Obama’s illegal campaign contributions vs. Trump’s
From Andrew C. McCarthy, a little recent history:
Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was caught hiding the sources of 1,300 large campaign donations, aggregating to nearly $2 million. The campaign also accepted more than $1.3 million in unlawful donations from contributors who had already given the legal maximum.
Under federal law, such campaign-finance violations, if they aggregate to just $25,000 in a calendar year, may be treated as felonies punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment ”” with offenses involving smaller dollar amounts punishable by incarceration for a year or more. (See Section 30109(d) of Title 52, U.S. Code, pp. 51”“52 of the Federal Election Commission’s compilation of campaign laws.)
The Obama campaign did not have a defense; it argued in mitigation that the unlawful donations constituted a negligible fraction of the monumental amount it had raised from millions of “grass-roots” donors. Compelling? Maybe not, but enough to convince the Obama Justice Department not to prosecute the Obama campaign ”” shocking, I know. During the Christmas holiday season right after the 2012 campaign, with Obama safely reelected and nobody paying much attention, the matter was quietly settled with the payment of a $375,000 fine.
Is the $130,000 in hush money Donald Trump’s personal lawyer paid to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election a campaign-finance violation? Probably, although it’s a point of contention. Even if we stipulate that it is, though, we’re talking comparative chump change.
Yet, as that lawyer, Michael Cohen, has discovered, what was not a crime in the Obama days is the crime of the century now…
Prosecutors have tremendous discretion on who to charge, who to let go, who to pressure, who to squeeze. When they decide a president is okay, that president receives the kid glove treatment. When they decide he has to go, they will move heaven and earth to get him out.
The press is one of the few checks we might have on this sort of process, and we all know that they are not even remotely objective.
And then there’s the public, who get to have an opinion and then to vote. But if the public is misinformed, ignorant, and/or indoctrinated through an educational process that sees its purpose as the destruction of the ideas and power of the right and the elevation of the ideas and power of the left, the public has trouble understanding exactly what’s going on.
When they decide a president is okay, that president receives the kid glove treatment. When they decide he has to go, they will move heaven and earth to get him out
Call it the “Hoover Maneuver”?
[the cross dressing turned out to be disinformatzia among other things… Hoover… dont know about Obama.. or Trump for that matter. After the way David Carradine went, anything became possible and the improbability drive had more fuel than it would ever need….]
Prosecutors have a lot of discretion as who to prosecute.
Presidents have a lot of discretion as to which prosecutors to fire.
I do not understand, especially after Cohen, the reticence of Trump, or the opposition from Repubs, to fire Mueller and Rosenstein. Sessions would be AG again.
i don’t know if that is worthwhile though.
There was also $200 million in unmarked credits.
on another note:
yesterday, On Monday, Tom Lehrer turned 90, a milestone that earned him a notice in, of all places, Nature magazine.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-lehrer-20180409-story.html
🙂
You might find this interesting.
http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2016/2/16/some-thoughts-on-justice-scalia?rq=prosecutor
I would like to see someone look at Stormy Daniels’ background. Does this silicon-implant porn star have a history of going after rich men? She is a trash bag, and I don’t see why her allegations are considered important. Where is our Gloria Allred digging up other victims of her intimidation game?
Ray Says:
April 10th, 2018 at 8:45 pm
* *
Excellent, thank you.
Seems to describe the Special Counsel Witch Hunt pretty well.
Scalia is greatly missed.
expat:
In terms of what’s happening now, whether Stormy Daniels is telling the truth or lying is completely irrelevant. The important point is how she was paid, and whether it should be considered an unreported campaign donation.
Neo,
That’s true, but I still don’t like seeing her portrayed as some sort of victim. Maybe if we knew more about her background we would have another take on why she was paid.
This seems like a pretty desperate move from the deep state. raiding the president’s lawyer and seizing all the communication records between them over allegations that are completely unrelated to Russia is so over the top that it publicly exposes that the Mueller investigation is a pure witch hunt and its only objective is to try to find something to get rid of a legitimately elected president instead of an attempt to maintain the integrity of our democracy as stated in the beginning.
By going after Trump with something so low like the Stormy Daniels stuff they pretty conceded that they had nothing else and the Russia collusion angle is pretty dead. I doubt that they would find something to impeach Trump in what they raided from the lawyer’s office. Unless Trump’s lawyer is a complete idiot, a lawyer’s office is probably the last place someone could find incriminating evidence in…
This is a high risk high gain situation for Trump though, if they still couldn’t find anything after this fiasco, heads will roll. This whole Stormy Daniels thing is a bit too good to be true for the deep state and democrats…
Dave Says:
April 11th, 2018 at 12:04 am
Unless Trump’s lawyer is a complete idiot, a lawyer’s office is probably the last place someone could find incriminating evidence in…
* * *
Sadly, that’s not a bet I would take.
Could Melania come out and claim that she is the one who ordered the payment because she thought Trump did sleep with the porn star and wanted to help her husband to settle the problem without consulting with him first? or even Ivanka? even if you think Trump is dumb and stupid do you really believe that Trump and his lawyer together are so dumb between them that they didn’t know that claiming Trump had no knowledge of the payment when a payment was clearly made by Cohen clearly violated election laws? This thing is a bit too good to be true for the dems.
“The Obama campaign did not have a defense; it argued in mitigation that the unlawful donations constituted a negligible fraction of the monumental amount it had raised from millions of “grass-roots” donors.”
That’s like Bill Gates getting caught robbing a bank and saying, “I only took a million but I’m worth billions, what’s the problem?” Note also that Obama’s Injustice Department prosecuted conservative Dinesh D’Souza for making an allegedly illegal campaign contribution of $20,000.
McCarthy’s piece today, while excellent as always, does remind me greatly of his early essays regarding the FISA warrants- remember, early on he claimed it was practically an impossibility that the warrants relied on the Steele dossier because no federal prosecutor or DoJ official would ever do such a thing, and yet he had to take big mea culpa when it turned out otherwise. Today’s essay is quite similar- there is no way that a federal prosecutor would go raid a lawyer’s office on just Stormy Daniel’s level allegations. I think McCarthy is probably going to have to walk that back sooner rather than later.
Also, one last thing- I don’t for a second believe Cohen used his own money- if Trump did sleep with Daniels, then it is all but certain that Trump himself is the source of the $130K, which means it doesn’t violate any campaign finance laws. It was simply circuited through Cohen so that Daniels didn’t have a check with a Trump organization name on it. Cohen can’t tell the public that because Trump hasn’t released him to do so- remember that old no longer needed thing called attorney client privilege.
One of the many things that irritate me to no end: try talking to an average citizen of any of the political misdeeds of the past and after about 30 seconds their eyes glaze over and quit paying attention. Statements like “they all do it” somehow excuses it all. Too many people will have their vote determined by bumper stickers, slogans, even how “cute” the candidate may or may not be. There are many hallmarks of the low/no information voter. Don’t even count those who vote for the party who will give away the most.
FOAF Says:
April 11th, 2018 at 12:57 am
“The Obama campaign did not have a defense; it argued in mitigation that the unlawful donations constituted a negligible fraction of the monumental amount it had raised from millions of “grass-roots” donors.”
That’s like Bill Gates getting caught robbing a bank and saying, “I only took a million but I’m worth billions, what’s the problem?” Note also that Obama’s Injustice Department prosecuted conservative Dinesh D’Souza for making an allegedly illegal campaign contribution of $20,000.
* * *
Good analogy.
D’Souza complained at the time about (very) selective prosecution, and most of the conservative commentators agreed that they never saw that kind of charge against Democrats, or even Republicans before the Age of Trump IIRC.
And then there is this little bit of selectivity:
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/04/10/mueller-investigates-ukrainians-150k-donation-trump-charity-not-13-million-clinton-foundation/
“The special counsel’s office is investigating a $150,000 donation a Ukrainian businessman made to President Donald Trump’s charity in 2015, according to a new report.
The donation, from steel magnate Victor Pinchuk, pales in comparison to contributions he gave to the charity Bill and Hillary Clinton set up. The billionaire has contributed $13 million to the Clinton Foundation since 2006 and had access to Hillary Clinton while she served as secretary of state.
But Special Counsel Robert Mueller is not investigating the Clintons. Instead, he is conducting a broad investigation of Donald Trump, including the flow of foreign money into various Trump-controlled entities.
…
The FBI reportedly investigated the Clinton Foundation over its foreign donations. The status of that investigation is unclear.”
Unclear.
Yeah, right.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/mueller-team-made-a-grab-for-paul-manaforts-privileged-docs-before-michael-cohen-raid?ref=home
“After Monday’s raid on Michael Cohen’s office, home, and hotel room, President Donald Trump tweeted: “Attorney-client privilege is dead!” That isn’t true. But it is accurate to say that Mueller, his investigators, and the Southern District of New York team that took over the Cohen probe from him have all taken an aggressive approach to their targets’ legal teams.
One example, which has not been previously reported, came when Mueller’s investigators raided Paul Manafort’s house in Virginia. Among other items, investigators seized a binder full of information that Manafort and his legal team considered privileged, according to a source familiar with the matter. Manafort’s lawyer wrote a strongly worded letter to the special counsel’s office saying the material was privileged, and the binder was ultimately returned.
[I’m sure none of Mueller’s team read a single word of that material. Pinky-swear.]
It isn’t the only example of Mueller taking steps that make defense attorneys extremely nervous. His grand jury brought in one of Manafort’s former lawyers, Melissa Laurenza, for questioning. She had helped Manafort fill out lobbying disclosure forms for the Justice Department. Judge Beryl Howell, who oversees Mueller’s grand jury, issued an opinion finding that attorney-client privilege did not extend to Laurenza because the work she did for Manafort was public and because her communications with Manafort could have been part of a criminal activity.”
“Could” is a very flexible word.
Eveyything you do COULD have been part of a criminal activity — that’s what a trial is supposed to determine; it’s not supposed to be the assumption going in.
The Mueller investigation is a huge cover-up for the malfeasance and criminality of the Obama administration, as well as a cover-up for the malfeasance and criminality of the Democratic candidate for president in the last election.
Therefore, Mueller MUST be as aggressive as he possibly can. He must always be on the offensive, and must always be on the attack (under the guise of “leaving no stone unturned”…).
In addition, Mueller’s mission is to distract the media from the crimes of the previous administration.
He cannot allow Nunes’s efforts to see the light of day.
In fact, Nunes and his ilk must be refused all cooperation (or given the polite runaround) by the DOJ, the FBI and the MSM, such that the biggest scandal in American political history is obfuscated and does not see the light of day.
Nunes—the man and his mission—must furthermore be denounced, disparaged, ridiculed and delegitimized.
For the real scandal, Mueller is determined to show, is TRUMP.
And it is a message eagerly swallowed by all too many.
Expect many more such outrages, as the US Constitution, so consistently—and successfully—kicked around by the Obama administration, is further stomped upon by the person whose express mission it is to cover up the criminality of that administration.
The Obama campaign also disabled all credit card verification checks on its website, allowing potentially millions of dollars of small donations to be submitted under fraudulent names. It was reported for about 5 minutes in the media and quietly memory-holed.
I verified this myself, making a small donation with a (real) credit card using a fake name and other information. The transaction went through and the money was taken from my account.
By doing this, one large donor could donate millions by making repeated small donations under fake names.
The protections disabled were of the most basic sort automatic on all online payment systems and HAD to be deliberately disabled, as processing credit cards in this manner violated every precept of common anti-fraud best practices.
Don’t forget all those overseas contributions accepted by the Obama campaign–in clear violation of federal election law–via their website, which, conveniently, had the required IP-address verification switch turned off.
Mueller is Inspector Javert.
Jeff H., they had far more than that turned off: they disabled any vestige of verification, including the standard credit card checks to make sure that the name and address on the card matched the donor. And IT / e-commerce is my day job, for over 30 years; there is not an e-commerce package made that doesn’t enable those checks by default. And they did it in BOTH 2008 and 2012; I was able to make donations in the name of “Tyrone Shoelaces” both times.
Testing, testing, 1,2,3… reality check…
The world has five oceans [the fifth was added in 2000 – please update your reality indexes accordingly]
You Can Teach an Old Dog new tricks, neurogenisis is not only possible but common [prior to 2013 this fact was different – please update your reality indexes accordingly]
[Obama could and did no wrong ever, if you think so its your problem, or someoner elses [ please update your reality indexes accordingly failure to do so may result in a ranjau moment]
the Brontosaurus is not a dinosaur anymore (actually it doesnt exist) [its actually two dinosaurs put together Apatosaurus and Camarasaurus – this has been known since 1903, most of us have lots of catching up to do on that one – please update your reality indexes accordingly]
Pluto is not a planet, cause of Eris… (the other orbital body, not the goddess worshipped by the Discordians) [Eris is larger and farther out than pluto, and thats their take – please update your reality indexes accordingly]
The Obama campaign now has a defense (but they wont tell you under the democrats neener neener clauses) [please update your reality indexes accordingly]]
Witches at salem were never burned at the stake [they were drowned – please update your reality indexes accordingly]
This Just in – People not currently in school, please take out your rulers and tear out the proper page, a new page will be added to your books!! – the academy
MCAT practice question: Asks whether the wage gap between men and women is the result of bigotry, sexism, racism, or biological differences (no other options are provided)). [the “correct” answer is sexism – please update your reality indexes accordingly – punishment will result eventually for those not doing so (as in historical past – see Otto and Anna Quangel – history now in film – Alone in Berlin]
MCAT practice question: Asks whether the “lack of minorities such as African Americans or Latinos/Latinas among university faculty members” is due to symbolic racism, institutional racism, hidden racism, or personal bias. [the correct answer is institutional racism – please update your reality indexes accordingly]
This is to shift the focus of medical-school admissions toward a “new excellence,” a standard based less on test scores and more on “the attitudes, values, and experiences” of applicants.
[Ignore the implications and why – please update your reality indexes accordingly]
You may return to your viewing and reading pleasures…
For now…
🙂
I think McCarthy is probably going to have to walk that back sooner rather than later.
i have seen this before a lot… people so sure of their assumptions that this is their belief and as such their relity… that is what belief is after all..
but i have a bit of insight here in that i know a bunch of people of this caliber who are completely honest, not necessarily because its their nature (some it is, some seem otherwise), but because of the power it gives them and the other benefits.
why cheat when you can run the race honestly?
doesnt matter what people BELIEVE it matters whats real
when you see this split, all your seeing is that the reality that is the majority that is what people feed their heads off of, is not reality – its comfortable, warm, cuddly and expectant, but its not real as the facts do not match reality (and some new facts dont and skew it more).
i have outlasted everyone where i work despite living in a war zone being the target – because i run the races without cheating and give nothing for the other side to grasp onto.
they cheat, so they cant believe others dont
[people who dont cheat – really dont cheat – can find it hard to believe others do. i grew up inner city slum in poverty and graduated school of hard knocks along with other CV things]
people wonder why i am still here, i am put on probation, and yet, i also win awards and so on… WHY? how? whats my secret?
Aspergers and the honesty bug it gives you like the love bug that some people with downs have…. or exhibit (take your pick as this is not the forum for that anyway)
IF your honest you foil the dishonest machinations every time as they have to concieve of what? and if its not their natures, then what?
Trump is rule hard honest. period. (stormy daniels may not be anyting other than he was stupid enough to hang out with her alone (or not), and THAT taught him a big lesson in honesty tested – we ALL have those moments in our lives we learn from – especially those who go through the hard knocks schools)
Trump is not part of the banking political structure
he is an outsider who forces his way in – which makes him more a target
he is always showing up government as being inefficient, run poorly and so on – which makes him more of a target
he pays the AMT tax because then, you cant be held to cheat (how?)
the list goes on..
but what you have to pay attention is what it gives him in a world of nyc hard scrabble Dog eat GOD world, and where there are shady characters all around!!! (like unions and the mob, and unions and the left fronts, garbage pickup and the mob, concrete dilivery and the mob… food concessions and the mob.. and this doesnt even start to list the councils and doesnt even get to other countries whose rules are very different and whose practices can be even more shady as a norm)
Think in everything that has gone on, what gives him confidence in the storm? it certainly isnt what people think it is and it certainly isnt money – which does the opposite in my experience… no. its knowing you didnt do anything…
while that doesnt mean dirty cant get you
dirty can get to everyone and can more easily get to dirty
so thats irrelevant… we all suffer the rain
but… given peoples assumptions of wealth that creates their beliefs and their beliefs are the zeitgeist they think others share as well in a homgeneity that does not exist other than when we shut up – the honesty creates a sheild!!!
in fact, its a sheidl that people who change to christianity often believe in… its almost magical how the good honesty can actually prevail not because its stronger than evil, but that evils machinations are not against the good but aginst the bad in all of us, and so, become maladapted (until they realize it!! then the game changes, but that just means they catch up to the playing field)
i learned this from people with lots of money..
a man who does restaurant real etsate and was worth over 40 million in the 90s…
a debutant that i dated and her super wealthy family (they had faberge eggs and cloisone)
a hedge funde owner, a award winning entrepreneural lawyer, and several others
all the same…
ALL will not work with any one who is dishonest at all
they do not believ eyou can turn it off and on
and they do not want that in their lives risking things
they have reached the place that just knowing someone like stormy daniels would ruin them, just as trumps issue is showing that – regardless of anything else (all you have to do is sit in a room with the wrong person for a time and have no one know what it was about and what happened – then add their willingness to play games instead of honesty )
the founders made presumption of innocence foundational because of this zeitgeist problem of battling assumptions to freedom – which cant work… which is why we call the opposite kangaroo…
its what pontious pilate said to jesus
come sit with me and change my water in to wine and you shall go free…
your guilty jesus
you believe, and i dont
my water is clear
your wine is belief
[oil is your soul]
change my disbelief into your belief
and i will see you as innocent
and you shall go free
jesus declines..
suffers his lashes
because even god cant change the mind of fools who mistake assumptions for beliefs and reality…
🙂
example of what i am talking about (sorry)
I don’t for a second believe Cohen used his own money- if Trump did sleep with Daniels, then it is all but certain that Trump himself is the source of the $130K
really? what basis is this? why draw an erroneous conclusion when you dont have to? because in the world above the zeitgeist of belief, that wont happen at all..
this despite neo saying this in her own article at the end
how does one remove their personal beliefs as we used to before the left claimed there was no such thing as no bias, so then…………….. have bias ooze from everything is the result (watch the old movies as to the old regimes, they oozed their reminders everywhere for a reason)
the logic of the statement above is completely erroneous
even more so if one can imagine, just imagine, that someone likes who they work for, their honesty and would sacrifice something for them!!!!
and again IMAGE created by waht you bath in every day in media, defines your beliefs and so on, and guides you whether you like it or not, to the idea that he cant be that kind of man that would get that kind of behavior
but your not the lawyer, you dont know trump, you dont know what the lawyer thinks or believes or what trump has done or not done either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! at least i met him and his daughters several times… (along with the clintons, bush, hearst, rand, chenault, and a few more who are completly unknown to the public and fear it)
most people who dont have money or will have money in some way do not have the kind of relationships with lawyers these people have or even i have…
The guy who is my main lawyer in business looked for ME…
He had teamed up with another guy who owned a few hedge funds and for lack of a better term has an urge
they didnt know where to go, and so a guy running for congress was having lunch and they brought up me… calls were made and people met and the whole point of the thing is that they did not want to work unless who they were working with were honest and were friends…
they want to help people and make the world a better place and they have lots o money – more than i would even know what to do with if it landed on my lap.. but they dont want to do business with other than friends!!!
so now, i have a few new friends…
and that congresscritter? well, i worked for a company his company did work for, and we hit it off. i hit hard times, and he paid my rent for a few months, bought me a computer and said – pay me back when you can. Which I did of course (over time as i got back on my feet)
when my ex did her crazy wacko things… i lost my home, became homeless… a woman who i was not romantically with, who i only knew online for chatting for a while, volunteered to help me… a check for $7000.. paid for a moving truck… helped me get the apartment i have been in now for 20 years… and i paid her back of course, and over time we eventually party ways
but
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
i try not to draw conclusions when there isnt anything to draw them from
of course this is an effort and a practice not a switch..
🙂
I like what the deep state and dems are doing. I hope they continue with all their dirty scheming, they are only setting themselves up as the worst villains on TV since ramsay bolton and all the atrocities the swamp creatures are committing will accomplish nothing but heightening my enjoyment when witnessing their inevitable downfall. America is a special country because unlike everywhere else in the world in this country bad guys always lose, no exceptions, bad guys will lose.
Artfldgr Says:
April 11th, 2018 at 9:56 am
“and the whole point of the thing is that they did not want to work unless who they were working with were honest and were friends…”
* * *
An uncle-in-law, very very big in LA construction years ago, also only did business with people whose handshake was their bond.
What Art says here is true:
Artfldgr Says:
April 11th, 2018 at 9:36 am
“ALL will not work with any one who is dishonest at all
they do not believ eyou can turn it off and on
and they do not want that in their lives risking things
…
because even god cant change the mind of fools who mistake assumptions for beliefs and reality…”
* *
Of course, a lot of people have shown reason to believe that Mr. Trump himself is not always honest, but that doesn’t invalidate Art’s observations; it just means we can’t trust anybody.
Cloudbuster Says:
April 11th, 2018 at 4:44 am
The Obama campaign also disabled all credit card verification checks on its website, allowing potentially millions of dollars of small donations to be submitted under fraudulent names. It was reported for about 5 minutes in the media and quietly memory-holed.
I verified this myself, making a small donation with a (real) credit card using a fake name and other information.
SDN Says:
April 11th, 2018 at 7:13 am
Jeff H., they had far more than that turned off: they disabled any vestige of verification, including the standard credit card checks to make sure that the name and address on the card matched the donor.
* * *
PowerLine was all over this both in 2008 and 2012, but there was no real “hook” to grab onto (unlike their work on the Rather Memo), and of course the FEC et al. were shilling for Obama with all their might, so very little came of it. A couple of us noted that he paid a miniscule fine much later, with complete MSM blackout.
If you disappear, SDN, we will know that the DOJ/FEC/KGB tied your alias to your IP to your FB to you. Better start practicing protective OPSEC even on anonymous blogs.
I posted this on the Diamond & Silk thread last night:
Commenter on PowerLine says:
“I once posted a link to an item from “The People Cube” and within minutes I saw that a post of mine on FB had been deleted for content. Which was confusing since I hadn’t made any posts on FB for a while. When I checked it out I found some phantom FB user found my reference to People’s Cube “offensive” but again, I had posted nothing on FB. The posting was HERE — at Power Line. But because they are connected it showed up on FB and some automatic mechanism reacted by “taking down” a FB posting that didn’t exist on a complaint from a user that doesn’t exist!
It was the weirdest thing. THAT was pretty scary.”
* * *
“OPSEC is simply denying an adversary information that could harm you or benefit them. OPSEC is a process, but it is also a mindset. … Whatever the organization and purpose, OPSEC can, and will, increase the overall security posture.”
See this for more – the things you learn on the Internet. Of course, now Googleplex knows I am looking at how to protect myself from them and their friends…
https://themilitarywifeandmom.com/opsec-persec-military-spouses/
That last link I posted has some really good info on very simple ways in which people expose themselves to potential harm, military families especially.
I do recommend reading it.
BTW, PowerLine is switching from FB to Disqus for commenters, but how long before that becomes compromised as well? I know nothing about that platform other than that I didn’t have to use my real name, and I have no FB account, but apparently that is totally unnecessary since I know family and friends who DO, and their connection to me can be vacuumed up.
I am under no illusions that a dedicated attempt would connect me to all my on-line presences, simply because I didn’t go to the trouble to pretend that I am a Deep Cover Operative; however, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we are all going to have to go that route eventually.
Formerly, being a “big name” was some protection from persecution and harassment, but the Adversaries are going after so many upper and medium tier celebrities now that is no longer true —
and the Twitterverse
is not at all averse,
to going after YOU.
Here’s how it works, from the Military Wife link:
“Facebook and Instagram: great for sharing pics with family and friends. You can caption each image. Or tag them with fun #hashtags. Or even tag the people you are with.
Imagine all the info a person can get from this: #deploymentdate with my #camplejeunemommas #twodown #sixtogo #proudUSMCwife of a #1/2Timberwolf!
Boom: potential terrorists or thieves now have a lot of info. You are a military spouse with kids in Jacksonville, NC. Your spouse is with 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines. They’ll be gone for six more months. Now they can target you AND your spouse’s unit. Yikes.
As a special bonus, the picture can now be seen on the profile of every person you tagged, allowing all their friends can see it too. And if one person comments on it, suddenly all of THEIR friends can see it. Woah…nothing is private.”
Neo: Thanks for writing this. I forgot about these donations. I would also point out that Facebook donated access to their data. That very valuable, and it is certainly a campaign donation.
RE: “Is the $130,000 in hush money Donald Trump’s personal lawyer paid to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election a campaign-finance violation?”
(1) If President Trump didn’t know about it, then I can’t see how it is criminal.
(2) If Trump did know, did he pay for it or tell Cohen that he’d compensate him?
(2a) If yes, then it’s a very minor violation of reporting regulations.
(2b) If no, then it’s a donation and a crime. But it’s highly unlikely; it’s very hard to prove; it’s a minor issue; and the whole matter is well outside Mueller’s purview.
All of these issues were clearly shown in Sen. Edwards’ trial, where his staff raised money from big donors to hide his sexual relationship with his videographer. He was put on trial, but never convicted.
This is a fishing expedition by Mueller to get something on Cohen, something he’s not even supposed to be investigating, in the hope that he can turn Cohen against Trump. Just as he did to Fllynn and Manafort.
Those Russian investors in Facebook have been there a long time.
https://techcrunch.com/2009/05/26/facebook-takes-that-200-million-investment-from-the-russians-at-a-10-billion-valuation/
“Facebook is taking that rumored $200 million investment from Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment group. DST will take a 1.96 percent stake in the company, giving Facebook a $10 billion valuation. Facebook ultimately did not have to give up a board seat to DST in return for the cash. But DST is getting preferred shares for it’s $200 million.”
* *
This isn’t the one I quoted before, but it has an interesting twist — Facebook colluding with Trump?
Note that the headline is a very slick mis-statement of the lede graf. They make the word “through” imply something that isn’t actually the case.
Fake news.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/05/russia-funded-facebook-twitter-investments-kushner-investor
Russia funded Facebook and Twitter investments through Kushner investor
“Institutions with close links to Kremlin financed stakes through investor in Trump son-in-law’s venture, leaked files reveal”
by Jon Swaine and Luke Harding
“Two Russian state institutions with close ties to Vladimir Putin funded substantial stakes in Twitter and Facebook through an investor who later acquired an interest in a Jared Kushner venture, leaked documents reveal.
The investments were made through a Russian technology magnate, Yuri Milner, who also holds a stake in a company co-owned by Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser.
The discovery is likely to stir concerns over Russian influence in US politics and the role played by social media in last year’s presidential election. It may also raise new questions for the social media companies and for Kushner.”
The fact that they couldn’t get a jury to convict Sen. Edwards on even one count of a campaign funding law violation shows that the government’s interpretation of the statute has far overreached what the public thinks is appropriate.
The purpose of the statute was to prevent improper campaign contributions — excessive, foreign, corporate, concealed, etc. The idea that any gift, loan, or whatever to a politician, for a reason not related to the campaign, is a campaign finance violation — presumably on the theory that money is fungible and that money for a personal purpose (for example, paying the candidate’s floozie to shut up) allows him to spend more money on campaign expenses — is just a bridge too far for most people.
I would say a motion to quash the warrant, suppress the evidence, and dismiss any charges — if any are ever filed (notice they don’t have to be) — would be in order.
AesopFan Says:
April 11th, 2018 at 11:42 am
Are people only figuring out how open source data mining works?
The US SPecial Forces were doing this even before 2000, and even I knew about it around 2001.
What takes people so long to wake up?
Here’s something your link didn’t tell you, Aesop, I would guess.
A person’s digital and personality signature can be derived from a sample of their writing.
For example, give me a few paragraphs and I can tell whether user A online is the same as user B or D. This is textual analysis.
People have been datamining humans for awhile now. We got all sorts of low level, mid level, and high level techniques.
In order to find a HVT, a high value target like Saddam Hussein, a similar method is used to find your high school crushes, sweet hearts, and classmates online.
First you do a name search, then go through their family and friends, then view their portraits to correlate, and then read details about their profile to see if it is the same person you knew in high school. Once you verify it through numerous channels, drop the Jdam or Drone assassin. Case closed America.
Facebook, is a neat service where the American people give the government a kill list on any dissidents that could ever exist, free of charge and voluntarily. Ain’t it great? We don’t even need a police state. We got you guys to report on your neighbors, friends, lovers, nieces, and nephews without a single interrogation or coercive movement.
THAT is the power beyond an Iron Fist.
Maintaining OPSEC over the years has been somewhat tiring, especially during the military campaigns that we argued about after 2001.
Now a days I’ve lessened the security protocols or maybe got more used to it.
I always thought humans would pick up a lot of the hints and clues I left behind online… apparently I was overthinking things, as people would forget what I and they wrote 3 years later, let alone 5-10 years later…
But they are still data archived, of course.
Ymar Sakar Says:
April 11th, 2018 at 5:43 pm
Here’s something your link didn’t tell you, Aesop, I would guess.
…
People have been datamining humans for awhile now. We got all sorts of low level, mid level, and high level techniques.
* * *
Thanks – very interesting.
Think Mueller has nothing. He wants to stop, but his overlords have asked him to goad Trump to fire him, so that they have more fodder.
Mueller definitely has overlords and is merely a disposable stalking horse, but the overlords aren’t necessarily who people think they are.
Here’s some good news. Both the USA (Deep State plus NSA plus FBI) and China (Commie state police), do not have enough experts to analyze all the data. Or even half the meta data.
That is why it remains stored in some deep server farm. They pull it out only when you get red flagged for something or other on the radar. For example, Trum gets red flagged so his associations get brought up and exploited.
You, on every day social media, aren’t red flagged yet. There are not enough experts to analyze all your data and meta data, until we get quantum AIs with CERN.
So all we have to do is to nuke the server farms… heh. You know, like how HRC and IRS deleted all their data on their hard drives using magnets and reformat software. It works for them, why not us?
Oh right, because they’ll make it ILLEGAL to do so, of course. I forgot that human livestock needed to Obey or Else. Wait for the next piece of Gospel Good News…