Russians Interference with the 2022 Elections.

[Rick Plant]

There’s no proof that Russia’s meddling via social media was effective. Many Liberal Democrats just can’t accept that Hillary lost fair and square in 2016.

"No proof" he says without offering proof to substantiate his false claim.

Here's my proof, Mr. Banks. Where is yours? You only post your "opinions" with zero evidence to support your false claim.

I guess Mr. Banks' personal opinion outweighs the knowledge of the Republican U.S. Senate Committee and our top US Intelligence officers who have done intensive investigations on Russian influence in our elections.

Senate Report: Russians Used Social Media Mostly To Target Race In 2016

The report, written by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, also said the Internet Research Agency, which worked "at the direction of the Kremlin," increased its activity after Election Day in 2016.

Following the 2016 election, "Instagram activity increased 238 percent, Facebook increased 59 percent, Twitter increased 52 percent, and YouTube citations went up by 84 percent," the report found.

The committee's work also affirmed the conclusions of earlier investigations on Russian interference in the elections, including the Mueller report's findings and the Jan. 6, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment.

"The Committee found that IRA social media activity was overtly and almost invariably supportive of then-candidate Trump," the report reads. "The Committee found that the Russian government tasked and supported the IRA' s interference in the 2016 U.S. election."

The Senate committee found that the Internet Research Agency sought to harm Democrat Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump "at the direction of the Kremlin."

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/08/768319934/senate-report-russians-used-used-social-media-mostly-to-target-race-in-2016


Russian propagandists targeted African Americans to influence 2016 US election
Operatives used social media to suppress votes for Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, new research finds
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/17/russian-propagandists-targeted-african-americans-2016-election

[Rick Plant]

So here it is folks, a bipartisan report from the United States Senate from 2020 (which includes both Republicans and Democrats) proved that Russia helped to interfere in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign welcomed it. And you have to be totally naive to believe that an "aggressive and sophisticated campaign" by the Russians "wasn't effective" in changing votes. That's why the Russians have been interfering in United States elections since 1982. And the phony claim that "Russian collusion is a hoax" is laugh out loud hilarious when it's been detailed in this Republican led Senate report since August of 2020 that Trump's people had "extensive contacts with the Russian Intelligence officers". Paul Manafort gave internal polling to the Russians. And why would that be? So, the Russians could target specific districts in the United States to push disinformation to change votes. That is called Russian collusion folks!           

Senate Releases Final Report On Russia's Interference In 2016 Election

A GOP-led Senate panel released a report Tuesday that details extensive contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russian intelligence in 2016.

Today we got perhaps the most detailed look yet at Russia's efforts to influence the presidential race four years ago. The Senate Intelligence Committee has released the final report from its bipartisan investigation into Moscow's interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

And all of that digging has gone into this report, and the committee concludes that Russia conducted a sophisticated and aggressive campaign to influence the U.S. election to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton and that folks on Team Trump were more than happy to accept help from the Russians. But what's really important about that conclusion is that it is a bipartisan one. It is endorsed by both Democrats and Republicans.

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/18/903616315/senate-releases-final-report-on-russias-interference-in-2016-election

[Rick Plant]

Let's assume that Russia did attempt to meddle in the election.  Is there any evidence whatsoever that they influenced a single vote?

 
Russia DID interfere in the 2016 election.   

"The IRA is alleged to have employed dozens of Russians whose job was to create hundreds of fake American personas online to broadly inflame divisions in American society and undermine democratic institutions, and more specifically damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The new reports say the effort spread to just about every popular social media platform."

"The Oxford report says one goal was to persuade African-Americans to boycott the election or to follow incorrect voting procedures to suppress the vote. The same tactics, the report said, have more recently been employed targeting Mexican-American and Hispanic voters to undermine their faith in U.S. institutions.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-targeted-african-american-vote-made-instagram-key/story?id=59862038

Contrast that situation with changing the election laws in almost every state in the months leading up to the 2020 election under false pretenses

Once again, this is false because Trump's own appointed judges threw your same bogus claims out of court in 2020. 

Trump-Appointed Judge In Wisconsin Shuts Down Campaign’s Legal Argument For Why Election Was Rigged
Dec 12, 2020
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/12/12/trump-appointed-judge-in-wisconsin-shuts-down-campaigns-legal-argument-for-why-election-was-rigged/?sh=7830de6a15d9

Trump-appointed judges among 86 who have so far dismissed election fraud law suits
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/13/trump-appointed-judges-among-86-have-far-dismissed-election/

censoring speech on social media

This is false too.

Twitter Admits in Court Filing: Elon Musk Is Simply Wrong About Government Interference At Twitter

"To date, not a single document revealed has shown what people now falsely believe: that the US government and Twitter were working together to “censor” people based on their political viewpoints. Literally none of that has been shown at all."

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/05/twitter-admits-in-court-filing-elon-musk-is-simply-wrong-about-government-interference-at-twitter/

and covering up information that would have been harmful to Biden (or even lead to his arrest for corruption).

   
Even more falsehoods.

What Biden "corruption"? Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr, Republican Investigations in 2020, and the Republican House last month found no corruption on the Biden's. It's nothing but Russian disinformation.   

If you want to talk about corruption and arrests, then let's talk about Donald Trump, who was indicted and arrested in New York on 34 felonies. Trump was just indicted by the Feds in Miami for espionage on 37 felony counts, and will be arrested again on Tuesday. Then he will be indicted and arrested again in DC for insurrection and Fulton County, Georgia for election fraud and racketeering sometime in August. Let's not forget Trump was recently found guilty of sexual assault in a civil court. That's what you call corruption. 

Barr Says No Need For Special Counsel For Hunter Biden Probe
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/21/948787251/barr-says-no-need-for-special-counsel-for-hunter-biden-probe-election-fraud-clai

GOP report: No wrongdoing in Biden son ties to Ukraine firm
September 23, 2020
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gop-report-wrongdoing-biden-son-ties-ukraine-firm/story?id=73192146

Republican Inquiry Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Biden
The report delivered on Wednesday appeared to be little more than a rehashing of unproven allegations that echoed a Russian disinformation campaign.
Sept. 23, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/politics/biden-inquiry-republicans-johnson.html

House Republican Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by President Biden
After months of investigation and many public accusations of corruption against Mr. Biden and his family, the first report of the premier House G.O.P. inquiry showed no proof of such misconduct.
May 10, 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/10/us/politics/hunter-biden-house-republicans-report.html

Which had the greater impact on the outcome? Russian interference or American interference?

In 2020, we had both Russian interference and American interference helping Trump but he still ended up losing in a blowout. That's how overwhelmingly unpopular he is.

Donald Trump, the Republican party, the right wing media, and Trump MAGA supporters all colluded to steal the presidency from Joe Biden and the majority of Americans who voted for him.   

Donald Trump lied about the election being stolen from him which was amplified by the right wing media. The Republican party took active measures trying to prevent the winner Joe Biden from taking office.

When that didn't work, Trump's supporters engaged in a violent coup to take over the government by force to stop the transfer of power.

That is clear treason, a political party trying to overturn an election because they didn't like the results.

Now the Republican party is defending Donald Trump's espionage. The Republican party is not a real political party, they are a deranged cult. They only exist to protect Donald Trump from his crimes and to steal elections for him.

Republicans do not care about our national security or the lives of Americans when they are now covering for a brazen criminal who was just indicted by the DOJ for espionage.

How can the GOP care about our national security when say it's ok for Trump to hoard our most sensitive secret intelligence and show it off for his friends at Mar a Lago? Anyone could get access to these documents and it could trigger a nuclear war since nuclear documents were in Trump's possession.

So, the American election interference occurred from Republicans in 2020 after Trump lost the election in a blowout.

It also happened on January 6, 2021 when Trump incited an insurrection and his deranged supporters engaged in a violent coup to overthrow the U.S. government. That is the worst interference of all which was done by Republicans.  .                       

[Richard Smith]

So many words but no evidence that the Russians influenced a single vote in 2016 or 2020.  Imagine being so obsessed by the topic to spend this much time on it.  And, of course, the leftist conspiracy theory wasn't just that the Russians meddled in the elections (and remember when it was the Dems that the Soviet Union were sympathetic with) but that Trump COLLUDED with Putin to win the 2016 election.  A conspiracy theory for which there was not an iota of evidence and was used to undermine Trump's presidency and divide the country.  The biggest hoax in American history and extremely divisive.  The fact that some radicalized Trump haters are still making this claim is unreal and laughable.  Surely even "Rick" understands he was played by the establishment (which includes both Dems and Republicans who want no outsider challenging their power structure). 

The irrefutable fact is that there is zero evidence that Russia influenced a single vote in the 2016 or 2020 elections.  Tens of millions of votes, however, were influenced by the changes just prior to the 2020 election under the false premise that it was unsafe to vote in person.  This allowed Dems to harvest millions of votes from universities and minority communities in a way that changed the outcome of the election.  The results speak for themselves.  An outlandish statistical outlier that Old Joe, an 80-year-old career politician who barely campaigned received more votes than any candidate in American history.  More than JFK, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, FDR, or anyone.  No one can believe that was not the product of the changes in the election laws using COVID as a pretext.  If the reverse had happened, and Trump had changed the election laws in a way that advantageous to him to win the election, leftists would have started a civil war.  The "insurrection" would have been a patriotic cause to save democracy instead of Jan. 6 hysteria.

[Rick Plant]

So many words but no evidence that the Russians influenced a single vote in 2016 or 2020.

This is another falsehood. US Intelligence and the US Senate said it did.

"A Senate inquiry has concluded that a Russian fake-news campaign targeted "no single group... more than African-Americans."

It says Russian operatives used social media to deter black people from voting and planted subtly racist content to incite conflict between ethnicities.

The report comes two years into the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the 2016 election.

African-American community voters were discouraged from voting, and from supporting Hillary Clinton."

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49987657

Imagine being so obsessed by the topic to spend this much time on it.  And, of course, the leftist conspiracy theory wasn't just that the Russians meddled in the elections (and remember when it was the Dems that the Soviet Union were sympathetic with) but that Trump COLLUDED with Putin to win the 2016 election.  A conspiracy theory for which there was not an iota of evidence and was used to undermine Trump's presidency and divide the country.  The biggest hoax in American history and extremely divisive.  The fact that some radicalized Trump haters are still making this claim is unreal and laughable.  Surely even "Rick" understands he was played by the establishment (which includes both Dems and Republicans who want no outsider challenging their power structure).

Wrong again.

No Hoax: Bipartisan Probe Says US Intelligence Made Right Call on Russian Election Meddling
https://www.voanews.com/a/usa_us-politics_no-hoax-bipartisan-probe-says-us-intelligence-made-right-call-russian-election/6187955.html

The irrefutable fact is that there is zero evidence that Russia influenced a single vote in the 2016 or 2020 elections.

Still false.

Russian propagandists targeted African Americans to influence 2016 US election
Operatives used social media to suppress votes for Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, new research finds
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/17/russian-propagandists-targeted-african-americans-2016-election

Tens of millions of votes, however, were influenced by the changes just prior to the 2020 election under the false premise that it was unsafe to vote in person.  This allowed Dems to harvest millions of votes from universities and minority communities in a way that changed the outcome of the election.  The results speak for themselves.  An outlandish statistical outlier that Old Joe, an 80-year-old career politician who barely campaigned received more votes than any candidate in American history.  More than JFK, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, FDR, or anyone.  No one can believe that was not the product of the changes in the election laws using COVID as a pretext.  If the reverse had happened, and Trump had changed the election laws in a way that advantageous to him to win the election, leftists would have started a civil war.  The "insurrection" would have been a patriotic cause to save democracy instead of Jan. 6 hysteria.

Donald Trump tried to use these same bogus election conspiracy claims in court and his own appointed judges threw these phony claims out of court.

Trump-Appointed Judge In Wisconsin Shuts Down Campaign’s Legal Argument For Why Election Was Rigged
Dec 12, 2020
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/12/12/trump-appointed-judge-in-wisconsin-shuts-down-campaigns-legal-argument-for-why-election-was-rigged/?sh=7830de6a15d9

Trump-appointed judges among 86 who have so far dismissed election fraud law suits
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/13/trump-appointed-judges-among-86-have-far-dismissed-election/

[Richard Smith]

So many words, but no evidence.  The Russia hoax will go down in history as the biggest fake conspiracy theory ever recorded.  The history book will not be kind to those who perpetuated that hoax and then politicized COVID for political purposes to win an election.  Compounded with using the corrupt justice system to arrest political opponents, this will be remembered as a dark era in American history.  The corruption of Old Joe and Biden, Inc. will eventually be acknowledged.  The FBI and DOJ are giving it the slow roll in the hope that they can delay any prosecution until after the 2024 election to protect their jobs.

[Rick Plant]

Let's remember who is claiming Trump's Russian collusion "is a hoax". Donald Trump himself, a pathological liar, a twice impeached indicted arrested criminal.

Does anyone actually believe Trump is going to admit his Russian pals helped him steal the 2016 election when he lost the popular vote by over 3 million votes?  This is the same criminal who openly tried to steal the 2020 election from the American people and Joe Biden and he still lies about that election being "rigged".

Right wingers parrot the "no collusion" lie because they can't admit their orange cult leader is a loser. These are the same clowns that make up 2020 election conspiracies so they can feel better about Donnie losing in a blowout election.

Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, another indicted criminal who went to prison, gave a Russian spy the 2016 Trump campaign internal polling data. Why would an American political campaign give sensitive polling data to a foreign enemy if nothing nefarious was intended?

So, the act of Manafort giving a Russian spy the Trump campaign polling data is "collusion". Both parties were in an agreement to collude with each other for the 2016 election.

Paul Manafort himself admitted to handing this data over to a Russian spy who was in Russian Intelligence. Why would an American campaign chairman do that if nothing nefarious was intended?

Right wingers have no answers for that. My tweet the other day on Twitter received 250k views and not a single right winger could give a decent answer as to why it's acceptable for Trump to give polling data to the Russians. All I saw were the lame usual excuses and denials.                                 

So the fact is, the Russians received Trump polling data from the Trump campaign. That sensitive polling data showed which districts in important states Trump was losing to Clinton. It's also no coincidence, that the Russians attacked those same swing districts Trump was losing in: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. And the result was Trump got 77,000 more votes in those three states. That's called Russian interference. 

So yes, Russian collusion and interference is REAL because United States Intelligence confirmed it and Paul Manafort ADMITTED to it. Handing over your sensitive campaign polling data to a foreign enemy is the very definition of COLLUSION.

Right wingers won't admit to it, but that's exactly what it is.

     
Ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort admits sharing info with Russians
Mr Manafort has previously denied sharing polling data with suspected Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/paul-manafort-russia-polling-data-b2140727.html


U.S. says Russia was given Trump campaign polling data in 2016

"A Treasury Department statement Thursday offered a potentially significant clue, asserting that Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian and Ukrainian political consultant, had shared sensitive campaign and polling information with Russian intelligence services.

Kilimnik has long been alleged by U.S. officials to have ties to Russian intelligence. But the statement in a broader Treasury Department sanctions announcement was the first time the U.S. government had so directly drawn a connection from the Trump campaign to the Kremlin’s intelligence services. The revelation was all the more startling because it went beyond any allegation made in either special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report or in an even more damning and detailed document released last year by the Senate Intelligence Committee."

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/u-s-says-russia-was-given-trump-campaign-polling-data-in-2016