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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:19:29 GMT
Caught in the act. Now backing away. Trump loyal as ever says Rudy is a private citizen and may do as he wishes. Bunch of crap and dirty tricks. Typically republiconservative.Giuliani reverses course, will not make trip to Ukraine in effort to hurt Biden, help TrumpGood Morning America
MATTHEW MOSK and ALLISON PECORIN
Good Morning AmericaMay 10, 2019
www.yahoo.com/gma/giuliani-plots-trip-ukraine-effort-hurt-biden-help-181300054--abc-news-topstories.html
Giuliani reverses course, will not make trip to Ukraine in effort to hurt Biden, help Trump originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani reversed course late Friday, saying he will no longer be traveling to Ukraine on a new mission to stop former Vice President Joe Biden from becoming the 2020 Democratic nominee.
Giuliani told Fox News' Shannon Bream in an interview, "I've decided, Shannon, I am not going to go to the Ukraine."
In the previously planned trip, Giuliani was to head to Ukraine where he wants to meet with that nation’s president-elect to encourage him to look into matters that could help his client, Trump.
“Explain to me why Biden shouldn’t be investigated,” Giuliani said earlier Friday in a tweet that went on to level allegations against the former vice president, who is now a leading Democratic candidate for president.
PHOTO: Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor and current lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks to members of the media at the White House, May 30, 2018, in Washington. (Alex Wong/Getty Images, FILE)
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The former New York mayor has told reporters his agenda was to include a request to Ukrainian leaders for any information they can share about special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, which concluded last month. He also plans to ask for more details about any action taken by Biden, while he was in office, that may have benefited his son, Hunter Biden.
Despite cancelling the trip, the president's lawyer did not rule out influencing the Ukrainian investigations in the future.
"I don't know, I'll play it by ear, I'll see what is going on," Giuliani told Bream. "I am actually quite confident that the facts, with regard to vice president -- former vice president -- Biden are so compelling that there's no way he gets from here to the election, without this being investigated, OK? And he would be better off getting investigated now, where it really isn't going to affect the election. It's 17 months away."
Giuliani predicted earlier Friday there would be questions about whether he was encouraging foreign interference in a U.S. presidential campaign, and he sought to preempt those concerns with comments first to the New York Times and later confirmed to ABC News.
"There’s nothing illegal about it,” Giuliani said. “Somebody could say it’s improper. And this isn’t foreign policy -- I’m asking them to do an investigation that they’re doing already and that other people are telling them to stop."
(MORE: Biden's Son Gets Ukrainian Oil Company Gig)
Giuliani also appeared on Fox News earlier in the day to further argue that the foreign trip is in keeping with his responsibility as Trump's attorney.
"I am his lawyer," Guiliani said on Fox. "One of the things lawyers do when they defend a client is develop innocent hypothesis explanations of what your client was charged with."
PHOTO: World Food Program USA Board Chairman Hunter Biden, left, and Vice President Joe Biden attend the World Food Program USA's Annual McGovern-Dole Leadership Award Ceremony at Organization of American States, April 12, 2016, in Washington, DC. (Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images, FILE)
Giuliani’s decision to push for more information about the Biden family is part of an effort to bring attention to the work Hunter Biden did for a Ukrainian energy company at the same time his father was focusing on the country as part of his Obama White House portfolio.
The potential for conflicts between the public duties of elected officials and the private work of their relatives has been a familiar, and at times potent, focus of scrutiny in Washington in almost every administration.
Hunter Biden joined the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings during his father’s White House tenure. The hiring was controversial at the time. Hunter Biden had no known background in the country, but was said to be helping Ukraine gain energy independence from neighboring Russia.
The Ukrainian firm paid an investment and consulting partnership he ran called Rosemont Seneca roughly $3 million over a year and a half, according to 260 pages of Rosemont Seneca financial records disclosed in an unrelated court case and reviewed by ABC News.
The payments to Hunter Biden’s firm came at a time when his father was point person for the Obama administration on U.S. policy toward Ukraine and pushing hard for reforms in the country, which had been saddled with corruption allegations.
One element of that effort was the vice president’s push the dismissal of a Ukrainian prosecutor who had been accused of being soft on corruption. Biden described the effort -- in which said he used a planned announcement of a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee to the country as leverage to fight corruption -- in a videotaped speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in January 2018, as first reported by The Hill.
PHOTO: President Donald Trump listens during a event on medical billing, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, May 9, 2019, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)
PHOTO: President Donald Trump listens during a event on medical billing, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, May 9, 2019, in Washington. (Evan Vucci/AP)
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“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden said he told then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
Giuliani has raised a concern that the prosecutor who was fired, Viktor Shokin, was at the time leading a corruption probe into Burisma Holdings, the firm that was paying Hunter Biden’s consulting partnership and on whose board he served. Whether the prosecutor was, in fact, looking into Burisma Holdings -- or if that effort was dormant -- has been in dispute, and like many politically-freighted matters in the Ukraine, the facts have now become difficult to reconstruct.
(MORE: 5 key takeaways from special counsel Robert Mueller's report)
A spokesperson for the former vice president told The New York Times and later told ABC News that the 2016 push to oust Shokin came “without any regard for how it would or would not impact any business interests of his son, a private citizen” and was all part of a broadly-supported U.S. effort “to root out corruption in Ukraine.”
Hunter Biden told the newspaper in the statement, “At no time have I discussed with my father the company’s business, or my board service, including my initial decision to join the board.”
The Trump campaign, for its part, sought to distance itslef from the president's personal attorney, telling ABC News in a statement, "Rudy Giuliani is a private citizen. The campaign is not affiliated with these probes, and questions about them should be directed to him."
Trump told Politico, in an interview prior to Giuliani cancelling the trip, that he had not spoken to Giuliani "at any great length" about going to Ukraine.
But Giuliani, for one, was clear in his desire to tease out more on the controversy.
“I’m going to give them reasons why they shouldn’t stop it because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government,” he said.
ABC News' Molly Nagle and Will Steakin contributed to this report.
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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:19:56 GMT
Dirty tricks during the 1972 electionBy Mark Gorton, July 31, 2012 in Watergate
educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/19349-dirty-tricks-during-the-1972-election/Roger Stone: Oozing Behind The Sleaze — Part Iposted on Oct, 16 2016 @ 04:20 PM link
The Making of a Political Monster
According to Roger stone, his career as a political "dirty trickster" can be traced way back to his elementary school days. In 1960, Stone's school was holding a mock election and because his parents were JFK supporters, the then eight year-old Stone concocted a scheme that he thought could benefit his candidate:
"I remember going through the cafeteria line and telling every kid that Nixon was in favor of school on Saturdays," Stone says. "It was my first political trick."
A few years later, a neighbor gave Stone a copy of Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and he immediately self-radicalized. At the tender age of thirteen, Stone was taking the train on weekends from his home in Lewisboro, New York to NYC where he was a volunteer for William F. Buckley's (failed) mayoral campaign.
Starting in high school and later after moving to DC to attend George Washington University, Stone was involved in just about every Republican youth group ever — Teenage Republicans, College Republicans, Young Republicans and the Young Americans for Freedom. It was in 1967, that Stone was first introduced to Richard Nixon by Gov. John Davis Lodge who'd appointed Stone the Connecticut Chairman of Youth for Nixon and who Stone cites as an early "mentor."
Later at GWU — where he completed approximately two years of college despite a five year enrollment — Stone found his opporunity to get into the campaign of his idol Richard Nixon.
In 1970, Stone invited Nixon aide and principal Watergater Jeb Magruder to speak to the YAF. Afterward, Stone approached Magruder for a job and was brought onto the campaign as a volunteer for Chuck Colson at the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CRP aka CREEP) (the folks behind the Watergate break-in) and later, Stone was assistant to Herbert "Bart" Porter, an overseer of Nixon's political hit squad.
At the age of nineteen, Roger Stone had become the youngest of Nixon's team of "dirty tricksters."
On Porter's orders, Stone traveled to New Hampshire and using the fake name "Jason Rainier," made a $200 contribution to one of Nixon's primary opponents, Pete McCloskey, in the name of the Young Socialist Alliance (his instruction was actually to use the claim involvement in the "Gay Liberation Front" but Stone it seems, was hesitant to masquerade as a homosexual). He then drafted a letter under the "Jason Ranier" pseudonym, in which he expressed his support for McCloskey and sent the letter along with the receipt for the contribution to William Loeb, the pro-Nixon publisher of the Manchester Union-Leader in order to paint McCloskey as a man with radical Left-wing ties.
Stone traveled to Louisville, Kentucky and using the codename "Jason", hired twenty-six year-old Michael McMinoway who became known as "Sedan Chair II" to infiltrate the Ed Muskie, Hubert Humphrey and eventually, the McGovern campaign, paying him $5800 over five months to spy on various Democratic HQs — including the campaign HQ of McGovern where he'd landed a job in security — reporting any useful intel to his handlers. During this time, Stone also brought on a fellow student named Theodore Brill who was paid $150 a week to spy on "radical groups."
Some of the worst of the squad's tactics were used against the Democratic Senator Edwin Muskie of Maine (later Carter's SoS) whose bid for the Democratic nomination was aborted in the wake of the Canuck Letter — another faked letter sent to the Manchester Union-Leader in 1972 — after Muskie broke down into tears while delivering a speech in front of the newspaper. (CT fun-fact, there is a rumor that CIA agents put drugs in Muskie's coffee that morning) I've never seen it confirmed nor am I aware of Stone admitting to having sent the letter but it seems possible if not likely that he was the source.
After Nixon won the 1972 election, Roger Stone was given a position in the Office of Economic Opportunity.
Despite the gulf in ages and Nixon's resignation following the Watergate scandal, Stone and Nixon became longtime friends. Former Nixon aide Frank Gannon said of their relationship:
"Nixon talks to Stone about politics the way he talks to David Eisenhower about baseball . . . Nixon is voracious for political information."
In fact, Stone came to be a kind of "informal liason" between Nixon and the political world in the 1980's, orchestrating dinners and coordinating with Reagan's 1984 campaign (for which Stone's firm was contracted) to use Nixon as an informal adviser.
Interesting (and important side note):
In 1967, the then Executive Producer of the The Mike Douglas Show struck up a conversation with show guest Nixon following his appearance. That conversation led to the Executive Producer, Roger Ailes, becoming Richard Nixon's media consultant. Though it would be decades before his dream was fully realized in Fox News, Ailes had been planning it fo r decades:
A memo entitled “A Plan for Putting the GOP on TV News,” buried in the the Nixon library details a plan between Ailes and the White House to bring pro-administration stories to television networks around the country. It reads: “Today television news is watched more often than people read newspapers, than people listen to the radio, than people read or gather any other form of communication. The reason: People are lazy. With television you just sit—watch—listen. The thinking is done for you.”
edit on 2016-10-16 by theantediluvian because: (no reason given)
www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1141772/pg1
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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:20:25 GMT
Barr was up to his eyeballs in dirty tricks and their coverup.
William Barr’s shady track record of covering up the crimes of a Republican president Bill Barr knows how to cover up the crimes of a Republican president. We know, because he’s done it before.
The week of Christmas, 1992, George H.W. Bush was on his way out of office. Bill Clinton had won the White House the month before, and in a few weeks would be sworn in as president.
But Bush’s biggest concern wasn’t that he’d have to leave the White House to retire back to Connecticut, Maine, or Texas (where he had homes) but, rather, that he might end up in a federal prison. Independent counsel Lawrence Walsh was closing in fast on him, and Bush’s 1986 diary was a key to it all.
Walsh had been appointed independent counsel in 1986, to investigate the Iran-Contra crimes of the Reagan administration.
Did the plot start in the spring of 1980 during the Reagan vs. Carter election, as a way of having the Iranians hold the hostages long enough to humiliate President Carter and cost him the election? Did Bill Casey do it all himself as campaign manager, or, like with Nixon in 1968, did the presidential candidate or his former-CIA chief VP candidate participate?
Iran’s president during the time of the hostage crisis, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, wrote for the Christian Science Monitor in 2013 that:
“Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan had organized a clandestine negotiation, later known as the ‘October Surprise,’ which prevented the attempts by myself and then-US President Jimmy Carter to free the hostages before the 1980 US presidential election took place. The fact that they were not released tipped the results of the election in favor of Reagan.”
Or was the Iran-Contra conspiracy limited, as Reagan and Bush insisted (and Reagan confessed on TV), to later years in the Reagan presidency, in response to a hostage-taking in Lebanon? Who knew what, and when?
Walsh had zeroed in on documents that were in the possession of Reagan’s former defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, who all the evidence showed was definitely in on the deal, and Bush’s diary that could corroborate it.
Weinberger was preparing to testify that Bush knew about it and even participated, and Walsh had already, based on information he’d obtained from the investigation into Weinberger, demanded that Bush turn over his diary from the campaign.
Bush was panicked. And he only had three more weeks of safety in office.
So Bush called in his attorney general, Bill Barr, and asked his advice.
Barr, along with Bush, was already in trouble. The iconic New York Times writer William Safire referred to him not as “Attorney General” but, instead, as “Coverup-General,” noting that in another scandal—having to do with Bush selling weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein—Barr was already trying to cover up for both Bush, himself, and his friends.
On October 19, 1992, Safire wrote of Barr’s unwillingness to appoint an independent counsel to look into Iraqgate:
“Why does the Coverup-General resist independent investigation? Because he knows where it may lead: to Dick Thornburgh, James Baker, Clayton Yeutter, Brent Scowcroft and himself. He vainly hopes to be able to head it off, or at least be able to use the threat of firing to negotiate a deal.”
Now, just short of two months later, Bush was asking Barr for advice on how to avoid another very serious charge in the Iran-Contra crimes. How, he wanted to know, could they shut down Walsh’s investigation before Walsh’s lawyers got their hands on Bush’s diary?
In April of 2001, safely distant from the swirl of D.C. politics, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center was compiling oral presidential histories, and interviewed Barr about his time as AG in the Bush White House. They brought up the issue of the Weinberger pardon, and Barr’s involvement in it.
Turns out, Barr was right in the middle of it.
“There were some people arguing just for Weinberger, and I said, ‘No, in for a penny, in for a pound,’” Barr told the interviewer. “I went over and told the President I thought he should not only pardon Caspar Weinberger, but while he was at it, he should pardon about five others.”
Which is exactly what Bush did, on Christmas Eve when most Americans weren’t checking the news. The holiday notwithstanding, the result was explosive.
America knew that both Reagan and Bush were up to their necks in the Iran-Contra crimes, and both could be facing prison time as a result. The independent counsel had already obtained one conviction and three guilty pleas, and two other individuals were lined up for prosecution. And Walsh was closing in fast on Bush himself.
So, when Bush shut the investigation down by pardoning not only Weinberger, but also the five others involved in the crime, destroying Walsh’s ability to prosecute anybody, the New York Times ran the headline all the way across four of the six columns on the front page, screaming in all-caps: BUSH PARDONS 6 IN IRAN AFFAIR, ABORTING A WEINBERGER TRIAL; PROSECUTOR ASSAILS ‘COVER-UP.’
Bill Barr had struck.
The second paragraph of the Times story by David Johnston laid it out:
“Mr. Weinberger was scheduled to stand trial on Jan. 5 on charges that he lied to Congress about his knowledge of the arms sales to Iran and efforts by other countries to help underwrite the Nicaraguan rebels, a case that was expected to focus on Mr. Weinberger’s private notes that contain references to Mr. Bush’s endorsement of the secret shipments to Iran.” (emphasis added)
When a Republican president is in serious legal trouble, Bill Barr is the go-to guy.
For William Safire, it was déjà vu all over again. Four months earlier, referring to what was then called Iraqgate (wherein Bush was selling WMDs to Iraq), Safire opened his article, titled “Justice [Department] Corrupts Justice,” by writing:
“U.S. Attorney General William Barr, in rejecting the House Judiciary Committee’s call for a prosecutor not beholden to the Bush Administration to investigate the crimes of Iraqgate, has taken personal charge of the cover-up.”
Safire accused Barr of not only rigging the cover-up, but of being one of the criminals who could be prosecuted. “Mr. Barr,” wrote Safire in August of 1992, “could face prosecution if it turns out that high Bush officials knew about Saddam Hussein’s perversion of our Agriculture export guarantees to finance his war machine.” He added, “They [Barr and colleagues] have a keen personal and political interest in seeing to it that the Department of Justice stays in safe, controllable Republican hands.”
In August and September, Barr had succeeded in blocking the appointment of an investigator or independent counsel to look into Iraqgate. In December, he helped Bush shoot down another independent counsel, Lawrence Walsh, and eliminated any risk that George H.W. Bush would be prosecuted for his Iran-Contra crimes.
Walsh, wrote Johnston for the Times on Christmas Eve, “plans to review a 1986 campaign diary kept by Mr. Bush.” The diary would be the smoking gun that would nail Bush to the crimes.
“But,” noted the Times, “in a single stroke, Mr. Bush swept away one conviction, three guilty pleas and two pending cases, virtually decapitating what was left of Mr. Walsh’s effort, which began in 1986.”
And Walsh didn’t take it lying down.
The Times report noted that, “Mr. Walsh bitterly condemned the President’s action, charging that ‘the Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.’”
Walsh added that the diary and notes he wanted to enter into a public trial of Weinberger represented, “evidence of a conspiracy among the highest ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public.”
Walsh had been fighting to get those documents ever since 1986, when he was appointed and Reagan still had two years left in office. Bush’s and Weinberger’s refusal to turn them over, Johnston noted in the Times, could have, in Walsh’s words, “forestalled impeachment proceedings against President Reagan” through a pattern of “deception and obstruction.”
Barr successfully helped Bush decapitate the investigation into that president’s crimes.
Will he use the same technique to protect Trump?
www.alternet.org/2019/01/william-barrs-shady-track-record-of-covering-up-the-crimes-of-a-republican-president/ |
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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:20:55 GMT
Popular Joe Biden Website Reportedly Started By Trump OperativeDeadline Anita Bennett,Deadline 10 hours ago
www.yahoo.com/entertainment/popular-joe-biden-website-reportedly-032330855.html
Election 2020 Debate, Miami, USA - 27 Jun 2019
A popular website dedicated to 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden was apparently created by a Republican operative to mock the former vice president.
At first glance, JoeBiden.info looks like a pro-Biden site, and even sells T-shirts with his face on them.
But on closer inspection, the posts on the site make fun of the Democrat with gifs that show him touching women, and criticism of his political record, including his opposition to court-ordered busing in the 1970s, and a vote against abortion rights in 1982.
A disclaimer at the bottom of the website says it’s “intended for entertainment and political commentary only and is therefore protected under fair use,” and is a project “BY AN American citizen FOR American citizens.”
The New York Times reported Saturday, the site was indeed created by an American, just not one who backs Biden.
The paper said Republican strategist Patrick Mauldin, who makes videos and other digital content for President Trump’s re-election campaign, is behind the site.
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. |
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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:21:23 GMT
The typical m.o. of Republicon ratfuckers is to accuse your opposition of what your side is doing. We already knew Trump used a list from a conservative front group to choose Kavanaugh.Conservative organization using claims of 'secret list' of liberal judges to rally Republican base Alexander NazaryanNational Correspondent ,Yahoo News•June 28, 2019874 Comments news.yahoo.com/conservative-organization-using-claims-of-secret-list-of-liberal-judges-to-rally-republican-base-201321949.html
Yahoo News photo illustration; photos: AP, Getty Images
WASHINGTON — The Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative organization instrumental in the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation fight, is now calling on 2020 Democratic candidates to release what it says is a secret list of potential nominees for the Supreme Court.
The “secret list” claim is part of a $1.1 million two-week television ad campaign, according to Fox News, a significant investment this early in the presidential campaign, and a signal that conservative groups hope to use court appointments as a way to energize the Republican base ahead of the general election.
The ad also played on NBC during Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, which according to CNN was the most-watched Democratic primary debate in the history of televised debates.
There’s just one problem, according to the group that allegedly created the list: It doesn’t exist.
Laurie Kinney, communications director for Alliance for Justice, a liberal judicial advocacy group, says her organization is identifying potential judicial nominees for a future Democratic administration but is "definitely not asking candidates to commit to any ‘lists.’"
She told Yahoo News that the organization is consulting with an advisory council and lawyers' groups around the country, trying to sound out progressives about promising lawyers who could be stars on the federal bench in a Democratic administration. She said the effort was in its early stages.
Representatives for Democratic candidates expressed confusion regarding the existence of such a list.
Ian Sams, communications director for the presidential campaign of Sen. Kamala Harris, said he had “no idea” about such a list having been presented to the campaign. He added that he was “highly doubtful” the Harris campaign was in possession of such a list.
The campaign of Sen. Cory Booker also did not know about any such list.
“First I’m hearing of it,” said Matt Corridoni, communications director for Rep. Seth Moulton.
Lis Smith, senior adviser to Mayor Pete Buttigieg, had a similar reaction when asked whether his campaign was in possession of a nominee list. “No idea,” she said. |
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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:21:51 GMT
Facebook ads funded by 'dark money' are the right's weapon for 2020The Guardian Tom Perkins,The Guardian 2 hours 22 minutes ago
www.yahoo.com/finance/news/facebook-ads-funded-dark-money-060107090.html
Republican Dirty Tricks archive.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Republican%20Dirty%20Tricks
Photograph: Justin Sullivan/AFP/Getty Images
In the weeks leading up to a tightly contested 2018 midterm election in Virginia, a Facebook page called “Wacky Wexton Not” ran an ad that pictured Democratic congressional candidate Jennifer Wexton next to Nazi troops. Another labeled her an “evil socialist”. Yet another referenced Nazi uniforms, stating, “Wexton and her modern day brown shirts. They Are Evil. They Hate America. They Hate You.”
You can still have a huge impact by spending very little. Anna Massoglia, a researcher with the Center For Responsive Politics
Who spent $211 launching 24 anti-Wexton ads? It’s unclear. The ads state they were “Paid for by a freedom loving American Citizen exercising my natural law right, protected by the 1st Amendment and protected by the 2nd Amendment.” But there’s nothing in them – or in Facebook’s new ad library that’s designed to shine light on who’s funding political adss – that provides personal information about the person or group behind the attack on Wexton (who won her race).
This small incident highlights a bigger problem as the 2020 election looms. How so-called untraceable “dark money” Facebook ads persist via easily exploitable loopholes in the ad archive, a database created in response to foreign interference and disinformation campaigns during the 2016 election. Now heading into the 2020 election, dark money ads remain a potent political weapon that the Republican party and conservative media in particular are using to push a rightwing agenda and get Donald Trump re-elected.
“You can still have a huge impact by spending very little,” said Anna Massoglia, a researcher with the Center For Responsive Politics (CPR) who tracks dark money spending on Facebook ads. Over $600m has been spent on political Facebook ads since the platform made data public in May 2018. It’s unclear how much was spent on dark money ads, though CPR and other groups are in the process of tallying it up.
Facebook rules require those who run political pages to provide government identification so they can be ‘verified’, but there’s nothing to stop foreign interests from hiring an ad buyer with a US ID. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA
The most common dark money ads can be placed into two categories. One includes more traditional political ads from household names of dark money nonprofits like Judicial Watch, America First Policies or even Planned Parenthood on the left. Those are typically linked to the political establishment, and though the nonprofit names are attached to the ads, the groups don’t reveal their donors.
But those like the “Wacky Wexton” ads can be launched by anyone, domestic or foreign, group or person. Facebook rules require those who run political pages to provide government identification so they can be “verified”, but there’s nothing to stop foreign interests from hiring an ad buyer with a US ID, or using an affiliate company in the US. Facebook then protects its ad buyers by not divulging any personal information.
“Even though you are required to put something in the disclaimers, it’s not meaningful. You don’t get the name of who’s writing the text,” Massoglia said.
The right and left also use dark money ads to push their agendas and content. Most such pages on the right are small operations that run multiple Facebook pages pushing a conservative agenda, praising Trump and attacking liberal politicians.
The anonymous individual or groups behind the pages also sometimes misrepresent their purpose. They are what Laura Edelson, a New York University researcher with the Online Political Ads Transparency Project, calls “inauthentic communities”.
Such pages are usually centered around an identity. “On the right, the identity is ‘conservative’,” Edelson said, and “what they’re really trying to do is get your email address – they’re building lists.”
Among those is I Love My Freedom, which sends out ads attacking Democratic politicians like Nancy Pelosi and ultimately attempts to solicit users’ names and email addresses. Its pages – with names like “President Trump’s Patriot Army” and “President Donald Trump Fan Club” – also hawk “limited edition” Trump coins and other gear, which sources say is a common practice in the right’s dark money advertising.
Another group of Facebook pages that are less clearly linked include Patriot News Alerts, Breaking Patriot News, The Daily Conservative and The Conservative Institute.
Anatomy of a dark money Facebook ad network
On 4 April, the Patriot News Alert Facebook page sent out fewer than 100 ads that largely targeted women over 55, many of whom were in Florida, Texas and California. The ads showed a picture of congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with text that called her Green New Deal plan not just “crazy”, but “scary”. The text continues with false claims that the Green New Deal would “ban air travel, get rid of gasoline cars, eliminate meat, remodel all existing homes, and guarantee income to all Americans too lazy to work”.
Around the same time, Breaking Patriot News and The Daily Conservative sent out about 85 nearly identical ads largely micro-targeting carefully selected demographics of Facebook users throughout the country.
The pages spent between about $1,660 and $15,000 to buy the ads, reaping between 112,000 and 418,000 impressions.
The three pages didn’t reveal their relation to those that they targeted, and there’s nothing in the ads that provides an idea of who paid for them. In her research, Edelson found that the three pages used the same ad, and Facebook’s archive shows that they share other ads that attack Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Once you have a political tactic like this, everyone will use it, especially when it’s this easy. Laura Edelson, NYU researcher
Clicking on an ad reveals some clues about the network of pages’ goals, which is to funnel Facebook users to rightwing blogs running largely pro-Trump stories and pushing conservative ideas.
The ad that women over 55 in Florida may have clicked on takes one to PatriotNewsAlerts.com where the reader is encouraged to sign a petition “To say ‘No’ to the Green New Deal,” but the “signature” it requires is a name and email address.
A Guardian reporter who submitted a name and email address later received an email from Patriot News Alerts with a link to a story on the Patriot News Alert blog. There’s no information about who runs the blog, but the Guardian searched the name and found it appears to be linked to conservative blogger Shaun Connell.
Connell signs several blogposts as the pages’ founder, and Patriot News Alerts shares the same Connecticut address as several other blogs. Connell is also behind Breaking Patriot News and The Daily Conservative, and the blogs are presented in a similar layout to and include some of the same writers as other right wing blogs that can be linked to Connell, like Daily Christian News.
While one end goal seems to be to push Connell’s rightwing viewpoint, another seems to be to drive traffic to his pages. It’s unclear if Connell funds the Facebook ads himself, if there are other funders involved, or whether there’s a more commercial purpose at play – some pages sell the Facebook data they collect.
Connell didn’t return an email from the Guardian seeking comment.
The four Connell-linked Facebook pages have spent about $300,000 since being created between July 2017 and September 2018.
Edlelson said she tracks dozens of similar pages on the left and right, and there are probably many more.
“The tactic started and was perfected on the right, but once you have a political tactic like this, everyone will use it, especially when it’s this easy,” Edelson said. |
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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:22:36 GMT
Trump, in call, urged Ukraine to investigate Biden's sonAssociated Press JONATHAN LEMIRE, MICHAEL BALSAMO and LISA MASCARO,Associated Press 1 hour 24 minutes ago
www.yahoo.com/news/trump-defends-private-conversation-foreign-141949433.html
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump urged the new leader of Ukraine this summer to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, a person familiar with the matter said Friday. Democrats condemned what they saw as a clear effort to damage a political rival, now at the heart of an explosive whistleblower complaint against Trump.
It was the latest revelation in an escalating controversy that has created a showdown between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration, which has refused to turn over the formal complaint by a national security official or even describe its contents.
Trump defended himself Friday against the intelligence official's complaint, angrily declaring it came from a "partisan whistleblower," though he also said he didn't know who had made it. The complaint was based on a series of events, one of which was a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to a two people familiar with the matter. The people were not authorized to discuss the issue by name and were granted anonymity.
Trump, in that call, urged Zelenskiy to probe the activities of potential Democratic rival Biden's son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian gas company, according to one of the people, who was briefed on the call. Trump did not raise the issue of U.S. aid to Ukraine, indicating there was not an explicit quid pro quo, according to the person.
Biden reacted strongly late Friday, saying that if the reports are true, "then there is truly no bottom to President Trump's willingness to abuse his power and abase our country." He said Trump should release the transcript of his July phone conversation with Zelenskiy "so that the American people can judge for themselves."
The government's intelligence inspector general has described the whistleblower's Aug. 12 complaint as "serious" and "urgent." But Trump dismissed it all Friday, insisting "it's nothing." He scolded reporters for asking about it and said it was "just another political hack job."
"I have conversations with many leaders. It's always appropriate. Always appropriate," Trump said. "At the highest level always appropriate. And anything I do, I fight for this country."
Trump, who took questions in the Oval Office alongside Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whom he was hosting for a state visit, was asked if he knew if the whistleblower's complaint centered on his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Zelenskiy. The president responded, "I really don't know," but he continued to insist any phone call he made with a head of state was "perfectly fine and respectful."
Trump was asked Friday if he brought up Biden in the call with Zelenskiy, and he answered, "It doesn't matter what I discussed." But then he used the moment to urge the media "to look into" Biden's background with Ukraine.
There has yet to be any evidence of any wrongdoing by Biden or his son regarding Ukraine.
Trump and Zelenskiy are to meet on the sidelines of the United Nations next week. The Wall Street Journal first reported that Trump pressed Zelenskiy about Biden.
The standoff with Congress raises fresh questions about the extent to which Trump's appointees are protecting the Republican president from oversight and, specifically, whether his new acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, is working with the Justice Department to shield the president.
Democrats say the administration is legally required to give Congress access to the whistleblower's complaint, and Rep. Adam Schiff of California has said he will go to court in an effort to get it if necessary.
The intelligence community's inspector general said the matter involves the "most significant" responsibilities of intelligence leadership.
House Democrats also are fighting the administration for access to witnesses and documents in impeachment probes.
In the whistleblower case, lawmakers are looking into whether Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani traveled to Ukraine to pressure the government to aid the president's reelection effort by investigating the activities of Biden's son.
During a rambling interview Thursday on CNN, Giuliani was asked whether he had asked Ukraine to look into Biden. He initially said, "No, actually I didn't," but seconds later he said, "Of course I did."
Giuliani has spent months trying to drum up potentially damaging evidence about Biden's ties to Ukraine. He told CNN that Trump was unaware of his actions.
"I did what I did on my own," he said. "I told him about it afterward.
Still later, Giuliani tweeted, "A President telling a Pres-elect of a well known corrupt country he better investigate corruption that affects US is doing his job." Democrats have contended that Trump, in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, may have asked for foreign assistance in his upcoming reelection bid.
Trump further stoked those concerns earlier this year in an interview when he suggested he would be open to receiving foreign help.
The inspector general appeared before the House intelligence committee behind closed doors Thursday but declined, under administration orders, to reveal to members the substance of the complaint.
Schiff, a California Democrat, said Trump's attack on the whistleblower was disturbing and raised concerns that it would have a chilling effect on other potential exposers of wrongdoing. He also said it was "deeply disturbing" that the White House appeared to know more about the complaint than its intended recipient -- Congress.
The information "deserves a thorough investigation," Schiff said. "Come hell or high water, that's what we're going to do."
Among the materials Democrats have sought is a transcript of Trump's July 25 call with Zelenskiy. The call took place one day after Mueller's faltering testimony to Congress effectively ended the threat his probe posed to the White House. A readout of the call released from the Ukrainian government said Trump believed Kyiv could complete corruptions investigations that have hampered relations between the two nations but did not get into specifics.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who in May called for a probe of Giuliani's effort in Ukraine, said in an interview on Friday it's "outrageous" the president has been sending his political operative to talk to Ukraine's new president. Murphy tweeted that during his own visit it was clear to him that Ukraine officials were "worried about the consequences of ignoring Giuliani's demands."
The senator tweeted that he told Zelenskiy during their August visit it was "best to ignore requests from Trump's campaign operatives. He agreed."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump faces "serious repercussions" if reports about the complaint are accurate. She said it raises "grave, urgent concerns for our national security."
Letters to Congress from the inspector general make clear that Maguire consulted with the Justice Department in deciding not to transmit the complaint to Congress in a further departure from standard procedure. It's unclear whether the White House was also involved, Schiff said.
Maguire has refused to discuss details of the whistleblower complaint, but he has been subpoenaed by the House panel and is expected to testify publicly next Thursday. Maguire and the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, also are expected next week at the Senate intelligence committee.
Atkinson wrote in letters that Schiff released that he and Maguire had hit an "impasse" over the acting director's decision not to share the complaint with Congress. Atkinson said he was told by the legal counsel for the intelligence director that the complaint did not actually meet the definition of an "urgent concern." And he said the Justice Department said it did not fall under the director's jurisdiction because it did not involve an intelligence professional.
Atkinson said he disagreed with that Justice Department view. The complaint "not only falls under DNI's jurisdiction," Atkinson wrote, "but relates to one of the most significant and important of DNI's responsibilities to the American people."
___
Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann, Eric Tucker, Alan Fram and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report. |
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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:23:04 GMT
Funny isn't it how Bullschitticus Trump thinks his political opponents should be investigated but HE should be able to HIDE everything when someone tries to investigate HIM. Trump says 'it doesn't matter' if he asked Ukraine to investigate Joe BidenUSA TODAY David Jackson, USA TODAY,USA TODAY 12 hours ago
www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-doesnt-matter-asked-150443660.html
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Friday it "doesn't matter" if he asked the government of Ukraine to investigate Democratic opponent Joe Biden and his son, and that it should be done anyway.
"Someone ought to look into Joe Biden," Trump told reporters while declining to discuss investigations into whether he and aides are pressuring Ukraine to investigate one of his most prominent political opponents.
That question is the subject of an ongoing congressional investigation and, reportedly, the still-secret complaint of a whistleblower in the intelligence community.
Biden said in a written statement that, if true, the reports show "there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country. This behavior is particularly abhorrent because it exploits the foreign policy of our country and undermines our national security for political purposes."
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said his conversations with world leaders are “always appropriate, at the highest level always appropriate.”
Asked whether he discussed Biden in this conversation, Trump said: "It doesn’t matter what I discussed." |
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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:24:52 GMT
He's basically admitted now that he DID ask them to investigate Biden. That is the very definition of COLLUSION! Was there foreign aid or promises given and carried out? And once again Trump and his government cronies are obstructing. How often do we have to put up with this and nothing gets done about it? |
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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:25:13 GMT
The Pentagon Papers: Secrets, lies and leaks LISTEN radiopublic.com/Reveal/s1!3dc3f
play.radiopublic.com/07a47879-2907-4c88-a495-ae9236714b76
Co-produced with PRX www.revealnews.org/episodes/the-pentagon-papers-secrets-lies-and-leaks-update/
This episode was originally broadcast in May 2016. Back in 1971, a 22-year-old journalist named Robert Rosenthal got a call from his boss at The New York Times. He told him to go to Room 1111 of the Hilton Hotel, bring enough clothes for at least a month and not tell anyone.
NOTE: Rosenthal is the former executive director at The Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Reveal along with PRX.
The following instances of strong language appear in this episode. Four instances of the word “goddamn” are NOT bleeped. “Pricks” @ 44:43 *HAS BEEN BLEEPED* ———- 40:13 In promo tape for the upcoming segment, a Nixon aide refers to “this goddamn New York Times exposé” 42:41: an aide to President Nixon refers to “this goddamn New York Times exposé” 44:43: In reference to the Pentagon Papers, President Nixon says that “My view is to prosecute the goddamn pricks {bleeped} that gave it to them” 52:00: President Nixon says “I want it implemented on a thievery basis. Goddamn it, get in and get those files.”
In this episode of Reveal, we’re using the full hour to take a deep look at the leaking and publication of the Pentagon Papers. At the center of the episode are two guys who have a knack for being in the room when history gets made: Robert J. Rosenthal and Daniel Ellsberg.
For Rosenthal, the Pentagon Papers came calling when he was at the beginning of his journalism career.
When Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, he was turning his back on a long career close to power, immersed in government secrets. His early career as a nuclear war strategist made him fear that a small conflict could erupt into a nuclear holocaust.
In our second segment, when the Vietnam War flared, Ellsberg worried his worst fears would be realized. He wonders if leaking top-secret material he’s seeing at work could help stop the war. Soon, he was secretly copying the 7,000-page history that would come to be known as the Pentagon Papers and showing them to anyone he thought could help.
In our last segment, President Richard Nixon wakes up to the biggest leak in American history. His first reaction is a little surprising: The Pentagon Papers might make trouble for the Democrats – this instinct starts a chain reaction that helps bring down his presidency.
DIG DEEPER
Read: A young journalist witnesses history with Pentagon Papers www.revealnews.org/article/a-young-journalist-witnesses-history-with-pentagon-papers/
Listen: Caught on tape – the presidential edition www.revealnews.org/article/caught-on-tape-the-presidential-edition/ |
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Post by the Scribe on May 25, 2020 10:25:42 GMT
Republicans' 'Operation Chaos' seeks to undermine South Carolina's Democratic primaryBy Jarrett Renshaw, Reuters•February 27, 2020
www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-operation-chaos-seeks-undermine-110822769.html
CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - Republican activists in South Carolina are urging party voters to do the seemingly unthinkable: support U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders' bid for the White House in the state's Democratic primary on Saturday.
The unusual effort is aimed at exposing what the activists see as flaws in the Southern state's open primary system - and at boosting the candidate many Republicans view as the easiest rival for Republican President Donald Trump to beat in November.
Sanders enters Saturday's contest as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, fueled by wins in New Hampshire and Nevada and a near-tie for first in Iowa.
But the Vermonter, an independent who calls himself a democratic socialist, now faces a tough challenge from Joe Biden. The former vice president is bolstered by strong support from African Americans who comprise a large share of South Carolina's Democratic electorate.
"Bernie is a socialist and the most egregious of all the candidates. He is also the weakest against Trump,” said Pressley Stutts, a Tea Party activist and one of the organizers behind an interference effort dubbed "Operation Chaos."
The Sanders campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Democrats and Republicans previously have threatened to interfere with the other party’s primary process in South Carolina and elsewhere, generally without success. In Iowa, however, Republicans boasted they clogged Democratic Party telephone lines, exacerbating embarrassing delays in reporting caucus results.
State Democratic Party Chairman Trav Robertson called the Republican efforts “nonsense.” He said party leaders expect greater Democratic primary numbers not due to Republican gamesmanship but because voters are fed up with the “immoral, anti-Christian” person occupying the White House.
South Carolina voters do not register by party and are allowed to vote in either party's contest. After the state Republican Party canceled its primary this year out of deference to Trump, activists long angered by Democrats allegedly participating in local Republican votes saw an opportunity for payback.
Stutts said he has been inundated with emails, texts and social media messages from Republicans eager to join the effort. On Tuesday, he held a news conference in Greenville, South Carolina, to announce the plan to vote for Sanders after some internal wrangling over which candidate to support.
Karen Martin, a freelance editor and pet sitter in Spartanburg, is leading a similar effort she has coined "Trump 2-29" in a nod to the primary date. Like Stutts, she wants the state to change to a closed primary system and sees delivering a victory for Sanders as the best way to antagonize a Democratic Party that includes some who are reluctant to embrace his candidacy.
With no party registration figures, it will be difficult to measure the impact of the Republican organizing efforts.
A Public Policy Polling survey released on Monday found a "fair number" of Trump supporters planned to vote in the Democratic primary. But the survey said their dispersed support among several candidates meant they would not be a factor.
State Republican Party Chairman Drew McKissick said his organization has not endorsed the activists' efforts, nor has it called for the movement to stop.
"I am not sure exactly how much this will move the needle," he said. "I do know that I'm having fun watching the Democratic circus and that Bernie Sanders, a socialist, would provide the ultimate contrast between the two parties."
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis) |
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Post by the Scribe on Sept 9, 2020 6:39:20 GMT
Michael Cohen says Trump was directly involved in ‘National Enquirer’ smears of 2016 opponentswww.yahoo.com/entertainment/michael-cohen-says-trump-directly-060155491.html
Yahoo EntertainmentSeptember 8, 2020, 11:01 PM
Throughout the primary process of the 2016 presidential election, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, two of President Trump’s biggest obstacles on his way to the nomination, repeatedly found themselves on the cover of The National Enquirer accompanied by damning headlines. On Tuesday night, Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, revealed that that was no accident. Cohen said that the tabloid worked with Trump to smear his opponents whenever they started rising in the polls. In fact, according to Cohen, Trump personally approved each story attacking the other candidates.
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