Exclusive: Despite mainstream media acceptance, the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment on alleged Russian “hacking” still lacks hard public evidence, a case of “trust-us” by politicized spy agencies, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Repeating an accusation over and over again is not evidence that the accused is guilty, no matter how much “confidence” the accuser asserts about the conclusion. Nor is it evidence just to suggest that someone has a motive for doing something. Many conspiracy theories are built on the notion of “cui bono” – who benefits – without following up the supposed motive with facts.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, following his address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
But that is essentially what the U.S. intelligence community has done regarding the dangerous accusation that Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrated a covert information campaign to influence the outcome of the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election in favor of Republican Donald Trump.
Just a day after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper vowed to go to the greatest possible lengths to supply the public with the evidence behind the accusations, his office released a 25-page report that contained no direct evidence that Russia delivered hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta to WikiLeaks.
The DNI report amounted to a compendium of reasons to suspect that Russia was the source of the information – built largely on the argument that Russia had a motive for doing so because of its disdain for Democratic nominee Clinton and the potential for friendlier relations with Republican nominee Trump.
But the case, as presented, is one-sided and lacks any actual proof. Further, the continued use of the word “assesses” – as in the U.S. intelligence community “assesses” that Russia is guilty – suggests that the underlying classified information also may be less than conclusive because, in intelligence-world-speak, “assesses” often means “guesses.”
The DNI report admits as much, saying, “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”
But the report’s assessment is more than just a reasonable judgment based on a body of incomplete information. It is tendentious in that it only lays out the case for believing in Russia’s guilt, not reasons for doubting that guilt.
A Risky Bet
For instance, while it is true that many Russian officials, including President Putin, considered Clinton to be a threat to worsen the already frayed relationship between the two nuclear superpowers, the report ignores the downside for Russia trying to interfere with the U.S. election campaign and then failing to stop Clinton, which looked like the most likely outcome until Election Night.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
If Russia had accessed the DNC and Podesta emails and slipped them to WikiLeaks for publication, Putin would have to think that the National Security Agency, with its exceptional ability to track electronic communications around the world, might well have detected the maneuver and would have informed Clinton.
So, on top of Clinton’s well-known hawkishness, Putin would have risked handing the expected incoming president a personal reason to take revenge on him and his country. Historically, Russia has been very circumspect in such situations, usually holding its intelligence collections for internal purposes only, not sharing them with the public.
While it is conceivable that Putin decided to take this extraordinary risk in this case – despite the widely held view that Clinton was a shoo-in to defeat Trump – an objective report would have examined this counter argument for him not doing so.
But the DNI report was not driven by a desire to be evenhanded; it is, in effect, a prosecutor’s brief, albeit one that lacks any real evidence that the accused is guilty.
Further undercutting the credibility of the DNI report is that it includes a seven-page appendix, dating from 2012, that is an argumentative attack on RT, the Russian government-backed television network, which is accused of portraying “the US electoral process as undemocratic.”
The proof for that accusation includes RT’s articles on “voting machine vulnerabilities” although virtually every major U.S. news organizations has run similar stories, including some during the last campaign on the feasibility of Russia hacking into the actual voting process, something that even U.S. intelligence says didn’t happen.
The reports adds that further undermining Americans’ faith in the U.S. democratic process, “RT broadcast, hosted and advertised third-party candidate debates.” Apparently, the DNI’s point is that showing Americans that there are choices beyond the two big parties is somehow seditious.
“The RT hosts asserted that the US two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a ‘sham,’” the report said. Yet, polls have shown that large numbers of Americans would prefer more choices than the usual two candidates and, indeed, most Western democracies have multiple parties, So, the implicit RT criticism of the U.S. political process is certainly not out of the ordinary.
The report also takes RT to task for covering the Occupy Wall Street movement and for reporting on the environmental dangers from “fracking,” topics cited as further proof that the Russian government was using RT to weaken U.S. public support for Washington’s policies (although, again, these are topics of genuine public interest).
Behind the Curtain
Though it’s impossible for an average U.S. citizen to know precisely what the U.S. intelligence community may have in its secret files, some former NSA officials who are familiar with the agency’s eavesdropping capabilities say Washington’s lack of certainty suggests that the NSA does not possess such evidence.
James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence.
For instance, that’s the view of William Binney, who retired as NSA’s technical director of world military and geopolitical analysis and who created many of the collection systems still used by NSA.
Binney, in an article co-written with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, said, “With respect to the alleged interference by Russia and WikiLeaks in the U.S. election, it is a major mystery why U.S. intelligence feels it must rely on ‘circumstantial evidence,’ when it has NSA’s vacuum cleaner sucking up hard evidence galore. What we know of NSA’s capabilities shows that the email disclosures were from leaking, not hacking.”
There is also the fact that both WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and one of his associates, former British Ambassador Craig Murray, have denied that the purloined emails came from the Russian government. Going further, Murray has suggested that there were two separate sources, the DNC material coming from a disgruntled Democrat and the Podesta emails coming from possibly a U.S. intelligence source, since the Podesta Group represents Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments.
In response, Clapper and other U.S. government officials have sought to disparage Assange’s credibility, including Clapper’s Senate testimony on Thursday gratuitously alluding to sexual assault allegations against Assange in Sweden.
However, Clapper’s own credibility is suspect in a more relevant way. In 2013, he gave false testimony to Congress regarding the extent of the NSA’s collection of data on Americans. Clapper’s deception was revealed only when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of the NSA program to the press, causing Clapper to apologize for his “clearly erroneous” testimony.
A History of Politicization
The U.S. intelligence community’s handling of the Russian “hack” story also must be viewed in the historical context of the CIA’s “politicization” over the past several decades.
Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush with CIA Director William Casey at the White House on Feb. 11, 1981. (Photo credit: Reagan Library)
U.S. intelligence analysts, such as senior Russia expert Melvin A. Goodman, have described in detail both in books and in congressional testimony how the old tradition of objective CIA analysis was broken down in the 1980s.
At the time, the Reagan administration wanted to justify a massive arms buildup, so CIA Director William Casey and his pliant deputy, Robert Gates, oversaw the creation of inflammatory assessments on Soviet intentions and Moscow’s alleged role in international terrorism, including the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.
Besides representing “politicized” intelligence at its worst, these analyses became the bureaucratic battleground on which old-line analysts who still insisted on presenting the facts to the president whether he liked them or not were routed and replaced by a new generation of yes men.
The relevant point is that the U.S. intelligence community has never been repaired, in part because the yes men gave presidents of both parties what they wanted. Rather than challenging a president’s policies, this new generation mostly fashioned their reports to support those policies.
The bipartisan nature of this corruption is best illustrated by the role played by CIA Director George Tenet, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton but stayed on and helped President George W. Bush arrange his “slam dunk” case for convincing the American people that Iraq possessed caches of WMD, thus justifying Bush’s 2003 invasion.
There was the one notable case of intelligence analysts standing up to Bush in a 2007 assessment that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program, but that was more an anomaly – resulting from the acute embarrassment over the Iraq WMD fiasco – than a change in pattern.
Presidents of both parties have learned that it makes their lives easier if the U.S. intelligence community is generating “intelligence” that supports what they want to do, rather than letting the facts get in the way.
The current case of the alleged Russian “hack” should be viewed in this context: President Obama considers Trump’s election a threat to his policies, both foreign and domestic. So, it’s only logical that Obama would want to weaken and discredit Trump before he takes office.
That doesn’t mean that the Russians are innocent, but it does justify a healthy dose of skepticism to the assessments by Obama’s senior intelligence officials.
[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Escalating the Risky Fight with Russia” and “Summing Up Russia’s Real Nuclear Fears.”]
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Craig Murray told The London Daily Mail, that he, personally, delivered the whistleblower’s copy of the Podesta emails to Wikileaks. Why does this not get any press????
“There is also the fact that both WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and one of his associates, former British Ambassador Craig Murray, have denied that the purloined emails came from the Russian government.” That is weak, unnecessarily. Anyone can say anything. It means nothing. What Robert should have pointed out was the crucial fact that Murray met with the leaker (an intermediary?). I read his own words and unless he does talk about an intermediary (it rings a bell, to be honest), it was the actual leaker he met. Regardless, Leaker or leaker’s intermediary, ‘that’ is crucial.
I’m pleased to see the alert CN readers picking up on Murray’s role. It’s missing in so much commentary, Right ‘and’ Left. I’m not going to rest content that I have this all sorted out. The astute posters here have me convinced that I should not.
My own contribution to this issue:
“Truth, False Narratives and Our Only Hope”
http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/20024
I totally agree. The Mainstream Media are in a frenzy over this obvious hatchet job. There is absolutely NO evidence whatsoever contained in this report. But saying that, lack of evidence never stopped them invading Iraq or arresting Bush and Blair for orchestrating 911 for colluding with the Saudis to massacre thousands of innocent citizens. The west is run by a mafia style cartel of bankers and the Politian’s are just their lackeys.
Vlad Putin is the most powerful man in this galaxy :
– he forced the British to Brexit the EU,
he invaded Libya and killed his president along with 50K Lybians, he trained ISIS to destabilize the Middle East,
bombed Serbia to the stone age and sent its president to the Hague where he was then poisoned,
he toppled the Ukrainian and the Georgian presidents in color revolutions,
he amassed 1000s of nukes in Germany and Italy in order to torpedo their elections,
he invaded Yemen and has been killing civilians for 2+ years,
he invaded Irak that had weapons of mass distraction and killed Saddam,
he has been using his jihadists to destroy Syria for 6 years,
he toppled Morsi in Egypt,
and now he has just placed Trump in power in the US by destroying Khillary Clinton….
What a powerful man!
This type of prowess can only be from a superman!
Maybe it’s a mythology!
Maybe the oligarchs have gone insane lately!
Novus – well done!
hey, bernie
before there were computers and inkjet/laser printers there were things called typewriters. they had keyboards, from which computer keyboards are derived, which were mechanical. depressing a key actually levered a bas-relief image of the letter depressed, causing it to strike an inked ribbon – sometimes black ink only sometimes red or black, as in the picture – that would then make an image of that letter on paper rolled around a ‘paten’ behind the ribbon. one would type one’s way across the page, then throw a lever that returned the ‘carriage’ holding the paper and advancing the paten and the paper rolled round it one line and continue typing.
the whole assembly was called a typewriter … wikipedia has a page on Typewriter, better than my attempted description.
i imagine robert parry spent a lifetime ‘behind’ typewriters before moving, seemingly seamlessly, to the internet.
ok, so the russians “hacked” into the dnc, and they “pfished” podesta.
what of it? that’s what they do, that’s what we do, that’s what all
governments do. it’s only a problem when they get caught. were
the russians caught, ahem, red-handed? no, they were not. the
hacks and pfishing we’ve been presented with were NOT major state
actors. more likely anarchists or so-called 400-lb basement dwellers.
what is being ignored, strangely…or not so strangely…., is how this
relates to clinton’s home-brew server. you know, the one with no
security protocols? the one storing top secret intel stuff? yeah,
that one. what we learn from the hacking/pfishing story is that
we can confirm with utmost confidence that clinton’s email server(s)
were hacked! the russians, the chinese, the israelis, assorted
chubby teenagers………all had access to everything on clinton’s
servers.
it also presents a question…….assuming clinton had won, would
she have a similar email setup in the whitehouse? of course
bill and chelsea and the foundation would be connected (and
hacked, with malware installed)…..so we can assume the russians
would continue to have 100% real-time access to all of madame
president’s communications. in that case, why would they then
try to help elect a known egotistical, easily influenced, and highly
erratic crazy man? at least clinton is a known known, with bonus
known emails.
stinky – “…why would they then try to help elect a known egotistical, easily influenced, and highly erratic crazy man?”
Trump is NOT being easily influenced on Russia, is he? He’s not listening to the so-called intelligence community. He’s not being erratic. He’s sticking to his guns and he’s asking for the evidence. Obama and the Democrats are the ones being erratic, sending home the Russian diplomats on the basis of no evidence, applying more sanctions on the Russians. Obama, pen in hand, must be losing sleep with all of the new laws he’s passing in his last few days. He’s having a tantrum.
The Democrats are melting down, not Trump. Trump is acting very presidential. He has listened to the intelligence community, but obviously he hasn’t been swayed. Must have something to do with their lack of evidence.
Also, it appears there was a leak at the DNC, not a hack. Craig Murray, former British ambassador, flew to Washington, D.C. to pick up the DNC emails from an “insider”. He then passed these on to Julian Assange on his return to London. Even Julian Assange has said the DNC emails were not from the Russians, they weren’t hacked, but they were leaked.
Could be Seth Rich, the 27 year-old DNC staffer who was murdered in Washington, D.C. in July of 2016 (execution-style) was the insider. We’ll probably never know. But Julian Assange has offered $20,000.00 for the capture of whoever murdered him. Very unusual for Assange to do this if he wasn’t the leaker.
But as William Binney said (who worked for thirty-something years at the NSA), the NSA vacuums up everything (that’s what Snowden revealed) and they would be able to easily find out who leaked the emails.
I just see Trump being the strong one here, not erratic at all.
but you see, these are the conflicting narratives we’ve been given.
1. trump is an unreliable, unpredictable nut-job, with fat finger on the nukular button.
2. the evil vlad wants trump in the white house.
the point being, it just don’t make sense! sure, trump may be a putin puppet, but
he’s as likely to start a nukular war as to follow his master’s orders.
at least with hillarly, vlad knows what he’s getting. i mean, he KNOWS. why switch
brands from a known-known to an unknown-insane-unknown? why, when you have
all the emails (and so much more!), and all the dirt on hillary and the foundation?
stinky – because you already know the “known-known” is deadly; you’re already dealing with a losing hand. You don’t know exactly what the “unknown-unknown” is going to get you, but you’ve heard enough to know that he wants peace; you’ve got a much better hand and you’re already way ahead with the latter.
And Trump is insane? Really? You don’t achieve what Trump has achieved by being insane. He’s a risk-taker, but nowhere near insane. And the dirt on Hillary and the Clinton Foundation has been swept under the carpet by the media. All they want to do is lie and say that “The Russians stole the election”, with absolutely no evidence. Nobody is talking about the contents of the emails, only that Russia hacked (when the evidence points to the emails being leaked by an insider).
The unknown-insane-unknowns are the MIC, the media and the Democrats. They’re fighting for their lives, and they’re losing.
This link, put out on March 2, 2016, is and indication that American voters do not have a voice over the policies being implemented by the POTUS or laws passed by Congress.
Quote
“We the undersigned, members of the Republican national security community, represent a broad spectrum of opinion on America’s role in the world and what is necessary to keep us safe and prosperous. We have disagreed with one another on many issues, including the Iraq war and intervention in Syria. But we are united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency. Recognizing as we do, the conditions in American politics that have contributed to his popularity, we nonetheless are obligated to state our core objections clearly.”
Unquote
The rest of the story and signatories are found on this link:
https://warontherocks.com/2016/03/open-letter-on-donald-trump-from-gop-national-security-leaders/
I did not vote for Donald Trump. However millions of financially struggling Americans and electoral college chose to give him a chance to try something else. What above signatories are telling Americans and the rest of the world is that American voters or their voices do not matter! These people have nothing to offer American voters. Instead, they are determined to mount a “no-holds-barred” to ensure Donald Trump and those who elected are neutered!
Bernie:
The picture in the header shows a piece of a typewriter typical of what Robert Parry used in the days before word processors became available. The area in the middle is where the typewriter keys struck the ribbon (black and red) to leave an imprint on the paper. Your question and my answer show we are of different generations which suggests that those of us able to recognize what you asked about have lots of experience of life while your generation has much less – and probably not enough.
There is an old saying about experience is no substitute for education and education is no substitute for experience. Did you learn anything from your recent exchange with some of us “old timers”?
Bernie:
Talking of education, reading history has taught some of us that a great journalist, I F. “Izzy” Stone, informed his readers that all governments lie. Experience has let us observe the truth of that statement and that media acting as stenographers and echo chambers for mendacious government also lie. You might give that some thought the next time you read or hear something the media are passing on from our (I assume you are an American) government or other such as your friends in Israel’s right-wing government.
For the record here are a few government lies: Our military intervention was to keep “dominoes” falling all over Indo-China. The attack on US ships in Vietnam’s Tonkin Gulf was another lie that was used to expand the war on Vietnam. Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that threatened U.S. interests and he was in cahoots with al-Qaeda before 9/11. Those lies were used to get the war on Iraq going.
Then there is the pledge of allegiance. I hate to break this to you Bernie, but ours is not “one nation, …, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” The part about “one nation, under God” is true. Unfortunately, that God is Mammon and his temple and high priests are located in and around Wall Street in New York. He has a cathedral in Washington, DC that goes by the name of the U.S. Capitol.
Can somebody explain to me what is in the picture in the header for Consortium News? Is that some sort of machine or what?
Typewriter…black and red ink ribbons
“the US’ reaction to what it claims is “2016 election interference” could significantly backfire, since the US itself is engaged in very real, overt election interference globally, and for decades. In fact, even as the US berated Russia for allegedly interfering in America’s internal politics, its own organisations, including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), funded by the US government, openly admitted they were leaking information regarding China’s internal politics in efforts to undermine Beijing.
“In fact, NED and its subsidiaries (including the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI) and Freedom House) as well as myriad fronts around the world these organisations fund, support and direct, are openly dedicated to manipulating foreign elections, creating US-friendly opposition movements and even overthrowing governments that impede US interests worldwide […]
“US interference across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in 2011 would eventually lead to regional war, the complete destruction of Libya and near destruction of Syria as well as regime change in a number of nations including Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen […]
“For nations in Asia like China, Malaysia and Thailand that still face significant pressure from NED-backed opposition fronts, the US’ current “retaliation” against Russia could serve as an opportunity to likewise ‘expel’ those who could easily be characterised as ‘interfering’ with each respective nation’s internal politics, and particularly, with elections.
“Recipients of US aid (particularly media fronts) could also be dismantled under the same pretexts used by American and European powers regarding ‘fake news,’ by citing Washington’s current actions versus Moscow.
“While the US has little evidence regarding Russia’s role in leaking what were genuine e-mails revealing very real impropriety among American political circles, nations like China, Malaysia and Thailand have verified evidence that opposition fronts are funded, backed and even directed by US organisations like NED. What has been perhaps preventing these nations from dismantling these foreign-backed networks, has been the illusion of America’s pro-democracy stance. However, with the US now cracking down on whistle-blowers, opposition media and shifting tides amid American politics all based on allegations of ‘Russian’ involvement, what is preventing other states from cracking down on verified US interference in their own internal politics?
US Concerns Over “Election Interference” May Backfire
By Joseph Thomas
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2017/01/us-concerns-over-election-interference.html
“While the Obama administration’s move to expel 35 Russian embassy staff, close two compounds, and impose sanctions on top intelligence chiefs of Russia is virtually unprecedented in the post-Cold War era, nothing else could have defeated this act—and the support this act has been given by the corporate media and political pundits— so convincingly than the non-retaliatory response of Russia. Had Russia decided to pay the US in the same coin, we would certainly have seen a sad revival of bi-polar politics.
“Needless to say, had Russia retaliated in the same manner, the Obama administration would have found a perfect excuse to blame Russia for all the troubles it has faced during all these years. This was pretty much the expectation and the US media were running teasers as to what the asymmetric response might be. There were reports that the Anglo-American School of Moscow, a favourite of foreign diplomats, would be closed. Country residences for the US diplomats would be shuttered or that 35 reciprocal expulsions from the US embassy in Moscow could take place. However, none of this ever happened and, interestingly enough, the blame for this too was put squarely on Russia’s some ‘disinformation campaign’ techniques.
“To the Obama administration’s disappointment, Russia seems to have understood the nature of this act by the lame-duck president as his last futile attempt to achieve a ‘face-saving’ exit from the Oval office. This understanding is implicit in the statement issued by the Kremlin, according to which Russia would ‘not resort to irresponsible `kitchen` diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore Russian-US relations based on the policies of the Trump Administration.’
“Most certainly, Russia’s frustration with the Obama administration is explicit here, forcing it to look to the president-elect to design better policies, who, unlike the Obama administration, has asked for the intelligence to show him the evidence backing Obama’s remarks on Russia. Clearly he is not allowing his political rivals to occupy his mind vis-à-vis Russia to prevent him from improving US-Russia relations.
“Improvement in the current state of US-Russia relations is precisely what the Obama administration doesn’t want to see happening after their departure from the White House. There ‘game plan’, as one observer has aptly put, is to lay down the trajectory for the US-Russia relationship even beyond Obama’s presidency. While Obama’s exhortation to come to the barricades to confront Russia may not appeal the US allies (read: the EU has not decided to extend its sanctions on Russia), he may be able to construct a strategic environment and consolidate a strong domestic opinion by using his political capital among the elites and within the intelligence, military and foreign-policy establishment that might militate against any attempt by Trump to improve relations with Russia.”
Russia Retaliates through non-retaliation
By Salman Rafi Sheikh
http://journal-neo.org/2017/01/08/russia-retaliates-through-non-retaliation/
I have never seen so many PUTIN LOVING comments on a FAKE NEWS site like CONSORTIUMNNEWS. COMRADE TRUMPKIN is loving your adulation of his LYING, THIEVING, BULLYING, and BACKSTABBING agenda, not to mention those of His GREED GRABBING Cabinet. Welcome to the propaganda machine of TRUMPLANDISTAN!
C Smith comments like your comment here work well on Huffington Post, but here on consortiumnews we like to aire our opinions armed with facts. No one here requires you to agree with anything or anyone here who post comments, but comments like yours have no effect on anyone, if facts and references to your thoughts are not provided. So have at it again, but this time write something intelligent enough so that we may all debate you. No one is back stabbing or bullying, we are all good Americans as well, we do love our country just as much as you do. Again consortiumnews is not HuffPo.
C Smith: There is an old saying that remains valid: “What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong.” What is wrong is the propaganda coming out of the mainstream corporate media. If you paid more attention to the articles and comments on Consortium News you will find a considerable preponderance of the content is in opposition to corporate media and their dishonest reporting and commentaries. Other than comments acknowledging Putin was right when he was perceived as being right, I can’t recall any “Putin-loving comments” from any authors or others making comments. Can you cite any examples for your accusations? Check a few back articles. You might learn something – if you are open to ideas other then your own. Try clicking on the tag for “Valdimir Putin” at the end of the lead article for this post.
Really, C Smith, you might benefit from a thorough course in reading comprehension. But then that would require some comprehension on your part. The comments section of this site predominantly reflects informed and studied thinking. A depth of historical knowledge and understanding, plus the ability to communicate that understanding, is also a hallmark of many a fine commentary found on his site.
Your idea that Trump’s “agenda” (much of which is unclear, unsaid, or otherwise inarticulated) is a subject of our “adulation” is inaccurately laughable. Although it is true that a reasoned and ethical approach in regard to international relations is supported on this site, that does not equate to the emotionally-laden accusations you put forth.
C Smith – another Correct the Record employee? Where is the evidence? Show me the evidence. You’ve added nothing.
Don’t you know, capitalizing random words makes what you say automagically true….
On Nov. 8, America as a whole, 306-232, overwhelmingly said “Enough!” to far-left-liberal and politically correct Obama, Hillary, and the lies and distortions of their biased media propagandists. Trump is simply saying he’d still have won without whatever Russia actually did. The left is trying to distract from the reality that THEY LOST and are INCREASINGLY LOSING the support of Americans who finally see, like in the fairy tale, that current emperor Obama is wearing no clothes yet claims to be well-dressed.
Clinton and Obama are right wing. Left is something completely different. Sanders was a centrist. Left would be the Greens and actual socialists (i.e. Socialist Alternative in Seattle.)
The actual Left has known Obama to be a right-wing pretender for a long time.
To be Left, one must oppose Capitalism, as Capitalism is a right wing ideology.
I get hung up reading all the comments, a tiny minority flaky but most prescient and informative, and things come to mind.
One how many smart and informed people care and are alarmed at out government’s behavior and its control over our media. How many others are out there who are as smart and informed?
Two, more people should read RT. I don’t read it frequently enough. It spends little time on demonization of Putin by the West and has some informative stuff. You find that Putin is head and shoulders above Western politicians by refusing to engaged in tawdry name calling. And you find out he is smart and joining him on problems of terrorism, the drug trade, and other projects of mutual concern would be positive.
Three, spending too much time on defending accusations of hacking plays into the agenda of those who see Russia as a danger to their enterprises, whether it be military aggression and profiteering, control of international banking or destroying viable and non-compliant governments. It plays into their agenda and they are great liars and ad hominem attackers. Attacking them as hypocrites when it comes to hacking isn’t even going to be acknowledged.
Four, great site. At eighty two, I still learn a lot.
Herman – good post. “And you find out he is smart and joining him on problems of terrorism, the drug trade, and other projects of mutual concern would be positive.”
It certainly would be positive. The only problem is that “terrorism” and the “drug trade” are where our elite make their real money. And if provoking other countries doesn’t result in terrorism, why, we just invent terrorism with false flag events. These guys have gotten filthy rich off terrorism (arms dealers/weapons manufacturers/bankers/security contractors). And our bought-and-paid-for politicians love it because they have a steady flow of campaign contributions coming in from these elite, plus scared citizens who keep voting them in under the assumption that they will be protected by these politicians. Terror and chaos keep citizens in line, while enriching the elite.
Eleanor Roosevelt said: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” There are a heck of a lot of “small minds” in the U.S. That’s evident by the amount of people who follow the Kardashians, Paris Hilton, whoever. They are not stupid, just not being provided with the information they need. Of course, the media AND the elite desperately want to keep them that way. They do NOT want informed citizens. If Kim Kardashian ever started tweeting about what’s really going on out there (if she ever got informed herself), the media and TPTB would fry her so fast; she’d be gone. No, they use these celebrity people to distract and keep the people simple.
If the “small minds” slowly started to get tiny bits and pieces of opposing information, you’d see something magical happen. If they ever got a whiff of what’s really going on, they’d run with it. The media, celebrity personalities, politicians are stepping up to make sure that that doesn’t happen.
Herman, all we can do is talk to as many people as we can, tell them to read this site and others like it, try to inform them in simple terms (at first). Cheers.
all the hot-air and bullshit about russia is a cover for
1. ukrainians in league with the neo-con nuland crowd in the government and the dnc Why Crowdstrike’s Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear, Did a Ukrainian University Student Create Grizzly Steppe? and
2. the real, bona fide foreign government that has suborned our own, not in the shadows, but in broad daylight ; isreal.
the demoblicans and republicrats together chant ‘don’t let them look at you, don’t let them look at me, let them look over there, behind that bushy tree!’
check out al jazeera’s investigative reporting in britain Astonishing undercover video captures Israel plot to ‘take down’ Tory minister, and tell me that’s not exactly what’s been going on in the usa … now at 3.8 billion a year … for decades.
the foreign government that’s ‘hacked’ the usa is israel. everyone knows it. no one mentions it. that’s how complete the ‘hack’ job is. who said “who are you ruled by? look to those who are you not allowed to criticize?”
“The russians are coming! the Russians are coming!” … 1966. dig it up and watch it. it’s the antidote for this tnc msm cia poison. been there, done that, fifty years ago. exactly.
Wow! Thanks for the links to those two articles about Ukrainian involvement in all of this. This totally supports the theory that any hacks that were done were done by Ukrainian hackers working to frame Russia for them.
I urge everyone here to read those two articles! The author provides direct evidence that persons involved in both CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party are directly connected to radical, ultra-nationalist Ukrainians who in turn have direct connection to actual sophisticated Ukrainian hackers who speak Russian and hate Russia.
Compared to the flimsy “evidence” produced connecting these hacks to Russia, these articles provide much more direct evidence of Ukrainian involvement.
Which came first: the chicken or the egg? It may be easier for presidents when the intelligence agencies generate “intelligence” congruent with what presidents want to do. Or, in more notorious vernacular, when intelligence agencies “fix the intelligence around the policy”. But as Vitaly Churkin asked about the American policy in Syria, “Who’s in charge?” is still rather a mystery. George “Slam Dunk” Tenet was a Clinton appointee. Everything that happened after Clinton left office had been set in motion long before Bush took the reins. A sweeping view of the past twenty years does not seem to indicate any major policy shifts. PNAC and the Wolfowitz Doctrine were still “living documents”. Timelines matter. The timeline and critical events DO NOT, except for a few “bumps in the road”, suggest that The President controls the narrative or the policy. One such “bump” was the reluctance to respond to the Syrian “red line” gas attacks. But there was little public support, the British were opposed, and establishing a legitimate rationalization under any semblance of international law would have been an obvious contrivance. The military community was obviously hesitant to go out on a limb when they could not entertain the prospect of a heroic outcome. Then, we have Gareth Porter’s rendition of the events at Deir Ezzor. Harrigan attacked Syrian Army positions which could not have been mistaken unless either outright incompetence or unadulterated mutiny are contemplated, According to Porter, Kerry was “grilled for hours” by Carter after coming to an agreement to cooperate with the Russians. The putative motive for Harrigan’s attack was retribution for a Russian attack on CIA backed jihadi rebels. Carter is supposed to work for The President, and as Commander in Chief, Harrigan’s actions are either a reflection of The President’s wishes or they are not. Carter is not an essential link in the “chain of command”. Yet, Carter’s and Harrigan’s actions, at least on the surface, ABSOLUTELY reflect the interests of the intelligence community. The “Manchurian Candidate” hypothesis when viewed in light of these facts becomes plausible. The “intelligence community” appears more often than not to set both the policy and the facts to music, conduct the orchestra, and regulate the applause. If Kerry got “grilled” and failed to say, “Look here, jackass, I work for The President”, then I can hardly believe the chicken came before the egg.
I’ve always wanted to know who gave Obama orders to sack the relatively dovish Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense and replace him with the ultra-hawkish neocon Ash Carter? What won’t Obama do to keep Hillary Clinton and John McCain happy? Is he their commander-in-chief or their gopher?
This is why having a tweeter account could prove to be a most valuable asset. I say this, because over the last eight years I have often thought to how Obama should have taken his case to the American public. Now by the looks of it, this is exactly what Donald Trump will be doing in order to override the spook establishment, who deserve to be put in their place. Trump’s best ally will be found amongst the American people, if he can rally us to his side of his foreign policy agenda.
The one thing Trump will need to be cautious over, is that he doesn’t suffer the same fate as John F Kennedy did when he tried to reach out for Russian détente. Ike had the U2 incident to have his dream of détente with Russia crushed, so which will it be for the Donald? After demolishing a bunch of Republican presidential candidates, and after throwing Jeb and Hillary a good bye party, will our tweeter president be able to reject the NeoNuts who have ruined this country’s image, and killed so many innocents along the way as well?
Old school “intelligence community” agencies once suffered the indignities of supplying “magic bullets” and “magic passports” to plug enormous plot holes in “regime change” narratives, both foreign and domestic.
New school “intelligence community” agencies have outsourced the indignities to digital “magic passport” suppliers like CrowdStrike and virtual “magic missile” launderers like Bellingcat.
Apropos chickens and eggs:
On February 18, 1976, President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905, which established policy guidelines and restrictions for individual intelligence agencies, and clarified intelligence authorities and responsibilities.
George H. W. Bush was given 90 days to implement the new order, which called for a major reorganization of the “intelligence community” and firmly stated that intelligence activities could not be directed against American citizens.
Unlike the farces and comedies that characterized US “intelligence community” activities up to that point, the post-Church Committee era was supposed to introduce a new level of gravitas.
Bush’s tenure the Director of Central Intelligence (January 30, 1976 – January 20, 1977) inaugurated an “Annie Hall” era of “intelligence community” activities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-M3Q2zhGd4
Over two decades later, dramatic “attacks” on the Pentagon and World Trade Center ushered a long-planned “Homeland Security” reorganization of the “intelligence community” under President George W. Bush.
Porter J. Goss as the final Director of Central Intelligence (September 24, 2004 – April 21, 2005) and the first dual Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Director of National Intelligence (April 21, 2005 – May 26, 2006) inaugurated a “Revenge of the Sith” era of robot chickens and cybernetic eggs.
Today’s science fiction “intelligence community” activities still feature that schmaltzy 1946 Guy Lombardo number:
“Making dreams come true, doing things we used to do
Seems like old times being here with you”
natoistan – that’s quite the list. No stone left unturned.
It is getting very, very scary based on this warning issued on MSNBC Rachel MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/schumer-trump-being-really-dumb-to-fight-with-intel-agencies-847022147815SNBC
And Rachel Maddow is really pushing the buttons!
there is an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to US involvement in overthrowing foreign regimes. Here are just the examples since World War II (* indicates successful ouster of a government)
China 1949 to early 1960s
Albania 1949-53
East Germany 1950s
Iran 1953 *
Guatemala 1954 *
Costa Rica mid-1950s
Syria 1956-7
Egypt 1957
Indonesia 1957-8
British Guiana 1953-64 *
Iraq 1963 *
North Vietnam 1945-73
Cambodia 1955-70 *
Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
Ecuador 1960-63 *
Congo 1960 *
France 1965
Brazil 1962-64 *
Dominican Republic 1963 *
Cuba 1959 to present
Bolivia 1964 *
Indonesia 1965 *
Ghana 1966 *
Chile 1964-73 *
Greece 1967 *
Costa Rica 1970-71
Bolivia 1971 *
Australia 1973-75 *
Angola 1975, 1980s
Zaire 1975
Portugal 1974-76 *
Jamaica 1976-80 *
Seychelles 1979-81
Chad 1981-82 *
Grenada 1983 *
South Yemen 1982-84
Suriname 1982-84
Fiji 1987 *
Libya 1980s
Nicaragua 1981-90 *
Panama 1989 *
Bulgaria 1990 *
Albania 1991 *
Iraq 1991
Afghanistan 1980s *
Somalia 1993
Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
Ecuador 2000 *
Afghanistan 2001 *
Venezuela 2002 *
Iraq 2003 *
Haiti 2004 *
Somalia 2007 to present
Honduras 2009
Libya 2011 *
Syria 2012
Ukraine 2014 *
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-07/russians-mock-charge-they-helped-trump-win-obama-undermined-us-democracy-not-moscow
Never use the word “regime”. US Gov and Western media use it as a pejorative, to ‘convince’ you that regime change is needed.
The 25 page report has little to do with the real issue(s) at hand here. The elephant in the room is the Western Occidents’ fiat currency system, the International Monetary Fund- IMF, World Bank Group-WBG and the collapse of those fundamental concepts that lie beneath a dismantled Bretton Woods system. For example; a return to fixed or pegged exchange rates, the ongoing attempts to foster a competitive devaluation of non-participating currencies of BRIIC nations, in other words, those sovereign countries that would resist global inflationary fluctuations. The frictions between the first and second worlds, following the 1973 “Nixon Shock” announcement, translated into a USA that would gradually deplete our Fort Knox Gold stores, representing two thirds of the worlds gold (circa 1955), and float the dollar’s value based on oil. ASIDE: [I’d like to believe Karen Hudes’ statement concerning the Bank Of Hawaii, storing more gold in it, than the rest of the entire world’s stockpile, however I’m quite sure that our Jesuit friends saw to it that such a statement would never become a reality] In essence, convertibility of a commodity, Gold stands out as the fundamental issue at hand. The BRIIC’s want a fixed, not a floating currency, OR at the very least, a specific value attached to a basket of various paper monies within their own banking circles. Following the collapse of the USSR, the Russian people experienced incredible suffering; there were mass starvation s of the retired as well as young, drug addicted and or unemployed, sudden reductions in life expectancy, dropping to as low as 56 years of age, a complete collapse of pension systems and the like. Putin is not about to fall in with, or obey the dictates of, an ever weakening Western Occident fiat currency system and their associated bankers-not for a moment! Brexit shows that Brittan too, will retreat back to a fixed value, based on the historic bond between Silver and the British Pound once it eventually returns to a commodity money.
Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that all 4 recently testified spook chiefs are correct (add here heads of “17 intelligence agencies” who joined the choir) and Putin personally ordered the hack and that the hack took place and that presumably highly secure networks were penetrated and information was extracted.
Doesn’t that mean that 4 spook chiefs’ management was total failure and absolute incompetence as they were/are responsible for securing those top secret networks ? Why wouldn’t they resign effective immediately – they publicly, in televised form admitted that they are total fools ?
They themselves just handed to Trump the reason to fire them all on 01/21/2017. And to start cleaning up top echelons of all “17 intelligence agencies” ASAP.
Moreover, they submit as “evidence” that “Putin did it” by noting celebration of Trump’s win amongst Russian officials in their personal communications. Doesn’t that imply their spying on the Russians? Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? If they are justified in hacking emails or phone calls, are the Russians not equally entitled? Or is that an official privilege of only “exceptional” countries?
Remember when (the date) Hil. Clin. and DNC stuff laptops and smartphones were destroyed? Much later than Assange began leaking but before hearings and before FBI came to their offices with subpoena And by the way perv A. Weiner laptop contained copy of the leaked e-mails (confirmed by FBI chief who said that they found copies of emails leaked by Assange on that l.t. hard drive), thus no need to penetrate/hack anything at all, Given all the above it looks like spooks just cover their complete professional incompetence as a side job (the main job is pushing Trump into a corner and creating a new anti-Russian hysteria). If one starts to carefully (taking in consideration exact dates/timeline) piece all parts of the story together, it starts stinking more and more – and a picture of Big Lie starts coming through clearer and clearer.
“Moreover, they submit as “evidence” that “Putin did it” by noting celebration of Trump’s win amongst Russian officials in their personal communications.”
If this is the way the intelligence community assigns guilt then what about the Israeli group celebrating and high fiving after the 9/11? Why didn’t they accuse Israel for 9/11?
I usually agree with this site. This is not the case here. The ” shadow of a doubt ” does not apply in the spy game. We are hacking them , they hack back. Prove they aren’t and I will eat potatoes for 5 months. The Russian hackers were messing with sites that were involved in our election news and more. That is a fact. So was The MSM of America. Face the fact that hacking is the new war tool. We are all hacking!
Douglass Colbert – no one is disputing that. Hacking is the new spying; everybody is hacking everybody else. Agreed. Even Russia gets hacked.
“Responding to Friday’s report, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it “rubbish,” adding: ‘Every day Putin’s website gets attacked by several tens of thousands of hackers. A lot of these attacks are traced to the territory of the USA, but we do not blame the White House or Langley each time.'”
What we ARE disagreeing with is what the intelligence community (without providing any evidence) is saying, that Russia provided Wikileaks with the DNC/Podesta emails. We are saying that there is no evidence of this. In fact, Craig Murray, former British ambassador, has stated on record that HE flew to Washington, D.C. and received the DNC emails from an “insider”. Craig Murray then gave this information to Wikileaks. Both Julian Assange and Craig Murray are saying that the DNC emails were “leaked”, not “hacked. The insider could very well have been the 27 year-old Seth Rich who was murdered in Washington, D.C. in July of 2016, shot in the back of the head, execution-style.
As William Binney (who worked for NSA for 36 years) and Ray McGovern (who worked for CIA for 27 years) said in their article yesterday: “With respect to the alleged interference by Russia and WikiLeaks in the U.S. election, it is a major mystery why U.S. intelligence feels it must rely on “circumstantial evidence,” when it has NSA’s vacuum cleaner sucking up hard evidence galore. What we know of NSA’s capabilities shows that the email disclosures were from leaking, not hacking.”
In fact, the FBI didn’t even take possession of the DNC servers. Why is that?
The NSA has all of the information. If the intelligence community had any evidence that it was the Russians who provided the emails, it’d be all over every major newspaper by now. They don’t have the evidence because these emails were “leaked” by insiders, not “hacked”, and they know it!
Precisely so, Backwardsevolution. Moreover, the Dems and the Spooks purposely want the gullible public to conflate the hacking of some DNC & Podesta emails with (as they repeatedly word it) the “hacking of the American election.” They want you to believe (without explicitly saying so) that the Russians doctored the vote tally and stole the election from Hillary, something everyone should know is impossible, unless you can lay hands directly on the voting machines or their peripherals. That is the only way your vote can be “stolen.” If you based you vote on additional true information from leaked emails, it was not “stolen,” it was simply more “educated.” And, that’s a good thing, no? Or, does Hillary claim to have an absolute right to hide all her personality and character flaws?
I’ll tell you what “does not apply” in either the hacking or intelligence game: Occam’s Razor. The notion that the simplest answer is usually the correct on does not apply here. In both hacking and intelligence, there is so much misdirection, obfuscation and manipulation that nothing can be ruled out.
All hackers above the category of “script kiddie” spend great effort to conceal their origins and the origins of their malware or other hacking tools. EVERYTHING so far publicly described in the “evidence” has been of the type that are routinely “spoofed” by hackers when conducting an operation.
What this means is that NONE of the evidence so far presented publicly proves that the alleged hackers were even Russians, let alone that the Russian government was involved. And ALL of the PREVIOUS evidence linking the alleged APT groups to the Russian government is of similarly flimsy quality.
As an example, one item cited as “evidence” is that the compile times of some of the malware found agree with “Russian business hours.” If you will look at the time zone maps, you will see that Moscow, Russia, is a mere one hour ahead of Kiev, Ukraine. There are many Ukraine hackers, some of whom no doubt speak Russian, some of whom no doubt do not like Russia, and who would have every motivation to fake Russian involvement in these hacks in order to stir up trouble for Russia. This is an obviously logical possibility that it seems everyone has willfully ignored.
Another example that reinforces this possibility is that the PHP malware found happens to be of openly and provably Ukrainian origin, and is open source, i.e., available to anyone who is aware of it.
The fact that there is every bit as much circumstantial evidence to link someone in Ukraine to these hacks as to link Russians proves that the Russian charge is politically motivated.
“If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth”. —- Leo Straus.
Bur what we realize regarding this is irrelevant. The well-read and well-educated people like us are not the targets of the Big Lie. The real targets are vulnerable to repeated lies. Quoting Hitler’s Mein Kampf, the people being targeted are those who “in the primitive simplicity of their minds …more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
Do not be mistaken. No matter how ridiculous their lies may seem to us, the Big Lie works. That’s why they continue to tell it over and over undaunted, no matter how foolish it may look to us, even if we know it doesn’t make it the truth. They’re appealing to the Mark Dice crowd. https://youtu.be/y8unYYxjTu4
Remember that early on RT was endorsing Bernie. If the race had been between Bernie and Trump this all would have been different story. Surely RT would carry on backing Bernie but then who would be squawking? The Republicans, probably, but the Dems wouldn’t look as silly as they do today.
Nixon sabotaged the 1968 election by violating the Logan Act; Reagan, Mumbles Casey, George HW Bush, Robert Gates, and Donald Gregg went so far as to ensure that American hostages in Iran wouldn’t be released until the exact moment of Reagan’s inauguration; George W. Bush’s cousin, John Ellis, as in John Ellis Bush, JEB for short, threw the election results in Florida in doubt resulting in the selection of Bush by the Supreme Court using the 14th amendment as cover. There’s more proof for all of the above actions by GOP operatives than exists for the claim that Putin and Russian security people hacked this election.
Maybe the American electorate is just sick to death of Clintonian hubris and sense of entitlement. The betrayal of the middle class by Bubba and his DLC deserved to be punished way before this election. There are children going hungry and living in poverty thanks to Clinton’s reform of welfare and we are drowning in b*llsh*t news thanks to his failure to veto the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that gave us Fox news.
Go back to Arkansas, you thieves and stop polluting American politics.
Excellent point on how the Clintons’ own deeds have come back to bite them in the ass… but Clintons will be Clintons, as they look to blame someone else.
Poverty and hungry children. THIS is inevitably what happens when, as Clinton said, the era of big government is over, and when Reagan said government is the problem, not the solution. It was just so much bs to hand government over to one-percenters, the Managerial Elite. One can say the main theme of our Country, for the last 35 years has been “The Rise of the Managerial Elite” ( at everyone else’s expense).
The January 6, 2016 report from the Office of the US Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections” https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf is noteworthy due to the fact that the word “evidence” appears nowhere in the report.
Described as a declassified version of a “highly classified assessment” that does not include “full supporting information on key elements” of the alleged influence campaign, the ODNI assessment report claims without evidence that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”
After a 5-page proverbial laundry list of “Key Judgements” based on “CIA/FBI/NSA Assessment” of alleged influence efforts, we arrive at the “declassified” version of a clincher: 6-page Annex A detailing the evil machinations of RT America which clearly reflect “Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order”.
Russia is clearly attempting to influence US politics by reporting the news. And we can’t have that.
ODNI allegations of cyber activity trace back to CrowdStrike, an American cybersecurity technology firm based in Irvine, California
Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and chief technology officer of CrowdStrike, is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council “regime change” think tank.
Alperovitz, quoted frequently as the main source of the Russian hacker/Trump “compromised” story, has said that Crowdstrike has “high confidence” it was “Russian hackers”.
“But we don’t have hard evidence,” Alperovitch said in a June 16 Washington Post article.
Allegations of Russian perfidy are routinely issued by private companies with lucrative US Department of Defense (DoD) contracts. The companies claiming to protect the nation against “threats” have the ability to manufacture “threats”.
The notion that US and NATO cyber operations are purely defensive is a myth.
The US and UK possess elite cyber capabilities for both cyberspace espionage and offensive operations.
Both the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) are intelligence agencies with a long history of supporting military operations. US military cyber operations are the responsibility of US Cyber Command, whose commander is also the head of the NSA.
US offensive cyber operations have emphasized political coercion and opinion shaping, shifting public perception in NATO countries as well as globally in ways favorable to the US, and to create a sense of unease and distrust among perceived adversaries such as Russia and China.
The Snowden revelations made it clear that US offensive cyber capabilities can and have been directed both domestically and internationally.
Recent US domestic cyber operations have been used for coercive effect, creating uncertainty and concern within the American government and population.
The perception that a foreign attacker may have infiltrated US networks, is monitoring communications, and perhaps considering even more damaging actions, can have a disorienting effect.
US offensive cyber warfare operations work in tandem with aggressive US and NATO propaganda efforts against governments that fail to cooperate with Washington’s diktats.
This Putin Putin Putin farce looks like OJ In reverse:
Despite evidence of OJ’s guilt up the wazoo, the jury brought their not guilty verdict with them into the courthouse from the first day before that goofy Judge Ito even gaveled the court to order.
With the current Putin Did It case, in the face of lies up the wazoo and not a scintilla of evidence or proof being presented by the “Intelligence (duh!) Community”, the jury of political establishment fools and useful idiots are screaming “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!”
As the sagacious Mark Twain once observed: “A lie gets half-way around world the before the truth can even get its boots on!”
And in the matter of the odious Hillary Clinton losing the election, cui bono? America!!
I have no doubt, that the DNC emails were indeed hacked, but to infer, that Putin must have done it, is reckless.
To use as corroborating evidence, that some Russian officials rejoiced at Trump’s victory is absurd, Why would they not prefer a candidate who has declared, that he would promote a detente rather than war.
Somebody is clinging to straws, to make us believe something for which they have absolutely no evidence
“The Faking Establishment and Its Fake News Media”
…
Despite the lack of “supporting evidence,” the air waves, the newspapers and all other sources of the faking establishment are all parroting that Vladimir Putin “won” the American election for Donald Trump. The parroting chatter is all over the “news” world, though some thinking people are calling it bird poop….
[read more at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/01/the-faking-establishment-and-its-fake.html
The DNI report says, “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”
Listen to what Obama says, but then watch what he does, and get a different message than what we are being inundated with. ‘Sanctioning’ Russia by sending diplomats home for Christmas to celebrate Christmas with their families, and, in effect, telling other diplomats the equivalent to ‘no outside recess for you for a month’ – these are more a message to our own deep-state playbook operatives to turn the page, in my opinion, than a willingness to go off the deep end with Clinton et al. But when it was time for the military, seriously, to listen to the Commander in Chief, and not upset the Syria cease fire hammered out by Kerry and Lavrov, the USAF with Ash Carter’s evident backing, ‘mistakenly’ attacked the Syrian Army at Deir Azor,
And this says something very worrying about the increased power, treasonously grabbed, by the Neocon/Clinton/McCain Cabal.
PE Trump was not their man. Will he be even as effective as Obama has been in the face of massive media complicity in trumpeting the ascendency & ‘truth’ of the Treason Party?
Well if all the former presidents attending the Jan 20 inaugaration had their invisible horns drawn in we would see where we’re at today. Oboma picked up reagen’s book and threw away roosevelt, lincoln, and martin luther king. He took pride in his drone attacks and some have falsely accused mother russia of cyber attack an act of war–perhaps o bomb a wants to send a drone to putin. He thought nothing to put sanctions on mother russia and make the russian people suffer because he supported the wall street coup in ukraine and didn’t understand russia wanting to keep crimea—actually he does understand–it’s his fluttering his satan’s wings wanting crimea to be owned by wall street. His last reagen stampede was the tpp…sending more jobs to overseas–people began to see that clinton and oboma aren’t true democrats-that oboma always smiling ear to ear and spent most of time on vacation will seek out his millions and his billion dollar library—the ronald wilson reagen 666 programs are going forward—the republicans are trying to reaganize trump on foreign policy as appears they have succeeded where the tax cuts beneficiaries will be the rich and the trump business empire as he surrounds himself with billionairs and having goldman sachs run the treasury dept.
The link to my above post is here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4092222/New-questions-arise-FBI-probe-Russian-election-year-hacking-s-revealed-never-asked-examine-Democratic-Party-s-server.html
Just came home from an excellent restaurant where I was sitting at a table adjacent to three women carrying on about Obama’s alleged falsified past–you know, the birtherism hypothesis in spades, the whole narrative about his “communist” roots, secret past, contrived credentials, Islamic allegiances, hatred of whites, etc.
Then it struck me, the Democrats are confabulating the equivalent counter narrative about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which is just as fanciful and absurd as what the tea baggers floated about, the admittedly incompetent, Obama for eight years. It further struck me that American politics and governance in general are totally divorced from the real world. Whatever factions influence the voting habits of the “bases” have nothing whatever to do with the needs of the people, justice, freedom, democracy, civil rights, peace on earth or even honesty and decency. We are all simply lied to, manipulated and victimized repeatedly for the benefit of a tiny population of wealthy and powerful people whose names we mostly do not even know.
Don’t get me wrong, I always knew the fascistic right was part of this juggernaut. It just pains me to know that the liberal left, whom I have supported most of my life, is made up of the same lowlifes, protecting the same prerogatives for the same miniscule population of subhuman slimeballs, and that they have as little respect for the truth and honorable behaviour as the wings nuts they incessantly condemn. I guess this misappraisal of the left persisted longer than for the right because they have simply lagged in their degree of utter shamelessness, which I can tell you now matches and maybe even surpasses that of the righties, or maybe it’s the always suspected but now confirmed certainty that both wings of a single political cartel (as Gore Vidal described the reality decades ago) are so desperate with the ascendance of an actual outsider to the White House that they are joining hands and dispensing bipartisan obstructionism in every form possible.
Now both “sides” are seen concocting any insane narrative to justify their ruthless grasp for power and fortune. None of it has to make sense or seem rational. It only needs be asserted with authority and repeated endlessly. Now the entrenched elite are setting the stage for a slow-motion coup. Time will only tell what mechanism that will take. I suppose that will depend on how successful Trump can be in improving the lot of the average voter and arriving at peaceful settlements to all of the intentionally instigated conflicts bequeathed by his three or four immediate predecessors. To succeed, Trump will need defenders of liberty, truth and fair play in his government, in the congress, in the media, and in the electorate. What depresses me is that all I see in those arenas are cowards who are happy to embrace group think and tyranny to preserve their own privileges… the same sort of folks who chose Barabbas over the alternative.
brilliant commentary, congratulations — and particularly appropriate when you speak of the insane ‘unreality’ created by both wings of the one-party cartel (and how we miss Gore Vidal!). Thank you for articulating this so eloquently.
I suspect they’ve always been “one cartel”; two in name only. They allow the peasants to fight it out over things like gun control, civil rights, legalization of drugs, multiculturalism, immigration, special bathrooms, gay rights, blah, blah. They don’t really care, so long as the above doesn’t touch their neighborhoods or cut into their lifestyle.
It’s healthy for the left to be finally showing their colors, tantrums and all. No one ever thought ill of them. After all, the “left” were always for the “good”, weren’t they? Just like most people never thought ill of Obama, because he was black, and no black man was going to hurt the country, or so people thought. They gave him a pass. Well, the ugliness is out there now!
And Michelle Obama saying, “Now we’re feeling what not having hope feels like,” and she’s referring to Trump. Hey, lady, what hope did your sorry husband bring? Nada. Are these people delusional, or what? Like it’s been great?
People need to realize that the “less” government you have (providing there’s good laws and regulations in place for banking, etc.), the better. The Federal Government is far too big and way too powerful. Time to decentralize and take your power back. You let these guys have power like this, you’re toast.
In fact, Trump is your LAST chance. Where is the glue that holds the country together? All I see are factions, interest groups, screaming little babies who are pulling the country apart.
Your last sentence is what RESULTS from a weak, decentralized Government, which hasn’t seen its strong days since JFK/LBJ.This was also Hamilton’s rebuke to Jefferson;a retreat into your Baronial plantations is EXACTLY what the Imperial Superpower sailing off our coast in mighty fleets, wants us to do, leaving strong government to THEM. In our present case, strong government will default to the Mangerial Elite of transnational corporations and banks, not even necessarily American citizens,who are only concerned with the bottom lines of their special interests that are neatly bundled up in their Portfolios, if we pursue a policy of weak decentralized government.
The FBI never requested access to the DNC’s computer servers! Why not?
David Martosko, U.S. Political Editor for dailymail.com, said on January 5, 2017:
“The FBI never asked the Democratic National Committee if it could examine a computer server that was the subject of cyber attacks last year.
Instead federal law enforcement relied on data that, Crowdstrike, a private computer security company, gathered from the device. […]
‘The DNC had several meetings with representatives of the FBI’s Cyber Division and its Washington Field Office, the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, and U.S. Attorney’s Offices, and it responded to a variety of requests for cooperation,’ DNC deputy communications director Eric Walker told BuzzFeed, ‘but the FBI never requested access to the DNC’s computer servers.’
Trump’s incoming press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on a Thursday morning conference call that ‘the DNC is on the record saying the FBI never contacted them to validate claims by Crowdstrike, which is the third-party tech security firm, and never actually requested the hacked server.’
‘You know, I would equate this to no one actually going to a crime scene to actually look at the evidence,’ Spicer declared.”
THE FACT;
CLAPPER SAYS: “THE OUTCOME OF ELECTIONS WAS NOT INFLUENCED AT ALL . VOTING SYSTEM WAS NOT HACKED OR ALTERED.”
TRUMP WON ACCORDING TO RULES OF ELECTORAL COLLEGE of deeply undemocratic and inherently riggable/rigged US electoral system [Primaries and GE] as much as I and millions others regret it this is the fact. However, in my eyes it does not make him a legitimate ruler or POTUS facing at least 180 millions of Americans who did not support him.
So what this is all about really because definitely not about some routine daily occurrence of hacking by Russians [state or private actors] or by Americans [state or private actors] or Israelis [state or private actors, Netanyahu hates Obama and Hillary is GOP supporter and has army of state hackers to do it] or Chinese or even about influencing of elections outcome since that was completely ruled out by Clapper himself?
So what this was all about? Something else completely.
This report was a mockery of a report, supposedly stemming from multi billion dollar US agency massive investigation and not from illiterate 14 years old adolescent lame hack using some obscured old software available to anyone on the dark web.
The baseless blatant accusation of anyone, such as those in the report, in such a revolting way would have been a troubling sign of a mental disorder of the accuser requiring immediate medical attention but the same paranoia stemming from high US intelligence officials who are too close to the push-button for nukes, is a horrifying realization what a nut cases, and that includes Obama, are running US government.
The foundation free, evidence free, rationale free and logic free and basic human decency free taxpayer paid expensive incoherent utterance called a intelligence report is stunning for one reason alone, namely being itself a direct proof of massive fraud of taxpayer money, all the security agencies involved themselves in stepping onto a criminal path of extortion and coercion of highest governmental institutions, international political provocation and blatant propaganda psy-op against US population resulting in a clear, present and immediate danger to the constitutional order, world peace and office of US presidency itself.
The so-called report can only be construed as nothing but another element of ongoing soft coup d’etat by security and intelligence agencies that derelict their duty to uphold constitution while being taken over by cross partisan mafia that corrupted them to political ends.
In a sense it is ironic but not unexpected that there is virtually nobody out there to defend a shadow of the American Republic torn apart to pieces in recent decades, there is no independent of political hackery democratic institution left, not democratic political movements, not elder statesmen or widely influential intellectualists, not fourth estate or mass media, not remaining democratic institutions, no civil rights organizations, no one but a LONE second grade entertainer from a obscured TV reality show: America you are fired dares to utter his pleas for sanity and peace.
This is sad testimony to the meaningless farcical spectacle the US political system [in itself a mystification put forward by old continuing Anglo American regime] has become hollowed decades ago and now vengeful political sludge is surfacing for everyone to see for its fragility, cheap opportunism, a sewage excretion of personal puny psychopathic insecurities of those who run it for power, profit and fame with no other political program, idea or thought behind it just lust and greed.
I remember back in 2003 when Michael Copps, FCC Commissioner was traveling around on his Democracy Tour to protest Michael Powell’s terrible Idea of deregulating the media, there was a total blackout of news coverage. The media knew they would make billions in mergers but they also knew a vast swath of the population hated the idea. They knew if the story got out, people would rebel so nothing leaked out. Then Congress massively overturned the deregulations enacted by FCC. By massive , it was HR: 400 to 21. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB105898005715206400 Even the politicians know the demon they have to deal with and they were not about to let that demon get any bigger or more monopolistic.
The media was also silent in both the Citizens United and McCutcheon vs. FEC SCOTUS rulings again because they knew they would make a killing off unlimited campaign donations but they also knew there would be a revolution if the story leaked out.
They even gave Donald Trump 3 billion in free advertising to get 3 billion actual dollars from 14 republican candidates and the Super PACs that represented them. It worked. Sorta. They got the money but the republicans got hosed. That’s why they’re trying to box Trump in on a whole bunch of stuff. He’s not like them. So they will turn him into a commie loving pinko while simultaneously flexing their enormous muscles to show Trump who is actually in charge.
James Comey must be breathing a deep sigh of relief now that his role in influencing the election is now perhaps not even on the list anymore.
As far as propaganda is concerned, you might say the fact that so much filtering and obvious censorship whether imposed upon the main stream media by external sources or whether done for selfish reasons or all of the above, it is obviously being done a lot.
Once you realize how much objective evidence for propaganda there is, the next logical conclusion is that you logically cannot believe anything they tell you unless it is provable and proven. So far the Russia election influencing allegations seem to be neither provable or proven.
Donald Trump’s take on the situation is very logical indeed as Mr. Spock would say. Live long and prosper!
BTW, the media also knows there is no law requiring them to tell you the truth. So do politicians. In fact they lie all the time.
Anybody looking for an honest politician in Washington should have their brain examined or at least proof of the existence of one.
Why are we so upset if Donald Trump says he doesn’t believe the CIA?
The same CIA that ginned up a war and fed us Chalabi’s lies? The same CIA that ignored foreign nationals in flight schools with no desire to learn how to land and warnings from FBI? The same CIA that got it all wrong in Ukraine and Syria?
My question would be why should he believe CIA? There is no evidence they ever get things right. It seems their only function is to mess things up. Oh wait, I forgot, that really is their only function. Silly me.
Trump is the only one with the balls to call it as he sees it. Apparently the rumors may be true! Their reaction? Apoplexy!
As for the Russians who have had to deal with all the CIA stuff forever, I can see how they would be pleased at the outcome of the election whether they participated in the outcome or not. Mere evidence of their pleasure means nothing. It implies by that standard that any foreign leader pleased by the election of Obama, like France must also be a secret influence of the outcome.
Finally, the absurdity at the top of the heap is all of the actual fake news foisted on us all by our own media. Blaming the Russians is the pot calling the kettle black. Perhaps we could take CIA seriously if they investigated our own home grown propaganda machine. Let’s clean up our own back yard before we go accusing others.
The United States is going to become the most hated and backward nation on the planet if we keep going. We need a space race not an arms race. We need a race to find solutions to looming destabilizing problems instead of creating them.
Plus all these “intelligence agencies” routinely do a super crappy job and never get punished for it. How is some nut job who turns himself in to the FBI saying that the government was trying to turn him into a terrorist able to get on a plane with a gun and ammo? It is an all too familiar pattern. All the warning signs are almost always there out in the open to the point where it looks like willful ignorance is the only excuse for failure. Russia warned our intel about the Boston bombers, we did nothing. The underpants bomber’s parents warned our intel and we did nothing. Some even suggest that the CIA might have been willing to let everyone on the plane die so as not to reveal their sources which would be the very not undercover parents of the terrorist.
I really can’t think of a single reason Donald Trump should believe anything they say.
His plans to shake that up are spot on IMHO.
But that is essentially what the U.S. intelligence community has done regarding the dangerous accusation that Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrated a covert information campaign to influence the outcome of the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election in favor of Republican Donald Trump.
Attention Democratic (?) National Committee: Perhaps you should hire Mr. Putin to run your campaign in 2020 if he was so skilled in determining the result of this past quadrennial presidential charade.
Mr. Bodden. Putin has more integrity than the Democratic National Committee. If he is Mr. Trump’s friend he will not accept this assignment.
This is an all out smear of Putin and Trump by the entire Western media, not merely the U.S. intelligence agencies. What is especially telling are the headlines used above every story on the matter: always very damning and provocative words that simply assume the allegations are true without a shred of evidence. Western journalism has now crawled down to the level of the Daily Rotten, and next they will be leading with headers of Putin and Trump eating babies stewed in a fine wine sauce.
Since the Daily Mail repeatedly blocks my attempt to post this criticism of their slanderous headlines, I’ll unburden myself of it here: “The American spy agencies still have NOT presented one iota of evidence that ANY hacking took place, let alone any hacking by any Russians. They only supply unfounded assertions based on supposed “facts” from anonymous sources they cannot divulge. So, why does DM persist in furnishing such misleading headlines to these stories? Why does DM selectively LEAVE OUT any of the testimony by known individuals who have stepped forward claiming the emails were sourced from LEAKS by Washington insiders? Obviously, DM is in on the conspiracy to damage Russia and Trump as much as the CIA, NYT and the WaPo.”
The $64 question is basically, why is the entire Western establishment, including our European “allies,” attempting to subvert the administration of the incoming American president even before he has taken the oath of office? Just how far do they plan to go to impede him and what will be the consequences? How can any good come of rending the American politic with dissension and recrimination? Who, really, is trying to destroy our country, and what are their plans for us once they succeed? The answer surely is NOT “Putin.”
Another excellent post, with which I completely agree. I really believe that the Elites are relentlessly pursuing policies that will strengthen their grip on power and the earth’s dwindling resources by engaging in endless war. I also think a few of them — who knows, maybe a majority? — are hell bent on achieving supremacy at any cost, and that they think money will buy them an oasis in a nuclear storm. They do NOT want peace or a multipolar world, nor do they want democracy. That the former ‘authorities’ of journalism like the Washington Post and the NY Times are now stooping to barely disguised stenography/propaganda is really an eye-opener. I still can’t believe it’s this bad, but I now know that it’s really even worse.
Who’s trying to destroy our Country? The same folks who have been trying to destroy/derail/recapture our Country since we declared independence from them. The rulers and owner/operators of Empire (and their Tory/Loyalists in our midst) NEVER want their subjugated colonials to break free and live life on their own; no more than a rancher wants his cattle to escape the pen and freely roam the plains like buffalo. We the people, ARE their wealth, their cattle, their chattel. I don’t mean to collar just the ruling class Brits, MANY European ruling class families are in on the looting operation that goes by the name “EMPIRE”. The single greatest threat to their looting operation comes from the possibility that we can become firm friends and allies with Russia, and cooperate with them AND the Chinese (who are onboard with this, believe-it-or-not) on the One Road/One Belt win-win policy now operating throughout the World. Indeed, USA, Russia, China working together is the needed basis for solving ALL the World’s problems, which will put an end to the afore-mentioned Looting Operation, AND its’ racketeers. Trump appears ready to take that path of cooperation for mutual benefit:the U.N. Route, INSTEAD of the path of self-advantage at any cost:the Empire Route. That’s what I think is going on, anyway.
Repeating an accusation over and over again is not evidence that the accused is guilty, no matter how much “confidence” the accuser asserts about the conclusion.
But like Israeli settlements in Palestine, repeating an accusation over and over again is a way of establishing “facts” on the ground.
““If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”” Joseph Goebbels
Mr. Parry, a very good article which has resulted in many intelligent comments and pertinent links. Have I lived long enough to see the results of this “great experiment with democracy”. At 71, only time will tell. As things seem to be going downhill at an ever accelerating rate, I just might make it!
My own intelligence leads me to believe that Democratic presedential Hillary Clinton purposely chose to use a server that could be hacked by Russian intelligence just in case she lost the election and would need someone to blame. I don’t have any other evidence, except for the fact that’s the way things panned out. Nevertheless, it seems to me that’s already a lot more evidence than US intelligence appears to have.
She was not thinking that far ahead. The server was for more simple nefarious purposes: to hide the fact from disclosure that she was using the State Department position to gain billions for her foundation.
How many times did they report the existence of Hussein’s WMD’s. Is that not enough to discredit anything they say?
Falsely repeating over and over that Hussein had weapons he did not have in order to rationalize starting an unprovoked war was criminal.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
and fool the American people over and over again and this nation is well into its decline and, absent a miracle, inevitable fall.
Darrell Issa: James Clapper lied to Congress about NSA and should be fired. … Last year at a hearing on surveillance, Sen. Ron Wyden asked Clapper whether the NSA collected “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans” — to which Clapper said “No, sir … not wittingly.”Jan 27, 2014
We don’t have to “assess” that Clapper is a liar; we have direct proof from his is own testimony before Congress. Why should we believe anything he says?
We don’t have to “assess” that Clapper is a liar; we have direct proof from his is own testimony before Congress. Why should we believe anything he says?
But at the senate armed services committee charade this week Chairman John McCain, sidekick Lindsey Graham, fellow warmonger Tom Cotton, right-wing groupie Claire McCaskill, and others were happy to take Clapper’s word anytime he said what they wanted to hear.
Scooter Libby was convicted of lying or making false statements to the federal investigators. James Clapper lied or made false statements to the senate committee under oath. Why didn’t he get fired and face perjury charges for lying under oath.
My guess is Clapper has the goods on more important people than Scooter does…just a guess.
Good, fair and reasonable article. From the beginning I thought the “Russia hacking” claim to be B.S. The American people deserve real evidence. The claim that real evidence can’t be given because it would expose confidential methods of obtaining that evidence is B.S. too. Translation: It might show that the U.S. plays dirty too.
It’s Americas youth that will be sent to battle if this whole thing escalates into a war with Russia, only to come back with missing limbs, mental issues or dead. I would not fight a war based on “we believe or asses that Russia….”. We need real proof! Finally, showing evidence doesn’t necessarily mean exposing how you got that evidence. It’s B.S. and the fact that our media to a large extent is playing along with it is disgusting!
While no one faces jail time, someone’s job may be at stake or worse. There are forms of reprisal that are just as bad or worse than jail time that can be applied to anyone who leaks information from almost anyplace. Whoever it was may not want to suffer those reprisals. Were I in Assange’s shoes in that situation, I would respect that person’s anonymity.
Besides, the content of the emails is the incriminating evidence and is of far greater concern than who leaked it. The argument over who hacked or leaked the emails is a red herring intended to deflect attention from the emails themselves. You would do better to spend more time reading the emails than quibbling about who hacked or leaked them.
Very true.
The sole story is that the Dems are controlled by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the MIC/WallSt!
Yet we also lack definitive evidence that the Democratic National Committee emails released by Wikileaks is, in fact, a leak.
We must keep in mind that the Democratic Party, like its Republican counterpart, is a 527 nonprofit organization and the DNC is merely its administrative bureau. So it is safe to say it is not, and never was, an official agency of the federal government, therefore no classified information was divulged. Moreover anyone who has dealt with the Democratic Party, even at the grassroots level as I, since 2000 intuitively knew what the contents of those emails might be without reading them!
And as Julian Assange associate, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray has related, he met with the leaker as late as September of last year. Therefore that rules out the late DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was killed July 10, 2016.
So unlike Chelsea Manning,who was snitched out by scumbag hacker Adrian Lamo, no faces prison for leaking the emails of a nonprofit organization.
Therefore all Assange et al need do is name names.
According to Assange, it is Wikileaks’ policy never to name names of sources, and the reasons for it are clear. Assange can’t do so without jeopardizing or drying up Wikileaks’ sources. So, that suggestion is a non-starter.
But who should care? The content of the material is ultimately what really matters, and all of this ‘Russian hacking’ nonsense is a conflated diversion from focusing on, and understanding the implications of the crimes and misdemeanors of the DNC, or for reforming the DNC and its practices.
“Murray said he retrieved the package from a source during a clandestine meeting in a wooded area near American University, in northwest D.C. He said the individual he met with was not the original person who obtained the information, but an intermediary.”
Read the whole article….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4034038/Ex-British-ambassador-WikiLeaks-operative-claims-Russia-did-NOT-provide-Clinton-emails-handed-D-C-park-intermediary-disgusted-Democratic-insiders.html
………………………………………………………………………….
Ernest your comment got me to doing some research regarding Craig Murray and the “leakers”. Anywhere Craig Murray references his dealings he had with the “whistleblowers” he speaks in the plural sense. Now the next thing to uncover is if Murray had had any meetings with these whistleblowers or whistleblower before the untimely death of Seth Rich. Granted the death of poor young Mr Rich is and may always be an unsolved mystery, but given the relationship Rich had to the DNC and with all of what is going on in our government blaming Russia this story needs further examination. Thanks for your reply Ernest, your questioning the timeline is invaluable considering the subject at hand.
Rich did the first DNC leak in June; the September thing presumably related to the Podesta files.
This whole Russia-things smells worse than the WMD lie back in 2001/2002. They are setting the stage for invalidating the elections and to either push for a new election or a coup-like transfer. And of course, it will all be justified as “according to the constitution” and for “restoring democracy”, probably even whitewashed through supreme court too. Does anyone believe anything the US government do or say anymore? And does anyone believe in that it is actually a democracy here and not a oligarchy?
To answer your last two questions : no.
Then we see the pious, sinister promise by Joe Biden to Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vui51VaDFlU
to retaliate covertly against Russia for “cyberwarfare” based on the phony “election interference” presumption. (If you knowingly tell a Big Lie, the most important thing is to pretend in every way to believe it yourself.)
So then recently a Russian military plane, carrying 92 people, crashed into the Black Sea bound for Syria with members of the famous Alexandrov military choir onboard. https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/dec/26/vladimir-putin-orders-investigation-into-plane-crash-video
Suspicious coincidence? Directed EMP weapon? Cyberwar retaliation? Effort to provoke Russian retaliation? Given the Biden threat, it’s certainly a possibility. Food for thought and grounds for further investigation.
This charge against Putin and Russia is almost laughable. The U.S. is recognized as a major player globally in espionage, subterfuge and dissembling. Is it even believable that incontrovertible proof of Russian malfeasance would generate a publicly stated condemnation? Wouldn’t sitting on this information and procuring pay-back be more in keeping with the customary methods of the National Security State? The neo-conservative core members of the two parties and the military appear to be doubling down on their Blame-Russia position. Not only does it sell a frightening proposition to the already cowering consumers of MSM, it neatly ties into their aggression against alternative media, and it delegitimizes the incoming president who appears set to work with Putin.
John
“…….This charge against Putin and Russia is almost laughable. The U.S. is recognized as a major player globally in espionage, subterfuge and dissembling. Is it even believable that incontrovertible proof of Russian malfeasance would generate a publicly stated condemnation? Wouldn’t sitting on this information and procuring pay-back be more in keeping with the customary methods of the National Security State?…….”
Well, I don’t think that chapter has been written yet in its entirety. According to Politico, (“Why Putin hates Hillary” http://politi.co/2a1BsRD):
“……….With the protesters accusing Putin of having rigged recent elections, the Russian leader pointed an angry finger at Clinton, who had issued a statement sharply critical of the voting results. “She said they were dishonest and unfair,” Putin fumed in public remarks, saying that Clinton gave “a signal” to demonstrators working “with the support of the U.S. State Department” to undermine his power. “We need to safeguard ourselves from this interference in our internal affairs,” Putin declared……..”
But Putin may have got his revenge on Hillary – and he is still working on Ukraine.
Just curious – why you keep posting all you nonsensical comments ?
Every single time you are asked to share information and/or source that could substantiate your statements, you fail.
Once again – can you share information that would prove that “he is still working on Ukraine” and that “Putin hates Hillary” (that is just genuine infantilism).
Jurgen, nice reply. If I were a Russian leader I would be accused of much more than just ‘working on’ Ukraine when it would come to protecting my homeland Mother Russia’s borders. What is always left out by the Western media is how NATO is arming up all along every countries borders who border with Russia. I by now if I were Putin may have already encroached to within the sovereign nation of Ukraine, and taken my military all the way up onto the steps of Kiev. This train of thought does prevail in some corners of the Russian hierarchy, but to date Putin has resisted it at every turn. Seriously people of the West should be praising Vladimir Putin for his restrain instead of demonizing him for what little to nothing he is being accused of doing….like hacking American elections, and stealing America’s democracy….no America Vlad didn’t steal our democracy Hillary & Company did!
Quantitative media watchers and political pollsters could do quantitative analysis on the following points:
1) The FBI made news stories linked to the potential for further investigation/charges against HRC for mishandling their precious secret stuff in the weeks immediately prior to the election…The impact of this story, somewhat amplified by fake news, and not completely debunked by election day, is likely to have had some meaningful impact on the polling. Discussion of that well-timed (or accidentally influential) meddling has gone completely quiet.
2) Several weeks ago, Trump made some comments to the effect that the absurdly overpriced and strategically useless Lockheed F-35 fighter was too expensive…
Then, suddenly, we saw wave after wave of govt. Spook and media mouthpieces popping out of the woodwork to whip up a frenzy over a fabricated non-true, non-story of Russian meddling and affecting the election outcome. The supposed event triggering this was touted as some new finding by the FBI or CIA, which we now see does not exist. The new finding is the threat that Trump isn’t listening to all their nonsense and might cut somebody’s overstuffed budget – something that is less likely to happen if the public is interested in manufactured tension with Russia.
The amount of lockstep zombie mainstream coverage of this sorry non-story is truly scary. Not so much for its potential effect on Russia or Trump, but simply for what it demonstrates about the extent to which the entire mainstream media, today, in 2016, is controllable as CIA propaganda operation. The Mighty Wurlitzer is very much alive and well today for CIA, happily parroting any black propaganda nonsense the CIA sees fit to use for deceiving the public.
excellent commentary, thank you
This past Tuesday Seth Rich would have celebrated his 28th birthday, but for this former DNC worker his celebration was not to be. Mr Rich’s brutal death on the streets of DC is hardly ever talked about especially never talked about by the MSM. The strangeness surrounding his being shot to death while walking home needs some serious investigation. As many of you here already know Rich wasn’t robbed he was just beat up, and then shot to death. Many believe Seth Rich may have been Craig Murray’s contact person regarding the Wikileaks acquiring the DNC files, that Assange published, and now is being blamed on the Russians for hacking those released DNC files.
Seth Rich’s murder could all but be a random murder by some unsavory creep of course, but his unfortunate demise could also be payback for his revealing the truth about the goings on of the corrupt DNC manipulations waged against the Sanders campaign, among the many other bits of information uncovered. This poor young man’s death should be investigated to the ends of us at least knowing what really happened here. If you don’t believe me then check out how Julian Assange feels about Seth Rich’s death, and then you tell me if Rich’s death matters or not to this ‘Leak’ or ‘Hack’ story.
Here is a link to an article describing what happen to Seth Rich, and how the reward for information leading up to his death has now been increased to $135k.
https://www.sott.net/article/338856-Ad-campaign-offers-130K-to-debunk-or-validate-conspiracy-theories-on-murdered-DNC-staffer-Seth-Rich
Correction the reward is $130k. Also ask yourself why would the murder of Seth Rich gain the attention of Julian Assange? Assange by bringing up Rich’s death could be clever by throwing us off the track of finding out who his real leaker was, or Assange could be reaching out to give publicity to his once active informative asset who gave Assange the keys to the kingdom. Again until more is revealed about the death of this young man, this will always loom large in the background of questions going unanswered regarding this Wilileaks exposure of the Clinton campaign.
Thank you Joe for mentioning Seth Rich, here is a link to Professor Michel Chossudovsky’s
take on Fake News. It also includes a video of Seth delivering a class action lawsuit against DNC…
http://www.globalresearch.ca/breaking-obamas-sanctions-against-moscow-intended-to-box-in-donald-trump-evidence-that-hacking-of-dnc-accusations-are-fake/5565481
Just another ‘coincidence’ …
Bob that Seth Rich video is interesting, and I would like to see more written about what happened with the unfortunate death of Seth Rich. I’m hoping more investigative reporting is done to this part of the puzzled Hillary illegal servers story. I mean was it ‘hacked’ or ‘leaked’? How many ‘leakers’ were there? How inside the system were they, and why did they decide to become ‘whistleblowers’?
Your globalresearch link talks about Obama boxing Trump in to a unpatriotic defensive platform with his having a relationship with Russia. We here, you I think included had first discussed this type of thing when in June of 2016 we talked about the 51 anonymous State Dept. diplomats who signed on to a WaPo article denouncing Obama’s Syrian policy. I recall some of the comments covered the ‘what if’ scenario of our U.S. Foreign policy if Trump were to win. Since Ukraine anyone could have seen where the DC establishment would tell Trump to go and find new friends, but never Putin. DC hates Vladimir Putin…it’s that simple.
Trump may be of the party who now controls all of our government, but he doesn’t have in his corner all of the special interest who rely so heavily on the government doll to make their billions. Somewhere in the mix may possibly be ideology, but I believe most of it boils down to dollars and cents. I don’t think governments run any other way, but fairness is something to cherish when a government provides that on it’s menu.
If you like summations and forecast of things to come, read Brandon Smith’s take on what is really behind the Trump presidency. Don’t shoot me, I’m only the messenger on these speculative essay links. I myself truly wish to see the country and world come out of all of this in good shape, and all in one piece.
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/3102-the-false-economic-recovery-narrative-will-die-in-2017
As always Joe, l’ll follow up…Thank you.
Joe, here is what I’m thinking: James K. Galbraith, son of one of my heroes, working in the context of the Greek economic failure, and with Yanis Varoufakis and others rather extensively explored the cause and failure of Greek and European financial failure, as well as the seeming inability of those systems to deal with the problems. In doing so, they produced a book, a dialogue really, that very adequately described the cause and failure of neoliberalism. (Link below) Their brief chapter, Thirty-Seven, A Final Word, reads like a statement from the Enlightenment and rather surly will guide contemporary economies forward.
https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Poisoned-Chalice-Destruction-Greece/dp/0300220448/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483969391&sr=8-1&keywords=james+galbraith+welcome+to+the+poisoned+chalice
At this point, everything is as clear as when a politician says in mid-speech: “LET ME BE CLEAR…”
Meaning, of course, that nothing is clear at all.
Joe Tedesky’s comment and the essay by Robert Parry are a great help in deciphering
the indecipherable.
Two things must be granted:
1. The US and Russia (USSR) have spied on each other for decades.. For good and
bad reasons. That is not “news”.
2. Recent events reported in Consortium in many areas would tend to confirm
Vladimir Putin’s favoring Trump over H. Clinton particularly in areas of special
concern to Russia. (The US on its part frequently meddles in the internal affairs
of other sovereign nations for what it claims are its own interests.)
We should all be indebted to R. Parry and Joe Tedesky for their inputs.
(Ray McGovern will be read soon but I am going to eat lunch first!!)
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Peter I may have hit on a certain subject line on the topic of the Russian hacking story, and I thank you for your approval, but Robert Parry without a doubt is the genius who drives this train. Parry’s way of sticking to the narrative while reminding us of the many aspects of a story, is why I like reading his material. After that comes the comment section. You Peter, along with the many other commenters on this site have given me an invaluable education with your opinions, and references. Take care Peter, and I do hope you had an enjoyable lunch. Joe
“Seth Rich’s murder could all but be a random murder by some unsavory creep of course,”
Read the entire thread but except these few comments no mention of Seth Rich. I think the alternate media owe it to him that his case be not forgotten. His murder could not have been a random murder. An savory creep would have been looking for money and Rich was not robbed. We should keep his case alive until the truth comes out.
MEexpert I agree, this story needs to be further looked into. See my reply below to Ernest Spoon, where I write about Craig Murray meeting with ‘whistleblowers’ not whistleblower. Murray references more than one leaker when he speaks to how he met the leaker in a park near American University. RIch died in July and Murray talks about his meeting near American University being in September. Given there is such a tool as the Internet, and times being what they are, why would a leaker even need a physical meeting. On the other hand who ever Murray met with in September doesn’t necessarily mean that his contact had to be Seth Rich. If an investigative reporter were to nail down the timeline for all of Murray’s visits this would surely help establish more of something that needs answered.
The other thing is why would Julian Assange even mention Seth Rich’s murder? I mean people get murdered everyday, so what makes Seth Rich’s murder standout in Assange’s mine? Seriously why would Wikileaks put up a $20k reward leading to reliable information regarding the murder of Seth Rich?
Also Assange was interviewed by Sean Hannity on what would have been Seth Rich’s 28th birthday. Okay this is probably just coincidence but never the less it only adds to the strangeness of this whole story, and allows one to wonder to if there was a subliminal message being sent within his Hannity interview. Think of it this way, if Assange is never to expose his sources, what other methods would be left for Assange to scream out the truth?
So yes my friend this Seth Rich tragedy needs looked into, in a very serious way.
Assange would not have indicated by questioning Rich’s murder that he likely was the leaker if he was not. Actually, the murder enables Assange to defend wikileaks by naming the leaker, though I can see his reluctance since the power structure’s idea by murdering Rich is to make it less likely that later people will leak stuff. I think all of this bullshit amounts to sedition, though because of my view towards government, sedition should not be a legal concept.
Yes why would Assange even bring up the murder of Seth Rich? Could Julian Assange be prompting us to go after finding out who murdered young Seth? Does Assange feel that if we uncover who was behind this heinous act of murder that then, and only then we will also learn who did the leaking of the DNC files? Remember Wikileaks cannot expose it sources, or then Wikileaks could not exist.
In reverse of that line of thought, would Julian Assange by hinting at the Rich murder be throwing us all off the track to who his real leaker was. Although Craig Murray speaks to ‘leakers’, in the plural, so what use would it be to make us believe that there was only one leaker (Seth Rich)?
Yeah, EOM there is something to this Seth Rich murder, and yes his untimely death needs drilled down into revealing the truth.
Read the report. Says nothing relevant.
WE do all of the same things to others. Others do all of the same things to others.
If anyone has a beef its the people.
Rein in the spooks. Reset the mission.
Re Obama’s record of integrity. When I hear people like Maxine Waters of California railing about Trump having “ALREADY” gone back on his campaign promises, I think of what Obama promised and what he did. Wholesale brainwashing is going on when our President even suggests that he has a record to stand on.
Clapper, Clinton, Obama: three liars in a leaky boat. At least the Sheeple have noticed the boat is leaking.
The President-elect’s continued skepticism might indeed be as valid as my refusal to rely upon statements by a proven liar such as James Clapper. What a disappointment to read the unclassified report! The wishy-washy word “assess” repeatedly stares one in the face as one searches in vain for evidence based conclusions. There were none. The introductory apology repeatedly asserting that a report made available to the public must not compromise sources does not impress: the identifies of electronic snoop channels based in Russia would be of no further use and could easily be replaced by alternates, so surely their handles could be identified to offer “proof.” Robert Parry’s thoughtful article deserves wide circulation.
All of his stuff should be highly circulated, but how does one break through the wall of censorship put up by the corporate media? Just moments ago I exited a NYT article on this matter. I stopped visiting the Times a couple of year ago when their extremely biased Russophobia and Neocon support became blatantly obvious, but I was linked to a Times article without knowing it from a third party website. More shocking than reading the Times propagandist hit piece against Trump and Putin (for I had come to expect this) was the sad state of disinformation suffered by the readers offering their own comments on the forum. I wrote my own scathing rebuttal, but I don’t expect to see it after reading that all comments are subject to moderation. Yeah, all the surviving comments will be as “moderate” as the jihadis we support in Syria. Just everything is “rigged” in this country, not only elections. If you don’t join Facebook, which I refuse to do, you are blocked from about 90% of the forums on the internet as it is. Only the dutiful sheep who willingly consume the pap dispensed by the establishment, its government and its media are allowed to speak. Who knows, you might convince someone with logic if they don’t first check your work, so, only “proper thinking” gets rewarded in the Exceptional Country. Where is the American Solzhenitsyn? (Maybe it’s Stephen F. Cohen. Long may he live.)
Perhaps sites like NYT are where State Department trolls hang out. (Seriously, there is a team.) I don’t see such unanimity of opinion against Russia except on mainstream news websites.
Still looking, and would appreciate others’ observations.
Well, it’s only been about nine hours since posting and the NYT still hasn’t approved my comment, so I’ll post it here. If they had guts they’d allow free speech, but they are afraid of what others might learn.
Florida Pending Approval
This is why I have stopped reading the NYT and couldn’t vote for Hillary after voting for only Dems all my life. You brainwashed kneejerk Russophobic neocons have become as delusional as the Tea Party Republicans who espoused birtherism and the rest of that constellation of irrational beliefs. Hillary was the first to use “evil” Russia and Putin as a campaign ploy against Trump. Didn’t work because it was just a transparent cheap trick. And saying that doesn’t make one pro-Trump or pro-Putin. Hillary could have run on whatever merits her own ideas & policies may have had, rather than telling scurrilous lies about Trump, Putin and (equally important) Bernie Sanders. Putin is not so stupid to waste a major effort in trying to defeat the woman whom our own media said had a 98% probability of winning, and in the process alienating the anticipated next president. Computer experts have already spoken and witnesses have come forth. It is impossible to trace nation-state hackers. We should know as we hack everyone, including our own citizens. Witnesses directly involved have stated that this was not a hack but a leak from at least one Washington insider, not Russian hackers. Any contention that “17” intelligence agencies have proven Russia’s guilt is BS. Only the CIA, FBI and NSA have done “anaylses” and only the NSA has the actual data which i) it refuses to share and ii) cannot characterise as “strong” evidence. Face it, the “assessments” are only wishful thinking not proof at all.
(And that was exactly 1500 characters.)
And that was exactly to much of the truth.
That is excellent, except that I would also note that it was the Clintons who introduced the birther thing before Trump and the GOP got a hold of it. I quit with huffington post several years ago when they required a social media overlay and quit the guardian when it went fascist. The New York Times is less credible than Pravda was during the cold war.
Yup. I am fairly sure the members here are fairly aligned. I agree with the group’s assessment that the CIA’s assessment is asinine in its assertion that Russian assets assisted the political assassination of Hillary Clinton. There, I just said “ass” seven times”, eight if you count pronunciation. Not sure where I was going with that except to match your grammatical challenge. But, I would like to add that DJT has appropriately voiced his concerns about foreign hacking as a real concern. Actually, I am fairly impressed with his analysis which seems to be correct. The Russians, if they had any remote access to emails and had lifted them off a server remotely would surely be caught by the NSA and they would surely produce their proof. They have not.
The very real threat of foreign hacking should not be swept away either just because the intelligence agencies are promoting their own fake news as real.
Congratulations Mr. Trump for not losing sight of the forest through the trees. It seems you have conducted yourself using logic and reason. That is something the main stream media have also been guilty of trying to rob you of with sensational stories about your treatment of others using it to call you irrational and unhinged. I also agree it is the best approach to let your Press Secretary give a wink and a nod to the CIA and admit you think all the BS is true without doing it yourself. Hopefully this will mollify their attack and allow us to move on as you have suggested.
This whole affair has been supported by the outgoing administration. I doubt that the main stream media will explore the possibility that the outgoing administration is merely trying to inflict maximum damage on the incoming administration for political purposes by going along with the scheme.
Somehow we have got to get back to a rational way of dealing with the rest of the World which does not dress up all the actors with imaginary costumes and create imaginary scenarios and yet maintains the ability to remain alert to real dangers and real scenarios. It is time to get real.
I would suggest that anyone interested in this approach should follow this site. Mr. Parry has led a lifelong approach to journalism as it should be approached with a healthy skepticism of “official” sources of information and an eye out for B.S.
Mr. Parry’s analysis and truth telling and journalistic integrity have caused him to end up in the “fringe” category as defined by the main stream media. This website and others are now identified by those who would have you to believe all the official B.S. as “useful idiots” of foreign powers. They would have you believe that this website is the “real” propaganda. It is an Orwellian state. Telling the truth has become a revolutionary act.
The only way this site and others can be useful idiots is to stop relentlessly uncovering the truth against the avalanche of misinformation that has led our Nation on a disastrous course in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine and other foreign misadventures based on a bunch of B.S.
We created ISIS. They are nothing but the dispossessed former Sunni Iraqi leaders and their allies who are looking for a new state to call home. The current administration has continued on a course laid out back in Dick Cheney’s military plan published by The Project for the New American Century or PNAC. PNAC laid bare the future Bush administrations actions in Iraq by publishing its ambitions to wage preemptive war with Iraq, Iran, Syria and North Korea years earlier while simultaneously lamenting that lacking some event like a “New Pearl Harbor” the American people would likely not support such actions. There is little doubt that as Senator Al Franken has called 9/11 “Operation Ignore” that the Bush administration and the CIA served as the real useful idiots in paving the road to war with Iraq.
We have all been the useful idiots, or most of us, for a main stream press which pushed the lies the CIA fed the Bush administration, which they not only willingly accepted but were seeking, to justify a war of choice. The British government published the Chilcot report which excoriated the Tony Blair administration for supporting the war based on false premises. The United States has yet to provide us with a similar investigation of the Bush administration. So too has the main stream media never performed a self diagnosis of their role as useful idiots leading up to that war. These same people now are the ones presenting new “evidence” for Russian hacking and the same main stream press is now propping up the story rather than doing their job as journalists to find out the truth.
It is just more of the same. The main stream media and the war hawks have created a false narrative time and time again leading to disaster. What would make us believe they “got it right” this time? It’s like the little boy who cried wolf at this point.
The best part is that a growing number of Americans see it for what it is.
Now the challenge for the new administration is to turn off the spigot. So far, they are off to a good start.
Keep up the good work. I’m glad to see healthy skepticism of CIA reports.
We need to disarm the situation before we can refocus the efforts of the Military Industrial Complex toward solving the real problems we face. The good news is that there is a lot of money to be made doing it and if we can just get off the Cold War redo and get about the important work that needs to be done. I might even be optimistic we just might emerge as a leader for a change. Our Nation has immense power to to right or wrong.
I know that DJT is going to make sure all his friends are fat dumb and happy at our expense. He won’t address Global Warming or National Healthcare. He will gut the EPA and we will suffer for it. But for the moment, he is resisting the call to arms that the current hawkers of the new Cold War with Russia are peddling. That just might be the most rational prioritization of things to fix on our plate thanks to the misdirection of our national intelligence agencies and the war hawks in the two political parties. After all, Nuclear War would not help those causes either.
DJT even has some weapons in his war chest to fight back. It seems like he is stuffing his administration with economic interests other than war hawks to defray the possibility they might oppose him while using his Twitter account to shame republicans into reversing their initial act of gutting the independent ethics agency and questioning excess military spending.
Clever moves one might say. You cannot attack the beast without allies. What better way than to give the energy, healthcare and insurance industries everything they want to win them over and then to attack the government for its wanton ways including the Military Industrial Complex which Mr. Trump has already identified as wasteful. We can’t beat our swords into plowshares if there are no rich fields to plow.
What we need is an era of economic growth in areas which will call off the war hawks and refocus us on a path toward a brighter future. Something needs to be done to shift our global system of governments away from a never ending cycle of violence. The United States needs to transform from the World’s largest arms producer and provocateur of wars into another largest producer of something. We do need to be great at something else. How about manufacturing? Sounds like a plan the American people would support.
Let’s all reject the B.S. coming from officialdom as it has consistently lied to us and has misled our Nation into war. Let’s give Mr. Trump his due respect as our President and all work toward making our Nation great. I’m not going to say “again” since it is already great. But we can do better. We have to do better. Economic relationships are better than wars. The Marshall Plan showed us how it works. We don’t need to reduce Russia to ashes for that process to begin.
Clapper should have been fired for lying to the US Congress. But when you overlook a small detail like a person’s basic integrity and then allow this person to be your spokesman–as if he can be trusted–you’ve already jumped off the deep end, given a finger to the so-called evidence. The Deep State who is running this country from the CFR, along with other secret groupings like the Committee of 300(?), Trilateral Commission, etc., doesn’t care in the least for evidence. They’ve been working very hard for nearly a century now to brainwash the American sheeple. They’ve almost completed the job of destroying democracy in America. Continuous military escapades that destroy everything else America comes in contact with in the world have completed the job. No, George: “They” don’t hate us for our freedom.
At some point, some astute person or persons will need to take a look at the broken pieces and decide whether or not there’s anything left here with which to recreate a nation.
Correction: Clapper should have been prosecuted for perjury.
It looks to me like the very corrupt, lying DNC candidate for President (who lost the election), Hillary Rodham Clinton is STILL calling the shots in the MSM. She says it, they all parrot it. You have to see this to believe it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tb4y9owTEU
The Neocons and The Clinton Crime Family (which includes our current President) are apparently still in control of the media through the CIA. Their agenda of world-wide military/economic domination (The New World Order) has been shattered and what we are all witnessing is their global temper tantrum. Like any unruly, ill-behaved child, they need a LONG time out. The problem is, “who” has the ‘nads to give it to them??!
It will be very interesting to see what President Trump and his “team” do to the CIA and the rest of the alphabet intelligence community after January 20th.
After reading the report, my “high confidence” conclusion is that this is the real culprit.
http://h311man.deviantart.com/art/who-is-the-G-MAN-391520870
CNN has been wall to wall twenty-four seven with this false blame the Russians bull shit for about a week now. If there was ever a question that they are simply a propaganda outlet for the military industrial war complex, it is only too disgustingly obvious now – except to the great mass of the American people. Propaganda is not aimed at awake persons like those tuned in to this site, for example. This is what makes it so effective against it’s chosen targets. This simple fact may be the basic key necessary to destroy the world.
OMG. Are you suggesting Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Blitz Wolfer and their invited pundits are not telling us the truth? I’m shocked. Just shocked.
Add Smercomish to that list of unreliable sources. I just caught a few minutes of Smercomish sucking up to Michael Hayden as a trustworthy authority.
“Michael Hayden, Bob Schieffer and the media’s reference of national security officials: The former NSA director is held up by the Face the Nation host as an objective authority when he is everything but that” by Glenn Greenwald – http://www.commondreams.oorg/view/2013/08/12-4
Bill if you wish to watch the whole interview between Smercomish and Hayden here it is….
http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2017/01/07/hayden-putin-hack-intel-a-brick-short-of-a-load.cnn
Hayden and Smercomish phrased the Russian hacking evidence lacking Trump Intelligence Briefing as ‘A Brick Short of a Load’. Although Hayden claimed that Trump’s referencing cyber security overall as a concern, Hayden agreed but said this was an unknowable (Rummy would be proud of Hayden’s word usage) and then Hayden accused Trump of deflecting the subject at hand. Towards the end of Hayden’s interview Hayden proclaimed how RT was putting Ukraine and the other Baltic nations into a dangerous bubble…once again no mention of Nazi’s, or violent coups, and that was that.
Thank you for the link, Joe.
I caught parts of Meet the Presstitutes and Jake Tapper this morning. More hyping of the propaganda. However, there were two surprises on MTP. I expected Rick Santelli of CNBC to go along with program, but he was critical of what is going on and managed to say that the media was being unfair. The other surprise came from Donna Edwards who presented herself up to a few months ago as something of an independent in the Democratic Party, but with her getting on the Russia-intruded-in-the-election bandwagon it looks like when push comes to shove she, like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Bill Moyers, Michael Winship and others, remains a Democratic Party loyalist.
MTP transcript: http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-january-8-2017-n704481
CNN labeled “least trusted” network and here is one reason why:
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/assange-wins-cnn-ends-egg-face/
It is uplifting to see that 83% of the people believe Wikileaks over our MSM. That means there is still reason to have hope that our American government may pull through this terrible phase we are in, which has lasted over to long a time, and that sensibility maybe on the comeback.
yes, indeed, mike k!
yesterday I tried Chris Hayes on MSNBC and Joy Reid was filling in and yapping about the RUSSIAN HACK, the RUSSIAN HACK!!!!, the RUSSIAN HACK!!!!!!!
I switched to CNN whose schedule called for Anthony Bourdaine’s visit to Charleston but instead there was Don Lemon also compelled to yack about the RUSSIAN HACK!!!!!
it’s disappointing that the Wikileaks revelations about shameful DNC wrongdoings, that kneecapped Dems’ best candidate, New Dealer Bernie Sanders, are being drowned out by non stop yacking about THE RUSSIAN HACK!!!!! especially when it seems more likely it was an insider leak based on observations of experts Binney and McGovern and other CIA veterans.
I realize now that I’ve wasted years of my life watching MSNBC and CNN because they’re just propaganda machines.
So, instead of getting aggravated watching the MSM shovel mindless propaganda, instead I enjoyed a wonderful evening watching my DVD of Lohengrin from the 2011 performance at Bayreuth with Boston Symphony’s great conductor Andris Nelsons.
A great work of art and a wonderful performance that featured great singers and director Hans Neuenfel’s creative leap in opera to engage the singers to perform as interpretive actors within this complex theatrical event.
https://bachtrack.com/review-lohengrin-vogt-lang-neuenfels-bayreuth-july-2015
There’s chicanery and betrayal and deception in Lohengrin but there’s also nobility and generosity and kindness too. And this performance is excellent. Therefore it beats watching the sordid Washington power plays and deceptions where the only redeeming features are the courageous whistleblowers and investigative journalists who warn us of the betrayals from Washington DC upon the people they are supposed to be serving.
Parts of this performance are now on you tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jelAXy5d7XE
Not just CNN, but the NYT, WaPo, WSJ et al., i.e. the Mainstream Media (MSM). Unfortunately this monolithic face is also mirrored in the country where I live, Germany. There is no discernible difference.
Re: CNN as mouthpiece for war contractors.
My initiation to cable television was the 1991 Gulf War — Iraq/Kuwait. For the duration there was continuous coverage on CNN. The anchors and reporters (though Peter Arnett overseas did a decent job) covered the mission with a rah-rah-rah kind of attitude, totally ignoring a massive protest rally held in Washington DC that spring.
And when it was all over (the coverage, I mean, as the bombing never really stopped), CNN aired commercial after commercial for the newest and fanciest of fighter bombers being peddled to the Pentagon. We’d see shiny, glittery military jets soaring through the skies with dreamy background music and reassuring voices telling us that Lockheed Martin or Boeing (whoever) keep us all safe and secure with the best technology in the world.
Obviously, the military machines weren’t being marketed to viewers. And those ads weren’t going to make any difference at the Pentagon. It was a big thank you, an influx of reward money, a valentine from the armaments industry to a broadcasting corporation that had done its job.
I find the behaviour of Obama to be the threat to USA democracy.
If they are saying the election was fraudulent they need to state this clearly, and take the appropriate action going to the logical conclusion is Trump cannot be sworn in.
If they are not saying this with the appropriate level of evidence – it’s a dangerous smear
Doesn’t this “Russian hacking” accusation constitute a crime? Is it not a conspiracy in the legal sense? Is it not a lie to claim to have evidence when one doesn’t, or refuse to present it, and is not such a lie somehow illegal as well as immoral, reprehensible, etc.? When committed by public institutions, are such trespasses not unconstitutional, even treasonous? Surely in a nation of lawyers a case could be built against this panoply of bad actors, including the outgoing regime, the intelligence agencies and the complicit media, for colluding to mislead the public in an extremely dangerous way.
The answer to your questions is yes.
Surely in a nation of lawyers a case could be built against this panoply of bad actors, including the outgoing regime, the intelligence agencies and the complicit media, for colluding to mislead the public in an extremely dangerous way.
Except, contrary to Obama’s own lie, some people are above the law.
Those individuals are above the law because the people have no influence over them. The power to influence those elected officials towards legislating in favour of their constituents best interests, EVEN IF, it will mean less economic growth next fiscal quarter for corporate business … that is what the people need.
Some electoral tool which gives the electorate the power to influence those individuals they elect/hire to manage the affairs of state, and lead the nation.
What Obama likes to say is that no one is above the law, but in the next breath declare that we must look forward, not back. Or to say that he won’t sign health insurance reform without a public option, but then leave Baucus to do as he pleased. Or to say he’ll close Guantanamo, but then let those in Congress who worked toward that end hanging. Or to tell workers that he supports their right to organize and leave them hanging. Someone could write an epic volume on the deceptions and lies of Obama–the caretaker of malevolent foreign policy, made-for-Wall-Street economics, and subversion of the Constitution.
I would only add that this report lacks not only “proof” but evidence! It contains absolutely nothing except speculation (“assessments”), except that what it says about RT could in fact be “disproven” in any sort of objective forum — if one had the energy to do so. (Who has the energy to fight the minions of the US govt?) It is truly a wonder that anyone at all takes it seriously, except as a declaration of war against the truth, against the American people, and against the world,
Sorry, meant to post this in response to your question about lying, above.
Funny you should ask, Michael. I was reading last night that the use of domestic propaganda was legalized in July of 2013 with the repeal of the Smith-Mundt Act.
“An amendment was quietly signed into law by President Obama, essentially legalizing the use of propaganda on U.S. audiences. The amendment gutted both the Smith-Mundt Act and the 1987 Foreign Relations Act, both of which had protected U.S. citizens and residents from being subject to propaganda from their own government.” You can read the article by K.J. McElrath at The Ring of Fire website:
https://trofire.com/2017/01/06/fake-news-american-propaganda-machine-obama-others-opened-door-propaganda/
Thanks for this link, Diana. I am going to submit it to OpEdNews.
In light of the fact that under the US legal system, you can convict a ham sandwich, the regime actors are playing with fire, and can be held criminally liable on the basis stated. I’ve also thought about it and think that, despite the bad precedent this use of the legal system would create, that the new administration should pull the trigger and I think they are likely to. At the same time, they should go after the Clintons on everything, particularly the foundation and influence peddling.
Pull it! — as Larry Silverstein famously said about WTC 7!
Why don’t the United States, Obama, McCain, Lindsay and all the others take their case/”evidence” to the United Nations Security Council to bring serious sanctions against Russia?
Because they do not have the hard evidence needed to bring such a case and Russia (and possibly other Security Council member nations) will DEMAND to see the evidence and that it be made public. Also Russia may bring their own “proof” up showing how the United States intelligence agencies interfered in their elections in the past and in other countries elections as well (as evidenced in the above post).
John McCain blathering on about an “act of war”. He and his ilk should put up or shut up.
Too bad Julian Assange can’t take a lie detector test at the Ecuadorean Embassy and pass it with flying colors. Let the top lie detector analyst in the world do the test.
Of course even if Assange broke his own code of ethics and named his sources and showed the evidence of the leaks the U.S. media, the U.S. Congress, the “Intelligence” community and the Democrats would just plug their collective ears, close their eyes and yell “la, la, la, la, la, la, la!!!!”
Pffft!
Maybe Russia should bring the case to the Security Council with the quite valid argument that the allegations are 1) baseless and 2) endangering world peace by promoting antagonism towards Russia without any justification.
“Instead of doing the real job of investigative journalism and holding power accountable, the Western media is by far the most sophisticated purveyor of state-sponsored bullshit on the planet.” (Jason Hirthler) http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/06/on-whitewashing-russia-power-worshippers-only-see-black-and-white/
A fine link that supports Robert Parry’s article. Thank you Peter Janney.
”That is the failure of the mainstream: it doesn’t seriously question its government and instead legitimates its lies. Yet no government should be trusted, only held to account. So it falls the citizenry and alternative media to do the media’s job. Citizens of every nation ought to hold their own governments to an unrelentingly high standard. And this should be the first order of business, not something taken up reluctantly after hammering every other nation on earth for its failures.” Jason Hirthler (From Peter Janney’s link above)
Juan Cole reminds us of all the times the NSA hacked America’s ALLIES!!!:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/those_times_the_nsa_hacked_americas_allies_20170107
Talking about Juan Cole he is writing about an Israeli UK parliament scandal, which is being overlooked by our American media who is fixated on the Russian hacking story here in the U.S..
http://www.juancole.com/2017/01/outraged-israeli-parliament.html
Juan Cole is a CIA Hack and disinformation specialist.
First step, fabricate the desired narrative; second step, feed it to the MSM; third step incite the target of the propaganda to act indignant and aggressive toward the source; fourth step, mutual escalation of hostilities thereby growing our military-security markets around the world. Final stage: the fog of war with no truth in sight.
Joel Kabakov, that’s what we tried with the Russians, but so far they have not followed the desired script. Hoping that it never gets to the final stage.
Perhaps some of you will remember that Andres Sepulveda hacked and spied in elections in Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela. (http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/This-Hacker-Rigged-Elections-in-9-Latin-American-Countries-20160331-0030.html) He also said that he knew the 2016 election in the US was going to be manipulated in the same way by people he knew and who had paid him to work on the elections in South America, and that these people would be working for the political parties (one or the other or both) and their job would be to shift the conversation in favor of one or the other candidate as well as get as much opposition information as possible. Hacking email accounts was one of the ways to get that.
So, if it was hacking (a very big “if” given the contrary information from fairly reliable sources) it could have been carried out by any number of operatives working for any number of candidates.
In any case, the loss for the current deep state franchise holders has them in a tizzy. The new franchise holders will push them as far out as possible and then make a deal of sorts, because after all “the business of America is business.” Or?
I couldn’t agree with you more, Peter .. You nailed it perfectly. The Western “media” is nothing more than a huge propaganda machine. We’d have to go back pretty far to find true investigative journalism in the West .. the early 1950’s, for example. The Western media began its slide downward from investigative journalism to outright propaganda in the late 50’s onward, to what we have today.
Someone in intelligence claims that Russian hacking actually happened? 1% of intelligence officials(CIA, DIA, FBI, etc) say that the claims are true and the media trumpets these statements. Meanwhile, 99% of intelligence officials deny that Russia hacked anything in the USA election and it gets buried so the clueless public cannot see it! What we have in the USA, as far as the government/media relationship goes, is a trial without defense attorneys to cross examine all the accusations and “evidence” that is put forward that Russia did this or that! The American people never get the whole truth from the MSM, because that truth would implicate the MSM in lies and war crimes! What the MSM is an always has been in degrees is a LYNCH MOB provoker!