PUTIN and TRUMP: Will the American Dream end on November 8, 2016

I do not mean to sound like Henny Penny warning that the sky is falling, but it may very well fall on November 8, 2016 and effectively extinguish American democracy. It is under assault from two directions and like any good assault, there is strong evidence that the two prongs are acting in coordination.

One of those prongs is the campaign by Vladimir Putin to seek Russian world hegemony by supporting right-wing fascist groups. His first goal is to break-up and destroy both NATO and the common market of the European Union. The British BREXIT vote was a triumph for that policy.

It may never be possible to determine to what extent Putin intervened in the BREXIT referendum. However, actions of hackers linked to Russian intelligence attacking the Democratic Party raise an interesting question: to what extent did those same Russian intelligence assets intervene in the BREXIT vote. One problem is that there were no exit polls for the BREXIT voting on referendum day to give us a clue.

The sophistication and targeting of the Russian effort is illustrated by its focus on an individual who might not seem to be a prime target of Russian intelligence until you understand just what this individual was doing: investigating the connections of Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign director who in fact has strong connections to the Russian oligarchy that surrounds and enriches Putin.

Clear and Present Danger

The second prong is the Trump campaign whose director, Paul Manafort has known ties to Putin's Russian oligarchs. Trump last week claimed that the only way he would lose Pennsylvania would be if the Pennsylvania vote was stolen by Clinton. He urged his supporters to organize and watch the polling places to prevent "fraud." What's really odd, and thus disturbing, is the simple fact that according to the Real Politics index of polls, the last four polls in Pennsylvania have Clinton leading by double digits and the combine average for the last six polls is a lead of 9.6.

What's terribly disturbing is the make-up a large segment of Trump's shrinking voter base: armed militias and armed supporters of "The Second Amendment," who Trump says must protect us from a Clinton Presidency. The Supreme Court has remarked that the Constitutional right to free speech does not include "the right to falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater." Metaphorically, that is what Trump is doing.

One apparent object of the Russian hacking operation was Alexandra Chalupa. On May 4, 2016, she wrote a colleague at the DNC  that ever since she began collecting information on Trump campaign director Paul Manafort, she had been receiving daily security warnings from Yahoo that her personal account may have “been the target of state-sponsored actors.” Such notifications are routine when an internet or email provider suspects that a user may have been hacked or is likely to be hacked. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/25/fbi-suspects-russia-hacked-dnc-u-s-officials-say-it-was-to-elect-donald-trump.html

The combination of Russian intelligence operatives and Trump's strange claim that only fraud will prevent him from winning a state where he trails badly in the polls, auger badly for election day in Pennsylvania and probably other states.

I am afraid that the sky is falling, I might just be right. I only hope I am wrong.

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Wiki Leaks posting on communication between Chalupua and the DNC

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Re: You saw this, right?

From:ChalupaA@dnc.org To: MirandaL@dnc.org  Date: 2016-05-04 01:56 Subject: Re: You saw this, right?

A lot more coming down the pipe. I spoke to a delegation of 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine last Wednesday at the Library of Congress - the Open World Society's forum - they put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort and I invited Michael Isikoff whom I've been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians. More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of. Since I started digging into Manafort these messages have been a daily occurrence on my yahoo account despite changing my password often: [image1.JPG] Sent from my iPhone On May 3, 2016, at 10:50 PM, Miranda, Luis > wrote: http://www.politifact.com/global-news/article/2016/may/02/paul-manafort-donald-trumps-top-adviser-and-his-ti/ [SigDems]Luis Miranda, Communications Director Democratic National Committee 202-863-8148 – MirandaL@dnc.org - @MiraLuisDC

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