/status/964594625460752384
You may recall another American president with a penchant for aiming certain fingers upward.
That didn’t work out so well for him.
There was no need to collude with Russia, which was spending mere change compared to what the Trump campaign was spending. Hilary was an awful candidate, corrupt and incompetent. She lost fair and square. Too bad one had to win.
Hot take! Top kek!
Omg, R o n P a u l will still land one in moderation! ROTFLMAO. Thanks, RH.
David, it’s great to see you posting again. And nice to see Sinkable John and Paradoxy!
My family and I dissected an article on the topic yesterday. None of us said it as well as this:
…Exactly. It’s as if a teacher said, “I’ve discovered Bob was cheating on his test,” and then Carol jumped up and said, “Yay! That means I was NOT cheating!” Illogical, and suspicious as hell.
BUTTER EMAILS!!!!!!!!!!
She was so corrupt that after decades of investigation they found basically bupkis. And the incompetent thing is just…laughable.
Is… I mean… is this…
(guyse is this for really a comment or is this a sarcasm)
(s-should I get my fluttershy gifs out)
Yes, Hilary is corrupt, scandal after scandal after scandal proves this. Trump is a pig, yes, but so is Bill Clinton, and Hilary went after his victims. What was it about there being a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women? And Benghazi proves she’s incompetent.
Russians spent chump change on their interference with the election compared to what Trump spent, so why collude with them? He spent $322 million on his campaign while Hilary spent $565 million on hers. What the Russians spent didn’t even come close to these numbers. Hilary lost fairly.
RubyHypatia,
Why don’t you just go over to the archives from October-December 2016. We’ve already had this conversation about a thousand times. I really don’t think anyone is in the mood for answering PRATTs yet again.
I will however, say this. You really ought to read Blinded by the Right by David Brock. Before he had a change of a heart and became a progressive, he was a part of the right wing smear machine. His whole job was to smear the Clintons. The right was obsessed by it. It’s a very informative and chilling book. The right are no different than 4chan trolls really. They just have more financial backing.
So no, the fact that there have been scandals about them in the past is not evidence in and of itself that she’s corrupt and horrible. I’m sure if a bunch of wealthy people decided to fund a gigantic smear campaign against you, a lot of people would think you were a terrible person to.
RubyHypatia, are you new around here? I don’t remember the name and I don’t remember the imbecility.
The only reason I ask is because what you have posted here is exactly what the Russians were (and are) doing within social media.
Just curious.
Yeah, what WWTH said. You take a seat, my duck! I will take a turn at the t-ball stick.
Hillary laboured under thirty years of nearly constant right-wing smearing. There were teams of people whose sole purpose was to make her look as bad as possible. And almost none of it has stuck. Some questionable money movement in the Clinton Foundation, some poor decisions in office. All perfectly explainable by her being a normal human being without the gift of clairvoyance.
I’d say that she’s just another politician, but that’s frankly impossible – a normal politician has enough skeletons in their closets to give those smear-mongers something to work with. Once she started having to confront the Republican Hate Machine face-to-face, she’d have to make damn sure every choice she made was as squeaky-clean as possible. She’s only human and has made mistakes in that calculation, giving them some hooks to hang their red meat off of, but in general she’s done pretty good.
Do I agree with her ethics 100%? No, because she’s not me. But she was the best choice by far in 2016, and in my guess a better choice than Obama was in 2008 and 2012.
And then there’s your denial of the Russian efforts to interfere with democracy.
The Russian oligarchs have been conspiring against democracies around the globe. There’s more evidence than what goes on in America, there’s evidence from everywhere.
And while the Russian oligarchs didn’t spend nearly as much as the Republicans or Democrats, the Russians didn’t have to follow election law. They could lie, steal, cheat, blackmail and embezzle in a way that the (ostensibly) lawful parties couldn’t, due to the FEC. That small difference is enough to make this sort of cyber-warfare very cheap for the actions taken!
The reach of the interference campaign has been studied and it has proven to have been truly massive in scope and effect. An effective investment, which absolutely swung the US election of 2016.
I’m happy to hear counter-evidence, but do mind that you’re arguing against the official position of 17 independent intelligence agencies across the world. You will have to bring your A-game!
The right and left smear each other, and I’m on neither of their sides. Hilary gave way too much ammo to the right for her to be clean. And Benghazi showed that she was incompetent. Also, her political career was dependent on gripping tightly to her husband’s coattails. She was a bad candidate, had to have been in order to lose to an idiot like Trump.
Trump and Clinton spent a combined total of $887 million on their campaigns. That’s way more money than the Russians spent. Any smearing done by the Russians was dwarfed by both campaigns, which majorly smeared each other. Heck, remember that Hilary was smeared by the Obama campaign. Even the media turned on her when they thought she’d get in the way of electing the first black president.
@ RubyHypatia
I was about to post a 2,000 word essay on the State Department’s reliance on private contractors and internal Libyan factions; but I’m not sure anyone wants that.
So to narrow the issues, perhaps I could invite you to set out what specific faults you lay at Hilary Clinton’s door in regard to this issue; ideally with suggestions as to what you believe she should have done differently.
Then, subject to what you have to say, I can post a more focussed response.
I don’t think Ruby knows the difference between a coordinated decades long smear campaign and regular old negative campaigning. So I don’t really know how to respond to them.
I also don’t know how to respond to someone who after a year of the hate filled disaster that has been the Trump administration still thinks the lazy “both sides are equally bad!” argument even remotely holds up. It was always intellectual laziness disguising itself as the ultimate in rationality. Now it’s just willfully delusional.
You’re right, Alan in that there’s a real lack of specifics. Not just regarding the Benghazi thing either. Just in general. They really seem to say that Hillary is corrupt and impotent because she just is okay? A lot of people are saying it, so it must be true!
Although they’re claiming to not be either right or left, the argument style is very much of the right and seems to be influenced by too much Fox News.
And now you’re just embarrassing yourself.
RubyHypatia is not new. Ruby is featured quite prominently in the older archives, say 2012 or so.
Back then, she called herself a Libertarian, and was one of the reasons R o n P a u l was made into a spam word that would land someone in moderation, only to make the post disappear.
Here’s a thread with some…problematic views. I hope she’s had a change of view in the intervening years.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2012/06/21/big-news-in-the-fight-agaisnt-prison-rape-mras-oblivious/
Yeah, she’s an old banned feMRA troll. Do bans time out or can she be booted out again immediately?
@PeeVee
I knew I’d seen the nym before, but wow. That was enlightening.
SFHC, Kupo: I know, right?
this is sexist, incorrect and ridiculous. she worked in politics her whole life and did many amazing and interesting things, for example she visited eastern Europe to learn about socialist health care. she tried to make health care universal in America long long time before obama – but because she is only “first lady” and not real politician this same arguement you just said made against her to force her to stop.
you don’t love your country if you shout at people who try to improve it.
And this, Trumpkins, is why it pays to be a student of history…..
hh—
oh wow, @RubyHypatia, you have some nerve showing up here after saying things that you have.
Did you think that WHTM might have gotten less feminist in the face of the past few years? Jees, that one linked thread alone was enough to give me hives.
But hey, I’m an empiricist. Let’s take a walk over to your recent post and see what you’ve got. Not that I suspect you’ll read any of it, mind you! Reading your posts back in the archives, I expect you’ll basically ignore or smear anything that disagrees with you, too.
Ah yes, the “both sides are bad” argument. Signature of someone who forms their opinions through skimming the news. Media talks about bad things, generally, so unless you dig deep into dorky policy stuff, you’ll come away with the impression that both sides are equally bad.
As for the “gave too much ammo to the right”, could you be clear about what ammo they gave her?
(please say benghazi please say benghazi)
They put her through a wringer for Benghazi. Something like eight investigations? And how many charges did they end up placing? How big were the fines?
And you call yourself a feminist? She made a normal, human, expected mistake. She isn’t incompetent, she just wasn’t perfect.
Fuck off, misogynist troll. Women don’t have to be perfect in order to be good.
Citations please!
Give us some evidence that he did all the work. (By the way, congrats, again, on being a top-tier misogynist! Ignoring her hard work and saying she’s just riding her husband’s coat-tails.)
Your arguments are nothing but weasel-words and bald-faced assertions. Put up or shut up, you rape-enthusiast.
And yet the illegal Russian media push got way more views than any official media. Because the illegal media could do things that the legal campaigns couldn’t. Cause, you know, it was illegal.
Amount of money spent is meaningless. Effectiveness is in views and propagation.
Citation please. Show me that the official campaigns had way more views, and that their campaign material was propagated more widely. Otherwise it’s just you saying it’s so ’cause that’s what you believe.
How does this support your point, at all?
I’d ask you to reply, but I don’t want you to be here. I read your comments from times past, and I have no interest in knowing you or reading your words. Go walk into the sea.
… Wait a second.
Mrex the Hillary-hating White Feminist™ showed up soon after RubyHypatia the Hillary-hating feMRA was banned. RubyHypatia the Hillary-hating feMRA reappeared immediately after Mrex the Hillary-hating White Feminist™ was banned. Coincidence?…
There certainly has been a little eruption of dissonant voices in the wake of the ban, yeah. I mean, false positives and all that, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
@PeeVee
The sad thing is that I’m sure their poor deluded minds will conjure up some rationale that absolves them of all blame for being suckered so badly.
I guess the question really is: what does it take for these people’s worldview to crash in on itself? What would get an en masse exodus of the MAGA brigade? Short of admitting a left-winger was right about something or converting to Islam… I struggle to think of something. Bluegal over at Crooks and Liars thinks it’s $4 a gallon gasoline. Yeah, that might do it. Although Bush dealt with high gas prices and he still had his 25-30% of regime dead-enders.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone who says something like this
is ever going to have enough moral high ground to judge whether someone else is corrupt. Thinking rape is funny and an appropriate punishment for someone is pretty much the lowest of the low morally and ethically.