The Russia-gate groupthink always rested on a fragile foundation of dubious analysis and biased guesswork, but now has been shaken by new forensic studies of the purported “hack,” as Patrick Lawrence reported at The Nation.
By Patrick Lawrence
It is now a year since the Democratic National Committee’s mail system was compromised — a year since events in the spring and early summer of 2016 were identified as remote hacks and, in short order, attributed to Russians acting in behalf of Donald Trump.
Amid the Russia-gate hysteria, The New York Times published this connect-the-dots graphic showing the Kremlin sitting atop the White House.
A great edifice has been erected during this time. President Trump, members of his family, and numerous people around him stand accused of various corruptions and extensive collusion with Russians. Half a dozen simultaneous investigations proceed into these matters. Last week news broke that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had convened a grand jury, which issued its first subpoenas on August 3. Allegations of treason are common; prominent political figures and many media cultivate a case for impeachment.
The President’s ability to conduct foreign policy, notably but not only with regard to Russia, is now crippled. Forced into a corner and having no choice, Trump just signed legislation imposing severe new sanctions on Russia and European companies working with it on pipeline projects vital to Russia’s energy sector. Striking this close to the core of another nation’s economy is customarily considered an act of war, we must not forget.
In retaliation, Moscow has announced that the United States must cut its embassy staff by roughly two-thirds. All sides agree that relations between the United States and Russia are now as fragile as they were during some of the Cold War’s worst moments. To suggest that military conflict between two nuclear powers inches ever closer can no longer be dismissed as hyperbole.
All this was set in motion when the DNC’s mail server was first violated in the spring of 2016 and by subsequent assertions that Russians were behind that “hack” and another such operation, also described as a Russian hack, on July 5. These are the foundation stones of the edifice just outlined.
The evolution of public discourse in the year since is worthy of scholarly study: Possibilities became allegations, and these became probabilities. Then the probabilities turned into certainties, and these evolved into what are now taken to be established truths. By my reckoning, it required a few days to a few weeks to advance from each of these stages to the next. This was accomplished via the indefensibly corrupt manipulations of language repeated incessantly in our leading media.
Lost in a year that often appeared to veer into our peculiarly American kind of hysteria is the absence of any credible evidence of what happened last year and who was responsible for it. It is tiresome to note, but none has been made available. Instead, we are urged to accept the word of institutions and senior officials with long records of deception. These officials profess “high confidence” in their “assessment” as to what happened in the spring and summer of last year — this standing as their authoritative judgment.
Few have noticed since these evasive terms first appeared that an assessment is an opinion, nothing more, and to express high confidence is an upside-down way of admitting the absence of certain knowledge. This is how officials avoid putting their names on the assertions we are so strongly urged to accept — as the record shows many of them have done.
We come now to a moment of great gravity.
There has been a long effort to counter the official narrative we now call “Russiagate.” This effort has so far focused on the key events noted above, leaving numerous others still to be addressed. Until recently, researchers undertaking this work faced critical shortcomings, and these are to be explained. But they have achieved significant new momentum in the past several weeks, and what they have done now yields very consequential fruit.
Forensic investigators, intelligence analysts, system designers, program architects, and computer scientists of long experience and strongly credentialed are now producing evidence disproving the official version of key events last year. Their work is intricate and continues at a kinetic pace as we speak. But its certain results so far are two, simply stated, and freighted with implications:
- There was no hack of the Democratic National Committee’s system on July 5 last year — not by the Russians, not by anyone else. Hard science now demonstrates it was a leak — a download executed locally with a memory key or a similarly portable data-storage device. In short, it was an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system. This casts serious doubt on the initial “hack,” as alleged, that led to the very consequential publication of a large store of documents on WikiLeaks last summer.
- Forensic investigations of documents made public two weeks prior to the July 5 leak by the person or entity known as Guccifer 2.0 show that they were fraudulent: Before Guccifer posted them they were adulterated by cutting and pasting them into a blank template that had Russian as its default language. Guccifer took responsibility on June 15 for an intrusion the DNC reported on June 14 and professed to be a WikiLeaks source — claims essential to the official narrative implicating Russia in what was soon cast as an extensive hacking operation. To put the point simply, forensic science now devastates this narrative.
New Analyses
This article is based on an examination of the documents these forensic experts and intelligence analysts have produced, notably the key papers written over the past several weeks, as well as detailed interviews with many of those conducting investigations and now drawing conclusions from them. Before proceeding into this material, several points bear noting.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
One, there are many other allegations implicating Russians in the 2016 political process. The work I will now report upon does not purport to prove or disprove any of them. Who delivered documents to WikiLeaks? Who was responsible for the “phishing” operation penetrating John Podesta’s e-mail in March 2016?
We do not know the answers to such questions. It is entirely possible, indeed, that the answers we deserve and must demand could turn out to be multiple: One thing happened in one case, another thing in another. The new work done on the mid-June and July 5 events bears upon all else in only one respect. We are now on notice: Given that we now stand face to face with very considerable cases of duplicity, it is imperative that all official accounts of these many events be subject to rigorously skeptical questioning. Do we even know that John Podesta’s e-mail was in fact “phished”? What evidence of this has been produced? Such rock-bottom questions as these must now be posed in all other cases.
Two, houses built on sand and made of cards are bound to collapse, and there can be no surprise that the one resting atop the “hack theory,” as we can call the prevailing wisdom on the DNC events, appears to be in the process of doing so.
Neither is there anything far-fetched in a reversal of the truth of this magnitude. American history is replete with similar cases. The Spanish sank the Maine in Havana harbor in February 1898. Iran’s Mossadegh was a Communist. Guatemala’s Árbenz represented a Communist threat to the United States. Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh was a Soviet puppet. The Sandinistas were Communists. The truth of the Maine, a war and a revolution in between, took a century to find the light of day, whereupon the official story disintegrated. We can do better now. It is an odd sensation to live through one of these episodes, especially one as big as Russiagate. But its place atop a long line of precedents can no longer be disputed.
Three, regardless of what one may think about the investigations and conclusions I will now outline — and, as noted, these investigations continue — there is a bottom line attaching to them. We can even call it a red line. Under no circumstance can it be acceptable that the relevant authorities — the National Security Agency, the Justice Department (via the Federal Bureau of Investigation), and the Central Intelligence Agency — leave these new findings without reply. Not credibly, in any case. Forensic investigators, prominent among them people with decades’ experience at high levels in these very institutions, have put a body of evidence on a table previously left empty. Silence now, should it ensue, cannot be written down as an admission of duplicity, but it will come very close to one.
It requires no elaboration to apply the above point to the corporate media, which have been flaccidly satisfied with official explanations of the DNC matter from the start.
Qualified experts working independently of one another began to examine the DNC case immediately after the July 2016 events. Prominent among these is a group comprising former intelligence officers, almost all of whom previously occupied senior positions. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), founded in 2003, now has 30 members, including a few associates with backgrounds in national-security fields other than intelligence. The chief researchers active on the DNC case are four: William Binney, formerly the NSA’s technical director for world geopolitical and military analysis and designer of many agency programs now in use; Kirk Wiebe, formerly a senior analyst at the NSA’s SIGINT Automation Research Center; Edward Loomis, formerly technical director in the NSA’s Office of Signal Processing; and Ray McGovern, an intelligence analyst for nearly three decades and formerly chief of the CIA’s Soviet Foreign Policy Branch. Most of these men have decades of experience in matters concerning Russian intelligence and the related technologies. This article reflects numerous interviews with all of them conducted in person, via Skype, or by telephone.
The customary VIPS format is an open letter, typically addressed to the President. The group has written three such letters on the DNC incident, all of which were first published by Robert Parry at www.consortiumnews.com. Here is the latest, dated July 24; it blueprints the forensic work this article explores in detail. They have all argued that the hack theory is wrong and that a locally executed leak is the far more likely explanation.
In a letter to Barack Obama dated January 17, three days before he left office, the group explained that the NSA’s known programs are fully capable of capturing all electronic transfers of data. “We strongly suggest that you ask NSA for any evidence it may have indicating that the results of Russian hacking were given to WikiLeaks,” the letter said. “If NSA cannot produce such evidence — and quickly — this would probably mean it does not have any.”
The day after Parry published this letter, Obama gave his last press conference as President, at which he delivered one of the great gems among the official statements on the DNC e-mail question. “The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking,” the legacy-minded Obama said, “were not conclusive.” There is little to suggest the VIPS letter prompted this remark, but it is typical of the linguistic tap-dancing many officials connected to the case have indulged so as to avoid putting their names on the hack theory and all that derives from it.
Cyber-Evidence
Until recently there was a serious hindrance to the VIPS’s work, and I have just suggested it. The group lacked access to positive data. It had no lump of cyber-material to place on its lab table and analyze, because no official agency had provided any.
Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations on Feb. 5. 2003, citing satellite photos which supposedly proved that Iraq had WMD, but the evidence proved bogus.
Donald Rumsfeld famously argued with regard to the WMD question in Iraq, “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” In essence, Binney and others at VIPS say this logic turns upside down in the DNC case: Based on the knowledge of former officials such as Binney, the group knew that (1) if there was a hack and (2) if Russia was responsible for it, the NSA would have to have evidence of both. Binney and others surmised that the agency and associated institutions were hiding the absence of evidence behind the claim that they had to maintain secrecy to protect NSA programs.
“Everything that they say must remain classified is already well-known,” Binney said in an interview. “They’re playing the Wizard of Oz game.”
New findings indicate this is perfectly true, but until recently the VIPS experts could produce only “negative evidence,” as they put it: The absence of evidence supporting the hack theory demonstrates that it cannot be so. That is all VIPS had. They could allege and assert, but they could not conclude: They were stuck demanding evidence they did not have — if only to prove there was none.
Research into the DNC case took a fateful turn in early July, when forensic investigators who had been working independently began to share findings and form loose collaborations wherein each could build on the work of others. In this a small, new website called www.disobedientmedia.com proved an important catalyst. Two independent researchers selected it, Snowden-like, as the medium through which to disclose their findings.
One of these is known as Forensicator and the other as Adam Carter. On July 9, Adam Carter sent Elizabeth Vos, a co-founder of Disobedient Media, a paper by the Forensicator that split the DNC case open like a coconut.
By this time Binney and the other technical-side people at VIPS had begun working with a man named Skip Folden. Folden was an IT executive at IBM for 33 years, serving 25 years as the IT program manager in the United States. He has also consulted for Pentagon officials, the FBI, and the Justice Department. Folden is effectively the VIPS group’s liaison to Forensicator, Adam Carter, and other investigators, but neither Folden nor anyone else knows the identity of either Forensicator or Adam Carter. This bears brief explanation.
The Forensicator’s July 9 document indicates he lives in the Pacific Time Zone, which puts him on the West Coast. His notes describing his investigative procedures support this. But little else is known of him. Adam Carter, in turn, is located in England, but the name is a coy pseudonym: It derives from a character in a BBC espionage series called Spooks. It is protocol in this community, Elizabeth Vos told me in a telephone conversation this week, to respect this degree of anonymity.
Kirk Wiebe, the former SIGINT analyst at the NSA, thinks Forensicator could be “someone very good with the FBI,” but there is no certainty. Unanimously, however, all the analysts and forensics investigators interviewed for this column say Forensicator’s advanced expertise, evident in the work he has done, is unassailable. They hold a similarly high opinion of Adam Carter’s work.
Forensicator is working with the documents published by Guccifer 2.0, focusing for now on the July 5 intrusion into the DNC server. The contents of Guccifer’s files are known — they were published last September — and are not Forensicator’s concern. His work is with the metadata on those files. These data did not come to him via any clandestine means. Forensicator simply has access to them that others did not have. It is this access that prompts Kirk Wiebe and others to suggest that Forensicator may be someone with exceptional talent and training inside an agency such as the FBI.
“Forensicator unlocked and then analyzed what had been the locked files Guccifer supposedly took from the DNC server,” Skip Folden explained in an interview. “To do this he would have to have ‘access privilege,’ meaning a key.”
What has Forensicator proven since he turned his key? How? What has work done atop Forensicator’s findings proven? How?
The Transfer Rate
Forensicator’s first decisive findings, made public in the paper dated July 9, concerned the volume of the supposedly hacked material and what is called the transfer rate — the time a remote hack would require. The metadata established several facts in this regard with granular precision: On the evening of July 5, 2016, 1,976 megabytes of data were downloaded from the DNC’s server. The operation took 87 seconds. This yields a transfer rate of 22.7 megabytes per second.
Couple walking along the Kremlin, Dec. 7, 2016. (Photo by Robert Parry)
These statistics are matters of record and essential to disproving the hack theory. No Internet service provider, such as a hacker would have had to use in mid-2016, was capable of downloading data at this speed. Compounding this contradiction, Guccifer claimed to have run his hack from Romania, which, for numerous reasons technically called delivery overheads, would slow down the speed of a hack even further from maximum achievable speeds.
What is the maximum achievable speed? Forensicator recently ran a test download of a comparable data volume (and using a server speed not available in 2016) 40 miles from his computer via a server 20 miles away and came up with a speed of 11.8 megabytes per second — half what the DNC operation would need were it a hack. Other investigators have built on this finding. Folden and Edward Loomis say a survey published August 3, 2016, by www.speedtest.net/reports is highly reliable and use it as their thumbnail index. It indicated that the highest average ISP speeds of first-half 2016 were achieved by Xfinity and Cox Communications. These speeds averaged 15.6 megabytes per second and 14.7 megabytes per second, respectively. Peak speeds at higher rates were recorded intermittently but still did not reach the required 22.7 megabytes per second.
“A speed of 22.7 megabytes is simply unobtainable, especially if we are talking about a transoceanic data transfer,” Folden said. “Based on the data we now have, what we’ve been calling a hack is impossible.” Last week Forensicator reported on a speed test he conducted more recently. It tightens the case considerably. “Transfer rates of 23 MB/s (Mega Bytes per second) are not just highly unlikely, but effectively impossible to accomplish when communicating over the Internet at any significant distance,” he wrote. “Further, local copy speeds are measured, demonstrating that 23 MB/s is a typical transfer rate when using a USB–2 flash device (thumb drive).”
Time stamps in the metadata provide further evidence of what happened on July 5. The stamps recording the download indicate that it occurred in the Eastern Daylight Time Zone at approximately 6:45 pm. This confirms that the person entering the DNC system was working somewhere on the East Coast of the United States.
In theory the operation could have been conducted from Bangor or Miami or anywhere in between — but not Russia, Romania, or anywhere else outside the EDT zone. Combined with Forensicator’s findings on the transfer rate, the time stamps constitute more evidence that the download was conducted locally, since delivery overheads — conversion of data into packets, addressing, sequencing times, error checks, and the like — degrade all data transfers conducted via the Internet, more or less according to the distance involved.
Russian ‘Fingerprints’
In addition, there is the adulteration of the documents Guccifer 2.0 posted on June 15, when he made his first appearance. This came to light when researchers penetrated what Folden calls Guccifer’s top layer of metadata and analyzed what was in the layers beneath. They found that the first five files Guccifer made public had each been run, via ordinary cut-and-paste, through a single template that effectively immersed them in what could plausibly be cast as Russian fingerprints. They were not: The Russian markings were artificially inserted prior to posting. “It’s clear,” another forensics investigator self-identified as HET, wrote in a report on this question, “that metadata was deliberately altered and documents were deliberately pasted into a Russianified [W]ord document with Russian language settings and style headings.”
Hillary Clinton at the Code 2017 conference on May 31, 2017, when she again repeated the canard about all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies in agreement about the Russian “hack.”
To be noted in this connection: The list of the CIA’s cyber-tools WikiLeaks began to release in March and labeled Vault 7 includes one called Marble that is capable of obfuscating the origin of documents in false-flag operations and leaving markings that point to whatever the CIA wants to point to. (The tool can also “de-obfuscate” what it has obfuscated.) It is not known whether this tool was deployed in the Guccifer case, but it is there for such a use.
It is not yet clear whether documents now shown to have been leaked locally on July 5 were tainted to suggest Russian hacking in the same way the June 15 Guccifer release was. This is among several outstanding questions awaiting answers, and the forensic scientists active on the DNC case are now investigating it.
In a note Adam Carter sent to Folden and McGovern last week and copied to me, he reconfirmed the corruption of the June 15 documents, while indicating that his initial work on the July 5 documents — of which much more is to be done — had not yet turned up evidence of doctoring.
In the meantime, VIPS has assembled a chronology that imposes a persuasive logic on the complex succession of events just reviewed. It is this:
- On June 12 last year, Julian Assange announced that WikiLeaks had and would publish documents pertinent to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
- On June 14, CrowdStrike, a cyber-security firm hired by the DNC, announced, without providing evidence, that it had found malware on DNC servers and had evidence that Russians were responsible for planting it.
- On June 15, Guccifer 2.0 first appeared, took responsibility for the “hack” reported on June 14 and claimed to be a WikiLeaks source. It then posted the adulterated documents just described.
- On July 5, Guccifer again claimed he had remotely hacked DNC servers, and the operation was instantly described as another intrusion attributable to Russia. Virtually no media questioned this account.
It does not require too much thought to read into this sequence. With his June 12 announcement, Assange effectively put the DNC on notice that it had a little time, probably not much, to act preemptively against the imminent publication of damaging documents. Did the DNC quickly conjure Guccifer from thin air to create a cyber-saboteur whose fingers point to Russia? There is no evidence of this one way or the other, but emphatically it is legitimate to pose the question in the context of the VIPS chronology. WikiLeaks began publishing on July 22. By that time, the case alleging Russian interference in the 2016 elections process was taking firm root. In short order Assange would be written down as a “Russian agent.”
By any balanced reckoning, the official case purporting to assign a systematic hacking effort to Russia, the events of mid-June and July 5 last year being the foundation of this case, is shabby to the point taxpayers should ask for their money back. The Intelligence Community Assessment, the supposedly definitive report featuring the “high confidence” dodge, was greeted as farcically flimsy when issued January 6.
Ray McGovern calls it a disgrace to the intelligence profession. It is spotlessly free of evidence, front to back, pertaining to any events in which Russia is implicated.
‘Hand-Picked’ Analysts
James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, admitted in May that “hand-picked” analysts from three agencies (not the 17 previously reported) drafted the ICA.
Then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)
There is a way to understand “hand-picked” that is less obvious than meets the eye: The report was sequestered from rigorous agency-wide reviews. This is the way these people have spoken to us for the past year.
Behind the ICA lie other indefensible realities. The FBI has never examined the DNC’s computer servers — an omission that is beyond preposterous. It has instead relied on the reports produced by Crowdstrike, a firm that drips with conflicting interests well beyond the fact that it is in the DNC’s employ. Dmitri Alperovitch, its co-founder and chief technology officer, is on the record as vigorously anti-Russian. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, which suffers the same prejudice. Problems such as this are many.
“We continue to stand by our report,” CrowdStrike said, upon seeing the VIPS blueprint of the investigation. CrowdStrike argues that by July 5 all malware had been removed from the DNC’s computers. But the presence or absence of malware by that time is entirely immaterial, because the event of July 5 is proven to have been a leak and not a hack. Given that malware has nothing to do with leaks, CrowdStrike’s logic appears to be circular.
In effect, the new forensic evidence considered here lands in a vacuum. We now enter a period when an official reply should be forthcoming. What the forensic people are now producing constitutes evidence, however one may view it, and it is the first scientifically derived evidence we have into any of the events in which Russia has been implicated. The investigators deserve a response, the betrayed professionals who formed VIPS as the WMD scandal unfolded in 2003 deserve it, and so do the rest of us. The cost of duplicity has rarely been so high.
I concluded each of the interviews conducted for this column by asking for a degree of confidence in the new findings. These are careful, exacting people as a matter of professional training and standards, and I got careful, exacting replies.
All those interviewed came in between 90 percent and 100 percent certain that the forensics prove out. I have already quoted Skip Folden’s answer: impossible based on the data.
“The laws of physics don’t lie,” Ray McGovern volunteered at one point.
“It’s QED, theorem demonstrated,” William Binney said in response to my question. “There’s no evidence out there to get me to change my mind.” When I asked Edward Loomis, a 90 percent man, about the 10 percent he held out, he replied, “I’ve looked at the work and it shows there was no Russian hack. But I didn’t do the work. That’s the 10 percent. I’m a scientist.”
Editor’s note: In its chronology, VIPS mistakenly gave the wrong date for CrowdStrike’s announcement of its claim to have found malware on DNC servers. It said June 15, when it should have said June 14. VIPS has acknowledged the error, and we have made the correction.
Patrick Lawrence is a longtime columnist, essayist, critic, and lecturer, whose most recent books are Somebody Else’s Century: East and West in a Post-Western World and Time No Longer: America After the American Century. His website is patricklawrence.us. [This article was originally published at The Nation at https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/ ]
MSM is finally starting to take notice of the conclusion by VIPS.
This article by The Hill, that to me appears a bit too short and avoids most of the study’s points, claims that it is wrong http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/346468-why-the-latest-theory-about-the-dnc-not-being-a-hack-is-probably-wrong.
I expect a reply from the VIPS.
Soooowhat! The “effect”? Perhaps an accelerated time-table to big-ass W-A-R[s] – possibly martial law precipitated civil but absolutely foreign.
Virtually zero mainstream media coverage of these stunning, game changing revelation….
yes, the MSM has decided the whole issue is a entirely “dead horse” manufactured by pro-Trump pro-Russian partisans …. they said “case closed” and they have no intention of discussing it further … (because that might undermine confidence is a very simplistic explanation of what happened).
Yes, the mainstream media audience should not trouble their heads with the ins and outs of this sequence of events, accusations, and revelations.
Of course, there would be flow charts and graphics galore if the MSM actually wanted the public to understand the contentious and controversial issues under debate. But they don’t.
AAMOF, it would be really great if SOMENE in the “reality” camp (that is, us!) would create a graphic that consists of a timeline and brief synopsis. Because I, too, have a hard time following the story.
And I don’t think I am alone.
The exchange between Susan Sunflower and Roger Milbrandt seems to me to show that they are still talking past each other. Susan Sunflower does not seem to have dealt with the “pre-June 2” issue after all. A good graphic would really be worth the investment of time. It would be easy to send as an attachment to email lists, etc.
Robert Parry: Is there someone on your staff who can do this?
Sorry for typos. I meant “pre-June 12.”
That graphic I suggest should be interactive, with links to the relevant Assange and VIPS stories and videos and Comey’s announcements, also the Weiner revelations. I think such a graphic would show that the Clinton camp assumed she would win, and so they didn’t worry too much about anything. After her horrifying loss, they had to go to Plan B: Russia-Gate. So, It hink it is really important to link/chronologize the sequence of leak/hack events with the progress of the campaign..
PPS.
I think such a graphic could get a lot of attention. It could be uploaded to a Facebook page.
I was just reading an article in the current London Review of Books that included a long section (toward the end of the piece) on how social media affected the recent UK election. Many items that were released on I think Facebook ended up being seen by more sets of eyes than major stories in the mainstream newspapers and, according to Crewe, had to be responded to by the politicians and press. Crewe’s basic proposition is the the internet and social media are upsetting the cozy relationship between the govt and the press, and t his is what the “fake news” hysteria is really about (he uses the phrase “post-truth”).
Here is a link to that story:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n16/tom-crewe/the-new-deal
It is behind a pay wall, though. I tried to get into the LRB to copy the relevant grafs, but for some reason they are not letting me log on. Grrrr.
Nothing gets the MSM attention on this “LEAK” side which they label “conspiracy theory”! That’s why there are so many of us who truly feel and believe and logistically calculate that Seth Rich was the leaker and was probably assassinated — made an example of — because of it. The hush-hush! don’t publish! call it names! call it alleged! call it anything but don’t call it “worth exploring”! says it all. The MSM is not even publishing the VIPS letter! No attention! I wonder why that doesn’t awaken a lot of people to demand this riddle be solved by clear evidence! Oh, that’s right, they don’t know about it.
I’ve shared the VIPS letter with others, one of whom I later talked with who told me: What makes you think they (VIPS) are not just as biased as the MSM you talk about but in the opposite direction? So the mind-set/blind-set just doesn’t want to hear another side, at least that’s as it seems to me. And no matter how often one writes news casters, it seems to make no difference. Except, after all these months and after a petition letter was sent to Democracy Now, I finally heard Amy Goodman refer to “alleged” Russian hacking. Never had I heard her refer to it as anything other than fact, even though I heard her interview with Glenn Greenwald who totally debunked it early on. (Perhaps she said alleged during the interview.)
This article, it seems to me, makes a valuable contribution to the discussion of the claim of Russian hacking of the DNC. It clarifies some obscurities in the recently published VIPS letter to Trump. But it leaves me very confused.
Surely the important leak/hack is that which preceded Assange’s 12 June announcement that he was about to release an compendium of documents from the DNC. This, after all, must be the package of documents Wikileaks eventually published. If this transfer of data was an insiders’s leak, the Russiagate story suffers very serious damage; it it was a Russian hack then the Russiagaters are right after all. This article seem to be based on the assumption that the Guccifer 2.0 documents that were released on 15 June and the 5 July leak at the DNC reveals something decisive about the earlier leak/hack which is after all the foundational evidence of this controversy. But this assumption is never articulated and its basis is not explained.
I would appreciate it very much if someone could explain how these events of 15 June and 5 July illuminate the pre-12 June transfer of information from the DNC to Assange.
Who or what Guccifer-2 is (or was) remains a mystery …
Crowdstrike reported (at least) two “hacks” via phishing … Crowdstrike (and it’s friends) are far from neutral IT problem solvers
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/dnc-hack-proof-russia-democrats (March 2017)
too bad that a neutral party (fbi) did not examine the computers.
Susan,
I very much appreciate your response but it does not address the concern I am trying to raise.
My concern is with the transfer of data that must have occurred before 12 June – that is, before Assange announced he would be publishing the compromising information obtained from DNC servers. It is this transfer – NOT THE GUCCIFER POST OF 15 JUNE – which is the foundational information package. To be blunt, the material Wikileaks eventually gave the public could not have come from a leak or transfer which occurred AFTER Assange said that he had obtained compromising DNC communication and he made that declaration on 12 June.
If you reply to me – and I hope you do because I think this matter merits careful discussion – be sure that you understand this essential point which I will repeat once more: the crucial transfer of information occurred before 12 June.
As far as I can tell, they don’t know when the phishing/hack transfer of data occurred or what might have been down loaded. The first “incursion” was in — irrc — August 2015 and (as I recall) was active FOR MONTHS … the backdoor access was open and “the hackers were inside”” rather than repeatedly entering …
The second “hacking” phishing was, I think, in the spring.
What was downloaded by which of these hacking inicident (that Crowdstrike documents/claims occurred) — I dunno and I doubt there’s an inventory or we’d know about it.
As described in the article, the Guccifer documents were fraudulent/altered which is curious uuhn light of the DNC claim about “fake e-mails” which I never saw substantiated in any of the THE WIKILEAK file archive??? Were they taking about some other tranche of documents?
dunno.
even 50,000 e-mails seems likely a subset of the entire server contents (since Podesta’s years old files were in there too) … lots of questions about that was “hacked” and what was submitted and what was published and who/where/when those decisions were made.
The download rate data is incidental metadata contained in the documents that Guciffer presented … and — on reflection – I’m not sure it could not be in reference to some post-download transfer of already downloaded materials … since the “hack” was in place for months, there was plenty of time to download and to download selectively. …. which is one of the “weaknesses” of this “leak” … it’s so indiscriminate that it undermined its own impact … if they(Russians) or he(Rich) had merely released a dozen documents, I (personally) think the impact would have been greater … as it was, it was more of a monkeywrench operation and the actual “juicy bits” were almost incidental … not a well-planned or well-executed strategic leak by anyone.
Thank you for writing this Mr. Lawrence. I read your comment on The Nation article stating your intelligence sources told you to be careful driving, especially at night on your roads going home. Knowing harm could come to you and doing the right thing anyway takes courage. We could use more courage in our media, with our politicians and employees of our “intelligence” agencies. Maybe we wouldn’t be where we are today if the lives of many were more important than the lives of a few.
Take care.
It is big that the Nation ran this because they have largely been following the power structure’s anti-Russian propaganda, though brilliant Russian expert Stephen Cohen is married to one of the Nation’s leading lights. The fact The Nation ran this makes it all right for the left of what heretofore has been the democratic party to move on from their support of the anti-Russian witchhunt.
Well, I sure hope so. See my post on this above.
I’d like to take consortium news seriously, but is this an opinion piece or is it supposed to be objective? The inflammatory language make me think it’s opinion, but it’s not labeled as such. Too bad. I’m always looking for trustworthy sources but this is another one I have to take with a grain of salt.
Kidding, right, Heather?
What are your specific disagreements? Cite one at least. Labeling the piece ‘opinion’ hardly rebuts the facts presented.
Opinion.
The lynchpin of Lawrence’s argument is that 22 MB/s is impossibly fast.
It’s not.
My opinion on this is at OpEdNews.com, where most of Parry’s and Ray McGovern’s articles are reprinted. This is a reprint of The Nation article, which is unusual for this site, and shows how important it is — even though the meat of it had already appeared here (the latest VIPS memo). The Nation is also home to Stephen Cohen, the other (besides Parry and McGovern and maybe one or two others) voice of sanity on Russiagate, and has a larger readership — and is not even listed on PropOrNot! Still, the Lawrence article and the Intel Vets memo are both being suppressed by the MSM (NYT, WaPo, CNN), and also, inexplicably to me, by breitbart.com, foxnews.com, on the one hand, and by wsws.org and rt.com, on the other.
I really don’t get it.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned much recently is that at the time that the “hacks” (phishing) were discovered and “investigated” by Crowdstrike the long-standing server investigation and controversy was still unresolved. I think this may have caused the DNC to overreact fearing either a linkage (the Democrats are just no damn good at internet security) or an erosion of confidence in their “assurances” that Clinton’s server was never (ever, not ever, not even a nibble) hacked …
I’ve considered “it was the Russians” to be in the same league as the “vast right wing conspiracy” — a non-answer, a self-aggrandizing evasion placing “victimhood” (at the hands of an unnamed but powerful cabal) ahead of the rather sordid reality of “rigging primaries” as “business as usual” or Podesta suggesting playing up Sander’s Jewishness (iirc) or Donna (I just can’t help myself) Brazile leaking debate questions …
And then, as one sees with serial liars, there’s no backing down, rather an inevitable growing of the legend … The recent days push back on the Rich story seems to me to be overkill … particularly trying to shut down any questions on the basis of his parents’ grief … umm, no.
Yea, Suze!
and one more thing … in the book Shattered, it was revealed that Clinton blamed “disloyal” and trecherous staffers for her defeat to Obama in 2008 … a truly fascinating insight into her character (April 2017)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-on-the-new-book-that-brutalizes-the-clinton-campaign-w477978
Yes, I think Seth Rich’s death was likely random street crime, but again the question of overreaction and perhaps dealing with the “problem” of leaks ruthlessly originated back in post-2008.
—
Related, and unrelated, the 2008 primary campaign was deeply divisive and ugly and those wounds and now scars have not been addressed. I split with the democratic party in 1996 and 2000 voting Green, for Nader because of what is now called neoliberal economic policies — I wasn’t the only one. Obama was buoyed to power on the basis of both a youthful dewy-eyed army but also a lot of disaffected (but “hopeful”) democrats (I wasn’t one of them) … The established Democratic Party has been anti-left, anti-socialist, virulently anti-communist since forever … since the original McCarthy … they tolerated the pinkos who were part of accepting Union support and $$$ and the civil rights movement — and then blamed them for 1968 and all that came after.
Susan — Thanks for giving us the information about Hillary’s paranoia about her staff and her blaming them for her 2008 primary loss. Very telling!
I think I might have misread your previous post about the push back on the Seth Rich murder. I can’t see why the hospital took such precautions when Rich was admitted or why there has been such a secretive-to-no investigation. The parents and brother are acting in an unusual way; most parents want to learn about their son’s death and will go to great lengths to find out. If this were a street robbery ending in death, that would have saved a pending assassination, since that Seth Rich was the leaker seems certain.
The pushback is overkill and adds to, rather than diminishes, suspicion.
Where his friends and sharers of the drop box are at this point is not mentioned.
Seth Rich being a likely (or even proven) leaker, does not mean that he was the only one with the files or that hacking did not occur.
Rich’s parents want the freedom to grieve the senseless death of their son … without their lives being complicated by other people’s conspiracy theories (which they appear to resent and have no doubt been assured that they are groundless “fake news”) .. give them time.
Even by the partial “mosaic” accounts, there are other individuals with knowledge … people who are not journalists, but friends and associates, not bound by source-protection. …
Assange, not entirely without reason, thought that his Swedish accusors might have been a honey trap … that he was set up for some bogus charge that would put him on a leash and sully his reputation … Still seems unlikely, however, that did not stop the machinery to “put him on a leash and sully his reputation” from kicking in at warp speed and devastating impact (particularly over the last 6 years as details have become dulled and his “bad’, even “toxic” nature has become widely accepted (even by people who know next to nothing about leaks or WikiLeaks or the Swedish accusations) …
I don’t think that the immediate circumstances of Rich’s death are particularly worth spending time and energy … I’ll leave that aspect of the story for those who do.
Susan & Virginia, I was totally throttled to how fast the advertisers that sponsor Sean Hannity were so quick to demand that Hannity quit reporting on the Seth Rich murder investigation. When was the last time any news network or advertiser, was so quick to do such a thing?
What got Donna Brazile so curious as for her to contact the police, as she insisted on them to tell her to just what it was they were looking for with their investigating Seth’s murder?
I sincerely feel for the Rich family, and I also do believe that they are under the gun with this censorship of Seth’s death. Think about it, any organized effort that may have been behind the murder of Seth, would be so vile and repugnant that why wouldn’t these sleaze balls who murdered Seth go on to heavily proposition the family into silence? Virginia, you made a lot of sense describing what most families would want to know if it had been their loved one who been murdered, so why is the Rich family appearing to be so different?
The MSM has declared the entire Seth Rich controversy “lies” — created / fabricated by Fox News to distract from the Russia investigation … and having “Veritas” as the purveyor of the Sy Hersh tape doesn’t help since he (James O’Keefe) has doctored and fabricated videos and recordings … remember??
It’s an ugly rabbithole — and the democratic faithful press has been in full “this is not worthy of discussion” censorship mode (without ever mentioning what Hersh said or what Murray said … because James O’Keefe, who is a loathsome slimeball).
Hersh was recorded without his knowledge or permission … loathsome …
There is also — I hate to mention it — the loathsome suggestion in Hersh’s tape that Seth Rich was demanding money for the files … ** and was trying to set up bidding competition … If he stole / downloaded the files — in order to embarrass the Clinton Campaign and/or to make a lot of money selling them … well, it’s not such a pretty picture of Rich either…. not a “whistleblower”, more an opportunist …
don’t forget that there were 50,000 e-mails (I had thought 30-35,000) … he was not remotely selectively exposing the “rigged primaries” … Think it though. If he had simply released the 3 most damaging e-mail, and not demanded money … whitstleblower …
If it can be proven that the files came from Rich — awesome — it’s definitely a possibility … but it all gets more complicated and less “noble” the more you dig.
** the suggestion that WikiLeaks or proxy paid for the files is a very serious can of worms too.
For all on this thread, I’m sticking to a full Assassination assumption based on the intensity of what I think is disinformation. This so reminds me of both Dorthy Kilgallen and Mary Mayer in regard to the intensity of disinformation and variety of stories, as if TPTB we’re searching for a logical exit or a trial story to confuse a potential jury. Individuals who saw a different Assassination of President Kennedy were also badly treated or dismissed.
These days I like to point out a whole chapter that John Simkin presents at his excellent web site Spartacus Educational which I will link. Just look at the length of the list and click and read about a favorite personage, like John Singlaub.
http://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm
I gotta stop. I’m addicted to Consortium. Spent the first hour reading the comments and have to force myself to stop. Yes they are interesting, often enlightening but I gotta stop. Tomorrow.
Patrick Lawrence – that was an excellent article! Thank you. The truth can’t be held down; it eventually surfaces.
The trouble with all of this is that it just doesn’t get heard by 99% of the people around us. Not that the information that is passed around here isn’t out on a number of information alt websites, but that nearly NOBODY in this area does anything more than listen to tv news. Seriously, the most left-leaning Democrats I know (I’m not, way left of their positions) refuse to bother because it ‘disturbs’ them too much and life is too short. One actually told me recently that she only ‘reads the headlines’ whereas her husband literally berated her about it in front of me.
That was disturbing to say the least.
It’s odd that I find myself getting in heated arguments more with mainstream Democrats than I do with the predominant W bush-voting right wing Republicans that infest this corner of Washington State. No kidding. They are like dogs with a bone in their teeth growling like mad because you are going to take away their reason for living (Hillary the first woman president was a repugnant thought more along the lines of a US Margaret Thatcher).
The DNC is going to kill any possibility of change and don’t you think the wealthy that fund the Dem neocons and the Repub neocons know this? It works to their advantage no matter who gets put in. It’s a no-win situation for those that have critical thinking skills; we are so outnumbered by the general population of numb brains and enormous amount of bribery money…oh excuse me ‘campaign funding,’ that there just doesn’t seem to be any real solutions to these problems that are anywhere close to being implemented by anybody with the real power to even put them on a national view-screen. Then of course we fall right back to realizing that the numb brains will not truly understand what is being said and mostly won’t care anyway.
I watched ‘Idiocracy’ again tonight. Not exactly a funny movie you understand but it made more sense than what I see outside of this site’s commenters, counterpunch.org, truthdig, etc. We’re already at the stage of watering the plants with Brawdo because plants love electrolytes.
There are days when the words of ‘Hawai’i Guy’ seems nearly prophetic…and very hopeless in the face of the inherent violence that route is automatically threatened with.
And hey, Michael Kenny at least provides some comic relief now and then because, honestly, his bozo comments are ones I run into all the time around here. I find myself laughing at them which helps a little. Doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying to spread intelligence but there are times when it seems so damned futile…and then he pops up with more of his inane inaccuracies!
103’F again today, heavy smoke clouds continue to blanket and fill the valleys and forest right over the top of the mountain peaks with red/orange tinged sunlight. And you should see the orange ball of moon tonight. Surreal. Add in the latest climate slam at Trump from the scientists fighting the anti-science nutcases in charge of national science:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/10/asobering-2018-national-climate-change-report/
There’s just so much going wrong on this ball of mud to deal with.
Big sigh.
sealintheselkirks – I hear ya. And even around here there are too many intelligent people calling for more and more growth, more Silk Roads to nowhere. And the half making up the left-hand side of the bell curve can’t get enough of cell phones, the Kardashians and nail salons.
No one wants the fun to end, so it looks like nature is going to end it for us. You can’t have exponential growth on a finite planet and get away with it.
I thought Trump was right not to sign the Paris Climate Accord for the simple reason that China and other industrialized countries were not being asked to sign on. It’s either got to be everybody or nobody.
They’re predicting another four to five billion people by the end of this century. Few people want to address over-population; it’s just something you’re not supposed to touch. More garbage, pollution, cars, trucks, planes, cargo ships, mouths to feed, fertilizers/pesticides…..and on and on. Tick tock.
I was trying to talk to someone tonight about Russia-gate, but got interrupted because Wheel of Fortune was coming on. They seemed to enjoy it.
Lately I’ve been watching old Seinfeld clips on You Tube, just to have a laugh, just to get away from the madness for a few hours. As you say, even Michael Kenny adds a bit of comic relief. I guess you’ve got to get it where you can.
Cheers, sealintheselkirks. Don’t let it get you down. We can only do what we can do. It seems people only get serious when the situation gets serious.
Sadly, Patrick’s fine article, like VIPS’ important insights, will gain no traction in the MSM, nor on pseudo-liberal, DNC-sucking websites.
The anti-Russian juggernaut, and its ancillary McCarthyism will crash on, crushing sanity, peace, and potentially life on earth in its wake.
I’m convinced that the only time Americans will wake from their Neocon stupor will be when the third nuclear weapon is detonated in anger,,, and by then it will be too late.
Alas Kim, you’re likely not incorrect.
So very, very satisfied that early on I went on record in late November ’16 —
when the mass media hype and deceit was at an absolute frenzy — in a letter of mine published in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel newspaper and Wisconsin State Journal newspaper assuring that all the hysterical accusations of the Kremlin interfering/ hacking the U.S. presidential election were both erroneous and dangerous. I denounced the disconcerting group-think that was occurring.
Gore Vidal once wrote that the four greatest words in the English language are, “I told you so.” All of us here at CN have been doling out truth trips for several years, it’s about time folks listen. Oh that’s right, we’re peddling fake news. I forgot.
This is all so very reminiscent of 2002/03 when I (and of course other on the ball intellectuals, commentators and activists) warned of the dearth of hard evidence regarding Saddam’s WMD.
So very satisfying to all of us here at CN.
We told them so.
Do you have a link to your letter? I’d like to read it. Good going Drew. Joe
Thanks Mr Tedesky. Just Google up something to the effect of “Drew Hunkins Russia hacking hype” and it should pop up.
Thank you for your interest! I always respect your commentary here on CN.
Drew Hunkins: I read your letter. Excellent.
Thanks for the kind words Dave P. They mean a lot.
In solidarity,
Drew Hunkins
Wisconsin
Too much at stake to be shy any longer, you’re right, smart, active and you’ll get all the support we can give.
Please keep being vocal.
Bob, Joe, Rob, Skip — thanks for your great support! Okay, I’ll keep plugging along.
Skip — Regarding your “…have written McCain enough that I’m probably on some watch list,” I believe we’re all on a watch list, all those who contribute here! I seem to see/hear/believe/know Google knows everything and is watching me/us! And, is that the CIA? So I’ve heard. Its two “o o”s right together, don’t they look like “l o o k” to you; i.e., spying? G o o gle is appropriately named.
Virginia,others. Yes indeed they are watching and it’s creepy and should be illegal. In a better world one would have the opportunity to readily see the private information and be able to edit, delete, contest it with consequences for the as yet anonymous trackers. “Do no harm” just terrable.
Again I’ll refer a European site taking on these issues. Perhaps VIPS could help us build our own site…
https://dcentproject.eu/resources/
Bob, I looked at your site and as far as I can tell, it has possibilities. They — the Deep State — are organized, and it’s going to take organization to defeat them. Someone here must be a master at that. Let’s hope.
Virginia, I think the best thing we have going for us is VIPS, Thanks. I’m going to keep looking.
I’m wondering if I’m getting too relaxed about sharing here on CN! Please let me know if I am, you regular contributors, and hopefully then I’ll return to my shyness. Because today I am writing my Federal reps and thought I might share what I wrote (with an almost apology in advance, because I don’t think this sounds a great deal like me. This might be the person I “don’t” want to become, maybe have become!) This to my Congresswoman:
“Are you aware that retired Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), founded in 2003 (now 30 members) sent President Trump an open letter detailing how their forensic analysis of the DNC LEAKING (NOT HACKING) wholly negates the “highly confidence” finding of the three National Security agencies that put forth this bogus report? And what has been the response of Congress, of the President, of media? Nothing! This is unacceptable! A great political hoax has been played on the American people — not to say anything about “on” Russia — and our Representatives, our government officials, just ignore it!
“I quote from an article these two paragraphs which appeared on Consortiumnews.com today by Patrick Lawrence, and ask, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?:
“‘August 10, 2017, (Not-so …)”New Cracks in Russia-gate Foundation: https://consortiumnews.com/2017/08/10/new-cracks-in-russia-gate-foundation/
“‘Under no circumstance can it be acceptable that the relevant authorities — the National Security Agency, the Justice Department (via the Federal Bureau of Investigation), and the Central Intelligence Agency — leave these new findings without reply. Not credibly, in any case. Forensic investigators, prominent among them people with decades’ experience at high levels in these very institutions, have put a body of evidence on a table previously left empty. Silence now, should it ensue, cannot be written down as an admission of duplicity, but it will come very close to one.
“’It requires no elaboration to apply the above point to the corporate media, which have been flaccidly satisfied with official explanations of the DNC matter from the start.'”
“Your site asks if I’d like a response. I would! and not only to me but to the American people. Your emphatic desire to unseat Trump is so reckless and careless — to take such flimsy non-backed-up, so-called “evidence” from agencies whose major job description is “to lie,” has moved the doomsday clock much closer to mid-night! Your response should be the truth. Truth! That’s what the American people want, not one gotcha-scam after another. Do we have the right to expect truth? We have the right, but Congress doesn’t have the will! Let’s see what you do here.”
Please feel free to copy any part of it and send to your own Senators and Representatives.
Virginia the real question is, could you feel any better if you hadn’t written your representative? I mean even if this representative government turns out to be another American made myth, well then at least you went down trying, and believing in the myth, as you naively knew it.
Personally I have had great success with my one senator, and my congressperson representative. Strangely every time I’ve contacted these representatives of mine, they voted the way I wanted them too. I know it’s not just me, but sometimes the system at least does appear to work, if at least your representative took yours, and their other constituents to heart.
So, yeah girl, go ahead and make a dawg gone fool out of yourself, seize the moment why don’t you, and never be shy. I have found it is never a bad thing to ask, just be forewarned that they might say no, but if you don’t ask, you’ll never know, will ya?
Virginia, good for you.
By the way, the VIPS sent their letter to Obama when he was still president, in June I believe. He didn’t respond. I write my senators, too….sometimes a response, sometimes not.
Virginia-
Thanks for everything. Your comments are valuable, and your activism is too. My senators are John McCain and Jeff Flake, so I don’t have much luck with either. I constantly vote against them, and have written McCain enough that I’m probably on some watch list. Old “Songbird” McCain is more like a carrion eating vulture than a songbird.
Seth Rich was the leaker when he found out Bernie was cheated out of the nomination by the DNC, DWS. Now the question was the Awan Brothers connected to his murder?
When the DNC realized there was a leak and before they concocted the Russia story, they would have gone to their IT guys (the Awans) to help them discover the leaker’s identity……..
Rachel Maddow has boosted her ratings through the use of RussiaGate. Does anyone know if she has continued recently or is she quietly letting it drop? I suspect she reads the Nation on occasion, but perhaps not. Are people who make 7 mil a year capable of feeling embarrassed when their lies are exposed?
Michael Kenny – Secret Agent Man!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iaR3WO71j4
Be careful what you say or you will give yourself away!
My unbounded gratitude for this and the other efforts on this subject!!
I have written something I think addresses the Trump phenomenon in a way I hope people will find helpful. It is a bit long – 2-A4 pages. I hope its OK.
Einstein – A Cautionary Tale
Albert Einstein the brilliant physicist lived a life time of dedication to the scientific method. He had equaled and advanced the understandings of the great Isaac Newton and his mind was amazingly disciplined.
Yet, even this great man with such a great mind, when confronted with quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principal at the very core of existence it was too much for him to accept. He said: “God does not play dice.” Uncertainty would be disobedience. And there by appealing to the supernatural existence of a mythical creator who’s mind he knew. Einstein spent the rest of his life working calculations to disprove the uncertainty principal and clung to his view that he knew the mind of god and uncertainty was not part of it.
Einstein was brilliant even beyond what the word usually indicates yet above all he was human and humans for thousands of years have sought the comfort of a creator when confronted with the uncertainties life gives us.
Today, it seems there many Einsteines, Trump has brought uncertainty and disobedience and challenged the world view of how a president should behave. And in particular he is disobedient – and disobedience is the highest of all sins. Confronted with the challenges of uncertainty and disobedience many “Einsteines” are reverting to the same sort of irrational myth making that Einstein himself fell victim to. The Einsteines know the world is not like the one with Trump as president and are set to prove it is different – as Einsteins they know the mind of god and god will not have Trump be president.
As much as many would like it to be different, would like to believe that it has some kind of absolute truth, that does not change the universe into a certain one, uncertainty is found at the heart of existence. There is no absolute truth, except of course in religion which is based on the absolute power and being of their various and sundry gods which are always the one and the true gods. Read the ten commandments – the first four and then others down the line require one thing above all – obedience – obedience to the absolute power of god and his absolute laws.
Trump’s crime is nothing to do with Russia or many of the accusations against him it is that he is the sinner of sinners – he is disobedient. That is what many despise, his disobedience – his refusal to obey the laws of the god of The Church of America the Redeemer complete with its ten universal , immutable and absolute demandments.
After Einstein made his tragic statement, the rest of the scientific could only look on in sadness as the great mind labored over calculations leading to blind alleys determined to bring his god’s certain and obedient universe into understanding. He was, of course, treated with the utmost respect given the enormity of his discoveries but his colleagues were embarrassed and mortified. They moved on and produces volumes of good work and discovery over the years Einstein spent toiling to, well, prove the existence of god.
Note: It is said Niels Bohr responded to Einstein by saying: “Stop telling god what to do.”
MaDarby – “He said: ‘God does not play dice.’ Uncertainty would be disobedience.” Einstein may yet be proven right.
I agree that Trump is disobedient. He questions things instead of blindly following them like, say, Maxine Waters or Lindsay Graham: “The intelligence agencies are telling me that the Russians did it! I realize they have no evidence, but I don’t care! What they say is good enough for me.”
Trump may be disobedient and present an uncertainty to some, but within the system that is Trump, there is a certainty in how he will approach things. He will listen to what people say, gather up dissenting opinion, weigh things in his own mind, and if things don’t add up, he is very vocal about this. He actually wants to see evidence and not take the word of someone else.
Not easily handled. A threat to the neocons.
I enjoyed your post, MaDarby.
Thanks
Bloomberg’s on it …. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-10/why-some-u-s-ex-spies-don-t-buy-the-russia-story
I think that’s a big deal Susan Sunflower. Thanks.
The Bloomberg reporter kidn of lost me here:
“Putin has earned a reputation for prevarication with the pointless denials of Russian involvement in Ukraine and with dogged attempts to falsify evidence in the shooting down of a passenger airliner over eastern Ukraine in 2014. But it’s also the result of an unabashedly partisan media battle.”
Come on.
“pointless denials of Russian involvement in Ukraine.”
How about the endless BS the US govt has put out about Ukraine, the denial that it engineered a coup when the evidence (“Fuck the EU”) is there for all to hear, and Russian response to the coup. I won’t recap, but the Bloomberg guy is still a lost sheep.
I also read that and noted how the Bloomberg author faked the news and altered the facts to suit his narrative: Russia was never even allowed to present evidence about MH 17 to the Dutch/Ukrainian Commission of Inquiry, so there was no opportunity to falsify anyway.
The evidence points to the CIA being behind this. Why is the CIA sticking its beak into the DNC, creating a hoax to apparently blame Russia for hacking into the DNC and US elections?
Considering her travels and work regarding the Black Panthers in her collegiate years, it appears that Hillary Clinton was at least an asset for the FBI’s COINTELPRO going back to the late sixties, when every peace, black power and feminist group was penetrated by agents to report back to Hoover et al. At the same time the DOD, ONI, CIA and many other agencies with intelligence capabilities were doing the same, either under the COINTELPRO umbrella or parallel to it.
I suspect both Clintons, before they became a couple, were working for some branch of US intelligence. Bill Clinton’s classmates in Britain always assumed he was CIA, and in effect, his appearance at anti-war events in Europe put him in a good place to observe.
When you consider the string of Presidential candidates over the past fifty years you find a curious connection between many of them and intelligence services. Nixon worked with the CIA throughout his Vice Presidency, and before that it was to Allen Dulles that Nixon owed his political success. Johnson was nothing if not in a compromised position to the killers of JFK. Gerald Ford actually lied about JFK’s wounds during his stint on the Warren Commission. Ronald Reagan, aside from being an FBI snitch during the Red Scare, had been the spokesman for Crusade For Freedom, a CIA program for the importation of Nazis and fascists into the US. George HW Bush had been Director of the CIA and his son’s business history was either very bad or he was laundering money, presumably for the CIA.
So why wouldn’t the CIA, in the late sixties, be looking for faux Democrats to continue the farce of democratic appearances after all those assassinations in 1968?
This fake scandal would serve the warmongering interests in the corridors of power. But why introduce it in the middle of the presidential campaign? It was because the powers that be presumed that Clinton would be the next President, and that Clinton would use the “Russian hack-Trump traitor” meme as a casus belli for the next war against Russia and its global allies.
Here is a timeline of Hillary Clinton’s political meandering in 1968. Early on the Goldwater Girl had morphed into a supporter of Gene McCarthy, the first Democratic anti-war candidate. Then she went to the Republican convention and stayed in fancy accommodations in Miami. Then she spent her summer working in Congress, going so far as to write a speech for Representative Melvin Laird on how to finance the Vietnam War. Then she showed up in Chicago to witness the Democratic convention. Quite a lot of movement back and forth the political spectrum for a college student.
US intelligence has been very consistent in blaming “the other” for things it does routinely. The Russians didn’t do it. We did it, like we’ve done around the world since at least WWII.
Bob as usual I thoroughly take away a lot from what you say, after reading your comments. This time you may have out done yourself, and yes Hillary’s rise to power most certainly wasn’t won because of her brilliant political strategies. More people should question the staying power and resilience of the Clinton’s for them to slip away so easily from any consequences for their slimy actions, for they are truly blessed to be in the position they always find themselves in, because somebody somewhere is looking out for them. Also, imagine the dirt the Clinton’s must have on everyone in the swamp.
I will look forward, as always, to read your future postings Bob. Joe
Bob In Portland, thank you for that, Bill and Hill detail. I always assumed they were a CIA couple but could never find info on Hillary. It makes total sense that she was an FBI informer during the 60’s, and your info on Bill, parallels mine, many Thanks stay with us and contribute freely…
I heard David Talbot suggest that Nixon may have leveraged some compromising information on Dulles’ Nazi connections (discovered by Nixon when he was a Naval Reserve officer working on defense contracts post-WWII) into Dulles’ support for Nixon’s congressional campaign.
None of this will matter, for as soon as these facts get its light of day and the Russians are off the hook, the establishment will bring MH-17 back around and find Russia responsible which will bury this evidence in its tracks. The game is rigged, it’s time for a Civil War. It’s the only option left in what we still call America, but is really an open prison not unlike the Palestinians, certainly not near as devastating, but give it time.
“The game is rigged, it’s time for a Civil War”
Says the keyboard warrior..
“…not unlike the Palestinians”
…comparing himself to people with balls.
What has worked out well for Hillary and her loyal career driven Democrates with this Russia-Gate travesty of mumbo jumbo, is we are not talking about the contents of Hillary and Podesta’s emails. So, as long as Vladimir Putin is the target of our American rage, Hillary avoids any prosecution, or even heavy criticism, for how badly she sabotaged the Sanders Campaign among her many other transgressions that were outed in the Wikileaks exposure. It’s like watching a criminal commit a crime, and seeing them escape arrest and prosecution. I consider all of this to be typical, and natural, of the Clinton’s, so what else is new?
not really, it has exponentially increased the blind tribalism of “real democrats” … who are still preoccupied with name-calling and demonization of any doubters … via their intolerance, they are continuing to shed potential voters … average citizens on the street have indicated they don’t care about and/or are bored with this story …. when 2020 comes, they won’t be able to say they weren’t warned
You hit the nail on the head. I agree the Democrates are leaving a lot on the table, as they sidestep all important issues concerning the voter, to instead pounce on Russia without any evidence or provocation to set their insane tirade against Russia in motion. Unless the Democrates wise up, they will lose everything in 2018. Times a wasting, and the Democrates certainly appear to be no where near any attempt for them to beat the clock. You are right Susan, they have been warned, but when was the last time the party of Clinton ever listened to our warnings?
Worse, I think is that the level of anger felt by pro-reform Democrats (or soon-to-be ex-Democrats) is sufficiently intense that “the party” will be energetically and KNOWLEDGEABLY attacked by all sides … shades of 2000 when Gore managed — like Clinton — to fail to win.
Clinton recently appointed two of her (failed) campaign aides to helm her “Resistance” PAC, “Onward Together” (the name of which I can never remember and always “get wrong” when I try to guess … like those new milquetoast DNC slogans … bland, forgettable …
https://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/hillary-clinton-hires-two-former-campaign-aides-for
as one realizes in reading any of these article about “Onward Together” it’s 100% about the fundraising and keeping the donors (and their “loyalty) in line. They aren’t just “not listening” … they’re dispensing juicy razzberries and stinkeye … (making the same “deplorable” error as in the campaign).
I keep feeling a sefl-defeating “lalala I can’t hear you” coupled with a “shutup shutup shutup” quality … IMHO, voter turn out is unlikely to be buoyed by Trump hatred.
If you are referring to the died in the wool hardliner Hillary supporters, with their getting mad at us, because we are upset over our country shaking a nuclear powered nations tree with so much hate and anger, then I know all too well to what it is you are talking about. Since the election, and every time I have made mention, to how this Russia-Gate business is bad business, there is usually at least one in the crowd of family or friends who accuses me of being a Donald Trump supporter. Now if you Susan have read enough of my comment postings here on this site, then you would also know how far away from the truth of calling me a Trump supporter that claim really is. Things are so bad in this country’s political discourse that I’m reluctant to call myself a Democrat nor a liberal….once again, I don’t know what I am in this political jungle called America.
Susan Sunflower and Joe I received a link through CommomDreams about a new secure Democracy site in Europe that looks like what we need here please look there and share judgment down-the-line…
https://dcentproject.eu
At some point all roads for this will lead to John Brennan and his use of the CIA when he was head of it–exactly what Seymour Hersh said, soon we will see that it was Brennan who orchestrated this so that Clinton could still win and he would stay as head of the CIA, if he caused WWIII in doing so why would he care….Comey, Clapper were in on it also which is obvious and Mueller is to keep the focus elsewhere for them and the Deep Staters looking to “prosecute” whatever given there was no “collusion” with Russia by Trump….the globalist media is just an adjunct wing taking dictation from these….
Has Trump figured out that the trail leads to Brennan? And when will the GOP get it?
Well, I am going to send the email address to this article, with comments, to my brass-brained TX senators. My suggestion to others is to do the same. We need to let our (s)elected officials (by the powers that be) know that we are not buying the propaganda.
Me, too, bobzz. I vote for someone starting a petition to be sent to all our representatives and to media with this content from Mr. Lawrence’s article:
“Under no circumstance can it be acceptable that the relevant authorities — the National Security Agency, the Justice Department (via the Federal Bureau of Investigation), and the Central Intelligence Agency — leave these new findings without reply. Not credibly, in any case. Forensic investigators, prominent among them people with decades’ experience at high levels in these very institutions, have put a body of evidence on a table previously left empty. Silence now, should it ensue, cannot be written down as an admission of duplicity, but it will come very close to one.
“It requires no elaboration to apply the above point to the corporate media, which have been flaccidly satisfied with official explanations of the DNC matter from the start.”
And if not a petition, we can at least send those two paragraphs to our representatives.
Aren’t we, “…all fed up and [we’re] not going to take it anymore!”?
“I vote for someone starting a petition…”
Um, start a damn petition.
Oh, I forgot, it’s the Consortium circle-jerk.
I started a petition and got 1 signer — whom I coerced. So I’m hoping someone with more contacts and more experience will do it here. Stop the circle — which by analogy the other day I mused “…is like the tiger going round and round till it turns into butter.” That’s not us at CN is it? No.
The most infuriating thing about all this is that if I were able to place this essay in front of my two Indiana Senators and single Representative, I doubt it would alter their behavior the least bit.
All the evidence I’ve been able to see says they’d reply with a weasel-worded letter about how much more Big Intelligence knows about these things than anybody else.
In other words, if by some miracle they stopped being ignorant hacks, they’d continue the same path as well-informed hacks doing exactly what they’re told to do.
Well well well, can it be that some adult at The Nation has finally been able to get a word in edgewise while the likes of John Nichols have been screaming for impeachment and every single page has contained a snide/smearing/disrespectful/pick your negative comment/image/editorial/blah blah As a Nation subscriber for literallyl decades—maybe over three?—I have become so disgusted that I have decided not to renew when my current sub expires, and to hell with the gift subscriptions, too, that I have given for years.
It is weired, because Stephen Cohen is married to Katrina van der Heuvel, but he apparently has not been able to rein in anyone at his wife’s rag. Cohen is the only person I have heard suggest that the left (such as it is, and whatever it is, it probably resides sort of at The Nation) try to work with Trump instead of joining in the “let’s hobble an ddiscredit and derail Trump” carnival.
Regardin “reversals of truth,” Lawrence doesn’t mention the most recent: WMD and White Helmet fiascos.
Regarging those who are bring light into the heat situation, Lawrence doesn’t menion the hordes of alternative news sites that have been reporting on what he is now expecting to make “official” (coming firnally from The Nation). Most of what he brings as new news was news months ago, but was belittled as fake news.
Better late than never, Patrick, but color me disgusted all the same.
And, Patrick, let’s get a bit more proactive and venture away from the rock of the technology (all old news) and out onto the end of the stormy jetty of “motive/means/opportunity.”
Why why why?
Could it be that this was all done to misdirect attention from major crimes and misdemeanors of Clinton, the DNC, and their hangers-on? Why didn’t Comey force the DNC to turn over its computers? Isn’t withholding evidence kind of related to tampering with evidence? Is it a crime not even to demand that relevant evidence be produced?
Now the ball is in Mueller’s park.
And, Patrick, can you please give your “assessment,” or *someone’s* “assessment, of the Sy Hersh phone call and info on it?
Am I getting this right? Guccifer 2.0 is an invention of Crowdstrike–i.e. via putting the “Russian stamp” on his materials?
So to–
*did his info pertain to the DNC or The Clinton Foundation?
*how account for his April 2017 statement in conversation with actress Robin Young that Seth Rich was the leaker? (re website below)
*why would wikileaks endorse Guccifer 2.) (re website below) or is all that faked?
*why would an internal intell agency supposedly protecting Clinton release via a phony source damaging info to the Clinton campaign?
https://wearechange.org/guccifer-2-0-admits-seth-rich-source-dnc-files/
(These are not hostile questions, but reflect what is not yet clear to me. Thanks for any input.)
Wikileaks was not endorsing Guccifer with that tweet. They have also tweeted about Seth Rich but they did not explicitly name him as the leaker either. The Twitter account seems to post a lot of stuff in sort of narcissistic defense of their own work.
“The person or entity known as Guccifer 2.0”? “One of these is known as Forensicator and the other as Adam Carter”? The letter of 24 July to which Mr Lawrence refers states: “After examining metadata from the “Guccifer 2.0” …! Mr Lawrence’s case is based entirely on claims made by persons who refuse to reveal their real identity. There’s no way of judging their qualifications or assessing their credibility, and if they really are as qualified as Mr Lawrence claims, then they are perfectly capable of fabricating the “evidence” on which he bases his argument. Thus, I find all this wholly unconvincing. What is established fact is that Russians claiming to represent their government offered Trump Junior DNC “dirt” and DNC dirt appeared subsequently on the internet via WikiLeaks. Common sense says that these two events are related and that therefore, the DNC dirt was supplied to WikiLeaks by the Russians or someone working for them. It doesn’t matter whether they were working for their government or some private interest group, maybe even the Russian Mafia. Nor does it matter whether it was a hack or a leak. If anything indeed, a leak is far more serious than a hack. As Mr Lawrence correctly says, Trump’s ability to conduct foreign policy is now crippled. That’s what Russiagate was designed to achieve and the only way Trump can nowmake Russiagate go away is by getting Putin out of Ukraine. Thus, I tend to see the plethora of articles which is now appearing on this subject as a sign that Putin’s American supporters are panicking, probably because the investigation seems to be widening beyond election interference to embrace Trump’s business relationships with Russia and Russians.
The forensicator analysis indicates the leak was local. Common sense indicates the proffered dirt is a separate matter. Why are you convinced by the absence of evidence that the Russians did it while denying this evidence based on scientific study? Then you leap to “Putin’s supporters,” again too simple. Why are you not concerned about what the leaks revealed? What are you trying to cover up?
Michael I will admit your comments annoy the hell out of me, but rather than I reply to your comment here (although William Binney is expert enough for me) I will instead encourage you to continue posting comments on this site, since your views will only strengthen our opposing views to debate you with down to dirt. We can do this Micheal, I mean you and all of us can work as a team, so to speak. You Michael supply your view point, then we other comment posters will give you our opinions. Seriously Michael I don’t hate you, I just can’t get over how you process the news. I will admit that your view bumping up against any other view, is as American as apple pie, and the twister belt (remember Chubby Checker). Take care Michael, and although I can’t figure out what satisfaction you get by being on this site, you are still welcome to express your disgusting view points. Joe
It is certainly not an established fact that Russians offered “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. The only person who has made such a claim is the music producer Rob Goldstone. It would certainly be interesting to find out why he made such an allegation, but a person making an allegation in an e-mail designed to make someone interested in a meeting certainly does not make the allegation in the e-mail an established fact.
Rob Goldstone’s mail suggests that there is an official court document from the General Prosecutor (Goldstone writes “crown prosecutor”) implicating Hillary Clinton in a negative way. According to Michael Kenny, “common sense” dictates that such a hypothetical official court document showing Hillary Clinton in a negative way and real leaked e-mails from the DNC and Podesta must refer to the same thing… That is a rather strange idea of common sense.
What is a complete absurdity, however, is that “Michael Kenny” writes at every possible occasion that it does not matter whether it was an internal leak because if it was an internal leak, in his view, it must have been Russian agents anyway. I think it has to be stated clearly how absurd this is. According to Michael Kenny, the only ones who might be interested in fair primary elections are Russians. According to him, all Americans are completely uninterested in these questions, so that it can be excluded that someone in the Democratic party cared about these issues, unfair behavior towards Bernie Sanders, scheduling of debates when fewer people would watch, collusion between the Clinton campaign with the media… According to Michael Kennan, the only ones who might have cared are Russians, so when it is an internal leak, it must have been Russians, anyway.
“Common sense says that these two events are related ……….” Hardly.
“Common sense says that these two events are related ……….” Hardly.
Why did the time of that 1845 EDT transfer preclude it having been from Russia or Romania as you claim? An obvious rejoinder would be that they did it after midnight their time.
Or was it that the greater distance and the configuration of the internet would limit the transfer speed?
see between **
It would be like saying that a 1950’s automobile drove x number of mile on a tank of gasoline, a number that would be impossible for the gas-guzzlers available THEN, even if a credible number of mile on a car manufactured in the last 20 years. … 10-15 mpg then, 20-30+ mpg now … big tech change.
Americans have really gone down the rabbithole on this one. Whenever I see hysterical articles in the press or on the web smearing anyone who questions the Russiagate Big Lie, I ask myself the following question and everything falls into perspective. What if all the lies being spread by neocons and deep-staters somehow turned out to be true? Let’s say that Russia (strictly for the sake of argument) hacked the DNC’s emails, revealing how Clinton and the DNC rigged the Democratic Party primaries. How in the world is that a bad thing? I mean really, come on now. Obama should hand over his undeserved Peace Prize to whomever exposed the truth about the Dragon Lady and her neoconnized DNC. What a heroic feat and huge public service it was. What an uplifting example to all patriots/despisers of neocons!
Agree — it’s never been clear what the “end-game” was in this — beyond some pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die “getting rid of Trump” (to get Pence in the big chair). Going after Trump’s financial corruption (specifically money laundering) always appeared a better tack, however, to date, his legal team have been astonishingly successful at keeping him beyond legal judgments, the courts being satisfied with fines without admission of guilt versus some vague “mistakes were made” (as has worked for Wall Street in the post-crash era)
eta: Even if you could prove that “the Russians” hacked (even “infiltrated and downloaded”) the DNC e-mails, the idea that this “hacked our democracy” in any meaningful way is absurd … see also the evidence of attempts to gain unlawful entry into voting system sites … the attempts failed, internet security won!!! Democracy was “preserved” for another day…
The idea that the leaking of the DNC e-mails did more than embarrass the DNC is quite a stretch …. even if thousands of Bernie supporters were “outraged” … as far as I’m aware, most still in the end voted for Clinton … and if they didn’t well, there were more reasons than the DNC rigging the primaries to decide Clinton was beyond-the-pale … warmongering in my case …
Again. like the other DNC e-mails, even the rigging of the primaries was not done.by.Clinton … did not personally implicated Hillary Clinton — instead the DNC insisted that “rigging” was — like the superdelegates — business as usual. (IMHO, anyone who thought the Democratic Party would allow Sanders to win the nomination is probably pretty young and unschooled in the history of political backstabbing and double-dealing)
At least Cornyn responded with an excuse for declining to read it. Cruz’ office has not responded, but then he never does.
Thanks Patrick … and thanks for avoiding what’s become a tendency to throw in everything-but-the-kitchen sink in articles about “the Russian hacking”
The Guardian ran an article yesterday about Rich’s parents’ grief and upset over allegation he was the source, which provided very very very little information, as it ran through a veritable Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder of tangents.
The documents indicate the transfer rate. That transfer rate (download speed) was not possible via the internet, but was typical for simple download to a memory stick or other transfer device. The “small straw” of internet speed making transfer of this data within the time limits contained in the documents, makes internet transfer impossible.
nuf said.
Oh, and thanks for explaining again — necessary — why Guccifer’s claims are at best “unreliable”, likely fraudulent.
The “relationship” between Guccifer and Guccifer 2.0 appears to be one of “brand appropriation” rather than anything clearly ideological …
Rather like “The Taliban” is not a single force, there being an Afghan Taliban and a Pakistani Taliban, which are sometimes (apparently often) at odds wrt objectives … use of a single appellation muddies the waters by suggesting a “unity” that does not exist beyond insurgents in one country helping insurgents in a neighboring country.
The question as to who “created” Guccifer 2.0 and why (and whether it was/is a single identity) remains for another day … but certainly appears to be part of a disinformation campaign to create a single entity to blame — the machinations of money laundering come to mind.
Thank you for publishing this very important story. Now if we can only bring to the attention of those in power?
Jim, we’re the Power…
It’s easy, if it involves a Clinton, then it’s a lie. Case closed.
Joe, thanks please see my comments on the Craig Murray article about California democrats. We’re dealing with something like Total Frontal Assalt…
See your comment on the Craig Murray interview, I left you a reply.
Sorry Joe!!! I was writing satire the other day. I have read most of what you wrote about regarding Seth Rich and Russia Gate and agree with 95% of your analysis. I don’t believe the FSB & GRU are anywhere near incompetent and probably possess the same or superior capability than our US Intel Community. If people assume any another narrative, than the one you have been outlining, then the implication is that the FSB & GRU are the Keystone Cops or Inspector Clouseaus of the modern era. I was just trying to take these counter-arguments to their “illogical” conclusion – which imply the Russians are incompetent bumbling fools – which is the claim you eventually need to make to keep the inane Russia-Gate narrative floating. Sorry for ineptitude in making that clear. I have enjoyed your comments on these articles as well. Thanks!
Not a problem DFC. In fact, I find your satire interesting, and yes we here need to sometimes jump outside the circle of agreement to get to where we want to go, and diversity of thought is never a bad exercise to practice when you are looking to find the truth. I’m actually happy I wrote what I just wrote to you, and more than pleased that you responded. I will look forward to reading your future comments. Keep it cool. Joe
Many Democrats are still 100 percent certain that the Russians “hacked” the election. If challenged they can become quite angry. Then the tendency is to put the onus on the challenger. They want “facts” and hard evidence to be shown to them, I don’t see this dynamic changing any time soon.
But the same Democrats, when confronted with an avalanche of facts – like the ongoing fallout of Awan affair – suddenly become blind and deaf. The Awan affair is the greatest breach of national cybersecurity, which was “accomplished” by the infamous Debbie Wasserman Schultz in a company of other prominent Democrats. Debby et al, have been paying (for some unclear yet reasons) the triple salaries to a family of imposters, pretending to be IT specialists, hailing from Pakistan. The Awan family members never had security clearance and they never were asked about their job history and their education. This interesting family has been involved in the documented fraudulent financial activities. Meanwhile, the Awan family had a free access to the classified information of the House Committee on Intelligence and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The leading scoundrel, Imran Awan, was arrested at the Dulles airport when he tried to escape from the US to Pakistan. You would not find this story on the ziocon-controlled MSM, even if there are plenty of documented facts. For example, like the documented threat from the Debbie Wasserman Schultz towards the Capitol police officer who investigated the Awan affair. Another interesting fact is Debby’s brother, Mr. Wassreman, being in charge of the investigation of Awan (whom Debby continued to pay for months AFTER she was warned about the security breach by the Capitol police). And the same brother, Mr. Wasserman, has been in charge of the investigation of the murder of Seth Rich, the former DNC employee who sent the DNC nefarious emails to WikiLeaks. The investigation of the murder of Seth Rich seems to be stalled. Not a peep from the “righteous” Democrats obsessed with Russiangate silliness.
Thank you Anna, I read that too that, DWS’ brother was the lead investigator, if that’s the case, there couldn’t be a clearer case of “conflict of interest”…
Anna great job of reporting.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz or DWS is the reason that Hillary was the democratic nominee. She supported the big network broadcaster interests when she was “going with the flow” on net neutrality which seems to be a river choked with democratic “dead fish” going with the flow these days. She hobnobs with the right wing lobbyists who heap cash into her pockets. She is a political ho. She should have been fired a long time ago but she serves a far too important role in the dying body of the democratic party. She is there to ensure they will lose. Her job is to kill it. Thus, they heaped their praise on her and ignore the fact that she has a bunch of questionable people on her staff. Heck, they might have even known about it. I have long held that the money ho in chief should have been fired ages ago and the democrats failure to deal with what has now turned into a potential security threat.Then again, we have to ask given their disconnection from reality if the entire democratic party is a security threat to the nation. How many other democrats have a group of foreign spies working on their staff? How many of them are being paid to kill their party?
Anna…first of all thank you for bringing up “the Awan affair”. I know you have mentioned it before but as I was unaware of it and there was no link I didn’t get an opportunity to check it until now. I believe this may interest other readers who might not have been aware of your reference.http://www.wnd.com/2017/06/the-biggest-scandal-youve-never-heard-of/#!
I had high hopes for this article but the bottom line is “we think we have a guy inside the FBI or NSA that claims he has access to info that shows the volume of data could only have been copied on site, not remotely.”
It is written in a style that obscures that simple fact.
That being said, I have always believed from the start it was an inside leak and have not believed a word of the Russian hacking nonsense. I hope someone proves me right but not sure this it it. I suspect some one hopes this may elicit a response from the intelligence community, and in the climate of leakage that we are subject to these days, it might work.
The article is excellent, but if you want proof, ask Julien Assange. I’m surprised he is not quoted in the article. How many times does he have to say the emails were leaked from inside the DNC, and did not come from a hack.
Evidence is everywhere. Craig Murray (former UK ambassador) has gone on the public record (Irish Times) to say that he personally travelled to Washington and received the data from the leaker on behalf of wikileaks. Also, the undeniable scientific fact that the data could not have been hacked at that speed is hardly an obfuscation hiding your simple fact (simple being the operative word). And this by the way is corroborated independently by separate analysts.
I was driving along in my automobile yesterday afternoon and whilst scanning the FM radio band I chanced to come upon a program on NPR shamelessly, without proof but confidently, accusing the “Russians” of hacking the North Carolina election commission servers on election day which led to havoc at the polls, with voters being told they had already voted and such things. The blame wasn’t pinned on the Republicans or the Democrats trying to suppress voter turnout by the opposition, but on the Russians who are apparently much better tuned into the intricacies of the North Carolina voting system than North Carolinian state officials, and implicitly, though unbeknownst to the public, actually had a dog in the race for president, whom from all the accusations and innuendo must have been Donald J. Trump–Moscow’s man now in Washington. This was all presented completely matter of fact, as though it was “settled science” or something. The impunity with which anti-Russian (and by extension anti-Trump) propaganda is thrown in the face of the American people is absolutely stunning.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Reds hack NC Elections! Cyberattack by Russkies! Steal Presidency for Trump!
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/10/542634370/russian-cyberattack-targeted-elections-vendor-tied-to-voting-day-disruptions
Ten months later the frustrated establishment insiders are still shoveling this bullshit… and on government-supported media.
Basically it’s an article about our crappy voting system, with an oblique reference to “Russian Hacking” planted for effect.
If you listen carefully to NPR there seems to be a lot of this Russia bashing with little real proof.
Bill there are many among you here who have experienced this superior treatment from the ‘Russia did it’ crowd, and we understand your frustration. What I do is respond by asking these Putin critics of what evidence they have of Putin’s American election interference. If these Russia haters bring up the 17 spy agencies report, I refer them to this site where there are a number of articles which go into the details of that report, and where the report was written by Clapper’s handpicked appointees, and there were no other agencies involved. If they want proof the hack was a leak, then again refer your all so knowledgeable friends to this site, and bring of the VIP report, which explains the time lapse for downloading these files, and how the copying had to be done straight from the host computer as the time signature of the download shows it is impossible that the file copying could have been done by internet transmission. Stunt them Bill, because they don’t know what they are talking about. Most critics are Rachel and Joy prompted, so you win Bill because you have real facts, and your opposing view debaters don’t. All in all Bill, don’t allow these critics to push you around without you pushing back. Stay with us Bill, and we can all get better at beating off our critics. Joe
re: image caption for the demented NYT graphic
That’s not a depiction of the Kremlin. It’s a depiction of Saint Basil’s Cathedral, which is across the street from the Kremlin and a religious, not a political, building. The Orthodox Church regularly protests conflating the two. (It’s not clear to me why the cathedral is so scary to Americans, but it’s clearly more foreign-looking than the stately and mundane Kremlin.)
LOL. I’ve read that before. I think you’re right. The cathedral is more foreign-looking and is expected to solicit the proper fearful response. Of course if the US population received a decent education, that little trick would be met with laughter rather than obedience.