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Given Hillary Clinton’s recent statements about how the Russian Disinformation boiler-room must of had “someone guiding them” into how to most effectively “weaponize” their stolen information — it got me thinking ...
The Russians had to have input into how to make the information they stole matter in the course of a U.S. election, she argued.
The Russians, in my opinion—and based on the Intel and counter Intel, people I've talked to—could not have known how best to weaponize that information unless they had been guided.
This got me thinking, who better to guide them in their “micro-targeting” efforts, than the Trump insider “credited with getting Trump elected” — through his own “micro-targeting” operation:
Exclusive Interview: How Jared Kushner Won Trump The White House
by Steven Bertoni, Forbes Staff, — December 20, 2016 issue of Forbes
[...]
By June [2016] the GOP nomination secured, Kushner took over all data-driven efforts. Within three weeks, in a nondescript building outside San Antonio, he had built what would become a 100-person data hub designed to unify fundraising, messaging and targeting. Run by Brad Parscale, who had previously built small websites for the Trump Organization, this secret back office would drive every strategic decision during the final months of the campaign. [...]
Kushner structured the operation with a focus on maximizing the return for every dollar spent. "We played Moneyball, asking ourselves which states will get the best ROI for the electoral vote," Kushner says. "I asked, How can we get Trump's message to that consumer for the least amount of cost?" FEC filings through mid-October indicate the Trump campaign spent roughly half as much as the Clinton campaign did.
[...]
As the election barreled toward its finale, Kushner's system, with its high margins and up-to-the-minute voter data, provided both ample cash and the insight on where to spend it. When the campaign registered the fact that momentum in Michigan and Pennsylvania was turning Trump's way, Kushner unleashed tailored TV ads, last-minute rallies and thousands of volunteers to knock on doors and make phone calls.
[...]
Under a very “loose” definition of volunteers, couldn’t the efforts of Russian disinformation posting be considered “volunteering”? Wouldn’t have it been in Jared’s own self-interest to key them into the States and the Districts, that needed some “localized tipping”?
SO, what exactly does traditional “micro-targeting” actually consist of? Well this next article gives us a pretty good idea of its scope and depth … at least in Jared’s war-room ...
Did Russians Target Democratic Voters, With Kushner’s Help?
[...]
This wasn’t a completely raw startup. Kushner’s crew was able to tap into the Republican National Committee’s data machine, and it hired targeting partners like Cambridge Analytica to map voter universes and identify which parts of the Trump platform mattered most: trade, immigration or change.
Tools like Deep Root drove the scaled-back TV ad spending by identifying shows popular with specific voter blocks in specific regions–say, NCIS for anti-ObamaCare voters or The Walking Dead for people worried about immigration. Kushner built a custom geo-location tool that plotted the location density of about 20 voter types over a live Google Maps interface.
In addition to the work it was doing for Trump, Cambridge Analytica was also employed by a Republican political action committee to help suppress Democratic votes, according to a recent report in The Guardian.
Cambridge Analytica worked on campaigns in several key states for a Republican political action committee. Its key objective, according to a memo the Observer has seen, was “voter disengagement” and “to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home”: a profoundly disquieting tactic. It has previously been claimed that suppression tactics were used in the campaign, but this document provides the first actual evidence.
What better way to discourage Democratic participation than to quietly ‘dish the Democratic dirt’ to the voters of key swing districts. Hmmm … if only someone had access to those kind of datasets … if only someone had ‘the dirt’ ...
According to this next story, justsecurity.org explains that The Guardian has so efficiently begun to unravel these behind-the-scenes data-dirt targeting operations — that the Cambridge Analytica is threatening them with lawsuits, if they don’t cease and desist:
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It’s worth remembering that when Comey testified before Congress on March 20, he did not use the word “collusion” to describe what he was investigating. Instead he said the FBI is investigating “whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.” The letter appointing Robert Mueller as special counsel uses the same language. Calabresi’s report, plus other recent clues, start to paint a picture of what the investigators might be looking at in terms of “coordination.” [...]
In the United Kingdom, Cambridge Analytica has been linked to the Leave.EU campaign, although the company denies this. The company is now threatening legal action against the Guardian, which published a series of articles, which investigated the role that may have been played by Mercer and Cambridge Analytica in the campaign to leave the European Union. Meanwhile, the UK information commissioner announced Wednesday it was launching an investigation “into the use of data analytics for political purposes,” the Guardian reports.
Hmmm … someone might be honing in on the real operators behind the Exit-everything curtain.
If someone keeps pulling on that thread long enough, they’ll risk exposing the Orange Wizard, masquerading around in the cheap, traveling salesman suit, in the Oval Office.
Someone bring a bath-robe please, whenever that Ta-da moment ever comes to pass …