U.S. Politics, Elections & Culture issues

[Phoenix]

...not so much the "wind of change" after all...'feel the Bern' petered out to not much more than a puff of smoke.

What started as a promising counter movement (with many on the Left calling it a 'revolution') to the entrenched establishment politics of the US 2 party system turned into craven subjugation to the Clinton and DNC machine and their Wall Street backers...

[DraganOfStip]

...not so much the "wind of change" after all...'feel the Bern' petered out to not much more than a puff of smoke.

What started as a promising counter movement (with many on the Left calling it a 'revolution') to the entrenched establishment politics of the US 2 party system turned into craven subjugation to the Clinton and DNC machine and their Wall Street backers...

Too bad,it would have been good to see the outcome in a fair and straightforward campaign.According to results most of the youth voted for Bernie,he did get over 13 million in the popular vote.Nice to see the American youth choosing a different path than what had been the practice so far...

[DraganOfStip]

So,is this a call to the diaspora in the US to vote for Trump?

[Gocka]

So,is this a call to the diaspora in the US to vote for Trump?

what more can you say

[Risto the Great]

A bit like choosing your preferred kind of shit.

[MHRMI]

MHRMI op-ed published in The Hill - End US interventionism in Macedonia

For those wondering, Hillary Clinton called for Macedonia to change its name on July 19, 2011. MHRMI and AMHRC immediately denounced her. See today's op-ed in The Hill, where US politicians get their news and a first-hand look at MHRMI's reaction to the USA's and Hillary Clinton's disastrous policy in Macedonia.

Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party's misguided foreign policy

https://www.thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/campaign/290726-hillary-clinton-and-the-democratic-partys-misguided-foreign

Bill Nicholov, President
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International

When did Democrats become Republicans? Thankfully, they are still socially liberal (or “progressive” as Americans say, because God forbid they use the L word) but their foreign policy is, unfortunately, very Republican. American interventionism will seemingly never end unless, of course, Donald Trump becomes the next president. This should scare the hell out of Democrats. Not imagining Trump as the next commander-in-chief, but Donald Trump being their voice of reason.

Let’s get this out of the way, Trump is acting like a…candidate who is non-presidential, but his foreign policy message is much more coherent and responsible than the Democrats’ policy. Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul had the same message, that the US would end its interventionism, which is what America and, more importantly, the world needs. But it’s too bad that Bernie Sanders is out of the race. And too bad that Rand Paul was never in it. The recent rise of the Libertarian Party, while destined not to succeed, at least offers another voice in calling for an end to US foreign interference.

Quite simply, the precursor of American interventionism is the American superiority complex. If somebody thinks that they’re the best, they’ll eventually go around trying to prove it…under the guise of spreading their values and improving the other’s moral deficit. Take the DNC, which was an excuse for Democrats to overblow their credentials in an over-the-top display of extreme patriotism. For example, Michelle Obama’s speech really was incredible and inspiring, but America is not “the greatest country in the world” as she said. Personally, I think Canada and Macedonia are the greatest countries in the world. Should we have a competition? Let’s start with arm-wrestling, then a disco dance-off. Whatever country you’re from could be the greatest…for you. No need to diminish anybody else.

American foreign policy failures have been on display for decades, so why continue? And what gives the US the right to continue? Usually we hear both parties espouse their expertise in running the world but, this election cycle, it’s only the Democrats’ turn. And when they do it, they’re all in. Anyone who dares disagree with their flawed thinking must be a complete moron. The timing is perfect now, as we just saw Macedonia walk in the Olympic opening ceremonies behind the letter “E”. In Sochi it was “B”, English-speaking countries, “F”. This sounds like Sesame Street. These are all translations for the word “Former”, as in “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (“FYROM”). While the US and the vast majority of the world have recognized Macedonia using its proper name, Greece is still complaining that their plan to eradicate Macedonia’s existence was interrupted, so the UN agreed to keep using the term “FYROM”. Robin O’Neil, the first UN mediator for the so-called name dispute, said as much, adamantly. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger called the name dispute “unfounded” and that Greece’s claim to the name Macedonia is “false” and “not fact-based”. Yet, the UN continues the 20-plus year name negotiations, trying to force Macedonia to change its name to appease Greece.

The pure stupidity of this dispute is astounding. And it is simply pathetic to keep watching Macedonian athletes walk in the Olympic opening ceremonies behind a sign that literally says “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”. The sheer size of the sign is comical. Do Macedonian fans chant “Let’s go FYROMians, let’s go!”? The most basic human right is that of self-determination. Of course, Greece has actually admitted to manufacturing this dispute as a way to keep persecuting the large Macedonian population that it inherited after Macedonia’s partition among Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania earlier last century. It is also Greece that is trying to appropriate Macedonia’s name, not the other way around as it claims. At least it has learned that the best defence is a good offence. But this is Greece’s MO, claim that everything is Greek and hope that something sticks, like Turkish baklava or international yogurt.

But how does this relate to the US election? Because Hillary Clinton has called for Macedonia to change its name. Macedonian-Americans cannot, in good conscience (a term we’ve been hearing a lot lately), vote for her. So let’s see who is willing to denounce the ludicrous name negotiations as an attack on common sense and Macedonia’s most basic of rights. Secure the Macedonian-American vote in the process. As a bonus, signal to the world that the US is willing to learn from their numerous foreign policy mistakes and that real change is actually possible.

###

Macedonian Human Rights Movement International (MHRMI) has been active on human and national rights issues for Macedonians and other oppressed peoples since 1986. For more information: 1-416-850-7125, info@mhrmi.org, www.mhrmi.org, www.twitter.com/mhrmi, www.facebook.com/mhrmi, www.mhrmi.org/OurNameIsMacedonia

[MHRMI]

Wikileaks: Hillary Clinton's campaign chair uses "FYROM" instead of Macedonia

https://www.facebook.com/MHRMI/photos/a.870311233058025.1073741827.154504997971989/1111180142304465/?type=3

Thank you Wikileaks for exposing Hillary Clinton's anti-Macedonian policies. Clinton's campaign chair, John Podesta, in reference to Macedonia, wrote "I still call it FYROM". Hillary Clinton, in 2011, called for Macedonia to change its name. (www.mhrmi.org/news/2011/july19_e.asp)

Hillary, if you want any hope of Macedonian-Americans voting for you, denounce the name negotiations and your current Macedonia policy as an attack on common sense and Macedonia's most basic of human rights. #OurNameIsMacedonia

[vicsinad]

This is to be expected. Podesta's mother is Greek.

[Risto the Great]

https://www.rt.com/news/365405-assange-pilger-full-transcript/

Whistleblower Julian Assange has given one of his most incendiary interviews ever in a John Pilger Special, courtesy of Dartmouth Films, in which he summarizes what can be gleaned from the tens of thousands of Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks this year.
John Pilger, another Australian émigré, conducted the 25-minute interview at the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange has been trapped since 2012 for fear of extradition to the US. Last month, Assange had his internet access cut off for alleged “interference” in the American presidential election through the work of his website.

‘Clinton made FBI look weak, now there is anger’
John Pilger: What’s the significance of the FBI's intervention in these last days of the U.S. election campaign, in the case against Hillary Clinton?

Julian Assange: If you look at the history of the FBI, it has become effectively America's political police. The FBI demonstrated this by taking down the former head of the CIA [General David Petraeus] over classified information given to his mistress. Almost no-one is untouchable. The FBI is always trying to demonstrate that no-one can resist us. But Hillary Clinton very conspicuously resisted the FBI's investigation, so there’s anger within the FBI because it made the FBI look weak. We've published about 33,000 of Clinton's emails when she was Secretary of State. They come from a batch of just over 60,000 emails, [of which] Clinton has kept about half – 30,000 -- to herself, and we've published about half.

Then there are the Podesta emails we've been publishing. [John] Podesta is Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign manager, so there’s a thread that runs through all these emails; there are quite a lot of pay-for-play, as they call it, giving access in exchange for money to states, individuals and corporations. [These emails are] combined with the cover up of the Hillary Clinton emails when she was Secretary of State, [which] has led to an environment where the pressure on the FBI increases.

‘Russian government not the source of Clinton leaks’
JP: The Clinton campaign has said that Russia is behind all of this, that Russia has manipulated the campaign and is the source for WikiLeaks and its emails.

JA: The Clinton camp has been able to project that kind of neo-McCarthy hysteria: that Russia is responsible for everything. Hilary Clinton stated multiple times, falsely, that seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That is false; we can say that the Russian government is not the source.

READ MORE: Assange: WikiLeaks did not receive Clinton emails from Russian govt (JOHN PILGER EXCLUSIVE)

WikiLeaks has been publishing for ten years, and in those ten years, we have published ten million documents, several thousand individual publications, several thousand different sources, and we have never got it wrong.

‘Saudi Arabia & Qatar funding ISIS and Clinton’
JP: The emails that give evidence of access for money and how Hillary Clinton herself benefited from this and how she is benefitting politically, are quite extraordinary. I’m thinking of when the Qatari representative was given five minutes with Bill Clinton for a million dollar cheque.

JA: And twelve million dollars from Morocco …

JP: Twelve million from Morocco yeah.

JA: For Hillary Clinton to attend [a party].

JP: In terms of the foreign policy of the United States, that’s where the emails are most revealing, where they show the direct connection between Hillary Clinton and the foundation of jihadism, of ISIL, in the Middle East. Can you talk about how the emails demonstrate the connection between those who are meant to be fighting the jihadists of ISIL, are actually those who have helped create it.

JA: There’s an early 2014 email from Hillary Clinton, not so long after she left the State Department, to her campaign manager John Podesta that states ISIL is funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Now this is the most significant email in the whole collection, and perhaps because Saudi and Qatari money is spread all over the Clinton Foundation. Even the U.S. government agrees that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIL, or ISIS. But the dodge has always been that, well it’s just some rogue Princes, using their cut of the oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves.

But that email says that no, it is the governments of Saudi and Qatar that have been funding ISIS.

JP: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the Saudis and the Qataris, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation while Hilary Clinton is Secretary of State and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly to Saudi Arabia.

JA: Under Hillary Clinton, the world’s largest ever arms deal was made with Saudi Arabia, [worth] more than $80 billion. In fact, during her tenure as Secretary of State, total arms exports from the United States in terms of the dollar value, doubled.

JP: Of course the consequence of that is that the notorious terrorist group called ISIl or ISIS is created largely with money from the very people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation.

JA: Yes.

JP:That's extraordinary.

‘Clinton has been eaten alive by her ambition’
JA: I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person because I see someone who is eaten alive by their ambitions, tormented literally to the point where they become sick; they faint as a result of [the reaction] to their ambitions. She represents a whole network of people and a network of relationships with particular states. The question is how does Hilary Clinton fit in this broader network? She's a centralising cog. You’ve got a lot of different gears in operation from the big banks like Goldman Sachs and major elements of Wall Street, and Intelligence and people in the State Department and the Saudis.

She’s the centraliser that inter-connects all these different cogs. She’s the smooth central representation of all that, and ‘all that’ is more or less what is in power now in the United States. It’s what we call the establishment or the DC consensus. One of the more significant Podesta emails that we released was about how the Obama cabinet was formed and how half the Obama cabinet was basically nominated by a representative from City Bank. This is quite amazing.

JP: Didn’t Citybank supply a list …. ?

JA: Yes.

JP: … which turned out to be most of the Obama cabinet.

JA: Yes.

JP: So Wall Street decides the cabinet of the President of the United States?

JA: If you were following the Obama campaign back then, closely, you could see it had become very close to banking interests.

JA: So I think you can’t properly understand Hillary Clinton's foreign policy without understanding Saudi Arabia. The connections with Saudi Arabia are so intimate.

‘Libya is Hillary Clinton’s war’
JP:Why was she so demonstrably enthusiastic about the destruction of Libya? Can you talk a little about just what the emails have told us – told you – about what happened there? Because Libya is such a source for so much of the mayhem now in Syria: the ISIL, jihadism, and so on. And it was almost Hillary Clinton's invasion. What do the emails tell us about that?

JA: Libya, more than anyone else’s war, was Hillary Clinton’s war. Barak Obama initially opposed it. Who was the person championing it? Hillary Clinton. That’s documented throughout her emails. She had put her favoured agent, Sidney Blumenthal, on to that; there’s more than 1700 emails out of the thirty three thousand Hillary Clinton emails that we've published, just about Libya. It’s not that Libya has cheap oil. She perceived the removal of Gaddafi and the overthrow of the Libyan state -- something that she would use in her run-up to the general election for President.

So in late 2011 there is an internal document called the Libya Tick Tock that was produced for Hillary Clinton, and it’s the chronological description of how she was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state, which resulted in around 40,000 deaths within Libya; jihadists moved in, ISIS moved in, leading to the European refugee and migrant crisis.

Not only did you have people fleeing Libya, people fleeing Syria, the destabilisation of other African countries as a result of arms flows, but the Libyan state itself err was no longer able to control the movement of people through it. Libya faces along to the Mediterranean and had been effectively the cork in the bottle of Africa. So all problems, economic problems and civil war in Africa -- previously people fleeing those problems didn’t end up in Europe because Libya policed the Mediterranean. That was said explicitly at the time, back in early 2011 by Gaddafi: ‘What do these Europeans think they’re doing, trying to bomb and destroy the Libyan State? There’s going to be floods of migrants out of Africa and jihadists into Europe, and this is exactly what happened.

‘Trump won’t be permitted to win’
JP: You get complaints from people saying, ‘What is WikiLeaks doing? Are they trying to put Trump in the Whitehouse?’

JA: My answer is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he's had every establishment off side; Trump doesn’t have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment, but banks, intelligence [agencies], arms companies... big foreign money … are all united behind Hillary Clinton, and the media as well, media owners and even journalists themselves.

JP: There is the accusation that WikiLeaks is in league with the Russians. Some people say, ‘Well, why doesn’t WikiLeaks investigate and publish emails on Russia?’

JA: We have published about 800,000 documents of various kinds that relate to Russia. Most of those are critical; and a great many books have come out of our publications about Russia, most of which are critical. Our [Russia]documents have gone on to be used in quite a number of court cases: refugee cases of people fleeing some kind of claimed political persecution in Russia, which they use our documents to back up.

JP: Do you yourself take a view of the U.S. election? Do you have a preference for Clinton or Trump?

JA: [Let’s talk about] Donald Trump. What does he represent in the American mind and in the European mind? He represents American white trash, [which Hillary Clinton called] ‘deplorable and irredeemable’. It means from an establishment or educated cosmopolitan, urbane perspective, these people are like the red necks, and you can never deal with them. Because he so clearly -- through his words and actions and the type of people that turn up at his rallies -- represents people who are not the middle, not the upper middle educated class, there is a fear of seeming to be associated in any way with them, a social fear that lowers the class status of anyone who can be accused of somehow assisting Trump in any way, including any criticism of Hillary Clinton. If you look at how the middle class gains its economic and social power, that makes absolute sense.

‘US attempting to squeeze WikiLeaks through my refugee status’
JP: I’d like to talk about Ecuador, the small country that has given you refuge and [political asylum] in this embassy in London. Now Ecuador has cut off the internet from here where we're doing this interview, in the Embassy, for the clearly obvious reason that they are concerned about appearing to intervene in the U.S. election campaign. Can you talk about why they would take that action and your own views on Ecuador’s support for you?

JA: Let’s let go back four years. I made an asylum application to Ecuador in this embassy, because of the U.S. extradition case, and the result was that after a month, I was successful in my asylum application. The embassy since then has been surrounded by police: quite an expensive police operation which the British government admits to spending more than £12.6 million. They admitted that over a year ago. Now there’s undercover police and there are robot surveillance cameras of various kinds -- so that there has been quite a serious conflict right here in the heart of London between Ecuador, a country of sixteen million people, and the United Kingdom, and the Americans who have been helping on the side. So that was a brave and principled thing for Ecuador to do. Now we have the U.S. election [campaign], the Ecuadorian election is in February next year, and you have the White House feeling the political heat as a result of the true information that we have been publishing.

WikiLeaks does not publish from the jurisdiction of Ecuador, from this embassy or in the territory of Ecuador; we publish from France, we publish from, from Germany, we publish from The Netherlands and from a number of other countries, so that the attempted squeeze on WikiLeaks is through my refugee status; and this is, this is really intolerable. [It means] that [they] are trying to get at a publishing organisation; [they] try and prevent it from publishing true information that is of intense interest to the American people and others about an election.

JP: Tell us what would happen if you walked out of this embassy.

JA: I would be immediately arrested by the British police and I would then be extradited either immediately to the United States or to Sweden. In Sweden I am not charged, I have already been previously cleared [by the Senior Stockholm Prosecutor Eva Finne]. We were not certain exactly what would happen there, but then we know that the Swedish government has refused to say that they will not extradite me to the United States we know they have extradited 100 per cent of people whom the U.S. has requested since at least 2000. So over the last fifteen years, every single person the U.S. has tried to extradite from Sweden has been extradited, and they refuse to provide a guarantee [that won’t happen].

JP: People often ask me how you cope with the isolation in here.

JA: Look, one of the best attributes of human beings is that they’re adaptable; one of the worst attributes of human beings is they are adaptable. They adapt and start to tolerate abuses, they adapt to being involved themselves in abuses, they adapt to adversity and they continue on. So in my situation, frankly, I’m a bit institutionalised -- this [the embassy] is the world .. it’s visually the world [for me].

JP: It’s the world without sunlight, for one thing, isn’t it?

JA: It’s the world without sunlight, but I haven’t seen sunlight in so long, I don’t remember it.

JP: Yes.

JA: So , yes, you adapt. The one real irritant is that my young children -- they also adapt. They adapt to being without their father. That’s a hard, hard adaption which they didn’t ask for.

JP: Do you worry about them?

JA: Yes, I worry about them; I worry about their mother.

‘I am innocent and in arbitrary detention’
JP: Some people would say, ‘Well, why don’t you end it and simply walk out the door and allow yourself to be extradited to Sweden?’

JA: The U.N. [the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention] has looked into this whole situation. They spent eighteen months in formal, adversarial litigation. [So it’s] me and the U.N. verses Sweden and the U.K. Who’s right? The U.N. made a conclusion that I am being arbitrarily detained illegally, deprived of my freedom and that what has occurred has not occurred within the laws that the United Kingdom and Sweden, and that [those countries] must obey. It is an illegal abuse. It is the United Nations formally asking, ‘What’s going on here? What is your legal explanation for this? [Assange] says that you should recognise his asylum.’ [And here is]

Sweden formally writing back to the United Nations to say, ‘No, we're not going to [recognise the UN ruling], so leaving open their ability to extradite.

I just find it absolutely amazing that the narrative about this situation is not put out publically in the press, because it doesn’t suit the Western establishment narrative – that yes, the West has political prisoners, it’s a reality, it’s not just me, there’s a bunch of other people as well. The West has political prisoners. Of course, no state accepts [that it should call] the people it is imprisoning or detaining for political reasons, political prisoners. They don’t call them political prisoners in China, they don’t call them political prisoners in Azerbaijan and they don’t call them political prisoners in the United States, U.K. or Sweden; it is absolutely intolerable to have that kind of self-perception.

JA: Here we have a case, the Swedish case, where I have never been charged with a crime, where I have already been cleared [by the Stockholm prosecutor] and found to be innocent, where the woman herself said that the police made it up, where the United Nations formally said the whole thing is illegal, where the State of Ecuador also investigated and found that I should be given asylum. Those are the facts, but what is the rhetoric?

JP: Yes, it’s different.

JA: The rhetoric is pretending, constantly pretending that I have been charged with a crime, and never mentioning that I have been already previously cleared, never mentioning that the woman herself says that the police made it up.

[The rhetoric] is trying to avoid [the truth that ] the U.N. formally found that the whole thing is illegal, never even mentioning that Ecuador made a formal assessment through its formal processes and found that yes, I am subject to persecution by the United States.

Some pearlers here.
If Clinton wins, I doubt she will last. What a corrupt (or capable) nation, depending on the definition.

Australians keeping the world honest. (And getting no support from Australia)

[vicsinad]

How Macedonians Have Influenced the US Election

This is both sad and funny.

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/the-surge-of-pro-trump-fake-news-is-coming-from-macedonia/8003094

'Wikileaks just killed Hillary' ... 'Hillary indictment imminent' ... 'Obama caught on live TV telling illegal aliens it's OK to vote. Promises the law will not come after you!' ... 'Hillary Clinton In 2013: "I Would Like To See People Like Donald Trump Run For Office; They're Honest And Can't Be Bought"'.

These are headlines from the few hundred fake news websites that have sprung up around the US election. The sites with names like WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com make money through sharing in Facebook ad revenue. Business is booming, and the centre of the fake news clickbait industry is the small town of Veles in Macedonia, apparently known for its porcelain. Here, young Macedonians reportedly earn thousands of dollars creating articles that are eagerly consumed by Trump supporters in America.

Hillary Clinton never said Donald Trump should run for office, but a story claiming she did exactly that (see headline above) has racked up hundreds of thousands of shares, reactions and comments. Other fake news articles have done almost as well, and together they have reached millions of people.

The stories tend to be either straight up fakes or are merely heavily biased - designed to confirm the prejudices and stir the passions of their readers. There's an irony here. This election, we've heard a lot about the influence of Russia, about Putin 'hacking' the election and backing Trump, and of the sway of right-wing news channels like Fox. But the entrepreneurs in Veles are not about ideology or power games; their motivation is very American; it's pure capitalism.

Why Veles?

Before this election, people in Veles were already making money through making Facebook content that would be be popular with Americans. Under the Facebook business model, publishers get a tiny proportion of the tiny amount of money that an advertiser pays for each click. Advertisers pay more per click in America than they do in Europe, because the average revenue per user is much higher (about $12.43 per user to $3.98).

Mostly this content was to do with sports and health - these were the topics that did well on Facebook. Then Trump came along and folks in Veles learned nothing did better than sensationalist pro-Trump news. In April, the site meta.mk reported at least six pro-Trump fake news sites in Veles; a few months later the Guardian reported 150. Meta.mk quoted a 22-year-old computer science student:

"I thought, what would interest Americans the most, and it was either this or rugby (American Football), some of the news I write, and other parts I take from other web-sites, I then translate them. I really don't know if what I translate from other web-sites is true or not, I am only doing this because of the Google Ads"

Why Trump?

BuzzFeed reported that Veles has experimented with left-leaning content, but it didn't do as well. Nothing sells Facebook clicks like the Donald. This may be partly because of the air of conspiracy that has marked this election; the general distrust of mainstream news sources and the 'media elites', and the sheer passion of the Trump supporters. It has meant Trump supporters are more likely to share news from unknown news websites, and because so much is being written about Trump all the time, the Veles news sites can simply copy the original content and repost it under a click-friendly headline. They never run out of news, and it costs almost nothing to publish. The article about Clinton wanting Trump to run for office was lifted from an 'independent' website that admits it publishes fake news:

"This is HYBRID site of news and satire. Part of our stories already happens, part, not yet. NOT all of our stories are true!"

What about after the election?

Earlier this year, it emerged Facebook's 'trending' news module showing popular news for users was being curated and tweaked by human beings. To protect itself from accusations of (left-wing) bias, Facebook sacked the curators and installed an algorithm, which then began promoting fake news articles (plus an article about a man masturbating with a chicken sandwich). The episode shows the fake news problem is bigger than Trump; there are billions of Facebook users, and billions of links posted to the site every day. Incorrect news can travel swiftly across networks. The algorithms are unable to detect the fakes, but human moderators are open to accusations of bias (not to mention the cost).

At the same time, there's an incentive to publish sensational or fake news in order to cash in on more pay-per-click ad revenue. Accuracy moderation would arguably make Facebook less engaging (read: less bias-confirming), and this would hurt the company's bottom line.

The fake news sites are able to absorb the attacks of mainstream media. Like an organism evolving to a new state of self-awareness and sophistication, the fake news sites have begun reporting on fake news sites. After the Guardian article, the website prntly.com ran a story about Macedonian front groups "preying on Trump supporters for money and information" and backed by George Soros - the billionaire donor to the Democrats, and a perceived liberal 'elite'.

[Risto the Great]

Ahhh, Macedonia at the centre of the world again! I love it.

[Karposh]

Hmmmm, can’t help wondering…Is it simply entrepreneurial savviness to make an easy buck from Google and Facebook ads, as the article suggests, or is this a cunning way to get back at Hillary’s and Podesta’s anti-Macedonian positions? I like to think it’s the latter.

[vicsinad]

Hmmmm, can’t help wondering…Is it simply entrepreneurial savviness to make an easy buck from Google and Facebook ads, as the article suggests, or is this a cunning way to get back at Hillary’s and Podesta’s anti-Macedonian positions? I like to think it’s the latter.

It's a nice thought that there was some kind of coordinated political response in Macedonia in defense of the Macedonian identity, but my bets are that a lot of unemployed Macedonians who are apathetic to US politics and are generally well educated in computers / IT saw an opening to make some money.

Nowadays with social media, people click and share without reading much beyond the title. It looks like Trump supporters took the Macedonian bait and these fake articles spread like fire. Many Trump supporters believe in all sorts of conspiracy theories and are into sensationalism, and these Veleshani capitalized on that.

[Risto the Great]

Not looking good for Slithery (Hillary) at the moment.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Not looking good for Slithery (Hillary) at the moment.

Well, judging by the polls right now, notwithstanding some sort of miracle for Clinton, it looks like Donald Trump is about to win the elections, against all odds.