dagblog - Comments for "Why did Russians give $1 million to Wisconsin's Walker?"

PS - see the Blavatnik effect

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 19:40:00 +0000

PS - see the Blavatnik effect (Azerbaijan et al) - and then read the Azeri article from The Guardian. Hard to find a place to put all these connections.

I certainly understand that a

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 18:50:00 +0000

In reply to The whole question is

I certainly understand that a tycoon with US & UK passports but acts Russian is probably outside the scope of how our election laws & common ideas of "citizen" actuall mean.

Funneling Russian money into Wisconsin elections is not legal. But if it's from a billionaire without being laundered, and one of his passports is American, it's harder to find the illegality in that, but if he's still taking marching orders from the Kremlin and that's picked up via say NSA or GCHQ intercepts or Deripaska testimony, there still may be a case.

"Strict campaign finance reform" - well, they busted a new hole through that idea, didn't they? And packed the court to make sure it doesn't revert, including stealing Obama's court nominee.

Educating voters - whew, we have our work cut out for us. As that piece about brainwashing you snuck in posits.

p.s. Comes to mind:

artappraiser — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 18:42:24 +0000

In reply to The whole question is

p.s. Comes to mind: brainwashing the electorate works if you do it for many years! Famous example: it's extremely difficult for any outside powers to get the Russian people to vote Putin out of power.

The whole question is

artappraiser — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 18:36:09 +0000

In reply to "So, calling him a Ukrainian

The whole question is interesting in a global era. Big picture. Do you get the point I am getting at? I.E., what is considered treasonous might have less and less meaning as time goes on.

Interfering with voting software directly is clearly criminal behavior. But lobbying with funding a super PAC to influence the electorate is not, that's free speech.

Given that it would be impossible to expect the electorate to vote on foreign policy propositions every week, you've got to rely on elected people to make decisions. With the internet and all the ways the electorate can be manipulated, continually adjusted strict campaign finance reform is the only way to keep unfair influence to a minimum. But then, I think, even that's not enough

It's precisely because we are so powerful with a huge military and huge influence on the world economy that other countries care (same for like Germany, UK, France.) If we were Iceland, not so much of a problem, foreign powers not interested in what Iceland thinks. Isolationism like Geo. Washington wanted in a simpler era avoids all of this problem.

But in this day and age, there could be thousands of the equivalent of AIPAC's, funded by citizens. Everybody's got an opinion on Saudi Arabia today, in ten years it might be that everyone's got an opinion about Nigeria, too. If there's money behind it, there will be lots of bots and faux news. Campaign finance reform can't really get at this in the end, only education of the voter will work, or undoing mis-education.

"So, calling him a Ukrainian

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 06:08:34 +0000

In reply to Noted and accepted, though

"So, calling him a Ukrainian businessman is not accurate." Yes, Russian business is more accurate. Pro-Putin rather definitely.

Noted and accepted, though

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 17:45:00 +0000

In reply to Excerpt:

Noted and accepted, though still want to explore his toxic Deripaska Russiagate connection, Blavatkin's entry into Miami real estate, his office across from Trump Tower, and other 6-degrees-of-freedom coincidences.

Excerpt:

artappraiser — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 17:16:53 +0000

In reply to Are tweets right that a 'pro

Excerpt:

[....] Dworkin’s attack pertains to Walker’s brief run for the 2016 Republican nomination and to a super PAC which, unlike a presidential candidate, can accept unlimited donations.

When we asked for information to back up the claim, Dworkin referred us to a Federal Election Commission record showing that Access Industries Inc. of New York City made a $1 million contribution to Unintimidated PAC, a super PAC launched by longtime Walker advisers.

(The super PAC, by the way, offered perks to $1 million donors, including: twice-a-year retreats, members-only briefings and conference calls, two private dinners with "VIP special guests" and a special "executive board member" pin.)

Access Industries actually gave a total of $1.5 million to the super PAC, the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics told us, although $1.2 million of it was returned after Walker dropped out of the race.

So, the $1 million figure in the tweet is accurate, except that the money was given to a super PAC supporting Walker, not to Walker or to his campaign.

The rest of the attack is less on target.

The company owner

Access Industries is a New York-based industrial group whose holdings include Warner Music. It was founded by Leonard Blavatnik. According to Forbes, he’s worth $19 billion, having made $7 billion from the sale of TNK-BP, a Russian oil company, in 2013.

Blavatnik was born in Ukraine and raised in Moscow. But he emigrated to the United States for school in 1978, now lives in London and holds dual citizenship in the United States and the United Kingdom.

So, calling him a Ukrainian businessman is not accurate.

As for whether Blavatnik is "pro-Putin," we didn’t find direct evidence of that, although there are connections.

The Financial Times referred to Blavatnik as one of the "Kremlin-friendly tycoons" who made a fortune on the sale.

In 2015 [....]

Read on for further on his Russia connnections.

So keep in mind this is a wealthy conservative U.S. citizen giving money to a conservative super-PAC. Even if he did it because he is pro-Putin, that's allowed. No plot by foreign government to affect U.S. election involved no two ways about that! Unless you want to get into proving Putin has brainwashed U.S. citizens with Russian heritage in order to affect U.S. elections.

There's no there there at the end of this "investigation." Could very well be an attempt to get more favorable treatment for Russia by U.S. government, but American citizens are allowed to want that.

Are tweets right that a 'pro

artappraiser — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 16:58:11 +0000

In reply to Why did Russians give $1 million to Wisconsin's Walker?

Are tweets right that a 'pro-Putin Ukrainian' gave Scott Walker $1 million?

@ Politifact Wisconsin June 21st, 2017 at 5:00 a.m.

Politifact Wisconsin is supported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the biggest newspaper in the state. It's generally considered to be centrist, as it is the result of a merger long ago of the left-of-center Journal and the right-of-center Sentinel.

They rated the accusations "mostly false" but if you read their interpretation it's really more like "the accusations are lacking nuance, it's more complicated than that." And what they glean in the end is actually still grist for the mill that's being grinded on this thread.

The local NBC station (which is owned by the Journal-Sentinel, I believe, they are a big monopoly) ran a segment on this Politifact story on June 22.

Wake me if there's something

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 06:11:00 +0000

In reply to NCD, I have just gone back

Wake me if there's something I should say or do. Meanwhile, Russians gave $1 million to Wisconsin governor's campaign, and I don't think it was for parks and playgrounds.

And since Palmer is just repeating a mainstream news item and asking that same obvious question without uttering a bunch of otherworldly speculation, ther's no need for whatever references or other authority you're asking for. I just referenced him out of politeness to note where I read the news item first, but you can go read Bloomberg or NBC or wherever it was reported. (Sadly MSM doesn't always ask the obviious questions though)

This is strange. I can go to

A Guy Called LULU — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 05:08:44 +0000

In reply to NCD, I have just gone back

This is strange. I can go to NCD's quoted link and copy the URL and paste it to my browser to go to the article rather than the resulting comments. I cannot paste it in here as a link that works.