Presidential election, 2016

[pbrower2a]

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies are examining faked documents aimed at discrediting the Hillary Clinton campaign as part of a broader investigation into what U.S. officials believe has been an attempt by Russia to disrupt the presidential election, people with knowledge of the matter said.

U.S. Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has referred one of the documents to the FBI for investigation on the grounds that his name and stationery were forged to appear authentic, some of the sources who had knowledge of that discussion said.

In the letter identified as fake, Carper is quoted as writing to Clinton, “We will not let you lose this election,” a person who saw the document told Reuters.

The fake Carper letter, which was described to Reuters, is one of several documents presented to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice for review in recent weeks, the sources said.

A spokeswoman for Carper declined to comment.

As part of an investigation into suspected Russian hacking, FBI investigators have also asked Democratic Party officials to provide copies of other suspected faked documents that have been circulating along with emails and other legitimate documents taken in the hack, people involved in those conversations said.

A spokesman for the FBI confirmed the agency was “in receipt of a complaint about an alleged fake letter” related to the election but declined further comment. Others with knowledge of the matter said the FBI was also examining other fake documents that recently surfaced.

U.S. intelligence officials have warned privately that a campaign they believe is backed by the Russian government to undermine the credibility of the U.S. presidential election could move beyond the hacking of Democratic Party email systems. That could include posting fictional evidence of voter fraud or other disinformation in the run-up to voting on Nov. 8, U.S. officials have said.

Russian officials deny any such effort.

In addition to the Carper letter, the FBI has also reviewed a seven-page electronic document that carries the logos of Democratic pollster Joel Benenson’s firm, the Benenson Strategy Group, and the Clinton Foundation, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

The document, identified as a fake by the Clinton campaign, claims poll ratings had plunged for Clinton and called for “severe strategy changes for November” that could include “staged civil unrest” and “radiological attack” with dirty bombs to disrupt the vote.

Like the Carper letter, it was not immediately clear where the fraudulent document had originated or how it had begun to circulate.

On Oct. 20, Roger Stone, a former Trump aide and Republican operative, linked to a copy of the document on Twitter with the tag, “If this is real: OMG!!”

Benenson’s firm had no immediate comment. Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the Clinton Foundation, said the document was “fake.” He said he did not know if the FBI had examined it.

Stone did not respond to emails requesting comment.

A spokesman for the Clinton campaign, Glen Caplin, said the document was a fake and part of a “desperate stunt” to capitalize on the leak of Democratic emails by Wikileaks.

The developments highlight the unusually prominent role U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have played in a contentious election and an ongoing debate about how public they can or should be about their inquiries.

FBI Director James Comey, a Republican appointed by President Obama, touched off an outcry from Democrats last week when he alerted Congress that agents had found other emails that could be linked to an inquiry into Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State, effectively re-opening an investigation he had closed in July.

[pbrower2a]

Forgeries. Forgeries!

The Russians are experts at false documents.

[pbrower2a]

(11-04-2016, 06:14 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(11-04-2016, 06:08 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Forgeries. Forgeries!

The Russians are experts at false documents.

Maybe even "leaked FBI" ones?

In any case, let us purport a thesis that, in fact, the Clinton Foundation did actually go for some sort of either past, present or future quid, quo, pro, with .... GASP ... those Moroccan royals!

Now ... compare this to ... a GRU sponsored Manchurian Candidate, who may be the first camel's nose into the tent for something like Crimea or Donbas writ large. Maybe even the Spetsnaz "Little Green Men" on our streets.

Let's think this one through. The FBI releases information on an ongoing investigation of criminal activities only

(1) to facilitate an arrest
(2) to badger a defendant into a confession or self-incrimination
(3) as needed in an indictment
(4) in the criminal trial itself

The FBI does not release such information except to do maximal damage to an offender.  It will not compromise a prosecution.

There is either a mole within the FBI, the FBI is under attack, or someone is forging documents.

[pbrower2a]

My prediction of the 2016 Presidential election.

Hillary Clinton (D)  vs. Donald Trump ®




Tie -- white

solid -- 10% or more, saturation 7
firm -- 5 to 9.99%, saturation 5
shaky -- less than 5% , saturation 2

[Eric the Green]

Thanks brower; that looks about right. I still have some hope for Ohio in the closing hours. I am feeling better about the election now that the FBI has relented and the polls are upticking in our direction again. Comeygate probably precluded any far-flung hopes of getting the congress back again, but who knows.

[Eric the Green]

(11-04-2016, 12:22 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: 12 x 9 = 108, as if one wants to make any mystical connections with numbers.

Very good, yes!

[pbrower2a]

(11-07-2016, 05:32 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Thanks brower; that looks about right. I still have some hope for Ohio in the closing hours. I am feeling better about the election now that the FBI has relented and the polls are upticking in our direction again. Comeygate probably precluded any far-flung hopes of getting the congress back again, but who knows.

Polls of early voters showed Hillary Clinton with a big lead, with Tuesday voters leaning strongly to Donald Trump.

Exposure that the alleged e-mails are forgeries can cause some of the Trump lean among on-day voters to erode. Hillary Clinton will still win. It will not matter whether she wins with nearly 280 electoral votes or nearly 450 electoral votes; she will still be President.

As with other bureaucracies, one cannot expect the FBI to take an embarrassment of its credibility lightly. I can count on a full investigation; I will not say what I expect to be the result. Should the e-mails be forgeries, then one can expect bad consequences for any American culpable in creating or disseminating them.

[Eric the Green]

Wouldn't it be nice if it ends like this:

[Cynic Hero '86]

But FOX polls and online polls have Trump ahead in some cases. They do not imply the Hillary landslide that you are suggesting.

[pbrower2a]

(11-07-2016, 09:27 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: But FOX polls and online polls have Trump ahead in some cases. They do not imply the Hillary landslide that you are suggesting.

Some Johnny-come-lately-pollsters have been supplying polls suggesting that Donald Trump might be ahead in battleground states that have usually had Clinton leads almost all electoral season. FoX Propaganda Channel has touted those as evidence that the race was tightening.

Take those out and Hillary Clinton has a lead in the popular vote close to that of Obama at the end of 2012. The polls around all year have had their swings related to events, but those make sense.  The others seem largely to fit a narrative that Donald Trump, the most execrable nominee for President by one of the two main Parties since the Civil War, is ahead.

[Eric the Green]

Church Lady renders her judgment.

[Galen]

So much for Astrology as good predictor of anything.  

[Eric the Green]

(11-09-2016, 03:18 AM)Galen Wrote: So much for Astrology as good predictor of anything.  

I dunno; I wonder who had the better record: astrologers or pundits/polls. I suspect the former. I was wrong on this one, and it's a big one.

[Galen]

(11-09-2016, 04:09 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-09-2016, 03:18 AM)Galen Wrote: So much for Astrology as good predictor of anything.  

I dunno; I wonder who had the better record: astrologers or pundits/polls. I suspect the former. I was wrong on this one, and it's a big one.

If you had bothered to read the Podesta e-mails released by Wikileaks then you would have known that the polls were deliberately over-sampled in demographics that favored Clinton.  Come to think of it, you also would have been aware of the collusion between the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign.  It was so heavy handed that even the average person figured it out with easily predictable consequences.

[Eric the Green]

(11-09-2016, 05:01 AM)Galen Wrote:

(11-09-2016, 04:09 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-09-2016, 03:18 AM)Galen Wrote: So much for Astrology as good predictor of anything.  

I dunno; I wonder who had the better record: astrologers or pundits/polls. I suspect the former. I was wrong on this one, and it's a big one.

If you had bothered to read the Podesta e-mails released by Wikileaks then you would have known that the polls were deliberately over-sampled in demographics that favored Clinton.  Come to think of it, you also would have been aware of the collusion between the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign.  It was so heavy handed that even the average person figured it out with easily predictable consequences.

What I figured out is that this country has gone crazy and no longer has a grip on reality, because it believes stuff like that. You are one of those who believe in Trump and all this stuff.

I know the newspapers and midnight comedians were all in for Hillary, but that was because they chose to be, not because of collusion. But such is the level of your divorce from reality.

You are not the majority of this country, although the vote was razor thin and you guys have the advantage because of the states rights approach to our democracy. That's the law and it has to be accepted.

(And by the way Hillary Clinton is going to win the popular vote)

We don't know whether brower's predictions will come true, and we have elected a dictator. We don't know how much of a loose cannon he will be. These are more defects of his character, rather than defects in ideology, as is the case with you. Trump is actually flexible in what he believes, and some of his policies may be beneficial. But most of them, if he carries them out (or is able to), will be very harmful-- to you and all of us.

First of all, the nonsense about his concern about "corruption" is a lie. But you can't believe anything our president-elect says. We can be sure that big money in politics is here for the foreseeable future. We can expect that pollution will increase dramatically. We can expect much more gun violence and riots. Our national debt will rise dramatically, unless the Republicans actually care about what they say they care about, in which case Trump won't be able to do what he promises.

(but we will be safer in CA, since CA passed an initiative for tighter gun control for the first time, and it's not as easy to bring guns over the Sierras as it is to bring them in just down the road from Chicago)

The media really had little to do with the public's ignorance. Americans have deliberately chosen to be ignorant. Since the Trump half chose not to pursue an education, that is no wonder. You don't have to read or watch the media to understand all the lies emanating from your side-- the side you voted for. No collusion is needed; the truth is obvious to anyone with a working brain. So it doesn't fucking matter if the media colluded with Clinton or not. Smart people can see if the sky is blue or not. They don't need to be told.

[Eric the Green]

As rural middle America gave a big "FUCK YOU" (as Michael Moore described it) to the rest of America and what it saw as the established system, California is giving a big "fuck you" to Trump with an expanding 61% majority of the vote for Hillary Clinton in America's largest state, and now pushing her into the lead in the popular vote.

Just as some here were proud to be a part of the former fuck you, I was proud to be a part of the latter.

[Eric the Green]

If you remember George Wallace and his racist dog whistle campaign "to stand up for America," it is interesting that in CA we have a remnant of his presidential 1968 bid called the American Independent Party (probably allied to the "Constitution Party" elsewhere), and I noticed tonight that this party endorsed Donald Trump instead of running its own candidate this year. How fitting. It has always been the voice in CA of what we call the alt right now, with its mixture of anti-trade, anti-globalism, anti-multiculturalism/immigration, pro-gun and neo-liberal economics; just the brew that Donald served up. It has survived in CA until now because so many people when they register to vote choose this party mistakenly thinking they are registering "independent."

[pbrower2a]

(11-09-2016, 06:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-09-2016, 05:01 AM)Galen Wrote:

(11-09-2016, 04:09 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-09-2016, 03:18 AM)Galen Wrote: So much for Astrology as good predictor of anything.  

I dunno; I wonder who had the better record: astrologers or pundits/polls. I suspect the former. I was wrong on this one, and it's a big one.

If you had bothered to read the Podesta e-mails released by Wikileaks then you would have known that the polls were deliberately over-sampled in demographics that favored Clinton.  Come to think of it, you also would have been aware of the collusion between the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign.  It was so heavy handed that even the average person figured it out with easily predictable consequences.

What I figured out is that this country has gone crazy and no longer has a grip on reality, because it believes stuff like that. You are one of those who believe in Trump and all this stuff.

I know the newspapers and midnight comedians were all in for Hillary, but that was because they chose to be, not because of collusion. But such is the level of your divorce from reality.

You are not the majority of this country, although the vote was razor thin and you guys have the advantage because of the states rights approach to our democracy. That's the law and it has to be accepted.

(And by the way Hillary Clinton is going to win the popular vote)

Maybe I want to be in California when it secedes. California will be the "Slovenia" of our now-rotten, Yugoslav-style federation.

Quote:We don't know whether brower's predictions will come true, and we have elected a dictator. We don't know how much of a loose cannon he will be. These are more defects of his character, rather than defects in ideology, as is the case with you. Trump is actually flexible in what he believes, and some of his policies may be beneficial. But most of them, if he carries them out (or is able to), will be very harmful-- to you and all of us

.
I hope that they don't come true. But I know enough about world history that demagogues become tyrants when they start faulting people for the failure of the People to achieve the demagogue's contradictory promises. Sociopathy is incompatible with the moral decencies that underpin democracy. Kleptocrats typically have people to rub out when they start exposing the graft and corruption.

Donald Trump looks like the trifecta of the causes of the death of democracy.

Donald Trump has two gods -- himself and Mammon.

Quote:First of all, the nonsense about his concern about "corruption" is a lie. But you (Galen) can't believe anything our president-elect says. We can be sure that big money in politics is here for the foreseeable future. We can expect that pollution will increase dramatically. We can expect much more gun violence and riots. Our national debt will rise dramatically, unless the Republicans actually care about what they say they care about, in which case Trump won't be able to do what he promises.

I expect to hate everything substantive that Donald Trump does. He can do damage that long outlasts him, corrupting institutions and entrenching corruption within them so that the corruption is beyond scrutiny or reform.

Quote:The media really had little to do with the public's ignorance. Americans have deliberately chosen to be ignorant. Since the Trump half chose not to pursue an education, that is no wonder. You (Galen) don't have to read or watch the media to understand all the lies emanating from your side-- the side you voted for. No collusion is needed; the truth is obvious to anyone with a working brain. So it doesn't fucking matter if the media colluded with Clinton or not. Smart people can see if the sky is blue or not. They don't need to be told.

Media now give their customers exactly what they prove that they want by their use of a remote control to select a channel. If they want celebrity swill, then that is exactly what they get. If they want Ultimate Fighting, then that is exactly what they get. If they want reruns of Three's Company, then that is what they get. If they want scientific documentaries or travelogues, then that is what they get.

If they want to believe the universe that FoX News offers, then they will turn there.

I expect to hate practically everything that the President and Congress does over the next four years because I expect to hate about everything that the formal government does. I am not proud to be an American, especially a white American, whose demographic has sole culpability in the election of a thoroughly evil man as President. I feel sorry for the minorities who will surely experience the brunt of the cruelty of Donald Trump and the Republican Party. But white people who voted for him? They did it to themselves.

When this nightmare is over we will need to reform the educational system by expanding the K-12 system to K-14, the '13' and '14' including by necessity economics, philosophy (including formal logic), and psychology (so that we can less easily be snowed by clever liars). After the disaster that is Donald Trump, a Congress mostly of stooges, and their successors we will be compelled to change our ways.

The white working class will get the shaft, and nothing else except some praise of mass ignorance, from the Trump Administration.

[Odin]

I've never been so ashamed of being a working class white man than right now. WTF just happened?

[Odin]

(11-09-2016, 05:01 AM)Galen Wrote: If you had bothered to read the Podesta e-mails released by Wikileaks then you would have known that the polls were deliberately over-sampled in demographics that favored Clinton.  Come to think of it, you also would have been aware of the collusion between the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign.  It was so heavy handed that even the average person figured it out with easily predictable consequences.

This is a steaming pile of horse manure. Nobody expected this result, not even the Trump campaign. Nobody expected the margins Trump has gotten among working class white people, nobody.