Friday, February 16, 2018

Mueller indicts Russian trolling

Via the New York Times: The Justice Department charged 13 Russians and three companies on Friday in a sprawling indictment that unveiled a sophisticated network designed to subvert the 2016 election and to support the Trump campaign. It stretched from an office in St. Petersburg, Russia, into the social feeds of Americans and ultimately reached the streets of election battleground states.
The Russians stole the identities of American citizens, posed as political activists and used the flash points of immigration, religion and race to manipulate a campaign in which those issues were already particularly divisive, prosecutors said.

Some of the Russians were also in contact with “unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign,” according to court papers. Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel leading the investigation, made no accusation that President Trump or his associates were knowingly part of the conspiracy.

“The indictment alleges that the Russian conspirators want to promote discord in the United States and undermine public confidence in democracy,” Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing the inquiry, said in a brief news conference. “We must not allow them to succeed.”
Is that all there was...



Does that mean if DACA dreamers engaged in electioneering, they could run into trouble with Mueller's investigation?

This is highly irregular.

7 comments:

ampersand said...

Chief Inspector Mueller indicts the sophomore class of St Petersburg Middle school.

Meanwhile our goverment has recently interfered with elections in Israel and currently in Hungary.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Who is going to apologize to the president?

ampersand said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ampersand said...

No one. This seems like a CYA move after so many in the intelligence (?) world getting their junk caught in the wringer. They're not going to extradite these Russians, but they'll leave this hanging out there as if there were real interference in the election. No friggin facebook troll posts influenced anyone to vote one way or the other.

edutcher said...

Exactly.

Mueller needed somebody to throw to the wolves and now he has them.

BTW the eminent Mr Surber also took the Peggy Lee route.

Chip Ahoy said...

Could Mueller be any more transparent in his timing? He appears weaker and dumber and more malevolent and childishly transparent with each passing day. On the same day FBI admits to flubbing the investigation of well-known domestic terrorist he indicts a dozen Russian internet trolls, and words his indictment in the most wildly damaging way possible to Trump.

This works very well on his dummkopf puppets but not at all on anyone else. "Unwitting Trump campaign official" A single NY volunteer campaign worker agreed to give some signs to a pro-Trump rally.

PDF of Mueller's very expensive jackassery.

Go ahead. I dare you. Waste your eyeball action and your brainwaves on sorting the nonsense of this thrashing little dick.

Let's see, DNC working Fusion working with Steel working with Russian operatives to produce a patently bogus set of documents used by the FBI multiple times to investigate an innocent man when their real target was Trump is all okay with this investigative body robust with Hillary supporters and anti-Trumpers, but a dozen goofballs in Petersburg is not. Got it.

))) poof (((

*ink squirt* just like a slimy little squid.

Speaking of calamari.

It's not a favorite thing. The ones I've had were gently cooked in olive oil and garlic.

It's like a section of an organic tube that is sliced. When cooked the edges tend to curl.

Sometimes a small amount of this served over noodles.

But one time in Miami I sat alone at the restaurant counter and order it.

It came as a bowlful of such circles. And it was delicious. I like the texture that resists a bite. It's interesting.

But a bowlful is too much. After about six squid rings you're over the whole thing. The rest is all chew chew chew chewing. The bowl never ends. Chew chew chew, gnaw, chew, squeak, chew chew chew, jawbone, chew chew chew. I begin to resent my breakfast decision. Chew chew chew.

A young man sits next to me at the counter and orders a regular breakfast.

Chew chew chew chew. "You know, this calamari is very good. Best that I've had. And a lot of it too, but after awhile it becomes like gnawing at a bowlful of condoms and sphincters.

It took a moment to compute what I just said. There was a dead silence. He looked at my bowl of curled organic circles and chuckled, then repeated, "condoms and sphincters!" Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Gulp. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. He leaned back in his slippery plastic stool. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. He leaned forward in his slippery plastic stool, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . Choke. Ha ha ha ha ha. He literally slipped off of his slippery plastic stool and stood there bent over the counter shaking with laughter.

It wasn't that funny.

"Care to try some?"

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. NOOOOOoooooooooo. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha."

Apparently, he wasn't expecting anything quite so abruptly raunchy by way of icebreaker. I never did have a conversation. It's one of those conversation fails that one never forgets. A lesson learned.

The Dude said...

When I ate my first Japanese meal in Tokyo in '82 my host said "You can skip the octopus - it's like chewing on a vulcanized tire patch". His words still ring true.