Mark Zaid, JFK and Trump

[James DiEugenio]

Here is how accurate Pelosi was in 2016:

 

[James DiEugenio]

This is an excerpt from Tulsi, and I think she is talking about Warren in that second paragraph.

I am not a genius; I simply had enough common sense to foresee that Trump would be acquitted. And I also used my common sense to predict that Trump would, upon his acquittal, use that as vindication. Unfortunately, common sense is not so common among politicians jockeying for power. 

It’s no secret that some presidential candidates believed that being the earliest and most emphatic to demand Trump’s impeachment would profit them politically—and they were right. They did benefit politically by exploiting Democratic voters’ disdain for Trump. But their political gain has been America’s loss. 

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

Zaid got threatened because of Trump pounding on him.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/man-charged-threatening-whistleblower-attorney-116379

[Cliff Varnell]

According to Trumpenlinks ideology the President is above the law as long as his political party stands with him no matter what.

For the VichyLeft this is fine and dandy. How dare those Dems stick up for the separation of powers and checks/balances.

That stuff is for losers...

[Bob Ness]

44 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is an excerpt from Tulsi, and I think she is talking about Warren in that second paragraph.

I am not a genius; I simply had enough common sense to foresee that Trump would be acquitted. And I also used my common sense to predict that Trump would, upon his acquittal, use that as vindication. Unfortunately, common sense is not so common among politicians jockeying for power. 

It’s no secret that some presidential candidates believed that being the earliest and most emphatic to demand Trump’s impeachment would profit them politically—and they were right. They did benefit politically by exploiting Democratic voters’ disdain for Trump. But their political gain has been America’s loss. 

 

 

I think everyone knew that short of a meteorite, literal or figurative, the Republicans would aquit him in the Senate. We don't need Fellini to figure that out. What I think is funny is the happy end zone dance his supporters are doing because he eclipsed a 44% approval rating.

He was impeached because the evidence was overwhelming against him and that won't look too good come voting time. If all goes well in court come April he will lose Florida and that pretty much ends it.

I really question the ability of Tom Perez to take advantage of it but it's quite possible we could have a Democrat unity government next year.

His own vindictiveness could well doom him.

[James DiEugenio]

I agree about Perez Bob.  And thanks for that info on Florida, that is an important case.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, it looks like Bernie will win today by a huge margin.

If the Culinary Union had not badmouthed Bernie and implicitly backed Biden, he would have won even bigger.

I wish Biden would give it up.  I mean, the guy has run three times and has yet to win one race. But he is still hanging around.

Edited February 22, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Douglas Caddy]

6 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

I'm curious.

Do any of our thread contributing members feel Seth Rich was murdered by someone other than one or two desperate hold up persons?

That his murder was motivated by his political activity?

Yes, again, I am not well researched in the matter but I know enough to know that the idea of Rich's murder "not" being tied to his political activity is still strongly questioned by many.

Was it ever explained why Seth Rich was still on the street "walking around" for more than 2 1/2 hours in a known crime ridden area at 4:15 in the morning after leaving his favorite pub at 1:45 AM? 

Was this a typical thing with Rich?

Even in my most drunken state as a weekend night club frequenting 20 something old in our California town ( way back in the 1970's ) did I ever just leave these closing establishments and walk the streets at those hours. And our town was a fairly crime safe one.

Rich apparently struggled with his assailants who supposedly then shot him in the back twice before running off just one minute before the police arrived?

Between $125,000 and $280,00 was eventually offered as a reward for information in Rich's murder.

Usually, someone in low income areas who knows anything about the perps will try to get such massive reward monies. Instant riches very often trumps loyalty to robber friends in such environs.

But no one has ever come forward?

Reminds one of the Mary Pinchot Meyer's canal walk path murder. At least that one was in broad daylight. Meyer's presence there made sense, unlike Rich's street walking in a dangerous area at 4:15 in the morning.

 

Joe: Seth Rich is one of the most puzzling cases ever to catch the nation's attention. I wonder if it will ever be solved. Besides Mary Mayer's case, it reminds me of Judge Crater whose case was never solved but still is talked about in NYC where now and then you still see scrawled on a wall, "Judge Crater, please call your office."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Force_Crater

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, Bob Ness said:

 

I'm not going to point out again that you have no idea what the budget of IRA was and how much was organic SEO. I've been down that road and you went silent.

The IRA budget number sources to the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Subcommittee Report. If you have a superseding figure then please cite the source. Also note that the budget figure is for all digital activity, not just the specific Facebook/Twitter programs of concern. Either the figure is completely wrong, or the supplementary organic activity is much less than you presume.

[Bob Ness]

58 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I agree about Perez Bob.  And thanks for that info on Florida, that is an important case.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, it looks like Bernie will win today by a huge margin.

If the Culinary Union had not badmouthed Bernie and implicitly backed Biden, he would have won even bigger.

I wish Biden would give it up.  I mean, the guy has run three times and has yet to win one race. But he is still hanging around.

I like Bernie and many of his initiatives but I doubt he can unify Congress to any degree. Biden looked better than the dottering fool I saw earlier but I'm still on the fence about everyone for different reasons. That's probably true for many people. The only thing I'm certain of is any person in a crowd I can hit with a stone will be almost certainly better than the current occupant.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Bob Ness

[Bob Ness]

5 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

The IRA budget number sources to the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Subcommittee Report. If you have a superseding figure then please cite the source. Also note that the budget figure is for all digital activity, not just the specific Facebook/Twitter programs of concern. Either the figure is completely wrong, or the supplementary organic activity is much less than you presume.

The Committee found that paid advertisements were not key to the IRA's activity,  
and moreover, are not alone an accurate measure of the IRA's operational scope, scale, ~r  
objectives, despite this aspec~ of social media being a focus of early press reporting and  
public awareness. 16 An emphasis on the relatively small number of advertisements, and  
the cost of those advertisements, has detracted focus from the more prevalent use of  
original, free content via multiple social media platforms. According to Facebook, the  
IRA spent a total-of about $100,000 over two years on advertisements-a minor amount,  
given the operational costs of the IRA were approximately $1.25 million dollars a  
month. 17 The nearly 3,400 Facebook and Instagram advertisements the IRA purchased  
are comparably minor in relation to the over 61,500 Facebook posts, 116,000 Instagram  
posts, and 10.4 million tweets that were the original creations of IRA influence  
operatives, disseminated under the guise of authentic user activity.

Question for you Jeff: How much does it cost you for me to repost your Instagram post? Or retweet you?

 

Edited February 23, 2020 by Bob Ness

[Jeff Carter]

25 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

The Committee found that paid advertisements were not key to the IRA's activity,  
and moreover, are not alone an accurate measure of the IRA's operational scope, scale, ~r  
objectives, despite this aspec~ of social media being a focus of early press reporting and  
public awareness. 16 An emphasis on the relatively small number of advertisements, and  
the cost of those advertisements, has detracted focus from the more prevalent use of  
original, free content via multiple social media platforms. According to Facebook, the  
IRA spent a total-of about $100,000 over two years on advertisements-a minor amount,  
given the operational costs of the IRA were approximately $1.25 million dollars a  
month. 17 The nearly 3,400 Facebook and Instagram advertisements the IRA purchased  
are comparably minor in relation to the over 61,500 Facebook posts, 116,000 Instagram  
posts, and 10.4 million tweets that were the original creations of IRA influence  
operatives, disseminated under the guise of authentic user activity.

Question for you Jeff: How much does it cost you for me to repost your Instagram post? Or retweet you?

 

But 61,500 Facebook posts, 116,000 Instagram posts, and 10.4 million tweets are themselves the smallest of fractions of total activity - bordering on statistically irrelevant. A minuscule drop in a large pond. The Syrian campaign had a much larger social media presence and regular access to the worldwide mainstream media, and yet it wasn’t all that effective.

Researchers are now questioning the efficacy of these campaigns. Statistical analysis published in November:

“A major Russian disinformation effort may not have been very effective, according to a new study that is one of the first to investigate whether these campaigns actually changed people’s minds. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is limited—and it’s definitely not saying that the US shouldn’t be worried about foreign election interference—but is still an important reminder of how little we know about the widespread results of disinformation…

The researchers compared the two sets of data over a one-month period in late 2017 and found no evidence that interacting with the IRA accounts on Twitter changed these people’s minds or their behaviors. Plus, the IRA accounts were most likely to interact with people who were already politically polarized, making it even less likely they had a big effect…

the results challenge some assumptions about the power of these Russian bot accounts. They suggest that the IRA, at least, may not have been especially effective, and that voters may not be as susceptible as many people fear. 

Similarly, other experts have suggested that disinformation may not be as powerful as suspected. Some scientists have suggested that Cambridge Analytica’s microtargeting probably didn’t have much effect, while other research suggests that most forms of tech-mediated political persuasion, legitimate or not, aren’t very influential.

https://www.technologyreview.com/f/614756/russia-disinformation-twitter-internet-research-agency-social-media-politics/

[Bob Ness]

2 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

But 61,500 Facebook posts, 116,000 Instagram posts, and 10.4 million tweets are themselves the smallest of fractions of total activity - bordering on statistically irrelevant. A minuscule drop in a large pond. The Syrian campaign had a much larger social media presence and regular access to the worldwide mainstream media, and yet it wasn’t all that effective.

Researchers are now questioning the efficacy of these campaigns. Statistical analysis published in November:

“A major Russian disinformation effort may not have been very effective, according to a new study that is one of the first to investigate whether these campaigns actually changed people’s minds. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is limited—and it’s definitely not saying that the US shouldn’t be worried about foreign election interference—but is still an important reminder of how little we know about the widespread results of disinformation…

The researchers compared the two sets of data over a one-month period in late 2017 and found no evidence that interacting with the IRA accounts on Twitter changed these people’s minds or their behaviors. Plus, the IRA accounts were most likely to interact with people who were already politically polarized, making it even less likely they had a big effect…

the results challenge some assumptions about the power of these Russian bot accounts. They suggest that the IRA, at least, may not have been especially effective, and that voters may not be as susceptible as many people fear. 

Similarly, other experts have suggested that disinformation may not be as powerful as suspected. Some scientists have suggested that Cambridge Analytica’s microtargeting probably didn’t have much effect, while other research suggests that most forms of tech-mediated political persuasion, legitimate or not, aren’t very influential.

https://www.technologyreview.com/f/614756/russia-disinformation-twitter-internet-research-agency-social-media-politics/

Jeff I wasn't questioning the efficacy which is debatable. If I have at sometime, I don't remember. I do know I have personally run very successful campaigns and the most effective one was a YouTube campaign which returned $95,000 in fees to the client after three days. Organic, not paid. No denero except production costs. Fact.

The impression I get from your posts about the matter is that a few ads were spit out of St. Pete and that's the sum total of the "hoax" of IRA efforts.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Here is my question: 

If the new app was supposed to be better than the old one, why are the results  coming in much slower that in 2016?

Perez has to go.

Edited February 23, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Jeff Carter]

7 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

Jeff I wasn't questioning the efficacy which is debatable. If I have at sometime, I don't remember. I do know I have personally run very successful campaigns and the most effective one was a YouTube campaign which returned $95,000 in fees to the client after three days. Organic, not paid. No denero except production costs. Fact.

The impression I get from your posts about the matter is that a few ads were spit out of St. Pete and that's the sum total of the "hoax" of IRA efforts.

 

I think whatever they were doing has been greatly exaggerated in terms of its overall influence. The IRA's activity is entirely consistent with being a run-of-the-mill commercial clickbait operation, and considering it as a fully weaponized chaos-sowing influence campaign by an international adversary seems to me an extraordinary claim which has yet to be supported by the requisite evidence. It has been established that much of the activity in question was disseminated in already highly partisan circles, and so in effect was only amplifying memes to persons who have been already convinced/decided. The total activity, in relation to the social media activity in toto, is statistical insignificant.

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

I think everyone knew that short of a meteorite, literal or figurative, the Republicans would aquit him in the Senate. We don't need Fellini to figure that out. What I think is funny is the happy end zone dance his supporters are doing because he eclipsed a 44% approval rating.

He was impeached because the evidence was overwhelming against him and that won't look too good come voting time. If all goes well in court come April he will lose Florida and that pretty much ends it.

I really question the ability of Tom Perez to take advantage of it but it's quite possible we could have a Democrat unity government next year.

His own vindictiveness could well doom him.

So what's happening in court come April?