Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev (not pictured) in Moscow's Kremlin, Russia April 5, 2017. REUTERS/Pavel Golovkin/Pool
Reuters: Exclusive: Putin-linked think tank drew up plan to sway 2016 U.S. election - documents
A Russian government think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters’ faith in the American electoral system, three current and four former U.S. officials told Reuters.
They described two confidential documents from the think tank as providing the framework and rationale for what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort by Russia to interfere with the Nov. 8 election. U.S. intelligence officials acquired the documents, which were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies [en.riss.ru/], after the election.
The institute is run by retired senior Russian foreign intelligence officials appointed by Putin’s office.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: I would be surprised if the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies think tank had not drawn up a plan to sway the 2016 U.S. election. But to think that such a "road-map" would be successful in countering the hundreds of millions spent in political advertising and the main stream media coverage of the campaign .... hmmmm .... that is stretch. If the Russians are that good at convincing voters, Jeb Bush should have given them his $150 million campaign war chest for the primaries .... he would then probably be President.
You are showing your age WNU Editor,
ReplyDeleteYou link Global MSM articles in a day and age when most people get their news from Facebook and other Social Media.
An ad buy in a Major market costs millions, might get a couple million eyes and ears, most who will ignore it.
A Facebook post can garner tens of millions of views, tens of thousands of reposts, and thousands of comments. It can also "earn" tens of thousands of dollars.
Add to this bots, trolls, targetted infometrics, Campaign collusion, selective Wikileaks, etc,
Yup, you can sway an election these days, a lot cheaper than the IRI/NED's purchase of willing politicians and Generals.
Jay. Yup .... we are dinosaurs. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd while I do intellectually appreciate the reach and power of social media .... I still have doubts that they have that type of power .... but working collectively with other media .... yes .... I can see it having an impact. In the case of Trump .... the main stream media universally despised him .... but he had support from web sites like InfoWars/Breitbart, talk radio, Twitter and other social media .... coupled with a bad candidate as his opponent .... the odds definitely swung in his favour. As for the role of Russia .... Jay .... I know my Russians .... more specifically .... I know how out of touch they are with the entire U.S. political process. I can write a book just on this topic. They may have liked Trump during the campaign, but they gave up on him in August, and they were banking and preparing for a Hillary win. They were just as shocked as the US main stream media and half of the American electorate was on election night .... and I am willing to wager they are still uncertain on what approach they should employ when it coems to dealing with Presdient Trump.
There's a word clowd graphic about Media coverage during the election that's very telling:
Deletehttps://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/gallup-candidate-word-clouds-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-emails-2016-11
As for the Russians, well they did "supercharge" doubts about governance and democracy in the US,
and as for their Trumpgret's, they can get in line behind a big bunch of Trump voters,
and once the "Russian Affair" started to be exposed, Agent Orange was exposed, and could not be of use to the Russians any time soon.
@Jay - finally a point we agree on. I knew this day would come. :)
ReplyDeleteWe'll be facing the problem that election manipulation can bring in money. It's like the superbowl, just bigger. "Everyone" is watching - perhaps 1.5-2.5bn people... this is big business now. And it can be done all legally. Democracy was good. But now they found a way to break it. The same way it used to be for everything else: Capitalism that is too lously controlled, i.e. out of control capitalism in which the (sometimes non-existent or even lobbied) rules can be exploited. Due to things we (the people in charge) hold true, like almost uncontrolled free speech, and that companies have the same rights as human beings and can therefore vote with their money. We've been hacked not just literally, but also metaphorically. I personally don't think companies should be treated as beings with voting rights by the means of money. I also think we should ask ourselves if we're as happy/satisfied as possible as a group of nations, or if not, we see if we can't improve the current system a bit faster than over the decades, or centuries to come. Technology and the capitalistic democracy has outpaced society. we need a bold move, I think, but it has to be well explained, immensely accepted by the population (even if it means more work and more taxes), and then let this be our times' greatest generation, and do what's needed.
M2
The root of the "problem" is that most people are ignorant, intellectually lazy, and deliberately seek confirmation bias,
DeleteTake Anzino, googling a confirmation bias story to use as an "attack" on me, so he cite's The Rebel, with utterly no clue, and no interest in what Rebel Media is.
LMFAO.
A quick google search on "Rebel Media" would have shown that it's Canada's politer version of a mix of StormFront, InfoWars and Sorcha Faal, Fake News for the racists, deranged and Conspiracy Theory nutters.
They' ve recently discovered two neat phenomenon,
If you skim CT and don't "self debunk it", ( do the few minutes to seconds to prove it bunk), it sticks in your subconcious as "true",
And there is no "peak CT", that is, embrace one CT, and you will eventually embrace them all and no longer live in a world ruled by fact, science and reality.
"People like Murdoch, and the Mercers, are still willing to "invest" money in right wing media in exchange for pushing propaganda. Murdoch does this with The New York Post even though he loses $110 million every single year.
The Mercers gave Breitbart and Steve Bannon $10 million--with no expectation of them generating revenue, just the propaganda. The Heritage Foundation gives Rush Limbaugh millions now since most customer-facing advertisers won't advertise."
http://digbysblog.blogspot.ca/2017/04/why-bill-oreilly-is-out-at-fox-news.html?m=1