I can't blame them for attacking Ted Cruz, though.

That photo of Stein having dinner with Putin AND Flynn completely clinched that she is a russky shill, yet plenty of dunderheads found that math way too hard to believe. Despite photographic evidence right before their eyes.

And as a surprise to nobody who was awake in 2016: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost…

Here is a link to the full indictment:

https://www.scribd.com/document/37167248…

And here is a passage from the conclusion:

"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charge conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election."

The most surprising thing is that these agents organized pro and anti Trump rallies in the same places on the same day. You yourself may have gone to a "resist" rally that was staged by Russians for propaganda purposes.

President Putin does have a nice ring to it.

I decided to check the comments to see which approach Teddy was taking to downplay this.

My favorite line in the indictment is at paragraph 46.b, in which a Russian troll encourages Americans to “vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it’s not a wasted vote.”

Ah ha ha ha ha!

I agree - Russians are considerably better than Democrats at messaging. Great point, Dan!

Wait, they were encouraging supporting for Sanders? I guess that means they decided he was a weaker candidate than Hillary against Trump, despite all those polls from May that Bernie Bros constantly cite as incontrovertible evidence that Sanders would have beaten Trump if only he hadn't been shafted by Killary and her war-mongering minions.

In Soviet Russia, government votes for you!

/What a country!

Guys, get excited! It might be OK to say that Trump is a bad president after this! In 2 and a half years maybe he won't win reelection now! Exciting!

Haven't read the indictment I must admit but none too clear what is particularly illegal about internet trolling, even internet trolling as part of a grand conspiracy to sway an election. Kind of irrelevant anyway as none of these Russian 'entities' or individuals will ever appear in an American court.

Still would caution against getting too wound up about the Russian thing. Pretty sure the only thing that's going to bring Trump down is a clogged artery.

@13 you haven't read the indictment and you're not a criminal lawyer but you'd like to advise us that maybe Mueller is bringing indictments for things that aren't crimes because he's a showboat that way? Cool.

@9: he wanted bipartisan action against the Russian meddling, asked mcturtle to work with him, and mcturtle refused. said he'd claim it was all political. so Obama let it leak instead.

you knew all this yet oddly you left it out of your comment. Салют!

Yes, and all of us who supported Sanders in the primary are just Russian stooges, right? What a nice spin. Even those of us who never paid attention to memes and were basically warning of the impact of disinformation on the elections must of been played somehow. I support the Russia investigation, but it's bringing out the absolute worst and most myopic tendencies in the Clinton camp. The Russian campaign would not have been nearly as effective if the American electorate wasn't already fertile ground for it, if there wasn't already a receptive audience for it--in the end it was American voters who made the poor choices that led to Trump. Pinning any and all Clinton campaign liabilities on the Russians is just goofy. I will accept that the Russian meddling was a factor in the election, but as the sole root of all problems? No.

Meh. We've gone way farther than this messing with the political systems of other countries. We're just mad now because we've been exposed to the rest of the world as the poorly educated, lazy, xenophobic, slogan-shouting morons that we've become.

@5: I posted the full document, how is that downplaying anything? I did so in full so that you could read it yourself, and you would not have to listen to anything I said, and still you whine.

I guess the document downplays itself, in your mind.

Amidst all these suggestions of conspiracies, one could almost forget that Clinton lost because of the lack of enthusiasm generated by her oversized baggage as a Wall Street stooge and a war hawk

@18 Just wait until they double down on their bullshit in 2020. "Everyone loved Hillary before Bernie and 08 never happened!"

@18: "all of us who supported Sanders in the primary are just Russian stooges, right?"

You said it, not me.

@18 there is no evidence that the Russian campaign was effective.

@Anon1256, @JMS

Assuming you aren't bots, you're parroting the same message as the bots.

@25 Assuming you aren't a moron, why are you acting like one?

It should be noted that guests do mingle from table to table during dinners like that so drawing conclusions based on seating is unwarranted.

Most of the Stein voters would never have voted for Clinton like most of Nader voters would never have voted for Gore. It's demagoguery to pretend simple arithmetic can explain how the elections would have turned out if Stein hadn't run.

@seatackled, blip, schmacky, anon...

How about that thick, juicy, 1/4 lb, nothing burger? Fucking delicious, no?

So when is drump getting indicted over this again? You guys tell us every time, but I think you keep messing the dates up because despite it being a wonderful fantasy for terrified children who can’t cope with reality to cling to, ITS NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

@3: God, you're fucking stupid. There is no such "passage from the conclusion" in the indictment. It's fucking indictment...it has is no conclusion.

What you quoted was what Rod Rosenstein said in a news conference today. Go troll somewhere else, dumbass.

@29 I am only hanging my hat onto the next mid-terms when it looks like you guys are going to be punked badly. Trump, Pence or Ryan are the same. Getting rid of one means nothing. In some ways it's better to have Trump there as a big target that nobody can miss.

Since we are on the topic of securing elections, Jill Stein was the candidate who stepped in to secure the vote where massive voter disenfranchisement occurred. The Clinton campaign wasn't even interested even though it claims to be concerned about protecting minorities' right to vote.

But but Mueller was supposed to ascend from the heavens atop winged Pegasus and vanquish Trump with his magical scepter of ultimate impeachment and appoint Hillary as President with Rachael Maddow as VP!

MSNBC lied to me!

@33: don't forget the money laundering for Trump real estate that "maybe never happened".

So. I guess, after all the deflections, the shit bag al-right narrative now is that what does it all matter Trump is getting incited anyway?

Let's see. First it was all fake news "the Russians didn't do anything."And then 11 intelligence agencies confirmed there was the Russians.

Then it was "If they did... it for Hillary" and every intelligence agency proved it the vast majority of Russian intelligence agents were working to promote the Trump campaign and knock Clinton.

Then it was "well nobody in the Trump campaign had anything to do with Russian intelligence..." and then we had multiple indictments of Trump campaign officials including Manafort, the head of the Trump campaign, indicted, for among other things working with with Russian intelligence and lying about it.

And now the noose is tightened and actual agent of the Russian FSB (IRA - Internet Research Arm) are being indicted...

And the alt-right response it... "so what, you'll never get Trump LOL ha..."

Jesus. What a bunch of fucking transparent traitors these assholes are. They happily sold their country out to a former KGB agent just so they get back at the mean old liberals (... and because Putin is white nationalist).

@29 When working on major indictments like racketeering and laundering and such, you don't go for the big fish first. You grab all the lower level fools and start flipping them, which is exactly what Mueller has been doing. Some Russians may connect their activities to some Russian diplomat, more of the half dozen nitwits already indicted will plead out and give up someone else higher on the food chain, etc. That's how these investigations work. Your "nothing burger" is actually a nice steak.

@41

"They, sadly, bring that disrespect for the rule of law and the chaos that accompanies it with them."
Remember that? That's you talking about immigrants who broke civil law by crossing the border illegally.

Russians break federal election law, illegally trying to undermine our democracy, and suddenly you don't think the rule of law is important.

I guess the rule of law is only important when it suits your narrative.

Here's hoping they ban you again soon.

#25: Yes, my long, considered and thoughtful post is a bot out to steal your votes! (evil laugh)

@3 - "There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity."

A very key part of this sentence is "in this indictment." There is no allegation YET. Robert Mueller is a pro. He's very experienced with this. He will be as circumspect as he can be for as a long as he can be. Each indictment will spell out as much as it needs to -- but hold back anything not yet required. For example, when Manafort was indicted, there was no indication that Flynn was about to be indicted or currently brokering a plea deal. Nor was Manafort charged with everything (yet) - just yesterday, Mueller had court filings relating to Manafort's house arrest negotiations hinting about additional charges to come.

From Dan: "That as-of-yet-unnamed/as-of-yet-unindicted American is going to have some explaining to do when Robert Mueller hauls him in for questioning, if he hasn't already done so."

Gonna bet that Mueller has *almost* certainly questioned him already. The only scenario where he might not have is if Mueller is deliberately sending a signal to the "yet-unnamed/as-of-yet-unindicted American" (and that American knows who Mueller is talking about even if we don't yet) to come in and make a deal.

@3 - "The most surprising thing is that these agents organized pro and anti Trump rallies in the same places on the same day."

After the election. Before the election, all of their organizing was pro-Trump (or pro-Sanders or Stein) and anti-Clinton. After the election, there were some anti-Trump efforts to cover their tracks and continue to further sow discord and doubt. In addition, these were likely some of the so-called "Antifa" rallies. The indictment spells out how the Russians tried to create fake "blacktivist" organizations to try to stir up racial tensions. These were not the larger rallies with known organizers like the women's marches, the science march, the environmental march, and the other multi-city marches.

@18 - "Yes, and all of us who supported Sanders in the primary are just Russian stooges, right?"

Not at all. Not all, at least. There are plenty of people who voted for Sanders with the best of intentions, and most of them went on to vote for Clinton in November. The stooges are those who bought into GOP and/or Kremlin-manufactured conspiracy theories and attacked Clinton in the primary with them, either knowing they were lies (I know people who did this), or willfully refused to pay attention to evidence refuting them (I know more people who did this), and then were so poisoned by those lies that they refused to vote for Clinton in the General Election.

Putin saw Hillary Clinton as a mortal foe. He couldn't forget about her accusations about fraud in the Russian "elections" in 2012. His main goal was to keep her out of the White House, or at least hobble a Hillary Clinton administration. Donald Trump was his first choice (because of kompromat, money laundering, and business incentives). But anyone other than Clinton would do. That meant supporting any Clinton opponent in the primaries in hopes of either knocking her out of General Election contention or coming out of the primaries wounded. His support of Sanders was likely more about being anti-Clinton than pro-Sanders. Maybe there were things in the Sanders platform he liked, I dunno, but the main thing was to damage Clinton.

@21 - "Amidst all these suggestions of conspiracies, one could almost forget that Clinton lost because of the lack of enthusiasm generated by her oversized baggage as a Wall Street stooge and a war hawk."

Right, a Wall Street Stooge. Give me a break. Clinton would never have appointed six Goldman Sachs executives to top positions in her Administration. Clinton would have scale up diplomacy through the State Department and reduced military spending, not the other way around like Trump is doing.

@28 - "Most of the Stein voters would never have voted for Clinton like most of Nader voters would never have voted for Gore. It's demagoguery to pretend simple arithmetic can explain how the elections would have turned out if Stein hadn't run."

That's true for some Green voters. But there were a good chunk poisoned by 30 years of Republican lies fanned to an inferno with Kremlin propaganda that they couldn't bring themselves to vote for her even though they had said they would 18 months earlier. I know people like that.

Putin was cultivating Stein. Yes, at least some of that was similar to supporting Sanders (e.g., help anyone campaigning against Clinton). But like Trump, he saw Stein as not just someone who wasn't Clinton but also someone who would personally benefit Putin. I read the Green Party Platform and also Stein's campaign platform. It was fucking awful. She was proposing policies that would benefit Putin. Like closing every single military base outside of the U.S. and allowing Russia to march into Eastern Europe unopposed. She was, at best, being cultivated to be his naive Neville Chamberlain. It remains to be seen whether she was even more complicit than that. (Wonder if Mueller has her bank accounts already? Or her emails with the Trump campaign that Congress has already subpoenaed.)

If Stein's goal wasn't to be a spoiler and was really to bring up the Green vote to 5%, why did she campaign hardest in battleground states? Why not in Green-rich states like California where she could run up the Green vote nationally? Why did she spend 100% of her time attacking Clinton and downplaying Trump, even claiming that Clinton would be worse than Trump (a claim she still refuses to recant, even though Trump has proven to be the most anti-Green president in history, worse than even oil-loving, Halliburton-enthralled Bush).

Individual voters will have their own motivations, but it's absolutely clear that Stein wanted Clinton to lose at all costs, even if that meant a Trump White House.

@43 - "Lock all of the Russians up, especially Putin, if they broke the law. But what actual effect will indicting Russians in Russia have? It looks weak and impotent."

It's not weak and impotent. Mueller knows what he's doing. He might not be able to reach into Russia to pluck them out, but it also means that they can't leave Russia except in very limited ways. Many had traveled to the U.S. during the 2016 campaign to set up server farms and other purposes. They can't come back now without being arrested. They might be able to vacation on the Caspian or Black Sea, but not on the Mediterranean. Their international travel is now severely restricted. Most anywhere in the world, they risk Interpol arrest and extradition. That reduces their usefulness to Putin, too. And if they had any assets in the U.S. or in any of our allies' countries, those assets may soon be frozen just like the assets of Russians named in sanctions are.

Mueller is methodically laying out a case, charge by charge, indictment by indictment. He knows what he's doing.

@Bub

Indicting them serves a purpose dumbass, it keeps them from coming back here and doing it again next election.

It's not a left-right issue, you insufferable turd.

It's about maintaining our democracy, but it seems that you don't care about that.

@43:

Portraying a purposefully obtuse nitwit with the intellectual capacity of a box of rocks doesn't advance the conversation either, as I'm fairly certain you're aware.

Literally nobody expects the Russians named in the indictment to be arrested, deported, and put on trial; that's not the point, as again, I'm sure you know. What IS important is that, by making the indictment Mueller is continuing to escalate the pressure on the cabal of sycophants and toadies in the WH by putting them on notice that he knows enough now about Russian involvement in attempting to throw the 2016 election to start connecting other dots, many of which may lead directly to anyone here in the U.S. who either aided and abetted them, or who may have attempted to benefit from their intrusion.

Tip of the proverbial iceberg this is, Bubula, just the very tip...

@39: That's a fine summary.

@45-48: Nicely put. Thank you for providing more high-minded input than most in the thread.

@51: His name is Pence, you twit. But his brand of crazy is mostly against sex and the gays; the potential for nuclear annihilation over a mean Twitter remark is infinitely lesser with his finger on The Button, as opposed to Trump.

@Bub (54)

I'm not from Seattle, so I really don't think the federal or state government is too worried about how I think conflicting laws should be enforced there.

I do agree that Obama should have done more about Russia, especially after being tipped off to the fact that they were planning to meddle in the election.
What I find even more troubling is Trump's refusal to admit that Russia actively work to sway our election.
It's even more disturbing that Trump refuses to enforce the sanctions against Russia that his own Republican Congress passed.

If Obama is guilty of not taking the Russia situation seriously enough, then Trump is twice as guilty.

I see our dear Bubula is burning the early morning oil - not wanting to miss any of the latest tweet-rants from the WH apparently. Either that, or he forgot to turn on his VPN account & his browser is time-stamping everything from his actual IP address?

@59

And someone who post here from a different time zone I can tell you that posts are time-stamped when they are received in Pacific time.
( I'm assuming this Seattle uses Pacific time.)

I'm in Detroit, and it was 2:26 p.m. my time when this message was sent.

Wow, I really need to proof read the posts I compose with speech to text.

According to the figures released by Twitter, Facebook, and Google, Russian spending on social media ads amounted to 3/1000ths of a PERCENT of total 2016 election advertising expenditures.

Those clever Russkies sure know how to stretch an advertising dollar. I mean, ruble.

Yeah, as if we don't "meddle" in elections constantly-- and in far more agressive ways. So some Russians bought a few ads on Facebook and made some tweets, does anyone believe this actually made a difference in the election? Even if it did, then that's more the fault of voters being gullible, not a Russian tweeter.

Wish the FBI would spend more time investigating tips on school shooters like Nikolas Jesus Cruz and less time on invesitgating Facebook ads.

Also, let's get a national voter id system. You never know, maybe some illegal Russian aliens voted ;)