Alfa Bank is a front for Russian intelligence. Along with Dimitry Firtash, a Russian agent of influence, it owns Cambridge Analytica, the data targeting company used by Trump’s campaign. It also owns SCL, the propaganda company responsible for what has been termed “fake news” but was actually real propaganda co-ordinated by Russian intelligence.We're talking about the same SCL and Cambridge Analytica owned by Robert Mercer, the man who gave us Bannon and Trump.
We're talking about the same SCL and Cambridge Analytica that works with Sandia Labs, the State Department, NATO and the UK Ministry of Defense. And also, I'm pretty sure, the CIA and MI6, although nobody wants to talk about that.
In the previous post, I scoffed at the idea that the Russians own a firm that plays such an important role in the security of both the US and the UK. Can it be? Can it really freakin' BE?
The implications are mind-blowing. I can't even think of something cleverer to say than "The implications are mind-blowing." That's how thoroughly my mind has been blown. I'm trying to think of the right words to say, but all I can come up with is glap and glurp and glorp and codmafg dfqelj fk kaolkdf ieKMlswdasffggguhfdcnewwttUorr and cockles and mussels alive alive O.
Cambridge Analytica and SCL use Facebook data they had no right to acquire, illegally stolen by a Russian spy working at Cambridge, to build an unbeatable target database of propaganda.If you say so, Louise. I'm not inclined to doubt you at the moment.
In the closing days of the election, the Russian state hacked into the voter rolls of the United States. Russian intelligence did this in order that they could provide this information to Alfa Bank in order to use Cambridge Analytica’s targeting, and SCL’s propaganda, in order precisely to target voters and tip them to Trump.Or maybe to fuck with the actual election, as Russia does in other countries? Some evidence indicates that it did happen here. The fact that Trump's lawyers fought like badgers over every single aspect of the recount may be construed as a confession of guilt. You don't go to such extreme lengths to halt a recount unless you have something to hide.
The Alfa Bank server in Trump Tower provided fresh evidence for the granting of the FISA warrant, I reported. (this is a fact). However, the warrant was broader than merely looking at the server metadata. It explicitly covered US persons caught up in the inquiry and explicitly covered the right for the FBI to read intercepts and hear tapes and other materials on US persons, related to this inquiry, already existing and provided by intelligence from a Baltic state ally, which I name tonight as Lithuania.There's more. Go here and read it. Seriously, can this possibly be an April Fool's day gag? Did someone hack into Louise Mensch's account?
I believe the Alfa Bank server was sending back to Russia information on the hacked voter databases and how they could be micro-targeted.
Just before the election, Manafort, who worked with Firtash and Alfa Bank, told Trump to go and campaign in Michigan. Public polling showed that Trump had no chance in Michigan.
Speaking of mind-blowing developments: Last night, we read that George Takei planned to run for Devin Nunes' seat. Today, we learn that this was simply an April Fool's gag.
10 comments:
Cambridge Analytica is now coming to Australia to work with the governing Liberal Party (which is actually Right wing Conservative).
"CNN reported on Thursday that last summer a computer server owned by the Russia-based Alfa Bank "repeatedly looked up the contact information for a computer server being used by the Trump Organization — far more than other companies did, representing 80% of all lookups to the Trump server."
http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-alfa-bank-trump-organization-servers-2017-3
Sigh. Sure, you can target specific voters with particular kinds of information but people, in my experience, are surprisingly resistant to that kind of manipulation. The only sure way to win an election is to manipulate the vote count. Why is everyone still focused on some kind of magic method of brain washing voters through last minute bits of information when this method can be surprisingly unpredictable.
If you want an election to turn out a particular way, you can't afford anything that behaves unpredictably.
Now, if you are manipulating the vote count and if you want to make your numbers realistic, you have to know how much "spin" to apply. It would have looked mighty suspicious if Trump had won a state previously carried by Obama by +10 percentage points. All the dodgy states that had exit polls showing a win for Clinton had Trump winning by 1% plus or minus 0.1 %. That's no accident. but you can't use VPN and connect with routers as Karl Rove did. You have to preprogram the cassettes before they are used. That's why they needed the voter info from specific states before election day.
Any other methods? Well, in liberal cities where you are afraid you'll get clobbered, you just gum up the system so that no one can vote--see Tallahassee and Raleigh-Durham on election day. Why did everything in those two cities go tits up whereas everything went smoothly elsewhere. Well, both are college towns and more liberal than the hinterland regions of each state. College towns = educated voters. You blow things up there and you don't have to worry about underestimating their impact on the vote total in each respective state.
Why is it that exit polls are used to validate election results in every country but the United States?
Geesh.
I suspect the Senate Intelligence Committee will also realize that the Sanders Campaign had to be supported by Russia to fracture Clinton support. It sure seemed the same ugly trolls were working for Sanders as for Trump which didn't make any sense at the time. But considering the Russians paying over 1000 people to poison Clinton on social media it starts to make sense. A lot of Bernie supporters would never have asked who was making those ridiculous charges.
Everyone his/her gut feeling told them he didn't win fair and square. But everyone is afraid to come out and say it. We need brave people to come and speak their mind. Don't count on the DNC. Remember the day he said he already won why bother with the election, the expression on his face was so I can't even find the word to describe it. But I believed him right there.
quick point: the really scary thing is how much the money is controlling every damn thing.
another quick point: evidently there is reason to believe an israeli natural gas pipeline thru turkey was motivating flynn's work with them as a foreign agent.
and never forget: israel is lousy with russian mafia.
also, appears the fbi has been investigating the russian mafia for a great many years, and has likely had their eyes on trump's involvement with them since the get-go in the early 90s.
given the fact that there is not likely a nation on earth whose elections the US has not meddled with in some way shape or form, we should each and all take a moment to be just a bit more circumspect about this. not to condone any of it, and certainly not to defend russia, but these are some really fussy chickens coming home to roost.
yo, peeps; why is no one mentioning the role of the GOP in these shenanigans? the point that all their propaganda trolling can only do so much is spot on. russian propaganda contributed to muddying the waters (in ways that explain why the fbi is tasked to NOT make announcements etc. prior to elections), but precisely what specific english words should be said, what names to key in, etc., this has to come from insiders in US politics. and then, the fine tuning for the actual 'count' requires manipulations on the front lines. for the final swing states to get shoved over the line required the active interference of GOP governors in MI, WI, and PA (along with those in NC, AZ, FL, etc.). do see greg palast's work on all this, esp. wrt crosscheck; it's stellar, and he's been at it since before the 2000 debacle.
palast asks the excellent question, did no one notice that jill klein's efforts for a recount were resisted aggressively by the GOP and trump attorneys (with mercer money, no doubt), which begs the question of what they had to fear. duh. but, hillary never signed on to those suits; why not? because she didn't, stein had no standing, the suits were dismissed, and no ballots counted.
so, why would hillary not fight that? it was all so obvious, and a lawsuit could have exposed so much? palast has the most reasonable explanation: tweaking the votes is an old establishment party tradition, no matter which party. to expose this on one side would expose it in toto, exposing that the entire US democratic enterprise has pretty much been a sham. both parties have done it forever, but the GOP has gone into hyperdrive. however, palast and others have evidence exposing the dem primaries were also, erm, questionable, and i can vouch for having witnessed that first hand, though it was particularly rampant and overt in CA. (all this as if the whole super-delegate thing is anything like democratic.)
to suggest the russians were 'supporting' the bernie campaign is a bit rich. what, did they give money? $27 times 1000? yup, that did it. no, it's my understanding that the 'russians' were more invested in trolling bernie supporters after hillary won, in order to seduce them from her camp. they and the GOP preferred hillary to bernie precisely because they'd all invested so heavily in running against her, what with the quarter century of pure crap against her. plus, putin does despise her, as comey pointed out. trump actually openly stole many of bernie's more popular positions, which was fairly bizarre.
at any rate, sanders supporters were far more invested in his msg than they were in trashing clinton, and in fact most ended up voting for her. moreover, much if not most of the trolling during the primary was actually done by david brock and his hillary super pac; he admitted to that a year ago, and actually also admitted to inventing the bernie bro meme last fall when he apologized to bernie and his supporters for what he had done.
so far, no one else has apologized to bernie or his supporters; not donna brazile, not DWS, not hillary. which makes the fact that most bernie supporters still voted for hillary pretty impressive, if you think about it.
just consider: because all this chaos and corruption is at core all about money, our best bet is to look for public servants who are not in any way beholden to anyone for anything, except their constituents and the constitution. pretty simple rule.
Joseph, some background material on Cambridge Analytica ownership is here.
"Sure, you can target specific voters with particular kinds of information but people, in my experience, are surprisingly resistant to that kind of manipulation."
lastlemming, I think you are wrong and this is exactly the point of CA targeting methods and why they are so dangerous. Every party runs on a list of motherhood statements: "Make our borders secure," "Increase US jobs," "Drain the Swamp of Washington Corruption," etc. It is left to the individual voter to translate these broad policies into what they believe are the true action points of a particular party -- what they will actually do if they govern. If the voter can identify to their personal satisfaction what key realizable actions are likely to be implemented then they will ignore all other policy factors in favor of that party or candidate.
CA now is able to identify at the individual voter level what policies they are calling for and what realizable goals they can sell to that voter. They don't have to say explicitly "We are going to install God in schools." They can just choose generalized phrases that will allow that particular voter to believe that that is what they intend to do. In effect, under the broad banner of a dozen generalized statements masquerading as policy positions, the Party or candidate can tailor those motherhood ideas into whatever marketing points they want them to be for each individual citizen whose vote is critical.
It really is weaponized propaganda. More here.
This is a great video that explains it all.
Yo, Palastbro, we're not your peeps.
On the other hand, norman, thanks SO much for that Scout link, wow!
The quote from Louise Mensch containing the phrase "The Alfa Bank server in Trump Tower" is inaccurate, and accuracy is important since every mistake will be exaggerated and exploited by Trump's defenders to deflect criticisms.
The server is not thought to be IN Trump Tower and it's not known if it's a server reserved for secret use in communicating illegal things with Alfa Bank. What is known: the address trump-email.com is registered to the Trump Organization (whose official address is Trump Tower) but its IP is/was tied to a server in Pennsylvania and it was being run by a marketing company called Cendyn. The address received unusual repetitive communications from Alfa Bank. It is a guess what that means, but be aware that buggy automated server behavior on the internet can do all sorts of weird things, and people can type in wrong addresses or make configuration mistakes that might set off unexpected behavior. Without more info, the rest is invention (genuinely fake?) and should be reported as such.
My info from http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/politics/fbi-investigation-continues-into-odd-computer-link-between-russian-bank-and-trump-organization/ and
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/01/that-secret-trump-russia-email-server-link-is-likely-neither-secret-nor-a-trump-russia-link/?utm_term=.931429a879ac
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