On the third anniversary of the release by WikiLeaks of the DNC emails, Ray McGovern looks back at how the DNC diverted the damaging contents into a trumped up conspiracy blaming Russia with no evidence at all.
By Ray McGovern
Special to Consortium News
Three years ago Monday WikiLeaks published a trove of highly embarrassing emails that had been leaked from inside the Democratic National Committee. As has been the case with every leak revealed by WikiLeaks, the emails were authentic. These particular ones, however, could not have come at a worse time for top Democratic Party officials.
The emails made it unmistakably clear that the DNC had tipped the scales sharply against Democratic insurgent Bernie Sanders, giving him a snowball’s chance in hell for the nomination. The posting of the DNC emails is also widely seen as having harmed the the electoral prospects of Hillary Clinton, who could not escape responsibility completely, while a handful of the very top DNC officials were forced to immediately resign.
Relatively few Americans read the actual emails, their attention diverted to the incessant media-fostered question: Why Did the Russians Hack the DNC to Hurt Hillary? For the millions of once enthusiastic Democrats who favored Sanders, however, the disclosure that the nomination process had been fixed came as a bitter pill, leaving a sour taste in their mouths and a passive-aggressive reluctance to promote the candidacy of one they considered a usurper. Having had a huge stake in Bernie’s candidacy, they had little trouble seeing through the diversion of attention from the content of the emails.
Clinton Prevails
A mere four days after the WikiLeaks release, a well orchestrated Democratic Convention nominated Clinton, while many Sanders supporters loudly objected. Thus, she began her campaign under a cloud, and as more and more Americans learned of the fraud that oozed through the DNC email correspondence — including the rigging of the Democratic primaries — the cloud grew larger and darker.
On June 12, 2016, six weeks before the convention, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange had announced in an interview on British TV, “We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton … We have emails pending publication.”
Independent forensic investigations demonstrated two years ago that the DNC emails were not hacked over the Internet, but had been copied onto an external storage device — probably a thumb drive. Additional work over recent months has yielded more evidence that the intrusion into the DNC computers was a copy, not a hack, and that it took place on May 23 and 25, 2016.
The DNC almost certainly knew what had happened — not only that someone with physical access to DNC computers had copied thousands of emails, but also which ones they had copied, and thus how prejudicial to the Clinton campaign they would be when they saw the light of day.
And so, candidate Clinton, the DNC, and the mainstream media (forever quoting anonymous “current and former intelligence officials”) appear to have colluded, deciding the best defense would be a good offense. No one knew how soon WikiLeaks would publish the emails, but the DNC offense/defense would surely have to be put in place before the convention scheduled to begin on July 25. That meant there were, at most, six weeks to react. On July 24, about 48 hours after the leaks were published, and a day before the convention, the DNC first blamed Russia for hacking their emails and giving them to WikiLeaks to sabotage Clinton.
A Magnificent Diversion
Clinton: Already blaming the Russians at DNC 2016 convention. (Wikipedia)
Granted, it was a stretch — and the DNC would have to hire a pliable cybersecurity firm to back up their claim. But they had good reason to believe that CrowdStrike would perform that service. It was the best Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook and associates could apparently come up with. If they hurried, there would be just enough time to prepare a PR campaign before the convention and, best of all, there was little doubt that the media could be counted on to support the effort full bore.
When WikiLeaks published the emails on July 22, 2016, just three days before the Democratic convention, the propagandists were ready to deflect attention from the damning content of the DNC emails by repeating incessantly that the Russians hacked the emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to hurt Clinton.
It pretty much worked like a charm. The late Senator John McCain and others were quick to call the Russian “hack” an “an act of war.” Evidence? None. For icing on the cake, then-FBI Director James Comey decided not to seize and inspect the DNC computers. Nor, as we now know, did Comey even require a final report from CrowdStrike.
Eight months after the convention, in remarks at the Clinton/Podesta Center for American Progress on April 6, 2017, Clinton’s PR director, Jennifer Palmieri, could scarcely contain her pride that, after a difficult start, she was ultimately successful in keeping the Russian bear front and center.
Transcribed below (verbatim) are some of Palmieri’s more telling remarks when asked to comment, from her insider perspective, on “what was actually going on in late summer/early fall.”
“…I did appreciate that for the press to absorb … the idea that behind the stage that the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton was too fantastic for people to, um, for the press to process, to absorb…. But then we go back to Brooklyn and heard from the — mostly our sources were other intelligence, with the press who work in the intelligence sphere, and that’s where we heard things and that’s where we learned about the dossier and the other story lines that were swirling about … And along the way the administration started confirming various pieces of what they were concerned about what Russia was doing. … [Emphasis added.]
“And we did finally get to the point on October 7, when the administration came out with a very stunning [memorandum]. How stunning it was for both the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of Homeland Security to put out a statement – a long statement – that said with high confidence that Russia was interfering in the election and they were also directing the timing of the leaks. And it named the institutions – WikiLeaks, DC Leaks, and Guccifer – as being Russian-led, and how stunning that was to be that certain and that public. … So I do think that the answer for the Democrats now … in both the House and the Senate is to talk about it more and make it more real ….”
And so, the Magnificent Diversion worked as intended.
Recognizing Liminal Time
But not all journalists fell for it. Patrick Lawrence (once of The Nation, now of Consortium News) was onto the ruse from the start. He says he had “fire in the belly” on the morning of July 25, 2016, the day the Democratic convention began, and that he dashed off an article “in one long, furious exhale” within 12 hours of when the media started really pushing the “the Russians-did-it” narrative. The title of his article, pointed out to me a few months ago by VIPS member Todd Pierce, was “How the DNC fabricated a Russian hacker conspiracy to deflect blame for its email scandal … a disturbing resemblance to Cold War red-baiting.”
Lawrence’s off-the-cuff ruminations, which Salon published the next day are extraordinarily prescient and worth reading in full. He instinctively recognized the email disclosure-cum-media-obfuscation campaign as a liminal event. Here are some excerpts, reprinted here with Lawrence’s permission:
”Now wait a minute, all you upper-case “D” Democrats. A flood light suddenly shines on your party apparatus, revealing its grossly corrupt machinations to fix the primary process and sink the Sanders campaign, and within a day you are on about the evil Russians having hacked into your computers to sabotage our elections … Is this how lowly you rate the intelligence of American voters? …
The Sanders people have long charged that the DNC has had its fingers on the scale … in favor of Hillary Clinton’s nomination. The prints were everywhere … Last Friday WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 DNC email messages providing abundant proof that Sanders and his staff were right all along. The worst of these, involving senior DNC officers, proposed Nixon-esque smears having to do with everything from ineptitude within the Sanders campaign to Sanders as a Jew in name only and an atheist by conviction. …
The caker came on Sunday, when Robby Mook … appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and … CNN’s “State of the Union” to assert that the D.N.C.’s mail was hacked “by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.” He knows this … because “experts” — experts he will never name — have told him so.
…the Clinton campaign now goes for a twofer. Watch as it advances the Russians-did-it thesis on the basis of nothing, then shoots the messenger, then associates Trump with its own mess — and, finally, gets to ignore the nature of its transgression (which any paying-attention person must consider grave). Preposterous, readers. Join me, please, in having absolutely none of it. There is no “Russian actor” at the bottom of this swamp, to put my position bluntly. You will never, ever be offered persuasive evidence otherwise. …[Emphasis added.]
Trump, to make this work, must be blamed for his willingness to negotiate with Moscow. This is now among his sins. Got that? Anyone who says he will talk to the Russians has transgressed the American code. … I am developing nitrogen bends … Which way for a breath of air?”
Sad Sequel
A year later Lawrence was commissioned by The Nation to write an investigative report on the so-called “Russian hack.” On August 9, 2017, after he interviewed several Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, among others, The Nation published his findings in an article entitled “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack.” Lawrence wrote, “Former NSA experts, now members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), say it wasn’t a hack at all, but a leak—an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system.”
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. An ex-CIA analyst, his expertise on Russia goes back a half-century. He prepared and briefed The President’s Daily Brieffor Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, and in retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
If you value this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
I wish someone would write a story on Rosenstein’s wife, an unmentioned Attorney, who has represented all the people connected with the Russian Coup.
Well I love this explanation by Ray for Demise of Fucking Billery, but it ignores the fact that she did win the vote but lost in the College. So how did that happen? How did she lose the few important districts that would have secured her the EC vote? I read it was no more than 40,000 votes. How did THAT happen? Not Russians, probably not emails. How about massive incompetence? I’d like to read some informative articles on that.
Balderdash. Sorry, Ray, not buying it. Why are you carrying water for Trump?
Floridatexan wrote: “Balderdash. Sorry, Ray, not buying it. Why are you carrying water for Trump?”
No, the current reality is that DNC’s fake progressives — neocons in fact — are carrying water for Trump by showing that truth is nothing for them, and therefore can’t be trusted. Facts are facts, and having mostly McCarthyite lies to attack Trump as main party platform, DNC’s neocons are most probably giving Trump the 2020 victory on a silver platter, as the lesser of two evils even with his many awful policies, because at least he doesn’t proclaim lies like “We are at war with Russia”, which is pure insanity:
We Are at War with Russia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbtuhrSrslI
Amen jmg!
Is there NO NUANCE on any of this??? First, I am NOT a Clinton supporter (despise BOTH Bill & Hillary). I supported Bernie Sanders. I did NOT vote for Hillary OR Trump in 2016—thought for different reasons they were BOTH awful candidates & I live in a blue-tho-turning-purp;e state: I voted Green Party in 2016. So, I’m NOT coming from a Democratic Party “loyalist” position. There were ACTUAL meetings between various Trump Campaign officials (including TRUMP TOWER June 2016). Trump HAS had LONGTIME dream of building TRUMP TOWER MOSCOW. Trump DOES LIE CONSTANTLY—perhaps, his lies had far less to do with any “help from Russia” and MORE to do with his finances—certainly, he LIED about a MOSCOW HOTEL deal DURING the campaign.
My point is, while I DON’T believe everything that the DNC is saying, I ALSO do NOT think there was absolutely NOTHING gong on! Trump’s strange connection to Putin (& other dictators) is deeply disturbing…& yes, I KNOW that the U.S. has a LONG hi9story of SUPPORTING dictators (which is a big part of why there’s a refugee crisis of people from Central American countries FLEEING the Dictators the U.S> installed–who now collaborate with drug Cartels/gangs.
Finally, I am far MORE concerned with DOMESTIC “interference” in our elections: voter suppression, hacked voting machines, increasing restrictions on when./how/where to vote & just plain CROOKED stuff being done by the Republicans.
But, I damn well DON’T want to in ANY way support Donald J. Trump. He may be LESS of a warmonger than Hillary Clinton but, his all-out SUPPORT for ISRAEL & the Saudis is NOT exactly the actions of a peacemaker.
Over the past few years, Consortium News has assiduously exposed the flaws in the Russiagate narrative. The readers here know the mainstream narrative and they know the flaws in that narrative, starting with the facts that there is no publicly available evidence that the DNC servers were ever hacked, that no government agency ever examined the DNC servers, and that those servers no longer exist. It gets worse from there. In particular, despite an astonishing number of unsupported allegations (many of which have been debunked), there is no compelling evidence that the Russians “interfered” in any meaningful way in 2016.
We realize that this perspective is not what you get from the “respectable” media. And that scares many of us more than Trump does.
So, your “Balderdash” comment is without value here. If there is something you know that we don’t, please share.
Brainwashed
To: #1 Anonymot, and #2 Ray McGovern.
#1
Such a fresh delivery of what I see as a clear assessment of how we ended up with this mess.
Have you ever been exposed to or read ” THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY an instrument of government from to 1950 by Arthur B. Darling – State Press ?
The info there pretty much substantiates what you have to say about a The Dulles Brothers CIA and the State Department, especially in those first months of the infant CIA.
#2
Ray McGovern: Is it just me or are way too many still poking in the weeds, all firmly trampled to death by now, trying to track this Russia Gate, DNC leak, Wikileaks convoluted MSM spectacle. That is, many seem to conflate theories that are contradictory or impossible especially with so little evidence to substantiate one theory as being born out by the facts over another.
It is possible for instance that the Russians may have had nothing to do with the DNC LEAKS, but Wikileaks may have and then maybe . the Russians got on board. So yes, Russians did a bot thing but the two issues, bots and DNC leaks are separate and distinctly different.
The MSM seem to relish not fleshing the two out and separating them, which put their work in the category of misinformation.
Many things are possible, but not all things.
It simply seems to me that a number a scenarios exist that may accurately describe what might have happened but with out the facts these scenarios are by themselves pretty much meaningless.
So, I’m curious isn’t the lawsuit filed in Texas by Mr. Butowsky at least a little interesting, and may if it does nothing else might it not flush some of the snipes out of those trampled weeds.
One last: I would love to see the time line from moment the police were alerted to gunfire in the Seth Rick murder until he was pronounced dead at what ever treatment center he was at when pronounce dead. From the time police found him ever step if the way. The call to EMS when did they arrived on scene,, when was he transported and delivered to the treatment center AND every individual who was with him at anytime during the period. I believe that part of the story is very critical to putting the story of Seth’s death to rest.
Thanks again to your commitment to the pursuit of truth.
My comment went in where and landed in the ether. If it does get posted as a reply to Realist I apologize for the redundancy. Please delete second attempt
Test
Dear Consortium News moderation,
Can you please delete these two remarks, now three which are meaningless to the discussion . I only wrote them since there was no acknowledgement of a comment, which would have been normal. Something was awry on the site.
Thank you
Ever since the latest attack on the CN website, the posting of a test message to see the latest comments no longer works. There is a delay in the posting of all messages, and you just have to wait it out.
Thanks again Ray for your detailed comprehensive coverage on what may be called The DNC coverup. If only my progressive left-leaning friends in California could see the light of day on this fiasco of Russian hacking. Several times I’ve sent your excellent analysis to these folks, whose only reply is Silence! Sad really that hatred of Trump and Hillary’s loss has blinded them. So like in the McCarthy era out to get folks and today, of all things, with the help of the intelligence community, they used to criticize. I wonder what John le Carre would write about the state of affairs in America. Ray, you have company with Glenn Greenwald and Stephen F. Cohen. I call you Voices in the Wilderness. Keep on writing, speaking out. The country needs you more than ever! sincere thanks, Carolyn Grassi, Pacifica, CA
I’m waiting for the “fictional” account of all this Barry Eisler is sure to be writing. He is the worthy successor to John le Carre. In a novel the writer doesn’t have to be able to prove every point to give a wonderful “metasystemic” analysis of what’s going on.
Still waiting for her indictments to roll in, until I see one for jaywalking I’m in firm belief the deep state isn’t as close to peril as some may think. Heck Jeffrey Epstein is long gone from the media and he was absolutely the most powerful pedophile walking thr streets. But the Borg is all mighty as defending silence proves once again.
When the post is the truth, (Mr. McGovern: huzzah, huzzah!), then trolls clog the comments, usually (as in the present case) with by VOLUME, QUANTITY, arguing against a certain Clear Quality of tone in the sound of the ring of Truth.
When the post has little or no truth, then comments are few or self-defeating and the trolls needn’t bother fogging the pen and so they don’t?
IMO this post seems to have waaaay more comments than usual. hmmmm….
All I can do is shake my head. The 2020 election is on the visible horizon and not only did the actors who rigged the 2016 election for Donald Trump go unpunished and off the hook, we’ve allowed them to grow bigger and better, and we’re going to let them do it again.
http://osociety.org/2019/07/22/the-great-hack-the-film-that-goes-behind-the-scenes-of-the-facebook-data-scandal
But, but, but Putin…
LIBERAL PROF: Big Tech moved ‘rock bottom minimum’ of 2.6 million votes to Hillary in 2016
A liberal professor and “very strong public supporter of Hillary Clinton” is raising the alarms about Google manipulation of millions of unwitting voters in recent elections, as well as the potential impact for 2020.
Dr. Robert Epstein, former editor of Psychology Today and acclaimed psychologist who founded the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, discussed his research before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, and his testimony was mind-boggling.
“You testified before this committee that Google’s manipulation of votes gave at least 2.6 million additional votes to Hillary Clinton in the year 2016. Is that correct?” Sen. Ted Cruz questioned
https://youtu.be/rNvgl38TLvI
SWEET! HOWEVER–>> On my local cable satellite channel Vice channel carried a story all about how the russians did it.
You folks out there taking VICE at is word are being played, again, by the MSM.
But how sweet it is caught a clinton behaving worse that NIXON, have the repugniklans right where they belong but alas the dims are still clueless on who to run. So much for our highly touted and worthless 2 party system.
You cannot make this shit up. And to Bobby Kwasnik I can only say “What in the hell are you drinking son?”
Took you long 3nough to figure that out, I did the first time they focused on hot Israeli women in forces. It’s a total zionist rag.
Great comment.
I especially liked “my late husband and I kept asking: where and when are they going to actually start discussing the *content* of the emails themselves? Never.”
Alas, so true.
Stay strong AnneR. Don’t let them get you down.
You’re putting a lot of faith on former experts who got the DNC forensic evidence , how?
and assume that the evidence was not a breadcrumb left to mislead and implicate Seth Rich.
( In some circumstances the perfect hack would have no traces, but if the data will be leaked, the leaker would leave behind misleading evidence.)
Its within russian spycraft to leave behind misleading evidence, implicate someone and
have them killed to cover it up.
I have never seen why these experts have done more than fall for it.
don’t know, just say’n
Proof? Julian Assange said several times…I heard him myself….so there you are. The emails were leaked from inside the DNC, not hacked by the Russians. That’s why JA is being killed off and not allowed any access to the public. BTW, the DNC computers were never examined by the investigators. Why? The day Hillary said, “Seventeen intelligence agencies…..” I knew it was a lie that she would build on forever. Besides, I know Putin.
You are putting a lot of faith in a dubious private entity in the hire of the DNC. No US legal authority examined the DNC’s server. Crowdstrike, the dubious entity in the pay of the DNC made a claim that there was a Russian hack but provided no evidence. Not only did they not provide evidence, we have recently learned that they didn’t even generate a report. CrowdSstrike claimed that it knew it was a Russian hack because they found Cyrillic writing and the name of a former KGB head. Sounds damned clumsy of the Russians.
William Binney, the former chief technical officer of the NSA was able to determine from the information that is available that it was technically infeasible for their to have been a hack originating in Russia. The material was down loaded internally on to a thumb drive. Binney’s assessment corroborates ambassador Graig Muarry’s assertion that he received the down loaded material. Both Maurry and Assange publicly requested that they be interviewed by the FBI. The FBI chose not to examine the DNC server. Mueller also chose to decline Maurry and Assange’s request for an interview. Mueller stated that “It would have been better to have the FBI forensic experts examine the server but CrowdStrike is a high class outfit.” It decidedly is not. Basing his conclusions on the claims of a private entity that was far from being a disinterested party is at best negligent and at worst corrupt. Mueller took extraordinary measures to avoid taking any steps that could yield a result different from what was claimed in his report.
It gets worst for the believers of Russian interference. A federal judge has threatened prosecutors with contempt of court making claims against the Russian internet company whose advertisements were alleged to be efforts to interfered in the US presidential elections that it has no evidence to support. The “Russian interference” hoax has been exposed.
Dan, Ray I think if you go back and read everything that Ray was only able to summarize in this particular post, you will discover that the scenario you outlined just does not fit the known facts.
Misleading evidence being left behind is also within our own intelligence agencies as well. See the vault 7 releases.
What is overlooked in all these shenanigans is the utter depravity that Mdm. Clinton and her cabal of fellow psychopaths reached in order obscure their crimes and to seize power. By blaming Russia and Vladimir Putin for “hacking” into DNC’s emails, the Clinton crime family and their useful idiots in the corporate media increased tensions that could have led to a nuclear holocaust.
Clinton and the rest of the fetid cesspool that ran her campaign were willing to risk annihilating the planet so that Clinton could slither in the White House where the gravy train of bribes could flow like the Amazon River. Meanwhile, the corrupt to its core FBI fixed things so that Mdm. Clinton and her cronies did not wind up in the gulag that her husband created when he ran the gravy train.
In the Dec 5, 2016 issue of The Nation is a column ‘En la Lucha’ (The fight continues) by Cesar Vargas, co-director of the Dream Action Coalition: “I had known that Trump would become president once it was revealed the Democratic Party had rigged the primary in favor of Hillary Clinton.”
Clinton beat Sanders by 3.7 million votes. Sanders has never said that the Democratic primary was rigged, nor has he questioned the legitimacy of the result. Yes, the DNC was biased in favor of Clinton, who has been a Democrat her entire adult life, unlike Sanders, an Independent until he wanted to run for president. (“Progressives who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election made a ‘bad mistake’.”-Noam Chomsky. // In a 50R/50D country with a winner-take-all system, 3rd party candidates are the marginal difference. Especially this year in Wi, Mi and Pa.) More below**
My central concern over the last couple of decades has been the Global Climate Crisis, which will likely swamp everything else; the CO2 “bullets” from the Big American Way of Life are already causing death and destruction around the world. In 2015, though i was a Sanders supporter, i was worried that Sanders would ‘sow the wind’ but likely wouldn’t win the Democratic primary. Then many of his energized supporters wouldn’t support the Democratic nominee with their votes and/or with their poisonous and conspiratorial rhetoric adding to the Clinton pile-on led by the right wing hate machine. Therefore, the country and the whole world would ‘reap the whirlwind’ with ‘climate change is a hoax’ Donald Trump, accelerating the race to catastrophe.
Roland James
** “The infamous hack of DNC emails that “proved” the organization had its thumb on the scale for Clinton? Perhaps nothing has been more frustrating for people in the politics business to address, because the conspiracy is based on ignorance. Almost every email that set off the “rigged” accusations was from May 2016. (One was in late April; I’ll address that below.)
Even in the most ridiculous of dream worlds, Sanders could not have possibly won the nomination after May 3—at that point, he needed 984 more pledged delegates, but there were only 933 available in the remaining contests. And political pros could tell by the delegate math that the race was over on April 19, since a victory would require him to win almost every single delegate after that, something no rational person could believe. Sanders voters proclaimed that superdelegates, elected officials and party regulars who controlled thousands of votes, could flip their support and instead vote for the candidate with the fewest votes.
In other words, they wanted the party to overthrow the will of the majority of voters.
That Sanders fans were wishing for an establishment overthrow of the electorate more common in banana republics or dictatorships is obscene. (One side note: Sanders supporters also made a big deal out of the fact that many of the superdelegates had expressed support for Clinton early in the campaign. They did the same thing in 2008, then switched to Obama when he won the most pledged delegates. Same thing would have happened with Sanders if he had persuaded more people to vote for him.)
This is important because it shows Sanders supporters were tricked into believing a false narrative. Once only one candidate can win the nomination, of course the DNC gets to work on that person’s behalf. Of course emails from that time would reflect support for the person who would clearly be the nominee. And given that their jobs are to elect Democrats, of course DNC officials were annoyed that Sanders would not tell his followers he could not possibly be the nominee. Battling for the sake of battling gave his supporters a false belief that they could still win—something that added to their increasingly embittered feelings.
According to a Western European intelligence source, Russian hackers, using a series of go-betweens, transmitted the DNC emails to WikiLeaks with the intent of having them released on the verge of the Democratic Convention in hopes of sowing chaos. And that’s what happened—just a couple of days before Democrats gathered in Philadelphia, the emails came out, and suddenly the media was loaded with stories about trauma in the party. Crews of Russian propagandists—working through an array of Twitter accounts and websites, started spreading the story that the DNC had stolen the election from Sanders. (An analysis provided to Newsweek by independent internet and computer specialists using a series of algorithms show that this kind of propaganda, using the same words, went from Russian disinformation sources [like duran] to comment sections on more than 200 sites catering to liberals, conservatives, white supremacists, nutritionists and an amazing assortment of other interest groups.)
The fact that the dates of the most controversial emails—May 3, May 4, May 5, May 9, May 16, May 17, May 18, May 21—were after it was impossible for Sanders to win was almost never mentioned, and was certainly ignored by the propagandists trying to sell the “primaries were rigged” narrative. (Yes, one of them said something inappropriate about his religious beliefs. So a guy inside the DNC was a jerk; that didn’t change the outcome.) Two other emails—one from April 24 and May 1—were statements of fact. In the first, responding to Sanders saying he would push for a contested convention (even though he would not have the delegates to do so), a DNC official wrote, “So much for a traditional presumptive nominee.” Yeah, no kidding. The second stated that Sanders didn’t know what the DNC’s job actually was—which he didn’t, apparently because he had not ever been a Democrat before his run.
Bottom line: The “scandalous” DNC emails were hacked by people working with the Kremlin, then misrepresented online by Russian propagandists to gullible fools who never checked the dates of the documents. And the media, which in the flurry of breathless stories about the emails would occasionally mention that they were all dated after any rational person knew the nomination was Clinton’s, fed into the misinformation.In the real world, here is what happened: Clinton got 16.9 million votes in the primaries, compared with 13.2 million for Sanders. The rules were never changed to stop him, even though Sanders supporters started calling for them to be changed as his losses piled up.”-Kurt Eichenwald
Would you by chance be a Dem shill? You certainly seem to be acting as such.
Russia (by which every Dem seems to mean “the Kremlin” “Putin”) did *not* interfere in that election for or against the Strumpet, for or against HRC. Talk about “misinformation”!
So now you (and your ilk?) are blaming Sanders’ supporters??
So far as I’m aware the neither the DNC (bought by the Clintons) nor HRC herself ever pointed the finger at Bernie’s supporters or Bernie himself as culpable of the story you’ve come up with.
You guys never give up, do you? If there is any actual “evidence” of a Russian, or for that matter any other “hack” that comes out tomorrow, I will be utterly amazed and happy to come back to this page to apologize. There will not be any. Mueller may try to suggest that it exists somewhere in the “redactions.” But that will be bullshit.
Trump and Clinton were the 2 most hated candidates in US history and Hillary even picked TRUMP…….
with the help of the MSNBC and CNN both in the bag for Clinton,that helped give Trump 6 BILLION in free airtime
and MSNBC fired Ed Shultz fro wanting to cover Sanders…..but that not tampering in election right?
Americans’ Distaste For Both Trump And Clinton Is Record-Breaking
No past candidate comes close to Clinton, and especially Trump, in terms of engendering strong dislike a little more than six months before the election.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-both-trump-and-clinton-is-record-breaking/
RECORD BREAKING!!
Hillary Clinton is more unpopular than Donald Trump. Let that sink in
“Donald Trump is one of the least popular politicians in the history of the United States. Yet, Trump is still more popular than Hillary Clinton. Let that sink in.
According to the latest Bloomberg National Poll, Trump has a net favorability of 41% whereas Clinton has a net favorability of 39%. If Democrats are to escape the political wilderness, they will have to leave Clinton and her brand of politics in the woods. ”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/19/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-unpopular-polling
There was plenty of fraud during the nomination process……My parents waited in line for 6 hrs in AZ because they closed 90% of the polling places in Maricopa country and people had their parties changed from Democrat to republican.Even employees in the state house.
That never happened before.
Clinton was adept in pulling off unscrupulous schemes and yet inept at benefitting from them.
Roland, you’ll never convince me that Hillary Clinton was preferable to Donald Trump. Both were the product of scraping the bottom of the U.S political barrel, but Trump was never the war-monger that war criminal Hillary Clinton blatantly was and is. Since even Trump was equivocal about his willingness to use military force, neither one was qualified to be president in my book. I do not vote for war criminals or war criminal wannabes. (I’ve personally experienced war.) You have to be a Peace candidate to cross my threshold of eligibility. Maybe you are different, eager to have more blood on your hands. But do you realize that the U.S. has killed some 20 million foreign people since World War II ended? Do you feel no responsibility for that when you choose for whom to vote?
As for your Russia-Gate B.S., you are visiting the web site that has done more to prove that Russia-Gate has no basis in reality than any other. To begin your encounter with Russia-Gate reality, I recommend the following Google search query:
site:https://consortiumnews.com/ “Consortium News’ Record on Russia-gate”
And perhaps top that off with https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/12/concord-management-and-the-end-of-russiagate/
I am particularly suspicious of the final primary vote counts in California. The final pre-vote polls showed a much tighter contest than the “tallied” outcome would suggest. Sanders drew huge crowds there (Clinton did not). I recall hearing of many problems and complaints. The media “called” the contest for Clinton BEFORE the actual voting. Imagine that. So, though I can’t dispute that Clinton garnered more votes than Sanders over the course of the primaries, due to “problems”. in California and elsewhere, I think it’s a safe bet the actual numbers were much closer than what you report.
The larger point I want to raise I just touched on. The corporate media. From the beginning, they counted Clinton’s superdelegate “pledges” in the tally of delegates. So it was always made to seem that she had a big “lead”. (And considering the reality of the corrupted Democratic Party Establishment, of course in actuality the chosen one did have a “big lead”). But that’s a slap in the face of one person-one vote and the idea of objective reporting. In fact, there wasn’t any objective reporting. Sanders was covered minimally and with negative slant even though his obvious support should have been headline news.
And I will wholeheartedly second Paul’s contention that, as much as I disdain Trump, Clinton could hardly be called “preferable”.
I can’t dispute with any certainty. But I do dispute the “process” and the supposed 3.7 million vote differential.
Clinton won the RIGGED recorded vote by 2.8 million, not 3.7 million. Trump won the TRUE popular vote by at least 5 million. The MSM are disinformation shills. That’s why they claim Russia hacked the DNC. There is not one iota of evidence that the Russians changed a single vote. Seth Rich leaked the emails to Assange., who clearly stated that the emails were not from any state (i.e. Russian) source. The pre-election and exit polls were rigged for Clinton by MSM pollsters.
https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2018/05/01/the-myth-hrc-fbi-doj-deep-state-thought-clinton-would-win-easily/
https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2019/07/16/crowdstrikeout-muellers-own-report-undercuts-its-core-russia-meddling-claims/
Roland James,
> According to a Western European intelligence source,
Which “intelligence source” would that be?
So, in summary, Brennan, Comey, Clinton, etc. didn’t accept the lawful election results, and decided to just lie, like it’s nothing, in order to—in fact—try to suspend American democracy, start an extremely lucrative—for some—second cold war with Russia as the chosen and needed “enemy”, and give the power back to the deep state and war profiteers. Simple as that.
This whole story is getting more bizarre. Beside the lying and the false news, and the questions about the potential thumb drive download by Seth Rich (who was later killed, like Jody Foster..) now we see https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-22/cia-wants-make-it-easier-jail-journalists-congress-isnt-stopping-it which says the government is complicit in destroying our first amendment rights to sensor their evil ways….
Ungh!
You mean Vince Foster. Now for the proof of a Seth Rich conspiracy.
https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/quick-mortality-probability-calculator/
https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2019/04/19/bill-binney-the-mueller-report-lied-about-the-dnc-server-it-was a-leak-not-a-russian-hack/
https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2019/04/21/bill-binney-states-that-the-nsa-has-32-pages-of-communications-between-seth-rich-and-julian-assange-as-revealed-by-a-foia-request/
Richard ,
I believe Binney has now corrected himself on the 32 pages story. There’s no way to know that those pages refer to communications between Rich and Assange , because the original FOIA requested information on multiple Rich contacts , and the response didn’t specify which contact(s) the 32 pages were associated with. Clevenger has now filed separate FOIAs for each contact and these requests are pending.
I’m interested in your study of the probabilities of 19 DNC related deaths , but don’t understand why you used a homicide probability baseline rather than a mortality (fatality) probability baseline. It seems what we want to know is the probability that such a group of people would die in such a short period of time from any cause , whether disease , accident , etc. A very low probability would then suggest that the excess deaths were due to foul play.
So, in summary, Brennan, Comey, Clinton, etc. didn’t accept the lawful election results, and decided to just lie, like it’s nothing, in order to—in fact—try to suspend American democracy and give the power back to the deep state and war profiteers. Simple as that.
Sorry, duplicate post. You can delete this one, thank you.
“A forensic report claiming to show that a Democratic National Committee insider, not Russia, stole files from the DNC is full of holes, say cybersecurity experts.
“In short, the theory is flawed,” said FireEye’s John Hultquist, director of intelligence analysis at FireEye, a firm that provides forensic analysis and other cybersecurity services.”
https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/346468-why-the-latest-theory-about-the-dnc-not-being-a-hack-is-probably-wrong
Perry, why do you think the FBI chose not to use its own forensic experts? Why would Mueller base his highly inflammatory claims exclusively the of statements made by a private company that was hired by the DNC, a dubious entity that asserts it failed to even generate a report outlining it’s conclusions? Why did the FBI decline the requests of Ambassador Maurry and Julian Assange for an interview? The fact is, Mueller failed to produce anything that a reasonable person would define as evidence. For some people, the lack of evidence does not matter. They are certain in the way that religious believers are certain.
Mueller worked assiduously to minimize the risk that he would find evidence that contradicted the result he intended to provide when he undertook his “investigation.”
.
I smell a rat in the Hersh / Butowsky saga. Apparently there was a second phone call between Hersh and Butowsky, after the initial one that was so revealing , and which Butowsky wisely recorded. In the second call – not recorded as far we know – Hersh informs Butowsky that Andrew McCabe was his “Deep Throat” in the FBI , who fed him the info and/or documents. This looks like a poison pill to me , one that Hersh went along with either willingly ( more likely – so as to save his own skin ) , or unwillingly as a useful idiot (unlikely – Hersh isn’t that dumb ).
The idea that McCabe was a “White Hat” feeding Hersh the info saying that Aaron and Seth Rich were the DNC leakers is laughable , and I think it’s quite likely that Isikoff and/or Hersh will use this poison pill to paint Butowsky ( and , by extension , Ty Clevenger , his attorney) as conspiracy cranks. All Hersh has to do is say ” Look , I fed this guy a bunch of crap , and he scarfed it up. Only a complete nutjob could believe that McCabe was my source. ”
The first , recorded , call may have been all true , or it could have been a set-up from the beginning. I suspect the former. My guess is someone got to Hersh between the first and second call and suggested that he better remove himself from the battlefield , lest something unfortunate happen. The McCabe “poison pill’ was his getaway ticket , and he was happy to use it.
Hersh appears to be throwing Butowsky under the bus , and Isikoff will describe the resulting carnage with glee.
I hope I’m wrong about all this.
Marko you raise several interesting issues about Hersh’s role in all this, but it is hard to say what it might actually be without having a transcript of the second phone call with Butowsky. Does such a transcript exist? Or are you going on some other source?
“Does such a transcript exist? Or are you going on some other source?”
Second attempt to reply :
No , unfortunately , the only source of info about the second call with Hersh is the statement in the Butowsky lawsuit. Given the way Hersh’s narratives tend to jump around , it’s easy to imagine that Butowsky misinterpreted Hersh’s mention of McCabe in some different context as implying that McCabe was the FBI insider source. The only hope we have for clarity , I think , is if the case proceeds to trial.
Marko, first of all, Sy Hersh doesn’t “throw people under the bus.” Never. Second, he’s the purist of all journalists. If you think otherwise, you don’t know the man, a reporter of whom no other has higher standards in his profession.
Hersh has admitted that he won’t report information that would harm his sources or access to sources.
That’s a conflict of interest
I understand why he won’t but it’s still a conflict
Hmm, not sure that is a conflict of interest. In any event, I believe that is the wrong term in this context.
If a journalist ensures a source of, say, anonymity, it is his/her professioanl duty to maintain anonymity. I think there is law on this. A journalist has a very high standard of ethical responsibility toward a source. Journalists have gone to jail for refusing to reveal sources to whom they promised anonymity or who could be harmed by revealing identity.
“Marko, first of all, Sy Hersh doesn’t “throw people under the bus.” ”
I don’t think Hersh would throw his source under the bus , but I think he’d gladly dispose of someone like Butowsky to save his own skin.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Butowsky is correct about the second phone call and can prove it in court. After all, he’d just learned to record calls with his first interaction with Hersh , so why wouldn’t he record him the second time ? Thus , if Butowsky’s claim is verified , Hersh will have , in fact , thrown his source – Andrew McCabe – under the bus , assuming he was speaking truthfully to Butowsky. Or , he was lying to Butowsky , and fed him McCabe’s name as a poison pill , thus throwing Butowsky under the bus.
If the second call happened as described , Hersh threw SOMEONE under the bus. The only question is who.
The DNC literally did shoot the messenger in my opinion. Innocent until proven guilty, I know. Hillary Clinton and her underlings need to ask for forgiveness from many, many people in this country. One of the saddest historical footnotes in our history. She is such a pant load.
I also want to say how much I enjoyed the comments on this and Ray’s previous articles. Evidently Consortium readers are an intelligent, clever, and sardonic bunch!!
Will somebody please show the emails that prove the DNC tilted the primaries to Hillary Clinton? Hillary Clinton was the more popular candidate and she won the primaries 28-12 and was also the victim of caucus contests that clearly favor the candidate (Sanders), who had youger supporters. Sanders amplified his caucus wins to fool his supporters into believing they were as important as primary wins.
Hillary Clinton also won the primaries against Barack Obama in 2008 although it was much closer, but lost because Obama got a 2 to 1 margin in the Caucus Contests even though Clinton was always polling even or leading in the caucus contest states.
Just because the theft was an inside job does not mean it was not a Sanders mole. Tad Devine and Paul Manafort worked together in Eastern Europe as political consultants for many many years. That would be the Russian Collusion.
Another very fine article, Ray!! The simple truth of this sordid matter is finally going to get a hearing I believe. As for me, who like you and a few others, especially Patrick Lawrence, Glen Greenwald, Aaron Mate and Caitlin Johnstone, could smell the bullshit all the way from the chicken coup from the git-go, I can’t wait to sit back, pour myself a nice Guiness in a tall glass, and watch Mr. Mueller fumble around nervously attempting to deal with all of the pointed questions from angry Dems who will be accusing him of not lying enough on behalf of their Russiagate ghost! Anyway, great work, as usual, Ray!!
Thanks Dr. Fusfield,
Just between us, I only drink on even-numbered days.*** So — for me, at least — it was GREAT news that the Mueller testimony would be tomorrow, the 24th, and not the 17th as formerly scheduled. Tomorrow will be a two-Guinness day. My tall glass is crystal-clean and the Guinness is already hidden away in the back of the refrigerator.
I cannot recall ever having had lower expectations from Congressional hearings, but it is, I suppose, always possible that something instructive might inadvertently escape. If so, I am confident the Guinness will be more help than hindrance as muse to any writing I might undertake at that point.
Ray
*** Re the even-numbered days: It’s a self-imposed discipline — a sensible way of coping with my problem of liking “the creature ” (as one of my Irish grandmothers called it) far too much. Slainte!
What did Obama know and when did he know it?
Obama knew he was sandbagging the Russians to set them up as all-purpose fall guys later when he spoke to Medvedev about his “flexibility” of action in foreign policy prior to the 2012 election. (First I’ll get re-elected, then we’ll have a “reset,” you’ll bend over backwards to accommodate me, and you guys will never know what hit you when I deliver the sucker punch.) In fact, it started long before that conversation.
As soon as he was elected every action he took was against Russian interests or to besmirch their reputation in the public arena, even as Putin took several actions to save Obama’s hide, such as giving him the opportunity to duck his rash “red line” statements on Syria when it was clear neither the American people nor the Congress wanted this country in another middle eastern war. Putin also bent over backwards to accommodate American sanctions against Iran in its phony crusade against Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons program.
He rolled Putin on anti-ballistic missile deployments in Romania and Poland, after Dubya had stuck the shiv in by “withdrawing” from the ABM treaty (otherwise known as breaking your word).
He, under the influence of Hitlery, lied to Putin about his true intentions to overthrow and assassinate Gaddaffi rather than simply protect some poor civilians caught between the gunsights of the “evil dictator” and the “brave freedom fighters” defending Benghazi, aka the head choppers from al Qaeda (or whatever their nom du jour). Springtime for Hitlery and al Nusra, winter for Gaddaffi and Libya. This is what happens to suckers who believe anything Washington says.
He and Hitlery set Victoria Nuland and John McCain loose on Ukraine where their minions overthrew the elected government in a bloody coup on the Maidan. Because he wasn’t going to be fooled again, Putin acted quickly to preserve critical Russian interests (i.e., their only warm-water naval base and access to the Mediterranean in Crimea). Putin refrained from intervening on the side of the Russian population in the Donbass, nor did he entertain their pleas for annexation by Russia, though he got blamed for these things all the same by Obomber’s propaganda machine.
Obama knew definitively that it was Ukraine that shot down the Malaysian passenger plane with a Buk missile, yet he suppressed all evidence of such in the kangaroo court that was held to smear Russia for this terrible event. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past his den of spook advisors to have actually had a hand in Ukraine’s actions, just as they had in the Maidan. Why does the president of Malaysia believe this? And why were they, the owners of the aircraft, not allowed to participate in the investigation? Just as Russia, which did have significant evidence to present, was not allowed any role in the process, while Ukraine was given a free hand to withhold and manipulate data? Bigger hoax here than the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations rolled into one.
Obama’s propaganda machine repeatedly blamed Syria for using chemical weapons against civilians, and as a pretext for American involvement in the armed conflict on the side of his mercenary headchoppers, when he knew damned well Syria had no such weapons because the American navy had incinerated them after Assad turned them over via the agreement brokered by the Russians. Always more deception and betrayal directed against Putin and Russia. Are we seeing a pattern that started long before Hitlery masterminded “Russiagate” in the wake of the Wikileaks revelations?
Obama often used John Kerry in the many bait and switch ruses used against Putin and Assad. Putin lobbied hard both in Washington and at the UN for an alliance with the American backstabbers to contain “Isis/Daesh/al Nusra/ al Qaeda” terrorists within Syria. How many times did Putin and Assad think they had a deal, a carefully defined ceasefire, only to have the Syrian army strafed and decimated by American air forces long before the ink dried on the worthless agreements?
Who put the Turks up to downing the Russian fighter bomber as it approached, but didn’t cross, the Turkish border? Cui bono? How did that help Turkey? Rather, whose agenda did it actually help? What did Hitlery promise but to escalate that tactic a hundred-fold with the irresponsible “no fly” zone she proposed as part of her foreign policy during the campaign? No doubt that reckless rush to start World War III took a lot of votes away from the witch.
Who helped the internal opposition inside of Turkey to organize the unsuccessful coup against Erdogan? Sure wasn’t Putin who apparently saved the guy’s life by warning him of more Washington skullduggery. If the Washington Deep State wants to blame someone for Erdogan’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missiles defense system and his very fortunate escape from being saddled with that gigantic F-35 contract, blame Obomber and Hitlery for their ill-conceived strikes against foreign leaders. They both need to go back and re-read “the Prince” for comprehension.
I’m sure I’m forgetting most of the outrages and provocations that Obama and Madame President Clinton directed at Putin and Russia (which actual President Trump mindlessly continues). But the point is that this very virulent and focussed anti-Russian movement was hard core policy of the nominally-ruling Democrats from the day they received the baton from Dubya Bush. Obama continued it long after the catastrophic election that Hitlery lost. He continued it till the day Trump was inaugurated, stridently blaming the Russians for stealing the election from Hitlery and punishing them with massive diplomatic expulsions during the height of the holidays and the seizure of millions of dollars worth of uncompensated properties.
All without one iota of proof. Ever. Just like the ever-growing snowball of anti-Russian economic sanctions that Obama, and now Trump with the enthusiastic participation of Congress, started immediately after the coup in Ukraine never had a justifiable foundation and will seemingly never end. How could I nearly have forgotten the sanctions? I guess they get lost in the enormous mass of other groundless actions taken against Russia by Obomber and his muse Hitler. I wonder, will he be proud that he made it all possible if the nuclear-tipped missiles do start flying? Words do not describe how I have come to loathe that deceiving traitor to every principle he ran for office on.
Carry on, Mr. McGovern. I don’t know how you can maintain the spirit to face the arduous task of trying to uncover all these depredations every day whilst the perpetrators work overtime trying to deceive and mislead you and other truth-seekers. It must be a stunning experience (not a joyful one) whenever you are able to turn over a relevant rock to expose the vile creatures underneath. Get them, Ray, get them all, before they take down the world in their pursuit of MIC profits and every last resource offered by the planet.
Marko, first of all, Sy Hersh doesn’t “throw people under the bus.” Never. Second, he’s the purist of all journalists. If you think otherwise, you don’t know the man, a reporter of whom no other has higher standards in his profession.
Wonderful commentary, Realist, per usual. You speak for me.
One caveat..according to an investigation by a German aeronautical engineer, a BUK didn’t take down the airplane…it was shot down from the air by another aircraft, not a Russian one.
He offers extensive proof.
Yes, I’m familiar with that possibility. Either could be correct. I didn’t want to become too verbose and picayune. We’d need the actual data that Washington and the EU are suppressing to zero in on the truth. The only hypothesis that ought to be discarded upon cursory inspection is that Russia deliberately shot that plane down. That’s as crazy as the claim that Putin invaded Ukraine to seize the Donbass. You’d have to assume he loves unnecessary and expensive quagmires the way the conflict has unfolded, when his troops could have occupied Kiev within 48 hours if he did invade. Quagmires are the hallmark of American military actions. Inquiring minds want to know why the Ukie pilot of the jet fighter prowling the vicinity at the time of the shoot-down never testified and later committed suicide. Parsimony says to me: guilty conscience.
Nearly forgot Obama’s incendiary goodbye kiss to Putin when he promised retaliatory American action against Russia, perhaps in the form of a cyber attack “at a time and place of our choosing,” for its alleged theft of the presidential election. Putin had too much character to use that threat as a constant all-purpose foil against never-ending American provocations. He simply moved on, always trying to improve relations, which some observers, such as PCR, feel is a mistake.
Thanks for the input, RR.
Essentially I agree with you, but even you are still riding the surface details. I’ve been writing for over a decade about this, but since I’m neither a journalist, politician or celebrity, no one pay much attention. That makes me a conspiracy theorist with all of its negative connotations. I’m not that either. Suffice it to say that I’m an American who has lived and worked in many places in the world and politics, domestic and international are a pet passion that I’ve followed for decades.
Obama and Hillary’s anti-Russia drive has its roots in pre-WW II anti-communism when many significant capitalists were friends and financiers of Nazi-Germany. After the war the Dulles brothers took over all American foreign policy as Secretary of State and Director of the CIA. They were joined by many Senators from Joe McCarthy to Sen. Prescott Bush. No one else had the ear of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson on foreign matters other than State and the CIA with the CIA having information to whisper deeper than State’s. That’s why we went in to lose Korea, , the Bay of Pigs, and Vietnam. Losses all, they still generates massive profits for the MIC and installed that state of mind throughout the DC bureaucracy. Then came Prescott’s son, the CIA in person.
It is my personal assessment, having worked in Arkansas when Clinton was Governor and corruption was just part of the landscape, that the powers of the day had little trouble convincing Bill that he could become very, very wealthy if he just left foreign policy decisions to them and role played. They were right. And when Prescott’s grandson, George, was mature enough, he stepped in with his extreme right wing crowd, ready to install regime changes everywhere.
After Bush, when a zebra with Democrat stripes could have won given the catastrophe of baby Bush, I am perfectly convinced that they sought two different minority figures, a woman obsessed by the idea of wealth and fame and very pro- a certain kind of feminism, plus a man who desired wealth, but also had the cause of the blacks to promote. “The loser at the DNC Convention will be President after the winner serves his or her term(s), but the foreign policy is ours and you will enunciate it.” Bingo.
Hillary lost because she was unbelievably inept at lying and covering her double-tongued role with Democrats’ speeches and Wall Street speeches. She also clearly didn’t know anything about foreign affairs despite her flying all over the world for photo ops that gave the impression she did.
When Assange exposed her professional ineptitude and implied he had more (that might include her personal affairs,) who had the anti-Putin idea of returning to the Cold War? It certainly wasn’t the well spoken, but ill-informed Hillary. It was classic intelligence agency.
And she lost to a different kind of mad person who thinks walking a tightrope is good foreign policy no matter what the risk. The mindset of the MIC and intelligence agencies have almost got him under control after 2 1/2 years, but the Democrats, still ruled by the Clinton crowd are so inept that we may end up crowded between a Trump win in 2020 or a straightforward coup d’etat.
Dear Anonymot,
Very helpful remarks: between you and Realist et al. — what a rich, instructive discussion.
Ray
Dear Realist,
An excellent tutorial. Very much appreciated.
Ray
Realist, one of your best of the best comments.
Not only did the Nobel Peace winner gladly get involved in the Ukraine coup with ‘Victory’ Nuland, but they had to do it during Russia’s shining moment to the world, the Winter Olympics in Sochi. What arrogance. And, when Obama said about Russia, “well, they don’t make anything” my blood curdled.
You make another good point about the tragic downed airliner. Why send the black boxes to the UK? All we heard was ‘there was nothing of interest in them’, Right. We know Putin was flying back from Brazil that day and with the skill level shown by Ukraine these past few years, they could have mixed up planes. It’s hard to say.
And then to have the USB lead the investigation (as Robert reported) with the Netherlands (and the Aussies. Again, why?) when it was reported the USB were the very organization that went to all the ATC towers and confiscated the recording tapes? Russia sent the raw radar data to the investigation team in the Netherlands and they came back with the retort “we can’t read them” Russia offered technical experts to help and this was ignored, as was the 2 tests done by the makers of the Buks, Almez-Antey proving the blast pattern was an old model no longer in Russias’ inventory but in Ukraines. And they get away with all this crap?
One last thought: Putin heads a country that has 11 time zones, and we have 3. Why do so many people think he is just sitting around twiddling his thumbs trying to upset a US election? And he raised a good point when he said, at that time the House and the Senate were Republican controlled. Did he do that too?
He sees the US invalidating international agreements left and right, causing more and more military activity on his borders because of NATO needing an enemy to stay relevant, not to mention the increased funding of course, which is many times more than his own military funding.
Why meddle in an election? He has enough on his plate with all his ethic issues, and now the encroachment on his borders by the ‘good guys with guns and missiles’.
The US population has become more provincial and ethnocentric than I have ever witnessed and most of them don’t know how large Russia is. It’s a wonderful country.
Because of US ignorance about Russia it’s almost as if they perceive it as a little country where Putin has all the time in the world to play games, instead of his real purpose. Which is now to protect his country from the US/NATO military propaganda machine and its hardware surrounding his country. This must take up all of his time, but the ignorant still think he has time to meddle in the corrupt US election system.
It’s foolishness to the core. Only Mueller and his ilk have that kind of time and tax money to screw around with wasted time.
Curious – you give a passing mention to Australia. For readers who don’t know, Australia has no independent foreign policy. In international affairs Australia implements US policy, regardless of which of the two major political parties is in power. We send troops to US wars, provoke the Chinese, expel Russian diplomats, state as fact that Putin was responsible for MH17, state as fact that President al Assad gases his own people – and on it goes. The honour of being the US 51st state is bestowed on several countries, but we in Australia believe that particular honour is ours.
Realist – As always, a stunningly accurate and superb account of U.S. dealings with Russia during the Obama and Hillary rule.
Dave P.-
Yes, this was a fantastic comment thread. Thanks to all.
Immediately after the leak Robbie Mook immediately said the Russians did it, and I remember thinking how does he know, and saw it as ridiculous, laughable. I was a Sanders supporter, and I knew the Democratic party who is known to side lines their liberals wanted him gone from the beginning. MSNBC helped a lot, since throughout his campaign they would often refer to him as an old curmudgeon.
“Thus, she began her campaign under a cloud, and as more and more Americans learned of the fraud that oozed through the DNC email correspondence — including the rigging of the Democratic primaries — the cloud grew larger and darker.”
Dear Ray,
The most detailed description of how the DNC rigged the primary process — and the evidence in favor of it — is in “Democracy Lost: A Report on the Fatally Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries.” (You can find it on the web.) It’s independent of Wikileaks.
It provides at least 6 different sources of evidence supporting its allegation of DNC rigging. [1] Direct voter suppression that disproportionately affected Sanders. [2] Registration tampering (with photocopies of altered ballots.) [3] Inaccurate voting machine counts favoring Clinton (Clinton received unaccountably more votes in precincts using the most “hackable” machines. In all states, Clinton performed best on machines that don’t leave a paper trail.) [4] Exit poll discrepancies of a unprecedented amount, which did not occur in Republican primaries held on the same day! [5] Eyewitness caucus abuses, as in Iowa and Nevada. [6] DNC collusion with media to smear Sanders.
It states that the combined effects of the rigging was more than enough to have thrown the nomination to Clinton.
I’ve never seen any debunking of this report which (at least superficially, appears sound and) was written by credible authors.
But, on the other hand, I’ve seen no independent validation of the report by anyone, including Consortium News.
Do you know anything about it?
Yours
mbob
Way to go Ray. I find the comment about ” Is this how lowly you rate the intelligence of American voters” interesting because it is so accurate-the lowly bit that is. With the assistance (collusion) of the MSM the whole sordid scam has become the dominant paradigm, especially as liberals grasp at the American tradition of red baiting (even though those former reds are devout capitalists) to find sketchy ways of ousting Trumpenfuhrer. Unfortunately these efforts are by passing his more real faults and making the Democrats looking like fools and sore losers. Now he can play the” oh poor me I am being picked on game.”
The Clinton family has done tremendous damage to our nation, from financial deregulation, the bombing of Yugoslavia and Libya, influence peddling and fixing the election among many other sins.
Agree.
Only an idiot could think that trying to bring Trump down by, basically, bringing false charges against him was a good long-term strategy. Of course, they t hought the strategy only had to be short-term, until Hillary won the election, became president, and could then really deliver the corpse of Trump.
But some on the “left” are still hewing to this concept that Trump is so bad that Mueller must be right about *something.* They still do not get that this false accusation has *helped* Trump, not hurt him. Meanwhile he has gotten away with murder in another part of the forest.
These smart folks are so stupid.
Thank you, Ray for a very good summary and thank you also for highlighting how shabbily The Nation treated Patrick after he gave them some very fine work. Now all we need is for people who write the narrative in the MSM to start telling the truth and that would be a neat trick.
Once one sells his soul, he doesn’t get it back… And today, Brenner and Crapper work for MSM. RT probably more reality-based than CNN. This news coup is more than 50 years in the making and has taken quite a toll on the state of the American mind. So, quite a trick,
indeed.
Jeff,
Can you elaborate on “how shabbily The Nation treated Patrick.”
Thanks
Through all this, the media never focused on the emails themselves, at least to any real extent. Whether the information became available through a hack or download seems a minor issue that someone is deliberately trying to right the election of the president of the United States.
If for example, the worst sort of person fingered an actual murderer, would you ignore the murderer and go after the person who fingered them. It could only be accomplished if those who had the power to do that actually conspired to do it.
M. McGovern does an excellent job in the article making clear what happened. But was it really important, at least as important, that the evil Russians did or did not do it. An objective observer would be grateful that someone or some agency bought the information to light.
Of on top of it all is the gross hypocrisy surrounding the issue. We make Russia look like pikers when it comes to interference and comparing parties that interfere with our elections, do we really want to focus only on Russia?
Heman, I’m surprised no one has attempted to respond to your two comments. They are both inane. Trolling are you?
As for Tulsi, she left the DNC way before these leaked emails, and for the same reason as what they exposed but which DEM-Americans ignored. What does her leaving say about her? That she’s not easily duped. Honest truth-seekers usually aren’t.
To Ray, great article!
All this resulting in the Seth Rich murder cover up, even Donna Brazille is still disturbed by the Seth Rich murder, but no one else in Washington DC is permitted to even remember the Seth Rich murder.
This cover up turned into an excuse for losing the election, and immediately after the election it was the outline of the coup, fleshed out by the professionals who do this to normally protect our country. This is a plot worthy of the professionals who wrote the script and starred in the roles.
The coup is ongoing and given legitimacy and dignity by all but a few in Washington DC.
No one dares do anything about it, Barr is waiting for the election to see if perhaps he can drop the charade of concern over this coup.
It may be up to we the people to stop this coup, and we don’t have use of the courts. We have other options.
Brilliant article!
How much of this bizarre behavior and story lining can be compared to the behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics being told they’re messed up – that they have a problem?
They’re inside a fantasy, they need the fantasy, they’re being told that it is a fantasy. Many people have seen how bizarre the antics, lying, avoidance, deception can get with such individuals. I think we’re seeing it being played out by a group.
There is a massive difference – one uses it as a crutch to cover up a wound and make it through the day, the other uses it as a pogo stick. Politicians and bigshots don’t need this fantasy – they knowingly use it as a weapon.
Russian Collusion = Saddam’s WMD 2.0.
Also a test to recognize the sheetlet from the thinking.
“Is this how lowly you rate the intelligence of American voters? … ” Quoted above from Lawrence article. That was 2016, it is now 2019, so now you know. Maybe something better to describe us than intelligence. Gullible,, conditioned, intellectually lazy and just too much to think about, all come to mind.
In all this Tulsi Gabbard comes to mind, resigning in protest. What does that say about her as a presidential candidate?
If only the truth could make it to the bought corporate media hacks, and not be spiked.
Thank you Ray (Veteran Intelligence Professional for Sanity) McGovern.
Your recounting of what really happened is like a balm for the open wound of having to hear the bullcrap shoveled on us ad nauseum…….
And perhaps the saddest part of this very sad tale of the loss of a progressive candidate who could have changed the course of this country for the better – (victims of that kneecapping of the Sanders campaign include our democracy, the millions of people who lost so much as the neoliberal DNC machine including the Clintons helped shift the country away from New Deal protections and also include the millions of people around the world dislocated or destroyed by our corrupt foreign policy that feeds our MICIMATT)- the saddest part is that the political candidate who had fought for working people against the corruption of the DNC machine was then turned on for biting his lip and saying that Mrs Clinton was a better choice than Mr Trump possibly because Sanders may have considered it important, for example, that a Clinton Supreme Court choice would not have included a Kavanaugh…….
Senator Sanders’ key supporter then and now, philosopher Cornel West, did not follow that lead (nor did I but it was easy in Texas to cast a protest vote)
Human history I’m sure is filled with this kind of chicanery.
We’re living a nasty lesson not least of which is how our courageous whistleblowers and their publishers are punished for simply sharing the truth when that truth hurts powerful people…..
Lies, cleverly spun, seem to be more easily accepted. Even though they never quite pass the smell test.
Yes, General Powell, that smell test included your sorry performance at the U.N.
And Secretary Clinton – if you had spun around in 2016 during that ill-fated presidential debate and said “back off fat man” more voters might have trusted you enough to cast their ballot for you.
But true to form for you, calculated political correctness, apparently, meant more to you than the honesty and courage to show your unhappiness with Trump’s ill manners…
Re: evelync
Excellent comment!! And thanks to Ray McGovern for acknowledging the prescience and professional journalism of Patrick Lawrence, not only his seeing through the duplicity and cowardly corruption of the political operatives and their sycophantic media stenographers, but for being determined to inform a disillusioned, confused and too often hostile electorate.
As Usual,
EA
Please don’t try to disguise your insanity in a veiled love-fest with Mr. McGovern. As evidenced by this weeks news about the inability for Sanders to even run the economics of his own 2020 campaign, why do you think that he could run the economics of a nation? And after everything Mr. McGovern has written, you still acquiesce to Clinton as the shining light on the hill. Delusional! All things being equal, at the very least, if President Trump was not elected……none of us would even know about all the shams and shenanigans of Clinton and the DNC.
Talk about delusional – you are the epitome. Trump is no better than the rest – he just can’t stop his tiny fingers from twittering and his orange mouth from blithering…
Sounds like some real hate there. Stay in your lane. Please take your troll work to PMSNBC….they’ll be happy to hear from you. And try to develop an understanding of nuanced writing.
It’s unfortunate that the Republicans, like Mueller, are going along with the Russian meddling BS. This is the central piece of the whole sordid affair and of course has no basis in fact. Pull it out of the narrative and it all comes tumbling down. Tomorrow’s testimony is the perfect setting to expose the sham but sadly, the Republicans will not seize the opportunity.
A man uncovers massive coordinated INTERNAL election fraud and corruption within the democratic party and was silenced to protect and secure the biggest election fraud in U S history, the 2016 DNC primary….the evidence on the DNC servers would not only reveal the insider who leaked, it could have exposed a hell of a lot of worse crimes..like voting infrastructure Fixing predicted outcomes..but also who covered it up,and the intelligence agencies involvement, including their MSM spokesman…..
Sorry Bobby Kwasnik, I did not intend to imply that Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is a shining light – far from it. I am unable to come up with anything she stood for or accomplished that did not seem calculated to achieve personal power for herself. Many of the policies she supported both foreign and domestic obviously served the financial interests of the oligarchs who are taking us down a dangerous path leading to unsustainability and planetary destruction.
The dangerous path I’m referring to is covered in today’s Tomgram written by Andrew Bacevich.
Typing this into your search engine, if you’re interested, should bring it up for you:
“Tomdispatch Andrew Bacevich future history”
Btw, as you may know, retired army colonel and Boston University history prof. Andrew Bacevich is I think a true conservative, so rare today.
Are you sure that Donald Trump’s election had anything to do with the exposure of the “shams and shenanigans”? I think a lot of that credit goes to the work done by wikileaks and their sources.
(There are plenty of other publications that expose the Clinton machine – Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer is one. BTW, the sleazy way Donald Trump earned his wealth is nothing to be proud of either.)
We’re all caught up in a maelstrom of insanity, IMO. Believing that Donald Trump is anything but a self promoter and smooth talker and genius political manipulator may eventually leave you disappointed. He may occasionally do the right thing by the people of this country but only when he thinks it will serve his own momentary/monetary interests.
I’m willing to openly admit to you that my mental health is no better or worse than most…..
It’s a wonder that we’re not all running around screaming, lol.
Cheers.
“….the saddest part is that…[Sanders]…. was then turned on for biting his lip and saying that Mrs Clinton was a better choice than Mr Trump…”
No, he got what [the disdain] he deserved. The real saddest part was that he didn’t really fight for the nomination. He was the PC “gentleman” who gave the Hildabeast an easy ride. Bobby Kwasnik got you more right than you realize. Trump was the better choice. Without him, all the DNC shenanigans would have been swept under the rug and almost everyone would have gone back to sleep. Instead of pussy hatted marchers, the “women” would have been swooning, like the Blacks swooned for Obama.
Bad as it is, this beats Pres. Hilligula, and Sanders weakness lost him much support that’s not coming back, and shouldn’t.
Sorry Bobby, Trump did win the electoral college.
and:
“As evidenced by this weeks news about the inability for Sanders to even run the economics of his own 2020 campaign,”
I really was annoyed with all those “Hillary’s got the Chops” trolls, in 2016.
And today: Many in the “Cult of Mueller” need to acknowledge, just as Noam Chomsky stated, that Russiagate has probably procured the 2020 election for Trump.
The snark from the Cult is simply abusive. Besides being wrong with your contention, Sanders belongs nowhere in the subject at hand.
So you think the President “runs the economics of a nation”?
Regarding your concluding paragraph: Hillary would never state “back off fat man” because it was she, Bill and DNC who approved Trump as her Presidential “Pied Piper” opponent. Any doubt, view Robert Reich’s blog from early 206 to General Election 2016. Comments on his blog are littered with HRC trolls demanding our votes while we steadfastly maintained she was not worthy of our votes. Yes, based on her Wikileaks, based on her usurping Bernie, based on her CF, based on her support of rapist spouse while labeling us “misogynists”, based on her Pied Piper Strategy—we informed Reichwing HRC Camp that Trump would win the Presidency.
Hilly was lazy. Pied Piper campaign required no effort and MSM was more than happy to water carry the Pied Piper Strategy for Hilly. Hilly could though, campaign in Hollywood, Harvey’s and Rothschild’s Creme de la creme fundraisers in Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Hamptons—but ignore Wisconsin and PA, correct?
I’ll point out other points regarding her “ill-fated Presidential debate”. Demanding Bernie”s tax records while CF had their CF charity license revoked in State of Massachusetts for financial and other irregularities; simultaneously, Eric Schneiderman was intentionally withholding investigation of CF. I’m fact, Clinton’s were forced to revile NY CF tax records.
Goldman Sachs paid speeches by Hillary was the other Huuuge point raised during that “ill-fated” debate. She promised to release these yet failed to do so. How did we receive content of those speeches? Through leakers, yes GS employees and excerpts from WL.
Furthermore, it wasn’t “political correctness” that kept Hilly from yelling “back off fat man”. It was fear of being exposed for Pied Piper Strategy; after all, even WL had evidence of her Pied Piper gem. You refer also to Trump’s ill manners in your last paragraph while ignoring Hillary’s legendary ill manners. Eighteen years post BillyBoy’s Cigar Capers, she has Vanity Fair disinvite Monica Lewinsky from a NY Gala which Monica had already RSVP’d to. There are man ex-SS employees who can attest to her ill manners as well.
In closing, I’ll leave you with two names that speak volumes about Hilly’s ill manners and seething anger upon being exposed for her lies and corruption. Harmon Wilfred and Julian Assange. Harmon was Hilly’s first political refugee, simply because he had records of Gov. Clinton’s financial corruption. He was forced to flee to Canada, where Hilly sent Michael Horowitz and other prosecutor goons to falsely imprison and litigate him. Later, when serving in DC, same Michael Horowitz (now IG Horowitz), had Harmon”s children removed from him. Yes, Horowitz was serving on a Child Abuse Advisory Board (voluntary position) and arranged for that gross miscarriage of justice. Twenty years later, Harmon sits in NZ, stateless, without a passport, imprisoned by Hilly’s and Five Eyes Mafiaosa type agreement. Should Harmon attempt to leave NZ , he faces immediate extradition to US. Should his Canadian wife attempt to visit him, she is banned at most ports. She will face arrest.
Trump will win 2020. Bernie is not an option, he has been fully co-opted courtesy of Hilly and DNC. DNC has intentionally flooded Presidential race with twenty-one candidates, one of whom is an AWAN House Dem, Tim “AWAN” Ryan. Julian Castro is twin brother of Joacquin “AWAN” Castro. Should Castro win Presidency, or be selected VP, Castro would have ability to pardon his twin and thirty-one House AWAN Dems. And to be clear, we know this flooding of race is to keep Bernie from receiving highest number of electoral votes. So keep flooding, keep jerking with SuperDelegate rules. I DemExited 2016. The Pied Piper has won. Deal with it.
Hey Ray, have you read Ed Butowsky’s lawsuit? If not, I highly recommend you and your team do so – https://www.scribd.com/document/417578836/Butowsky-Complaint
And Ray should see the short video of Ellen Ratner confirming at a symposium on Nov. 9, 2016 that she had a 3-hour conversation with Assange a few days before (Nov. 5, 2016) and he said that it was not the Russians (as he has been saying for a long time) but was an inside job. In the video she doesn’t state that it was Seth and Aaron Rich who gave the emails to Assange but Butowsky claims in his lawsuit that is exactly what Assange told Ratner and asked her to tell Rich’s parents to give them some perspective regarding Seth’s murder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M3Z4eE6cJA
If you are an individual and you invent and publish conspiracy theories, you could get sent off to a psychiatric ward and deprived of liberty (including religious liberty in many states) and property without due process – something which is otherwise reserved for enemy combatants (“terrorists”) and now (at least seemingly) illegal immigrants.
If you work in mainstream journalism, politics, or public relations, you might get a promotion.
The whole notion the Kremlin hacked the ’16 prez election or that Moscow somehow interfered in it is the biggest propaganda accomplishment I’ve ever witnessed. In some ways it’s even beyond the 2002/’03 “Saddam has WMD! Saddam’s in bed with al-Qaeda” business.
Despite there being absolutely no credible evidence that any such interference existed, millions of otherwise semi-intelligent liberal minded folks have been lapping up this canard as if it were their mother’s milk. Mueller’s left with egg on his face after his report embarrassingly stated that the Russian’s interfered. What a load of malarkey that judge Friedrich has easily seen as having no substance prompting her to slap a well deserved gag order on the prosecutor. A prosecutor who was probably aligned with the Winter Hill gang to one degree or another!
This disconcerting group-think from the liberal intelligentsia should elicit gales of laughter if it weren’t so utterly imbecilic and dangerous.
Yes, Drew H, the “liberal Intelligentsia” continue to indulge in this bizarro groupthink and clearly willingly. One might say, so much for being members of the (self designated) “intelligentsia.”
As soon as this whole farrago hit the MSM fan and they began spraying out their DNC cover bullshit, my late husband and I kept asking: where and when are they going to actually start discussing the *content* of the emails themselves? Never.
So one can only conclude that the liberal intelligentsia (of whom many include my late husband’s friends – few of whom have continued to be in touch with me because I am far more abrasive than he) are *true* Dem party supporters: i.e. thoroughly bourgeois, very soft left (identitarian politics with a little generalized medicare help for the masses thrown in) and Russophobic under their thin patina of “progressiveness” (whatever that really means).
One might be forgiven, surely, for asking: to what significant end all of that highly expensive secondary and tertiary education if you have fallen for, and remain wedded to, the Clintonite-DNC lies and more lies of Russiagate?
The only answer I can come up with is: that it fits in with their underlying worldview; that it allows them to continue to support the imaginary “left” headed side of the single party. Sanders is hardly a Leninist, but he was, it seems a little too “revolutionary” for the property-owning, deeply corporate-capitalist leaning liberal intelligentsia (as of course, being liberal they would be).
The reason it fits with their “underlying world view” is they are passive consumers of MSM propaganda. They are not critical thinkers. They are also mostly isolated within their little clique, and are purposely separated from the seeing the horrible consequences of our war machine. As long as they can sip on their lattes in Starbucks, check their portfolio on their smart phone, and nobody does a drone strike on them, all is good with their world. The reason they hate Trump so much is that he has ripped off the mask and revealed the hypocrisy. When our “war criminal in chief” was a smooth talking blackish man it was easy to ignore the ugly underbelly of unrestrained capitalism seeking global hegemony. You could put a “Coexist” bumper sticker on your car and forget Obama was having his “Terror Tuesdays” in the company of John Brennan.
AnneR, there are no heroes: Bernie endorses Russiagate. He’s only revolutionary in rhetoric, most of which would never pass any Congress. The way he deferred to Hillary, what hope that he’s stand up to R2P & hawkish Dems and the MIC?