My head is exploding - Here's WHY Republicans won't go after Russia

[RandomAccess]

The very long way around . . . but worth the trip. I put people and things (organizations) of interest in bold. Some of these explain or add context to other things. I pity Mueller & Team for all he has to figure out and keep track of.

-----------------------------------------------------------
So, Kushner got a loan from Apollo Global Management, which also happens to be the current owner of Academi... aka Xe Services... formerly known as Blackwater - the Erik Prince variety.
Whee!
UNROLLED: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/969036130757865472.html

Here's some background on the transfer of ownership...

Apollo Global in talks to buy Constellis
Private equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC (APO.N) is in discussions to buy Constellis Holdings LLC, the owner of the U.S. military security services business formerly known as Blackwater, a sp…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-constellis-m-a-apollo/apollo-global-in-talks-to-buy-constellis-idUSKCN10G26P
And here's something of interest about Apollo’s real estate trust:

One of the largest investors? Qatar.

And if you're bored by the lack of news today and want a deep rabbit hole to dive down, check out this thread:

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Now this is a rabbit hole I haven't been down myself, but.... Black was on the RDIF board [Ru Direct Investment Fund], along with Blackstone and TGF heads.

Before they were sanctioned, that is...

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But note the parent of RDIF: VneshEconomBank. VEB.

The same VEB that is also on the sanctions list - the VEB Kushner met with during the transition. You know, when they couldn't get the story straight if it was for govt or personal business?
And, now, I have to share this because
a) it's proximally relevant, and
b) Daily Beast categorized it as "Erotic." I don't know if I agree with that, but it made me laugh.

Blackwater Founder Erik Prince, Who Got Rich Off Of Iraq, Now Backs 'Anti-War' Donald Trump
Donald Trump may brag about how strong his dubious opposition to the Iraq War was, but one of its most famous villains loves him.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-who-got-rich-off-of-iraq-now-backs-anti-war-donald-trump?ref=scroll
And, 'ya know, the guy who Erik Prince met with in the Seychelles? Random guy that just happened to be a Russian fund manager?

He also just happened to be Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the RDIF.

Blackwater founder Prince details meeting with Russian in Seychelles
Erik Prince, founder of military contractor Blackwater and a supporter of President Donald Trump, told U.S. lawmakers he had discussed U.S.-Russia relations during a meeting in the Seychelles with a …
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-prince/blackwater-founder-prince-details-meeting-with-russian-in-seychelles-idUSKBN1E038M
And, of course, we've got these fun projects that Prince was working on....

1. A private war in Afghanistan, to extract phosphorus, uranium, talc, and rare earth metals (you know, the two weird rows on the periodic table, the lanthanides and actinides).

Private War: Erik Prince Has His Eye On Afghanistan's Rare Metals
BuzzFeed News is publishing the slide presentation by the founder of Blackwater to privatize the Afghan war and mine Afghanistan's valuable minerals. He pitched the proposal to the Trump administrati…
https://www.buzzfeed.com/aramroston/private-war-erik-prince-has-his-eye-on-afghanistans-rare?utm_term=.leEEVV9pP#.nyMJqqAPk
2. And of course, don't forget the Whitefish-based Stasi/Securitate he was trying to sell late 2017

Erik Prince and Oliver North are trying to sell Trump on a secret spy force
Official site of The Week Magazine, offering commentary and analysis of the day's breaking news and current events as well as arts, entertainment, people and gossip, and political cartoons.
https://theweek.com/speedreads/741481/erik-prince-oliver-north-are-trying-sell-trump-secret-spy-force
Please, make sure to read the leaked presentation embedded in the article posted above.

Then read this article that really explains the fuckery.
The Blackwater Founder’s Afghan War Plan Just Leaked, And It’s Terrifying
The slide presentation Blackwater founder Erik Prince pitches to Trump administration officials propose strip-mining Afghanistan to fund private contractors
https://taskandpurpose.com/blackwater-eric-prince-afghan-war-plan/
Sorry, those showed up out of order for some reason.
And then, dude, I'm going to go there... remember this thing that explains why the GOP is totally passive towards Trump's fuckery? The breach of SMARTech, the central GOP data infrastructure, by agents of the Russian government?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

THE FOLLOWING THREAD IS A COMPILATION OF SOME OF HER OTHER ASTOUNDING THREADS. I'LL POST SEVERAL OF THEM.

kompromatilicious
A collection of threads : Why did Republican reps fall in line with the Trump administration? No, not just to push through an agenda. Russia's fingers were all over the GOP's data center, and that's…
https://twitter.com/i/moments/887752557761900544
Rumour is that the death of Mike Connell, the guy behind SMARTech, after deciding to testify to his role in the 2004 GOP Ohio election fraud via a man in the middle attack organized by Ken Blackwell (of Trump's voter fraud commission)....
after he received threats & detected 3 prior attempts at sabotage on his plane...
not only is the rumour that it was not an accident, but that it was orchestrated by one former resident of Holland, MI. Former BW employee swore in an affadavit.

[RandomAccess]

1. SmarTECH

Think we don't need paper ballots? Read this.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210313795

IN THIS THREAD:
Smartech Corp, a subsidiary of Airnet Group., based in Chattanooga TN, was breached in late 2015, by Russian agents.

Link to tweet

Smartech was, at one time, home to the information architecture of the RNC, innumerable republican campaigns, even congressional committees

under Dennis Hastert's leadership, including House Judiciary, Financial Services, Ways & Means, even House Intelligence Committee... 11/

all the sensitive information handled by those committees were hosted by GovTech, a sibling of SmarTech, hosted in the same facility: 12/

A basement of an old bank, in Chattanooga, TN. Security? Provided by....
Chain link fencing. https://t.co/jFhSDtg5f2

What else was on these servers? Other than the RNC's website, email, http://GOP.com

Hosting for email and websites for campaigns, state parties.
Hosting and call centers for the 04' Bush campaign, the '08 McCain campaign 15/

And this is where it starts to get good, folks. Perk up your ears, and feast on this - 16/

Remember: HRC wasn't the first to use an off-site email host...
Karl Rove had one too.

And while HRC lost about 33,000 emails, that 22,000,000 missing emails, confidential information and all: is a bit more significant. 18/

And all at SmarTech.
[side note: I'll give y'all a chance to ponder this, while I eat what hopefully isn't my last meal. It gets better.]

I'm sure what I share here is only the tip of the iceberg. I'm only sharing the info I have support for from the free press (mostly) 21/

. . .

What else did SmarTech have to offer a hostile agent who could gain access to their server farm?

Back in 2004, there was an irregularity in the presidential election in the state of Ohio. In the middle of the night, election night 25/
Ohio vote tallying servers started communicating with an external system.
https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/6/ …


One guess where that external server was? In the basement of an old bank in Chattanooga. At SmarTech. 27/

Based on communications and system architecture, experts said it was possible these communications could have tampered with vote counts 28/

And that's where this starts to drop into conspiracy theory land... as an OH lawyer moved towards filing RICO charges against purported 29/

Mastermind Karl Rove, after giving a deposition, the consultant in charge of designing the 'failover system' for the OH Sec of State... 30/

Mike Connell, also known as the President of SmarTech/GovTech et al., was purportedly threatened by Rove. 31/

32/ Subsequently, there were two or three suspected attempts at sabotage on Connell's private plane.

33/ The fourth time, he wasn't as lucky.

. . .

38/ But any hostile agent who gained access to those servers would gain access to any evidence which remains therein. Kompromatilicious.

39/ One more item on the wish list of any agents hoping to interfere in US would undoubtedly be a copy of the voter rolls. Guess what?

RNC VoterVault, after its genesis in an outsourced Indian code sweatshop, came to live in the basement at SmarTech.
https://t.co/56oOECk3mo

42/ And while that code base was under development in Maharashtra, the company was hacked by RyDen - a Russian hacker.

43/ And what did that database contain? Obviously, voter data. But what else?

The GOP knows you don't like anchovies http://www.latimes.com/la-op-hamburger25jun25-story.html

44/ And also, enough to make you easily stalkable, if you're a woman. https://t.co/CFfqc3sRK9

45/ That's the overview of the _types_ of information contained on SmarTech servers. Tomorrow, specifics & the evidence.

[diva77]

32. K&R and adding that the paper ballots need to be counted at the precinct level with public oversight

and totals posted at each precinct.

[RandomAccess]

54. Preferably by hand

[diva77]

55. Absolutely by hand!! Sorry I left that important detail out of my post!!

Thanks for catching that.

[leanforward]

53. SmartTech (sp), TN, Ohio 2012, Rove

Read something on Bradblog.com way back in 2012 regarding the Ohio SOS Office and a Tennessee computer firm. Something to do about data transmitting to the SOS office, etc. Appears there were attempted intrusions in data number counts and another group had our interest in mind.

In that circumstance, the other group, did more for us than the GOP is doing to stop election interference.

[RandomAccess]

2. EVIDENCE

2/ Evidence: the short of version: a) FBI confirmed the breach to IL GOP. https://t.co/QAXxFNMO6O

FBI Notified Illinois GOP of Potential Email Hack in June
Party officials, however, say they were not told that it was part of a wide-ranging federal investigation of Russian activity in the nation's political system.
BY RICK PEARSON, CHICAGO TRIBUNE / DECEMBER 12, 2016
http://www.govtech.com/security/FBI-Notified-Illinois-GOP-of-Potential-Email-Hack-in-June.html

b) 300 innocuous emails from a multitude of GOP institutions, campaigns, and entities at all levels of government.
https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20170217164707/dcleaks.com/index.php/the-united-states-republican-party/ …

All obtained either to or from accounts hosted on http://barracuda1.smartechcorp.net
An interesting set of senders and recipients, including names like

Peter Smith, the recently deceased GOP operative who participated in and funded oppo research that seeded the Clinton impeachment,

but notably, told the WSJ about his work to obtain HRC emails from Russian hackers 10 days before his suicide.

3. There's more, and additional context and significance to what I've shared here... but if anyone wants to dig in, especially background

4/ on any of the unknown senders/recipients for those emails, which - btw - were originally released on the now defunct DCLeaks site

which, at minimum, cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect points at as being a Russian-backed influence outlet, links to
https://t.co/ObIgMOoGmU
ThreatConnect Identifies DCLeaks As Another Russian-backed Influence Outlet
https://www.threatconnect.com/blog/does-a-bear-leak-in-the-woods/

Guccifer 2.0, posing to be American 'hacktivists'.

[RandomAccess]

3. The RNC Hack

to be clear: through #SMARTech, the RNC was breached by Russia BEFORE the GOP primaries. Not only did @realDonaldTrump not win the pop vote

Link to tweet

Russian fingers also tipped the scales in favor of @realDonaldTrump during the GOP primaries.
Republicans: he's not your president either


WHAT FOLLOWS IN THIS THREAD IS A SHORT BUT EXCELLENT RANT

[backtoblue]

4. Kicked recced and bookmarked!

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Amazing how all of a sudden these stories

are appearing. My guess is,the MSM have these Stories and much more, only to sit on them for fear of relation and access to Trump.

All one needs to know is, Comcast Media and Time Warner Media with FOX Media put us in this Crisis.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

56. The stories didn't just appear now...

... I can recall several of the points listed here from when they occurred or were first reported, as I have links/bookmarks to most of these occurrences. This is the first time I have seen them listed together. It is absolutely mind boggling; but my mind was boggled when each of these points were first revealed.

I hadn't seen the final information concerning someone from Holland, Mi. and BW. But it is not surprising. No wonder Betsy has so many smirks for us all.

[Wellstone ruled]

57. Kind of where I was going.

Do remember little pieces from time to time.

[yardwork]

6. Betsy DeVos is Eric Prince's sister.

[a kennedy]

22. Shut up......are you serious???

Fry them all.

[flibbitygiblets]

25. YUP, sure is.

Evil motherfuckers.

[Shanti Mama]

7. I'd give almost anything to see the big crime boards in the Special Prosecutor's offices

I wonder how much of it is done using technology for mapping and how much looks like Law & Order.
I'm so very grateful to the women and men working so hard to bring the rule of law back to our country.

[brush]

17. I'm sure Muellar is on to these corrupt bastards.

[Stuart G]

19. Yes..Mueller has quite a team of investigators.

And very likely will expose them all....regardless of political allegiance ...and this isn't pretty now, and won't be pretty when this is fully exposed. and guess what??

Mueller has a team of investigators that is exceptional. And Mueller has done some investigation before...hasn't he?... Yes, that team will get them. And it won't be pretty..about as ugly as Watergate..and.... including the Russians....maybe worse.

[WhiteTara]

34. Those glass wall boards on Blindspot would be awesome

[OhNo-Really]

8. 2010 - Chertoff helps Prince Sell Blackwater $200m, Financed by Bank of America

I also enjoy paper trails

What few realize is this reality: Private Equity firms own armies, own most gun/ammo manufacturers, and most national security contractors.

Here is Eric's 2010 $200,000,000 sale

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2010/12/31/932598/-

The author found the link to China in 2010

[RandomAccess]

10. Personally, I think Private Equity Firms should be outlawed

and have since --- can't remember the name of the Bush family-connected PEF. There's too much oppty to operate outside the law.

[diane in sf]

21. The Carlyle group? They were making $ From arms sales from the attack on Iraq

[flibbitygiblets]

26. That's them. Huge conflict of interest way back then.

Many of us were incensed, outraged, marched against the war that was started for oil and continued because they made millions for private armies like Blackwater, Halliburton, (linked to Cheney), Carlyle (linked to Bush Sr), and Bechtel (linked to Bushes AND Cheney)...the corruption and evil was so awful. Not to mention the outing of a CIA agent (Plame) to punish her husband for speaking out against all of this. No one but lil ol Scooter Libby got charged in any of that evil shit (and then I believe was later pardoned or maybe sentence commuted by Shrub).

So why on earth wouldn't even greedier, griftier, self-dealing-er soulless fucks continue the tradition?

The one glimmering ray of hope is that this time, it's so blatant and on display for the whole world to see, maybe, just MAYBE we'll get smart and enact enforceable laws to stop it from ever happening again.

[RandomAccess]

28. YES -- thanks.

[G_j]

9. thank you

kick!

[calimary]

11. WOW! Gotta keep this one for later study.

GREAT work, RandomAccess.

Connect the dots.

[RandomAccess]

12. Thanks, but

in truth, it was not my work -- well, other than the copying and pasting.

[Tanuki]

13. Thanks for putting it all together in one thread!

[RandomAccess]

15. You're most welcome

My pleasure.

[WhiteTara]

35. Pulling it all together was wonderful

and it has helped me see many new links I missed in the past.

[RandomAccess]

40. Same for me, and I pay fairly decent attention

to the whole Russia-Trump nexus!

[RandomAccess]

14. Just to be clear --

another HUGE reason Republicans are soft on Putin and Russia are the inroads Russia made with both the NRA and Evangelicals during the last couple of decades.

[dalton99a]

20. +1

[WhiteTara]

36. not to mention the buckets of money they got from the Russians

through their Super Pacs.

[RandomAccess]

62. Absolutely. Almost forgot about that, but it was BIG --

even bigger including the money that was probably funneled thru the NRA from Russia.

[Initech]

16. They. Are. All. In. On. It.

Everyone in that fucking party had a reason they wanted to destroy Hillary Clinton, and it doesn't take Mueller to figure that out. When he finally pulls the pin from under Trump, a whole lot of cronies are going to go with him.

[erronis]

24. But how will the powers-that-be react to so many of them "going down"?

While we've discussed the minor problems Dump may have firing the Special Prosecutor, these will be small problems compared to people/companies with multi-billions of assets being targeted and taken down.

If we were still a democracy and had reasonable transparency I would hope the people could rise up and lend credence to a prosecutorial action. But so many of us have devolved to watching T.V. programmed by the same villains that are cratering this country.

I keep thinking of the Ford family or Lindbergh being in favor of isolationism prior to WW-II. I think this was to further their interests with the Reich, the Krups, the banks. This may have some parallels with the efforts of Dump (trade tariffs, isolationism) and the repuglicans and the Kochs.

[tblue37]

18. Who is this "former resident of Holland, Michigan"? nt

[diane in sf]

23. Eric Prince

[tblue37]

39. Oh. I know about Erik Prince's shenanigans (in some detail, actually), but I had not bothered to

know his hometown, or even his home state, because those details were not really relevant to much of his shady career, so an obscure, coy reference like that was unnecessarily confusing.

[Kindnesscostszero]

59. It actually is relevant,

..if you are a dot connector. Devos and her brother Eric, and ties to Spectrum Health (location of server that was communicating with Trump Tower and Russian Alfa bank) are a couple of important connections to this obscure town in Michigan.

[ancianita]

38. Yes, I'd like to know, too. Who knew Holland, MI as a hotbed of Blackwater mercenary fervor?

[FakeNoose]

27. Bookmarked! K&R

Thanks RandomAccess - good work!

Question - do we have a connection between the Russians, the NRA, and the Citizens' United ruling of SCOTUS in 2010?
If yes, it could be the basis to get that ruling struck down.
- Asking for a friend.

[RandomAccess]

41. Not that I know of

but what an interesting thought / question.

[smirkymonkey]

29. Great work!

Thanks for putting this together!

[RandomAccess]

43. You bet

Thanks for your post.

[DownriverDem]

30. Who is the Deep Throat of today?

Follow the money. It sure looks like that will do them all in.

[Honeycombe8]

31. I applaud you for the work. But I'll never know what this says. Too long.

Brevity is your friend. Start with a couple of sentences that summarize your point. Then do a long post explaining the point. That way, people will know what your post is about. If you notice, that's what journalists do in long articles. The 1st paragraph has the who, what, when, where, why....and sometimes how. The rest fills out the story and gives the details.

[RandomAccess]

42. Well,

I'm a writer / editor by nature, training and experience. Now retired.

I confess my opening paragraph leaves a lot to be desired given my background, but I was in a hurry. That said, the rest is not my work. MY work here is a mere copy / paste job from a very good researcher I found on Twitter and wanted to share.

Yes, it's long. I wanted to make all of it a matter of record. And I know from experience (some of it personal) that if the meat of sites quoted isn't included, people will mostly ignore it.

Additionally, there are so many different elements, people, connections, surprises in these tweets that there was literally no way to do what you suggest without an ENORMOUS, and I do mean ENORMOUS, investment of time. I don't have it to spend just to make people who choose to give writing lessons instead of bothering to read - or bookmarking to read later perhaps - incredible resource material.

Bit thanks for your attempt to school me.

[mahina]

64. Im struggling to understand too

It’s easier to read in the original twitter posts @soychick. Some of it anyway.

It’s hard to decipher but clearly important. Part of what I could make out was that the Ohio counts in Bush v Gore were hacked, as we knew, and that there’s a connection between that and the current mess, more than historic, related to the Russians. Somehow.

Also Kushner got his money from Quatar through the company that was Blackwater, (DeVos’s brother) etc I’m out of time, shouldn’t be trying to explain something I don’t understand myself.

So what does it mean for the 2018 elections?

[Honeycombe8]

65. Re Ohio....oh.....

no, I don't recall any notion of hacking in Ohio in Bush v Gore. I DO remember something that people have not made a big deal of, unless I'm misremembering. It's the Republican Sec of State of OH did something....he threw out a bunch of absentee ballots or something, making a ruling they wouldn't be counted. Those were expected to lean for Gore heavily. And I think he did something else proactive to sway the election.

I'll have to read up on that hacking notion, to see what that's about.

I think we're going to need to overperform in 2018, to make up for the Russian hacking that will be going on.

[keithbvadu2]

33. "Russia is our friend"

[RandomAccess]

44. +1

[Enoki33]

37. Extremely enlightening read. Thanks.

[RandomAccess]

45. You're most welcome

I thought it was amazing myself -- which is why I brought it here.

[Ferrets are Cool]

46. Dictators (such as Putin) either kill people or have people killed with impunity.

And wannabe dictators are no different.

[calikid]

47. Thank YOU SO MUCH for this disgusting/wonderfull news. Good Job

[TygrBright]

48. Shorten this for ya: Pootie's got GOP pols' gonads in a box in his bottom desk drawer. n/t

[Amaryllis]

49. THe striking thing here is how deep, how wide, and how international it goes, and how long it's been

going on. I use to think this kind of stuff only happened in movies...you know, the ones where there is an evil organization trying to take over the whole world.

[RandomAccess]

52. I know -- it's

amazing, in a terrible way.

[Ligyron]

50. K and R, bookmarked

[apkhgp]

51. Alright...I am going to have to take your word for it

I got lost in the transfer of funds from one person to another through different countries and the rest of it. As long as the Special Counsel can present this to the investigative board in Washington and get 45 out of office that would be enough for me.

[Egnever]

58. kick

nice connection of dots.

[Sophia4]

60. Amazing thread! Thanks!

[UCmeNdc]

61. The RNC hacked the vote and the Russians have the evidence?

[RandomAccess]

63. That and a whole lot more dirt.

[Lulu KC]

66. And then there's Epstein

She connects all the dots.
I checked DU for SMARTech and it was also associated with the Bush win in Ohio--remember that?