Report: Russians used Bernie Bros as unwitting agents in disinformation campaign.

[fun n serious]

“Senator, I think what they were trying to do was drive a wedge within the Democratic Party between the Clinton group and the Sanders group,” said Alexander. “And then in our nation between Republicans and Democrats.”

Supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) reported earlier this month that during the 2016 election, their social media feeds and pro-Sanders Facebook groups were inundated with what they now believe were Russian bots spewing anti-Hillary memes including fake news stories about Clinton using a body double and murdering her ideological opponents. Over time the anti-Clinton online faction became known by the nickname “Bernie Bros.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/russians-used-bernie-bros-as-unwitting-agents-in-disinformation-campaign-senate-intel-witness/?platform=hootsuite

[NanceGreggs]

1. JPR.

JackpineRadicals is the classic example of how this worked. They swallowed every "fake news" story about HRC, and spent hours discussing them in detail.

The body-double story, the dementia, she's dying, she's a drug addict, she has a brain tumour, she wears a full-body brace in order to stand upright, etc., along with an endless stream of threads about the "body count", i.e. people who Hillary had murdered - it was all there, day-in/day-out.

The stories were so bizarre, and so laughingly implausible - but they just lapped it all up.

Amazingly enough, all of these stories suddenly disappeared the minute the election was called. And no one there has yet to offer an explanation as to why they no longer care about HRC's dead victims, or how she was miraculously cured of all of her fatal diseases overnight.

[Cha]

2. Epic example.. thanks for the recap, Nance.

Mean-spirited vicious propaganda.. I'm sure putin is grateful..

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[DFW]

8. I'm sure that Putin is awestruck

Since November 9th, he has probably woken up every single day shaking his head, thinking, "they actually fell for it?"

[KingCharlemagne]

35. If we would but step back from our nationalist bias for just a moment, we

must admit that Putin is a master at parlaying a weak hand into a jackpot. He reminds me a little of his pre-Soviet predecessor Peter the Great, the way he is able to exploit tensions in the west for Russia's imperial gains.

[Hortensis]

43. Don't know about master. He kicked at a cracked

leg in a table and it broke.

"Nationalist bias" should not lead to our attributing our own votes to machinations of a "master" instead of admitting that AMERICANS WHO HELPED ELECT TRUMP IN ANY WAY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN WEAKNESSES AND THEIR OWN BAD JUDGEMENT.

The flaws Putin put to use came first.

[KingCharlemagne]

48. I get your point. But consider this scenario (ht to Cha for

planting the seed):

Cambridge Analytics identifies WI, MI and PA as states that can be "flipped" and communicates it to the Trump campaign. Trump campaign communicates the info (via Flynn, Page, Stone, Manafort) to Putin. Putin re-purposes Russian Intel assets to cyber-target voters in the 3 states. The rest, as they say, is history.

It's a diabolical scheme, Swift-Boating Hillary, but only in states where the Swift-Boating would work. You have to admire Putin's sang froid, I think.

[Hortensis]

56. Yes, but no more clever than our own right in 2010.

They studied, identified the specific seats they needed to flip to the right, figured out HOW to it, hiding behind a phony, engineered "grass roots" movement, and spent the money to make it happen.

People should be looking in their own mirrors and asking themselves why THEY CHOSE to adopt and spread the lies that Hillary was running a corrupt campaign. Those allegations were never backed up with honest numbers. But shouldn't even those who pretended they were have wondered when ALL those lawsuits, both those merely threatened and those actually filed, were were quietly dropped after the cameras moved on?

Or later, why, THEY CHOSE to spread all the ridiculous and obviously false lies spread by both hostile Americans and Russians.

Without their help, Rump, Russia, right-wing media, Kochs and Mercers, the AP, Comey, could NEVER have succeeded. They wouldn't even have tried in the first place. We were on track to flip the nation to a Democratic presidency, Senate, possibly House, various governorships and state legislatures, and many judicial seats.

[KingCharlemagne]

62. Underneath it all runs one of the "big lies" of misogyny, i.e., that

any powerful modern woman can only achieve power by devious, i.e., illegitimate, means. A significant enough number of Americans were predisposed to believe the lies about Hillary because they had internalized that 'big lie.' In a sense, the various forces you list did not succeed, as Hillary received 3 million more votes nationally than Trump. But for sheer political skulduggery, Putin's demonic triumvirate (with Trump and Cambridge Analytics) has to rank up there.

It has been awhile since 2010 and I was not tuned in on a fine enough frequency then to see the parallels. I always ascribed 2010 to a catastrophic failure of Dem GOTV and not so much to Repub machinations. What are your 2010 memories?

[Hortensis]

96. I didn't see it then, King. Political analysts and investigative

journalists put together the truth later--that the Koch group, inspired by the "anti establishment" resentment tobacco companies were able to harness on their behalf, set to work doing it on a nationwide scale, planning,hiring agents, forming front groups, seeding and directing media, and of course spending whatever it took.

Until investigators revealed their findings, like most people back then I was listening to the media yammer on about a grass roots rebellion. My husband and I had watched the "tea party" beginnings with interest but decided immediately that "everyone's fault but ours" resentment was not for us, and of course noting that the "movement" was quickly distilling hard right.

We only wondered whether the religious right or big money would take it over by providing the leaders and funding we foolishly imagined this lacked. We didn't guess then at all that it was a big money creation from the beginning, complete with carefully hidden leadership. Hidden, of course, since Koch types were behind most of their grievances.

[susanna]

139. First, yes to the misogyny...

it is obvious in our country, and it is toxic.

Second, re: 2010, and this is just my opinion: it was not so much a failure of the Dem's GOTV. I remember it well. A large part of the issue then (flying under the radar) was the gerrymandering that resulted from the 2008 election. The GOP was livid that they had lost and hatched a plan - a clear one - to retake state legislatures and re-draw district lines to their benefit.

I stumbled across this podcast discussing it in some detail...it's #002 at the link below. It is an interview is with David Daley, author of the book "Ratf*cked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy." I think it is worth a listen.

http://weareherepodcast.podbean.com/
(scroll to #002 for the podcast I'm talking about)

[notdarkyet]

200. Trump was the weakest link in his chain. Why are trump and tillerman going to

Russia ? feels strange. I read Putin doesn't even want to hear trumps name anymore. Probably because he's not getting his part of the bargain--lifting sanctions, letting him have Crimea. Trump better be careful. Putin is destroying the trail. Follow the dead bodies.

[Gothmog]

140. I love that hat

[Skidmore]

6. Include all the sudden love

for all things Russian by some. I argued with a poster like that once and abandoneed the thread.

[fun n serious]

9. They still have threads there defending Putin and knocking Hillary and even Obama!

[Amimnoch]

7. This is worthy of its own OP Nance.

It was such a strange thing to watch.

[mdbl]

17. "Amazingly enough, all of these stories suddenly disappeared"

Including Trump yelling 'lock her up' and all the other crazy crap he was repeating. But no, he wasn't part of it.

[GusBob]

23. Waitaminute

"Amazingly enough" JPR is a DU spinoff site and many of these jits are former DUers correct? A lot of them hated PBO as well?

How far back does this Russian bot business go?

Set aside SBS/HRC/and DT, the over-arching goal of Putin is to destroy democracy....

[flamingdem]

98. That's a good question. The old DU archive is still online

and this could be researched.

[Hekate]

174. Very good question

[mopinko]

196. there have always been trolls here.

and suspicion of paid trolls.
i was thinking about the puma wars the other day.
and the obama inauguration explosions.

and a lot of legit posters run w that shit.

[BainsBane]

37. Yet they still insist there is no evidence

of Russian hacking or the Trump campaign's collusion.

[Gothmog]

144. There are couple of threads every week denying the Russia interference on that website

It is amazing that the posters on that site are not able to accept or deal with the fact that russia played them

[yardwork]

42. A lot of JPR posters are now back on DU.

[Demsrule86]

57. I saw one who is back who posted on JPR that he would vote third party unless it looked close...

he lived in a swing state...and then he would vote for Trump...and he is back. The post on JPR has been deleted. He acts like he thinks he is a progressive which he is not.

[cwydro]

164. There are a few of them.

One even raised money via gofundme here before he defected to JPR.

Took DUers money and then went and bad mouthed Hillary over there. And here.

He said he would vote third party, so I assume he did. Sadly, he's posting here again. And still asks for money on occasion.

[George II]

66. True, and the few that have been called out about it have denied they were ever there.

[FSogol]

73. Yup, they are currently demanding we primary many Democratic elected officials. n/t

[R B Garr]

88. Yes they are and with the same scripts.

And lots of fake news and fake polls.

[yardwork]

106. I'm seeing that too. Fake news, undermining and dividing Democrats.

[obamanut2012]

113. Just going to say this

And, unremorseful.

[tallahasseedem]

119. Yes they are...

and it makes it very difficult to navigate some days.

[mwooldri]

209. Some never left.

I did go to JPR for a time. I even sent a donation - because during primary time, the vitriol between Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters on DU got so bad, that as a Bernie supporter I felt I needed a safe place to go. JackPineRadicals offered that seeming safe space.

How bad? Moderators in the Hillary Clinton group banned DUers from posting in the Hillary Clinton group if they happened to support Bernie Sanders... and vice versa. Banning was not always done on the content of the message left by the poster. I know, as this happened to me.

This left people like me who supported Bernie Sanders felt somewhat out in the cold. However at the end of the day a Hillary Clinton presidency would be a whole lot better than a Donald Trump presidency. Bernie said so himself. Obviously now we know how bad a DT presidency is shaping up to be. We can all agree here (whether you like Bernie or not) that Bernie was correct: Hillary Clinton would be a better president than Donald J. Trump.

However, the primary ended, Hillary was the candidate. Things personally were different for me in 2016 compared to 2008 or 2012. Different job, less money, but more hours. I couldn't support properly. I couldn't afford to naturalize and vote. However, I ended up spending more time at DU again after Hillary got the nomination. After all, in my mind Hillary had to win. JPR became more of a curiosity and I visited there less and less - given that the JPR admin and the majority of the visible, active members there didn't support a Hillary win. I can't remember when I last posted there, and I'm sure it was something pretty apolitical.

I make no apologies for going there, donating money in their early days, and hoping to get a voice for Bernie going. Bernie didn't get elected. But we know one thing: JPR's admins are, quite anti-Clinton. Left wing, "progressive", yes, but no love for the DLC and "Third Way" which is the political philosophy espoused by Bill Clinton and one Tony Blair. If Tony Blair hadn't taken the UK into Iraq... then my viewpoint of him would be different. He is in my mind as complicit as George W Bush in taking the USA and the UK into a useless war in Iraq - there would have been better and more effective means at taking down Saddam Hussein.

Many DUers went to JPR. Those who tended to support Bernie and were put off by the anti-Bernie vitriol here were sorely tempted to stay. I like to think a lot of Bernie DUers who went over to JPR came back after the primary and stayed here at DU. Because that's me.

[LiberalLovinLug]

216. Thankyou for your voice of reason

Some of these posts are the epitome of how victorious the Russians were. They are still falling for it. They still want to drive a wedge even deeper into the Democratic party much to the delight of Putin and his babbling puppet.

First off, Most Bernie supporters took the name Bernie Bros as an insult, (like Hillbots), as there were many women Sanders supporters as well, of all color.
We laughed at and ignored the idiotic fake news about Hillary. JPR was infiltrated by Russian trolls and Trump trolls because it was so open. It was bound to happen. But the same tired crew in here insists on painting the vast majority of those that backed Bernie at the time with being duped by the same ridiculous fake scandals that were circulated mostly on FB by the deplorable class...who were duped. On JPR you could find criticism that was directed at her policies , or lack thereof, and her uncomfortable ties to the corporate class, if you looked for those threads. That is why many here went there, to be able to dare to talk critically of the front runner or how the party was operating, and also to promote the policies that Bernie championed, all of which was ill-advisedly denied on here at the time. My gawd this place was no picnic either. The hubris was palatable at the time and if you dared to suggest she might lose you were given an extra piling on of ROTF treatment.

We were homeless. We had to take the drug dealers and russian prostitutes that came along with the only neighbourhood we could get a room at. Does anyone here actually think that anyone that supported Bernie over Hillary during the primaries that was a member of DU not only ignored our own preferred candidate's admonishments "enough about the emails", but went further and "lapped up" even more National Inquirer stuff like Hillary runs a child porn ring? lol

Yes amazing that all those fake stories just disappeared after the election. Not really, the russians had done their jobs. No one there, that was an actual Bernie Democrat cared about "HRC's dead victims"...ever. There is nothing to explain! We never cared about that BS in the first place. That is not why we drifted over there, to talk nonsense. We left to talk freely. But it was infiltrated more and more heavily until I went less and less and finally left, as at the same time DU opened up their discussion especially after the election.

Caveat: of course there were probably a few morans that before they ever heard all those fake stories had been planning to vote for Hillary for many good reasons for a long time, and then suddenly were dumb enough to fall for them and changed their minds and didn't vote at all, or voted Stein, or even voted for Trump. But that "they" is such a tiny tiny minority, if you include all of DU, that its not worth a post even. In fact it is helping to feed a monster.

[arthritisR_US]

47. Bernie himself also swallowed all those stories, he came

to support her reluctantly and only at the last minute. His inflated ego still this day won't allow him to come to terms over his loss to her.

[JTFrog]

74. !!!This right here!!!

This is what pissed me off so bad.

And every single one of his BoBer's knows it. Many of them are here all day everyday trying to bury that wedge as far as they can.

[murielm99]

199. You are correct!

[arthritisR_US]

218. Yep they sure do and I'm not buying their BS.

[NewJeffCT]

90. In the beginning, I don't think he did

but it kept growing in importance to him and many of his followers. I think Sanders had some people around him that pushed him into bringing all that BS into the campaign.

To be honest, I have not supported any candidate in the Democratic primaries since 1988 (my first presidential election) because I've known that I'm going to vote for the (D) candidate over the (R) no matter who it is. But, once Bernie started on the emails (after he nicely said in the first debate that nobody cared about her god-damn emails...) and the Bernie Bros started attacking, I got a lot more supportive of Clinton and ended up giving her a bunch of $27 donations just because that was supposedly the average donation Bernie had received.

[synergie]

158. Does anyone remember when Tad Devine came on board?

[tammywammy]

165. November 2014

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/11/11/tad-devine-signs-on-to-work-with-bernie-sanders-on-potential-2016-run/?utm_term=.546be0e6d5a1

[synergie]

170. Wow, that early?

Wasn't Jeff Weaver in charge in 2015? I thought Devine took over from Jeff Weaver at some point.

[valar]

166. Manaforts buddy, N/T

[arthritisR_US]

219. His weak and tardy support for Clinton really

showed his shallow cards.

[R B Garr]

92. You can't even mention the truth about the rigging

claims that Russia picked up on to cause division without being alerted on here, though. But you are absolutely correct, and this is absolutely current news that is the subtext for how Russia targeted his supporters. Russian TV was also quoted here a lot and should be banned.

[tallahasseedem]

121. +1

That's all I'll say at this point...

[lunamagica]

129. So true!

[LisaM]

133. That is so true.

I am really sick of opening up DU every day and seeing Bernie Sanders this and Bernie Sanders that. He hasn't "demolished" anyone. He hasn't changed a thing. He continues to try and drive a wedge into the Democratic party. I didn't see it, but a friend told me yesterday that he was on CNN, berating the Democrats as usual, and actually stated that Democrats need to be "flexible" on choice. On choice!!!

[JCanete]

143. what the fuck? That is absolute nonsense. Their own dealings and campaigns impacted that,

not to mention some distinct idealogical differences. Sanders wasn't reading fake news about her. He's in Washington himself. He isn't Trump, sitting in the White House watching fox news to learn what's going on in his government. How silly..

[arthritisR_US]

221. What I find silly is what you just said

[JCanete]

222. feeling silly for engaging myself, after that response...nt

[aikoaiko]

220. What are some examples of these stories that "Bernie swallowed"?

[NurseJackie]

49. "They lapped it up" and spewed it out again.

The stories were so bizarre, and so laughingly implausible - but they just lapped it all up.

It was one of the most disturbing and bizarre examples of mindless group-think I've ever seen.

I'll even include "Susan Sarandon" among that group. Although it is impossible for me to determine if Ms. Sarandon had a secret account over there, or if she actually participated in the "discussions" over there... there's no doubt in my mind that she's also guilty of spreading the lies.

[randome]

52. Isn't it interesting that your description could fit the Tea Party, too?

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Just as we are going through a nationalistic fervor, so is the U.K. Just as the Tea Party has their unreasoning hatred of Democrats, a faction within the Democratic Party has unreasoning hatred of Clinton.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[JTFrog]

71. Been saying that for over six months now. Exhibit A. nt

[stevenleser]

72. And that's my only objection to the OP. OP speaks in past tense. It's still ongoing.

to Nance

to the JPR folks who lapped up all the disinformation

[L. Coyote]

116. Indeed, it continues.

Some of us tried to warn them, quite in vain, that the divisiveness was being promulgated by trolls. Reason is drowned out by emotion, a real vulnerability in politics.

[brer cat]

131. Spot on, L Coyote!

[tonyt53]

86. And when us "old timers" attempted to intervene with facts, we were attacked.

[valar]

171. And Alerted on N/T

[Hekate]

178. And hid out in the HRC Group, and finally mostly just departed until after the Convention...

I truly hope we never go thru that again -- that the hacking of DU will leave a lasting scar and memory.

[valar]

179. First time in 13 years here that I joined a Group(HRC) N/T

[bigbrother05]

91. Likely that "Bernie Bros" & JPR were Russian bots/sites

Any sentient Dem picked their candidate on preference or policy and the conspiracy crap was a feedback loop. Plenty might share/comment, but the ones really pushing the edges had another agenda. Appearing to spin off a known site lent an air of credibility for some that were susceptible to. A lot of the effect was to reinforce the echo chamber and suppress the HRC turnout.

Kind of wonder whether the 2008 PUMA phenomenon was v 1.0? It was more effective this cycle because of 20+ years of Clinton bashing.

[LisaM]

135. It's complicated by things like actual "bros" on places like Reddit and in the tech community

I don't think GamerGate was caused by Russians, and it was a real thing. The tech companies have a pretty sexist culture and there was overlap.

[synergie]

175. We also saw how that culture extended to journalism. Numerous white male journalists

got on board to attack women.

[Tarheel_Dem]

99. Not only did they swallow the "fake news"; they played a role, whether wittingly or unwittingly.....

in disseminating the garbage. It's unfortunate for all of us.

[obamanut2012]

112. exactly -- and not just at jpr

but also here.

[Wellstone ruled]

130. Thanks for the Post.

Suspected these Guy's as a source from the get go. Just stay away from this site.

[Gothmog]

141. I was amazed at the conspiracy theories that the JPR posters were buying

[NanceGreggs]

193. As I said ...

... most of them were beyond implausible.

My personal favourite was the "HRC is dying of ___ (insert your disease of choice here)" storyline.

According to JPR, Hill was suffering from at least a dozen fatal conditions simultaneously. They had videos of "doctors" diagnosing her from afar, insisting she was lying to the public about the fact that she was still running for office, despite the fact that she knew she was dying and would probably keel-over before her inauguration.

There were countless posts about how Hill was appearing in public while wearing a full-body brace to hide her dire condition - and even posts about how she was video-taping campaign speeches in her bedroom (too sick to venture outside of her home) which were later super-imposed via a green-screen to make it appear that she was speaking to a crowd.

I kid you not - they actually believed this bullshit.

And then there were the "body count" threads, another endless source of entertainment. Seth Rich was considered the latest in the long list of murders of political foes that had been masterminded by the at-death's-door HRC. Despite the proliferation of JPR posts decrying this terrible and oh-so-obvious political assassination, often expressing their heartfelt commitment to expose HRC and her murderous ways, Seth's death turned out to be yet another "bombshell story" that completely disappeared the minute Trump was declared the president-elect.

JPR was, and continues to be, a classic example of how easily the gullible are sucked into embracing the ridiculous. Launched as a website devoted to supporting Bernie's "revolution", JPR quickly devolved into the go-to site for RW talking points, conspiracy theories, and an endless supply of "fake news".

It is sad to see so many former DUers - once regarded as intelligent, politically-savvy contributors to the conversation - outing themselves as low-info idiots who will literally believe anything.

[tammywammy]

142. There were a few DUers on JPR really pushing Pizzagate

Until the admins there finally shut it down.

[Gothmog]

147. At one point there were several threads pushing this Conspiracy theory

I was amused when the JPR admins finally cracked down

[NanceGreggs]

192. The fact is that the Pizzagate story ...

... wasn't shut down on JPR until after it was met with a hearty on DU, as well as other political sites.

It was only then that JPR announced that the story was "fake news" and wouldn't be allowed. It wasn't a matter of being honest - it was a matter of after they realized they were being mercilessly laughed at by posters here and elsewhere.

[stonecutter357]

151. +1000

[calimary]

197. Yep. Me too.

I've seen quite a few reports about this.

For example:

http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2017/3/22/manafort-and-friends-how-bernie-sanders-campaign-also-had-russian-connections#.WNUCPFQIpHJ.twitter

It's really sad how many lies some people (still) believe about Hillary. It's just damn agonizing. I read the comments on lots of stories - whether it's Talking Points Memo or the Washington Post, NYTimes or Politico or Daily Kos. It's STAGGERING to see how many people STILL believe this shit, and still hate her for things she's never done, never said, never approved, never attempted, never was part of. I've seen people still holding the Pizzagate child molestation "story" that was so foul and stunk up the joint so badly that even "true believer" Alex Jones had to eat his own shit and issue an apology and retraction. And yet, people STILL believe that baloney. From lying to treason to murder to kiddie porn to cannibalism. It's just FREAKIN' INSANE.

I just do not get it.

I can only guess it's because they WANT to believe it, because they WANT to hate her.

-- CANNOT have, or tolerate, an Alpha Female. Period. OR an "uppity woman." Damn her, she doesn't know her proper place!
-- Resent her success (I suspect that's the motivation for a lot of female Hillary-haters - many of whom may be operating on an unconscious zero-sum-game attitude, where if she's Wonder Woman, that must mean they're inadequate by comparison).
-- Hate her for doing better/being richer/accomplishing more/earning more/being more famous/having more clout/remaining so poised under pressure/living such an amazing life.
-- Cling to any misperceptions that are designed to lessen her stature.
-- Distrust her because, well, everybody they know does.
-- Chop her down because it's just fun to chop somebody down, and she's an easy target (all the work's already been done for you!).

I think there's a lot of psychological reasoning to explain the Hillary-hate. Just guessing here because I don't have a PhD but I've long been fascinated by human foibles, behavior, and motivation. 


Besides, it just seems so damn wrong to use people like this. To use people like Bernie Sanders - for all kinds of dark-hearted, greedy, selfish, willfully ignorant, and/or short-sighted agendas. It's just plain wrong. And on edit, it must be said that it's GROSSLY unfair either to him OR to the people who sincerely put their faith in him.

[NanceGreggs]

215. I admire your courage.

Admitting that "sure, you lapped it up" took guts. Bigly.

Oh, and kudos for so passionately proving the point.

[LiberalLovinLug]

217. "They" is a big word

How many on there were just trolls talking to other trolls? And how many were there just to find a place to be able to speak freely and critically after the new rules were implemented in here during the primaries? Do you actually think the majority of DU members that supported Bernie are as stupid as to "swallow every fake news story"? Especially after Bernie's example of saying "enough with the damn emails"? If you don't mean to imply that then I wish you'd be more clear. because you are only furthering the enemies plan of dividing the party by insinuating that Russian trolls are the on par with DU Bernie primary supporters.

Both Hillary supported sites and Bernie supported sites were attacked by trolls. In one instance they shut the whole site down, in the other they polluted it with asinine posts in order to stoke confusion, and egg on the more gullible and to drive a wedge in the Democratic party. And to make it easy for those that have an insatiable desire to cast blame somewhere, to overlook Putin, Trump, and the GOP leadership and eat their own DUer allies instead because its just so much easier to generalize and stereotype in order to create an us vs. "they".

[NanceGreggs]

223. Reading comprehension?

Where did I say - or even remotely imply - that "the majority of DU members that supported Bernie are as stupid as to "swallow every fake news story"?

JPR does not represent the "majority" of Bernie supporters, from DU or anywhere. In fact, the majority of DU Bernie supporters got behind Hillary the minute she was declared the nominee.

" ... you are only furthering the enemies plan of dividing the party by insinuating that Russian trolls are the on par with DU Bernie primary supporters."

Again, I don't know where you're getting this from!?! The discussion is about JPR - NOT about DU, or Bernie supporters across the board. My comments are about a specific website - I don't understand how you could have missed that - I was abundantly clear about who I was talking about.

"And how many were there just to find a place to be able to speak freely and critically after the new rules were implemented in here during the primaries?"

There were no "new rules" implemented. The DU rule has always been that once a Dem nominee is declared, bashing our own nominee is not permitted. Those who left for JPR did so because they refused to stop bashing a Democrat on a Democratic site. (Imagine that!)

As for "speaking freely and critically", we've now seen where that led - thread after thread on JPR about HRC master-minding the murder of her political enemies in between having seizures caused by her two dozen fatal diseases.

JPR started as a Bernie-supporting site - it quickly devolved into a go-to site for RW talking points and later spiraled into being an anti-Democratic site. It's no surprise to anyone that a site full of those gullible enough to believe and repeat every anti-HRC "news story" - regardless of how ludicrous those stories were - would be infiltrated by Russian operatives anxious to take advantage of that gullibility.

Again, how you determined that anything said about JPR posters equates to talking about ALL Bernie supporters is beyond me. You should also know that there are MANY Bernie supporters who joined JPR back in its Bernie-supporting days, and left as soon as they saw the bullshit that was being posted there.

"Us versus them"? You're damned real - "them" being people who will latch onto ANY ridiculous fake news story that is anti-Dem/pro-Russia. They're no different than FOX-News addicts: easily brainwashed, easily led by the nose, easily convinced of things that any reasonable, thinking person would laugh at. "They" are of no use to Democrats - but they have proven themselves to be of great use to Republicans and Russian trolls.

[Skittles]

3. NO SHIT

[Cha]

4. Mahalo for this, fun n serious!

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[fun n serious]

10. It's sickening isn't it?

We have to remember who they are. There are many who will never admit they fell for fake news.

[Cha]

14. It's heart shattering.. thank you for shining the

Last edited Fri Mar 31, 2017, 06:33 AM - Edit history (1)

Light, fun

[arthritisR_US]

55. Yep, and look at the hell we have today..

the Bernie cheerleaders, for me are dead just like the joke Stein crowd.

[qdouble]

5. It's pretty obvious... go to JPR or similar sites. They are still talking about Clinton more than

Trump and doing everything they can to undermine democrats. So called liberals becoming stooges for Russian propaganda.

[betsuni]

11. I'm still amazed how many people fell for all this conspiracy junk.

I'm wondering if Americans are especially gullible or what. Maybe it's the tendency to take things literally.

[fun n serious]

12. They're still lost over at JPR

Look at this person Flygirl... She is over there defending Flynn.

https://jackpineradicals.com/boards/topic/breaking-news-flynn-will-testify-for-immunity/

[moriah]

15. And saying this:

"... every Real Progressive should know and repeat..Innocent Until PROVEN Guilty"

Hmmm.

[synergie]

28. lol

[mcar]

70. Unless her name begins with Hillary

Then she's guilty of everything!

[tallahasseedem]

125. This link answers so many questions...

I had about some posts around here, thank you!

[synergie]

16. It might be the tendency with some to simply fail to do their homework

compounded with the need to attack those that do. Wasn't that what the fake news site owners saying? Liberals were not buying the stories they posted, they were calling them out almost immediately, but the CONs were spreading any lie they were fed? And then there are those fake Bernie sites, which apparently were encouraging people to follow suit, in ways that real liberal sites (not run by Albanians, Macedonians, or from Singapore) were not?

[JI7]

21. a lot of it has to do with "wanting" to believe it

and just using it to attack a candidate regardless of whether they actually believe it.

[underpants]

24. Sales - 12 to 16 times

There is a tried and true tactic in sales - introduce a product to someone 12 to 16 times and their likelihood of buying shoots up dramatically. Time shares use this most directly but it also applies to the TV people watch. Given your demographics it's pretty easy to figure out what you watch even on different channels. Buy something on line and the ads on different sites will keep showing you more of the same.

This also explains Trump. He was on the air constantly. Everyone saw him way more than 12 to 16 times and that kind of product representation allows people to convince themselves to buy.

[delisen]

123. I think it is based on unacknowledged prejudice. Fit "facts" to match prejudice.

[butdiduvote]

145. I think a lot of people don't fall for the individual stories but succomb to the general cynicism

Go find a Bernie or Buster who voted for Jill Stein and ask him if he believes that Hillary was dying of Alzheimer's or if she runs a pedophilia ring, and he'll tell you of course not, he's not dumb enough to fall for stupid stories like that. However, the constant bombardment with those types of stories EVERYWHERE does give people a general feeling of cynicism about Hillary that make them just "feel" like she's corrupt. It's almost understandable; it has to be hard to feel positively about someone when you see 40 headlines about how evil she is every day. Had I not been someone who is really inspired by Hillary herself and therefore spent a lot of time watching her actual speeches and interviews, I might have felt something was just off about her as well (thank goodness that wasn't the case).

[Gothmog]

148. The Denial is running very deep on JPR

This thread is amusing https://jackpineradicals.com/boards/topic/please-just-stop-it-with-the-russia-russia-meme/

[Skittles]

190. dumber than dirt

I knew a great percentage of America was stupid when they fell for Reagan's act, and it has only gotten worse

[snort]

194. The distortion of the message is that many did.

It is not so.

[synergie]

18. Yes, these were the talking points the RW sites were using.

What "real reasons" have you heard that were not from Fox and Breitbart? They ran with every one of those fake stories.

[grossproffit]

19. Enjoy your stay.

[synergie]

29. Was that a newbie? I forgot to look.

[SticksnStones]

31. 8 or 9 post count I believe

[HoneyBadger]

20. Bernie's silent

He normally is very vocal

[synergie]

27. He's all for investigating the Russians.

No one has asked him about investigating what might have been done on his own behalf.

His book tour isn't over, and he's had many interviews this week, so perhaps he'll pop somewhere today and be asked about it.

[JTFrog]

75. Tad Devine.

'Nuff said.

[BainsBane]

152. He continues to appear

On RT, despite evidence before the House and Senate that it is not only a propaganda arm of the Kremlin but that it played a role in interfering with the election and thus destabilizing our democracy.

[VOX]

22. Then came the "purity vote" for Jill Stein...

DOCTOR Jill Stein, Russian stooge and dinner-table mate of Putin and Michael Flynn. From her website, you can see how the river of bullshit disinformation continued to flow unabated:
http://www.jill2016.com/sanders_endorsement_clinton
I join millions of Americans who see Hillary Clinton's campaign as the opposite of what they and Bernie Sanders have fought for. Despite her penchant for flip flopping rhetoric, Hillary Clinton has spent decades consistently serving the causes of Wall Street, war and the Walmart economy.

The policies she fought for - along with her husband and political partner, Bill Clinton - have been foundations of the economic disaster most Americans are still struggling with: the abuses of deregulated Wall Street, rigged corporate trade agreements, racist mass incarceration, and the destruction of the social safety net for poor women and children. The consistent efforts of the Democratic Party to minimize, sideline, and sabotage the Sanders campaign are a wake up call that we can't have a revolutionary campaign inside a counter-revolutionary party.
<snip>
What is most disappointing is that Sanders has refused invitations to speak to the Green Party, a truly democratic national party that has long championed the progressive stands that lifted the Sanders campaign to the top of national polls.

Fortunately, this November voters across America will still have the choice to cast a revolutionary vote...As the Sanders campaign's dominance of national polls has shown, our positions are shared by a majority of voters, and with the Green Party on the ballot in November the majority can vote for what they want and get it. Together we can beat both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the two most unpopular and least trusted presidential candidates in American history.
<snip>

[synergie]

30. And the "Justice Democrats" are the latest group.

Last edited Fri Mar 31, 2017, 03:38 PM - Edit history (1)

They're the same people who told people that they should write in an invalid candidate and leave the rest blank as a protest vote. There literally was a post on Raw Story that instructed people how to do that.

That worked out well, didn't it?

[VOX]

33. Oh, yeah, that really showed 'em who's boss.

Divide, divide, divide, defeat. Miserable wretches, all of them.

[BainsBane]

40. My greatest anger

Is toward so-called leftists who worked to elect Trump by refusing to vote for our nominee.

[NurseJackie]

53. Those people are fools. (And I have boundless contempt for them as well.)

Many still parade around at this site. It's all a masquerade, of course. But they're still out there, causing trouble. They're very skilled at staying just-inside the rules while attacking and smearing Democrats and the Democratic Party. It's almost as if they've got a coordinated script or something. They're always "just trying to help" but the effect is always that they "just continue to weaken and divide".

[still_one]

78. They are more responsible for trump than those who voted for him

[BainsBane]

80. According to JPR

a number did vote for Trump and continue to defend him.

[still_one]

82. and that speaks volumes about jpr why they allow supporters of a racist, sexist, and

xenophobe to be part of that site

[jrthin]

102. I agree. And it is still...

difficult to let go of my anger toward these so-called leftists.

[BainsBane]

107. Particularly when they continue to target the Democratic party

even in light of everything Trump is trying to do. It demonstrates there is nothing leftist about him and that they share his white male supremacist agenda.

[jrthin]

111. Yes,yes, yes.

[VOX]

109. Yes. If they were *truly* leftists, with a sense of doing the greater good...

They would have voted for the Democratic nominee, even if it was the proverbial "yellow dog." But no, purity above all else. And how pure is that, actually? Well, there's Doc Stein, at the priciest dinner table, where you can rub elbows with Vla

[sprinkleeninow]

205. Accent on 'so-called'. n/t

[Cha]

54. I notice they're the ones who

are whining that our Dems on the Front Lines are spending too much time getting to the bottom of the trump-Russian collusion.

As your OP stated.. putin is just getting started..

They have a lot of damn nerve butting in when they own a chunk of trump.

[NurseJackie]

77. You're not the only one who's noticed that. I've always been suspicious of their motives.

[lunasun]

189. I have noticed that too!..."we don't need to hear about Russia" Really? Who is 'we'????

[JHan]

101. someone posted a promo vid from these "justice democrats"

I visited their site: Not a word on it about the Mercers, the Koch Brothers, the Corruption going on in D.C as we speak under this Administration, not a word about Citizens United or Gorsuch and "corporate personhood" , not a single link to indivisible - but a whole lot of focus on the democratic party and democratic politicians.

[Starry Messenger]

25. Dumbshits

[NCTraveler]

26. Water is wet.

No different than those on the right hanging on to every word at Brietbart. It conforms to the conspiracies they already want to desperately believe.

[GusBob]

32. I just learned a new phrase

"russian honeypots, hecklers and hackers"

Lol "Third Way Ivan" now I get it

[Hekate]

180. Oh jeez...

Does Manny have a new handle?

[KewlKat]

34. Interesting...drip, drip

It is "strange" that Russia concentrated anti-Hillary news in WI, PA and MI - and Trump knew to campaign there.

the con's camp must have worked with muther ru$$ia............doncha think?

[Adrahil]

45. What are you implying?

That HRC was somehow in on it?

[Johnny2X2X]

36. The subtle stories were most effective

Sure, the crazy stories motivated some people. But the subtle tweaks to the Benghazi and email stories were more believable. I know people who voted for Trump because of these subtle stories.

And the Russians were helping him in his own primaries too. Rubio was a target. And they need to look into their own hacks.

[Ilsa]

39. I supported BS, but could never join a JPR-like forum.

The messages got more and more bizarre, outrageous, and nonsensical. Just yesterday I read a post from a trump supporter insisting that HRC must have been pumped full of drugs to keep her upright for her campaign events.

[yardwork]

44. Every Bernie supporter I know in real life but one voted for Hillary.

The one who did not - wrote in Bernie on his ballot in the Midwest - is still raving about how evil Hillary is. And he's gone full-on racist too.

[Ilsa]

132. I'm brokenhearted over stuff going on w a former

Democratic friend. First she was nad at the Ds for not passing meaningful gun legislation for background checks after Sandy Hook. Yeah, like it was their fault.

Then her son started seeing his individual health insurance premiums increase. His stat e didn't expand medicaid and of course the funding for risk corridors was stripped. She blamed Obama.

If I didn't know her writing style so well, I would have assumed her posts were by bots or trollbots.

[PatrickforO]

210. Well, I did. For sure.

And Hillary won except for the electoral college - by close to 3 million votes.

Right now, National Fair Vote legislation is being pushed in a number of states. I think we have to change the structure itself, and that has the potential to really help.

I don't know how to change the structure, but both sides have their fringe elements, and then there are those who congregate toward the center of the Bell curve, either left or right. The problem is these people aren't laughed straight off the public stage.

The truth is we're always going to have people like me who tend toward a more socialistic believe in government solutions, and not privatizing public goods, like health care and prisons. And, there are people equally sure of their opinions, who believe in market solutions.

Somehow we have to get rid of the polarization so we can start having sane conversations. It is possible.

In fact, it WAS possible until we had the concerted effort from the US Chamber of Commerce in response to the Lewis Powell memo, culminating in Reagan killing the Fairness Doctrine. Now, not so much.

Can we recover? Get back to sanity in public discourse? Will we ever be able to begin thinking at a species-level about ourselves, understanding that the 20K people who starve to death every day have the same human value as we ourselves.

Hmm. Tune in next week...

[synergie]

160. Sourced directly from Breitbart or some Albanian site no doubt.

[yardwork]

41. This was obvious and is still going on.

[Demsrule86]

46. Jill Stein is a Russian plant as well...I hope they prove she took money and throw

her traitor ass in jail... look at the picture where she, Flynn and Putin are sitting around a table all cozy.

[NurseJackie]

50. Stein was Susan Sarandon's choice... because "Hillary was worse than Trump" in her idiotic view.

[Demsrule86]

59. I despise Susan Sarandon...hopefully

she is done now. Personally, I would not support anything she was involved in...including movies. I saw her after the election where she was defiant and still claiming that Trump was better or at least no worse than Hillary...this is the third time she has helped hand us a defeat...2000,2010(sob sob no public option) and now 2016...she is Putin's useful idiot...and I emphasize the word idiot.

[NurseJackie]

61. Her career is over. She'll be lucky to get a supporting role in a cheesy Lifetime Original Movie...

... she's not even good enough for those silly "Sharknado" movies.

Yes, "idiot" indeed.

I have nothing but boundless contempt for her.

[Demsrule86]

63. boundless...she is so self centered...she literally had no empathy for those

who will be hurt by a Trump presidency...I was waiting for her to talk about the 'greater good'.

[murielm99]

203. She is on Colbert right now,

spouting her BS. I won't watch it. My husband is watching.

[KingCharlemagne]

51. Any erstwhile Bernie supporter wo failed to line up behind Hillary once she was

nominated is part of the problem, not part of the solution. I purged a few from my FB list.

[Gothmog]

58. JPR had ton of Russian fake news stories posted

[Adrahil]

67. Like I've been saying...

JPR is 70% right-wing trolls trolling each other, 20% Russian provocateurs, and 10% really gullible people who think they are progressive.

[Gothmog]

60. This will be fun to watch

[George II]

64. Hmmmm.....

[Blue_Tires]

65. Guess it's good to see it officially confirmed

but hell, this isn't even news...

[Baitball Blogger]

68. Now I'm confused. I thought it was someone in the Hillary group who penned "Bernie Bro."

I remember reading an article that ridiculed Bernie's supporters and referred to them as Bernie Bros.

[stevenleser]

76. Bernie Bros are people who behaved a certain way. I wouldn't get hung up on how they are named. nt

[murielm99]

201. I would not be so quick to put that in the past tense.

I went to a meeting last Saturday to see a candidate for Congress in my district. He is a genuine BernieBro. He, and many people, from a variety of age groups, were still whining about Bernie. He and several others used the terms "Progressive" and "True Progressive" as purity tests. They spoke about Democrats who were not progressive enough. I spoke up and argued with several of them.

He spoke about going to the grassroots organizations for help, including Our Revolution. He said that was the first place he went.

Fortunately, he is not the only Democratic Congressional candidate in my district. We are represented by a real teahadist, but there is a sane man who will be primarying the BernieBro. He is a medical doctor, and also has a PhD in political science. He seems mature and ready to represent us well, if he can win. This is a red district. But there are a lot of angry people here, too. We have to GOTV.

I am very disappointed by the vote in my county. I am disappointed that the chairperson of our county Democrats is also a true Bernie believer. She won't stop praising him.

It is time for people to grow the fuck up. Our democracy is on life support.

[seaglass]

79. No, the term came from a writer at The Atlantic - Robinson Meyer

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/here-comes-the-berniebro-bernie-sanders/411070/

And here's his follow up:


It's Not Just Berniebros

I coined the term—now I’ve come back to fix what I started.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/berniebro-revisited/460212/

[Baitball Blogger]

83. Very thorough. Thank you.

It was a term of resentment that helped create more division.

[NurseJackie]

81. You're remembering incorrectly. There's an entire wiki page (for what it's worth) that gives...

... additional information and historical context.

Robinson Meyer, a writer for The Atlantic, coined the term "Bernie bro" in an October 17, 2015 article to describe a phenomenon in which some young, white, progressive men were "hectoring their friends" on Facebook to support Sanders at a time when few major media outlets were taking Sanders' candidacy seriously.[3][4][5]

-------
Hello, Alerter! Look again, please. This post is one that provides additional information and a reference source to a poster who expressed confusion. This is is no way a post that's attempting to rehash the primary or attack any group or any Democrat.

[Baitball Blogger]

84. I see how he started it. But, a few writers managed to give it legs with their

own spin on the term.

Very unfortunate.

[NurseJackie]

94. I disagree with you.

[Baitball Blogger]

97. If the point was that Russian bots were looking to create divisions between

Bernie and Hillary supporters, and using whatever they found to help keep the tension high, I would put Berniebros up there on their list.

The one thing we can all agree on was that it was a term that intended to belittle Bernie supporters.

[NurseJackie]

100. I strongly disagree with you on that as well. (And I'll just leave it at that, for obvious reasons.)

[Hekate]

183. Wise woman...

...to refuse to take the bait.

[synergie]

168. Nope. And it wasn't about the average Bernie supporter, it was a malignant

group of "people" online who were engaging in vicious and nasty behavior, and whom some gullible Bernie folks thought were real, and whose lead they followed.

It wasn't about ridiculing anyone, it was about calling out the very real misogyny and abuse that was being heaped on literally anyone who was calling out the ridiculousness that was being spread around. All you had to do was *question* the validity of using Right Wing talking points (obvious and simple ones like calling her all those not-so-clever variations of her name, substituting "kill" and "shrill" for the first syllable) and you would be called a "hillbot", accused of being an employee of David Brock, a Republican, and basically just sworn at, by a bunch of people obviously working together. That was just on the comment sections and twitter and an average person (this happened to me.)

What happened to journalists, especially female journalists and a other women in the public eye was worse. There were death threats, people saying they should be raped, attacking their children, their personal details being put out. That was not something that Bernie supporters I've met in real life would do. But they were being told by various, now suspect sources, that these were lies being told to bash Bernie supporters (when literally everyone made the distinction between a supporter and an online "bro&quot . They were told that these were attacks against *them* and would literally blind themselves to what they were seeing. I guess when you tell yourself that the person that your online friends were attacking with the worst sort of abuse was some sort of "other" who was attacking *you*, it's easier to sit back and let it happen, or not see what was going on.

I'm not sure if you've seen the piece by the gentleman who testified the other day, Clinton Watts, I posted the article in a thread. In it, he goes into the goals of the Trumpbots trolling for Trump, and he quickly makes it clear that it wasn't about installing Trump, it was about causing chaos and instability and given that even they thought Hillary was going to win, dividing the left and making them hate her for the same reasons the GOP did (by using their own decades worth of slime) makes a lot of sense. Then you look at the "bots" who were outed, and the coordination of their talking points, and then see the places where these pro-Bernie pages were being set up from, and what sorts of fake news they were promoting and see how that got amplified, you understand the depth and breadth about what was going on here.

[Hekate]

184. Plus a whole bunch

[mcar]

69. K&R

[forjusticethunders]

85. Angry white men have more credibility in our society.

Why almost no black people and a very low % of Latinos and Asians fall for this shit? It comes down to the fact that a lot of white people prefer to listen to angry ignorant white men than competent women or POC.

White privilege is the ultimate affirmative action program.

[ismnotwasm]

134. +1,000,000,000,000

[Hekate]

185. Many, but not all. We elected Barack Obama, and Hillary also won the actual vote.

Last edited Sat Apr 1, 2017, 01:41 AM - Edit history (1)

Despite our current hideous setback, that should give us hope.

[forjusticethunders]

191. Obama benefitted from the fact that

Democrats got the benefit of the Republicans trashing the country (white people vote against the Dems when they DON'T have economic anxiety), but once the Dems fix it, too many whites go back to voting their prejudices.

It is getting better though (though I just saw Get Out so I feel VERY uncomfortable saying that right now). Given Hillary's message, being a woman, and the platform she ran on, 10-15 years ago she would have gotten smashed the way Mondale did.

[JI7]

211. the reason democrats do better in national elections compared to Mondale and others

is because of demographic changes .

and younger voters tend to be more liberal because they tend to be more non white compared to older people these days. Obama actually lost young white voters. the reason he did so well with young voters is because many of them are non white.

Hillary was the candidate most openly embracing of diversity we have ever had . this is why so many racists hate her.

Obama's 2 elections could also have much far uglier if he had different opponents.

[sprinkleeninow]

204. Barack is black? Who knew. We just became aware of that.🆗🆒

Our house looks to the Democratic nominee for office 'whoever' it is. That's that.

One insidious POS crap passed by our state's legislature eliminates straight line ballot voting. 'They' find every which way but sunday to screw with people voting. Most likely resulting in confusion... which is one of the devil's 'tools'.
"They frame iniquity and call it law."

[sprinkleeninow]

206. Yes, she did. What my husband reiterated this evening. Hope. n/t

[stevenleser]

87. Classic case in point of a post that happened 4 days ago on JPR. It's still ongoing

These are the kinds of fools that Putin exploited. Plenty of folks there that agreed with them too:

https://jackpineradicals.com/boards/topic/if-i-were-trapped-atop-a-burning-building-flames-at-my-feet/

resist99 (94 posts) (Reply to Xyzse - post #20) March 27, 2017 at 7:09 am
32. My thoughts

I agree about Clinton and the rest of the establishment corporate Democrats being worse. Although Republicans, and certainly Trump as well seem to do worse things a lot of the time, the lies the Democrats tell are worse in my opinion because it goes against everything they are supposed to stand for.

Take Obama for instance. Hope and change … but the first thing he did was fill his cabinet with criminal Bankers that he would end up bailing out. He talked about climate change but never did anything that had much impact. Obama took large amounts of money from the fossil fuel industry, and waited a long time before doing anything about the injustice going on around the DAPL (Don’t forget that more pipelines were constructed under his administration than any other in history – but he wanted to fight climate change right?) Not only that, all he did do was keep the DAPL from being made legal to build, however the people building the pipeline had already said they would build it anyway and just pay the fines. So with all his talk, he did nothing. I am not saying everything Obama did was bad, but can we really afford to have leaders like this?

Who is worse: Obama who won a Noble Peace Prize but bombed at least 7 countries based on war propaganda, and filled his own swamp (as well as the awful things in the NDAA’s he signed), or Trump? Trumps record is already more than bad in an epic way, and it will only get worse. The thing is, we can blame HRC, the DNC , as well as the mainstream media for getting him into power. Trump just picked up where Obama left off. Our situation seems hopeless. Extreme measures are called for. The media had most people happy with Obama but if you know the things he did, and the tings he did not do, while president … it just shows the huge problems we face in this country.

This is par for the course with people like Obama and Hillary. Hillary who bragged about have different policies with respect to the public, and private (Corporations) because of money. It is unbelievable that a politician will admit she lies even to a private audience. To me it is obvious she does not understand what it means to be a politician in a democratic country. Not surprisingly she supported things like fracking and talked about wanting to go to war for things she had to know were lies. You also have to remember the she was personally involved in meddling in other countries affairs that our country does on a regular basis and she thinks she can push for a war with a nuclear power based on accusations without anything to back it up but lies. I think these things show who she really is. I am so relieved she did not win.

It is my opinion that all the establishment politicians need to be put out of business. (I went Green and voted Jill Stein) but how can you blame people for not wanting Hillary or not wanting Trump? It was no accident that we had no good choices. I desperately want the public to realize our situation. If more people were aware like people on JPR maybe we would have a fighting chance at solving all of the terrible problems we are facing.

Ugh … all this and I don’t even feel any better. LOL

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth. -George Washington ... We could start by cutting the Defense Budget and stopping all the war propaganda.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

93. I remember how that guy stunk up DU when he was here

Last edited Fri Mar 31, 2017, 01:22 PM - Edit history (1)

He hasn't changed a bit I see.

[fun n serious]

95. Wowza!!

They're either Russian trolls. anarchist or both.

[JHan]

103. The funny thing about anarchists is that they don't realise they're just pawns for autocrats.

rich autocrats.

[Kahuna7]

108. Yep. Got into some on twitter the other day..

who said he voted for his best interest (income inequality). My response: if making the rich richer, a republican led constitution convention, no minimum wage, and gop SCOTUS, congratulations. You won. Another one (hardcore bernie bot) told me yesterday on twitter, that she could put up with a few years of chaos to establish her agenda in the long run. A lot of them think like this. My response to her was she'll have to endure it for more than a few years, and most likely a lifetime.

[ismnotwasm]

126. Godamn that's some conspiracy theory babble.

I can't stand those politically illiterate types.

[stevenleser]

128. Its a Gish Gallop of wrong and in many cases silly allegations against both Obama and Hillary...

Last edited Fri Mar 31, 2017, 04:10 PM - Edit history (1)

... designed by them to feel better about helping enable Trumps Presidency.

[ismnotwasm]

146. Yeah--I would feel bad for them if these people weren't so willfully blind

I mean, if one isn't mentally challenged in someway, and are of at least average intelligence, there comes a time when you have to completely own the destruction caused by believing lies.

I just got off a newcast. In Washington state, the AG is sueing a asshole crook named Tim Eyman--famous for unconstitutional "anti-tax" initiatives. He pocketed some money-and it is not the first time. Yet the RW comments are all about attacking the Democratic AG, rather than looking at the substantial evidence he's gathered. And defending Eyman--who is a world class asshole.

[Gothmog]

149. WOW

That JPR poster is pushing the Putin line very well

[get the red out]

89. DUH!

That has become a logical suspicion, now verified.

[Kahuna7]

104. Nahhh.

[jalan48]

105. The bigger question going forward is who identifies disinformation?

It seems the public will be caught up in a war of different groups accusing the other of disinformation. Confusion and chaos will reign and the voters will become even more apathetic.

[ismnotwasm]

118. It's not hard to research and draw reasonable conclusions

Large numbers of people simply don't take the time to do it. Also, even facts can be spun this way or that, according to how one views the world. People, I would think, would use the Information Age we live in wisely, take a moment to appreciate context. Large numbers of people don't do that either.
In the political arena large numbers of people are more than happy to spreach disinformation if it hurts the other. Which is why so many ignored the many warning signs of manipulated information. It's also why people still cling to the same bad information.

What's strange about Trump specifically, is there is a history so bizarre, that the most ridiculous things sound plausible now matter how carefully one parses information. I don't doubt, for instance, that "Peegate" actually happened.

[jalan48]

122. I wish it was that simple. Most voters can't or won't do the research necessary.

We need an unbiased media to make this work and right now I don't see that.

[ismnotwasm]

124. I agree, although I think We have never had an unbiased media

We have had good journalists though. And you are right-people can't or won't do research, even now that's it at our fingertips. I just just looking something up to rebut a particular comment, having to do with Hillary's time as SoS--which opened the door to all kinds of facinating information, information that is no longer "news" but must have seemed important at the time. Russia was involved then--at least in the news front and center.

I suppose some of the willingness to believe bullshit is also simply information overload, which makes a media with integrity even more important

[jalan48]

127. I agree. A lot depends on one's sources and who one trusts.

Right wingers like Rush and we despise him. The left tends to use more sources but as we saw during the election not all are trustworthy. Hopefully DU will serve as a way to flush out the good stuff.

[BainsBane]

154. That's a cop out

No, we. cannot create an "unbiased media," but Americans should learn from this as start to think critically. If people dont care about their own intellectual integrity, no amount of good news reporting matters. There are very good news outlets, but too many reject those sources for bullshit websites because they tell them what they want to hear. It's up to you, me, and all of us to do better. We can start by not disseminating stories from sites like politicsusa and the other leftish sites that cater to what Dems would like to be true rather than providing reliable information. Those who lack the capacity to critically analyze stories could stick to reputable publications, but they choose not to because ultimately truth is less important to them than validating their own beliefs. That is the root of the problem.

[jalan48]

155. Most Americans can't think critically. It's just the way it is.

Even "reputable" publications applauded Bush's Iraq War while many "leftist" sites opposed it. These days news is really infotainment because that's all most Americans can handle. I'm not optimistic myself about an informed electorate. I think we need the fairness doctrine back-it would be a good start.

[BainsBane]

167. Most Americans choose not to think critically

and they justify their use of fraudulent stories by the kind of false equivalency you site above.

The fairness doctrine did not prohibit the spread of false information. It required equal time for two sides of an argument, for Dems and Republicans. That was only possible because it was attached to federal licenses for broadcast networks. There is no constitutional basis for imposing it on any other outlets; in fact it would violate the First Amendment.

Op ed pages are not the news division of newspapers. Applauding and opposition to war was conveyed through Op eds. Some reporters, Judith Miller most notoriously, were fed false information by the Bush administration. That does not mean the Times is as bad as RT or random Macedonian sites looking to sow division to advance the Kremlin's interests. Comparing them is part of the very problem that the Russians were able to take advantage of.

The sites I referred to as leftish (not leftist) did not exist during the build up to the Iraq War. Respected leftist periodicals are not equivalent to the shyte that gets pushed today. As pissed I am about what Katrina Vanden Heuvel has done to The Nation, it is not the same as sites like politicsusa or bipartisanreport. Monthly Review is a Marxist publication. People know that going in and should read them accordingly. That does not make it illegitimate.

None of us can control what others think, but we can start with ourselves.

[jalan48]

169. My advice-keep reading and stay vigilant.

[YOHABLO]

198. Such a poignant comment.Thanks for that.The key is ''critical thinking skills''.

.People obviously don't have any... or perhaps it's only Christo Fascist Conservative Flag waving people who also call themselves Republicans.

[BainsBane]

202. If it were just the right

Kremlin propaganda would not have been circulated among Sanders supporters.

[sprinkleeninow]

208. 'Certain' 'christian denominations' exhort from their pulpits who to vote for. Plus the many

so-called christian programs on tv. I have people in my midst that get their views and mindsets just by going to church. May sound a crass critique coming from a Christ follower, but so be it.

[BainsBane]

150. It is incumbent upon citizens

To learn to do that for themselves. We live in an era in which people only care about whether News reinforces what they want to believe and reject anything than doesn't fit their preexisting views. It is that which made Americans vulnerable to Russian interference, and it is that which threatens democracy.

[needledriver]

110. What makes you think this is over?

There's an awful lot of rabid support for Bernie coming across my Facebook feed lately.

Almost as if an active agency wanted to sow discord and confusion among those who would be most likely to resist in an organized fashion.

[L. Coyote]

114. Meanwhile, who switched the 40,000 votes that swung the Electoral College?

Too many issues smoking up the room makes it difficult to see clearly the precise pivotal point in history.



With all the disinformation, trolls, bots, dark money, Russians, lies, Comey, Benghazi, e-mails, DNC and Podesta hacks, etc. etc, etc., they still had to steal the Electoral College to overcome the immense tidal wave of liberal voting.

One thing I hate about the Electoral College, it sure makes it easy to steal the Presidency. Even if you are behind by millions, you only have to switch a few votes.

[synergie]

177. I thought that was 78k?

And they were paying special attention to MI, WI and PA. Where they didn't actually recount all the votes that were tabulated by ballot readers. A hand count was needed for all 3. In MI, where they stopped it the day before it was due to finish, after slow walking it and obstructing as much as possible, they were not able to count a hefty percentage of boxes in precincts that were highly favorable to HRC. Including instances where there were more votes tabulated than cast, in WI too, as I recall. Only in certain precincts and certain counties.

[L. Coyote]

182. The beauty of switched votes, they count twice, +1 AND -1.

"The only vote that counts twice is a switched vote." This is why we are so certain Ohio 2004 was switched, you halve the margin to determine the number of switched votes you need to document.

[liquid diamond]

115. Christ. I'm shocked half the posts in this thread aren't hidden.

[LexVegas]

117. Uh huh.

[Baitball Blogger]

163. Not DU's best day.

[tallahasseedem]

120. I wouldn't say "unwitting"...

I believe many of them new it was false, but adopted "the end justifies the means" approach. Totally disgusting in a Democracy.

[Generic Brad]

137. Some were definitely witting

They knew what they were doing.

[Drifter]

136. Yep, The bleach drinkers

Preferring Bernie Sanders, and then voting for Trump (or 3rd party) instead of Clinton is like:
"When the supermarket does not have your favorite beer, and you choose to drink bleach instead"

Cheers
Drifter

[liquid diamond]

138. Great thread.

I'm just stunned that bernie's fans haven't had this thread hidden.

[hrmjustin]

153. Not surprised at all by this.

I do want to say this should not reflect on the majority of Sanders supporters who did vote for Hillary.
So infuriating that Putin helped to cause even more divisions in the primary.

May we be united in defeating the Putin-trump alliance.

[fun n serious]

156. I agree,

They are a minority of Bernie supporters.

[Baitball Blogger]

162. Not too many people seem to have reached your fair conclusion.

We will have more success in becoming a united front, when they do.

[herding cats]

173. Yes, the majority DID vote for Hillary.

Which should help heal the division in the party.

We're all in this Trump mess together, and it's going to take all hands on deck to weather this storm.

[seaglass]

176. Agreed, it was a minority of what became BoBers that took the crazy train. The majoirty of Sanders

supporters did not fall for this BS.

[hollowdweller]

157. I think there's still some of it going on.

Not so much involving Clinton anymore, she lost, but involving Sanders and trying to make the Clinton supporters hate him still so the divisions remain.

My thought is that the media and voters are still not caught up with this new way of doing things.

One of our great things is the free press, but both the media and voters have to realize from here on out that we are all fair game in this stuff. The media is going to have to really parse the stories more, and people are going to have to look deeper than finding a questionable story that agrees with their politics and passing it on on social media.

[Baitball Blogger]

161. I agree with you.

[herding cats]

159. Well, duh. I watched it happen here and all over the Internet.

I ran into people who believed it in person and often you couldn't persuade them they were falling for propaganda.

It wasn't just during the last election either. Before all this is over I predict we're going to be told the Russians were very actively spreading propaganda here about Obama, Syria, Crimea and the Ukraine. There were very distinct and disturbing patterns involving all those topics on the internet.

Putin wanted to destabilize the USA, and he's done a damn good job of it.

[LaydeeBug]

172. yes they did. knr.

[sheshe2]

181. K&R!

[Go Vols]

186. After they ruined Bernie's chance to win,they started on Hillary

The first tidal wave of spam was mostly anti-Bernie, Pearce recalled, posted by Clinton backers. (David Brock’s Clinton-backing super PAC had likely paid for some portion of those.) But after Clinton became the Democratic nominee in July, Pearce noticed a switch to anti-Hillary messages with links to fake news and to real news with obnoxious pop-up ads.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-fake-news-russia_us_58c34d97e4b0ed71826cdb36

[ecstatic]

187. Absolutely. They turned me off completely to Bernie

And I'm sure they disgusted a lot of would be Bernie supporters at those huge rallies. All I knew was that there was no way I could share a tent with those hateful trolls.

[SunSeeker]

188. K & R

[retrowire]

195. See??

I told you not all of us Bernie Supporters were bad.

[nini]

207. Well....

[yewberry]

212. Jeezus. Nini?

When the heck did you come back? Guess I've been in a hole...

[nini]

213. I've been around for a while

Best place to keep on top of things