I am so sorry, but the time has come and this has to be asked..

[Peacetrain]

Are some extreme right wing media outfits in cahoots with the Russians trying to attack our Democracy.. In fact democracies world wide.. Trump keeps pushing proven lies over and over again, and they always get traced back to some story that was on Brietbart or Infowars last week.. or some such thing..

I hate to say this, because of the implications.. but at some point the question has to be asked.. and a good look at money flowing into these organizations..

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Yes, of course. The Russians have been doing this sort of thing for years

in many European countries. It's nothing new; it's just more insidious.

[Peacetrain]

5. We have all got to stand together no matter what..

our whole political system is under attack. Led by media placed innuendos and lies

[mucifer]

2. Lots of things are unethical but legal. I'm guessing this is the case for right wing media.

[Peacetrain]

7. Stupid is everyones right..but when it comes to the point

of undermining our government.. attacks on our voting system.. we have to stop and take a look at what is behind it

[mucifer]

13. Yes that would be great. WaPo did a lot of great investigative reporting about trump and still

he became president. It all makes me so cynical.

[Peacetrain]

16. I understand.. absolutely understand..

We have to push forward and follow the money wherever it goes

[caroldansen]

3. Well, the democratic media just tells it like it is. As for the republican media, good question.

[Jim Beard]

4. It could be but the real story is the Income Tax. Trump is scared to death about that.

[Peacetrain]

9. Follow the money for everyone..

[uponit7771]

6. Yes they are ...No one is going be shocked they were

[Peacetrain]

11. I felt queasy even thinking about it..

But groups of people will do anything for money.. so our Democracy is under attack and we have to look at where money is flowing

[suffragette]

22. Donald Jr. said "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets"

and "“We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” in 2008.

Add to that Trump's bragging comments about being in a room full of Russian oligarchs when he went to Russia for his pageant.

Yup, follow the money.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-financial-ties-to-russia-and-his-unusual-flattery-of-vladimir-putin/2016/06/17/dbdcaac8-31a6-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html?utm_term=.a6d3ebd433ca

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

~~~

Still, the weekend was fruitful for Trump. He received a portion of the $14 million paid by Agalarov and other investors to bring the pageant to Moscow. Agalarov said he and Trump signed an agreement to build a Trump Tower in the heart of Moscow — at least Trump’s fifth attempt at such a venture. And Trump seemed energized by his interactions with Russia’s financial elite at the pageant and a glitzy after-party in a Moscow nightclub.

“Almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” Trump bragged to Real Estate Weekly upon returning home.

[cilla4progress]

8. Ya

Think?

[Peacetrain]

12. I think

[cilla4progress]

15. Nt

[RKP5637]

10. There is something very bizarre, and Trump's tax returns would likely prove very revealing! n/t

[Peacetrain]

14. I am not only wanting to know where money went to trump.. but everyone at this juncture..

[Mendocino]

27. I'm not saying he's in cahoots with Russia,

but his W-2 and 1099s have a Moscow return address.

[NRaleighLiberal]

17. Yes.

[Blanks]

18. Actually, progressive radio and television...

Probably had more to do with Trump's victory than anything else.

My suspicion is that the coordination with the Russians was to get the message to match.

Republicans were already pretty good at getting their 'marching orders' but all of these cliches:

Hillary is a weak candidate.
The Clinton foundation broke the law
Benghazi
Etc.

Then when we saw this exact message on Facebook, twitter, here. Even though there was no evidence to support the allegations, they showed up so frequently, that people started repeating them.

RT is the culprit, because when a lot of the bad mouthing is coming from liberal commentators, it's seems more authentic.

[bettyellen]

28. Some lefties were using Wikileaks, RT and Greenwald nonsense

All day long- they were useful but I don't think the majority of people following that media were duped. But the sources knew they were catapulting for Putin and knew it. They didn't care.

[Blanks]

39. It was effective to folks...

That don't follow politics that closely. My sister said on Facebook that she couldn't in good conscious vote for Hillary Clinton (another phrase that I heard a lot).

If the Russian goal was to swing a few percentage points away from Hillary, that would be the crowd to influence. Those voters that only catch their political news 'on the wind.'

That kind of talk was all over Facebook, here and I'm sure a lot of other places just repeated phrases, not based on anything, but enough to get the less politically active to vote against Hillary, even if they didn't vote for Trump.

That's my theory.

[bettyellen]

41. I have friends that follow fairly closely - but relied on Intercept and then suddenly RT and

Even when I pointed out the only other sources spinning stories the same was Breitbart Fox and Infowars - they really did not care. When I pointed out Wikileaks huge slant, and wondered what was up with that they didn't care. They disliked Hillary and 9/10 reasons were things her husband did. They were shocked that I saw that as foolish and sexist.

[Initech]

19. I'd be willing to bet that Hannity, Jones, and Breitbart know something we don't.

[ProudLib72]

20. Does this mean

we can expect some disgruntled employee to leak?

[Initech]

21. I'd put good odds on it!

[CentralMass]

23. It seems it. I think this is a money grab being backed by big oil concerns.

There is a cabal that wants to shift the geopoltical landscape for profit. It is reminiscent of the neo-con cabal that lead us down the path leading to the invasion of Iraq but possibly more sinister, bordering on treasonous.
I think that there is propably a lot of money or the promise of it being passed around.

They are gutting tbe EPA, and NOOA, approving pipelines,selling off public lands, and scheming with Putin to go on an oil and money feeding frenzy while the fuck up the world with some bogus conflict they'll cook up.

[stillcool]

24. Russia vs USA

who knows? the Sessions thing freaked me out a little. what's a good old boy doing, hanging with the Russians? Is it still about the oil?

[MedusaX]

32. Good ol boy..

In The case of a good ol god fearing boy like
Jeff-ro B Sessions....
it is more likely that he is motivated by fear of some Kompromat being shared with the church folks.back home.....

He has visited Russia...as a public figure / government rep at various levels.... so he would have been a likely candidate for Russia to "observe on camera" and save film for a later date.....

Most likely Sergey K (ambassador) pulled him aside at the RNC and said ...
"My good friend Mr Sessions..."
"remember the time you went to Russia and stayed at the ___ hotel?
We have some lovely vacation photos/videos that your friends & family might like to see, shall we send them or would you prefer to ....."

[KittyWampus]

34. white supremacists thing Putin is their great white savior. It's part of why Sessions' involvement

made so much sense.

[stillcool]

42. Sessions is such a tool

he's like one of those old dolls...when you pull their string they talk. There's a big pay day in there for him somewhere. Maybe it's his new gig.

[ananda]

25. Almost all cable media shows ..

.. are either actively supporting 45, getting talkers
who defend him; or else they are soft on him.

It's hard to watch; I never least more than a minute or two
and most often just a few seconds.

Rachel Maddow was pretty good last night; so I might start
watching her show.

That's about it.

[Rex]

26. Sure why not. We have 6 media giants that control most of what we see outside the Internets.

Some of them owned by foreign actors that are not friendly to our way of life.

[0rganism]

29. the cold war did not end in the '90s

many of us, probably upwards of 90% of Americans, believe it ended when the Berlin wall came down, the Warsaw Pact dissolved, and the USSR split up. for about 5 months, i've been thinking that it did not.

think about it this way. what was Vladimir Putin's country of origin? what was his job at the time of the collapse? do you suppose he could have been as patriotic for the USSR as we might be for the USA?

i've been thinking about this quite a bit lately. i think what we're seeing now is the result of a set-up that spans at least 2 decades, and reaches deep into our media infrastructure.

imho, Putin is now positioned to carry out the next stage of a plan to recreate in the USA what happened to the USSR. first we discredit ourselves on the world stage, then NATO collapses, then the USA balkanizes and its constituent states become theo-kleptocracies. thus the USSR is avenged.

once the USA is neutralized and falling apart into warring city-states, Putin's Russia will sort things out with China.

these events are going to have whole chapters devoted to them in European history textbooks.

[randome]

30. Putin is not only a billionaire in his own right, he is using Russia's capital.

That much money directed at one specific goal and he can do the things you listed. Or he could. His scheme seems to be falling apart.

[0rganism]

35. Russia's capital includes a lot of former KGB agents looking for work

the notion that they all just rolled over and got jobs at Starbuck's is laughable in retrospect

i don't know that the plot is falling apart just yet -- both USSR/Russia and USA have expertise in undermining democracies and destabilizing governments. Trump is certainly a blunt instrument, but imho the surgical precision part happened decades ago during the rise of dominant RW corporate media; Trump was supposed to deliver the death blow. whatever the outcome of the current fiasco, the USA is already becoming extremely discredited around the world - toxic, even. if events proceed apace, NATO and the UN are next. this morning in the shower, i found myself fervently hoping the UN would relocate to Kyoto or Penang. once those international ties are weakened, the internal destruction of our nation can begin in earnest. to me, this looks like a country on the edge of civil war -- we are damn near irreconcilably split along ideological lines, even between family members. we could break apart easily enough, given the right set of stimuli.

oddly enough, i think it will begin with the construction of a large wall.

i guess that makes Trump = Bizarro Gorbachev

[randome]

36. 'Bizarro Gorbachev'. That's a good one.

The Wall will never start, though. The Doltish One is self-destructing too quickly.

[KittyWampus]

31. Yes. The whole 'Sweden' thing was a giveaway.

[world wide wally]

33. If you connect every dot on the board, you will find they all lead to the same place...

Banks. The big ones.

[BadgerMom]

37. I have two thoughts

1. Fairness doctrine

The First Amendment was not under siege when the Fairness Doctrine was in place. But the absolute mendacity of right wing news was in check when the doctrine was in place. If or when progressives return to a place of influence, we need to look hard at restoring that rule or something like it.

2. Go on. Follow the money. It will lead to the Mercer family. They have a big stake in Breitbart and Cambridge Analytica. They have blame for lots of what's happening. I'll link to a piece from last weekend's Guardian that I posted as an OP.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[thbobby]

38. American Plutocracy

I believe it is all about money. The extreme right-wing media is in it for the money. But, so is CNN, MSNBC etc. Trump can attack dishonest media so easily because the priority of most media is profit first, then journalism.

Look at the election. Trump got as much soft-ball coverage as he wanted because ratings were more important than quality journalism. Profitable to make the election close, so attack Hillary to ensure a contested election. Easier to cover mud slinging than to analyze issues. Win-win. Superficial coverage requiring no analysis of issues. Minimal effort with high ratings.
Some coverage has improved since the election, but is the priority quality journalism or high ratings?

We must demand quality journalism. Communicate with advertisers and networks. I believe this is one lesson to be learned from the disaster this election produced.

[Nevernose]

40. We know the CIA has been doing it for decades

So I think it's safe to assume that most other countries engage in similar behavior.