A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News, March 5-7, 2018
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-american-elections-for-americans/
Due to recent developments and my decision to revise this in a condensed form,to be published in the newspaper I have revised and upddated the version posted 2/20 on March 1, 2018.
Revised, March 1, 2018
original 2/20 version
Trump supporters may chant Make America Great Again or put America First, but they should be chanting instead: American Elections for Americans and Make Democracy Great Again. They are not. The Mueller indictment of the 13 Russians for their execution of a campaign to swing the 2016 elections toward Donald Trump has had a very disturbing reaction from many on the right , both in their media and in their Facebook comments. Some even called the Mueller Russian indictments a “nothing burger” . It was not nothing that the Russians undertook a million dollar a month campaign on behalf of Donald Trump’s election. Even social media CEOs admitted to Congress in the fall the Russian bots reached 120 million voters. The indictment found that by 2016, the size of many (Russian) ORGANIZATION-controlled groups had grown to hundreds of thousands of online followers.“
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-american-elections-for-americans/
Due to recent developments and my decision to revise this in a condensed form,to be published in the newspaper I have revised and upddated the version posted 2/20 on March 1, 2018.
Revised, March 1, 2018
Trump supporters may chant Make America Great Again or put America First, but they should be chanting instead: American Elections for Americans and Make Democracy Great Again. They are not. Should you care? The Russians have demonstrated the ability to manipulate individual voters, your vote, your thoughts, and your participation in the American version of democracy Russians seek to undermine. We should be in charge of our own destiny instead of having some foreign adversary bend us to their will . However, polls show as many as half ,of Americans do not put this as top of their concerns list and 83% of Republicans in January still believed the Mueller probe is a witch hunt. So many have buried their heads in the sands of denial or blame Obama for failing to do what President Trump refuses to do. Could it be that some even welcome a foreign force interference that supports their leader and their beliefs? What goes around can come around, and imagine in a future election, Chinese active measures would favor a Democratic candidate’s trade and military policies. They have the skills. The Russians got away with it; why would not they?
The Mueller indictment of the 13 Russians for their execution of a campaign to swing the 2016 elections toward Donald Trump has had a very disturbing reaction from many on the right. Some even called the Mueller Russian indictments a “nothing burger” . It was not nothing that the Russians undertook a million dollar a month campaign on behalf of Donald Trump’s election. Even social media CEOs admitted to Congress in the fall the Russian bots reached 120 million voters. The indictment found that “by 2016, the size of many (Russian) organization-controlled groups had grown to hundreds of thousands of online followers.“
It was not a nothing burger that Russians attempted to hack into twenty one states’ election data bases and succeeded to penetrate those of Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Texas and Wisconsin. Though Pres. Obama was not told of the actual penetration until his last week in office, in October 2016 he did publcly warn twenty one states of the Russian attempts and he did take some measures behind the scenes. President Trump has refused to activate sanctions authorized by Congress last year against Russians. He instead has launched attacks against the FBI, AG Sessions, and Mueller. Admiral Michael Rogers, NSA director and US Cyber chief testified at the Senate Military Affairs committee Februaru 27, 2018, that he has not received additonal orders he needs from Trump to disrupt Russian cyberattacks targeting upcoming elections.
The indictment of the thirteen Russians did not assess whether the Russian conspiracy tilted the election to Trump. It did report three Trump staffers were unwitting participants. Did the Russian efforts support the election of Donald Trump? Yes it did by early to mid-2016. Identified Trump supporters were not the only targets. Russian campaigns on social media exhorted Democrats to vote for Jill Stein (Green Party) and Bernie Sanders in order to divide and weaken Hillary Clinton. By the hundreds of thousands, Americans retweeted, reposted, shared the messages well crafted by the Russians posing as Americans to make them hate immigrants, African American activists, Muslims more than before and to love guns even more. Russian bots claimed in October 2016 that there was election fraud, but offered no proof. They also hyped scary false social media postings of Muslims supporting Sharia law. Read the indictment yourself at https://www.justice.gov/file/
A private study of identified Russian bots and trolls revealed that conservatives retweeted trolls 30 times more than liberals and most retweeters of Russian trolls came from Texas and Tennessee. The methodology of this study is at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/inside-the-study-showing-conservatives-retweeted-russian-trolls-30-times-more-often-than-liberals
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/21/587731730/russian-trolls-are-flooding-social-media-with-messages-meant-to-increase-tension
A private study of identified Russian bots and trolls revealed that conservatives retweeted trolls 30 times more than liberals and most retweeters of Russian trolls came from Texas and Tennessee. The methodology of this study is at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/inside-the-study-showing-conservatives-retweeted-russian-trolls-30-times-more-often-than-liberals
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original 2/20 version
Trump supporters may chant Make America Great Again or put America First, but they should be chanting instead: American Elections for Americans and Make Democracy Great Again. They are not. The Mueller indictment of the 13 Russians for their execution of a campaign to swing the 2016 elections toward Donald Trump has had a very disturbing reaction from many on the right , both in their media and in their Facebook comments. Some even called the Mueller Russian indictments a “nothing burger” . It was not nothing that the Russians undertook a million dollar a month campaign on behalf of Donald Trump’s election. Even social media CEOs admitted to Congress in the fall the Russian bots reached 120 million voters. The indictment found that by 2016, the size of many (Russian) ORGANIZATION-controlled groups had grown to hundreds of thousands of online followers.“
The indictment did not assess whether the Russian conspiracy tilted the election to Trump. It left that issue simply unaddressed. Did the Russian efforts support the election of Donald Trump? Yes it did . Revealed in the indictment “by early to mid-2016, Defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign”) and disparaging Hillary Clinton.” If the Russians' purpose was to increase greater enthusiastic turnout of those leaning to Trump and to depress Clinton supporter enthusiasm, they probably were a factor. PEW research exploring why pollsters in the midwest rust belt were wrong was that they failed to measure the enthusiasm factor correctly.
I speculate the reason Trump supporters have responded as they did is that they believe it helped their guy win; the Russians were on their side; go blame Obama, not the one in the White House in over a year who called the whole thing a hoax and still does not care to do anything about it. Trump has failed to take any action or leadership to harden our election systems or to punish Russians with executing sanctions as Congress directed him to do. Instead he has made those blowing the whistle, the intelligence agencies and the FBI, the object of his disaffection and biased against him. He perpetuated the “hoax” and “witch hunt” myth as he ignored the evidence intelligence agencies presented in last year’s Congressional hearings.. Even now, he claims he was cleared of collusion. Left hanging by the indictment is that there are unindicted co-conspirators. Besides , findings of obstruction of justice and financial crimes, as well as other kinds of conspiracies were not addressed in this one announcement of indictments that was limited to Russian social media use.
While the indictment revealed at least three Trump campaign officials were unwitting participants, in another way the unwitting American supporters of the Russian campaign numbered in the hundreds of thousands, too. They could well be some reading this. Identified Trump supporters were not the only targets. Russian campaigns on social media exhorted Democrats to vote for Jill Stein (Green Party) and Bernie Sanders in order to divide and weaken Hillary Clinton.
The Russians manipulated the Trump loyalists and they too unknowingly carried the Russian messages on social media to millions . By the hundreds of thousands, Americans retweeted, reposted, shared the messages well crafted by the Russians posing as Americans to make them hate immigrants, African American activists, Muslims more than before and to love guns even more. Russian bots claimed in October 2016 that there was election fraud, but offered no proof. They also hyped scary false social media postings of Muslims supporting Sharia law. I was wondering why anti-Sharia law hysteria had such a sudden rebirth then and an anti Muslim speaker was featured in an event on an unrelated subject held in my own county last summer. Now I have an idea why.
Some examples from the indictment are that the (Russian) “ORGANIZATION controlled pages addressed a range of issues, including: immigration (with group names including “Secured Borders”); the Black Lives Matter movement (with group names including “Blacktivist”); religion (with group names including “United Muslims of America” and “Army of Jesus”); and certain geographic regions within the United States (with group names including “South United” and “Heart of Texas”).
Russians are still at it. In the wake of the Parkland, Florida high school massacre, Russian bots immediately appeared on social messages with anti gun control messages and hyping arming teachers.
https://www.wired.com/story/pro-gun-russian-bots-flood-twitter-after-parkland-shooting/
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/20/587375771/russian-bots-are-spreading-false-information-after-the-florida-shooting.
The newest blast from the White House is to hit the FISA court issue as
pinpointed in the Nunes memo...That the.. FBI failed to disclose that the
Carter Page surveillance request included references to the Steele dossier.
It did, in the footnotes, though it did not name the exact source of the financing.
This s purely a distraction from the release of the indictments of the thirteen
Russians who engaged in espionage and a propaganda campaign through social
media to influence voters in the 2016 campaign. Instead of barking up this tree,
Trump and the extreme right wing should stop trying to distract voters and instead
take the Russian attempt to attack our electoral system seriously. The disgrace
is Trump's failure to take actions to protect our electoral system's integrity.
Russians are still at it. In the wake of the Parkland, Florida high school massacre, Russian bots immediately appeared on social messages with anti gun control messages and hyping arming teachers.
https://www.wired.com/story/pro-gun-russian-bots-flood-twitter-after-parkland-shooting/
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/20/587375771/russian-bots-are-spreading-false-information-after-the-florida-shooting.
The newest blast from the White House is to hit the FISA court issue as
pinpointed in the Nunes memo...That the.. FBI failed to disclose that the
Carter Page surveillance request included references to the Steele dossier.
It did, in the footnotes, though it did not name the exact source of the financing.
This s purely a distraction from the release of the indictments of the thirteen
Russians who engaged in espionage and a propaganda campaign through social
media to influence voters in the 2016 campaign. Instead of barking up this tree,
Trump and the extreme right wing should stop trying to distract voters and instead
take the Russian attempt to attack our electoral system seriously. The disgrace
is Trump's failure to take actions to protect our electoral system's integrity.
http://www.newsweek.com/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-big-loophole-that-left-facebook-vulnerable-to-russian-propaganda-1519314265
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-big-loophole-that-left-facebook-vulnerable-to-russian-propaganda-1519314265
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/why-2016-election-polls-missed-their-mark/
What you should be worried about,
ReplyDeletedear, is how you gonna achieve
Seventh-Heaven given your indelible
soul AND maturity. Think, please.
I dont wanna lose another one based
on their loss of realism.
the more you shall honor Me,
the more I shall bless you.
-the Infant Jesus of Prague