THE RUSSIAN
TROLL FARMS:
"There is no allegation in this
(Mueller) indictment
that any American
was a knowing participant
in this illegal activity.
There is no allegation
in the indictment
that the (Russians') conduct
altered the outcome
of the 2016 election."
Rod Rosenstein,
Deputy Attorney General
February 16, 2018
Robert Mueller
deliberately announced
his indictment
at the prefect time
to take attention away
from FBI actions in Florida,
where repeated warnings
to the FBI
about a deranged teenager
with guns, and hatred,
were consistently ignored
by the FBI.
The crude social media ads and posts
from a Russian "troll farm" were so bad
that I thought they were funny:
"On or about October 16, 2016,
Defendants and their co-conspirators
used the ORGANIZATION-controlled
Instagram account: "Woke Blacks"
to post the following message:
"[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump
is misleading the people and forcing Blacks
to vote Killary. We cannot resort to the lesser
of two devils. Then we'd surely be better off
without voting AT ALL."
99 numbered paragraphs followed,
often in broken English, such as:
"Hillary is a Satan,
and her crimes and lies
had proved just how evil she is"
According to Facebook,
the 3,000 ad placements cost $100,000.
But half the ads were purchased
AFTER the election.
25% ended-up in Facebook's
'dead letter office' (unread).
Efforts to stimulate pro-Trump rallies
were failures.
There is almost no evidence that
anyone showed up at the rallies
cited by Mueller.
Most pro-Trump social media postings
were "copy and paste" relays
of current partisan talking points,
such as:
"Vote Republican, vote Trump,
and support the Second Amendment!".
"Trump is our only hope for a better future!"
"Donald wants to defeat terrorism
... Hillary wants to sponsor it"
The "troll farm" in St. Petersburg
was not a Russian
intelligence agency operation.
In Russia, a “troll farm”
is a nickname
for outfits that operate
armies of sock-puppet
social-media accounts.
Trolling is used to rein in
a freewheeling Internet culture,
starting after huge
anti-Putin protests in 2011
were organized over social media.
Trolling is used wherever politics
are discussed online -- one can expect
a flood of comments from paid trolls.
The Internet Research Agency (IRA)
is the harmless "Hobby Farm"
of Russian oligarch and ultra-nationalist,
Yevgeny Prigozhin, who opposes Washington's
demonization of Russia and Vlad Putin.
It hired unemployed twenty-somethings
at $4-8 per hour to type ham-handed
political messaging on social media sites
like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
YouTube etc.
The broken English postings
were not effective.
None of the Russians charged
has an intelligence background.
The "CEO" was a retired
St. Petersburg police officer.
Nowhere in the entire
37-page indictment
is there any link between
Prigozhin's Hobby Farm
to the SVR (foreign intelligence service),
the FSB (counter-intelligence and anti-terrorism),
the GRU (military intelligence service),
any other Russian state agency.
The Hobby Farm
was no Russian state secret.
It had been covered in the Russian press
for years, as an oligarch-funded project
designed to glorify the Putin regime.
It had also been exposed in The Guardian
of London, and by Radio Free Europe,
long before the Hobby Farm had
turned its attentions to US politics
in April 2014.
Prigozhin opposed Washington's
heavy-handed meddling in the politics
of the Ukraine, during the US-funded coup
on the streets of Kiev in February 2014.
The incumbent pro-Russian government
had come to power in an honest election.
When Crimea elected,
by a 90% referendum vote,
to "rejoin" Russia,
it didn't happen at gun point
-- Crimea is 85% Russian.
A Russian billionaire
got a bee in his bonnet
after Washington's Ukrainian coup,
and then went to town on America
with his trolling farm, exactly as he
and many others had been doing
in internal Russian politics for years.
The Russian meddlers
had "no ground game"
aside from a 22 day visit
in June 2014,
by two operatives
who were not trained spies,
and who had apparently
never even been to America
previously.
What could these two travelers
have done to "influence"
133 million voters two years later?
Almost no one came to the rallies
and flash mob events organized
from St. Petersburg.
Jim Frishe of Clearwater, Florida,
was a real estate consultant
who organized a sign-waving event
in response to the Russians,
and it attracted a few people:
Frishe, 68, said he was called
by someone identifying themselves
as with a group called
"Florida for Trump"
and asked to organize
a sign-waving rally.
He said between
15 and 18 people showed up,
and that he didn't receive
any signs, or money,
or other support.
He never heard from them again.
The Democrats have been
shell-shocked since the election.
They have deluded themselves
by blaming Russian meddling
and collusion.
The Mueller indictment
is a nothing-burger
that will never
have to be proven in court.
"Have we ever tried to meddle
in other countries’ elections?",
Laura Ingraham, of Fox News,
asked former CIA Director
James Woolsey last week.
With a grin, Woolsey replied,
"Oh, probably."
"We don’t do that anymore though?"
Ingraham interrupted.
"We don’t mess around
in other people’s elections, Jim?"
"Well," Woolsey said with a smile.
"Only for a very good cause."
