False narratives pushed by Republicans have been recycled by Moscow

J

Joe Capitalist

Racism is a disease
We have traitors among us.

https://apple.news/Ag2IVyPzyRy6aDsXjIIr_nA

US right wing figures in step with Kremlin over Ukraine disinformation, experts say
False narratives pushed by Tucker Carlson and key Republicans in Congress have been embraced and recycled by Moscow

False and conspiratorial narratives pushed by some American conservative politicians and media figures about Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine have bolstered and created synergies with the Kremlin’s legendary disinformation machine, experts on information manipulation say.
But even though Russia has embraced and promoted American disinformation, as well as the Kremlin’s own much larger stock of Ukraine war falsehoods, both brands have been widely debunked by experts and most media outlets, underscoring Moscow’s setbacks in the information war.
Led by Tucker Carlson at Fox News, a few Republican rightwingers in Congress, and some key conservative activists, a spate of comments that have disparaged Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and echoed other Russian war disinformation have been recycled by Moscow, say experts.
A feedback loop between the Kremlin and parts of the American right has been palpable since the war’s start in February, which Moscow falsely labeled as a “special military operation” aimed at stopping “genocide” of Russians in Ukraine and “denazification” – two patently bogus charges that drew widespread international criticism.
Still, the influential figure of Carlson has pushed several false narratives to millions of Fox News viewers that have been eagerly embraced and recycled by Moscow and parts of the American right. Last month, for example, Carlson touted rightwing conspiracies that attempted to link Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, to a discredited allegation that the US financed bioweapons labs in Ukraine.
 
On a separate front, two Republican congressional conservatives, Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, delighted Moscow last month by condemning Zelenskiy without evidence in conspiracy-ridden terms that sparked some bipartisan criticism. Cawthorn called Zelenskiy a “thug” and his government “incredibly corrupt”, while Greene similarly charged that Zelenskiy was “corrupt”.
Further, the former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat, last month attempted to soften and spin Putin’s onerous crackdown on independent media in Russia, where reporters and other citizens now can face prison terms of 15 years for not toeing the Kremlin’s Orwellian war line and spreading what Moscow deems “fake” news about its Ukraine invasion. Gabbard made the wild claim that “what we’re seeing happening here [in America] is not so different from what we’re seeing happening in Russia”.
More recently, Russian state TV lauded Gabbard as “our friend Tulsi”, when it introduced a Carlson interview with her.
Disinformation specialists say that the phoney narratives by the US right and the Kremlin during the war have displayed some new twists that have increased the flow of conspiracy-heavy news, but also spurred more criticism from experts for being patently false.
 
Joe Capitalist said:
We have traitors among us.

https://apple.news/Ag2IVyPzyRy6aDsXjIIr_nA

US right wing figures in step with Kremlin over Ukraine disinformation, experts say
False narratives pushed by Tucker Carlson and key Republicans in Congress have been embraced and recycled by Moscow

False and conspiratorial narratives pushed by some American conservative politicians and media figures about Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine have bolstered and created synergies with the Kremlin’s legendary disinformation machine, experts on information manipulation say.
But even though Russia has embraced and promoted American disinformation, as well as the Kremlin’s own much larger stock of Ukraine war falsehoods, both brands have been widely debunked by experts and most media outlets, underscoring Moscow’s setbacks in the information war.
Led by Tucker Carlson at Fox News, a few Republican rightwingers in Congress, and some key conservative activists, a spate of comments that have disparaged Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and echoed other Russian war disinformation have been recycled by Moscow, say experts.
A feedback loop between the Kremlin and parts of the American right has been palpable since the war’s start in February, which Moscow falsely labeled as a “special military operation” aimed at stopping “genocide” of Russians in Ukraine and “denazification” – two patently bogus charges that drew widespread international criticism.
Still, the influential figure of Carlson has pushed several false narratives to millions of Fox News viewers that have been eagerly embraced and recycled by Moscow and parts of the American right. Last month, for example, Carlson touted rightwing conspiracies that attempted to link Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, to a discredited allegation that the US financed bioweapons labs in Ukraine.
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Proves the Electoral College is working as our forefathers designed it.
 
Eagle_Eye said:
Proves the Electoral College is working as our forefathers designed it.
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How's did they design it? I'm not a fan of the electoral college because it disenfranchises too many voters. Think about Republicans in California or New York. Both states typically vote blue so Republicans votes in those states don't matter. Same with democrats in Alabama or Mississippi.
We need to get rid of the Electoral College. It no longer is relevant.
 
Joe Capitalist said:
How's did they design it? I'm not a fan of the electoral college because it disenfranchises too many voters. Think about Republicans in California or New York. Both states typically vote blue so Republicans votes in those states don't matter. Same with democrats in Alabama or Mississippi.
We need to get rid of the Electoral College. It no longer is relevant.
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The Electoral College is designed to give voters in every state a say in who is elected president. People like you demand mob rule in that a few highly populated blue states say fuck you to the rest of the country we dictate who will be president, if it weren't for the Electoral College.
 
Eagle_Eye said:
The Electoral College is designed to give voters in every state a say in who is elected president. People like you demand mob rule in that a few highly populated blue states say fuck you to the rest of the country we dictate who will be president, if it weren't for the Electoral College.
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And if we change to the popular vote, those voters in every state will still be represented. Every vote will count regardless of what state you live in. Not true with the electoral college. Democrats in Red states and Republicans in blue states will not have their votes counted. If 51% of voters in NY vote D, the Dem candidate gets 100% of the electoral votes. If 98% of voters in Alabama vote for the R candidate, they also get 100% of the electoral votes. How is that fair?

It's not rocket science. Why can't you process that?
 
Joe Capitalist said:
And if we change to the popular vote, those voters in every state will still be represented. Every vote will count regardless of what state you live in. Not true with the electoral college. Democrats in Red states and Republicans in blue states will not have their votes counted. If 51% of voters in NY vote D, the Dem candidate gets 100% of the electoral votes. If 98% of voters in Alabama vote for the R candidate, they also get 100% of the electoral votes. How is that fair?

It's not rocket science. Why can't you process that?
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Nice try but untrue. 1st off candidates will focus on the big states and ignore the small states to get more bang for their buck. 2nd the majority of the most populist states vote Democrat giving your side an unfair advantage. 3rd the Electoral College votes are given based on the popular vote. So you are currently getting what you want in the fairest manner.
Here is an alternative. Have the Senate elect the president.

The only reason you want the election changed is you believe it will give Democrats the upper hand in all elections.
 
Twice in the past six elections the electoral college did not reflect the popular vote. This gave the country Dubya and Trump, two of the most divisive presidents of modern times. Something isn't working.

In a few weeks France will elect its president on the basis of the national popular vote, which no one questions. Why can't the US do that?
 
Eagle_Eye said:
Nice try but untrue. 1st off candidates will focus on the big states and ignore the small states to get more bang for their buck. 2nd the majority of the most populist states vote Democrat giving your side an unfair advantage. 3rd the Electoral College votes are given based on the popular vote. So you are currently getting what you want in the fairest manner.
Here is an alternative. Have the Senate elect the president.

The only reason you want the election changed is you believe it will give Democrats the upper hand in all elections.
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That is such bullshit. I was a registered Republican for 40 years and am currently registered as independent. I've NEVER been registered as a Democrat. See how wrong you can be?
You just don't get it and you're making wrong assumptions that you have no idea if they're true. I'm not going to debate someone who lacks the intellect to understand how voting works and makes ridiculous assumptions.
 
Tranquillus in Exile said:
Twice in the past six elections the electoral college did not reflect the popular vote. This gave the country Dubya and Trump, two of the most divisive presidents of modern times. Something isn't working.

In a few weeks France will elect its president on the basis of the national popular vote, which no one questions. Why can't the US do that?
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We use the popular vote to elect members of Congress and state governors. If it's good enough for them, why isn't it good enough for electing the president? Also, it's easier to subvert an election with the electoral college than popular vote if you can coax state SoS to do your bidding.
Just ask Trump.
 
Eagle_Eye said:
Nice try but untrue. 1st off candidates will focus on the big states and ignore the small states to get more bang for their buck. 2nd the majority of the most populist states vote Democrat giving your side an unfair advantage. 3rd the Electoral College votes are given based on the popular vote. So you are currently getting what you want in the fairest manner.
Here is an alternative. Have the Senate elect the president.

The only reason you want the election changed is you believe it will give Democrats the upper hand in all elections.
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Taking these points in order. 1) only a small percentage of voters see Presidential candidates in person. The vast majority of campaigning is on television. 2) small states, not large states, have the advantage since EC representation by state population is skewed in their favor. 3) same as 2. Election by the senate would be much more undemocratic, obviously, than even the current system.
 
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Joe Capitalist said:
How's did they design it? I'm not a fan of the electoral college because it disenfranchises too many voters. Think about Republicans in California or New York. Both states typically vote blue so Republicans votes in those states don't matter. Same with democrats in Alabama or Mississippi.
We need to get rid of the Electoral College. It no longer is relevant.
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They designed it so that the largest most populous states didn't dominate national elections. Not having the electoral college would disenfranchise far more voters than any possible way it does so now. Without the electoral college, just seven states--well at least until most of them are depopulated due to horrid mismanagement by Democrats--would have more than 50% of the population in them. The other 43 would become largely irrelevant.

That, in turn, would lead to those seven states having most or all of the power and say in the direction of the federal government even if it was to the detriment of the other 43 states. What works for California or New York may well not work for Wyoming. Wyoming gets fucked and California and New York don't care. The electoral college evens this out some and the smaller states get more say in politics in Washington as a result.

As to your point, the problem isn't the electoral college, it's the "winner take all" system states adopted towards it. The Democrats pushed that system in place. Now, if electoral college votes were apportioned by actual percentage of the vote within each state, that would fix the problem you describe. In California the apportionment of their 55 (I think that's correct) votes would likely be something like 30 Democrat, 25 Republican. Mississippi's vote might be 2 Democrat 4 Republican, or something like that.

That would be the fairness you were looking for. It would also, again, doom the Democrats to losing virtually all Presidential elections. The Democrats know that. They want a system that favors them. Both parties do. The problem with these suggestions is they fuck the country and the voters.
 
Joe Capitalist said:
We use the popular vote to elect members of Congress and state governors. If it's good enough for them, why isn't it good enough for electing the president? Also, it's easier to subvert an election with the electoral college than popular vote if you can coax state SoS to do your bidding.
Just ask Trump.
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We shouldn't use the popular vote to elect Senators. The 18th amendment was a terrible idea.

Why? Because the way things were set up was to separate power. The House represented the people. Frequent elections allowed for changes in popular opinion and representation. The Senate represented the states. Senators were originally appointed by state governors and legislatures to represent them and the state they were from. The longer term was to ensure a degree of stability and slow change. The President was elected by a combination of popular vote and electors to balance these for large and small states. It was a brilliant solution.

The 18th amendment fucked the Senate up totally. It's turned into a second House and never gets anything done. It no longer represents the states like it used to since Senators have to campaign for election. That in turn has brought lobbyists and campaign money into the Senate. Before, Senators served the state government of the state they came from. No campaigns, no buying votes, etc.

Getting rid of the electoral college just fucks the federal system up that much more. Stupid idea.
 
martin said:
Taking these points in order. 1) only a small percentage of voters see Presidential candidates in person. The vast majority of campaigning is on television. 2) small states, not large states, have the advantage since EC representation by state population is skewed in their favor. 3) same as 2. Election by the senate would be much more undemocratic, obviously, than even the current system.
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Yep, the electoral college was designed when there wasn't mass media and candidates had to win over voters in person. Now you can reach the masses using television, radio and internet. The electoral college is obsolete but just like most things in the federal government, it takes forever to change. But it will change.
 
Joe Capitalist said:
That is such bullshit. I was a registered Republican for 40 years and am currently registered as independent. I've NEVER been registered as a Democrat. See how wrong you can be?
You just don't get it and you're making wrong assumptions that you have no idea if they're true. I'm not going to debate someone who lacks the intellect to understand how voting works and makes ridiculous assumptions.
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Just because you are or never been a registered Democrat doesn't I repeat doesn't preclude you from being a flaming liberal and a closet Democrat. :bleh::bleh:
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
What do you mean? What does the EC have to do with treasonous (R)s giving aid and support to Russia? Surely you don't think that this is okay, right?
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Replyed to the wrong post. Doing this on my phone so it's easy to goof with such a small screen.

You know damn well there are Russian supporters in both parties.
 
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