Glenn Greenwald (darling of progressives): The deep state is at war with Trump by SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Glenn Greenwald, in his [edited]own words

Quote:
The Deep State Goes to War With President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer

In January 1961, Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address after serving two terms as U.S. president; the five-star general chose to warn Americans of this specific threat to democracy: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

That warning was issued prior to the decadelong escalation of the Vietnam War, three more decades of Cold War mania, and the post-9/11 era, all of which radically expanded that unelected faction’s power even further.

This is the faction that is now engaged in open warfare against the duly elected and already widely disliked president-elect, Donald Trump.

This is also the faction that included Hillary Clinton and GWB, btw

Quote:
They are using classic Cold War dirty tactics and the defining ingredients of what has until recently been denounced as “Fake News.”

Their most valuable instrument is the U.S. media, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials. And Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss, as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason

and reality

Quote:
with each passing day, are willing — eager — to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry, and damaging those behaviors might be.

The serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest. There is a wide array of legitimate and effective tactics for combating those threats: from bipartisan congressional coalitions and constitutional legal challenges to citizen uprisings and sustained and aggressive civil disobedience. All of those strategies have periodically proven themselves effective in times of political crisis or authoritarian overreach.

But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth — despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie — is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality.

One in which KRAPO, SECONDRATE, WISHIWASHY, and GSTRING and SHINNY enthusiastically support. Curiously, the only person out of that usual clusterfuck who wasn't taken in by fake news was THUGR. And the only one who didn't comment at all was MAL4.

Quote:
And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it./

Not that being morally bankrupt and completely irrational is anathema to the Gang of Seven.

Quote:
Beyond all that, there is no bigger favor that Trump opponents can do for him than attacking him with such lowly, shabby, obvious shams, recruiting large media outlets to lead the way. When it comes time to expose actual Trump corruption and criminality, who is going to believe the people and institutions who have demonstrated they are willing to endorse any assertions no matter how factually baseless, who deploy any journalistic tactic no matter how unreliable and removed from basic means of ensuring accuracy?

Indeed

Quote:
All of these toxic ingredients were on full display yesterday as the Deep State unleashed its tawdriest and most aggressive assault yet on Trump: vesting credibility in and then causing the public disclosure of a completely unvetted and unverified document, compiled by a paid, anonymous operative while he was working for both GOP and Democratic opponents of Trump, accusing Trump of a wide range of crimes, corrupt acts, and salacious private conduct. The reaction to all of this illustrates that while the Trump presidency poses grave dangers, so, too, do those who are increasingly unhinged in their flailing, slapdash, and destructive attempts to undermine it.

Sounds like some people I know.

Quote:
For months, the CIA, with unprecedented clarity, overtly threw its weight behind Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and sought to defeat Donald Trump. In August, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell announced his endorsement of Clinton in the New York Times and claimed that “Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” The CIA and NSA director under George W. Bush, Gen. Michael Hayden, also endorsed Clinton and went to the Washington Post to warn, in the week before the election, that “Donald Trump really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin,” adding that Trump is “the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited.”

It is not hard to understand why the CIA preferred Clinton over Trump. Clinton was critical of Obama for restraining the CIA’s proxy war in Syria and was eager to expand that war, while Trump denounced it. Clinton clearly wanted a harder line than Obama took against the CIA’s long-standing foes in Moscow, while Trump wanted improved relations and greater cooperation. In general, Clinton defended and intended to extend the decadeslong international military order on which the CIA and Pentagon’s preeminence depends, while Trump — through a still-uncertain mix of instability and extremist conviction — posed a threat to it.

Which is why I refused to vote for Hillary. Also, have I not been trying to tell you people that there is a power struggle going on deep within the deep state? Well, maybe if you hear if from a revered source, you'll give it more credit. But in reality, you should have been assessing the information YOURSELVES, instead of relying on "sources" to tell you what to think.

Quote:
Whatever one’s views are on those debates, it is the democratic framework — the presidential election, the confirmation process, congressional leaders, judicial proceedings, citizen activism and protest, civil disobedience — that should determine how they are resolved. All of those policy disputes were debated out in the open; the public heard them; and Trump won. Nobody should crave the rule of Deep State overlords.

Except that Gang of Seven, who would like to tuck themselves comfortably in its anus.

Quote:
Yet craving Deep State rule is exactly what prominent Democratic operatives and media figures are doing. Any doubt about that is now dispelled. Just last week, Chuck Schumer issued a warning to Trump, telling Rachel Maddow that Trump was being “really dumb” by challenging the unelected intelligence community because of all the ways they possess to destroy those who dare to stand up to them:

Chuck Schumer on Trump's tweet hitting intel community: "He's being really dumb to do this." https://t.co/MOcU8ruOPK — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 4, 2017

And last night, many Democrats openly embraced and celebrated what was, so plainly, an attempt by the Deep State to sabotage an elected official who had defied it: ironically, its own form of blackmail.

Back in October, a political operative and former employee of the British intelligence agency MI6 was being paid by Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump (before that, he was paid by anti-Trump Republicans). He tried to convince countless media outlets to publish a long memo he had written filled with explosive accusations about Trump’s treason, business corruption, and sexual escapades, with the overarching theme that Trump was in servitude to Moscow because they were blackmailing and bribing him.

Despite how many had it, no media outlets published it. That was because these were anonymous claims unaccompanied by any evidence at all

Fact= free, evidence-free allegations are your stock-in-trade, right GSTRING, SECONDRATE, KRAPO, WISHYWASHY, THUGR, and MAL4?

Quote:
and even in this more permissive new media environment, nobody was willing to be journalistically associated with it. As the New York Times’ Executive Editor Dean Baquet put it last night, he would not publish these “totally unsubstantiated” allegations because “we, like others, investigated the allegations and haven’t corroborated them, and we felt we’re not in the business of publishing things we can’t stand by.”

The closest this operative got to success was convincing Mother Jones’s David Corn to publish an October 31 article reporting that “a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country” claims that “he provided the [FBI] with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump.”

But because this was just an anonymous claim unaccompanied by any evidence or any specifics (which Corn withheld), it made very little impact. All of that changed yesterday. Why?

What changed was the intelligence community’s resolution to cause this all to become public and to be viewed as credible. In December, John McCain provided a copy of this report to the FBI and demanded they take it seriously.

At some point last week, the chiefs of the intelligence agencies decided to declare that this ex-British intelligence operative was “credible” enough that his allegations warranted briefing both Trump and Obama about them, thus stamping some sort of vague, indirect, and deniable official approval on these accusations. Someone — by all appearances, numerous officials — then went to CNN to tell the network they had done this, causing CNN to go on air and, in the gravest of tones, announce the “Breaking News” that “the nation’s top intelligence officials” briefed Obama and Trump that Russia had compiled information that “compromised President-elect Trump.”

CNN refused to specify what these allegations were on the ground that it could not “verify” them. But with this document in the hands of multiple media outlets, it was only a matter of time — a small amount of time — before someone would step up and publish the whole thing. BuzzFeed quickly obliged, airing all of the unvetted, anonymous claims about Trump.

And I hope that in the future you will a more ... a LOT more ... skeptical about what you read in the MSM.

Quote:
Its editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, published a memo explaining that decision, saying that — although there was “serious reason to doubt the allegations” — BuzzFeed in general “errs on the side of publication” and “Americans can make up their own minds about the allegations.” Publishing this document predictably produced massive traffic (and thus profit) for the site, with millions of people viewing the article and presumably reading the “dossier.”

One can certainly object to BuzzFeed’s decision and, as the New York Times noted this morning, many journalists are doing so. It’s almost impossible to imagine a scenario where it’s justifiable for a news outlet to publish a totally anonymous, unverified, unvetted document filled with scurrilous and inflammatory allegations about which its own editor-in-chief says there “is serious reason to doubt the allegations,” on the ground that they want to leave it to the public to decide whether to believe it.

But even if one believes there is no such case where that is justified, yesterday’s circumstances presented the most compelling scenario possible for doing this. Once CNN strongly hinted at these allegations, it left it to the public imagination to conjure up the dirt Russia allegedly had to blackmail and control Trump. By publishing these accusations, BuzzFeed ended that speculation. More importantly, it allowed everyone to see how dubious this document is, one the CIA and CNN had elevated into some sort of grave national security threat.

Almost immediately after it was published, the farcical nature of the “dossier” manifested. Not only was its author anonymous, but he was paid by Democrats (and, before that, by Trump’s GOP adversaries) to dig up dirt on Trump. Worse, he himself cited no evidence of any kind but instead relied on a string of other anonymous people in Russia he claims told him these things.

Worse still, the document was filled with amateur errors.

While many of the claims are inherently unverified, some can be confirmed. One such claim — that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen secretly traveled to Prague in August to meet with Russian officials — was strongly denied by Cohen, who insisted he had never been to Prague in his life (Prague is the same place that foreign intelligence officials claimed, in 2001, was the site of a nonexistent meeting between Iraqi officials and 9/11 hijackers, which contributed to 70 percent of Americans believing, as late as the fall of 2003, that Saddam personally planned the 9/11 attack). This morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that “the FBI has found no evidence that [Cohen] traveled to the Czech Republic.”

None of this stopped Democratic operatives and prominent media figures from treating these totally unverified and unvetted allegations as grave revelations. From Vox’s Zack Beauchamp:

Good god pic.twitter.com/BiGqkiobA1 — Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) January 10, 2017

Look, don't take anything in this dossier as gospel. But it's definitely evidence in favor of some pretty extraordinary claims. — Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) January 10, 2017

BuzzFeed’s Borzou Daragahi posted a long series of tweets discussing the profound consequences of these revelations, only occasionally remembering to insert the rather important journalistic caveat “if true” in his meditations:

Whoa ????. So guessing the press conference tomorrow is off. https://t.co/e4iNrNKgrh pic.twitter.com/VEa44PeICe — Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) January 11, 2017

Stunning and believable narrative in leaked docs describing alleged rift in Kremlin over meddling in US elections https://t.co/e4iNrNKgrh pic.twitter.com/qY2TuSM5Fc — Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) January 11, 2017

According to raw intel file, Kremlin info ops regarded Trump, @DrJillStein, LaRouche and @GenFlynn all potential assets in war vs Clinton pic.twitter.com/3fxTcqUIUL — Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) January 11, 2017

Bombshell if true: Trump lawyer @MichaelCohen212 & Kremlin reps allegedly held clandestine August meeting in Prague https://t.co/e4iNrO1RiP pic.twitter.com/7FBZjJyXMq — Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) January 11, 2017

Meanwhile, liberal commentator Rebecca Solnit declared this to be a “smoking gun” that proves Trump’s “treason,” while Daily Kos’s Markos Moulitsas sounded the same theme:

With CNN confirming that intelligence chiefs consider this report credible, it's about time to start using the word "treason" — Markos Moulitsas (@markos) January 11, 2017

While some Democrats sounded notes of caution — party loyalist Josh Marshall commendably urged: “I would say in reviewing raw, extremely raw ‘intel,’ people shld retain their skepticism even if they rightly think Trump is the worst” — the overwhelming reaction was the same as all the other instances where the CIA and its allies released unverified claims about Trump and Russia: instant embrace of the evidence-free assertions as Truth, combined with proclamations that they demonstrated Trump’s status as a traitor (with anyone expressing skepticism designated a Kremlin agent or stooge).

There is a real danger here that this maneuver could harshly backfire, to the great benefit of Trump and to the great detriment of those who want to oppose him.

Which is why SHINY at one point thought that Trump himself has released it: It makes Trump more "bullet-proof" in the future.

Quote:
If any of the significant claims in this “dossier” turn out to be provably false — such as Cohen’s trip to Prague — many people will conclude, with Trump’s encouragement, that large media outlets (CNN and BuzzFeed) and anti-Trump factions inside the government (CIA) are deploying “Fake News” to destroy him. In the eyes of many people, that will forever discredit — render impotent — future journalistic exposés that are based on actual, corroborated wrongdoing.

Beyond that, the threat posed by submitting ourselves to the CIA and empowering it to reign supreme outside of the democratic process is — as Eisenhower warned — an even more severe danger. The threat of being ruled by unaccountable and unelected entities is self-evident and grave. That’s especially true when the entity behind which so many are rallying is one with a long and deliberate history of lying, propaganda, war crimes, torture, and the worst atrocities imaginable.

All of the claims about Russia’s interference in U.S. elections and ties to Trump should be fully investigated by a credible body, and the evidence publicly disclosed to the fullest extent possible. As my colleague Sam Biddle argued last week after disclosure of the farcical intelligence community report on Russian hacking — one that even Putin’s foes mocked as a bad joke — the utter lack of evidence for these allegations means “we need an independent, resolute inquiry.” But until then, assertions that are unaccompanied by evidence and disseminated anonymously should be treated with the utmost skepticism — not lavished with convenience-driven gullibility.

Most important of all, the legitimate and effective tactics for opposing Trump are being utterly drowned by these irrational, desperate, ad hoc crusades that have no cogent strategy and make his opponents appear increasingly devoid of reason and gravity. Right now, Trump’s opponents are behaving as media critic Adam Johnson described: as ideological jellyfish, floating around aimlessly and lost, desperately latching on to whatever barge randomly passes by.

There are solutions to Trump. They involve reasoned strategizing and patient focus on issues people actually care about. Whatever those solutions are, venerating the intelligence community, begging for its intervention, and equating its dark and dirty assertions as Truth are most certainly not among them. Doing that cannot possibly achieve any good and is already doing much harm.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/11/the-deep-state-goes-to-war-with-pr
esident-elect-using-unverified-claims-as-dems-cheer/

-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake

"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

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Monday, January 16, 2017 9:20 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Another darling of the progressives and also no fan of Trump - Matt Taibbi- says Trump was right about the media:

Quote:
Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus

The media and politicians had spent so much time with each other that they lost touch with regular people, and Trump capitalized on that. He made us in the media villains, representative of this out of touch, ivory tower political culture," he said.

"I think there's some fairness to it, as much as I dislike Donald Trump, he hit a note, several notes, in this campaign that were true, and that was one of them."

Another one, he says, is Washington corruption.

Taibbi believes Trump was correct to say that both Democrats and Republicans have become more beholden to their political donors than to their constituents, and his vow to "drain the swamp" struck a chord.

In a recent article

Quote:
"We journalists made the same mistake the Republicans made, the same mistake the Democrats made. We were too sure of our own influence, too lazy to bother hearing things firsthand, and too in love with ourselves to imagine that so many people could hate and distrust us as much as they apparently do.

It's too late for any of us to fix this colossal misread and lapse in professional caution. Now all we can do is wait to see how much this failure of vision will cost the public we supposedly serve. Just like the politicians, our job was to listen, and we talked instead. Now America will do its own talking for a while. The world may never forgive us for not seeing this coming."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-15/matt-taibbi-insane-clown-pres
ident-trump-was-right-about-media

But he doesn't think Americans should hold their breath for their incoming president to fix any of the issues at the heart of his campaign rhetoric.

"Even though his diagnoses on some things in some cases are accurate, it's his solutions that are the problem," Taibbi said. "He's not a deep thinker and his instincts for fixing everything are purely authoritarian."

-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake

"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

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Monday, January 16, 2017 10:34 AM

REAVERFAN

Meh. It's easier to believe Trump did all that crap than to believe he didn't.

He's that awful.

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Monday, January 16, 2017 1:24 PM

That's what the MSM is banking on half of the country doing reaverfan.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, January 16, 2017 3:34 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Hey! You just described RT.com!

BTW - Should I stop asking you to provide evidence to back your claims, since you never do? Lemme' know!

How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Monday, January 16, 2017 5:30 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The Real Reason Any Russian Meddling Is an Emergency
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/16/the-real-reason-any-russian-meddli
ng-is-an-emergency/

by Jon Schwarz, January 16 2017, 8:18 a.m.

The bizarre saga of potential Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has created a genuine emergency in American politics. This isn’t necessarily because of Russia’s actual actions — unless the most peculiar allegations turn out to be accurate — but because of Donald Trump’s response, and what this indicates about how he’ll govern.

Ignore the Trump “dossier” for the moment and forget the baseless conjecture about Russia hacking the U.S. voting process itself. All we need to know about Trump and the Republican Party can be found in their position on the simplest, most plausible part of the story: that Russia was behind the hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and John Podesta.

Is this in fact what happened? Certainly the Obama administration did itself no favors by failing to release any of the evidence underlying the strong conclusions in the the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s report. But Trump himself said at last week’s press conference, presumably based on a classified briefing, that “I think it was Russia.” Mike Pompeo, Trump’s nominee to run the Central Intelligence Agency, agreed during his confirmation hearings. There’s also the crucial dog that hasn’t barked: Unlike during the lead up to the Iraq War, no one from the intelligence agencies has been leaking doubts or claims that they’re being leaned on by the White House to provide the desired conclusion.

Under these circumstances, the reaction of anyone who actually cares about the United States has to be: We must investigate this with great seriousness and impartiality and find out exactly what happened. This requires an independent commission with sufficient funding, a broad mandate and legal authority that Congress creates but then can no longer influence.

Nothing should be less controversial than this. Whatever a nation’s political disagreements, in any functioning democracy there’s just one position on this issue: Only citizens can participate in deciding who governs it.

In every other circumstance Republicans love wrapping themselves in the flag and vowing to protect us from dastardly foreigners, even if this requires renaming the french fries in the congressional cafeteria. Few do this more than Trump himself, whose entire campaign was about the apocalyptic danger posed to us by China, Mexico, the freeloaders of NATO, Muslims from anywhere, and so on. Yet on the subject of Russia and this election he’s suddenly indifferent — even though fear of this type of foreign influence doesn’t require jingoistic xenophobia but just a rational, healthy belief in small-d democratic self-determination.

This is one of the key topics of George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address, the most famous political rhetoric in American history until the Gettysburg Address. “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” Washington warned, “the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.”

Washington was particularly concerned by the “common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party” – that is, loyalty to your own faction within the country above the country overall. This, he said, “opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions” and allows other countries to “practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils.”

Trump and the GOP are now busy proving how prescient Washington was. Trump has not endorsed an independent investigation of any Russian actions aimed at the election, nor released the financial information that would clarify any business relationships he has with Russians or Russian banks. Moreover, he can’t even bring himself to pretend in public that any of it matters much (although it’s hard to tell whether this is because he fears we’ll find out something nefarious he did or simply because his ego can’t bear his victory being thrown into doubt). Of all of Trump’s violations of basic democratic norms, his indifference to this most basic principle of self-government is the most shocking of all.

Meanwhile, most congressional Republicans are hoping to quietly bury this issue in rigged, limited investigations that you can be sure will take so long that no one will remember what it was all about by the time they’re done. Their faction has power, and that’s all they care about.

There are, of course, endless potential quibbles with and distractions from this central reality. But none of them amount to much.

Do we know that the release of emails changed the outcome of the election? No, and it’s possible they didn’t. So what? Interference in our elections should be unacceptable under any circumstances.

Aren’t we hugely hypocritical for complaining about this, given America’s overbearing interventions in dozens of other countries? It depends on who “we” are. Yes, the CIA and U.S. political leaders have no grounds to object to this. But regular Americans do, just as regular Iranians, Guatemalans, Chileans and many, many others have every right to object to what we’ve done.

Do many of the those pushing this, such as Arizona Senator John McCain, want to use this as an excuse to start a new cold war with Russia? Absolutely. Moreover, they also embody exactly what Washington meant when he said that concern about foreign influence “must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it.” McCain and company are perfectly fine with foreign influence on U.S. politics when it originates with Saudi Arabia or Israel. But if we don’t find out what truly happened, that space won’t be filled with a reasonable appraisal of our relations with Russia but with more dangerous, crazed speculation.

And finally, are elite Democrats using this subject as as excuse for their own spectacular failures? Yes, of course. But again, ignoring this won’t make them face reality; instead they’ll fall further down a comforting rabbit hole. As Bernie Sanders has said on this subject, “You gotta walk and chew bubble gum” — i.e., both investigate what happened and rebuild progressive forces around the country.

So what’s most deeply frightening about this whole story isn’t what Russia did or didn’t do. It’s that Trump’s response and the Republican blessing of it is Trump’s most powerful demonstration that absolutely all bets are off. If he’ll do this, there’s nothing he won’t do, and nothing the GOP won’t let him get away with.

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Monday, January 16, 2017 5:37 PM

I guess the bottom line is, what exactly were in those documents that Russia supposedly hacked?

If you answered dozens, perhaps hundreds of reasons why Hillary Clinton was unfit for the Presidency, you get a gold star.

Russia is a big place. Maybe Anonomyous was hacking the DNC from his mom's basement, who happened to have a zip code in Moscow?

There's still been no proof. Show me proof.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, January 16, 2017 5:51 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by G:
Hey! You just described RT.com!

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
BTW - Should I stop asking you to provide evidence to back your claims, since you never do? Lemme' know!

Quote:
Originally posted by G:
By your own definition and my experience there's nothing I could provide you with that you would believe or accept as evidence, so yes, shut the f*ck up.

What definition did *I* give? Or should I stop asking you to provide evidence to back your claims, since you never do? Lemme' know!

How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Monday, January 16, 2017 5:59 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Who is John Schwartz, and why should I care about what he posts? Because - he lied right at the start. When he claims that Russia was behind the DNC and Podesta files, and the people WHO ACTUALLY RECEIVED THEM STATED UNEQUIVOCALLY THEY CAME FROM A LEAKER, NOT A HACKER, AND NOT RUSSIA - it just ruins his credibility - and yours, SECOND, for ignoring facts - right there.

So - aside from being a liar - Who is John Schwartz, and why should I care about what he posts? Is he - an intelligence analyst with hard data? A cybersecurity expert? A bloviating piece of an echo chamber?

SECOND, YOU seem to give him some credit. But, can you answer the question, SECOND? Who is John Schwartz, and why should I care about what he posts?

How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Monday, January 16, 2017 6:02 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Russia is a big place. Maybe Anonomyous was hacking the DNC from his mom's basement, who happened to have a zip code in Moscow?

There's still been no proof. Show me proof.

There are, of course, endless potential quibbles with and distractions from the central reality that the DNC was hacked. But none of them amount to much.

Do we know that the release of emails changed the outcome of the election? No, and it’s possible they didn’t. So what? Interference in our elections should be unacceptable under any circumstances. Even if the hack came from Anonomyous' mom's basement

Aren’t we hugely hypocritical for complaining about this, given America’s overbearing interventions in dozens of other countries? It depends on who “we” are. Yes, the CIA and U.S. political leaders have no grounds to object to this. But regular Americans do, just as regular Iranians, Guatemalans, Chileans and many, many others have every right to object to what we’ve done.

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Monday, January 16, 2017 6:47 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

SECOND

Who is John Schwartz, and why should I care about what he posts?

Because - he lied right at the start. When he claims that Russia was behind the DNC and Podesta files, and the people WHO ACTUALLY RECEIVED THEM STATED UNEQUIVOCALLY THEY CAME FROM A LEAKER, NOT A HACKER, AND NOT RUSSIA - it just ruins his credibility - and yours, SECOND, for ignoring facts - right there.

So - aside from being a liar - Who is John Schwartz, and why should I care about what he posts? Is he - an intelligence analyst with hard data? A cybersecurity expert? A bloviating piece of an echo chamber?

SECOND, YOU seem to give him some credit. But, can you answer the question, SECOND? Who is John Schwartz, and why should I care about what he posts?

How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Monday, January 16, 2017 8:56 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Originally posted by 1kiki:

SECOND, YOU seem to give him some credit. But, can you answer the question, SECOND? Who is John Schwartz, and why should I care about what he posts?

Jon Schwarz wrote this story for The Intercept https://theintercept.com/staff/jonschwarz/

The Intercept was co-founded by Glenn Greenwald. https://theintercept.com/staff/glenn-greenwald/

The thread is titled “Glenn Greenwald (darling of progressives) ...”

Glenn Greenwald and Jon Schwarz work together, with Greenwald editing Schwarz’s writing, including this story. There is one degree of separation between Greenwald and Schwarz. It could only be closer if they were the same person writing under two different names.

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Monday, January 16, 2017 11:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Russia is a big place. Maybe Anonomyous was hacking the DNC from his mom's basement, who happened to have a zip code in Moscow?

There's still been no proof. Show me proof.
There are, of course, endless potential quibbles with and distractions from the central reality that the DNC was hacked. But none of them amount to much.

Do we know that the release of emails changed the outcome of the election? No, and it’s possible they didn’t. So what? Interference in our elections should be unacceptable under any circumstances. Even if the hack came from Anonomyous' mom's basement

Aren’t we hugely hypocritical for complaining about this, given America’s overbearing interventions in dozens of other countries? It depends on who “we” are. Yes, the CIA and U.S. political leaders have no grounds to object to this. But regular Americans do, just as regular Iranians, Guatemalans, Chileans and many, many others have every right to object to what we’ve done.

Once again you prove that you and I probably agree a lot on most things, when we're not too busy arguing about all the Bullshit the MSM shovels on us.

Yes, I do have a problem with "entities" meddling in our elections. Yes, it is also hypocritical of us as a nation to object to it when we have been doing it since after WWII.

I do think that the emails actually had a lot to do with the outcome of the election. To somebody who is a die hard Liberal, such as yourself, it didn't mean much. You were always going to vote for Hillary and you likely surround yourself with like minded individuals and share that particular echo chamber.

It was the "Middle" that voted against her after voting twice for Obama that would have been swayed by what was in those emails. And trust me... If you weren't wearing those blinders there was A LOT of bad stuff in those emails.

Part of me is grateful to whoever hacked them so we could see the truth of the Clintons and the DNC and the MSM and all of the collusion that has been going on.

Another part of me gets a little kick out of the fact that our Government can still even be hacked. I guess it's not Orwell's 1984 just yet.

But another part of me does find this extremely alarming. Whoever did hack the DNC and Hillary's illegal server only showed us the damning evidence against her and her cronies. I'm sure they got a lot more information than that. Who knows what secrets they know? Who are they? Will we suffer major consequences down the road on topics we haven't even imagined if those in possession of this information has nefarious intentions?

At least though, it seems to be that we can agree that until there is actual proof that it was indeed Russian Agents that hacked the emails that we shouldn't be so quick to just go along with that story.

Sure, I want to know who did it. I think odds are about 99-to-1 that the CIA has known all along and we will never know. It will be a mystery like JFK.

All I can say for sure is that it certainly is a good weapon to keep all of us idiots on the bottom of the chain fighting each other instead of doing something productive.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, January 16, 2017 11:57 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

FBI dispute with DNC over hacked servers may fuel doubt on Russia role
The FBI never gained access to the DNC's hacked servers, instead relying on evidence provided from CrowdStrike

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3155227/security/fbi-dispute-with-dnc-o
ver-hacked-servers-may-fuel-doubt-on-russia-role.html

The FBI may have been forced into a misstep when investigating whether Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee -- the agency never directly examined the DNC servers that were breached.

Instead, the FBI had to rely on forensic evidence provided by third-party cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which the DNC hired to mitigate the breach.

“The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed,” the agency said on Thursday in a statement.

The incident threatens to spark more skepticism over whether the U.S. properly arrived at its conclusion that Russian cyberspies were responsible for the breach.

“The FBI may have all the evidence or not,” said John Bambenek, a researcher with Fidelis Cybersecurity. “But this case has been handled so unusually, it gives everyone a reason to latch on and cast doubt.”

News that the FBI failed to directly examine the hacked servers came on Wednesday, when Buzzfeed reported that a DNC spokesman said that the agency had never requested access.

On Thursday, the FBI contested that claim, saying the denial of access "caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier."

It's unclear why the DNC allegedly blocked access to the servers. But companies that have been breached are sometimes fearful of exposing sensitive data to outside parties, said Andrei Barysevich, a director at security firm Recorded Future.

“The FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton at the time (over her private email server),” he said. “So it’s totally possible, the DNC didn’t want them involved at any stage of the investigation because of that.”

Nor can the FBI force an affected party to turn a server over, Barysevich said. However, the whole incident may raise questions over whether federal agents saw all the evidence related to the breach. “CrowdStrike is not obligated to share everything with law enforcement,” Barysevich said. “That could have potentially interfered with the investigation.”

CrowdStrike didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But it wasn’t the only private security firm to examine the breach. Fidelis Cybersecurity was brought in to look at the malware samples, and concluded that suspected elite Russian hackers were behind the intrusion.

Nevertheless, the FBI should have conducted its own review of the hacked servers, Bambenek said. “This is a highly political case, and perception matters,” he said. "In this situation, they need to be building credibility."

Critics might now question if the FBI missed pieces of evidence in its investigation or if U.S. intelligence agencies rushed to blame Russia for the hack.

“You’re telling me the law enforcement community didn’t actually look at the (server) drives themselves? Are you trying to sow conspiracy theories?” Bambenek said.

U.S. intelligence agencies, including the FBI, have blamed the DNC breach and other high-profile political hacks on the Kremlin attempting to influence last year’s election. To retaliate, the White House last month expelled Russian diplomats from the U.S. and ordered sanctions against the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama may very well shed more light on why the U.S. believes Russia was involved. He has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to come out with a full report that will detail the Kremlin's role in the election-related hacks. A declassified version of that report is scheduled to become public on Monday.

However incoming President Donald Trump remains skeptical that Russia is to blame. His camp previously rejected U.S. intelligence findings on the matter, saying “these are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”

How did your beloved 'democratic' party fuck up so badly?

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Tuesday, January 17, 2017 8:31 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Once again you prove that you and I probably agree a lot on most things, when we're not too busy arguing about all the Bullshit the MSM shovels on us.

Yes, I do have a problem with "entities" meddling in our elections. Yes, it is also hypocritical of us as a nation to object to it when we have been doing it since after WWII.

I do think that the emails actually had a lot to do with the outcome of the election. To somebody who is a die hard Liberal, such as yourself, it didn't mean much. You were always going to vote for Hillary and you likely surround yourself with like minded individuals and share that particular echo chamber.

It was the "Middle" that voted against her after voting twice for Obama that would have been swayed by what was in those emails. And trust me... If you weren't wearing those blinders there was A LOT of bad stuff in those emails.

6ixStringJack, let us find something more to agree about.

A trio of researchers takes a broad look at the evidence that FBI Director James Comey affected the election. Their conclusion:

The evidence is clear, and consistent, regarding the Comey effect. The timing of the shift both at the state and national levels lines up very neatly with the publication of the letter, as does the predominance of the story in the media coverage from the final week of the campaign. With an unusually large number of undecided voters late in the campaign, the letter hugely increased the salience of what was the defining critique of Clinton during the campaign at its most critical moment.

www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/11/14215930/comey-email-election-clint
on-campaign

If it weren't for Comey, Hillary Clinton would have won the popular vote by about 6 points and the Electoral College by 70 or more. And that might have turned into control of the Senate as well, though that's a little more speculative.

Three times the director of the FBI (a Republican) accused Hillary of being a criminal and three times the FBI said it did not have evidence to prove it, but it would keep trying until it did. The FBI never did that to anybody in Organized Crime, but the FBI did it in a Presidential Election.

6ixStringJack and I can agree on one thing: we are both better off with a Hillary loss. I’ve got two reasons: $100,000 tax savings every year of Trump. And I am feeling blessed that I won’t be hearing about Hillary’s emails being investigated by the FBI everyday for the next four years. I would say I won, despite my vote for the loser Hillary.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, January 17, 2017 9:43 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

AFA Russia "hacking" the elections ... both Russia and the USA gather information on ALL candidates of ALL important elections. Other nations to the same as well, to the extent of their abilities and/or their ties to more capable intelligence organizations.

Now, there are a couple of important points to make

1) Nobody "hacked" anything. A hack is an exploit where a hardware of software vulnerability is taken advantage of to gain access to a system. This wasn't a hack, it was one of the oldest tricks in the book. What WAS taken advantage of was was human gullibility.

2) About whoever had access to the DNC server: Passively gathering information does NOT "influence" an election. It's only a problem if that information is released.

3) If anything did influence the election, it was the RELEASE of the emails. Julian Assange categorically states it was not Russia, but an insider. So if you want to blame anyone for rattling the election, is was this person.

4) There is no proof that it was "Russia" that accessed the server, and the FBI apparently didn't even get access to the server (What? Was the DNC busy bleach-bitting this server too?). Everyone is ASSUMING that it was Russia on the basis, mostly, of cui bono?. However, there were TWO documented unauthorized accesses and possibly three. Was Russia responsible for ALL of them? If so, that's awfully clumsy, since the latest one exposed the first. Like everyone else, I ASSUME it was Russia that accessed the server once. I find it hard to imagine that this super-dangerous cyber-enemy tripped over its own feet tho.

As far as I can tell, none of you have addressed Glenn Greewnald's and Matt Taibi's main point, which is that the deep state is busy spewing propaganda into the media FOR ITS OWN PURPOSES, and that many people bought into it, and continue to buy into it. I'm afraid that Greenwald and Taibbi - both of whom hate Trump- have failed in their purpose, since they have caused exactly zero people (here, anyway) to take a second look at their own beliefs and reactions with the new information that they may have been manipulated into it.

-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake

"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

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Tuesday, January 17, 2017 10:28 AM

THGRRI

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Now, there are a couple of important points to make

1) Nobody "hacked" anything. A hack is an exploit where a hardware of software vulnerability is taken advantage of to gain access to a system. This wasn't a hack, it was one of the oldest tricks in the book. What WAS taken advantage of was was human gullibility.

Hacking is to gain access to (a computer file or network) illegally or without authorization:

You'll lie about the simplest of things. There's just no limit to your and 1kiki's attempts at deflecting from the truth is there? Your above statement about hacking is, well, astounding.

____________________________________________

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Wednesday, January 18, 2017 7:12 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Dood. Son. Don't cross swords with me on computer culture; I know far too many experts (and I mean REAL experts ... people who program at the highest level and who can run rings around any "security expert" that you can cite on the internet) for you to win at this, and you'll only show yourself to be the ignoranus that you really are.

Real hackers would not refer to spearphishing as "hacking".

-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake

"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

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Wednesday, January 18, 2017 8:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
-6ixStringJack, let us find something more to agree about.

A trio of researchers takes a broad look at the evidence that FBI Director James Comey affected the election. Their conclusion:

The evidence is clear, and consistent, regarding the Comey effect. The timing of the shift both at the state and national levels lines up very neatly with the publication of the letter, as does the predominance of the story in the media coverage from the final week of the campaign. With an unusually large number of undecided voters late in the campaign, the letter hugely increased the salience of what was the defining critique of Clinton during the campaign at its most critical moment.

www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/11/14215930/comey-email-election-clint
on-campaign

If it weren't for Comey, Hillary Clinton would have won the popular vote by about 6 points and the Electoral College by 70 or more. And that might have turned into control of the Senate as well, though that's a little more speculative.

Three times the director of the FBI (a Republican) accused Hillary of being a criminal and three times the FBI said it did not have evidence to prove it, but it would keep trying until it did. The FBI never did that to anybody in Organized Crime, but the FBI did it in a Presidential Election.

6ixStringJack and I can agree on one thing: we are both better off with a Hillary loss. I’ve got two reasons: $100,000 tax savings every year of Trump. And I am feeling blessed that I won’t be hearing about Hillary’s emails being investigated by the FBI everyday for the next four years. I would say I won, despite my vote for the loser Hillary.

Just to clear things up Second, Comey actually did say before the General election that Hillary's server was, in fact, illegal. However, he said that in their eyes she was unaware of it being illegal and that they could not prove she had any intent to break the law, so they would not be seeking criminal charges.

That is a far cry from being proclaimed innocent. I've always heard "ignorance of the law is no excuse". There is no doubt that if you or I were guilty of the same thing we'd be locked up right now. This is another big reason that Trump got elected. People are tired of the Elites like the Clintons getting a free pass where your regular citizen never would.

You mind sharing some of that tax return? With just half of your tax savings this year I could pay all of my bills for the next 10 years. (well, maybe only 7 with inflation)

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, January 18, 2017 11:39 AM

THGRRI

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Dood. Son. Don't cross swords with me on computer culture; I know far too many experts (and I mean REAL experts ... people who program at the highest level and who can run rings around any "security expert" that you can cite on the internet) for you to win at this, and you'll only show yourself to be the ignoranus that you really are.

Real hackers would not refer to spearphishing as "hacking".

-----------

"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

That's because you're a Russian troll. Nonetheless, my statement about what constitutes hacking is correct. Your explanation for dismissing the hacking was down right funny.

I'll let others see for themselves what you posted about the hacking and see if your claim of be so technically advanced is accurate.

SIG's post on hacking. This wasn't a hack, it was one of the oldest tricks in the book. What WAS taken advantage of was was human gullibility.

In other SIG claims that if you are gullible, you weren't hack because it was your fault.

____________________________________________

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Wednesday, October 19, 2022 11:51 AM

Glenn Greenwald: No One Trying To Deescalate Nuclear War With Russia Out Of Fear Of Being Called Unpatriotic

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/10/03/glenn_greenwald_no_
one_trying_to_deescalate_nuclear_war_with_russia_out_of_fear_of_being_called_unpatriotic.html

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Tuesday, November 29, 2022 11:06 AM

...Joe does not have babysitters and is in full control ...or...

Who has really been running our country?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/11/who_has_really_been_runni
ng_our_country.html

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Monday, March 27, 2023 12:41 PM

Why didn't Trump 'shatter the deep state' when he was president for four years?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/why-didnt-trump-shatter-the
-deep-state-when-he-was-president-for-four-years

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Monday, March 27, 2023 5:12 PM

Who needs an enemy when these Neo-Democrats got so unhinged and crazy?

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Monday, June 3, 2024 10:09 AM

The Real ‘Deep State’
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/07/wolves-of-k-stree
t-book-review-lobbying/678523/
Lobbying firms have disguised their influence so well that it’s often barely visible even to savvy Washington insiders.

State Secrecy Explains the Origins of the ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Theory
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/state-secrecy-explains-the-
origins-of-the-deep-state-conspiracy-theory/
Lost in today’s misinformation fights is the recognition that modern conspiracy theories spring from excesses of state secrecy

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Monday, June 3, 2024 10:16 AM

THG

Trump is now a convicted felon.

T

Trump’s Disastrous Press Conference After Guilty Verdict & MAGA Nuts Kiss Ass with Cringey Tributes

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Tuesday, September 17, 2024 7:06 AM

JEFFREY SACHS: VICTORIA NULAND IS THE FACE OF THE DEEP STATE
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1835852004100395104
"I think it’s obvious.
There’s one deep state party—that of Cheney, Harris, Biden, and Victoria Nuland. Nuland has been in every administration for the last 30 years, from Clinton to Bush to Obama, and now Biden.
She’s wrecked U.S. policies on Russia, NATO, and even orchestrated the coup in Ukraine in 2014, which started a war. She’s advised both Cheney and Biden.
This is the reality we’re dealing with—a colossal mess, and the big question is, are we going to find another party to challenge this?"

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Tuesday, November 19, 2024 9:34 AM