I never thought I would follow an adult film star on Twitter, or that it would offer such comedy gold.

I actually took a screenshot of my favorite troll a couple days ago. I laughed so hard I couldn't even respond. When someone can't even insult you correctly ( you're all welcome. Enjoy) pic.twitter.com/KcTGns82xw

— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) March 9, 2018

Now I don't know if this guy was simply making a funny, or if he was actually confused about who Trump calls his wife, but either way it's kinda awesome.

So did the Russian hackers get hacked? Maybe.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

The Kremlin-backed troll farm at the center of Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election has quietly suffered a catastrophic security breach, The Daily Beast has confirmed, in a leak that spilled new details of its operations onto obscure corners of the internet. 

The Russian “information exchange” Joker.Buzz, which auctions off often stolen or confidential information, advertised a leak for a large cache of the Internet Research Agency’s (IRA) internal documents. It includes names of Americans, activists in particular, whom the organization specifically targeted; American-based proxies used to access Reddit and the viral meme site 9Gag; and login information for troll farm accounts. 

Even the advertisement for the document dump provides a trove of previously unknown information about the breadth of Russia’s disinformation effort in the United States, including rallies pushed by IRA social media accounts that turned violent.

What the Daily Beast was able to confirm:  

While the date of the auction could not be independently confirmed, the authenticity of the leak can. The leaked documents list screen names connected to a number of American citizens who were used as unwitting proxies by the Russians. The Daily Beast was able to track down four of those citizens, whose names have not been previously revealed. The leak contains precise dates in 2016 in which the IRA-created account Blacktivist reached out to those U.S. citizens, plus a short description of the conversations. The Daily Beast spoke to those citizens, and confirmed they interacted with the Blacktivist account in the ways described by the IRA in the document. In one case, the American even provided screenshots of his interactions with the Russian troll trying to dupe him. 

In short, the leaked document contains details of the Russian disinformation campaign that have not been previously made public—details which The Daily Beast was able to confirm. 

The leak shows that even as the Russian trolls were able to influence and manipulate American political discourse online, they were less equipped to keep their own secrets. While The Daily Beast does not possess anything close to a comprehensive trove of the IRA’s internal operations, it is now likely that substantial amounts of the troll farm’s files are waiting to be discovered online.

This data treasure trove also reveals how the troll farm utilized social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, and even Tumblr to spread their divisive propaganda and promote the Donald Trump campaign. 

It is also more proof that the investigations in Russian interference is not a "witch hunt" but rather a very important, and necessary step in protecting ourselves from future manipulation and interference.

When you're trying to troll America but you forget to turn off your location indicator.

I heard that this account was taken down after this was posted on Reddit.

Like I said before, it is up to us to critically analyze the "news" that arrives on our Twitter or Facebook feeds.

Russian bots retweeted Donald Trump nearly half a million times during the final days of the 2016 election, while also setting up political events on Facebook to sow the seeds of divisiveness.

Courtesy of Newsweek:

Russian bots retweeted Donald Trump nearly half a million times in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, and more than 60,000 Americans RSVP’d for Facebook events created by Kremlin-linked trolls, the social media giants revealed in congressional documents this month. 

In written statements to two congressional panels investigating Russia’s election interference, the companies revealed new details about the extent of the Kremlin disinformation that reached more than 120 million Americans during the presidential race. The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russia launched an unprecedented series of cyber attacks and fake news floods to sow division and sway voters ahead of Trump’s surprise victory. 

Twitter revealed that Russian-linked bot accounts recirculated Trump’s tweets more than two million times between September 1 and November 15, 2016, with nearly 500,000 of those coming in the campaign’s final stretch. The automated accounts retweeted Republican candidate Trump 10 times more often Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, and accounted for 4.25% of all of Trump’s retweets in the race’s final days, according to Twitter’s statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

They also fired off nearly 200,000 retweets in the same time for WikiLeaks, which exposed stolen information from Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee that U.S. intelligence agencies have traced to Russian hackers.

Facebook, meanwhile, told the Senate Intelligence Committee last week that Russian trolls posing as American activists created 129 political events between 2015 and 2017, which were seen by more than 300,000 Facebook users and in some cases drew demonstrators to the streets en masse. About 62,500 users said they would attend one of the events and another 25,800 users expressed interest in going. 

The events often preyed on divisive political or cultural issues, and sometimes set up demonstrations that would directly oppose each other or conflict with plans from actual activists. In one instance, according to Facebook, a fake page called “Heart of Texas” that called for the state to secede from the country promoted a “Stop Islamization of Texas” protest in May 2016 for the opening of an Islamic Center’s library. Another Kremlin Facebook group, “United Muslims of America,” promoted a “Save Islamic Knowledge” event for the same time.

This is what results from simply wanting to be spoon fed the news, and not utilizing our critical thinking skills. 

The Russians recognized that Americans had become sheep and they helped to herd us right over a cliff.

Twitter to suspend 1,062 accounts linked to Russian troll farm.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Twitter said Friday that it has suspended 1,062 new accounts it has found to be linked to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian "troll farm" which disseminated content intended to interfere in the U.S. political process. 

In total, the company has found 3,814 Internet Research Agency-linked accounts, which posted 175,993 tweets during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

Twitter said it also found 13,512 new Kremlin-linked bot accounts, bringing the total number of bots it has found in connection to Russia's election influence efforts to 50,258. 

The company also said in a post on Friday that it will notify 677,775 people to let them know that they either liked, retweeted or followed Russian-linked accounts, following a request from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to do so. 

Twitter noted, however, that it won’t show users the content they saw, saying that because it has “already suspended these accounts, the relevant content on Twitter is no longer publicly available.”

"The relevant content on Twitter is no longer publicly available."

What they don't mention is that it is being replaced by new data, from new Russian troll accounts, that are yet to be identified. 

The misinformation campaign continues to this day, and still people are ignorantly retweeting  or liking tweets that originate in Russia and are designed to manipulate public opinion or sow the seeds of divisiveness.

Both Twitter and Facebook played a huge part in helping to hijack our Democracy. And they need to be held accountable.

Now about that #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag that is trending on Twitter.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

A document described by House Republicans as a top-secret memo about surveillance “abuse” contains talking points focused on discrediting Fusion GPS, the firm that hired a British ex-spy to compile intelligence reports about alleged connections between President Trump’s associates and the Kremlin, according to people who have read it. 

It suggests that the former spy, Christopher Steele, lied to FBI agents who interviewed him during their probe of the 2016 election and that this purported lie was included in a successful application for a federal court order to conduct electronic surveillance on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, said these individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the material’s sensitivity. 

The document was produced by the House Intelligence Committee’s GOP majority, which voted Thursday to make it available to the entire House membership, though not to the public. The panel’s Democrats all opposed the move. 

In a statement issued Thursday, the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), called the document “profoundly misleading,” saying it was “drafted by Republican staff attacking the FBI.” He did not discuss the document’s contents. 

“Rife with factual inaccuracies and referencing highly classified materials that most Republican Intelligence Committee members were forced to acknowledge they had never read, this is meant only to give Republican House members a distorted view of the FBI,” Schiff said. “This may help carry White House water, but it is a deep disservice to our law enforcement professionals.”

Apparently this "damning" bit of "evidence" was created by Devin Nunes and his congressional cohorts and it is designed to end the Mueller investigation by destroying Christopher Steele's credibility.

Of course this seems to ignore the fact that the FBI investigation was not launched due to the dossier, but instead by a drunken conversation that former Trump staffer George Pappadopolous had with an Australian diplomat.

What's more House members who read this memo must sign a non-disclosure agreement because it contains classified information, which means that this whole #ReleaseTheMemo thing is a farce to suggest that there is something explosive in the memo which undercuts the credibility of Fusion GPS, without any real danger that it will be made public and Nunes will be exposed as once again making a mountain out of what barely qualifies as a molehill.

And it should come as no surprise to anyone that he is getting help with that from the Russian trolls.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

#ReleaseTheMemo is the top trending hashtag among Twitter accounts believed to be operated by Kremlin-linked groups, according to Hamilton 68, a website which tracks Russian propaganda online. 

Hamilton 68 is spearheaded by Clint Watts, an expert on foreign actors using American social media. Watts has testified before Congress multiple times on the matter. 

The #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag has increased by 286,700 percent over the past two days and is being used 100 times more than any other hashtag by accounts Hamilton 68 is tracking. 

The accounts have also frequently been tweeting out links to Wikileaks.org and specifically to its page to submit documents.

Keep in mind that if the Russians want you to believe something, you can guarantee it is not good for the country.

While Donald Trump pretends there is nothing to see here, Russia expands its troll factory.

Courtesy of Unian:  

As the city’s leading business daily Delovoy Peterburg reports in an investigative article published just before New Year, the 4,000 square meters of their previous address on 55, Savushkina Street have been replaced by 12,000 square meters in St Petersburg’s Lakhta business district, according to the Euromaidan Press. 

The impressive threefold increase of workspace is a testimony to the success of the “factory”. As Russian RBC Daily’s investigation in April 2017 showed, the trolling activities have now branched out into a conglomerate of at least 16 different online outlets, all of which voice strong support for Kremlin’s policies, while systematically linking to each other’s products. At the same time, they carry little or no advertisement. 

The owner of the “troll factory”, businessman and billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin, has also become known as “Putin’s chef” because of his success in providing catering services for, among other clients, the Kremlin and other branches of the Russian government. Mr Prigozhin has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for providing financial support for Russia’s military occupation of Ukraine. Delovoy Peterburg’s investigation also reveals that the owners of the new premises are contributors to President Putin’s election campaign. 

The infamous Russian troll factory also known as Internet Research Agency (IRA) has been reportedly run by Putin’s ally Yevgeny Prigozhin in the Russian city of Saint-Petersburg. For years, the agency has been pushing pro-Russian narratives to promote the Kremlin’s interests in the world attempting to influence domestic policy and public opinion in the EU, U.S., Ukraine, and other countries, or just supporting opposite extreme opinions to sow chaos in target countries. 

And while this is happening the Trump Administration has not really lifted a finger to keep us safe.

At least the FBI is doing something.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

The FBI plans to alert U.S. companies and the public about efforts by Russia or other nations to use disinformation and social media manipulation to interfere in upcoming elections, while being careful not to upset free speech and constitutional rights, a top law enforcement official said. 

The direction that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s “foreign influence" task force is heading could dramatically reshape the relationship between government and social media companies in order to address vulnerabilities that enabled Russia to meddle in the 2016 election. 

“We’ve been reluctant in some instances to share the amount of information of what we know about what’s happening," said Jeffrey Tricoli, a top FBI official heading the task force. “You can’t stay with the same strategy if you think there needs to be changes. So going forward there’s going to be opportunities for us to share information in better ways.” 

FBI Director Christopher Wray announced late last year that the task force had been created. But almost everything about it has been secretive to date. Tricoli provided the first extensive public comments about it during an FBI conference in New York Wednesday co-sponsored by Fordham University.

Does that seem a little too tentative to anybody else? 

You know if this were a conventional war I do not think the FBI would simply be telling people not to stand right there because there might be a bomb coming. They would be fighting back.

I think we all know that if Hillary Clinton had won that 2018 election that there would be a far more aggressive campaign to deal with Russian interference.

Trump supporter David A. Clarke seems to be losing his shit. Update!

NEW: According to federal court filing made public today, the FBI has executed a search warrant on an e-mail address associated with Trump surrogate and former sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. pic.twitter.com/Q0AdDqyAaP

— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 29, 2017

You guys remember this tweet right?

I wrote a whole post on it.

Now you may notice that tweet actually contains photographic evidence that Clarke is under investigation by the FBI.

Well not so fast there hombre, according to Clarke this is all "fake news" which he announced on Twitter in a rather.....let's say "colorful" fashion.

I am UNINTIMIDATED by lib media attempts to smear and discredit me with their FAKE NEWS reports designed to silence me. I will continue to poke them in the eye with a sharp stick and bitch slap these scum bags til they get it. I have been attacked by better people than them #MAGA pic.twitter.com/XtZW5PdU2b

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) December 30, 2017

BREAKING NEWS! When LYING LIB MEDIA makes up FAKE NEWS to smear me, the ANTIDOTE is go right at them. Punch them in the nose & MAKE THEM TASTE THEIR OWN BLOOD. Nothing gets a bully like LYING LIB MEDIA’S attention better than to give them a taste of their own blood #neverbackdown pic.twitter.com/T2NY2psHCR

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) December 30, 2017

Oh yeah, that's a Trump supporter alright.

Well this was reported to Twitter since it seemed to foment violence against the media.

However Twitter decided to punt.

This was Clarke's response to that decision.

Winning against LYING LIB MEDIA and Whiney SNOWFLAKES again. Like @realDonaldTrump said, we’ll win so much we’ll get tired of winning. Not yet however. Diaper wearing lefty didn’t like my metaphor reference to punching LYING LIB MEDIA in the nose. Twitter said no violation. Duh. pic.twitter.com/0drtWIEmMc

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) December 31, 2017

You know I think at this point it is reasonable to ask if any of Trump's supporters are NOT simply internet trolls that stepped out of the shadows?

Update: Here is at least one of the now deleted tweets.

Source

 And here is a new one that has not yet been deleted.

I should take time out of opening a can of tweet rear-end whoopin’ on the LYING LIB MEDIA and their liberal goons and thank them for that FAKE NEWS story they perpetrated on me. It RE-ENERGIZED me! As if I needed that.😜
My hat drives them bat-crap crazy! pic.twitter.com/agbjFWD9lz

— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) December 31, 2017

Actually the hat does not drive me crazy so much as it makes me wonder if he has cowboy Underoos to go along with it?

The Washington Post reminds us that rather than Russia pulling back on their trolling of America, they have in fact stepped it up.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Russia’s information operations tactics since the election are more numerous than can be listed here. But to get a sense of the breadth of Russian activity, consider the messaging spread by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter, which cybersecurity and disinformation experts have tracked as part of the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy. 

In a single week this month, Moscow used these accounts to discredit the FBI after it was revealed that an agent had been demoted for sending anti-Donald Trump texts; to attack ABC News for an erroneous report involving President Trump and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser; to critique the Obama administration for allegedly “green lighting” the communication between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; and to warn about violence by immigrants after a jury acquitted an undocumented Mexican accused of murdering a San Francisco woman. 

This continues a pattern of similar activity over the past year. Russian operatives have frequently targeted Republican politicians who have been critical of Trump, including Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.). In September, they also attacked Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) after his decisive “no” vote against the Republican health-care bill. 

And in mid-November, after Keurig pulled its advertising from Sean Hannity’s Fox News show for comments the host made defending Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, the Russians used their social media accounts to urge a boycott of the company. For two days, #boycottkeurig was the most used hashtag among Kremlin-influenced Twitter accounts. This was a Russian attack on a U.S. company and on our economy.

WaPo also points out that other countries are starting to follow Russia's lead with troll attacks of thier own.

There was a plan in place defend us against all of this, but that got pushed aside once the Trump Administration took power.

Gee I wonder why?

Essentially we are sitting ducks, and since the guy who is supposed to protect us is currently sharing the duck blind with our attackers there is not a lot we can do about it.

A pro-Trump SuperPAC thought it was a good idea to have a 12 year old girl interview accused pedophile Roy Moore, and other Alabama election news.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

A pro-Trump super PAC arranged for a 12-year-old girl to interview Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) as he faces mounting allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls. 

The America First Project brought Millie March, a girl whose interviews during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) went viral, to Alabama to interview Moore. 

“We decided that we were going to bring Millie to Alabama, after everything that’s happened in this Alabama Senate race up until this point,” America First Project’s Jennifer Lawrence said in the video, adding that the group wanted "to show there is a wide range of people who support Roy Moore."

I was trying to think of a metaphor for what a bad idea this was, but what idea is actually worse than dangling a twelve year old girl in front of a known sexual predator?

Really can't imagine one.

In other news we learn that the same Russian troll army that supported Donald Trump is now all in for Roy Moore as well.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

In the run-up to Alabama’s special election, Kremlin-linked news sites and trolls have battled vigorously on behalf of Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for US senator accused of sexual misconduct against multiple women, including teenage girls. Since allegations against Moore were first reported by The Washington Post on Nov. 9, Russian-linked Twitter accounts—including some operated by Russian news outlets RT and Sputnik—have attacked the credibility of the women accusing Moore as well as US news media reporting the allegations. During a week in mid-November, when sexual misconduct scandals were a top focus of these Kremlin-linked accounts, a majority of the content they pushed on the topic was in defense of Moore, according to the cyber security research project Hamilton 68: “Among pro-Moore articles, close to 70% attacked the credibility of the accuser(s), 38% attacked the media in general or the Washington Post in particular, and one story attacked Lindsey Graham for not defending Moore.”

The Kremlin’s ongoing “active measures” campaign on social media has aimed to sow confusion and chaos by supporting both far-right and far-left interests in American politics. The Alabama election presented a ripe opportunity, according to former senior CIA official John Sipher, now an expert with the national security group Cipher Brief. “In the case of Moore, the Russians certainly assess that the hyper-partisan and heated campaign is pitting Americans against each other and they want to do all they can to add fuel to the fire,” he says. “They likely assess that a Moore victory will bring the fight to Washington and further weaken the strained US political system.”

You know if you consider yourself a patriotic American, and find that you are voting the way that Vladimir Putin wants you to vote, you might want to reassess your patriotism.

Speaking of Russian meddling as it turns out Alabama's top election official was sent to monitor the elections in Russia, and found them "free and fair."

Well that should certainly put the minds of Alabama voters at ease.

At least one Alabama judge is concerned about a little election day hanky panky.

Courtesy of AL.com: 

A judge directed Alabama election officials Monday afternoon to preserve all digital ballot images in Tuesday's hotly contested U.S. Senate special election. 

An order granting a preliminary injunction was filed at 1:36 p.m. Monday - less than 24 hours before voting is to begin. The order came in response to a lawsuit filed Thursday on behalf of four Alabama voters who argued that the state is required to maintain the images under state and federal law.

That's a good idea. I would be very surprised if there were not some GOP hi jinks going on today. 

Troll talks about work he did for Russian troll farm in 2016.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

In many ways, the IRA was like a normal IT facility, Bespalov told NBC News in an exclusive broadcast interview. There were day shifts and night shifts, a cafeteria, and workers were seated at computers in a large open floor plan. 

But in the squat, four-story concrete building on Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg, secured by camouflaged guards and turnstiles, bloggers and former journalists worked around the clock to create thousands of incendiary social media posts and news articles to meet specific quotas.

The work was all "Lies... a merry-go-round of lies," Bespalov said. "When you get on the carousel, you do not know who is behind you and neither you are aware of who is in front of you — but all of you are running around within the same circle," he said.

Bespalov told NBC News he "absolutely" believes the agency is connected to the Kremlin — a notion backed up by the U.S. intelligence community, which noted that a "close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence" is the "likely financier" of the agency.

Bespalov described how his own work centered on discrediting Ukraine, but that others in the building focused solely on the U.S. 

Workers in the “American department” were paid the equivalent of between $1,300 to $2,000 a month for sparking social media uproar. Entry level trolls got only about $1,000 a month with paid bonuses.

This was no part time job for these people, undermining our Democracy and spreading falsehoods on the internet was their full time occupation.

And it was directed and funded by the Russian government. 

Any attempts by Donald Trump to suggest that we need to move past this, are complete bullshit, and offers proof that he is compromised by Vladimir Putin.

Instagram joins the growing list of social media platforms that the Russians used to manipulate the American people.

Courtesy of Business Insider:

It's been a couple months since Facebook confirmed that fake accounts likely originating in Russia bought ads on the platform to sow discord during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

On Friday, the company revealed that its subsidiary Instagram was also used in an attempt to influence the election. And on Wednesday, as officials from Facebook, Google, and Twitter testified before Congress, House Democrats released examples of the Instagram posts in question.

The ads are similar in many ways to those posted on Facebook and Twitter, which also targeted things like Sharia law, Black Lives Matter, and gay rights.

They're similar in another fundamental way: They succeeded in reaching millions of Americans. Colin Stretch, general counsel for Facebook, said Tuesday before Congress that malicious Russian actors managed to produce 120,000 relevant Instagram posts, which reached 16 million people from October through the election. 

The data before October is murkier, according to Stretch, though the company estimates that another 4 million people likely saw content from Russian accounts.

At this point I think we can safely assume that every social media platform was infected with Russian propaganda designed to alter our political points of view and make us hate each other even more. 

And no, staying completely off of social media yourself does nothing to solve this problem.

Facebook groups created by Russian trolls not only attempted to sway election, they also attempted to incite violence.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Posts from three now-removed Facebook groups created by the Russian Internet Research Agency suggest Russia sought not only to meddle in U.S. politics but to encourage ideologically opposed groups to act out violently against one another. The posts are part of a database compiled by Jonathan Albright, the research director at Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, who tracks and analyzes Russian propaganda. 

For example, "Being Patriotic," a group that regularly posted content praising Donald Trump's candidacy, stated in an April 2016 post that Black Lives Matter activists who disrespected the American flag should be "be immediately shot." The account accrued about 200,000 followers before it was shut down. 

Another Russia-linked group, "Blacktivist," described police brutality in a November 2016 post weeks after the election, and stated, "Black people have to do something. An eye for an eye. The law enforcement officers keep harassing and killing us without consequences." 

The group "Secured Borders" had the most violent rhetoric, some of it well after the presidential election. A post in March 2017 described the threat of "dangerous illegal aliens" and said, "The only way to deal with them is to kill them all." Another post about immigrants called for a draconian new law, saying, "if you get deported that's your only warning. You come back you get shot and rolled into a ditch... BANG, problem solved." And a post about refugees said, "the state department needs to be burned to the ground and the rubble reduced to ashes."

Well that's troubling.

And it also indicates that the Russian trolls were likely more interested in sowing unrest and even violence than in getting Donald  Trump elected.

In fact they probably believed that getting him elected would create even more disharmony and distrust.

Which would help to explain this next story.

Courtesy of Politico:

Top lawyers from Facebook and Twitter said Tuesday that Russian-linked posts and advertisements placed on the social networks after Election Day sought to sow doubt about President Donald Trump's victory. 

Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch told a Senate Judiciary panel that content generated by a Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency after Nov. 8 centered on “fomenting discord about the validity of [Trump’s] election.” That's a change from Russia's pre-election activity, which was largely centered on trying to denigrate Hillary Clinton, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a January report. 

“During the election, they were trying to create discord between Americans, most of it directed against Clinton. After the election you saw Russian-tied groups and organizations trying to undermine President Trump’s legitimacy. Is that what you saw on Facebook?” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) asked at the hearing. 

Stretch and his Twitter counterpart, Sean Edgett, called that an "accurate" statement.

Donald Trump is the chaos candidate, which is likely why Putin wanted him in the White House.

I imagine that Putin also hoped that he could do something about the sanctions against Russia, but when Trump proved impotent in that regard, well then  it was time to use him to ignite more unrest among the American people.

I have said it before, but it bears repeating.

If you are getting your information from Facebook it is almost certain that your opinions have been manipulated in one way or another.

Russian trolls even went to far as to create a fake sex tape with a Hillary Clinton lookalike and a black man.

Really? A sex tape?

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:  

A Russian-government-backed “troll factory” hired a black man and a Hillary Clinton look-alike to make a sex tape, according to the first former employee of the factory’s American division to go on the record. 

Alan Baskaev worked for the troll factory, also known as the Internet Research Agency, for about six months, he told the independent Russian television channel TV Rain. And his account of the night shift at the troll factory’s American division sheds even more light on the inner workings of the Russian-sponsored effort to influence U.S. elections. 

The trolls ran websites that published pro-Trump stories and attempted to sow racial discord. They were also behind hugely popular Twitter accounts, some of which were retweeted by Trump campaign officials and even Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. And the troll factory had ordinary Americans organize rallies at its behest.“

You know, there’s this meme about the troll factory, people sitting in black caps, masks, behind them there’s a photo of Putin and a Russian flag. They’re so intense,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what happened on the day shift, but the night shift was a bacchanal. We did the most ridiculous things we could think of.” 

Baskaev worked at the factory from November 2014 to April 2015, mostly writing posts on political forums online. 

Once, Baskaev recalled, Russian propaganda-makers thought they hit the “sensation” jackpot with a fake video of a black man and a woman who looked like Hillary Clinton having sex.

Well that's....bizarre.

First off I have never seen Hillary as a particularly sexual person, and at her age the idea of having an affair just does not seem even remotely feasible.

But beyond that Hillary is a very, very careful person, so the idea that she would have allowed herself to be filmed having a sexual encounter is ridiculous on its face.

However it really does show just how far these Russian trolls would go to discredit her and help Trump win that election.

Trump supporter and online troll kills father for calling him a Nazi.

Lane Davis

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Lane had spent that Friday morning as he did most mornings, on the internet. This day, like the others, Lane read and retweeted posts celebrating the Second Amendment, bemoaning diversity, and spreading conspiracy theories that alleged Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta was involved in a child sex ring and DNC staffer Seth Rich had been murdered. It was the end of a busy week during which he contributed to the Donald Trump subreddit, and over on The Ralph Retort, a fringe blog where he worked as a political editor, (unpaid, according to the site’s owner), he had celebrated the idea of a Kid Rock Senate run, claimed America was under threat of Sharia law, and wondered whether CNN was “literally ISIS.”

Lane’s parents, Catherine and Charles Davis—Charles was known as Chuck to his friends—were used to their 33-year-old son’s outbursts. They had become so frequent that Charles had started recording the tirades on his phone. But that afternoon, they were tired of Lane’s screaming, wanted him to leave, and told him as much. Instead, Lane chased his parents around their home, spitting in his father’s face while screaming that he wasn’t threatening to kill them, but “pedophiles who were taking over the country.”

The Daily Beast has a copy of the 911 call and on it Lane Davis can be heard becoming increasingly upset that his mother called the police, calling them Leftists and pedophiles, and then he makes this chilling remark: 

“OK well, so here’s the deal. If I am going to go to prison for threatening to kill somebody, I mean...” 

“Leave the knife alone,” Charles says while his mother tries to reassure him: No one wants to send him to prison, they just want some help. 

Lane doesn’t seem to hear or believe his mother. “So, you are going to send me to prison?” he asks. “My life is over.”

Minutes later the mother can be heard shouting "He stabbed him," and "He's dead, he's dead, he's dead."

For his part Lane Davis just stood outside with his hands in the air and waited for the police to arrive, while his 73 year old father was lying dead on the back deck.

You know we often talk about how Donald Trump empowers the racists in this country.

But there are other folks who feel that he gives them a voice as well.

The mentally ill for instance.

You see the problem with having somebody who clearly suffers from a mental illness in the White House is that it empowers and excites other mentally ill people into thinking that their time has finally come, and that there cannot be anything wrong with them since someone with similarly erratic and anti-social behaviors as their own is now sitting in the most powerful position in the country.

This is not just finding a like minded group on the internet who support the idea of going off of your psychotropic medications, or think that homicidal or suicidal thoughts are perfectly normal.

No this is much, much bigger.

Clearly this kid was sick, and he desperately needed a mental health evaluation.

But with his current mindset how could he ever accept that there was anything wrong with the way he thinks?

How do you convince an individual with serious mental health problems to seek help, when they see Donald Trump on TV every day walking around freely while seemingly well adjusted people run around doing damage control for him and working to keep him in power?

Members of Trump campaign promoted propaganda from Russian "troll farm."

🚨ALERT🚨DISGRACE‼️@Twitter #Suspends @TEN_GOP One of Greatest Trump Supporter on #Twitter‼️ pic.twitter.com/sqDwGY3KeQ

— TRUMP ANOMALY® (@ANOMALY1) July 4, 2017

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Some of the Trump campaign’s most prominent names and supporters, including Trump’s campaign manager, digital director, and son, pushed tweets from professional trolls paid by the Russian government in the heat of the 2016 election campaign. 

The Twitter account @Ten_GOP, which called itself the “Unofficial Twitter account of Tennessee Republicans,” was operated from the Kremlin-backed “Russian troll farm,” or Internet Research Agency, a source familiar with the account confirmed with The Daily Beast. 

The account’s origins in the Internet Research Agency were originally reported by the independent Russian news outlet RBC. @Ten_GOP was created on Nov. 19, 2015, and accumulated over 100 thousand followers before Twitter shut it down. The Daily Beast independently confirmed the reasons for @Ten_GOP’s account termination. 

The discovery of the now-unavailable tweets presents the first evidence that several members of the Trump campaign pushed covert Russian propaganda on social media in the run-up to the 2016 election.

Of course these members of the campaign staff have some deniability since they can claim that they believed that the account really was representing the views of the Tennessee Republicans.

However it should be noted that the Tennessee Republicans disavowed the account and contacted Twitter to tell them to take it down, which they did, after 11 months.

It may be easy to understand how Kellyanne Conway was fooled by this, but the campaign's digital director?

Starting to smell more and more like collusion around here. 

Russian trolls paid actual American activists to help fund protests during 2016 election cycle.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

On Tuesday, the newspaper RBC published a major investigation into the work of a so-called Russian “troll factory” since 2015, including during the period of the US election campaign, disclosures that are likely to put further spotlight on alleged Russian meddling in the election. 

The existence of the troll factory, which has a history of spamming Russian and English blogs and comment forums, has been reported on by many outlets including the Guardian, but the RBC investigation is the first in-detail look at the organisation’s activity during the election period. 

RBC said it had identified 118 accounts or groups in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that were linked to the troll factory, all of which had been blocked in August and September this year as part of the US investigation into Russian electoral meddling. 

Many of the accounts had already been linked to Russian disinformation efforts in western outlets, but RBC said its sources at the troll factory had provided screenshots of the internal group administration pages of some of the groups, as proof they were run from Russia. It also spoke to former and current employees of the troll factory, all of whom spoke anonymously. 

Perhaps the most alarming element of the article was the claim that employees of the troll factory had contacted about 100 real US-based activists to help with the organisation of protests and events. RBC claimed the activists were contacted by Facebook group administrators hiding their Russian origin and were offered financial help to pay for transport or printing costs. About $80,000 was spent during a two-year period, according to the report.

So another $80,000?

Oh but that is not all. Not by a long shot.

Courtesy of CNN:

A social media campaign calling itself "Blacktivist" and linked to the Russian government used both Facebook and Twitter in an apparent attempt to amplify racial tensions during the U.S. presidential election, two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The Twitter account has been handed over to Congress; the Facebook account is expected to be handed over in the coming days. 

Both Blacktivist accounts, each of which used the handle Blacktivists, regularly shared content intended to stoke outrage. "Black people should wake up as soon as possible," one post on the Twitter account read. "Black families are divided and destroyed by mass incarceration and death of black men," another read. The accounts also posted videos of police violence against African Americans. 

And then there is this:

A group linked to the Russian troll farm behind thousands of fake Facebook ads paid personal trainers in New York, Florida, and other parts of the United States to run self-defense classes for African Americans in an apparent attempt to stoke fear and gather contact details of Americans potentially susceptible to their propaganda. 

"Be ready to protect your rights... Let them know that black power matters," the group, known as Black Fist, wrote on its website promoting the events. 

The group appears to have been set up in January 2017, and it ran events before stopping at some point this year, evidence that Russia's attempts to use social media to meddle in American affairs have extended far beyond the 2016 presidential election. 

The events, which appear to have been designed to suggest a connection to the Black Lives Matter movement, were -- unbeknownst to the trainers who led them -- likely conceived by the Russian government-linked Internet Research Agency. 

Seriously?

At this point nobody could possibly say that the Russian government was not all in to help Donald Trump get elected.

And you simply do not put this much effort into something unless you are getting a substantial, guaranteed, benefit.

Russian trolls were directed to watch Netflix's "House of Cards" to help understand how to manipulate the American voters.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:  

The Russians who worked for a notorious St. Petersburg “troll factory” that was part of Vladimir Putin’s campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election were required to watch the “House of Cards” television series to help them craft messages to “set up the Americans against their own government,” according to an interview broadcast Sunday (in Russian) with a former member of the troll factory’s elite English language department. 

The interview, broadcast by the independent Russian TV station Rain, provides new insight into how the troll factory formerly known as the Internet Research Agency targeted U.S. audiences in part by posting provocative “comments” pretending to be from Americans on newspaper articles that appeared on the websites of the New York Times and Washington Post. 

A central theme of this messaging was demonizing Hillary Clinton by playing up the past scandals of her husband’s administration, her wealth and her use of a private email server, according to the interview with the agency worker, identified only as “Maksim,” with his face concealed. 

“Maksim” says he worked for the agency during 2015, the year before the election, when it was already focusing its attention on Clinton. 

“The main message is: Are not you, my American brothers, tired of the Clintons? How many have they already been?” Maksim says, adding that he and his colleagues were told to emphasize the Clintons’ past “corruption scandals.”

This Maksim guy went on to say that much of their focus was to stoke discontent among the American people and to increase partisanship.

I have to say that if one wanted to learn how politics works, and how to manipulate people, "House of Cards" is almost a master class.

However of course that was by no means the ONLY way that the Russians learned how to target their messages and spread divisiveness.

No that required help from Americans with real know how.

Gee, I wonder exactly who might have been willing to provide that?

Going to have to start spraying this liberally around the ole IM comment section.

Russian bots, Trump trolls, Hillary haters, we have been getting them all lately.

But that's fine, that only means we are doing our job.

The good news is that the Russians do not seem to be doing much to alter the outcome of the German election. The bad news is that the American Right Wing seems to be taking up the slack.

Courtesy of USA Today:

An alliance of mostly anonymous online trolls and extremist agitators are meddling in Germany's election, but researchers say Russians aren’t to blame. 

Instead, they say, right-wing groups in the United States are behind materials popping up on YouTube, messaging board sites like 4chan and reddit and texting service Gab.ai. 

The evidence comes less than a week before Sunday's vote that is likely to hand German Chancellor Angela Merkel a fourth term. 

"So far we have not been able to track down any specific Russian activity," said Simon Hegelich," a professor of political science data at the Technical University of Munich who has advised the German government about the threat of hacking and false information. 

"A lot of the stuff we are seeing in Germany can be linked to, or is at least inspired by, the 'alt-right' movement in the U.S.," Hegelich said, referring to a loosely defined group whose far-right ideology includes racism and white nationalism. 

Many denigrate both leading candidates — Merkel and her conservative Christian Democratic Union party, and her chief rival, Martin Schulz of the left-of-center Social Democratic Party — with the hashtags #Merkel and #Schulz. 

And many of those posts originate in the U.S., adding to the impression that right-wing social media users in both countries may be trying to sway German public opinion. It's possible that some of this alt-right messaging coming out of the U.S. may be connected to Russian interference; that, too, is difficult to determine, Hegelich said. 

Really the take away from this is that it is now almost impossible to differentiate between Russian and Right Wing trolls.

I think that explains why despite the investigations into Russian collusion, Donald Trump is not losing much support from this particular demographic.