Active Measures, Disinfo, Propaganda

[Captainant 27,216]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

Interesting new study related to the influence of Russian social media activity on political attitudes and behaviors.

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/11/20/1906420116

Assessing the Russian Internet Research Agency’s impact on the political attitudes and behaviors of American Twitter users in late 2017

Abstract

There is widespread concern that Russia and other countries have launched social-media campaigns designed to increase political divisions in the United States. Though a growing number of studies analyze the strategy of such campaigns, it is not yet known how these efforts shaped the political attitudes and behaviors of Americans. We study this question using longitudinal data that describe the attitudes and online behaviors of 1,239 Republican and Democratic Twitter users from late 2017 merged with nonpublic data about the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) from Twitter. Using Bayesian regression tree models, we find no evidence that interaction with IRA accounts substantially impacted 6 distinctive measures of political attitudes and behaviors over a 1-mo period. We also find that interaction with IRA accounts were most common among respondents with strong ideological homophily within their Twitter network, high interest in politics, and high frequency of Twitter usage. Together, these findings suggest that Russian trolls might have failed to sow discord because they mostly interacted with those who were already highly polarized. We conclude by discussing several important limitations of our study—especially our inability to determine whether IRA accounts influenced the 2016 presidential election—as well as its implications for future research on social media influence campaigns, political polarization, and computational social science.

Some of the key findings.

Fig. 1 presents standardized coefficients from this model, showing that the strongest predictor of IRA interaction is the strength of respondents’ echo chambers (measured as the percentage of political accounts they follow that lean toward the respondent’s own political party). The 2nd strongest predictor of IRA interaction is overall political interest, followed by frequency of Twitter usage. Though Republicans appeared more likely to interact with IRA accounts than Democrats, this association is not statistically significant. To summarize, our initial analysis indicates that the respondents most likely to interact with trolls were those who may be least susceptible to persuasion effects—because of their more entrenched political views.

Fig. 2 reports the ATTs of interacting with IRA accounts on each of the outcomes in our model with intervals derived from the 97.5th and 2.5th quantiles, respectively. These effects were standardized to have a mean of 0 and SD of 1 to facilitate interpretation. As this figure shows, IRA interaction did not have a significant association with any of our 6 outcome variables. Figs. 3–5 plot the individual treatment effects of troll interaction against the variables associated with troll interaction, collapsed into binary categories to facilitate interpretation. Fig. 3 shows no substantial differences in the effect of troll interactions, according to level of political interest across each of our outcomes. Figs. 4 and 5 report no substantial differences for frequency of Twitter usage or party identification, though there is a suggestive difference between Republicans and Democrats in change in the number of political accounts that respondents followed. We observed no other heterogeneous treatment effects by all other covariates in our models either (SI Appendix).

 

They polled people who were already affiliated with a political party to draw a general conclusion that's also inclusive of undecided/unaffiliated voters? Call me crazy, but I don't think that's supported by their data.

But your enthusiasm in posting something (in armybrat size font, nice touch) that's arguing the russian's weren't all that bad is duly noted. Perhaps you'd like to tell us that both sides fuck with democracy so it's all gucci mayne?

[Anastasis 23,277]

Sorry about your neurological damage ant. It must really be a pain in the ass to have your knee jerk so much. Also sorry that you don’t like the font size used by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,355]

It’s easy to argue the Russian influence operations have a nominal effect at the surface level because it’s impossible to accurately measure.  

However, with a population already ideologically divided, a nominal influence is all a bad actor like Russia needs to alter the course of world events. 

Moreover, if their tactics are so ineffective, why are they dumping so many resources into it?  I’d love to think they are blowing their money and manpower but they have a decent track record of success in Eastern Europe that goes back 10+ years. 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Biff Tannen 45,384]

I think that there were plenty of people of the right leaning persuasion that would not have bothered to vote who may have gotten swayed by social media into thinking there was some nefarious force ready to destroy the universe and they got off their ass to vote because of this narrative.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,355]

Our division is what makes our democracy most vulnerable. 

[Anastasis 23,277]

2 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Our division is what makes our democracy most vulnerable. 

On this we agree 100%. The Russian seek to amplify the divisions that we created out of our own dysfunction. What these data also appear to suggest is that the most polarized, those that have created a social network echo chamber, have greater exposure to these attacks. Which I assume would only solidify the divisive polarization further.  While this may or may not translate into a measurable effect at the ballot box, it certainly only further erodes our social structure. 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Anastasis

[Anastasis 23,277]

2 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Moreover, if their tactics are so ineffective, why are they dumping so many resources into it?  I’d love to think they are blowing their money and manpower but they have a decent track record of success in Eastern Europe that goes back 10+ years. 

These operations are cheap. How many pictures of Jesus and Hillary arm wrestling can you fit inside a MiG-35?

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,355]

 

[JimmyJames 12,271]

There’s a reason why trump met with Zuckerberg. 

[JimmyJames 12,271]

There is no doubt that people who work for Facebook read this board. Your company is a major part of the problem. You ok with that?

[JimmyJames 12,271]

Probably too afraid to post. Can’t blame them i suppose. They would know who you were immediately.

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

The tentacles of these companies are amazing. When one shuts down, they rebrand and start over. It's relentless.

 

[F250 28,597]

On 12/6/2019 at 8:53 PM, JimmyJames said:

There’s a reason why trump met with Zuckerberg. 

 

On 12/6/2019 at 8:55 PM, JimmyJames said:

There is no doubt that people who work for Facebook read this board. Your company is a major part of the problem. You ok with that?

 

On 12/6/2019 at 8:58 PM, JimmyJames said:

Probably too afraid to post. Can’t blame them i suppose. They would know who you were immediately.

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

This does not look good. According to Wendy Siegelman, Kaiser is ex-Cambridge Analytica. They just keep rebranding but the same old tactics.

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,355]

How much do you think the Cambridge Analytica Facebook data set is worth?  

[Captainant 27,216]

22 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

How much do you think the Cambridge Analytica Facebook data set is worth?  

approximately two major western powers, apparently.

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

Sorry I missed this; that is a very good question and I wish I could put a number to it. When you combine this information with the knowledge that they also have the voting records database from the hack I posted about on the previous page, they listed some of that data as worth about $20 million. That was credit/debit card data of around 150,000 users and the value was assigned to the fraud. So apples and oranges, but one of the co-conspirators listed in the indictment was trying to sell a database with American records of about 190 million people. I didn't read the whole indictment, so I don't know for how much it was selling and since the case was in Virginia whether it only focused on the portion of those records that belonged to citizens that resided there.

So in this case, there is a distilled version that has been groomed to focus with precision for your ad targeting. They know everything about you and with the phone tracking, wherever you go.

Crazy!

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

Is this a politics thing or Daily Texan? I didn't see anything there. Computer gurus, please weigh in with your thoughts:

 

[Captainant 27,216]

13 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Is this a politics thing or Daily Texan? I didn't see anything there. Computer gurus, please weigh in with your thoughts:

 

Not much info in that article, but I'd bet they got hit with ransomware like every other major city. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,355]

Cyber pirates suck worse than space pirates 

[Degenerate Gardner 4,065]

Long but informative dive into an entity that was news to me, TheSoul Pulishing. 

Lawfareblog

The Biggest Social Media Operation You’ve Never Heard of Is Run Out of Cyprus by Russians

What the heck is TheSoul Publishing? I’m still honestly not sure.

Here’s what I do know: Measured in terms of views and subscribers, it had the third-largest reach of any group of entertainment channels on YouTube in November—outranked only by Disney and WarnerMedia. It is run by Russian nationals and based in and managed from Cyprus, with U.S. operations housed in a shared work space in New York. It funds itself with ad revenues from YouTube and Google worth tens of millions of dollars. And in 2018, it purchased a small suite of Facebook advertisements targeting U.S. citizens on political issues—and it made those purchases in rubles.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Degenerate Gardner
a/an

[JimmyJames 12,271]

13 minutes ago, Degenerate Gardner said:

Long but informative dive into a entity that was news to me, TheSoul Pulishing. 

Lawfareblog

The Biggest Social Media Operation You’ve Never Heard of Is Run Out of Cyprus by Russians

What the heck is TheSoul Publishing? I’m still honestly not sure.

Here’s what I do know: Measured in terms of views and subscribers, it had the third-largest reach of any group of entertainment channels on YouTube in November—outranked only by Disney and WarnerMedia. It is run by Russian nationals and based in and managed from Cyprus, with U.S. operations housed in a shared work space in New York. It funds itself with ad revenues from YouTube and Google worth tens of millions of dollars. And in 2018, it purchased a small suite of Facebook advertisements targeting U.S. citizens on political issues—and it made those purchases in rubles.

Is this why we have Anastasis? 

[suddenly shaggy 929]

41 minutes ago, Degenerate Gardner said:

Long but informative dive into a entity that was news to me, TheSoul Pulishing. 

Lawfareblog

The Biggest Social Media Operation You’ve Never Heard of Is Run Out of Cyprus by Russians

What the heck is TheSoul Publishing? I’m still honestly not sure.

Here’s what I do know: Measured in terms of views and subscribers, it had the third-largest reach of any group of entertainment channels on YouTube in November—outranked only by Disney and WarnerMedia. It is run by Russian nationals and based in and managed from Cyprus, with U.S. operations housed in a shared work space in New York. It funds itself with ad revenues from YouTube and Google worth tens of millions of dollars. And in 2018, it purchased a small suite of Facebook advertisements targeting U.S. citizens on political issues—and it made those purchases in rubles.

 

Here’s what I do know: Measured in terms of views and subscribers, it

had the third-largest reach of any group of entertainment channels on YouTube in November—outranked only by Disney and WarnerMedia. It is run by Russian nationals...

TheSoul’s numbers are undeniably impressive. Its largest channels have millions of subscribers and billions of views, according to information publicly available on the YouTube channels themselves. As of Dec. 16, 2019, 5-Minute Crafts had more than 62.8 million subscribers, and a total of 16,648,886,677 views; Bright Side had more than 32.3 million subscribers and 6,286,157,368 views.

 

All pages started 2015, or later. Now has the third largest reach behind only Disney and WB. That should get everyone's attention and is fucking staggering. They are making tens of millions of dollars and can pay for themselves many times over. Producing and distributing Russian propaganda is now highly profitable. 

 

TheSoul isn’t only on YouTube. It has also built an

enormous Facebook presence—which is impressive given that the pages I have examined were all developed after 2015 and thus have had only a few years to attract an audience. For example, Bright Side, whose Facebook presence claims to have begun in June 2004—Facebook’s transparency measures put the start date on July 2, 2015—has more than 44 million followers. By contrast, the New York Times’s Facebook page has a comparatively paltry 16 million followers. Lawfare’s meager Facebook page has just over 24,000 followers.

 

What type of things are they discussing on these Russian propaganda channels?

Russia occupying the bulk of Asia and Europe. 

 

 

Josef Stalin was actually a Robin Hood like crusader for the poor.

The second leader after Lenin’s death was Josef Stalin. He started to recover the country after the revolution.

Josef reformed the country. He took the wealth from rich people and the property from the middle class and united all of these people with poor ones in the collective farm and the collective property. Russian Robin Hood—bang! ...

 

The US did not purchase Alaska from Russia, Kruschev gifted it to the US in 1957. Questioning the US claim on Alaska is a popular topic for Russian disinformation. 

By 1960, the Soviet Union succeeded, in 1957 the rent of Alaska was over and the country’s leader at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, gifted Alaska to the USA. That’s when Alaska became the 49th state of the US.

 

Buying political ads for US elections and paying in rubles. 

One thing that TheSoul is definitely doing on Facebook, however, is buying ads—and, at least sometimes, it’s doing so in rubles on issues of national importance, targeting audiences in the United States.

 

 

Cue our cadre of Russia apologists to yet again falsely claim Russian interference amounts to a few Jesus arm wrestling Satan gifs. 

 

[HenryJames 65,791]

 

[Mo Horn 8,768]

 This seems like the best place for this. 

[Degenerate Gardner 4,065]

2 hours ago, Mo Horn said:

 This seems like the best place for this. 

Get fucked, Chuck. Man I miss Russert.

[Beantown Express 2.0 6,530]

25 minutes ago, Degenerate Gardner said:

Get fucked, Chuck. Man I miss Russert.

Its not just Chuck.  All of these shows (not on FOX) want to be seen as in the middle so they don't call out the lies.  Would it be too much to ask for any of the hosts to show a spine and to call Ted Cruz for an example a liar if he lies?  How hard would it be to say, "Why are you lying to the American people about this?", or "Why are you lying to the fine people of Texas that you represent?".   

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

I don't know if this is authentic (despite the person's handle, I tend to question a lot on Twitter) but this is an account supposedly from a protestor that was part of the group thrown out of the Ohio rally last evening. She is from Columbus, and waited in line with the rest of the attendees:

And look, there's Brad P:

I don't know that this type of info is talked about enough, the absolute encouragement to close your eyes and ears to what you are seeing. The cult tactics. The protestor did not say who exactly was passing out this literature, it could have been anyone but it is still a crazy example of some of the way media is being used and abused. Nothing new, but at the same time, never have people been so distrustful of the news either. The fake news strategy has been a success in that regard.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,355]

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,355]

 

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

Russia doing Russian things.

 

[Biff Tannen 45,384]

They love them some defenestration.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,355]

Do not amplify bad hashtags by retweeting people denouncing bad hashtags while using the same bad hashtag

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

Marian the Librarian should know better than to do this:

 

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

I think this quote from the article pretty much sums it up:

"We're all screwed."

 

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

Perception Hacking. It started 3 years ago dude. Where you been?

 

[Message Board User 12,386]

 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,516]

Well, mea culpa from me for falling for it. At least the last part.

[Francisco 2.0 32,289]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-state-media-freak-over-joe-bidens-election-resurrection?ref=home

 

Quote

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s Super Tuesday victories in 10 out of 14 state primaries caused shock waves not only in the United States, but in Russia. 

State media there have been confidently predicting the Democratic Party's nomination of Bernie Sanders, which would lead, they are sure, to the re-election of their favorite, President Donald J. Trump.

 

Quote

Joe Biden’s win in South Carolina gave those Russian media pause, but his buoyant resurgence on Super Tuesday left the Kremlin’s mouthpieces nearly speechless. 

Reporting on the U.S. elections for Russian state TV channel Rossiya 24, Alyona Pivkina made a gesture of surprise and said: “Suddenly, Biden surged ahead.” The revelation was followed by an awkward moment of silence between Pivkina and the seemingly stunned host of the news broadcast.

 

 

Quote

The pro-Kremlin newspaper Vzglyad complained that Biden “rose from the ashes like a phoenix,” prevailing “in spite of the corruption scandals” that have long been alleged and cultivated by the Russians—and the Republicans—concerning his son, Hunter, and his own activities in Ukraine. 

 

 

Quote

With notable irritation, Vzglyad griped about Joe Biden’s state primary victories in North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Alabama, claiming that the pro-Biden votes in rural states were secured by “rednecks, who shoot skunks for fun, bowl, beat their wives and associate the word ‘socialist’ with the communist threat.” The newspaper bitterly surmised that through Biden’s anticipated nomination, the U.S. elites won yet another Cold War against socialism.

 

Spoiler

Much like the Russians, Senate Republicans were caught off guard and visibly disappointed by Biden’s resurgence as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham told CNN’s Manu Raju that Biden is “going to be tough” to beat, as opposed to the self-proclaimed socialist Sanders. According to The Hill, an unnamed Republican senator expressed his hope that the primary fight between Sanders and Biden would scar the Democratic Party, dragging into the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this July: “It doesn’t mean the Sanders folks all fall into line. They didn’t last time. He’s pretty out there.”

Russian propagandists echoed that anticipation. Appearing on Rossiya 24, analyst Dmitry Drobnitsky predicted that in the event Sanders does not receive a nomination, street protests and violence will follow: “There will be unrest in Milwaukee… There will be a repeat of the 1968 Democratic Convention [riots] in Chicago.” 

Last year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report identified "dozens" of U.S. political rallies organized on social media by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm whose operatives were indicted for interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. 

The Kremlin’s minions will most certainly amplify any efforts to cause public unrest and disrupt the Democratic convention, while also elevating the standard propaganda theme of “rigged elections.”  

Describing Biden’s re-established lead as “unexpected,” Russian state TV network Rossiya 24’s headline predicted that “the kompromat will determine the outcome of the elections.” Vladimir Vasiliev, a senior research fellow at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said: “Don’t forget that Ukraine is hanging around Biden’s neck, along with Burisma Holdings”—the energy company where Hunter Biden had a lucrative seat on the board.

Moscow's repeated pitch on Russian-language state media for domestic consumption and for the sizable community of Russian speakers in the United States is that Joe Biden is damaged goods and Donald Trump is inevitably going to be re-elected. But the messaging doesn't stop there. The Kremlin's English-language media aim to influence Americans on their home turf. RT actively promotes conspiracy theories targeting Biden while lauding Trump’s efforts to “investigate” his leading political opponent. RT predicted that Trump will win a second term, claimed that Biden is “cognitively unraveling” and surmised that “allegations of corruption… are doing real damage to his presidential bid.”

Vladimir Soloviev, who hosts an evening news show on the state TV network Rossiya 1, anticipated that Trump would promptly dredge up kompromat—compromising material—against Biden in order to undermine his candidacy. 

Soloviev suggested that the dismissal last week of Ukraine Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka was directly tied to his decision not to pursue charges in cases related to Burisma Holdings.

Discussing the reasons for Ryaboshapka's removal, the chairman of Ukraine’s ruling Servant of the People parliamentary faction, David Arakhamia, made no mention of any causes related to the Bidens. But Soloviev insinuated that Ryaboshapka's incoming replacement would pursue an investigation into Hunter Biden in order to please President Trump.

Russian propagandists and U.S. Senate Republicans seem to be guided by a common belief—or perhaps a goal—that the outcome of the upcoming presidential elections in the United States will be artificially altered by continued pursuit of the proverbial “dirt” against Biden in Ukraine.   

Soloviev couldn’t hide his glee discussing the fact that one of the Republican senators who voted not to remove President Trump from office for withholding aid to Ukraine on condition it investigate Biden is now leading an investigation of the former vice president. 

Russian politician Sergey Stankevich asked Soloviev: “Have you heard the latest news? Senator Ron Johnson demanded and stepped out with an initiative to go to court in order to obtain a dossier on Hunter Biden.” 

Stankevich opined that the outcome of this investigation might determine the outcome of the election. Soloviev readily agreed and added: “Like I said from the very beginning, that’s also why Ryaboshapka is being removed.”

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, needed no special introduction on Russian state television. He was one of the Republican lawmakers who elected to celebrate the Fourth of July in Russia in 2018, where all of the GOP visitors agreed to meet with their Russian counterparts in a secret room. Photos, videos and news coverage of the unusual GOP pilgrimage were featured extensively by Russian state media. 

Upon Johnson's return to the United States, he called the U.S. sanctions against Russia “useless,” which garnered even more attention in the Russian media. In October of 2019, Johnson’s statements about his mistrust for the FBI and the CIA provided priceless propaganda for the Kremlin and were prominently aired on Russian state television.

The record shows Johnson underwent a remarkable transformation with respect to the former vice president's activities in Ukraine, with Johnson’s views morphing only when Biden became a leading rival to the sitting president. 

In 2016, Johnson signed a letter urging Ukraine to make "reforms" in the office of Ukraine’s former prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. The United States and other Western nations publicly urged Ukraine to remove Shokin, who was widely criticized for turning a blind eye to corrupt practices. 

But come 2019, casting the facts aside during the impeachment proceedings, Johnson called for a review of whether former VP “improperly used his office” to have Shokin removed, and claimed to have no recollection of the 2016 letter he'd signed.

On Wednesday, Johnson said he will likely release an interim report of his committee’s Biden probe within the next one to two months, openly hopingthat voters will take the findings into account. Likewise, Russian political scientist Sergey Mikheyev predicted that Biden’s candidacy would be “drowned” by the Ukraine investigations. 

 

 

[Message Board User 12,386]

 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,516]

Rosenberg says this was faked as opposed to misleadingly cut?

Edited March 8, 2020 by Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand

[Biff Tannen 45,384]

This is a pretty weak attempt.  There's no logic to it.  Why would he say that?  Is their spin that he doesn't really want to be president and is a dotard plant or something?

[Turkleton 145]

1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-state-media-freak-over-joe-bidens-election-resurrection?ref=home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Much like the Russians, Senate Republicans were caught off guard and visibly disappointed by Biden’s resurgence as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham told CNN’s Manu Raju that Biden is “going to be tough” to beat, as opposed to the self-proclaimed socialist Sanders. According to The Hill, an unnamed Republican senator expressed his hope that the primary fight between Sanders and Biden would scar the Democratic Party, dragging into the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this July: “It doesn’t mean the Sanders folks all fall into line. They didn’t last time. He’s pretty out there.”

Russian propagandists echoed that anticipation. Appearing on Rossiya 24, analyst Dmitry Drobnitsky predicted that in the event Sanders does not receive a nomination, street protests and violence will follow: “There will be unrest in Milwaukee… There will be a repeat of the 1968 Democratic Convention [riots] in Chicago.” 

Last year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report identified "dozens" of U.S. political rallies organized on social media by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm whose operatives were indicted for interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. 

The Kremlin’s minions will most certainly amplify any efforts to cause public unrest and disrupt the Democratic convention, while also elevating the standard propaganda theme of “rigged elections.”  

Describing Biden’s re-established lead as “unexpected,” Russian state TV network Rossiya 24’s headline predicted that “the kompromat will determine the outcome of the elections.” Vladimir Vasiliev, a senior research fellow at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said: “Don’t forget that Ukraine is hanging around Biden’s neck, along with Burisma Holdings”—the energy company where Hunter Biden had a lucrative seat on the board.

Moscow's repeated pitch on Russian-language state media for domestic consumption and for the sizable community of Russian speakers in the United States is that Joe Biden is damaged goods and Donald Trump is inevitably going to be re-elected. But the messaging doesn't stop there. The Kremlin's English-language media aim to influence Americans on their home turf. RT actively promotes conspiracy theories targeting Biden while lauding Trump’s efforts to “investigate” his leading political opponent. RT predicted that Trump will win a second term, claimed that Biden is “cognitively unraveling” and surmised that “allegations of corruption… are doing real damage to his presidential bid.”

Vladimir Soloviev, who hosts an evening news show on the state TV network Rossiya 1, anticipated that Trump would promptly dredge up kompromat—compromising material—against Biden in order to undermine his candidacy. 

Soloviev suggested that the dismissal last week of Ukraine Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka was directly tied to his decision not to pursue charges in cases related to Burisma Holdings.

Discussing the reasons for Ryaboshapka's removal, the chairman of Ukraine’s ruling Servant of the People parliamentary faction, David Arakhamia, made no mention of any causes related to the Bidens. But Soloviev insinuated that Ryaboshapka's incoming replacement would pursue an investigation into Hunter Biden in order to please President Trump.

Russian propagandists and U.S. Senate Republicans seem to be guided by a common belief—or perhaps a goal—that the outcome of the upcoming presidential elections in the United States will be artificially altered by continued pursuit of the proverbial “dirt” against Biden in Ukraine.   

Soloviev couldn’t hide his glee discussing the fact that one of the Republican senators who voted not to remove President Trump from office for withholding aid to Ukraine on condition it investigate Biden is now leading an investigation of the former vice president. 

Russian politician Sergey Stankevich asked Soloviev: “Have you heard the latest news? Senator Ron Johnson demanded and stepped out with an initiative to go to court in order to obtain a dossier on Hunter Biden.” 

Stankevich opined that the outcome of this investigation might determine the outcome of the election. Soloviev readily agreed and added: “Like I said from the very beginning, that’s also why Ryaboshapka is being removed.”

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, needed no special introduction on Russian state television. He was one of the Republican lawmakers who elected to celebrate the Fourth of July in Russia in 2018, where all of the GOP visitors agreed to meet with their Russian counterparts in a secret room. Photos, videos and news coverage of the unusual GOP pilgrimage were featured extensively by Russian state media. 

Upon Johnson's return to the United States, he called the U.S. sanctions against Russia “useless,” which garnered even more attention in the Russian media. In October of 2019, Johnson’s statements about his mistrust for the FBI and the CIA provided priceless propaganda for the Kremlin and were prominently aired on Russian state television.

The record shows Johnson underwent a remarkable transformation with respect to the former vice president's activities in Ukraine, with Johnson’s views morphing only when Biden became a leading rival to the sitting president. 

In 2016, Johnson signed a letter urging Ukraine to make "reforms" in the office of Ukraine’s former prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. The United States and other Western nations publicly urged Ukraine to remove Shokin, who was widely criticized for turning a blind eye to corrupt practices. 

But come 2019, casting the facts aside during the impeachment proceedings, Johnson called for a review of whether former VP “improperly used his office” to have Shokin removed, and claimed to have no recollection of the 2016 letter he'd signed.

On Wednesday, Johnson said he will likely release an interim report of his committee’s Biden probe within the next one to two months, openly hopingthat voters will take the findings into account. Likewise, Russian political scientist Sergey Mikheyev predicted that Biden’s candidacy would be “drowned” by the Ukraine investigations. 

 

 

LOL.....quoting an article from a far left-wing web site with far left-wing opinions. Seems about right for this fucking board.

[SmokeyTheBear 5,562]

Siap

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/07/politics/fiona-hill-russia-putin/index.html

President Donald Trump's former top Russia adviser is warning that President Vladimir Putin has America "exactly where he wants us."

"Putin, sadly, has got all of our political class, every single one of us, including the media, exactly where he wants us. He's got us feeling vulnerable...on edge, and he's got us questioning the legitimacy of our own systems," Fiona Hill told CBS' Lesley Stahl in an interview set to air on "60 Minutes" Sunday.

[Francisco 2.0 32,289]

1 hour ago, Turkleton said:

LOL.....quoting an article from a far left-wing web site with far left-wing opinions. Seems about right for this fucking board.

 

And yet, you care enough to comment.

 

[Captainant 27,216]

4 hours ago, Turkleton said:

LOL.....quoting an article from a far left-wing web site with far left-wing opinions. Seems about right for this fucking board.

Worth noting, while daily beast does indeed have a definite bias to the left I wouldn't characterize them as far left and they have a history of accurate and factual reporting.

And the article linked was actual journalism with sourcing and not a shitty op-ed, and includes citations to sources for each of its claims.

But don't let that stop you from ad-hominem attacking it without actually considering the content.

[Captainant 27,216]

4 hours ago, Turkleton said:

LOL.....quoting an article from a far left-wing web site with far left-wing opinions. Seems about right for this fucking board.

Worth noting, while daily beast does indeed have a definite bias to the left I wouldn't characterize them as far left and they have a history of accurate and factual reporting.

And the article linked was actual journalism with sourcing and not a shitty op-ed, and includes citations to sources for each of its claims.

But don't let that stop you from ad-hominem attacking it without actually considering the content.

[Message Board User 12,386]

 

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

On 1/12/2020 at 8:48 AM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 

Joke's on the yayhoos writing those books -- the kids don't read them and the teachers don't use them. The whole thing is a colossal scam and an opportunity for the SBOE members to grandstand.

Source: me, with kids in Texas public schools continuously since 2001. 

[washparkhorn 9,926]

9 hours ago, Turkleton said:

LOL.....quoting an article from a far left-wing web site with far left-wing opinions. Seems about right for this fucking board.

Daily Beast far left?